Tolto, taken slightly by surprise, met this new menace promptly.
Placing his powerful forearm against the battered, hairy face, he attempted to bend the head back. But it was so small, in proportion, and so slippery with blood, that he was unable to dislodge it.
So Tolto matched brute strength against brute strength. His arms encircled his enemy"s body, and the tremendous muscles of his shoulders and body began to arch.
So they stood poised for a few seconds, as if on the brink of eternity.
"Go-o-o-wie!" exclaimed one of the soldiers, awed.
Slowly, like the agonizingly slow plastic creep of metal under great pressure, the gorilla-faced giant was yielding. His dark skin became mottled. His breath came gaspingly. His rope-knotted arms slipped a little.
But it was not in him to surrender, which might still have saved his life. With a vicious twisting motion of his head he tried to drag his fangs through the thick muscles of Tolto"s shoulder. The wound began to bleed more freely, choking the savage at each labored breath.
Now Tolto began to walk forward. Always his antagonist had to yield a little, unwillingly, grudgingly, just enough to keep the paralyzing pressure on his spine from becoming unbearable. And slowly, inexorably, Tolto followed. His arms tightened. His leg slipped suddenly between the ape-faced man"s supports. Tolto grunted. The sound seemed to labor upward from his innermost being, his body"s protest as he called upon it for its last reserve of strength.
Like an echo, there was a dull crack, a brief, agonized moan from the ape-faced one; and the savage, unknown giant slumped to the pavement, dead with a broken back. Tolto staggered to the wall, breathing deeply.
"Man, what a fight! What a _fight_!" The young Martian captain pa.s.sed a shaking hand over his face. The battle had stirred him more deeply than he wanted to admit. But in a few seconds he came out of his mental maze.
"Attention! All right, men, you"re under arrest. As for the girl--"
"As for the girl," came a clear feminine voice, as Sira stepped out from the shelter of a b.u.t.tress some dozen feet away, "--the girl took advantage of your preoccupation to relieve you of your neuros. As you see I have two of them in my hand. The rest of them are over by that wall. No! Don"t try to rush! You are welcome to your swords, but they are useless here."
CHAPTER XII
"_He Must Be a Man of Earth_"
Friend and foe looked stupefied. But they were used to the give and take of battle. That this girl should disarm a detachment of soldiers while they and their own men were absorbed in such a common thing as a fight struck them as humorous. They laughed.
"This is a better break then we deserve," Sime said, grinning with a trace of sheepishness. "Captain, you take your men across the street and hold "em there. We"re going to borrow your car. No funny stuff!"
Civilians were flooding into the streets. There would soon be a mob.
"We will not," replied the captain, "try any funny stuff. Some day, my friend, I hope to open you up with my sword," he added.
"By all means," Sime agreed pleasantly. "My time is pretty well occupied, but there"s no telling when I may meet you again, in my business. Good day, Captain!"
Tuman stayed at the front gate with his neuro while the others struggled through the weedy garden to the police ship in the alley, rejoining them as they were ready to rise.
A crowd had gathered. If they wondered at the appearance of these ragged, scarred and bewhiskered men; at sweat and blood-covered giant Tolto; the obviously high-bred girl in the laboring man"s garments, they wisely refrained from comment or action, in deference to the neuros with which the party was bristling.
Once inside and safely in the air, they had time to breathe. Murray, with a gallantry that sat ill on the scarecrow figure he was, cleared matters up a trifle.
"Princess Sira? As I thought. Princess, or Your Highness, to be formal, I am your humble and disreputable servant, Lige Murray, of the Interplanetary Flying Police. Likewise this gentleman behind the brush--Sime Hemingway. You know Tuman? You"ve missed something, Your Highness! And Tolto! Lucky man!"
Sira recovered quickly from her reaction following the fight. She found a first-aid kit, bandaged Tolto"s wounded shoulder skilfully and quickly. She had given no sign of recognition as Sime awkwardly bowed, during Murray"s introduction, but now, as Sime held a roll of bandage for her, she gave him a sidewise look, agleam with mischief.
"But I have decided to remit the punishment--the sentence I pa.s.sed on you, Mr. Hemingway," she said, her sweet, child-like face innocent.
"What punishment?" Sime gasped.
"Why, the punishment of death! For kissing me that night!" she laughed, turning her back.
Murray was heading back for the government park. It was a short distance with the police car. Soon the broad grounds, with their scattered, magnificent buildings, lay below them. But the parks were strangely bare of living creatures. Here and there lay the bodies of men or women.
"Something"s happened!" Murray shouted excitedly. "Look out!"
He swerved the ship sharply. They escaped damage as an atomic bomb, unskilfully aimed, exploded far to one side.
"Funny thing, firing on a police car," Sime puzzled. "They might have got news from that detachment we grounded, but how do they know this isn"t some other police or military car?"
"Those aren"t soldiers," Murray decided. "There"s been a riot, and some civilian"s got hold of an ato-projector."
"I know what"s happened!" Sira exclaimed suddenly. "Wasil--a technie--has managed to broadcast the secret session! That upset their psychology. Oh!" Her face was alight, and she threw up her arms in ecstasy. As quickly she subsided, and tears came to her eyes.
"Wasil!" she cried. "If he is dead, Mellie will never forgive me!"
"Where is this technie?" Sime asked bruskly.
"In the broadcast room. But they have probably killed him."
"Never can be sure. Head her smack for the main entrance, Murray!"
Murray threw the car into a steep dive, and the hall portal rushed up to meet them. A soldier came partially out of concealment, waved a signal. Murray paid him no heed.
They struck with a crash. The stout car crushed through the glittering doors of metal and gla.s.s, and before the fragments fell the four men were in the thick of short, sharp and decisive battle. Their neuros hissed venomously, spanged as they met opposing beams. And the princess, struggling through the wreckage, wept tears of rage as the coa.r.s.e fabric of her clothing caught, entangled hopelessly, and held her.
"Something queer!" Murray said, as they halted for breath after routing what little opposition they had encountered. "Maybe it"s a trap. But what an expensive trap for somebody! Where"s this broadcasting plant?"
"This way!" Tuman called eagerly. "Maybe we can still save the poor fellow who turned the trick. Broadcast the secret sessions! Don"t tell me that little girl isn"t fit to rule!"
The heavy metal doors were open, and they hurried in. But Tolto, noting that the princess had not followed, hurried out in search for her.
Sime stumbled over a body. It had been a dark, sleek, youngish man. A jagged burn on his throat told of the needle-ray. "Who"s this fellow, Murray?"
Murray glanced at the body. He smiled a brief smile of satisfaction.
"That"s Scar Balta. Got what"s coming to him at last. Help me with this bird: he"s still alive. Cold, though!"
"Got a shot of neuro. Could this be the technie?"