"She died when Evanie was born, but she would have died anyway,"
Jan Orm paused and drew a long breath. "Now do you see why Evanie fears her own blood? Why she has driven away the youths who tried to arouse even friendship? She's afraid of the sleeping metamorphic nature in her, and needlessly afraid, since she's safely human. She has even tried to drive me away, but I refuse to be so driven. I understand."
"So do I," said Connor soberly. "And I'm going to marry her."
Jan Orm smiled dryly. "And if she thinks otherwise?"
"Then I must convince her."
Jan shook his head in mild wonderment. "Perhaps you can," he said, with the barest hint of reluctance. "There's something dynamic about you. In some ways you're like the Immortals of Urbs."
When they reached the village Connor left Jan Orm and trudged in a deep reverie up Evanie's hill, musing on the curious revelations he had heard, analyzing his own feelings. Did he really love the bronzehaired Evanie? The query had never presented itself until Jan had put it to him, so bluntly, yet now he was certain he did. Admitting that, thenhad he the right to ask her to marry a survival of the past, a revivified mummy, a sort of living fossil?
What damage might that millennium of sleep have done him? Might he not awake some morning to find the weight of his years suddenly upon him? Might he not disintegrate like a veritable mummy when its wrappings were removed? Still he had never felt stronger or healthier in his life. And was he such a freak, after all, in this world of Immortals, satyrs, and halfhuman swimmers?
He paused at the door of the cottage, peering within. The miraculous cookstove hissed quietly, and Evanie was humming to herself as she stood before a mirror, brushing the shining metal of her hair. She glimpsed him instantly and whirled. He strode forward and caught her hands.
"Evanie" he began, and paused as she jerked violently to release herself.
"Please go out!" she said.
He held her wrists firmly. "Evanie, you've got to listen to me. I love you!
"I know those aren't the right words," he stumbled on. "It's justthe best I can do."
"I don'tpermit this," she murmured.
"I know you don't, butEvanie I mean it!"
He tried to draw her closer but she stood stiffly while he slipped his arms about her. By sheer strength he tilted her head back and kissed her.
For a moment he felt her relax against him, then she had thrust him away.
"Please!" she gasped. "You can't! You don'tunderstand!"
"I do," he said gently.
"Then you see how impossible it is for me tomarry!"
"Any wildness in any children of ours," he said with a smile, "might as easily come of the Connor blood."
For a long moment Evanie lay passive in his arms, and then, when she struggled away, he was startled to see tears.
"Tom," she whispered, "if I say I love you will you promise me something?"
"You know I will!"
"Then, promise you'll not mention love again, nor try to kiss me, nor even touch mefor a month.
After that, I'llI'll do as you wish. Do you promise?"
"Of course, but why, Evanie? Why?"
"Because within a month," she murmured tensely, "there'll be war!"
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN TIME OF PEACE
CONNER HELD STRICTLY to his word with Evanie. But the change in their relationship was apparent to both of them. Evanie no longer met his gaze with frank steadiness. Her eyes would drop when they met his, and she would lose the thread of her sentences in confusion.
Yet when he turned unexpectedly, he always found her watching him with a mixture of abstractedness and speculation. And once or twice he awakened in the morning to find her gazing at him from the doorway with a tender, wistful smile.
One afternoon Jan Orm hailed him from the foot of Evanie's hill.
"I've something to show you," he called, and Connor rose from his comfortable sprawl in the shade and joined him, walking toward the factory across the village.
"I've been thinking, Jan," Connor remarked. "Frankly, I can't yet understand why you consider the Master such a despicable tyrant. I've yet to hear of any really tyrannous act of his."
"He isn't a tyrant," Jan said gloomily. "I wish he were. Then our revolution would be simple. Almost everybody would be on our side. It's evidence of his ability that he avoids any misgovernment, and keeps the greater part of the people satisfied. He's just, kind, and benevolenton the surface!"
"What makes you think he's different underneath?"
