“Look all over the ship,” the Amazon ordered. “The room where the weapons are might be elsewhere...” And he turned and hurried out.
With increasing anxiety the Amazon kept on circling the machine, moving at top speed to avoid any kind of attack which might be made—and presently she saw that something of this nature was indeed developing.
Out of the depths, where lay the Martian underworld, other flying saucers were approaching and commencing to pursue her. Like a wasp flying round inside an inverted bowl, she kept the machine moving, dodging, reeling, twisting, turning. Then to her surprised delight a blinding pink beam stabbed from somewhere in the wheel-like craft and struck a pursuing flying saucer clean in the hub.
It crumpled, blew apart, and dropped its smoking fragments down towards the city.
“I found it!” Kerrigan’s mighty voice roared from somewhere in the craft. “Keep going, Vi! I’ll show ’em!”
“Never mind them,” she shouted. “Try it on the roof and see if you can break that 96 metal.”
“Okay-—swing us round.”
She swept at a thousand miles an hour, in a wide evading circle, darting from the more distant machines. She watched anxiously as the pink beam blazed upwards. Where it struck the metal shield there was a splash of molten fire and a gaping rent was torn—then the hurtling machine had moved on again.
“Again!” the Amazon cried urgently. “Until you break it!”
Using all her navigational skill, she swept the saucer round in an ever-tightening circle, and every time it crossed the rended roof Kerrigan blasted it—then he transferred his attention to the onrushing saucers as they, too, bristled pink beams.
At the same moment the Amazon saw the danger. Straight as a plumb-line she dropped the machine like a knife-blade between the beams, coming up below the attackers where they found it hard to manoeuvre and so strike. Kerrigan was evidently watching and timing things to the split second, for the beam he was controlling sliced like a searchlight ray along the machines and, though it did not blow one of them apart, it crippled them for flight. They wavered, went off balance, and fluttered erratically.
Instantly the Amazon drove her own machine upwards again with Kerrigan’s beam concentrated on the metal roof. This time there were twenty splendid seconds of boiling eruption from the metal before the vessel got off-line—then on the next time round the beam went clean through, like a red hot poker through wood, and daylight gleamed beyond.
“I’m going to risk it!” the Amazon cried. “Hold tight! That hole’s only just large enough!”
Holding the switches tightly, her eyes fixed on that irregular opening, she hurtled the flying saucer edgewise into the gap, through it, and then flashed out into the Martian daylit sky, high above the eternal deserts of ferric oxide-
Upward, onward, with ever-mounting speed, until at last the sky grew dark and the blueness faded.
The flying saucer was in space, streaking through it at an accelerating velocity which at present registered 5,000 miles an hour. Slowly the Amazon relaxed and breathed hard, staring back at the criss-crossed disk of the red planet already sinking into the abyss. As yet no organized pursuit seemed to be in progress.
Kerrigan came lumbering into the control-room, grinning, his big face streaked with dirt and perspiration.
“Pretty hectic while it lasted,” he commented. “Wonder why none of them are following?”
“For obvious reasons, I should think,” the girl answered. “Those machines which you hit were pretty well knocked about—and besides that the Martians will have to repair that rent in the 96 metal, otherwise their precious air pressure will drop....” She gave a grim smile. “I don’t think we need to fear pursuit for some time to come, and by then we’ll have outdistanced them.”
She turned back to the controls and examined them again with greater care, now that she could give them her uninterrupted attention. Kerrigan watched her for a while, and then turned away with the remark that he was going to forage for food and drink. Evidently he was successful, for after about fifteen minutes he returned with some opened cans and bottles of liquid.
“Good enough for a banquet,” he said, setting them down on a side wall-table.
The Amazon nodded absently as she glanced towards him.
Then as her hand moved a switch he staggered a little under the sudden surge of acceleration.
“What goes on?” he enquired.
“I’m going up to maximum,” the Amazon answered. “It will be a terrific speed—even greater than that of the Ultra, I think, but we’ll have to stand it. This craft has a bigger power-plant than I use on the Ultra, and there seems to be a tremendous amount of atomic energy. We ought to cross the forty million miles in about five hours. If you can stand it, Howard, I know I can,” she added dryly.
