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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Astounding Stories, August 1935, with "The Son Of Redmask"
A hit! The Dongan pellets had hit the Purple Ball of the
Emperor. The ball shimmered, unharmed, untouched.
"Redmask of the Outlands" brought scores of letters to this office asking for a sequel—and here it is with its free cities and its wastelands—and even once again its turmoil and distrust bring back the legends of a great and beloved outlaw.
THE CITY-STATE of Washeen had fallen! The last home of democracy lay shattered and prostrate under the arrogant heel of the Purple Emperor. How could it have been otherwise when Yorrick, City of the Oligarchs, Pisbor, Domain of the Dictator, and Chico, Communist Soviet, as well as a hundred others on the American Continent, had already succumbed to the devastating flame that descended upon them out of the vast wastes of the frozen North?
For centuries they had endured under their diverse forms of government, sufficient each unto itself, mutually hostile and ineradicably suspicious, maintaining a minimum of commerce, wrapped in special defenses which they fondly believed impregnable to the mightiest weapons that human science could bring to bear. Of such were the Space-Warp that flowed in a solid cessation of light around Yorrick, the inconceivably compact hemisphere of Impermite that inclosed Pisbor, and the shimmering Web-Curtain behind which Chico hazed and danced like a mirage.
Only Washeen in all the Continent lay open to the winds of heaven, unprotected by any defense. In the olden days the reason for this folly had been plain. The democrats worked with their hands and earned their daily bread by the sweat of their bodies. No machines delved for them into the bowels of the earth, or raised tremendous towers and caste-delineating levels. Their food grew slowly and painfully to fruition in the warm, brown soil, subject to the capricious whims of sun and wind, of rain and snow; the tasteless though nutritious synthetic pellets of the city-states were not for them. Their wants were simple and their luxuries few. They possessed nothing to excite the greed or ambition of their highly organized, ultra-scientific neighbors.
Yet the democrats were content. Engraved in their hearts were the imperishable words once spoken in a time of drought and despondency: "Better to starve and die like free men, than to accept the assured physical comforts of regimented slaves in the city-states. Better our bodies perish than our souls!"
But to the Purple Emperor nothing was so mean, so insignificant as to escape his insatiable eye. Not Washeen, not the gloomy, impenetrable Outlands themselves. Those dread Outlands in whose interminable expanse of forest the outlaws—having fled from the city-states for numberless reasons—roamed in rude, wild freedom. Once they had been the scourge of the cities, compelling them to cower behind their defenses, raiding the airways with a boldness and piratical valor that made mock of even the most heavily guarded convoys that fled along the channel beams.
That, however, was in the days of Redmask, that strange, mysterious leader of the outlaws whose head was always encased in the flexible, blood-red globe from which he had taken his name. No one had ever seen his features—and lived; no one, that is, except Edward of the Hudsons.
Edward, being a man of honor as well as an Oligarch of Yorrick, had pledged his word to secrecy because of certain inestimable benefits conferred on him by the outlaw chief. But even Edward was dead now, thirty-five years after the event, slain in hopeless defense of his city against the massed might of the Purple Emperor.
Not that it mattered any more. For Redmask, it seemed, was also dead. At least he had disappeared as mysteriously as he had come, and the beleaguered city-states had breathed huge sighs of relief.
For the outlaws, lacking their leader, had quickly sunk back into their pristine disorganized condition, broken up into small futile bands, warring even among themselves. Only the oldsters, who had followed Redmask with blind adoration, shook their whitened, weary heads, and hoped for the return of the hero who had become by now only a myth and a legend.
For no one Connected him with a certain jester who, under the immunity of a licensed fool, had wandered from city to city and learned all secrets, and ultimately retired to his native town of Washeen, there to till his plot of ground in obscure industriousness, and marry, and have born to him a stalwart son.
But Edward of the Hudsons, in that last great battle in the submarine tunnels of Yorrick, had called desperately upon him for help through a transmitter whose beam waves were blanked by smothering impulses from the Purple Emperor's battle fleet. Such was the unquestioning faith that Redmask had excited in all men, even in the proudest of the Oligarchs.
