One of Maza’s men fell, crumpled to nothingness by a green ray, but as he fell he took with him his opponent in a brilliant flash of light. Then a ray from the wall, swinging unexpectedly into the little group, cut down three of the white warriors. This left seven red rays, counting Maza’s, against eight green rays. With the odds in their favor, the yellow men redoubled their attack. The whites fought back furiously, and in a moment both parties were wiped out with the exceptions of Maza and one of P’an-ku’s warriors.
At ray-fencing, the Princess was the equal of any trained soldier in her army, but her opponent, she found, was the most skillful she had ever encountered. His tactics, however, were purely defensive except as he tried to destroy her projector. Evidently his orders had been to bring her in alive. He would feint, swinging his ray as if he meant to strike her down, but never in a direct line with her body. Noticing this, she resolved to stake everything on one long chance. Accordingly, she held her projector away from her—a tempting bait. He swung for the lure, leaving his guard open for but an instant. But in that instant her red ray struck him full in the chest and he was no more.
While this duel was in progress Maza’s men were rushing to her rescue from behind. And P’an-ku’s men were pouring out of the city gate to meet them. She was alone in the center of a terrific battle, unable to move more than twenty feet in any direction because of the double ray barrage which surrounded her.
Through the network of rays encompassing her, she saw a detachment of her nak-kar cavalry flying swiftly above the heads of her foot soldiers, the riders aiming their ray projectors at the men on the walls and pouring through the gate. Here and there great sections of the wall disappeared in bursts of smoke as the red rays cut through the green barrage.
Although the flying cavalry was doing terrific execution, its casualties were exceedingly heavy. Soon a number of the great beasts were riderless, but more were struck down by the green rays, nak-kars and riders falling together on the heads of the soldiers below. These and the fragments of rock and huge stalactites which fell from the roof of the cavern far overhead whenever green or red rays were accidentally directed too vertically, constituted almost as much of a menace as the rays themselves.
When the first flying detachment was wiped out, a second flew into the breach, and the fighting became doubly furious.
With the assistance of her flying warriors, the foot soldiers were gaining ground when a score of huge flying globes suddenly sailed out from over the city walls. They flew in a V shaped formation, with green rays ten times as powerful as those used by the soldiers, shining from their diamond-shaped port holes.
The nak-kar cavalry fought bravely, but unavailingly as this solid wall of deadly green light approached. In less than ten minutes the entire detachment was wiped out. The globes then suddenly descended groundward, their rays forming a solid, impenetrable wall, and cutting off the red barrage rays which had formerly shielded Maza.
Another globe then shot out from over the gate, and before she was aware of its purpose, had dropped a huge net around the Princess which knocked her red ray projector from her hand and entangled her in its meshes. She was drawn swiftly up to the bridge and dragged through one of the diamond-shaped openings while the globe sped swiftly back over the gate. Then, while two warriors held her, an officer whose face was bandaged and whose left arm hung in a sling, took her sword from her and cut the meshes of the net.
With a scarcely perceptible jar, the globe alighted on the ground before a huge building which she instantly recognized from its pictures and descriptions as the palace of P’an-ku. The bridge of the globe leaned against a jutting balcony which was almost on a level with it.
Stepping out of the door, the officer vaulted the railing, alighting on the balcony, and ordered the two soldiers to follow him with the prisoner.
Maza was lifted over the railing and hurried along a corridor which led to a great diamond-shaped door on each side of which two armed guards were posted.
A major domo announced in a loud voice: “Her Royal Highness, Maza an Ultu,” and the Princess marched into the throne room between her two guards.
The officer who had captured her advanced and made profound obeisance.
“Well done, Kwan Tsu Khan,” said P’an-ku. “Take a place of honor, here on my right hand, and we will speak of your reward later.”
The officer bowed his thanks and took a position beside Dr. Wu at the right of the throne. Then P’an-ku raised his hand and the two guards brought the prisoner before the throne, after which each prostrated himself before the monarch and stepped back twenty paces.
