Part 1 (2/2)
”You are in grave danger. Your mission here is known, and powerful enemies are preparing to destroy you.”
”You talk like you knew something, kid,” Sime admitted. ”What is my mission here?”
”You have been sent to Mars by the I. F. P. in the guise of a mining engineer. You are to discover what you can about a suspected plot of interplanetary financiers to plunge the Earth and Mars into a war.”
”How so?” Sime asked enigmatically, concealing his dismay at the girl's ready reply. Here was inside information with a vengeance!
”Several s.h.i.+ploads of gray industrial diamonds from Venus have been seized by war vessels carrying the insignia of the Martian atmospheric guard.”
Sime nodded. ”Go on!”
”Curiously enough, these raids were so timed that they were witnessed by the news telecasters. All of the people on Earth were thus eye-witnesses, and feeling ran high. Am I right?”
”Go on!”
”And of course you know about the raids on the Martian borium mines by pirates armed with modern weapons. In the fights, some of the pirates'
weapons were captured. They bore the ordnance marks of the terrestrial government.”
”I'm way ahead of you, girlie!” Sime conceded. ”Certain financial interests would like to see a war. They're cookin' up these overt acts to get the people all steamed up till they're ready to fight. I'll go further, since you seem to know all about it anyway, and admit that I'm here to find out just who's back of all this. And how does all that tie up with you hiding in my mist-bath with a long and mean lookin' knife?”
The girl dropped her dark lashes in a sidelong glance at the stiletto on the floor. There was a little smile on her lips.
”My usual weapon. Don't you know most of us Martians go armed all the time?”
”Yeh?” Sime grinned skeptically. ”And is it a habit of yours to hide in the bedroom of visiting policemen? Come on, kid. I'm going to turn you over to the guard.”
For a second it looked as if she would make a dash for the blade glistening there on the floor. But she straightened up, and with a look of infinite scorn said:
”So the mighty policeman of the Sun calls a hotel guard, does he?
Please! Believe me, I am myself working for the same object as yourself--the prevention of a horrible war!”
She was pleading now.
”Believe me, you are against forces that you don't understand! I can help you, if you will listen. Let me tell you, the Martian government is itself corrupted. The planetary president, Wilc.o.x, is in alliance with the war party. You will have to fight the police. You will have to fear poison. You will be set upon and killed in the first dark pa.s.sage. Yet if you help me you may accomplish your object. You must help me!”
”What do you want of me?”
”Help me change our government!”
Sime laughed shortly. He began to suspect that this amazing girl was demented. He thought of the powerfully entrenched rulers of this theoretically republican government. For more than two hundred years, if he remembered rightly, the Martians had been ruled by a small group of rich politicians.
”You propose a revolution?” he asked curiously.
”I propose the return of Princess Sira to the throne!” she declared vehemently. ”But enough! Are you going to betray me--I, who have risked much to warn you? Or are you going to let me go?”
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