by Anthology
Croft tore away his mouth. Naia's hands clung to him. Her eyes were uplifted. "Go—go!" she panted. "Send me back to my body. Yet wait not so long to come to me again."
"In the morning I shall see you with Robur," said Croft as he released her. For now he felt assured that she was very, very close to conscious understanding.
Chapter Twelve
And that she stood very near indeed to the threshold of understanding, the weeks that followed their third astral meeting showed.
It showed in a changed demeanor of their meeting the next day. Croft waked with the sound of her voice in his ears, and lay for an instant startled in the half world between waking and slumber before he realized that it drifted from the bathing court of the palace.
Instantly he sprang up, recalling her words of the day before concerning Robur's daily practice at throwing curves with a baseball. He glanced out.
As he reached the window Robur threw the ball, and the princess ran to retrieve it. As he came forth five minutes later, she flung the ball with a truly feminine overhead gesture to where her cousin stood. "Zitu, my cousin!" she teased with a flash of milk-white teeth between the twin crimson portals of her mouth. "You throw wider of the mark, and still more wide. To me it seems that you lack that which you speak of in Jason's words as 'control.' Thy ambition to be a pit-cher stands in sorry case."
And then she caught sigh of Jason himself and broke off, while across her lovely face there stole a flush as soft as the dawning Sirian light. She turned toward him and held out a tapering hand. "Hai, Jason! It is morning—and—I see you again."
"And I thee," said Croft as he touched her fingers—"fairer, more beautiful and altogether lovelier than the dawn itself. Thy voice awaked me and told me I was late for our play with the ball."
But his blood was singing, his pulses pounding. For her words had been but a paraphrase of that promise he had spoken to the soul of her he had held the past night in his arms. And more than any others she might have spoken, they told him that at last, as a waking woman, she began to understand.
Yet he gave no further sign, and Naia herself seemed contented with that one brief interchange. "Aye, teach him, instruct him, and thou canst. He is willing, but he accomplishes little with a vast amount of work to himself and my feet and hands."
And Jason laughed with a wonderful exultation coursing through him as he took the ball from Robur, who had approached.
Thereafter for a half-hour he instructed, and Naia retrieved the Aphurian's wild heaves and pitches, until by degrees Robur gained the partial mastery of a simple inward curve; and Naia, her face dewed with a fine moisture from her part of the practice, protested against any more that morning, declaring instead for a bath, and moving toward the pool, loosening her garment on the shoulder as she walked.
That first day Croft started work on the ovens to produce his coke. With Robur he talked over all his plans. He drove out to the site of his hangars and inspected the rising sheds. He returned to the shops of the carpenter caste, and set in motion the work of assembling the airplane wings. He inspected the body, found fault and made corrections, looked into the motor plant, and ordered the captains there to speed up their work. He drove to the glass plant from there, and gave orders for the making of his arc-lamp bodies. He seemed inspired with a ceaseless energy, which finally drove Robur into comment.
"Zitu—Jason, my friend, where is the need for such haste?"
"None, Rob, save that the fire of life burns high within me, and my spirit seeks action, not rest."
And, as so often, Robur seemed in a measure to catch his thought. "Is she not beautiful as a shaft of Zitu's own light?" he inquired, and looked into Jason's eyes. "Gaya is beautiful, too, and I love her, yet I think thy belief that she is the other half of thy soul is true. For Mouthpiece of Zitu are ye, and wiser than all other men of Palos, and Naia of Aphur, my cousin, is divine."
"Thou hast said it. Her beauty drives me as the whip against the gnuppa's flank. It quickens my endeavor, forces me to fresh effort—" Croft began, and broke off as a captain, followed by a servant from the palace, appeared in the door of the room wherein they stood.
"Hai, Robur!" the captain exclaimed, advancing with uplifted hand. "Here is one who seeks thee, as he says it, by command."
"Speak," said Robur, turning to the other—one of a number of Mazzerian runners who as messengers were kept always at hand.
The blue man saluted in formal fashion. "One from Zitra awaits thee at the palace. Even now others seek you from place to place."