Standing there alone in the middle of the floor, surrounded by enemies, Maza looked up unflinchingly into the gloating eyes of the porcine monster on the throne.
P’an-ku rose ponderously and bowed—a ceremony due visiting royalty.
“Welcome to Peilong, Princess of Ultu,” he said. “We are deeply grateful for the honor of this unexpected visit.”
“What have you done with Ted Dustin, treacherous monster?” she demanded.
P’an-ku smiled evilly, while he deliberately consulted his chronometer.
“By this time,” he said, “the worm of Du Gong who calls himself a scientist is undoubtedly dead—that is unless his white skin is so tough as to be impervious to boiling oil.”
The face of the Princess turned deathly pale. She swayed, and would have fallen to the floor had not the two guards behind her bounded forward and caught her by the arms.
In a moment, however, she recovered her poise and shook herself free.
“You have ordered the death of Ted Dustin,” she said, “but in so doing you have pronounced the doom of Peilong and certified your own death warrant. When my army has finished with Peilong and with you, the dynasty of the P’an-kus will have ended forever. My grandfather made the mistake of granting your father freedom, and I am paying for his error, but the warriors of Ultu will take full vengeance.”
P’an-ku rose, and laughed sneeringly.
“Your army will not long survive your lover,” he said. “As for Ultu, a hundred of my globes left their hangars long before your clumsy attack on Peilong commenced, with commands to either capture or destroy the city. With their superior weapons and armament they cannot fail.
“You are hopelessly beaten, O Princess, yet I am not the savage and relentless victor you seem to think me. True, I am a conqueror, and conquerors must be ruthless with their enemies. In the conquest of Ma Gong I have only begun to extend my domination. Next will come Du Gong, then Lu Gong, and finally all the inhabited and inhabitable planets that circle the great Lord Sun. I will be the greatest conqueror of all time—not merely a conqueror of nations, but a conqueror of worlds.
“But with all this, I have a kind and generous heart. I could take vengeance on you, order your torture and death, or make you my slave, yet so magnanimously am I disposed toward you that I offer you the honor of becoming my queen—of ruling with me, the mightiest empire that has ever come under the control of one man.”
“And thus,” replied Maza, scornfully, “heap insult upon injury. Give me death—by torture if you will, in preference to that.”
“You speak hastily,” said P’an-ku, apparently unperturbed, “and in the heat of anger. Like most women you are temperamental. But I do not demand your answer now. You shall have time to think it over. And in the meantime, I have something to show you that will make you forget the relatively insignificant conquest of your people. Come with me and I will show you, even at this moment, the beginning of my conquest of a world.”
He signed to the two guards, who closed in on each side of the Princess once more. She was then compelled to follow P’an-ku out of the throne room and down a hallway which led to a large, bullet-shaped elevator. Into this they stepped, and were shot swiftly upward.
XXI. EARTH’S OFFENSIVE
With Bevans at the helm and Roger Sanders in command, the mighty interplanetary battleship which was the child of Ted Dustin’s fertile brain, took off from Chicago just four days after Roger’s radio conversation with Maza, and one day before his appointment with her in Peilong.
Buildings, housetops and thorofares were packed with millions of people with every conceivable eye-aid from opera glasses to telescopes, tensely awaiting the departure of the “Luna”—for such she had been christened.
She was only two hundred feet in length—smaller than the mighty aerial battleships of the United States Navy. But despite her relative smallness, she could easily have wiped out, in a few minutes, the entire fleet of a hundred great aerial battleships which formed a cordon around Ted’s plant, to see her off, and to fire parting salvos. The air about this mighty fleet swarmed with every conceivable type of air craft from the small helicopter taxicabs to huge passenger ships.
Escorted by this stupendous array of air craft, the Luna soared gracefully upward to a height of ten miles—the utmost distance to which any of the other craft could follow her—then shot toward the zenith with such speed that in less than a minute she was lost to the view of the beholders.