THE Purple Emperor Sat ensphered in his great crystal ball and frowned. Over the city of Washeen it hovered, shimmering with faint violet light in the brilliant sunshine. All alone he sat within the orb, surrounded by banked mechanisms within easy reach of his long, predatory fingers. No one dared approach the sacred presence. Not since the days of the Oriental Potentates whom Alexander the Great overthrew, had there been on earth such a remote, enshrouded monarchy.
For the Purple Emperor was inscrutably wise. Man, even in the fifty-sixth century, had not changed much from an earlier era. The veiled figure, the inaccessible lord, the cryptic utterance, always excited an awe and a reverence not ordinarily given to the familiar neighbor, no matter how saintly or possessed of the wisdom of the angels.
He stared down at the still-smoking city through the univisual crystal. His flat, yellow-parchmented features, suspiciously like those of the Point Barrow Eskimos of an earlier time, smoldered with wrath.
The city of Washeen had cost him dearly. It had been a tiny, unprotected morsel, to be engulfed in one swift swallow, yet five of his invulnerable battle spheres lay shattered on the ground, and two of his best lieutenants were crisped, unrecognizable flesh within their hollows. The fact that several thousand of his Purple Horde mingled their still-smoldering ashes with the twain meant little or nothing. Warriors were cheap.
Nowhere had he encountered such resistance. Not since he had started on his all-conquering career. For years he had planned this coup, alone and solitary in his steamy cave, fed by subterranean fires, beneath the ice pack that overwhelmed the Magnetic Pole. Here he had fashioned and labored and taken all science to be his province.
At last he had harnessed that which he had set out to do. The supernal, almost illimitable forces of the earth's magnetic currents. The currents that concentrated at the Magnetic Pole in their utmost intensity. Fields of force that swarmed to the north from the countless billions of tons of nickel-iron of which the earth's core is fashioned. Fields of force that resulted from the dynamo-like axial spin of the planet against the space-time unit once known as the ether. Fields of force that encased the globe in a mighty blanket from the emanations of the sun, from cosmic rays, from all-pervasive light, from influences as yet unknown and undiscoverable.
The Purple Emperor tapped this mighty and inexhaustible reservoir of power, forced it through an intricate series of induction coils, tubes, power magnets, and spewed it out on an electromagnetic beam wave of inconceivable strength and intensity. The Purple Balls of the battle fleet were spheres of a crystalline synthetic substance called "polarium." Its molecules were closely crowded and could be polarized to any desired degree. That is, each molecule was a tiny magnet with north and south poles, and a graduated current from the beam of force swung them on their infinitesimal axes to predetermined places.
As a result, no other form of energy was needed for velocities limited only by the speed of light, for the motive power of Dongan units, ray projectors, conite disruptors and other terrible engines of destruction. And, according to the degree and incidence of polarization, enemy weapons could be made to pass harmlessly through the open interstices of the patterned molecules, or find an impregnable interlacing through which no matter or ethereal wave could force its way.
Furthermore—and this proved the most potent weapon of all in the hands of the Purple Emperor—magnetic reflectors attached to the battle spheres deflected the inexhaustible force beam, sent it swirling in all its unimaginable might against the special defenses of the city-states. The Impermite hemisphere under which Pisbor sheltered itself lifted bodily into the air and spewed out into space to become a new satellite. The cubed barracks of penetron, a highly magnetic substance, wrenched from the solid earth and followed with all their robot-like population.
THE web-curtain of Chico, essentially an electromolecular phenomenon, was shattered like thin, tinkling glass. The Communists put up a desperate, fanatical resistance. Only a few escaped the final slaughter.
Yorrick's Space-Warp, on the other hand, was a harder nut to crack. For two days and two nights the gravitational-flow machines battled valiantly to keep the impalpable limits intact against the mighty pull of the magnetic beam. It was a losing fight. The ceaseless thrust of power, bending space back to its normal flow, was too much for mere man-made machines.
The Oligarchs, under the leadership of Edward of the Hudsons, retired to the lower level of the workers, determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible. But retribution for centuries of oppression overwhelmed them. The workers revolted in a blaze of remembered wrongs, joined the invading Purple Horde, and led them by secret passageways to the last barricaded chamber. No quarter was asked, none given. The Oligarchs rose to ancient tradition, and died silently, valiantly.
