CHAPTER XVII
PLANNING THE CONQUEST
"Well," said Graff, "I had not thought to have you with me, but you are welcome. A pleasure—"
I got to my feet; I had been lying on the bare metal floor. We were well beyond Xenephrene's atmosphere now. And so insistent are the human mundane needs—amid all my perturbed thoughts of the future, my worry over Zetta, my aching head with a miserable gash and lump on it—my chief trouble at the moment was an almost intolerable hunger.
I swayed as I stood up; Graff put out his hand to steady me. "You're not hurt?"
"No. I'm hungry."
"That is good. Zetta said you would be. Well, you shall be fed. Come with me." He stood off, regarding me. I must have been a disheveled enough figure; wide-flaring, corded gray riding trousers, tight over the knee; heavy rolled stockings; a white shirt, open at the throat, torn and with Braun blood upon it; and with my own blood matting my tousled hair.
"You are a strong-looking little fellow," Graff chuckled. "My men, worse luck to them, told me how you fought them. It is my idea—now that you are here with me—you would not run wild like that again. Is it so?"
"Yes," I agreed. Why not? Of what use for me to try to fight, penned up here? I added: "Besides, your men took my weapons."
He was leading me down a long metal passage with closed doors along it at intervals. "Yes. They look interesting—the mechanical one particularly. I mus' get you to explain it to me. Zetta says you will be ver' helpful to me. I think she is right. A clever little girl, Zetta."
His words made my blood run cold! But I kept silent. We entered a wide room, set amidship of the vehicle; through its windows I could see the black firmament on both sides—the great, star-filled void of Space.
Zetta was here, perched on a bench before a high table littered with parchment sheets. She flashed me a smile and a warning glance. Food was on the table near her.
"Your breakfast, Peter," she said calmly. "Sit here."
I ate. Strange meal! Strange food of Xenephrene, but stranger still we three as we sat there. Graff sat pleasantly talking. He seemed in a high good humor; wholly frank and sincere. But I wondered; sometimes I fancied he was gently ironical.
"There were two or three other earthmen besides yourself who came into my hands, Peter. All of them—unfortunately—died. You—I think—may not die. Do you know why? Firs', because Zetta has ask' me to let you live—and I would do anything to please her. That is—almos' anything. Second, because she has promise' me you will help with my campaign. Will you?"
At his brusque question, I hesitated; Zetta's warning glance decided me.
"Yes," I said.
"I mean, really help. I will be able to guess at once you try to fool me. Do not try it, frien' Peter!"
I began: "I don't see how I can help you—"
"He'll help you," Zetta put in.
"Information about your worl'," Graff explained. "There are many things you know, which I do not. Zetta and I have been talking over my plans—I will be the greatest man on your earth, Peter—"
It decided me. A vain glory was his weakness. He wanted to impress Zetta; he seemed even to take pleasure in impressing me. Zetta was playing upon it. We would give him information, authentic enough, which would help him undoubtedly. But we would learn his plans, too. Work with him, as he wished; and once on earth—
I said: "I can see no harm in helping you. Especially if it will benefit me." I smiled shrewdly. "Will it?"
I thought perhaps he swallowed my bait, but I could not be sure. He said emphatically: "If you work with me, I will make you secon' greatest man in your worl'."
And Zetta? I wondered. I had only an instant alone with her that day. She whispered: "You were perfec', Peter. Work with him—learn what you can. Tell him truthfully what he asks. It is necessary—best in the end."
"But Zetta, you—"
"I can take care of myself. He would not harm me. He wants to make me love him. That, truly, he desired. I am letting him try."
"He won't give up his plans—he'll give up nothing for you—"
"No, of course, not. But I preten' I think maybe he will—move! There he comes! In a few days perhaps he will leave us more alone."
"When we get to earth—"
But she had moved away from me as Graff approached.
We were twelve days reaching earth. Dan, Freddie, and I had made the voyage in eleven days. In this great ship we were traveling faster; but the distance, with Xenephrene drawing away from the earth, was greater now.
It was a monotonous voyage. I was housed alone in a cabin with fairly comfortable furniture. Three times a day, Graff personally came and took me to that larger room where invariably I found my meal waiting me. Of all the rest of the ship—its men, its equipment—I saw nothing.