Built for warfare of a type never previously contemplated by men of earth, she was a marvel of mechanical perfection and offensive and defensive efficiency. Her powerful atomotor could send her through space at a speed far greater than that attained by any of the planets in circling the sun—a speed so swift that no human eye could follow her movements.
She had two sets of degravitors—one for offensive and the other for defensive purposes. Each of the four central turrets above deck mounted four cannon-like degravitors that would disintegrate the toughest steel up to a distance of twenty-five thousand miles, and other substances at lesser or greater distances according to their various cohesive powers. The two end turrets, fore and aft, each mounted six degravitors of the same size and power as the others, and midway between keel and rail each side of the craft bristled with twelve more of these potent projectors of destruction, which were in movable, ball-in-socket mounts, capable of being pointed in any direction.
The defensive degravitors were much smaller and shorter than those to be used for offense, and instead of being pointed at the ends had short barrels and flaring blunderbuss-like muzzles. Instead of projecting their anode and cathode rays in nearly parallel lines, these weapons shot them out at widely diverging angles—scattered them so much that, placed as they were, their various rays united to form an invisible screen about the craft, impervious either to matter, light rays, or energy rays. When they were turned on the craft could have passed through a rapidly moving planetoid or even a planet without great shock, or danger either from heat, cold, or gravitational force. Sunlight, when striking them, was neither reflected nor absorbed, but converted into a white, innocuous luminescence, electrically and magnetically neutral, yet visible and transparent—a physical paradox that seemed like a ghost of real light.
With these rays turned on, projectiles fired at the craft would be disintegrated before they could reach it. Concentrated rays of either contraction or dispersion, cold or hot, would be rendered harmless, even though they might be admitted in the form of mild, ghostly light.
Sitting in the control cabin in the front of the craft, Roger watched the earth swiftly receding while Bevans, seated before a bewildering array of levers and buttons sent the craft hurtling swiftly toward the moon. The thick glass panels afforded a view upward, downward, straight ahead, and to either side, and mirrors connected with periscopes gave a clear view to the rear.
“This baby sure can step,” remarked Roger, glancing at his speedometer. “Thirty-five miles per second on the head at this instant.”
“She can that, sir,” replied Bevans, “and I haven’t opened her up all the way, either.”
“A hundred and twenty-six thousand miles per hour,” calculated Roger, “and still accelerating. Why man, we’ll be there in a couple of hours at this rate—a day ahead of time! It’s all right, though. We can hide out in some crater, do a little exploring, get accustomed to the lunar gravity and have target practice with the degravitors. We’ll need it if P’an-ku sends a bunch of those fighting globes of his after us.”
Presently Roger looked out the forward window, then said:
“We’re getting pretty close to the moon, now. Start easing her down while I decide on a landing place. Better not go too close to Copernicus today. Too near the scene of activities. We might get into a scrap before our allies get there. On the other hand, if we land at Tycho we may be mistaken for enemies and have to fight Maza’s guards. I think the wise thing to do will be to land on the central peak of the crater, Pitatus. It’s sort of in line between Tycho and Copernicus, and far enough from the latter so we would not be involved in a battle before we’re ready. We can keep a sharp lookout, and duck down into that deep valley between Pitatus and Hesiodus if we don’t care to fight an approaching enemy.”
Bevans, who had memorized the outstanding features of the moon, instantly pointed the craft toward Pitatus while he gradually slowed her headway with blasts from the forward exhaust arms of the atomotor.
In less than two hours after they left Chicago, they landed in a slight depression on the sharp central peak of Pitatus.
The rest of the day was spent in degravitor practice, and in preparation for the morrow’s battle. So far as light was concerned, the night was exactly like the day, nevertheless, officers and crew took their turns at sleeping and watching.
It was nearly noon of the next day by their earthly chronometers when Roger, who was about to give orders for the flight to Copernicus, was startled by a call from a lookout in one of the turrets. The voice of the man came from a small electric speaker at his elbow.
“A big fleet of globes coming from the northeast, sir.”