Only one survived the holocaust—Anne of the Hudsons, daughter of Edward. Just before the final inundation of the maddened hordes her father thrust her, struggling and protesting, into a small one-passenger rocket car.
"I won't go without you," she cried.
"I want to die with you and the others."
Edward smiled sadly. "There is room only for one, dear. You are young and life is still ahead. As for us"—he looked around the pitifully small, grim circle of his comrades—"we cannot survive our city. We Oligarchs have lived, and therefore must die, according to tradition."
The beleaguered Oligarchs nodded approval. She was a woman; for her there was no disgrace in flight.
But Anne clung to her father passionately. "I am an Oligarch too," she sobbed. "I claim the same privilege."
An overwhelming roar filled the underground chambers with hideous mockery. The Purple Horde, led by revolting workers, had crashed the last sealed defense.
Edward lifted the struggling girl bodily, pushed her into the tiny car, levered the gleaming port into position.
"Head for the Washeen channel," he shouted above the din of approaching battle. "Ask for——"
But it was too late. Anne never knew who it was in Washeen for whom she was to ask. The spearhead of the assault was upon them. The last glimpse she had of her father was his white, anguished face, his open mouth shouting desperately a name she could not hear, and the port had slammed.
The next instant the tiny sealed car shot out of the specially contrived lock, bubbled through the dark waters of the ancient river, and catapulted under the blazing backthrust of its rockets into the warm air of heaven.
Luckily, the Purple Emperor, enthroned as always in his hovering Purple Ball, did not see the tiny fleeing speck. His attention was all on the naked, exposed city beneath. But the Washeen channel was cut off. The little car gyrated aimlessly over the savage sweep of the Outlands, while Anne, unaccustomed to the controls, strove desperately to straighten out her course. A reflected streamer of the magnetic beam caught the tiny vessel, sent it slanting on a long downward thrust toward the Outlands. The dense forest, bitter, impenetrable, filled with lurking wild beasts and wilder men, rushed up to meet the craft. There was a rending crash, and Anne was hurled unconscious against the metal side of the rocket car.
THE Purple Emperor looked inscrutably down at Washeen again. He pressed a button. The three-dimensional picture of Mogra, his first lieutenant, formed on the inner shell. Thus he could see all his cohorts, but none could see him. The Purple Emperor was only a dreadful voice to his men.
The simulacrum prostrated itself. "Ineffable One—your commands!"
The measured voice boomed in the ears of Mogra, ensconced in a battle sphere. "Have you discovered yet what it was that struck down five of our battleships?"
"No, Ineffable One," Mogra replied, trembling. "Thunderbolts lanced out of nothingness, and behold, they were gone!"
The Purple Emperor pondered. "You are certain it was no hidden weapon from the city itself?"
"Positive, Magnificence. I myself saw the bolts strike from above the craft. I turned my rays on the spot without result. The next lightning blast came from far over to the side. It was then that I ordered full interlocked polarization."
"After five of my ships and two of my best lieutenants were destroyed, Mogra."
The pictured image lifted its eyes blindly.
"You know the reason for that, Magnificence." That tone from the invisible Emperor boded ill for Mogra's continued well-being. "It makes us invulnerable, it is true, but our own weapons cannot fire. They too are interlocked. And the Washeen fools were still fighting back at us from their unprotected city, with their silly popguns."
A long, pregnant silence in which Mogra feared for his very life.
Then: "I wonder what it was," the Emperor mused.
"I think, Magnificence"—the lieutenant advanced hesitantly—"it might have been a rocket ship clothed in the mantle of invisibility. There were rumors, years ago, about an outlaw who termed himself Redmask."
A spasm passed over the flat, yellowish features of the Emperor. But Mogra could not see it. "Redmask is dead these many years," he said harshly, "and no trace was ever found of his vessel. It was a myth."
"Yes, Magnificence," the simulacrum answered humbly. "Perhaps"—it dared to raise its head again—"we should exterminate this stiff-necked race of fools who earned your righteous wrath."
