by Ray Cummings
CHAPTER XXII.
THE THEFT OF THE LIGHT-RAY.
The touch of soft, cool hands on his face brought Mercer back to suddenconsciousness. He opened his eyes; Anina was sitting beside him, regardinghim gravely.
"Wake up, my friend Ollie. Time now to wake up."
He sat up, rubbing his eyes. The same dim twilight obscured everythingaround. For an instant he was confused.
"Why, I've been asleep." He got to his feet. "Do you think it's been long,Anina? Maybe the men have started off. Let's go see."
Anina had already been to see; she had awakened some little time beforeand, leaving Mercer asleep, had flown up ahead over the treetops.
The men were just then breaking camp, and she had returned to wake upMercer. They ate their last remaining pieces of bread, drank from thelittle pool of water, and were soon ready to start on after their quarry.
"How long will it take them to reach the gorge, Anina?"
"Not very long--four times farther reach Lone City."
By which Mercer inferred that within three or four hours, perhaps, theywould be at the place where they hoped to turn the men back.
They started off slowly up the trail, Mercer carrying the folded blanket,and Anina wearing the fur jacket. They soon came upon the smoldering firethat marked the other party's night encampment. The men were, Mercerjudged, perhaps a mile or so ahead of them.
They continued on, walking slowly, for they did not want to overtake theslow-traveling men ahead. The look of the country, what they could see ofit in the darkness, was unchanged. The trail seemed bending steadily tothe right, and after a time they came to the bank of a river which thetrail followed. It was a broad stream, perhaps a quarter of a mile across,with a considerable current sweeping down to the sea.
They kept to the trail along the river bank for nearly another hour. ThenAnina abruptly halted, pulling Mercer partly behind a tree trunk.
"Another fire," she whispered. "They stop again."
They could see the glow of the fire, close by the river bank among thetrees. Very cautiously they approached and soon made out the vagueoutlines of a boat moored to the bank. It seemed similar to the one inwhich they had come down the bayous from the Great City, only slightlylarger.
"Other men," whispered Anina. "From Lone City."
Mercer's heart sank. A party from the Lone City--more of Tao's men to jointhose he had set free! All his fine plans were swept away. The men wouldall go up to the Lone City now in the boat, of course. There was nothinghe could do to stop them. And now Tao would learn of the failure of hisplans.
Mercer's first idea was to give up and return to the shore of the sea; butAnina kept on going cautiously forward, and he followed her.
The fire, they could see as they got closer, was built a little back fromthe water, with a slight rise of ground between it and the boat. Therewere some thirty men gathered around; they seemed to be cooking.
"You stand here, Ollie," Anina whispered. "I go hear what they say. Standvery quiet and wait. I come back."
Mercer sat down with his back against a tree and waited. Anina disappearedalmost immediately. He heard no sound of her flight, but a moment later hethought he saw her dropping down through the trees just outside the circleof light from the fire. From where he was sitting he could see the boatalso; he thought he made out the figure of a man sitting in it, on guard.The situation, as Mercer understood it from what Anina told him when shereturned, seemed immeasurably worse even than he had anticipated.
Tao had been making the Water City the basis of his insidious propaganda,rather than the Great City, as we had supposed. He had been in constantcommunication by boat with his men in the Water City; and now affairsthere were ripe for more drastic operations.
This boat Mercer had come upon was intended to be Tao's first armedinvasion of the Light Country--some twenty of his most trusted men armedwith the light-ray. Joining his emissaries in the Water City, and with thelarge following among the people there which they had already secured,they planned to seize the government and obtain control of the city. Then,using it as a base, they could spread out for a conquest of the entirenation. Mercer listened with whitening face while Anina told him all thisas best she could.
"But--but why does he want to attack the Light Country, Anina? I thoughthe wanted to go and conquer our earth."
"Very big task--your earth," the girl answered. "Light Country more easy.Many light-rays in the Great City. Those he needs before he goes to yourearth. More simple to get those than make others."
Mercer understood it then. The large quantity of light-ray ammunitionstored in the Great City was what Tao was after. This was his way ofgetting it, and once he had it, and control of the Light Country besideshe would be in a much better position to attack the earth.
The idea came to Mercer then to steal the boat and escape with it. If hecould do that, the enemies would have to return to the Lone City on foot,and the threatened invasion of the Light Country would thus be postponedfor a time at least. Meanwhile, with the boat he could hasten back to mewith news of the coming invasion.