"Go. Say that I come." Robur dismissed him and turned to Croft. A pucker of thought lay between his eyes. "This may be from my father. I know not the nature of his message, but—my friend, accompany me in this."
In the huge, red-paved court they left the motor and, passing between the portal guards, made their way swiftly, side by side, to the audience-hall where once Croft had seen Kyphallos of Cathur received by Jadgor, Aphur's king. A man with the circle and cross on his breast—Jadgor's emissary—was waiting there for their coming now. As the two appeared, he rose.
"Greeting to Robur, governor of Aphur and son of Jadgor, who sends me to him," he began, producing a ring that Croft himself had often seen on Jadgor's finger and pressed it into Robur's hand.
Robur glanced at it and nodded. "Say on," he replied.
"On Bithur, Mazzer makes war."
"Zitu!" Robur started and turned his eyes to Croft.
Croft nodded. "Let us sit down and hear the rest of it," he advised.
Robur waved his father's emissary to a seat and found one of his own. "And now thy story, and quickly," he urged, while Croft found a place by his side.
"As thou knowest who led an army into Bithur when Zollaria made war," the Zitran resumed, "there was promised to Mazzer, for her help of the children of Zitemku to the north—whom Zilla take to himself—certain of the expected spoils. And as thou knowest, in all that was contemplated, both Zollaria and Mazzer failed. Yet was Mazzer promised a free highway down Bithur's principal river to the Central Sea. Mazzer, encouraged thereto as thy father thinks by Zollaria perchance, now presses this demand. Bithur, being not as Aphur and Nodhur and even Milidhur, supplied with the new weapons they used against Helmor's armies, is weak. Already have there been clashes between the blue men, better armed than ever before, and the men of Bithur along the border.
"Towns have been burned—fields laid waste—women carried into the forests, and men and children slain. Wherefore Jadgor commands you this. Send to Bithur the armored moturs, and a thousand men with the new weapon that shoots metal and fire with the death-dealing bolts of metal they discharge. For since all Tamarizia is one nation, it is fitting and just that the weak should cry for aid in their need to the strong, and that the strong should hear. Jadgor, who sits on Hiranur's throne as head of Tamarizia, has spoken. Let Robur of Aphur give ear to his words and obey."
"Aphur hears." Robur inclined his head. "Say to Hiranur that Aphur obeys. The moturs, the men, and the weapons go to Bithur at once. Man of Zitra, you will refresh yourself ere your return."
"Nay." Already the other was on his feet. "This matter gives no rest. I return so soon as Aphur's obedience is assured. Zitu speed the fulfilment of your promise." As Croft and Robur rose he bowed and left the room.
Robur turned toward Croft. "Revenge," he said. "A war of revenge, my friend. Zollaria, cheated of her foul designs, would harass Bithur's borders. Hai!" His eyes flashed. "So be it. We shirk not what Zitu sends. Jason, go with me. Help me to send what is needed forth."
"Yes," Croft nodded, and for the rest of that long day the driver of energy within him found full vent. Runners were despatched to notify the captains of the civic guard, and a sufficient number of the veterans of Croft's riflemen in the Zollarian war. Cases of cartridges were loaded into the motor galleys along the quays. Six of the armored motors Croft had designed and used against Helmor's legions went roaring through the streets and snorted their ungainly way aboard t
he waiting ships. What Aphur had been called upon to furnish, she set about providing without delay.
That night, Croft willed himself to the palace at Zitra and listened to Jadgor's plans. Lakkon urged that they consult the Mouthpiece of Zitu; but Jadgor's comment that Zitu need not teach them their lessons twice, even through his Mouthpiece, struck Croft as sound. Jadgor was a good general; he knew the art of war, and despite his regret at the personal animus Jadgor seemed to bear against him, Croft was glad that the all-important lessons were being learned. He did not want all Palos to be dependent upon him; he did not want to be a god-ruler.