The Emperor pondered. A subtle smile pulled down the corners of his broad, coarse lips. "No, Mogra. They are fools, but valiant fighters. I need such men to fill the depleted ranks of the Horde. Issue a proclamation, Mogra. All males between the ages of 18 and 45 shall present themselves for service to-morrow morning. It is an honor beyond their deserts."
"Your will is law, Magnificence." A button pressed, and the three-dimensional picture faded into nothingness.
STEPHEN HALLECK was old. His hair was white, and his limbs, though powerful, possessed none of the resiliency of youth. And there was infinite sadness in his eyes as he gazed out upon the ruin and desolation of his beloved city of Washeen. The mantle of inscrutability fell upon him as his gaze lifted to the ominous threat of the alien battle fleet above, and lingered strangely on the huge Purple Ball in which the Emperor sat enthroned, impregnable behind the permanently interlocked polarization of the sinning univisual polarium crystal.
For a moment a spark leaped and seared across his face, then it sheathed as he turned to the young man who stood, glowering and resentful, at his side. Once he had been like that, with tawny hair that retreated from bright-blue, ever-roving eyes. Just so had he stood, with easy flowing grace, confident of the wine of life that bubbled in his veins, owning no man to be his master. A clouded regret swept over him. His days were over, except for special spurts such as—— He roused himself.
He must act with speed and decision; he must convince this young hot-head who was his son. Therein were they different. Even in youth, Stephen Halleck had been wise and far-seeing beyond his years.
"So you believe your father to be a coward, eh, Kent?" he asked softly.
Kent Halleck flushed and averted his eyes. A long, red wound seared across his forehead, where a Dongan unit had barely missed. "No, of course not, dad," he answered hastily, too hastily. "But——"
"He disappeared while you and all the other hot-heads fought on against the massed might of the Purple Horde," Stephen finished for him.
"Did you wish us to submit tamely to slavery?" his son retorted hotly. "Even the old men, yes, and the women, too, fought at our sides, bravely, to the last gasp."
Stephen let his eyes drift over the smoking ruins. Once more there was infinite sadness in them. "I warned them," he whispered as if to himself. "I pleaded with them to escape to the Outlands while there was yet time; but they, poor, brave, unthinking, gallant souls, preferred to stay and wage hopeless, foredoomed battle. Now they are dead, most of them. Even as you would have been, my son, had I not dragged you out of the melee when I found you unconscious, creased with a Dongan pellet. And to what end?"
Kent drew himself up proudly. "Better death than slavery. And the Horde did not escape unscathed."
Stephen bent inscrutable brows on him. "Your defenders did that?"
Kent looked puzzled. "I don't know, dad," he muttered. "But the fact remains that five of the invading fleet crashed."
"Ah, yes," the old man said cryptically. "But enough of that. Time grows short. To-morrow, according to the proclamation, you will be impressed for service within the Purple Horde."
"Never!" Kent burst out fiercely. His hand went to the concealed conite disruptor under his tunic. "I shall die first, and dying, take along with me plenty of company."
His father shook his head. "No. It is easier to escape to the Outlands."
"Impossible now," Kent declared. "The airways are guarded; the city is ringed with armed guards."
Stephen smiled. "Come with me, and I will show you."
He led his wondering son warily out of the semi-ruins in which they had sheltered, out into the little truck farm that backed the house. The old man looked swiftly around. No one was in sight. Death and desolation reigned undisturbed. Overhead, high up, gleaming in the sun with a terrible beauty, shimmered the Purple Ball of the Emperor. But the movements of two despised inhabitants of Washeen meant nothing to his omnipotence.
Kent stared blankly about him. The fruitful plot of ground was thrice familiar to him. He had been born here, reared. "What method of escape can you show me here, father?" he asked.
Stephen bent down without answering. A root of a gnarled and ancient apple tree sprawled out of the earth. Just as it had done since Kent was a child. Was his father suddenly crazy from the misfortunes that had befallen them? He was tugging at the root, this way and that, in a certain methodical pattern.
Then suddenly, something whirred. Before Kent's astounded eyes a broad section of earth, planted vegetables and all, fell away, dropping seemingly into the bowels of the earth. His father's strong grip forced him to leap upon the descending sod. Down, down, then cessation of movement. Dazed, he submitted submissively-to Stephen's guiding touch. They moved aside onto hard-packed earth. Then another whir, something lifted, and darkness inclosed them. He heard his father fumbling. There was a click, and light flooded the underground chamber.