Roger took up his binoculars and trained them toward the northeast.
“Must be at least a hundred of them,” he said to Bevans, “and they’re coming at quite a lively clip. Too late to try and dodge out of sight now. I think the best plan is to keep perfectly still. Moving objects catch the eye much quicker than stationary ones.”
“I don’t believe they’ll notice us here, at all, sir,” answered Bevans, using his own glasses. “Looks as if they are going to pass right over the center of Hesiodus, in which case they’ll miss us by about forty-five miles.”
The globes were traveling with such speed that it took but a minute for them to confirm Bevans’ assertion, which they did, almost to a mile, continuing on toward the southwest.
“Wonder what they’re up to,” mused Roger. “They seem to be heading straight toward Tycho. Why, it’s plain as day. They’re sneaking over to attack Maza’s capital from above ground while she’s attacking theirs from below. Mighty clever of old P’an-ku. Well, here’s where our little Luna gets busy.”
He gave a few brief orders, and the Luna gently rose from her resting place and set out after the menacing fleet. As soon as he got near enough to Tycho to use his binoculars, Roger saw that the battle was already in progress. Red rays were flashing out at the invaders from the crater walls and central peaks, and nak-kar riders swarmed upward from the underground shafts like bees from a hive. The raiders had formed in a huge circle sixty miles in diameter, just outside the crater rim, and were pouring their powerful green rays in on the defenders with deadly effect Roger saw two of the globes burst into flames and fall, but during that time more than a score of the stationary rays were put out of business, and hundreds of nak-kar riders were wiped out.
The fleet of P’an-ku was easily slated for a quick victory before the Luna suddenly entered the lists. Then the degravitors went into action, and the menacing globes began dropping right and left, emitting lurid flashes of light where the invisible rays struck them. Before a green ray could even be trained toward the Luna half of the magnificent war fleet of P’an-ku had been destroyed. Then the green rays came thick and fast, but Roger did not mind them, for his degravitor barrage made them as harmless as sunlight.
Not more than a dozen of the globes remained when the commander of the fleet evidently discovered that his rays could not harm the strange craft from earth, and that his only chance for safety would be in flight. These remaining globes shot swiftly upward—so swiftly that it was difficult for the eye to note their progress, but the Luna was after them in an instant, and kept them well in range while her marksmen used the degravitors with deadly effect. Soon but one lone globe remained. It seemed to have an especially clever helmsman, who dodged hither and thither with such speed and in such unexpected ways that he had been able to elude the Luna’s gunners. He suddenly set out in a zig-zag course toward Copernicus, with the Luna in swift pursuit. A degravitor ray brought him down inside the crater just after he had crossed the rim and was ready to drop to safety.
Bevans was unable to instantly check the forward flight of the Luna, and her momentum carried her ten miles past the crater rim and only a little over fifteen miles from the nearest central peak. Hundreds of powerful green rays instantly flashed up at the invader, and giant globes swarmed upward from the yawning mouths of mighty shafts, to attack. The globes were cut down by Roger’s marksmen almost as fast as they emerged, and the green rays did no damage.
Then there suddenly flashed from the second peak of the central group, a mighty green ray so powerful it would easily have made a thousand of the smaller defensive rays. It was pointed straight upward at the earth hanging in the heavens above them, and the spot where it struck—apparently some five hundred miles in diameter, plainly showed as a great greenish-white area in the Pacific Ocean when, a moment later, the ray winked out.
The operators evidently had stopped for a moment to note its effect—perhaps to send a radio message to earth demanding instant surrender or threatening annihilation.
“Turn the degravitors on the peak of that mountain,” ordered Roger. “The globes can wait. We’ll get them later.”
Before his instructions could be carried out it seemed that the ray operator had anticipated them, for the huge green ray flashed out once more, but this time it did not strike the earth. Instead, its powerful, deadly green light enveloped the Luna.