"He retains the one secret we'd all like to possessthe secret of immortality. Isn't that evidence enough that he's supremely selfish? He and his two or three million Immortalssole rulers of the tiarth!"
"Two or three million!"
"Yes. What's the difference how many? They're still ruling half a billion peoplea small percentage ruling the many. If he's so benevolent, why doesn't he grant others the privilege of immortality?"
"That's a fair question," said Connor slowly, pondering. "Anyway, I'm on your side, Jan. You're my people now; I owe you all my allegiance." They entered the factory. "And nowwhat was it you brought me here to see?"
Jan's face brightened.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Have a look at this."
He brought forth an object from a desk drawer in his office, passing it pridefully to Connor. It was a blunt, thickhandled, blue steel revolver.
"Atompowered," Jan glowed. "Here's the magazine."
He shook a dozen little leaden balls, each the size of his little fingernail, into his palm.
"No need of a cartridge, of course," commented Connor. "Water in the handle? ... I thought so. But here's one mistake. You don't want your projectiles round; you lose range and accuracy. Make 'em cylindrical and bluntpointed." He squinted through the weapon's barrel. "Andthere's no rifling."
He explained the purpose of rifling the barrel to give the bullet a rotary motion.
"I should have known enough to consult you first," Jan Orm said wryly. "Want to try it out anyway? I haven't been able to hit much with it so far."
They moved through the whirring factory. At the rear the door opened upon a slope away from the village. The ground slanted gently toward the river. Glancing about for a suitable target, Connor seized an empty can from a bench within the door and flung it as far as he could down the slope. He raised the revolver, and suddenly perceived another imperfection that had escaped his notice.
"There are no sights on it!" he ejaculated.
"Sights?" Jan was puzzled.
"To aim by." He explained the principle. "Well, let's try it as is."
He squinted down the smooth barrel, squeezed the trigger. There was a sharp report, his arm snapped back to a terrific recoil, and the can leaped spinning high into the air, to fall yards farther toward the river.
"Wow!" he exclaimed. "What a kick!"
But Jan was leaping with enthusiasm.
"You hit it! You hit it!"
"Yeah, but it hit back," Connor said ruefully. "While you're making the other changes, lighten the charge a little, else you'll have broken wrists in your army. And I'd set somebody to work on ordnance and rifles. They're a lot more useful than revolvers." At Jan's nod, he asked, "You don't expect to equip the whole revolution with the products of this one factory, do you?"
"Of course not! There are thousands like it, in villages like Ormon. I've already sent descriptions of the weapons we'll need. I'll have to correct them."
"How many men can you count on? Altogether, I mean."
"We should muster twentyfive thousand."
"Twentyfive thousand for a world revolution? An even twentyfive thousand to attack a city of thirty million?"
"Don't forget that the city is all that counts. Who holds Urbs holds the world."
"But stilla city that size! Or even just the three million Immortals. We'll be overwhelmed!"
"I don't think so," Jan said grimly. "Don't forget that in Urbs are several million Anadominists
. I count on them to join us. In fact, I'm planning to smuggle arms to them, provided our weapons are successful.
They won't be as effective as the ionic beam, butwe can only try. Well have at least the advantage of surprise, since we don't plan to muster and march on Urbs. We'll infiltrate slowly, and on the given day, at the given hour, we'll strike!"
"There'll be street fighting, then," Connor said. "There's nothing like machineguns for that."
"What are they?"
Jan's eyes glowed as Connor explained.
"We can manage those," he decided. "That should put us on a par with the Urban troops, so long as we remain in the city where the air forces can't help them. If only we had aircraft!"
"There're airplanes, such as my generation used."
"Too flimsy. Useless against the fliers of Urbs. No, what 120 we need is the secret of the rocket blast, and since that's unobtainable, we'll have to do without.
We'll manage to keep our fighting in the City itself. And how well need you!"