These thoughts were running through his head while Anina was talking. Itwas a daring plan, but it might be done. There was apparently only one manin the boat, and the slight rise of ground between it and the fire madehim out of sight, though not out of hearing, of the others.
"Can you run the boat, Anina?"
The girl nodded eagerly. Mercer drew a long breath.
"We'll take a chance. It's the only way. They've got that cursedlight-ray." He shivered as he thought of the danger they were about toinvite.
Then he explained to Anina what they were to do. She listened carefully,with the same expectant, eager look on her face he had seen there so oftenbefore.
They left the blanket and fur jacket on the ground, and, making a widedetour around the fire, came back to the river bank several hundred yardsabove the boat. They stood at the water's edge, looking about them. Theboat was just around a slight bend in the stream; the glimmer of the fireshowed plainly among the trees. Intense quiet prevailed; only the murmurof the water flowing past, and occasionally the raised voice of one of themen about the fire, broke the stillness.
Mercer stared searchingly into the girl's eyes as she stood there quietlyat his side. She met his gaze steadily.
"You're a wonderful little girl," he whispered to her, and then abruptlyadded: "Come on. Don't make any splash if you can help it. And remember,if anything goes wrong, never mind me. Fly away--if you can."
They waded slowly into the water. The current carried them rapidly along.Side by side, with slow, careful strokes, they swam, keeping close toshore. The river was shallow--hardly over their heads. The water was coldand, Mercer thought, curiously buoyant.
It seemed hardly more than a moment before the shadowy black figure ofoutlines of the boat loomed ahead. They could make out the figure of itssingle occupant, sitting with his arm on the gunwale. They swam hardly atall now, letting the current carry them forward. As silent as two driftinglogs they dropped down upon the boat and in another moment were clingingto a bit of rope that chanced to be hanging over its stern.
The bow of the boat was nosed against the bank; it lay diagonallydownstream, with its stern some twenty feet from shore. Its occupant wassitting amidships, facing the bow. Mercer drew himself up until his eyeswere above the stern of the boat and saw him plainly. He was slouchingdown as though dozing. His elbow was crooked, carelessly over the gunwale.
Mercer's heart gave an exultant leap as he saw a little cylinder in theman's hand. There was a little projection on the boat at the water line,and, working along this with his hands, Mercer edged slowly toward theman. He knew he could not be heard, for the murmur of the water slippingpast the sides of the boat drowned the slight noise he made.
He edged his way along, with not much more than his face out of water,until he was directly beneath the motionless form in the boat.
Mercer's heart was beating so it seemed to smo
ther him. Slowly he pulledhimself up until the fingers of his left hand gripped the gunwale hardlymore than a foot or two behind the man's back. His other hand reachedforward. He must have made a slight noise, for the man sat suddenlyupright, listening.
Mercer's right hand shot out. His fingers closed over the little cylinderand the hand holding it. He bent it inward, twisting the man's wrist. Histhumb fumbled for the little button Anina had described. There was a tinypuff of light; the man's body wavered, then fell forward inert. Mercerclimbed into the boat. He looked back. Anina was pulling herself up overthe stern. A long pole lay across the seats. He picked it up and startedwith it toward the bow. And then he tripped over something and fellheadlong, dropping the pole with a clatter.
As he picked himself up there came a shout from the men in the woods.Mercer hurried forward and cast off the rope that held the boat to thebank. It had been tied more or less permanently at this end. As he fumbledat the knots he heard Anina's soft, anxious voice calling: "Hurry, Ollie,hurry!"
The shouts from the woods continued. The knots loosened finally. The boatslid back away from the bank; with the pole Mercer shoved the bow around.An instant later Anina had started the mechanism, and in a broad curvethey swung silently out into the river.
Up from the woods shot a beam of the greenish-red light. It darted to andfro for an instant, almost vertically in the air, and Mercer heard thecrackle of the tree-tops as they burst into flame under its heat. Then itswung downward, but before it could reach the water level the rise ofground at the bank cut it off.
Without realizing it, Mercer had been holding his breath as he watched.Now he let it out with a long sigh of relief.
"We did it, Anina--we did it," he said exultantly. "And we've got alight-ray, too."
A moment later they swept around a bend in the river, out of sight and outof hearing of their enemies.