Chapter Thirteen
In the weeks that followed, many things transpired. The line of poles stretched its length from the power station to Himyra, and men were stringing wires. Croft made coke, ground it into powder, mixed it with a cohesive substance, and molded it into carbon cores, to serve his growing arcs. Also, he began experimenting in the construction of batteries, both moist and dry cells. He succeeded with the former from the first. And for these experiments he demanded of Robur, and obtained, the use of an unused room in the palace, where he often worked at night.
Chemistry, an exact science, was unknown on Palos, but through consultations with the local caste of physicians Croft managed to collect a certain number of crudely refined salts which they commonly used as drugs. The room where Croft delved into the simpler mysteries of nature became an apartment of wonder to Robur, who came to it first himself, and later brought Gaya and Naia.
And on the night of their first coming, Croft explained the laws of chemical affinity as best he could to the three, comparing the force that drew the ions together with love, and caught a comprehending flash from Naia's blue eyes.
Thereafter she came as she willed when he worked, and watched whilel he struggled with his far from satisfactory equipment, and asked a hundred questions, until he suggested that she assist him, whereupon she accepted with a readiness that filled him with surprise. Night after night thereafter she donned a coarse smock and labored at his side, finding a new world open before her with the wide-eyed interest of a child; beholding for the first time the deliberate manipulation of the hidden forces of nature, beginning at length to understand man's right and power to use them to his advantage, direct them and command, to look upon them not as some supernatural manifestation, but as a wholly natural thing.
Meanwhile in the motur shops, Croft's by now expert force were assembling the first two airplanes. And in the same place, since he could work there as well as anywhere else, and supervise their work at the same time, he and Robur spent a part of each day constructing a resistance coil and a temporary switch on a slab of the marble white stone so much in evidence on Palos, against the day when the new light should be shown to Himyra first.
At the end of two weeks, however, he moved the now finished wings and bodies in which the moturs had been installed to the hangars and installed a force of men with them there to complete the work. Meanwhile at night he kept up his search for a satisfactory dry cell, telling Naia that the success of the flying machine depended upon it; so that when at last he succeeded, and she felt the current tingle through her fingers for the first time, she cried out in delight.
And in those two weeks, as Gaya had planned, as Croft had known must happen, constant association and education had its effect. As they played ball in the mornings, and bathed, and worked, and sought for strange, new results such as the woman had never dreamed in all her existence, they drew closer and closer together in their aims, their every interest, their understanding, than they had ever been. In his own way and by his own methods, Croft was rapidly raising the woman, whom as a woman he worshiped, toward his own mental place. Thus in the end she came to a realization that those things which had once seemed as much a miracle to her as to any of her people, might very well be manifestation of natural law within the grasp of man.
His dry cells perfected, the success of his engine ignition assured—several arcs nearing the finished stage of their construction, Croft had a new thought. He decided that after his demonstration of the airplanes at Himyra, he might wish to exhibit them at Zitra, and altered his plans somewhat as a result, and equipped each plane with a set of buoyant pontoons, thereby converting them to the type of flying fish more nearly than anything else. He explained his reason for this to Naia, with whom he was now talking everything over fully, and she smiled.
"On the water they will run as well as through the air," she said, when he had finished. "Jason—you must teach me to fly as well as everything else."
"I like not the thought. There is danger in this flying."
"Danger?" Naia of Aphur arched her brows. "Think you I have any fear?"
"No," he hastened to assure her. "It is Jason who for thee would be afraid."
For an instant she colored and then went a trifle pale. "And what of Naia of Aphur, think you, when Jason dares this danger, my friend?"
"It is a matter of knowledge," Croft said quickly, thrilled by her hinted meaning. "I have driven them before."
"On Earth?"
"Yes, on Earth, where they use them also in the battles of their wars."
"Hai!" cried Naia sharply. "To rise and wheel and fight—to struggle like great birds in the air. This Earth of which you speak must be a wonderful place."
"Yes," said Croft, as he went on and told her many things, describing among others the aviator's dress.
"And what will Jason wear on Palos?"
Croft laughed. "I had not given it any attention. I must consider the matter. Perhaps a garment fashioned out of gnuppa hide."