“Try me,” Kerrigan suggested, and turned to begin the task of helping out the food.
He attempted thereafter not to appear concerned as the velocity mounted load upon load, operated by the automatic control the girl had switched in. Once this had been done, she came and joined in the meal, smiling a little to herself as she saw him fighting the crushing drag on his limbs and muscles.
He was glued down into his chair, hardly able to move arms or jaws. By the time the meal was over he was prostrate and breathing heavily.
“We’re-—sure moving,” he whispered, perspiration pouring down his face.
“We’ve got to,” the Amazon told him, her violet eyes staring out into the spangled void, and then the remoter distances where hovered the streaked, incomprehensible mystery of the First Galaxy. “With every moment that passes Valina is driving our people into greater disaster.... I’m waiting for just one thing, Howard—to get my hands on her.”
The Amazon became silent, her beautiful face as subtly cruel as that of a waiting tigress. Then presently, finding the strain too severe for even her superbly muscled body, she coiled herself on the wall-couch and pillowed her head on her arm. Kerrigan shook himself irritably.
“How—do you-” He laboured through the words.
“How do you—propose getting—on Earth—without Valina spotting us? She’ll—see a single flying saucer—like this. Won’t she?”
“Highly probable—especially as the Martians will radio the news to her that we’re on our way. But I’ll try and get round that once we reach the orbit of the Moon, at which range a flying saucer is visible in the telescopic instruments I have in my laboratory at home, and with which I don’t doubt Valina has made herself thoroughly conversant. From the Moon we’ll detour outwards into space, keeping out of range of Earth, and we’ll land in Australia by night. Valina will probably be in London in my headquarters, and the daylight side of the Earth will blind her to our drop into Australia on the other side of the world. Once we’ve reached Australia it’s only fifteen minutes to London in an atomic jet-plane. Then...!”
Kerrigan said nothing. The pressures had overcome him, and he had been weighted into unconsciousness. The Amazon looked at him, out again on the void as the flying saucer fled through it with soundless speed—then she drew herself up more comfortably and calmly went to sleep, satisfied that the radar-like alarm would awaken her when the hurtling craft came within range of the Moon.
. . . . . . .
Ethel Wilson, the younger, threw down her magazine in disgust and gave herself up to the pursuit of nagging thoughts. Then after a while her blue eyes rested on her father and mother as they sat on either side of the ornate atom-radiator. Her mother was reading with all the placidity of middle age; but her father was clearly bothered over something, pushing a hand occasionally through his thick grey hair as he stared into the glowing radiator mesh.
“Dad.. Ethel got to her feet and walked over to him. “Dad, I wonder if you’re thinking about the same thing I am?”
“Eh?” He glanced up and smiled, reached up a hand so that it caught hers. “Meaning what, Rosy Cheeks?”
“About Aunt Vi. For some reason she�
��s never seemed quite the same to me since she came back from Mars and told us about Uncle Howard having been killed.... And the way things are going on around us I’m becoming positively frightened!”
“Yes....” Chris Wilson drew the girl down to the over-stuffed arm of the chair and transferred his hand to her shoulder. “I agree that things are pretty bad—but Vi knows what she’s doing.”
“I wonder,” Ethel said seriously, “if she does?”
Her father glanced at her in surprise.
“Since when did your Aunt Vi, the notorious Golden Amazon, not know how to handle things for the best?”
“Things happen to the best of minds, dad,” the girl answered. “And especially out in space. The radiations do things to your thinking apparatus sometimes. We don’t know what Aunt Vi encountered on Mars, or in space as she flew there and back—but for some reason I have the feeling that she encountered something unusual which... which somehow changed her outlook.”
“How?” Chris Wilson asked, astonished.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. But she’s never been quite the same since she came back. I know her better than you and Mum do; I’ve been with her on two of her excursions, and I know her every mood and reaction. In these days she’s so cold, so hard, so utterly sure of herself.”
