"I think that girl I picked up is the Princess Sira," he told the old woman. "On the fish buyer"s barge, in the teletabloid machine, I saw the forecast of her wedding to Scar Balta. And I"ll swear it"s the same girl!"
"And why," queried his wife, "would she be swimming in the middle of the ca.n.a.l if she was getting ready to marry Scar Balta?"
"That"s just it!" the deacon exclaimed, and his eyes began to roll again. "They say it"s not a love match! Oh, not in the teletabloid!
They wouldn"t dare hint such a thing. But the men on the barge. They say there"s a rumor that she ran away. And she looks like the girl I picked up, though I thought--"
"Never mind what you thought!" she snapped. "It may be, I served the oligarchy and the n.o.ble houses--before I was fool enough to run away with a no-good fisherman--and I can see she is a lady. Well, she can trust in me."
"They say," the deacon hinted, "that if one went to Tarog, and inquired at the proper place, there would be a reward."
The little old woman chilled him, she looked so deadly.
"Deacon Homms!" she hissed. "If you sell this poor little girl to Scar Balta, your hypocritical white eyes will never roll again, because I"ll tear them out and feed them to the fish. Understand?"
Considerably shaken, the deacon said he understood.
But the next morning, on the placid bosom of the ca.n.a.l, he forgot her warning. The fleshpots of Tarog called him. Tarog, where he had spent youth and money with a lavish hand. Tarog, where a reward awaited him.
He hauled in his anchor, gave the unwieldy boat to the current and bent to the oars.
Back in the hut, unsuspecting of treachery, Mrs. Homms and Sira were rapidly striking up a friendship. A shrewd judge, of character herself, Sira did not hesitate to admit her ident.i.ty, and without any prying questioning the old woman soon had the whole story. It thrilled her, this review of the life she had once seen as a servant.
"I wonder if I will ever see Tarog again!" she sighed wistfully.
"You shall!" Sira promised, "if you help me."
"I will do what I can gladly."
"I need a workingman"s trousers and blouse, and a sun-hat that will shade my face. I have a plan, but I must get to Tarog. Can you get me these things?"
"I have no money, but wait!" She rummaged with gnarled fingers in a c.h.i.n.k in the wall, withdrew a small brooch-pin of gold, with a pink terrestrial pearl in its center.
"My last mistress gave me this," she said smiling sadly. "I will row to the trading boat and buy what you need. There will be a little money left to buy your pa.s.sage on a freight barge."
And that was why, when the deacon arrived at the head of a squad of soldiers that evening, there was no girl of any description to be found. Ignoring the cowering and unhappy reward seeker, the old woman delivered her dictum to the sergeant in charge.
"Princess? Ha! The deacon, sees princesses and mermaids in every mud bank. His imagination grew too and crowded out his conscience. No, mister, there ain"t any princess here."
CHAPTER VIII
_In the Desert_
Mellie, Sira"s personal maid, was too disturbed by her mistress"s kidnaping to seek other employment. She saw the teletabloid forecasts of the wedding, made life-like by clever technical faking, but rumors of the princess" escape were circulating freely despite a rigid censorship. She imagined that lovely body down in the muck of the ca.n.a.l, crawled over by slimy things, and she was sick with horror.
Mellie lived with her brother, Wasil Hopspur, and her aged mother.
Wasil was an accomplished technician in the service of the Interplanetary Radio and Television Co., and his income was ample to provide a better than average home on the desert margin of South Tarog. Here Mellie sat in the gla.s.s-roofed garden, staring moodily at the luxuriant vegetation.
She looked abstractedly at the young man coming down the garden walk, annoyed by the disturbance. There was something familiar in the sway of his hips as he walked.
And then she flew up the path. Her arms went around the visitor, and Mellie, the maid, and Princess Sira kissed.
Mellie was immediately confused. A terrible breach of etiquette, this.
But Sira laughed.
"Never mind, Mellie. It is good for me, a fugitive, to find a home.
Will you keep me here?"
"Will I?" Mellie poured into these words all her adoration.
"Mellie, the time has come for action. Not for the monarchy. I am sick of my claims. I would give it all--You remember the young officer of the I. F. P.? The one who kissed me?"
"Yes."
"Well, that comes later. First I must consider the war conspiracy.
Have you heard of it?"
"There are rumors."
"They are true. Will Wasil help me?"
"He has worshiped you, my princess, ever since the time I let him help me serve you at the games."
"One more question." Sira"s eyes were soft and misty. "My dear Mellie, you realize that I may be trailed here? What may happen to you?"
"Yes, my princess. And I don"t care!"
As Murray parted from his brother-in-arms, Sime Hemingway, on the roof of the cylindrical fortress in the Gray Mountains, he felt the latter"s look of bitter contempt keenly. He longed bitterly to give Sime some hint, some a.s.surance, but dared not, for Scar Balta"s cynical smile somehow suggested that he could look through men and read what was in their hearts. So Murray played out his renegade part to the last detail, even forcing his thoughts into the role that he had a.s.sumed in order that some unregarded detail should not give him away. He convinced the other I. F. P. man, anyway.
But Murray had an uneasy feeling that Balta was laughing at him, and when the shifty soldier politician invited him into his ship for the ride back to Tarog, Murray had a compelling intuition that he would not be in a position to step out of the ship when it landed on the parkway of Scar Balta"s hotel.
Having infinite trust in his intuitions, Murray thereupon made certain plans of his own.
He noted that the ship, which was far more luxurious than one would expect a mere army colonel to own, had a trap-door in the floor of the main salon. Murray pondered over the purpose of this trap. He could not a.s.sign any practical use for it, in the ordinary use of the ship.
But he could not escape the conviction that it would be a splendid way to get rid of an undesirable pa.s.senger. Dropped through that trap-door a man"s body would have an uninterrupted fall until it smashed on the rocks below.
Murray then examined the neuro-pistol that had been given him. It looked all right. But when he broke the seal and unscrewed the little gla.s.s tube in the b.u.t.t, he discovered that it was empty. The gray, synthetic radio-active material from which it drew its power had been removed.
Murray grinned at this discovery, without mirth. It was conclusive.