Kent stared blindly around. He had never known of this huge, smoothly rounded hollow underneath their very house. Then he gasped in astonishment. In the very center of the chamber rested a small flier of peculiar shape. Instead of oval frame or ball, this was a perfect hemisphere. From the flat side huge suction disks protruded.
"Why, father, it's a rocket plane!" he cried in bewilderment. "How in Heaven's name did it get down here? What is this place?"
Stephen smiled quietly. "I had this hide-out built before you were born, my son, just for such emergencies as this."
Hope had flared into Kent's countenance, died down again. He shook his head dully. "It's no use, dad. We could never make it. Once outside, the battle fleet of the Horde would spot us instantly, day or night. They have broad-beam search rays. And they are faster than any flier ever known before."
"Let me show you another trick," the old man said. His veined hand swept over the dull-gleaming surface. A port opened. He disappeared within. The port closed.
A long moment, while Kent waited eagerly, not knowing what to expect. Nothing! He felt a faint tinge of disappointment. The shock of this concealed flier had shaken him a trifle loose from his youthful impatience with the caution of age. Perhaps he had not known his father, after all. He had resented, from boyhood, the placid obscurity of his family lot. Stephen Halleck had never sought office, never busied himself with public affairs. The other citizens of Washeen had looked with the slightest tincture of contempt upon this returned prodigal who had wandered in alien cities, forsooth, as a licensed jester, as a fool who made artificially merry at the mocking requests of the lords of the city-states.
KENT rubbed his eyes. Evidently the light was fading. For the ship was slowly growing dimmer. But no. The light was as strong as ever. Yet the flier faded and wavered before his very eyes. More and more tenuous it became, until, like a whiff of smoke, it drifted into nothingness. Where the rocket plane had stood was—nothing! Not a cessation of light, not a dark blob, but normal air and light and the walls of the cavern behind, just as if the ship had never existed, as if it had been a mere phantom of his overheated imagination.
He started forward with a cry. "Dad, where are you?"
His hand gripped blindly toward the emptiness where the ship encasing Stephen had been. He jerked back suddenly. As if in answer, wisps had formed in invisible air, grew into faint form. Then, suddenly, the rocket plane was there again, solid and substantial, placid in its astounding return.
The port clicked and Stephen stepped out. Somehow, to his son, there was a majesty, an air of power about the man that he had never noticed before. Kent fell back a bit.
"You can make the ship invisible?" he breathed.
The old man nodded. "A rather simple device," he answered casually. "Supermagnets bend the light waves around the ship in such a way that they meet again on the other side. As a result it cannot be seen, and not even a blank spot shows. As a further result, neither can the plane's crew see outward, but spy instruments keep the ship directly on its course and cause it to swerve automatically from any obstacle. Now do you understand how it will be possible for you to escape?" Kent took a deep breath. It took time to digest this new phase of his father. Awe crept into his voice. "So it was you," he said slowly, "who with this ship sent so many of the Purple Horde's fleet crashing."
"I am sorry there were not more," the old man answered apologetically. "But after the first surprise was over, the spheres clothed themselves in some new form of impenetrability. My heaviest shots, the conite disruptors, rebounded harmlessly from their hulls." Kent followed him inside the plane. His head was whirling. "And I thought you a coward!" he whispered to himself.
It did not take long to explain the mechanism of the craft. Kent had received a solid scientific education. But in back of the technical explanations something else was faintly struggling in Kent's mind. A vague memory—a legend he had heard. It was impossible of course, but——
The tour of inspection was over. "And now, my son," Stephen said abruptly, "I wish you to pilot this craft into the Outlands, to a point marked 6-4-8-2 on this vibration screen. The controls will stop automatically, and the craft will drop into a little glade. Unless there have been changes you will find a huge oak tree in the very center. You do thus and so with the exposed root. Wait then until you see a man in green doublet and jerkin."
Kent was still in a bit of a daze, otherwise he would have understood by this time. "But—an outlaw!" he cried. "No democrat has ever had converse or dealings with the escaped scum of the city-states."