Zetta very often was in the cabin when I was brought in to my meal. Occasionally I saw the woman Brea. Once, when for a moment Zetta and I were alone, I glanced behind us to see Brea's giant figure lurking in the doorway. Watching us; I caught a glimpse of her face—white, thin-lipped, with eyes that seemed smoldering with fury. There is a menace in the aspect of a man who is a scoundrel; but it is mild and meek indeed compared to the scoundrel woman!
"Zetta, is that Brea ever left near you? Alone with you?"
"No. Oh, no. I watch her."
"She's there now in the passage doorway."
"Yes. I see her."
"Don't forget. She tried to have you murdered! Does Graff know that?"
"I think so. She would not dare harm me here—he would kill her."
"Don't you be too sure. A woman—a jealous woman—might do anything."
But Zetta only laughed. "Perhaps we may use her, Peter. When we get to earth—" She would not say any more.
Graff was constantly questioning me. The chaos Xenephrene's coming had brought to earth seemed intensely interesting to him. He understood astronomy far better than I did, undoubtedly. We talked of the changed inclination of earth's axis; the changed climate. He questioned me about the different countries—most of them were only names to him. He wanted to know the distribution of the people; the different races; the present great centers of population; the agricultural areas.
"You are ver' helpful, Peter." He seemed to mean it. "It is all quite confusing. So big a worl'—populate' over all its surface. A ver' great conquest for me, Zetta, don't you think so?"
I tried to get information from him. It was not easy. He only wanted to talk generalities, both about earth, and about himself. He had asked me nothing about airplanes or warships—nothing at all about the weapons of war on earth. Except the Essen automatic of mine which he had taken. He laid it on the table before us. I explained it to him; the whole theory of explosives.
"That is mos' interesting." But he did not seem greatly impressed. "I suppose you make these things quite large?"
"Yes," I agreed. And since he asked no more, I volunteered nothing further.
From Graff I learned that there were already on earth several hundred of his men. Hiding, as he put it. They had with them only a very small hand battery with which they could fling around them the crimson barrage. The fellow who had attacked us at Cains', trying to steal the Reet battery, was one of them.
I said: "That crimson barrage—in a larger form—was all you had yourself, when you were on earth before?"
He laughed. "I had other things—it was no time to use them."
"But now—you have other things with you now?"
"Oh, yes, I have other things, Peter."
He had in this expedition some ten thousand men—and nearly a thousand of the Garland insects. And there were several thousand women and children. The Braun race—earth's future ruling race—these were to be the pioneers. They were not all on this vehicle; there were others, equally as large. And several small globes. This vehicle held only the main equipment—the scientific apparatus for war. He mentioned flying platforms, more mobile for low-altitude air transportation than this great Space-liner; I gathered that they were platforms similar to the one on which Zetta and I had been brought from Garla.
"How are the other Space-vehicles going to find you?" I suggested.
"We are leading. I shall pick out an earth base and then signal them where it is. Soon, Peter, before we get to earth, you and I mus' talk some serious details. You will help me pick our earth base—"
I saw then the wisdom of Zetta's plan that we should be in Graff's confidence; here, at least, I could influence him. His landing place on earth; I would urge him as best I could to where he would do earth least damage. Perhaps I might even be able to sway his whole campaign into a channel least damaging to us.
Once I mentioned the Infra-red Control. He shut me up very sharply.
There was one time during the voyage when by chance I overheard Graff and Zetta when they thought they were alone. It was Graff in a new light. Amazing scoundrel! I thought at the time—and I still think—that in this one instance at least, every word that he uttered was truthful and sincere.
I could hear and see both him and Zetta plainly. They were in Graff's cabin, where I ate my meals; I was in the length of passageway leading to my room, which now was freely allowed me. I cannot claim I did not try to eavesdrop; for most assuredly I did.
Graff was saying: "If you insis' I talk in English I will do it. For the practice, as you say." Did Zetta know I overheard them? Did she want me thus to realize upon what basis they were? I think so; but I have never known it for a certainty. "And if we are to live on earth, Zetta, it is best. The race which speaks English is greatest on earth. Is it so?"
"I think, yes."
They were sitting by the table; I saw him reach out and touch her arm, saw her involuntarily shrink away.