Although the earth-craft was insulated against the cold of absolute zero, and was, in addition, protected by her aura of degravitor rays, she could not help feeling the tremendous power of the terrific deenergizing rays. In an instant her interior temperature, which had been kept comfortably warm at 70° Fahrenheit, dropped to the freezing point and rapidly went lower.
“Up,” ordered Roger, and Bevans shot the craft upward, temporarily escaping the paralyzing effect of the great ray. But the projector could be turned swiftly, and in a moment it was trained on them again. It was now the turn of the Luna to do some zig-zagging and dodging. As for her offensive tactics, Roger found that his degravitor rays were rendered harmless when in conflict with the rays from the great projector, and only took effect at times when they could, for a moment, elude the huge green beam which came from the mountain top.
“We can’t keep this up,” said Roger, as the cabin grew colder and colder. “Try diving toward the base of the mountain, then up beneath the projector. I don’t believe it can be pointed towards its own base, and P’an-ku will destroy his own city if he points it downward too far.”
Bevans instantly dropped the craft to within a hundred feet of the crater floor, then shot toward the base of the peak on which the ray was mounted. The mighty green ray followed them down so far it clipped a great valley through the crater wall behind them, but it could go no further.
“Now!” said Roger, “Let them have it!”
The degravitors were instantly trained on the mountain peak while the craft shot swiftly upward.
XXII. FALL OF PEILONG
With Tzien Khan and his four painted torturers confronting him in his dungeon cell, Ted Dustin tried frantically to reach his pistol degravitor through the hole he had scraped in his insulating armor, but his efforts were of no avail. The hole was too small. He quickly dropped his hand to his side in order that his attempt to reach the weapon might not be detected.
Tzien Khan took a key from his belt pouch, and said:
“Bend down your head, O spawn of a maggot, that I may remove your collar. And if you have a god, pray to him, for you have but a short time to live.”
Ted bent over as directed, and as he did so he heard a tearing sound that filled his heart with hope. While Tzien Khan fumbled with his collar lock his hand stole to his right hip and confirmed his hopes. The act of stooping over had completed the work of the past few days, and his fingers closed over the butt of his degravitor.
As the collar dropped from about his neck, Tzien Khan ordered him to straighten up. He obeyed, but as he did so, whipped out his degravitor, pressed the trigger, and swung it in a narrow arc. The Khan and his four torturers were wiped out before one of them had an opportunity to use a weapon.
“Well done, Ted Dustin!” called Shen Ho from the opposite cell. “I had given you up for dead.”
With the aid of his degravitor, Ted quickly got rid of his clumsy suit of insulating armor and appeared before the astonished Shen Ho in the rich garments of black and gold he had worn in Maza’s court. Then he released his fellow prisoner by the simple expedient of flashing the degravitor rays for an instant on the collar lock.
As soon as he was freed from his metal collar, Shen Ho armed himself with the weapons of Tzien Khan, belting the richly jeweled sword and ray projector about his waist. Then he took the weapons of the others, made them into a bundle bound together with one of the belts, and strapping the head lamp of Tzien Khan to his forehead, said:
“Come, Ted Dustin. Help me release my brothers, and I will help you find, and, if the great Lord Sun wills, to slay the cruel tyrant who disgraces the great name of P’an-ku.”
“If you will help me to find and destroy the big green ray he is going to use against the earth I’ll go anywhere with you,” answered Ted.
“That I promise to do, also, or give my life in the attempt,” replied Shen Ho as they hurried along the passageway.
When they arrived in the circular room at the base of the spiral ramp, Shen Ho turned into the first passageway at his right. Other than bones and dead bodies, he found only four half dead wretches, none of whom he recognized.
Hurrying out of this passageway, he entered the next, and to his delight found Fen Ho, his youngest brother, alive and able to travel. After the young inventor of the projectiles and firing mechanism had been released and armed, the three men hurried out to the central room and back to the other passageways, one at a time, to search for Wen Ho. They found the inventor of the flying globe in the last passageway, sick, and barely able to talk. Shen Ho took a small phial of medicine from the belt pouch of Tzien Khan, a little of which he dropped on his brother’s tongue. Fen Ho, meanwhile, busied himself with cutting the collar from his brother’s neck with his green ray projector, and belting a sword and projector about his waist.