Stephen smiled queerly. "No? Then it is time to begin. For the Purple Emperor is lord of the Continent, and only the Outlands are as yet free."
"But the outlaws are notoriously suspicious," Kent protested. "They kill first and ask questions afterward."
His father reached into the depths of a capacious chest and brought out something that glittered within the control room like a blood-red bubble. For a long moment he stared at it, and his eyes clouded with thick-struggling memories.
"This, my son," he said at last, extending the blood-red globe of penetron, "is now yours. You will wear it before you emerge from the ship into the Outlands." A strange emotion fogged his voice. "No outlaw, old or young, will harm you then."
A strangled cry burst from Kent. Light blazed in his brain. His staring eyes glued to the hollow globe, swerved immediately to his father.
"Redmask! Redmask of the Outlands! You!"
His father, whom he had known all his life; the quiet, inconspicuous democrat, whom even his neighbors held a little in scorn because of his unpretentious life, because of his motley wanderings as a jester in his youth—he the fabulous, nigh legendary outlaw whom all the Outlands held in worshiping adoration, whom all the city-states had feared with a great dread!
"I once was that Redmask," Stephen said quietly. "Until I met your mother. She had no stomach for the wild, rude life of the Outlands, so I returned to Washeen and settled into domesticity. Not, you understand," he went on with swift gesture, "that I have ever regretted. Your mother's love, yourself, were sufficient compensations. But——"
Like an old warhorse of the eighteenth century he snuffed the air, his eyes sparkled and flashed. Then they were mild again. "There is no time to waste. You will start at once. Once in the Outlands you are safe. And if"—he looked hard at his son—"you have in you the qualities I believe you have, perhaps, who knows, you may be able to stem the ruthless progress of the Purple Emperor."
Kent straightened his shoulders proudly. "You need not fear, father," he said confidently. "I shall never disgrace you, now that I know. But you are coming too, are you not?"
Stephen shook his head. "No. I must remain behind. I am too old for the Outlands, and besides, Washeen needs me. Perhaps I may even be able to prove of some assistance here." He reached down again into the capacious chest and drew forth a queer-looking musical instrument. An instrument of incredible antiquity—the only one of its kind in the world of the fifty-sixth century. A violin!
He fondled its mellow wood with loving touch. He twanged a string. "This, my son, was the jester's sole weapon when he wandered the ways of the city-states. Perhaps once more its tunes will give rise to unthinking laughter and send their coded signals to the Outlands. Seek out Allyn, my old and trusted lieutenant. He will know the signals, should they come. It is too late now to instruct you in their intricacies. Good-by, my son, and God bless you!"
Their hands met in a strong handclasp. Kent's eyes blinded with unaccustomed tears. When he could see again, Stephen Halleck was gone. He was alone in the control room. A wave of. fervor flowed through his veins. He would show his great father—the man who only now he truly knew—that he was not unworthy.
He set the controls, turned on the invisibility magnets. There was a faint swoosh, an acceleration that drove his feet against the solid floor. Nothing else happened. No sight, no sound. The visor screen was a dull-gray blank.
But the red line moved like a fiery snake across the chart, showing his course. Washeen and the battle fleet of the Purple Horde were already far behind.
THERE was the faintest of jars. With pounding heart Kent Halleck switched off the invisibility magnets and slid the exit port open.
He was in the Outlands, the interminable reaches which all dwellers in the cities had been taught to shout for their lives. And now he was here, in his father's ship, clothed with the symbol of that authority which his father had once wielded in these dark and dreadful depths. He had not quite digested, quite assimilated that. It is not easy at a moment's notice to change a lifetime's habits of thoughts and attitudes.
He stepped out eagerly, snuffing the clean air. He stared around with a strange compound of inherited confidence and induced distrust. His father had spoken correctly. The locked controls had set him down in the very heart of a tiny glade.
On all sides, as far as the eye could reach, spread the closely woven, dark-shadowed masses of the Outlands. Not a sound, not a murmur, to disturb their gloomy depths. No sign that human beings had ever trod their trackless wastes. None, that is, except for a thin-beaten trail that edged unobtrusively to one side and disappeared abruptly behind dark boles.
