"Oh, I decided to walk a bit. After a block or two, it occurred to me that I should like to ride. There was a car parked there with the keys in it, and the driver was talking on the sidewalk, so I slipped in, started it, and drove away. Naturally I drove rather fast, since he was shouting, and at the second corner I hit a little boy.
"And-you didn"t stop?"
"Of course not. I drove around the corner, turned another corner or two, and then parked the car and walked back. The boy was gone, but the crowd was still there. Not one of them noticed me." She smiled her saintlike smile. "We"re quite safe. They can"t possibly trace me."
Scott dropped his head on his hands and groaned. "I don"t know what to dol l " he muttered. "Kyra, you"re going to have to report this to the police."
"But it was an accident," she said gently, her luminous silver eyes pityingly on Scott. "No matter.
You"ll have to."
She placed her white hand on his head. "Perhaps tomor-row," she said. "Dan, I have learned something. What one needs in this world is power. M long as there are people in the world with more power than I, I run afoul of them. They keep trying to punish me with their laws-and why? Their laws are not for me. They cannot punish me."
He did not answer.
"Therefore," she said softly, "tomorrow I go out of here to seek power. I will be more powerful than any laws."
That shocked him to action. "Lyra!" he cried. "You"re not to try to leave here again." He gripped her shoulders. "Promise me! Swear that you"ll not step beyond that door without me!"
"Why, if you wish," she said quietly.
"But swear it! Swear it by everything sacred!"
Her silver eyes looked steadily into his from a face like that of a marble angel. "I swear it," she murmured. "By any-thing you name, I swear it, Dan."
And in the morning she was gone, taking what cash and bills had been in Scott"s wallet, and in Bach"s as well. And, they discovered later, in Mrs. Getz"s also.
"But if you could have seen her!" muttered Scott. "She looked straight into my eyes and promised, and her face was pure as a madonna"s. I can"t believe she was lying."
"The lie as an adaptive mechanism," said Bach, "deserves more attention than ithas received. Probably the original liars are those plants and animals that use protective mimicry _harmless snakes imitating poisonous ones, stingless flies that look like bees. Those are living lies."
"But she couldn"t-"
"She has, however. What you"ve told me about her desire for power is proof enough. She"s entered the second adaptive phase-that of adapting her environment to herself instead of herself to her environment. How far will her madness-or her genius-carry her? There is very little difference between the two, Dan. And what is left now "for us to do but watch?"
"Watch? How? Where is she?"
"Unless I"m badly mistaken, watching her will be easy once she begins to achieve. Wherever she is, Ithink we-and the rest of the world-will know of it soon enough."
But weeks dropped away without sign of Kyra Zelas. Scott and Bach returned to their duties at Grand Mercy, and down in his laboratory the biochemist disposed grimly of the re-mains of three guinea pigs, a cat, and a dog, whose killing had been an exhausting and sickening task. In the crematory as well went a tube of water-clear serum.
Then one day the annunciator summoned him to Bach"s office, where he found the old man hunched over a copy of the Post Record.
"Look here!" he said, indicating a political gossip column called "Whirls of Washington."
Scott read, "And the surprise of the evening was the sal-disant confirmed bachelor of the cabinet, upright John Callan, who fluttered none other than the gorgeous Kyra Maas, the lady who affects a dark wig by day and a white by night. Some of us remember her as the acquittee of a murder trial."
Scott looked up. "Callan, eh? Secretary of the Treasury, no less! When she said power she meant power, apparently."
"But will she stop there?" mused Bach gloomily. "I. have a premonition that she"s just beginning."
"Well,; actually, how far can a woman go?"
The old man looked at him. "A woman? This is Kyra Zelas, Dan, Don"t set your limits yet. There will be more of her."
Bach was right. Her name began to appear with increasing frequency, first in social connections, then with veiled refer-ences to secret intrigues and influences.
Thus: "Whom do the press boys mean by the tenth cabi-neteer?" Or later: "Why not a secretary of personal relations? She has the powers; give her the name." And still later: "One has to go back to Egypt for another instance of a country whose exchequer was run by a woman. And Cleopatra busted that one."
