In spite of himself, an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of admiration escaped the lips of Sarka. Hearing it, Dalis turned to him, and a flush of pleasure tinged his cheeks as Sarka shaped one word with his lips:
"Excellent!"
Then, after a pause, Sarka spoke directly to the Gens of Earth.
"Take heed of the words of Dalis, for they are also the words of the Sarkas!"
Then an expression of surprise flashed across the face of Sarka as Dalis" fingers began to move in a swift sort of pantomime--for the sign manual he used was the secret manual of Jaska and Sarka! His heart cold within him at this new proof of her betrayal, Sarka nevertheless noted the words which dropped silently off the fingers of this enemy of the Sarkas.
"You are wise to resist no further! Together we can do much, and if you give your word not to oppose me, we can work together; but I will be the master!"
"But, if we grant you the mastery, will you heed our advice if it is good?"
"I will, but I alone will be the judge of its worth!"
"Then we work together henceforth. Let us begin! In the time required to move from here to the Moon, our people will have ample opportunity to perfect themselves in maneuvers! Are you ready, O my father, and father"s father?"
"Ready!" they said together.
But for a moment Dalis hesitated. "Your word!" he snapped, looking at each Sarka in turn, and each in his turn nodded. They had given their word, but not their love, to Dalis. Dalis bowed low to Sarka the Youngest, who darted to the onyx base in which revolved the Master Beryl, and pressed a small lever of metalized jade, set in a slot on the southern side of the base of onyx. The humming sound within the Beryl became perceptibly louder, and as the minutes pa.s.sed, and Sarka stood, arms folded, watching the Revolving Beryl, it continued to increase.
Here was the crisis, and as they watched its sure, certain approach, they forgot their enmities, Dalis and the Sarkas, and watched the whirling Beryl. Minute by minute its humming increased. The figures still were plain to be seen within the Beryl, but were becoming blurred of outline. Part.i.tions had been removed all over the earth, increasing the size of rooms a hundredfold, reducing their number a hundredfold.
The Gens of Earth, by hundred-families, were maneuvering under the Heads of Hundreds. The depths of the Master Beryl, therefore, was a maze of flying men, with their extremities slightly blurred, and becoming more so as the Master Beryl increased its speed.
Here now was shown the value of the organization fostered by Sarka the First--for in all the world there was no single Beryl out of tune with the Master Beryl; and as the Master Beryl increased the speed of its revolving, so increased at the same time the speed of all the other Beryls. Minute by minute the humming of the Master, and with it the others, increased in volume.
"Father!" spoke Sarka. "To the Observatory, behind the Beryl, please, to watch the stars, and from them to note the direction we take when the combined vibrations of the Beryls have affected the quiescence of Earth"s deposits of Ovidum and, through its shifting, disturbed the flight of the Earth in its...o...b..t!"
With a brief nod Sarka"s father hurried around the Master Beryl to the tiny Observatory beyond, from which, through the Micro-Telescopes, those who knew could read the secrets of the planets, the stars--the Universe.
Sarka watched him go, wondering if Dalis might not forbid him. But Dalis merely watched him go and said nothing.
Now that the time of Change was upon the world, Dalis realized his responsibility. It was little wonder that he began to be for the first time a little bit afraid.
"Note, Dalis!" snapped Sarka, and Dalis started nervously as his name was spoken. "Feel the trembling of the laboratory, just as the same trembling affects all the other buildings in the world in which Beryls are located. As the minutes pa.s.s the trembling will go deeper and deeper, and by to-morrow the first tremors will be reaching into the Earth to several miles below the last habitable Inner Level! And then....
"Then," repeated Sarka tersely, "my father will know by his study of the stars in which new direction we are traveling! For within twenty-four hours the Earth will have started on its voyage of conquest!"
"Is there no way, Sarka," queried Dalis, "by which we can control the direction of our flight!"
"There _is_ a way, O wise and gallant Dalis! But since you do not know it, who now is master?"
Dalis" face became as pale as chalk, and Sarka smiled a little as he watched him. Then, wondering what new resolve stirred the depths of this master egotist of the earth, he watched emotions flash to and fro across the face of Dalis, watched the color return to his cheeks. The cold of death gripped at his heart when Dalis spoke.
