With a gesture of respect, the girl withdrew, pa.s.sing from our sight down the incline which led to the lower part of the house.
It was a very small incident, but in view of what was transpiring, it gave me a shock nevertheless.
For Elza"s maid was a Venus girl!
CHAPTER III
_Spy in the House_
The insulated room was small, with a dome-shaped ceiling, no windows, and but one small, heavy door through which we entered, closing it carefully behind us.
"At last," Dr. Brende exclaimed. "Now we can talk freely."
But I was not satisfied. "That girl, Ahla--can you trust her?"
They all looked at me in surprise. When one is close to danger, sometimes one recognizes it least; with Ahla in this household for over a year now, they could not imagine her an enemy.
"I saw her looking up at the insulator," I added swiftly. "Out there in the corridor. Am I talking wild? Perhaps I am. But she seemed startled; and she was standing just under the insulator, wasn"t she?"
"But--" began Elza.
"Wait," I exclaimed. "When I first saw the President fall, at Park Sixty, I felt that a Venus man had done it. These other murders--they"re all the same. Done by Venus men of the Cold Country."
"Ahla"s country," Elza murmured.
"Yes. Exactly. And the Venus Central State has been attacked and has fallen. An a.s.sa.s.sination on Mars, and three here on Earth--all simultaneously. It"s one gigantic plot, I tell you--and the Cold Country of Venus is at the bottom of it."
Georg jumped to his feet. "I"ll see if the room has been tampered with."
He was back presently. "The insulator is intact. I set the alarm bell.
If she touches it--"
"Where is she?"
"In the cookery, where she should be. I told her we would eat in an hour. That ought to keep her busy."
Dr. Brende made an attempt at a smile. "I think we are all a little overwrought--though with reason, no doubt. Sit down, Jac. Elza, come here by me. Don"t look so solemn, child."
He drew Elza to him, with his arm about her. I would have spoken, but his gesture checked me. "I have much to say, Jac. I think I understand these events, perhaps better than any of you. Let me go back two years--when I was in the Venus Central State."
I nodded my remembrance; and he went on:
"At that time the authorities there were greatly perturbed. They were menaced by rebellion in the Cold Country. They would not let the Cold Country people into the Central State, for it is already overcrowded.
You did not know that, did you?"
"You mean the threatened rebellion?" I asked. "They were trying to keep it secret, but we heard rumors."
"Just so. And Jac, I will tell you why they kept it secret. The Central State was encouraging emigration to the Earth. The Venus Cold Country is a poor place to live in--and on a whole its inhabitants are miserable people. Villainous, too, I should say. The Central State did not want them within its borders; and so it kept secret its troubles with them--and encouraged emigration to the Earth.
"We--as you know--make no distinction between Venus people. We are friendly with the Central State, and the Cold Country is governed by it--or was until tonight. Thus, you see, we have been in the position of having to receive these renegade immigrants. Shut out from all the good land and decent climate of Venus, they began coming here.
"But we did not want them, and of late we have been holding them off, cutting the quota allowed very materially. Last week, as you also know, in Triple Conference, our three races decided to allow at each Inferior Conjunction of the Earth and Venus, so small a quota that the Central State protested vigorously.
"The controversy has been hot; but the Central State--trying to foist off its undesirables on us--knows it is in the wrong. And fundamentally, it is friendly to us--I think it has proven that in the last two hours."
Again I would have spoken, but he went on at once.
"I know you"re familiar with most of this, Jac. But you news-gatherers sometimes reason in too lurid a fashion. Let me go on. Mars was drawn into the affair. To extricate ourselves, we offered to admit--under temporary guard--all Venus immigrants who would pa.s.s on at once--at the first astronomical opportunity--to Mars. This would have been very nice for us--but not for Mars."
"They are hot-headed, in Mars," Georg commented.
"Quite so," said the doctor. "But very direct and forceful, nevertheless. They met our suggestion with a law excluding Venus immigrants entirely. It was this, I think, that precipitated tonight"s events--though of course they must have been brewing for a long time."
"This Tarrano--" I began.
"I heard of him when I was in Venus," said Dr. Brende. "He was at that time a lower official in the Cold Country. Evidently he has risen in his world.
"I come now to conjecture--but I think it must be fairly close to truth.
Tarrano, leading the Cold Country, has risen to open rebellion. His attack upon the Central State must have come suddenly--"
"You mean, just this evening?" Elza asked.
"No, of course not. But hoping to quell the rebellion, the Central State has suppressed news of it. At such a time--with this controversy going on--such reports would only injure the Central State"s inter-planetary position. That"s obvious, isn"t it? Then tonight, when things were desperate, the Central State gave out its call. Tarrano has conquered Venus, I"m sure. And at the last, before destroying its helio, the Central State tried to warn us."
"Of what?" I demanded. "And what about these murders?"
"Done by emissaries of Tarrano, no doubt. For revenge, because of the Martian and Earth legislation--or for--"
"I think we should not speculate too much," said Georg. "At least, not on that line. They warned you personally, father. We were so careful to keep everything secret--"
Dr. Brende mopped his forehead. He was trying to appear calm--I knew he did not want unduly to alarm Elza; but I could see that he was laboring under great emotion nevertheless.
"Things get out, Georg," he said. "We have been careful--yes. But two years ago, when I visited the Central State, I told them there what I hoped to accomplish. There were no grave inter-planetary problems then--I thought I had no need of great secrecy. And since then, though, we have been very careful--"
Careful! With a Venus girl from the Cold Country living in their household! Truly, humans are a strange mixture of sagacity and folly!
"The Central State has heard something concerning you," Georg said.
"That could easily happen--prisoners captured from Tarrano"s forces, for instance. With dispatches--or perhaps some intercepted aerial message."
What was this secret they were discussing? I was the only one in the room who did not know it. And why had Dr. Brende sent for me tonight?
I asked him both questions. His face went even more solemn than it had been before.
"I sent for you, Jac, because in a measure I antic.i.p.ated what has now befallen. Danger specifically to us Brendes, I mean. We count you as our friend--"