Part 26 (1/2)
She dared to try and turn the subject. ”You mentioned the Brende model--where is it? Have you it in the Cold Country?”
He frowned. ”Yes. And I will use it--for you and me alone. You've always known that, haven't you? Just for you and me, my Elza.” He took her hand. ”Won't you try and love me--just a trifle?”
She did not move. ”I--don't know.” Then she faced him squarely. ”I do not love you, Tarrano.” Something in his eyes--a quality of pleading; a wistful smile upon his lips--suddenly struck her as pathetic. Strange and queerly pathetic that such a man as he should be reduced to wistfulness. Emotion swept her. Not love. A feeling of sympathy; a womanly desire to lighten his sorrow; to sympathize and yet to withhold from him the happiness he sought.
”I do not love you, Tarrano. But I do respect you. And I am sorry--”
”Respect! I have told you I can command that from everyone. But love--your love--”
”I would give it if I could, Tarrano.”
”You mean--you're trying to love me--and cannot?”
”I mean--Oh, I don't know what I mean, save that I do not love you yet.”
He smiled. ”I think you speak the truth when you say you do not know what you mean. Your love! If I had it, I should know that I would have it always. But--having it not--” He was very sincere, but his smile broadened. ”Having it not, my Elza, there is no power in all the heavens that can tell me how to get it. It may be born in a moment from now--or never. Who can tell?”
She was silent; and after a moment, he added: ”Enough of this. I would ask you just one thing. You are not afraid of me, are you?”
”No,” she said; and at that moment she meant it.
”I would not have you ever be afraid, Lady Elza. Love is not conceived by fear. And you must know I could never force my love upon you. For if I did--I should withhold forever the birth of this love of yours which is all I seek--this love I am trying to breathe into life.... Enough!”
He did not mention the subject again. For hours--eating what meager stock of tabloid food with which their vehicle was provisioned--they flew onward. Rising now to top the line of jagged mountains. Over them the platform swept. In the crisp air the snow down there gleamed blue-white; the ice with an age-old look filled the valleys between the peaks.
The arctic! It was nothing like the Polar regions of Earth. Stark desolation. A naked land seemingly upheaved by some gigantic cataclysm of nature, lying tumbled and broken where it had fallen in convulsive agony; and then congealed forever in a grip of ice.
The Sun hung level as the vehicle advanced. In these lat.i.tudes it would swing side-wise in a slow, low arc, to dip again below the horizon and vanish. Here in the Cold Country it was morning of the Long Day. Summer!
On over the crags and glaciers Tarrano guided their frail flying platform. Houses occasionally showed now--huts of ice, congealed dwellings, blue-white in the flat sunlight.
And then at last, over the horizon came the ramparts of a city. The City of Ice! The size of it--the evidences of civilization here in this brittle land of deadly cold--made Elza gasp with wonderment.
CHAPTER XXIV
_Attack on the Palace_
I must take you back now to the Water Festival and the events in the Great City which followed it. _Slaans_ in murderous frenzy were plunging through the throng of erstwhile revelers. Maida could not quell them.
The revolt which she had started against Tarrano seemed now a self-created monster to destroy us all.
But there were Earth men among us. A hundred of them, no more. They had come from Was.h.i.+ngton that same day; had landed, I learned later, secretly near the Great City, sent with our Earth Council's plans to communicate with Maida. Beneath the water, coming individually, they had entered the festival; and helping Maida's girls (the diving girls whom I had encountered) they had made away with most of Tarrano's guards.
In those first moments of frenzy, I got to the balcony--joined Maida and Georg. Elza was gone! My heart went cold, but in those hurried, frantic moments, grave disaster as it was, I did not dwell upon it.
”We must get away--back to the palace!” Georg exclaimed as I joined them.
The Earth men on the main floor were holding the _slaans_ partially in check. Bodies were lying in a welter--I shall not describe it. Then abruptly, upon a table a huge _slaan_ leaped--his garments blood-stained from his victims, a blade of dripping steel in his hands. He shouted above the tumult--words not in the universal language, but in the dialect of the _slaans_. His command carried throughout the building.
Other _slaans_ took it up; we could hear it echoed outside as others shouted it over the waters.
The bloodshed abruptly ceased. The _slaans_ leaped away from the Earth men, who were glad enough to let them go--rushed for the archways of the pavilion. Outside, we could hear the water splas.h.i.+ng. Swimmers--and boats scurrying off. Then comparative silence. The scream of a _slaan_ woman in the grove nearby, still desiring vengeance; the groans of the dying at our feet; the hiss and splutter of weapons discarded, with circuits still connected. And over it all, the great whine of a danger whistle, which some distant official had plugged.... A lull. And around us lay strewn stark tragedy where a few moments before had been festive merry-making. A crimson scene, with the body of the Red Woman lying like a symbol in its midst....