"I do not fear death, O wise and gallant Sarka!" he mocked. "For I have lived fully and well, and for many, many centuries! You know that I do not fear to slay people of the Earth, for did I not propose to your father"s father that a flood would be beneficial to unfit earthlings?
Hear, then! Keep your secret, and I shall allow the Earth to go outward into s.p.a.ce, out of control, in whatever direction it will. If any other worlds happen to lie in our pathway...."
Dalis shrugged indifferently, turning his back on Sarka, to peer again into the depths of the Master Beryl, whose voice had risen to a vaster murmur, whose pictures were becoming moment by moment more blurred as time fled irrevocably into eternity.
Sarka the First took advantage of his opportunity, and leaped at the back of Dalis, hands extended to fasten them in the throat of his ancient enemy. Dalis whirled, with a burst of laughter, and the muzzle of his Ray Director covered the person of the First Sarka. In a flash the spot where Sarka the First had been was vacant, and there was no single sign to show that he had ever stood there!
Silence then in the laboratory, save for the mounting murmur of the Master Beryl!
CHAPTER VII
_Outer s.p.a.ce_
"He only proved a belief I have entertained for centuries!" snarled Dalis. "That all the male Sarkas are fools--and the females for bearing them!"
Sarka said nothing, but within his breast a deep hatred was forming for Dalis. He had disliked him before, and had been amused by him; but in the busy life of Sarka there had been no time for hatred of anyone. Busy people had no time for hatreds.
"You should be torn to pieces for that, Dalis!" was all he said. "We needed my father"s father in our efforts! But the loss to the world of one super-genius cannot be balanced by slaying another--so you are safe!
"What he could do, I can do!" snapped Dalis.
Sarka turned away from him, seating himself beside the table of the vari-colored lights, and his heart was heavy as lead in his breast. He blamed Jaska for much of this, and his heart was burdened, despite her treachery, by the fact that he loved her, always would love her. Love was the one possession which made centuries of life desirable to men of the Earth. For men could spend centuries in seeking a true mate, knowing that there were other centuries still in which to enjoy her. Woman was man"s greatest boon, his excuse for living, as was man excuse for woman.
Through the centuries, when humankind remained forever young, the joy in each other of those truly mated grew as their knowledge grew....
And now Jaska had failed Sarka, when for half a century they had loved each other! Why had she done it? He had given her no reason to do so.
Had there been some other reason? Why had she laughed, and left them, after the betrayal of the Master Beryl into the hands of Dalis?
"Before G.o.d," whispered Sarka, "I believe that you, Jaska, were playing a game to dupe Dalis, as he played a game to dupe us!"
Down in his heart he was not sure. But somehow, just to whisper to himself his faith in Jaska, gave it back to him in some measure, and by so much lightened the weight upon his heart. For now his responsibilities were greater than they had ever been before, and he had need of all his faculties.
"She"ll come back, or somehow communicate with me, and explain everything," he told himself. But he refused to ponder on how Dalis the betrayer had gained possession of the secret sign manual he had believed known only to Jaska and himself. That, too, might be explained satisfactorily, for Dalis was cunning.
From the side of the laboratory opposite the Revolving Beryl came a soft tinkling sound, like the striking of a musical bell. Sarka rose wearily, strode to the wall, where a narrow aperture opened, in which rested Food Capsules sufficient for one meal for three men. He smiled wryly. They knew then, the Food Conservers deep in the earth as they were, that Sarka the First was no more--and sent food for three men! All the world knew, perhaps, yet no single person had raised voice in protest--or if any had, the mounting murmur of the Beryls had drowned it out.
"Sarka!" spoke Dalis suddenly. "At what time do you estimate that the flight of the Earth in its...o...b..t will be materially affected?"
"It is being affected this moment, Dalis, shifting the Ovidum store!"
said Sarka shortly. "Within twelve hours we will be in readiness to start our journey!"
Remaining absolutely motionless within the domed laboratory, it was now possible to feel the ever so slight motion, not only of the laboratory, but of the mountain crest upon which it rested. Not so much a to-and-fro motion as a round-about motion.
Just as the slightest sound flies outward through s.p.a.ce endlessly, and the slightest vibration moves outward until the end of time and of s.p.a.ce, Sarka knew that the vibration set up by the Beryl, slight though it was, was already being felt at the Poles of the Earth. Not enough to be noticed there, but existant, just the same.