Connor soon came to realize the truth of Jan's words. What little he knew of trajectories, velocities, and the science of ballistics was taxed to the uttermost. He was astounded to discover that calculus was a lost knowledge, and that Jan was even unacquainted with the use of logarithms and the slide rule.
Rather than plod through hours and hours of mathematical computation, it seemed to Connor the shorter method was to work out a table of logarithms to four places, and to construct a slide rule; in both of these operations Jan joined with growing enthusiasm as understanding increased.
As the preparations progressed, Connor began to notice other thingsthe vanishing of familiar faces, the lack of youthful activities. He knew what that meant. The revolutionaries were gradually filtering into Urbs, and the day of the uprising was at hand.
How close it was, however, he never dreamed until he emerged one morning to find Evanie talking to Jan Orm, with her eyes alight. She turned eagerly to Tom, led him back into the cottage.
"Kiss me!" she whispered. "The day is here! We leave for Urbs tonight!"
All day there was a hush over the village. It was bereft of youth, girls as well as men. Only the oldsters plodded about in street and field.
Jan Orm confessed to Connor that he was not entirely pleased with all details. His estimate of the number of revolutionaries who would join him had been too high. But the infiltration into the city had been successful, and twentytwo thousand villagers lay armed and hidden among their Urban sympathizers.
This, Jan argued, promised a great accession to their ranks once the hour had struck.
"What are your arrangements?" Connor asked.
"Each village has chosen its leader. These leaders have again centralized their command into ten, of whom our Ormon leader happens to be one. But each variety of Weed has its own corps." He smiled.
"They call us Weeds, because we're supposed to run wild."
And again there came to Connor a quick mental picture of his beautiful girl of the forest. She, too, had spoken of "Weeds," a little contemptuously, he seemed to remember now. He had not understood her allusion then, had not asked her to explain. But it was plain enough now. Her lofty attitude toward "Weeds," or the common people, must have been because she was an aristocrat herself. Who could she have been? He had seen no one hereabouts bearing any faintest resemblance to her.
He brought his mind swiftly back to Jan. "If you win," he observed, "you'll have a general battle over the spoils. You may find yourself worse off after the revolution than before."
"We know that," Jan said grimly. "Yet we'll fight side by side until the Master's done for.
Afterward" He spread his hands expressively.
"You mentioned 'our Ormon leader,' " remarked Connor. "That's you, of course."
"Oh, no!" Jan chuckled. "That's Evanie." "The devil!" Connor stared amazed at the gentle, shy, and quiet girl.
"Jan exaggerated," she said, smiling. "I depend on all the rest of you. Especially Janand you, Tom."
He shook his head, puzzled about this revolutionshadowy, vague, illplanned. To assault a world ruler in a colossal city with untrained rabble using weapons unfamiliar to them! Surely the Master must know there was sedition and plotting among his people.
He was about to voice his doubts when a flash of iridescence down the sunny slope caught his eye. It seemed more like a disturbance in the air or a focus of light than a material body. It swept in wide circles as if hunting or seeking, andConnor heard its high, humming buzz. The creature, if it were a creature, was no more than eighteen inches long, and featureless save for a misty beak at the forward end.
It circled closer, and suddenly he perceived an amazing phenomenon. It was circling the three of them and, he had thought, the cottage too. Then he saw that instead of circling the building it was passing through the walls!
"Look!" he cried. "What's that?"
CHAPTER NINE
THE WAY TO URBS
THE EFFECT ON Jan and Evanie was startling. As they perceived the almost invisible thing, the girl shrieked in terror.
"Don't look at it!" Jan choked out. "Don't even think of it!"
Both of them covered their faces with their hands.
They made no attempt to flee; indeed, Connor thought confusedly, how could one hide from a thing that could pass like a phantom through rock walls? He tried to follow their example but could not resist another peep at the mystery. It was still visible, but further off down the slope towards the river, and as he gazed, it abandoned its circling, passed like a streak of mist over the water, and vanished.
"It's gone," he said mildly. "Suppose you tell me what it was."