Scott grinned a little ruefully to himself as he realized that the thrusts were becoming more indirect, as if the press itself were beginning to grow cautious. It was a sign of increasing power, for nowhere are people as sensitive to such trends as among the Washington correspondents. Kyra"s appearance in the public prints began to be more largely restrained to purely social affairs, and usually in connection with John Callan, the forty-five-year-old bachelor Secretary of the Treasury.
Waking or sleeping, Scott never for a moment quite forgot her, for there was something mystical about her, whether shewere mad or a woman of genius, whether freak or super-woman. The only thing he did forget was a thin girl with drab features and greasy black hair who had lain on a pallet in the isolation ward and coughed up flecks of blood.
It was no surprise to either Scott or Dr. Bach to return one evening to Bach"s residence for a few hours" conversation, and find there, seated as comfortably as if she had never left it, Kyra Zelas.
Outwardly she had changed but little; Scott gazed once more in fascination on her incredible hair and wide, in-nocent silver eyes. She was smoking a cigarette, and she ex-haled a long, blue plume of smoke and smiled up at him.
He hardened himself. "Nice of you to honor us," he said coldly. "What"s the reason for this visit? Did you run out of money?"
"Money? Of course not. How could I run out of money?" "You couldn"t, not as long as you replenished your funds the way you did when you left."
"Oh that!"" she said contemptuously. She opened her hand-bag, indicating a greenma.s.s of bills. "I"ll give that back, Dan. How much was it?"
"To h.e.l.l with the money!" he blazed. "What hurts me is the way you lied. Staring into my eyes as innocent as a -baby, and lying all the time!"
"Was I?" she asked. "I won"t lie to you again, Dan. I prom- ise."
"I don"t believe you," he said bitterly. "Tell us what you"re doing here, then."
"I wanted to see you. I haven"t forgotten what I said to you, Dan." With the words she seemed togrow more beauti-ful than ever, and this time poignantly wistful as well.
"And have you," asked Bach suddenly, "abandoned your idea of power?"
"Why should I want power?" she rejoined innocently, flash-ing her magnificent eyes to him, "But you said," began Scott impatiently, "that you-"
"Did I?" There was a ghost of a smile on her perfect lips. "I won"
t lie to you, Dan," she went on, laughing a little. "If I want power, it is mine for the taking-more power than you dream."
"Through John Callan?" he rasped.
"He offers a simple way," she said impa.s.sively. "Suppose, for instance, that in a day or so he were to issue a statement --; supremely insulting statement-about the war debts. The administration couldn"t afford to reprimand him openly, because most .of the voters feel that a supremely insulting statement is called for. And if it were insulting enough-and I a.s.sure you it would be-you would see the animosity of Europe directed westward.
"Now, if the statement were one that no national govern-ment could ignore and yet keep its dignity in the eyes of its people, it would provoke counter-insults. And there are three nations-you know their names as well as I -who await only such "a diversion of interest. Don"t you see?" She frowned.
"How stupid you both are!" she murmured, and then, stretching her glorious figure and yawning, "I wonder what sort of empress I would make. A good one, doubtless."
But Scott was aghast. "Kyra, do you mean you"d urge Callan into such a colossal blunder as that?"
"Urge him!" she echoed contemptuously. "I"d force hint" "Do you mean you"d do it?"
"I haven"t said so," she smiled. She yawned again, and snapped her cigarette into the dark fi r eplace.
"I"ll stay here a day or two," she added pleasantly, rising. "Good night."
Scott faced Dr. Bach as she vanished into the old man"s chamber. "d.a.m.n her!" he grated, his lips white. "If I believed she meant all of that."
"You"d better believe it," said Bach.
"Empress, eh! Empress of what?"
"Of the world, perhaps. You can"t set limits to madness or genius."
"We"ve got to stop her!"
"How? We can"t keep her locked up here. In the first place, she"d doubtless develop strength enough in her wrists to break the locks on the doors, and if she didn"t, all she"d need to do is shout for help from a window."
"We can have her adjudged insane!" flared Scott. "We can have her locked up where she can"t break out or call for help."
"Yes, we could. We could if we could get her committed by the Sanity Commission. And if we -got her before them, what chance do you think we"d have?"