“She’s never been anything else, dear,” her mother assured her, with a wistful smile. “Never since she was a child, when she used to kill butterflies for sheer amusement. Remember, I grew up with her.”
“But this is different, Mum!” Ethel insisted. “Deep down, I have found that Aunt Vi has a sense of humour: the failings of lesser mortals amuse her quite a lot—or did do. They don’t seem to any more. She never smiles now: she never speaks of you, or Dad, or maybe Uncle Howard or Aunt Ruth. She hasn’t even called me by my pet name of ‘Rosy Cheeks’ since she came back. It’s—it’s always ‘Ethel’! And she doesn’t ask me to do things—as I used to love doing them: she orders me to, with a sort of horrible veiled threat in her eyes if I don’t...
Ethel shook her head moodily.
“I don’t like it. I love Aunt Vi, if nobody else does, and the thought that perhaps she doesn’t love me any more hurts quite a lot.”
There was silence and a little frown notched her father’s brows. He was looking vaguely startled as a series of thoughts trailed through his mind.
“Anyway, what is she doing to help us out of our difficulties?” Ethel demanded, getting to her feet and facing her parents squarely. “Look at the frightful mess we’re in! Even the very roof over our heads isn’t safe with these diabolical iron-eaters burrowing into everything. It’s the same old tale all over the world now. Bridges are down, locomotives wrecked, liners sinking, air and space travel as good as paralysed-”
“We know why that is,” Chris interrupted quietly. “So the Martians will be lulled into thinking that they are winning. I don’t like the idea any more than you do, but—*—”
“And what did those flying saucers want here?” Ethel went on indignantly. “Remember? They landed three days ago and then took off again. And there have been no explanations—no anything! I asked Aunt Vi about them, and she wouldn’t say a word—or rather she fobbed me off with the story that the Martians were evidently looking round in readiness to invade us.”
“Which is exactly what Vi wants,” her mother said. “The sooner the Martians do come, the sooner we’ll have an end of our troubles. Vi—and the assembled forces of every country—will wipe the Martians out.”
Ethel said nothing, but she did not appear too convinced.
“I suppose,” her father said, musing, “everything is all right, dear?” He gave his wife an anxious glance. “I’ve followed out Vi’s orders to the letter—in spite of the panic it has caused. I even managed to square the authorities over those early murders; but I must say I agree with Rosy that her manner does seem a bit—-well, unnecessarily brusque. Suppose the child’s right and something really has happened to Vi’s brain, so that she is leading us all—unintentionally, of course—into disaster?”
“Nothing could happen to a brain like Vi’s,” the elder woman answered. “I’m quite satisfied on that, even if you are not.”
“Mmmmm... The complacency of middle age settled back on Chris Wilson. “Yes, you’re probably right.”
Ethel looked at both in turn, in doubting wonder, then her firm little chin squared a little with inner resolve.
“I think I’ll take a stroll before bed,” she said. “Just to see how much more of the city has fallen apart.”
“All right, but watch yourself,” her father warned. “Quite a lot of desperate characters about during these disturbances, to say nothing of falling buildings.”
“I can look after myself, Dad, believe me.”
Ethel left the room quietly and closed the door. She reflected for a moment and then hurried upstairs. She came down again in her fur wrap, her black hair bobbing about her shoulders. Leaving the house, she took her own fast atomic two-seater from the garage and drove it westwards, in the direction of the out-of-town house of the Amazon.
Ethel could not rid herself of the conviction that something was desperately wrong somewhere; that the whole human race was sliding into a gulf, and that somehow her beloved Aunt Vi was responsible for it. She had to find out for herself. The wild, adventurous spirit she possessed would not let her do otherwise. She had lived and thrilled too long at the side of the mighty Amazon to be let down by a mystery of this kind.
At the Amazon’s home it was Tana, the maid, who admitted her, despite the fact that it was nearly midnight. Since the Amazon’s return from Mars, the maid had had her duties prolonged beyond all reason, and dared not protest.
“Yes, the mistress is in her study,” she assented sullenly, as Ethel questioned her. “You know where it is?”