"Itit was a Messenger of the Master," murmured Evanie fearfully. "Jan, do you think it was for one of us? If so, that means he suspects!"
"God knows!" Jan muttered. "It looked dim to me, like a stray."
"And what," Connor demanded to know, "is a Messenger of the Master?"
"It's to carry the Master's commands," said Evanie.
"You don't say!" he snapped ironically. "I could guess that from its name. But what is it?"
"It's a mechanism of force, or so we think," said Jan. "It'sdid you ever see balllightning?"
Connor nodded.
"Well, there's nothing material, strictly speaking, in balllightning. It's a balance of electrical forces.
And so are the Messengersa structure of forces."
"Butwas it alive?"
"We believe not. Not exactly alive."
Connor groaned. "Not material, strictly speaking, and not exactly alive! In other words, a ghost."
Jan smiled nervously.
"It does sound queer. What I mean is that the Messengers are composed of forces, like balllightning. They're stable as long as Urbs supplies enough energy to offset the losses. They don't discharge all at once like balllightning. When their energy is cut off, they just dissipate, fade out, vanish.
That one missed its mark, if it was for us."
"How do they bear the Master's commands?"
"I hope you never find out," Evanie said softly. "I was sent for once before, but that Messenger missed like this. Jan and Ican close our minds to them. It takes practice to learn how."
"Well," said Connor, "if the Master suspects, you'd better change your plans. Surprise was your one advantage."
"We can't," Jan said grimly. "Our cooperating groups would split into factions in half an hour, given any excuse."
"Butthat might have been sent as a warning!"
"No matter. We've got to go ahead. What's more, we'd better leave now."
Jan rose abruptly and departed. A moment later Connor saw him back in a motor vehicle from the hill below the factory. And then, with no more preparation than that, they were jolting over the rutted red clay road, Jan driving, Evanie between the two men.
When they swung suddenly to a wide paved highway, the battered vehicle leaped swiftly to unexpected speed. A full hundred miles an hour, though that was not so greatl
y in excess of the speed of cars of Connor's own day.
Hour after hour they rushed down the endless way. They passed treegrown ruins and little villages like Ormon, and as night fell, here and there the lights of some peaceful farm dwelling. Evanie relieved Jan, and then Connor, pleading his acquaintance with ancient automobiles, drove for a while, to the expressed admiration of the other two.
"You ancients must have been amazing!" said Jan.
"What paving is this?" asked Connor as they darted along.
"Same stuff as our tires. Rubrum. Synthetic rubber."
"Paved by whom?"
"By Urbs," said Jan sourly. "Out of our taxes."
"Well isn't that one answer to your objections? No taxes, no roads."
"The road through Ormon is maintained without taxes, simply by the cooperation of the people."
Connor smiled, remembering that rutted clay road.
"Is it possible to alienate any of the Master's troops?" he asked. "Trained men would help our chances."
"No," Jan said positively. "The man has a genius for loyalty. Such an attempt would be suicide."
"Humph! Do you knowthe more I hear of the Master, the more I like him? I can't see why you hate him so! Apparently, he's a good ruler."
"He is a good ruler, damn his clever soul! If he weren't, I told you everybody'd be on our side." Jan turned to Evanie. "See how dangerous the Master is? His charm strikes even through the words of his enemies!"
When they finally stopped for refreshments, Evanie described for Connor other wonders of the Master's world empire. She told him of the hothouse cities of Antarctica under their crystal domes, and especially Austropolis, of the great mining city in the shadow of the Southern Pole, and of Nyx, lying precariously on the slopes of the volcano Erebus.
She had a wealth of detail gleaned from the vision screen, but Jan Orm had traveled there, and added terse comment. All traffic and freight came in by rocket, the Triangles of Urbs, a means too expensive for general use, but the mines produced the highlyprized metal, platinum.
Evanie spoke, too, of the "Urban pond," the new sea formed in the Sahara Desert by the blasting of a passage through the Atlas Mountains to the Mediterranean.
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