The medicine, it appeared, had marvelous stimulating qualities, for Wen Ho quickly recovered his strength, and not only was able to travel with sword and projector belted to him, but insisted on carrying one of the long spears with a buzz saw-like head, which the torturers of Tzien Khan had dropped, and which Shen Ho had brought in his bundle.
“Now,” said Shen Ho, “we must pass through the torture chambers in order to get to the upper rooms of the palace. Every man must have his weapons ready as the torturers of Tzien Khan are armed, and quick to draw.”
Ted, with a degravitor in each hand, now insisted on taking the lead as they mounted the spiral ramp. On the way up, he met a guard, whose head instantly vanished from the man’s neck before a leveled degravitor, and whose weapons were appropriated by the Ho brothers.
Shen Ho extinguished his head lamp, now no longer necessary because of the yellow rays from small globes of luminous liquid, and enjoined absolute silence. As they mounted higher, however, this precaution was made unnecessary by the agonized shrieks of the tortured victims above them.
When they reached the door of the torture chamber, Ted, with both degravitors ready for action, led a quick rush into the room. Twenty painted torturers, taken by surprise, reached for their weapons, but not one reached in time. Then Ted and Fen Ho plunged into the series of smaller chambers on the right, while Shen Ho and Wen Ho took those on the left.
One after another, painted torturers went down before the degravitors of Ted or the green ray projectors of Fen Ho. Presently they reached the last chamber of the series and found no torturer present. It was occupied by but one victim, and Ted cried out in surprise as he recognized him.
“Professor Ederson!” he exclaimed, “and I thought you safe in Chicago!”
A flash of his degravitor cut the heavy cable which held the cylinder of water that was straining the professor’s neck cords, and it crashed to the floor. Then, while Fen Ho swiftly released the savant’s hands and feet, Ted removed the helmet and chin clamp.
The professor attempted to speak, but his voice failed him, and he suddenly fainted, toppling into the arms of his young friend.
“I’ll carry him to the main torture chamber,” said Ted. “You find Shen Ho and get that little bottle of medicine that revived Wen Ho. It may work on my friend.”
“It will,” replied Fen Ho, speeding away.
When Ted reached the central chamber with the slight form of the professor drooping in his arms, he found the three Ho brothers awaiting him.
“Every torturer has been slain,” said Shen Ho as he dropped some medicine on the tongue of the professor, “and no alarm has been given as yet, but we must work swiftly.”
The professor regained consciousness and the power of speech with remarkable speed, while Fen Ho and Wen Ho busied themselves with releasing such torture victims as were not yet mortally injured and mercifully dispatching the others. These men were armed with the weapons of the torturers and instructed to hold the chambers against all comers.
“Thank you, Ted,” said the professor, “and these friends of yours for saving my life. I had reached the end of my rope both literally and figuratively. A few more drops of water in that cylinder would have snapped my cervical vertebrae.”
Ted introduced the three brothers to his old friend, and in a few moments the professor declared himself able not only to walk unaided, but to bear weapons. He declined one of the pistol degravitors when it was preferred him, but took a green ray projector, sword, and buzz-saw spear.
“Now for that big projector of P’an-ku’s,” said Ted.
“It will be in the second peak,” answered Shen Ho. “Follow me, and I’ll get you there in the shortest possible time.”
He led them along a narrow, winding passageway in which two palace attendants were met and summarily dispatched, to the base of a cylindrical shaft in which there was a diamond-shaped door. Shen Ho pulled once, then twice, then once again, on a tasselled cord that hung down from the center door, and the clang of a gong within answered each pull. Then there was a humming sound from behind the door, and it slid upward, revealing the interior of a large, bullet-shaped car with a lone operator who was attired in armor of brown metal and wore a sword and ray projector in his belt.
