They were standing now by the opened door of one of the Red Spark"s private insulated rooms. We caught a glimpse of its interior, a gaily set table with a bank of colored lights over it.
The figure of a man was in there. He was on his feet, as though he had just arrived to meet the Martians here, and a hooded long cloak enveloped him. It may have been a magnetic "invisible" cloak, with the current now off.
We caught only the fleetest of impressions before the insulated door closed and barred our vision. The glimpse was an accident. Molo, taken by surprise at this appearance of his visitor, could hardly have guarded against it. The waiting figure was very tall, some ten feet, and very thin. The hood shrouded his face and head. In his hand he held a large circular box of black shiny leather, of the sort in which women carry wide-brimmed hats. As Molo joined him he put the box gently on the floor. He handled it as though it were extraordinarily heavy; and as he took a step or two, he seemed weighted down. Just as the room door was hastily closing, Meka sliding it from the inside, we caught a fleeting glimpse of horror.
The lid of the hat box had lifted up. Inside was a great round thing of gray-white, a living thing; a distended ball of membrane, with a network of veins and blood-vessels showing beneath the transparent skin.
For the instant we gazed, stricken. The ball was palpitating, breathing! I saw convolutions of inner tissue under the transparent skin of membrane; a little tentacle, like an arm with a flat-webbed hand, was holding up the lid of the box. The lid rose a trifle higher; the colored lights overhead gave us a brief but clear view of it.
The thing in the box was a huge living brain. I saw goggling, protruding eyes; an orifice that could have been a nose, and a gash upended for a vertical mouth. It was a face. And the little tentacle arm holding up the box-lid was joined to where the ear should have been.
Was this something human? A huge distended human brain, with the body withered to that tiny arm?
The palpitating thing sank down in the box and the lid dropped. And upon our horrified gaze the insulated door of the room slid too.
"By the G.o.ds!" exclaimed Halsey. "One of them dares come to the Red Spark. Here, almost in public."
So Halsey knew what this meant. His eyes were blazing now; his face was white, with an intensity of emotion that transfigured it.
"Francis, tell Foley I"ll be in the manager"s office in five minutes."
He snapped off; our image connection with the Red Spark went dead.
"We"re going to the Red Spark," he announced. "This changes everything, yet I don"t know. Venza, I may need you more than ever, now."
Halsey herded us to the office door. From his desk he had s.n.a.t.c.hed up a few portable instruments, and he flung on a cloak.
It was a brief trip to the Red Spark, on foot through the sub-cellar arcade to where, under Park Circle 29, we went up in a vertical lift to the roof. We were in the side entrance oval of the restaurant in five minutes.
In the dim metal room of Orentino, the Red Spark"s manager, a barrage was up and Foley was waiting for us. We could hear it faintly humming.
Now we could talk.
Halsey slammed the door down. He said swiftly, "My men caught one of these things this morning. They have it now and I think Molo does not yet know we captured it. A brain; we"re convinced it understands English and can talk, but no one has been able to make it talk yet.
Foley, order that d.a.m.ned Orentino to de-insulate the room Molo is in.
Now, by the G.o.ds, we may see and hear something."
The frightened manager of the Red Spark was in the control room.
Halsey killed our barrage to let the outside connections get through to us. We all crowded around the mirror-grid which stood on Orentino"s desk. Foley gave us connection with the control room. We saw Orentino"s face, his eyes nearly popping with fright. "Colonel Halsey, I will do whatever you tell me."
"What room is that Martian occupying?"
"Insulated 39."
"Break off the insulation. Do it slowly and he may not notice. Then give us connection, audio and vision."
"But I have no image-finders in the insulated rooms."
"Cut off the barrage. I"ll get connection there."
Foley was already setting up his eavesdropper on the desk. The mirror blurred a little; then it clarified. We had the interior of the secret room, and voices were coming out of Foley"s tiny receiver.
The image showed the box on the floor, with its lid down. The tall hooded shape of the stranger stood with Molo and his sister by the table. They were talking in swift, vehement undertones. The language was Martian, a dialect princ.i.p.ally used in Ferrok-Shahn. Our equipment brought it in and I could understand it.
Molo was saying: "But you are the fool to have dared to come here!"
"The master knows that there is danger. Something is wrong." The hooded stranger spoke like a foreigner, but not a Martian, nor an Earthman, and not like any person of Venus I had ever heard. It was a strange, indescribable intonation, a flat, hollow voice.
"I say the master is concerned."
"Let him be."
"And he demanded I bring him here to find you. He is displeased that you are here."
What gruesome thing was this? Their glances seemed to go to the box on the floor at their feet, as though the master were in there. But the lid of the box did not rise.
"Well, you have found me," Molo declared impatiently. "When you know me better, always you will find I have my wits. The thing is for tomorrow night, not tonight."
"But that, my master is not sure." The hollow voice was deferential but insistent. "He fears danger; something has gone wrong. He is working on it now, striving to receive the message! There is a message. He knows that much. Perhaps from our world, Wandl, itself."
For a moment Molo had no answer. His sister had not spoken. I noticed that her gaze seemed roving the room.
"What is it I should do?" Molo asked at last.
"Come with us to your home-room."
"But I have everything ready there. The contact is ready for tomorrow night. Your world will control Earth."
"But if it be tonight?"
Again Molo was silent. My breath stopped. On our mirror I saw the stranger"s hood part just a little. There seemed to be no face; just the blur of something brownish.
"But if it be tonight?" the voice insisted.
"I will go," Molo said abruptly, "but your coming here was dangerous.
Suppose we cannot get out undetected? You know I will never go to where all our instruments are set up and have some d.a.m.nable spy follow me. Is all going well on Venus and Mars?"
"Yes. My master feels so. He seems to get messages. The contacts will be made simultaneously." A gruesome chuckle. "The capture of these three worlds. We shall have all three enchained at once. Helpless."
The lid of the black box seemed again about to rise when there came a sharp cry from Meka. "This room is not insulated!"
Our eavesdropping was discovered. Beside me, I heard Halsey give a low curse. On our mirror we saw sudden action. The ten-foot, cloaked figure laboriously lifted the black box, and swung with it toward the outer wall of the room. I saw now clearly with what a dragging, heavy tread that giant shape moved, as though it weighed, here on Earth, far more than the normal weight to which it was accustomed.
"Over there!" Molo gasped. "The escape-port; this room has one. Meka, go with him. I will join you. You know where."
Foley cried, "Colonel, I may be able to stop them!"
But Halsey saw on our image that Molo was staying. "Wait. Let them go.
If we have the Martian here, that"s better."