"Zetta! You hurt me much when you do that."
"I cannot help it, Graff."
He leaned toward her. I could see his face. Sincere—for the moment absolutely sincere.
"You are afraid of me?"
"No, I am not."
"Do not be, Zetta. I love you—I want you to marry me in whatever fashion they use on earth." His voice was impassioned. "Oh, Zetta, what a future there will be for you and me! Cannot you see it? Look ahead! I will be greatest man of this great worl'."
He suddenly stood up before her, drawn to his full height, his great bare arms with the dangling chains extended up before him with a gesture of power. A kingly figure indeed! A white-haired, blue-eyed Viking of old; but there was about him as well, an aspect of modernity—a modern, conquering scientist.
"Look at me, Zetta! A man of whom you will be proud! You—jus' a little girl—to yourself you will say: 'There is my man, greatest in the worl'. I love him.'"
"Ah!" she said. "If I did, Graff."
"You will. I treat you gently." Abruptly he held one of his huge hands before her. "With this hand, I could twist the neck of that Peter."
I doubted it very much!
"I do not do that, because you ask me not to, Zetta."
"And because he will always be of great help to you," she retorted slyly.
He was taken somewhat aback.
"Yes, that is true. But for the other reason also. I try to please you—"
I could see her gaze measuring him. She looked so small, sitting there before him; but I knew that with her keen woman's instinct she was planning how to handle him best.
"You captured me, Graff. Brought me here, by force. When we get to earth, will you let me go?"
"No! I had to bring you—I mus' keep you with me. How else, if you are not with me, can I make you love me?"
She said gently, "Perhaps you go about it wrongly."
"No. I think not. I tried leaving you alone. I was a ver' great man among my Braun people—but you say you have never loved me. It is the love I want—nothing else! You know that! Your love—without that, you are nothing!"
I must admit he said it with regal dignity which to the woman must have been impressive. For just that moment, Zetta's emotion must have been touched. Her hand went impulsively toward him.
"I believe you, Graff. It is why I have no fear of you."
He did not follow his advantage. He said, "I am glad. In a few days we will land upon earth. I shall be ver' busy—we will talk no more of this for a long time. But I want you to know—everything I do will be for you."
She said slowly, "If you want to please me, give it up. You have stolen the Red Control. You have doomed your own worl' and mine to disaster. And now you would attack the earth, which never has harmed you. Wait, hear me this time, Graff! Perhaps—if now we were—to turn back—perhaps back on Xenephrene I might find—I loved you—"
He checked her; he was frowning. "You have said that before—do not say it again! I love you—but I am a man—a ruler. You are nothing but a woman. Do you think my love is so unworthy of us that I would let you wreck our destiny? I will not! The man who is mastered by a woman no longer is a man! You would not love me! That is a lie! You will love me as I am, and I am made for great deeds. Enough of this!"
He strode away from her; stopped and turned. "When I am master of the earth we will talk of this again. You say woman's love comes unbidden? Perhaps it does—we will wait then upon its pleasure. But remember this: No woman ever loved a man who was a weakling. I want not that kind of woman's love!"
He strode from the room.
"Let us get to the details," said Graff. My supper was finished; he pushed away the dishes. We were approaching the earth; slowing down now; in another twenty-four or thirty-six hours we would be ready to land. Zetta was seated across the cabin. Graff had drawn two long tables together; a bank of parchment insect lamps was over them with the illumination shaded downward.
Graff added, "Zetta thinks you might be able to draw me a map of your worl'. Could you?"
Geography had been rather my hobby. "I think so," I said readily. "I can draw you one, fairly accurate, on the old Mercator's projection."
"What is that?"
I explained it; the surface spread flat; the lines of latitude and longitude at right angles rather than in a simulation of the globular surface. He nodded.
"That will do all right. Try it now. I will watch you, and you mus' explain as you do it. We mus' pick our landing place and plan the general campaign. Here, Zetta, help us."