No sooner did he see the five men in the passageway, than he reached for the control lever with one hand and his ray projector with the other. He had no chance to use either, however, for Wen Ho, anticipating this, swiftly thrust with his buzz-saw spear for the neck of the operator. As he thrust, he pressed a button in the side of the shaft which started the blade whirling and Ted, for the first time, saw the terrible efficiency of this weapon, the teeth of which cut through the armor plate as if it had been cheese, instantly shearing the head of the guard from his body.
Then body and head were tossed from the car, and the five men, with Shen Ho at the controls, shot upward.
Through the small diamond-shaped windows of the car, Ted saw that they presently shot above the roof of the palace, swiftly climbing a slender cable which extended up into the stalactite covered vault above. Just beyond the distant city walls, in every direction, he could see the flashing of green and red rays which told him that Maza was attacking the city, though he did not suspect that she had been taken prisoner.
The car continued to travel upward on the slender cable until it entered an enormous, cone-shaped shaft more than a mile in diameter at the base, and slanting upward toward a glassed in opening at the top which was about five hundred feet across, and admitted a considerable amount of light to which there was a queer, greenish cast.
Shen Ho, also looking upward, said:
“See, Ted Dustin. Already they are using the great ray against your world.”
“I hope and pray that we will be able to prevent them from using it much longer,” replied Ted.
“Amen,” said the professor fervently.
Although the car was traveling upward in the shaft, which was plainly a volcanic crater, at a terrific rate of speed, Ted chafed impatiently until Shen Ho moved the control lever, gradually bringing it to a stop. He moved another lever and the diamond-shaped door slid upward, revealing a railed landing platform fastened to the side of the crater.
Ted was the first to step out, and as he did so, he saw a party of people not more than fifty feet away on the same platform. Instantly he recognized the slender figure of Maza, still in her shining armor, being dragged along between two burly warriors while P’an-ku walked ahead. They had just stepped out of a car similar to the one in which he and his companions had come up, and P’an-ku, one foot on a winding stairway which led up into the rock, was saying:
“So now, little white Princess, I will show you the conquest of a world, after which you will perhaps not think so ill of me as a prospective husband. At the head of these stairs is my—”
He did not finish the sentence, for Ted, at this instant, blasted the heads from both the warriors who held Maza, with his degravitors, and the sound of their armored bodies clattering to the floor interrupted him.
He whirled, whipping out a green ray projector, but before he could level it, Ted had destroyed it with a flash from one of his degravitors. He could as easily have destroyed his arch enemy then and there, but preferred to take him prisoner.
“Halt!” he commanded, “or—”
The sentence remained unfinished, for P’an-ku, with an alacrity which was astounding for one of his weight and years, had suddenly turned and darted up the winding stairway, disappearing beyond a curve in the wall.
In the meantime, the professor and the three Ho brothers had stepped out on the platform and were gazing at Ted, the Princess, and the two fallen warriors in an effort to understand just what had taken place.
“Guard the Princess,” Ted called to them. “I’m going after P’an-ku.”
With one terrific leap he landed at the foot of the stairway, then bounded up taking ten steps at a time with ease, momentarily expecting to overtake the yellow monarch around each curve. But P’an-ku had had a good start, and evidently was climbing with a speed far greater than that of which he appeared capable.
At length Ted sighted him, climbing a metal ladder which led upward from a platform at the head of the stairway to a room above which was filled with an intricate array of machinery worked by more than a score of armed men and guarded by an equal number. Just above it the giant green ray flashed out horizontally.
This time it was no part of Ted’s intention to waste words on P’an-ku. Deliberately he raised a degravitor and sighted for the bullet head of the monarch.
But before he could press the trigger there was a blinding flash of light, and the monarch, ladder, men, machinery and projector—all disappeared from view as completely as if they had never existed. Then there hove into view the prow of a flying vessel on which was inscribed the word “Luna,” and Ted shouted for joy, waving frantically at two figures in the control cabin whom he recognized as Roger and Bevans.