"All right, then," said Scott grimly, "we"re going to have to find her weakness. Her adaptability can"t be infinite. She"simmune to drugs and immune to wounds, but she can"t be above the fundamental laws of biology. What we have to do is find the law we need."
"You find it then," said Bach ,gloomily.
"But we"ve , got to do something. At least we can warn people-" He broke off, realizing the utter absurdity of the idea.
"Warn people!" scoffed Bach. "Against what? We"d be the ones to go before the Sanity Commission then. Callan would ignore us with dignity, and Kyra would laugh her pretty little laugh of contempt, and that would be that."
Scott shrugged helplessly. "I"m staying here tonight, ".
he said. "At least we can ilk to her again tomorrow." "If she"s still here," remarked Bach ironically.
But she was. She came out as Scott was reading the morning papers alone in the library, and sat silently opposite him, garbed in black silk lounging pajamas against which her alabaster skin and incredible hair glowed in startling contrast He watched skin and hair turn faintly golden as the morning sun lightened the chamber. Somehow it angered him that she should be so beautiful and at the same time deadly with an inhuman deadliness.He spoke first. "You haven"t committed any murders since our last meeting, I hope." He said it spitefully, viciously.
She was quite indifferent. "Why should I? It has not been necessary:"
"You know, Kyra," he said evenly, "that you ought to he killed."
But not by you, Dan. You love me."
He said nothing. The fact was too obvious to deny.
"Dan," she said softly, "if you only had my courage, there is no height we might not reach together. No height-if you had the courage to try. That is why I came back here, but-" She shrugged. "I go back to Washington tomorrow."
Later in the day Scott got Bach alone. "She"s going to-morrow!" he said tensely. "Whatever we can do has to be done tonight."
The old man gestured helplessly. "What can we do? Can you think of any law that limits adaptability?"
"No, but-" He paused suddenly. "By Heaven!" he cried. "I can! I"ve got it!"
"What?"
"The law! A fundamental biological law that must be Kyra"s weakness!"
"But what?"
"This! No organism can live in its own waste products! Its own waste is poison to any living thing!"
"But-"
"Listen. Carbon dioxide is a human waste product. Kyra Can"t adapt to an atmosphere of carbon dioxide!"
Bach stared. "By "Heaven!"" he cried. "But even if you"re right, how-"
"Wait a minute. You can get a couple of cylinders of carbonic acid gas from Grand Mercy. Can you think of any way of getting the gas into her room?"
"Why-this is an old house. There"s a hole from her room to the one I"m using, where the radiator connection goes through. It"s not tight; we could get a rubber tube past the pipe."
"Good!
"But the windows! Sh.e.l.l have the windows open." "Never mind that," said Scott. "See that they"re soaped so they"ll close easily, that"s all."
"But even if it works, what good-Dan! You don"t mean to kill her?"
He shook his head. "I--couldn"t," he whispered. "But once she"s helpless, once. she"s overcome-if she is-you"ll operate. That operation on the pineal you suggested before. And may Heaven forgive me!"
Scott suffered the tortures of the d.a.m.ned that evening. Kyra was, if possible, lovelier than ever, and for the first time she seemed to exert herself to be charming. Her conversation was literally brilliant; she sparkled, and over and over Scott found himself so fascinated that the thought of the treachery he planned was an excruciating pain. It seemed almost a blasphemy to attempt violence against one whose outward appearance was so pure, so innocent, so saintlike.
"But she isn"t quite--human!" he told himself. "She"s not an angel but a female demon, a-what were they called? -an incubus!"
Despite himself, when at last Kyra yawned luxuriouslyand dropped her dainty feet to the floor to depart, he pleaded for a few moments more.
"But-it"s early," he said, "and tomorrow you leave." "I will return, Dan. This is not the end for us."
"I hope not," he muttered miserably, watching the door of her room as it clicked shut.
He gazed at Bach. The older man, after a moment"s silence; whispered, "It is likely that she sleeps almost at once. That"s also a matter of adaptability."
In tense silence they watched the thin line of light below the closed door. Scott started violently when, after a brief interval, her shadow crossed it and it disappeared with a faint click.