“Yes—of course I do.” Ethel looked at her oddly. “What’s the matter, Tana? Have you ceased to direct people to the various rooms?”
“I’ve ceased doing a single thing more than I need, Miss Ethel,” Tana replied. “I used to love working for the mistress: she used to give me so much in return—money, valuables, gadgets. But not any more. I—I think,” the maid finished bitterly, “that I hate her more now than any woman on Earth! I’m—sorry,” she added, and darted away.
Ethel gazed after her, then she went across the hall to the study door and tapped. She entered and stood with her back to the closed door, gazing at the golden-headed woman writing at the desk, a cold-light glow casting downwards on sheets of diagrams.
“Yes?” The “Amazon” glanced up, enquiry in her violet eyes. Then she gave a little start. “Oh, it’s you, Ethel! You’re a late caller, are you not?”
“Yes, I suppose I am.” Ethel strolled into the radius of the light reflecting from the papers and looked down at the beautiful amber-tinted face pensively. “Aunt, I suppose it’s a bit silly, but I’ve something on my mind. I’m just wondering why you don’t call me by my other name any more?” “Your other name?” the Martian woman repeated.
“Yes. ‘Rosy Cheeks.’”
“Oh... that!” Valina hesitated. “Well, you’re grown up now, Ethel—and it’s a silly nickname, anyway.”
“You never used to think so,” Ethel said quietly. “You once said you would always call me that, even when I’d reached middle age. I had it as a baby and as a little girl, and-”
“Really, Ethel, I’ve important work to get done,” Valina interrupted impatiently. “If you’ve come here at this hour just to waste time discussing a pet nickname-”
“Oh, it’s not just that,” Ethel interrupted. “I want to know about a lot of things. For instance, why you’re so—so different from what you used to be. Since you came back from Mars you just haven’t seemed like the same woman.” The corners of the red lips tightened a little. Cold, glittering venom hovered in the back of the deeply purple eyes. Ethel saw it clearly, but she stood her ground. She had never been without courage.
“I know,” she continued, striving to sound casual, “that I’m only young as yet, and for that reason am not supposed to have much sense; but I do know my Aunt Vi, and there couldn’t be anybody less like her than you. In these past few weeks I’ve become increasingly aware of it. You’ve none of her little habits; you fumble over things which to her were child’s play.... I’ve been thinking that maybe something happened to you on Mars, or in space, which changed you; or else....”
“Or else?” the Metrix of Mars prompted icily.
“Or else you are not my Aunt Vi,” Ethel finished—and from her pocket she took a small but vicious flame-gun, relic of an exploit on Venus.
CHAPTER X
Valina got slowly to her feet and walked round the desk. She moved with all the grace of the Amazon herself in the long, white, loose-fitting gown she was wearing. She came to a stop a foot away from the intently watching girl.
“Where do you get such foolish ideas, Ethel?” she asked. “How in the world can I be anybody else but your Aunt Vi?”
“I don’t know—but science can do such wonderful things in these days.” Ethel’s chin was quivering a little, but she still held the gun steadily enough.
“Why, you contemptible little fool!” With one swing of her hand the Martian woman knocked the gun spinning into a corner. “You dare to stand there and accuse me of—of treachery? Yes, treachery! That’s what it amounts to! Who do you think you are, compared to the sweep of my plans? I’m trying to save a world, Ethel—a world!—and you have the temerity to question if I even am the Golden Amazon!”
“Yes I have, because I—”
Ethel broke off with a gasp as the flat of the woman’s hand struck her across the face, and behind it was the force of those superhuman muscles. Ethel reeled sideways, into the desk, and then she collapsed on the floor. The Martian woman stood glaring down on her in bleak hatred.
“Get up, you snivelling little fool!” she commanded.
Rubbing her flaming cheek, Ethel obeyed; but at the same instant she dived for the gun in the corner. A clutch descended on the collar of her wrap, but she whipped free of the fur altogether and continued her forward dive. But the hand reached out again, twined in her thick hair and in stinging anguish she was dragged upwards and backwards.
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