He unrolled a white opaque parchment some four feet by six. Zetta fastened it flat to the table. For a pen, I had a metal point in a small handle, with a dangling wire. The point glowed and etched a thin dark line on the parchment. And there was a very serviceable set of drawing instruments—one for measuring angles, the equivalent of a ruler, a compass—and an intricate affair which drew at will every variety of curve—circle, ellipses of every eccentricity, parabola, hyperbola, many other curves which Graff named, but which were unfamiliar to me. And there was a pantagraph—
He explained the uses of these various instruments. "Go ahead," he said.
I took perhaps two hours. It was doubtless a very crude world map I drew from memory. But in its broadest features it was fairly accurate. I laid down the horizontal equator; spaced parallel lines, above it, and below; drew the Greenwich meridian and the others at ten-degree intervals.
There was a time, in my university days, when I knew with fair exactitude the latitude and longitude of most of the world's great cities. I marked them now as dots; and from them, the coast lines grew.
Graff was intensely interested. When I had the main national boundaries sketched in, he stopped me. "That will do us ver' nicely. Show me where the daylight is now."
I calculated. It was now by earth-time, the noon of July 7, 1957; almost exactly mid-spring in the north and mid-autumn in the south. The equator was pointing toward the sun. The days and nights were now about equal at the equator—each some twelve hours long, shading off into twilight at the poles.
"And next month?" said Graff.
"The nights are lengthening in the south. The days are lengthening in the north."
He made me mark it all on the map; the changes of daylight and darkness, and the approximate climate from now until early October, when the North Pole would point to the sun. Then it would be all heat and daylight in the north, shading to equatorial twilight, down to the night and cold of the southern hemisphere.
"My campaign may run until then," he said. "It is these months I am mos' interes' in." He added abruptly, "Where would you advise me to land?"
It was my opening. "That depends on many things—there's a great deal you'll have to tell me, Graff," I said frankly. I smiled. "You can't have a council of war, with your chief councillor wholly ignorant of everything."
"Ver' true, Peter. I will tell you what you want to know." My heart leaped with exultation. I had his confidence at last!
"Our weapons," I said. My first inclusion of myself with him! He took it without notice. "Our weapons. Our method of warfare. What countries we think best to attack first. We'll have the whole world against us, you know."
"I know it."
"Our defense—"
"That is simple, Peter. We have only one, but it is impregnable against anything they have on earth."
"The crimson barrage?"
"Yes."
"Can you lay it over a widespread area? How wide? Graff, is it your idea to capture a great spread of country—devastate it—"
"I cannot," he said. "I can include within the barrage an area that you would call a circle of ten-mile diameter. Four such circles, if I wish to divide my forces. Not much more."
He described how his batteries supplied projectors of the crimson light. It would extend some fifty thousand feet into the air and sidewise some five hundred feet on each side of its source. A projector thus must be set about every thousand feet. He had enough of them to include four ten-mile areas. His storage batteries would last, he said, for continuous use some three months.
"I can stand the barrage up into the air, or tilt it forward, level with the ground—it is then a beam which will annihilate what it touches—"
"With about fifty thousand feet—ten miles—effective range," I finished.
"Exactly so, Peter. But with it in that horizontal position we have a barrage height of only five hundred feet. It is my plan to select a base, in some area not ver' crowded. From there we can move within our barrage over any area of country we wish to take."
"Move how, Graff? On land? Sea?"
"And in the air—over land and sea. We can mount the barrage projectors on our platforms. They will fly; and they will float upon earth's 'water'—I have made sure of that."
We discussed it for another hour. Midnight came; Zetta served us with food and hot drink. Graff was planning to destroy what he could of earth until such time as the leading governments would acknowledge his supremacy.
"I will have them bring all their weapons before me—we will send them into nothingness with our crimson sound. Our Braun weapons then will rule earth indeed! I shall build my city upon your faires' land, and all your nations will pay me tribute. My Garland insects will work for me. The earth people will work for me. Our Braun race will spread—"
His plans after conquest were of a rosy hue. He dwelt on them, while Zetta and I listened in silence.
"Your colony will be small," I said finally. "Your five thousand women—"
"A new race will come on earth. The blending of the two worl's."
"Won't you bring more of your people from Xenephrene?"
Zetta said suddenly, "Xenephrene is doomed."