The air where he stood was being rapidly vitiated by its sudden contact with the tenuous atmosphere of the outer surface, but Ted stayed long enough to gesture toward the glazed top of the shaft, patted his degravitor, and then pointed one finger downward. Roger nodded as if he understood, and the Luna started for the glazed opening. Then the young scientist, gasping for breath, plunged down the stairway to the platform where Maza, the professor, and the Ho brothers awaited him.
The Luna had already cut through the glazed top when he arrived, and was descending toward the little group on the platform. She drew alongside, opened a door and admitted them before there was any notable change in the quality of the air.
In the happy reunion that followed, Ted, with his arm around his radiant little Princess, presented each of his friends in turn. Then he said:
“We still have work to do. The army of the Princess is storming the city and, I’m afraid, fighting a losing battle against the globes of P’an-ku.”
“We can settle those globes in short order,” replied Roger. “After ’em, Bevans! You should have seen what we did to the fleet sent against Ultu.”
“What did you do to them?”
“Cleaned ’em out to the last globe,” replied Roger.
“Then you saved my city!” exclaimed Maza. “How can I thank you?”
“Don’t thank me,” replied Roger, “thank Ted. Besides, he’s in a better position to collect a reward than I am. Excuse me, please, while I direct the degravitor fire.”
Protected by her degravitor barrage, the Luna first descended to a position just above the great docks of P’an-ku, where she made short work of the reserve fleet. Then she rose and circled the city, safe from the menace of either red or green rays, leveling the walls with her keel degravitors while the gunners in the turrets picked off the globes.
Quickly recognizing a friend in the strange and seemingly indestructible craft, the hosts of Ultu cheered, and went into the battle with redoubled vigor. In less than twenty minutes after the Luna had come on the scene, the last globe was destroyed and the city was in the hands of Maza’s army.
The Luna stopped in the palace courtyard for several hours, during which time Maza proclaimed Shen Ho Viceroy of Peilong—then proceeded to Ultu, where Ted and his Princess were married in regal magnificence, according to the ancient rites and customs of Maza’s people.
OTIS ADELBERT KLINE has been described by the founder of The Burroughs Bibliophiles as “the only author to be compared with Edgar Rice Burroughs, but whose work is as original as Burroughs’ own.” A contemporary of the author of Tarzan, Kline wrote his own series of novels of interplanetary adventures, all of which have become classics of science-fiction. Available from Ace Books are the following:
- THE SWORDSMAN OF MARS (D-516)
- THE OUTLAWS OF MARS (D-531)
- PLANET OF PERIL (F-211)
- PRINCE OF PERIL (F-259)
- THE PORT OF PERIL (F-294)
and another story of “The Planet of Peril” is included in the anthology SWORDSMEN IN THE SKY (F-311).
ONE MAN AGAINST THE HIDDEN WORLD OF THE MOON
As soon as he arrived on the Moon, Ted Dustin found himself thrown into desperate action. Maza an Ma Gong, the beautiful ruler of the friendly faction of Moon-people, had been attacked by a weird globe-ship, and had fallen with her winged mount to the surface. As Ted hurried to her rescue he saw a fantastic sight:
The girl was standing at bay before one of the round-bodied enemy Moon-men. The two were fencing—not with blades of steel, but with ray projectors. As Maza sought to reach her antagonist with her red ray he warded it off with a green ray from his own projector, and in turn menaced her with his weapon while she parried with the red ray.
Ted drew his pistol degravitor to dispatch the man—but he was unaware that there were many more of the enemy creeping toward them in the dark of the Moon’s surface.
Transcriber’s Notes
- Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
- Generated a Table of Contents based on the original chapter headings.
- Omitted still-copyrighted illustrations from the printed original.
- Generated a new Cover Image based on elements from the book.
- Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
- In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
- Reversed the order of pages 86 and 87 to make the text coherent (and marked the exact limits of the re-ordered blocks by a dagger, †).