Naia nodded. Suddenly her scarlet lips were smiling. "In my mind I see as in a painting these leather-clad men of Earth. Leave the matter of your apparel to Naia, and you will, O Jason," she replied.
And Croft assented, filled with both pleasure and surprise.
Then came a night to Aphur very much like that before the first motur was finished—a night when a very few hours would see the first pair of airplanes done. Under the flare of oil slushes burning about him, he looked into the face of the captain in charge of the hangar crew and found his bronzed skin pale.
"Thou wilt dare it, Mouthpiece of Zitu?" the fellow said in a tone of awed deference, meeting Croft's glance. "Thou wilt attempt in this device to mount the air? Brave men have there been in Tamarizia, aye and brave women, yet none like to thee before."
"Nonsense!" said Jason, and laughed.
Satisfied at length that everything was ready, he threw himself on a pallet, from which he rose at dawn. To his rousing cry came the captain and his men. The doors of the hangar were opened, and the first airplane on which Sirius had ever shown was trundled out, rolling on wheels affixed to the bottoms of each pontoon.
And even as it appeared, a motur flashed from the blurring shadow of Himyra's red walls and dashed toward it along the road. It was Robur coming to witness his friend's latest venture, not alone.
At first Croft noted the fact with wonder, and then with a leaping heart. Naia was with him. He caught a deep breath, and his own eyes flashed as the motur approached; he went toward it, and Robur sprang out.
"Hail, Jason, Tamarizia's first man-bird!" he exclaimed, glancing from Croft to the huge machine.
"Bird-man, not man-bird, Rob," said Croft, giving Naia a hand to assist her from the motur, and becoming aware that she carried a package across her knees.
"Thy garment," she explained, extending it to him. "Go into the cote where you house your bird and put it on."
"My thanks for it, and your presence," Croft accepted and helped her from the car. "Hai, Rob—don't fool with the engine, will you, while I don my new attire?" He turned away and disappeared through the hangar doors.
And there he opened the bundle with unsteady hands and lifted what it contained. Trousers, or rather breeches, they seemed of leather as soft as the finest earthly ooze grain—a tunic—a helmet—leg cases fashioned to strap on. And Naia of Aphur had designed them, had planne
d them, directed their making, had brought them to him this morning. Croft's hand actually fumbled the buckles as he put them on. Yet in the end the thing was done, and he stepped forth clothed from toe to head in russet brown, save for the front of the helmet, through which shone his face.
"Zitu!" cried Rob, and Naia's eyes were shining as he advanced toward them followed by the hangar's crew, and mounted into his seat.
Over the fuselage edge he looked down directly into their blue depths. And suddenly they lost their glint of pleasure, grew dark and a trifle strained in the white oval of her face. "Take places!"
The hangar crew ran to the stations Croft had already assigned.
"Ready!" Two of the men laid hold of the propeller and sent it around.
With a roar the engine caught on. A cloud of back-driven dust have veiled the men who steadied the huge plane against the drag of the motur holding it, checking it as it strained and quivered like a hound against the leash.
"Let go!"
The men fell back. The plane quivered, moved slowly in advance. Out across that same desert where once Jason had driven the first motur in a mad, reckless dash to save Naia of Aphur's life, he now shot forward in the first quickening dash of Aphur's first airplane. Forward—faster and faster—faster and faster—then up. Obedient to his shifting of the controls, the huge machine tilted, seemed to rear on its haunches, lifting its nose, its wheels, rising, rising—free of the ground at last—free and rising, higher and higher, up! up!
Up, up! A spear-point of the rising sun caught it and set it aglisten as it rose. Up, up, smaller and smaller to them who watched it from beside the hangar. Then, as they watched, it turned. It turned and flew back above them, five hundred feet in the air. It began to spiral, ever rising higher above the ground. And suddenly, though Croft did not know it at the time, and Robur, lost in amazement, did not sense it, Naia of Aphur ran swiftly to the motur, and, carrying something crushed to her bosom, from their to the doors of the hanger, and disappeared.