Graff frowned at her. "That was necessary, Peter. Ver' unfortunate. No. We who have left, plan not to return. Nor send for others—the best of us are here, Zetta is a silly child—silly with woman sentiment. Why should we bother with Xenephrene? A ver' small worl', so little of it habitable. I was master there—"
He had not been master, save of his small minority, themselves in subjection. "But it was not big enough for me. I have lef' it to its destiny."
Left it to its fate—its doom! But I only smiled. "We must decide where we are to land upon earth," I suggested. "Do you want the daylight or darkness?"
He ran his finger along the line of the equator. "Here. In the equal days and nights. It will be warm?"
"Yes."
"That I want. How warm?"
"Like Garla. Warmer probably."
He nodded. "And from there, I will go north, following the warmth and daylight. What is here, Peter?"
His finger was on the equator in South America. My heart quickened. Our new great cities of the Western World were springing up, there in Ecuador, Venezuela, the Guianas, northern Brazil. This area was thronged now with colonists. They were planning, at the Falls of the Iguazu, to supply light and heat through all the Americas. Vast industrial plants were planned for these new cities. It would be the industrial and mining center of our western hemisphere. He must not land there!
"It used to be jungle," I said casually. "And small rather backward nations. Down there in Bolivia and Peru—all the equatorial Andes region—there were great mining possibilities, largely undeveloped. It has changed a little now."
I led his interest elsewhere. The East Indies, where my great Dutch Islands were thriving now with a new activity, drew his attention. But I distracted him. We determined at last upon the plains north of Mombassa, in British East Africa. A fair land with the new climate, but as yet not densely settled, except to the north and north-west.
In the north were Abyssinia and the Egyptian Sudan—the great valley of the Nile. To the northwest, the Libyan and Saharan deserts. These were springing into fertile, temperate areas. The governments of Great Britain, France and Spain were locating down there. But I felt I could keep Graff away from this region. Graff would want to move north. I would make him move northeast—up the African coast, over Eastern Abyssinia and get him across the Gulf of Aden, into Arabia, Persia and thence to the sparsely settled, still barren lands of the Central Asian Socialists.
"What about your food supplies?" I demanded. "You can't maintain your people very long with what you've brought, can you?"
"No," he said. "But I will get food from the country we capture. You must show me where at this season the agriculture is under way. Perhaps, too, you have some large gov'ment storehouse now which I could seize."
He listened carefully as I pointed out the route into Socialist mid-Asia. "What we want," I said, "is to frighten the world—bring it to our feet. Not to devastate it completely, with nothing to rule afterward but a chaos. You must be careful, Graff, as future emperor, not to wreck the food supply of your new domain. It's precarious at best now."
"I understan'," he said gravely.
"You are right in that, Peter. We will bring them to yield—ver' quickly, I hope. Tell me in detail what they will use as weapons against us."
He seemed tireless. For another hour or two, I explained as best I could the armament of the great nations. It was all chaotic since the Great Change. Indeed, I was sure of very little I said. Most of the world capitals had moved; all the races and centers of population had shifted. Nations were disintegrating, blending as their people moved in wholesale flight to new areas.
In a few years most of the world would be united almost like one big family. There had been no thought, since the Great Change, of maintaining national armaments. The worst possible time to have an invader from another planet attack us! But this latter, I did not explain to Graff.
Still another hour. "Graff," I said abruptly. "You never mention the Infra-red Control. What part will it play?"
I expected he might frown his displeasure. He did not. He met me with an imperturbable smile. "You are tired, Peter," he said calmly. It was nearly dawn; Zetta had been listening to me silently, but keenly aware of my motives. But she, too, now was tired. She flashed me a warning look when I mentioned the Control.
Graff's slow smile continued. "Peter, you go to your cabin. I will work this out."
I slept. It must have been noon when I was awakened, not by Graff, but by a Braun I had never seen before. In Graff's cabin my meal was waiting. Zetta was not there. Graff was still poring over my map; I think he had not left it.
"Sit down, Peter."
When I was fairly eating, he gestured at the map. "I have made my decision. We will land in north Brazil. I will also sen' a force to Central Africa. It can move north over the Sahara grain fields, into Europe. And from Brazil we can move north and south. I think that North and South Americas and Europe and Africa are mos' important places to attack, Peter. We will frighten them, if we attack them there!"
Irony was in his voice and in his smile! And I had thought to influence this fellow!