And there, in the very center of the clearing, just as his father had described it, was a mighty oak, patriarch of the forest, rearing its proud head to the sky. Beneath, a huge root writhed and twisted like a frozen snake out of the soil.
Kent sprang impetuously to the ground, moved forward eagerly toward that root. An open sesame it was, a rub on Aladdin's lamp, as he had read in ancient legends, to bring him face to face with the outlaws—those who had bowed to his father's rule. He forgot in his excitement to fasten on his Dongan unit; he forgot even the blood-red globe of authority.
He bent down, caught the woody root in his strong, capable hands. Once this way; two jerks the other way, and——
He lifted his head abruptly. The silence of the primeval woods had been shattered. A girl's voice, ringing, defiant, accustomed to command, yet overlaid with a quivering fear.
"Don't you dare come any closer, worker. Do you know who I am?" Somewhere within the depths, along the path of the thin trail, a man laughed harshly.
"You bet I know who you are. Anne of the Hudsons, daughter of proud Edward. A blasted Oligarch! Sure I know who you are and all your accursed tribe of Yorrick. For centuries you ground us down, treated us like dirt beneath your feet. But times have changed. The Purple Emperor smashed your power, and I have joined the outlaws. I am free now, and a better man than your father and all his breed ever was. So you see——"
Something moved suddenly, and the girl's voice rose in panting terror. "Let me go! Let me go!"
Kent shot forward like the blast from a rocket tube. He whipped through slashing branches and tearing brambles as though they were paper impediments. The noise grew louder; the man's laugh was desirous, triumphant. Kent catapulted out into a natural clearing where a one-passenger rocket plane lay twisted and broken. Two figures were locked in struggle; a girl and a man. The man was dressed in outlaw green and his brutish face was inflamed with passion. The girl writhed vainly in his powerful arms. She was young and slender, and her bright, gold hair streamed in disorder around the pure, chiseled lines of her face.
The outlaw whirled at the noise of Kent's coming, thrust the girl violently to the ground. His features contorted with rage, his hairy hand jerked at the ray gun that hung suspended on a thong from his belt. It was half clear when Kent leaped upon him. The young democrat's fist swept up in a lightning swing. It contacted with the point of his chin. The man lifted bodily off his feet and went crashing back into the underbrush. His ray gun sailed out of his hand and flew in a gleaming parabola into thick grass.
Kent grinned down at the girl. "I don't think he'll bother you any more, Anne of the Hudsons," he said. The girl was good to look at. The fact that she was an Oligarch of Yorrick and he a democrat of lowly Washeen did not matter if one was young and the blood leaped rather than flowed in one's veins. For the moment he forgot even that his antagonist was an outlaw, one of the very men whose assistance he had come to seek.
The girl rose lithely to her feet. She was tall; almost as tall as he was. "Thanks!" she said simply. "But how did you know my name?"
"I heard him call you that. What are you doing here in the Outlands?"
Her blue eyes clouded. "Yorrick has fallen, and my father—Edward of the Hudsons—is dead by now."
Kent's quick sympathy went out to this friendless, fatherless girl. "So has my native town—Washeen. But luckily my father is still alive. He is——"
He caught himself in time. This was no place to divulge his secret. "My own name"—he smiled—"is Kent Halleck."
A whistle blasted through the clearing. Kent whirled on cat feet, to see the man he had knocked down withdraw a tiny mechanism from his lips. His jaw was swollen to twice normal size, but the triumphant glare on his features was unmistakable.
Kent caught the girl by her arm. "Come quick, Anne," he said rapidly, "or we'll be cut off. He's called on his fellows for help."
Together they ran back over the dim, trodden path. It was over a hundred yards to the ship. Could they make it before——
THEY burst out into the clearing. Kent groaned. Out of the very ground they seemed to have come. A motley band, clad all in green leather jerkins, but showing their diverse origin plainly on their faces. Men of Pisbor, thickset and glowering; men with the stamp of reckless individuality on their countenances, fled from the ordered regimentation of Chico; workers to whom the swarming, rabbit-like existence of Yorrick had proved intolerable. And in every hand, snouting at them with deadly certitude, were the terrible conite disruptors whose very touch meant death.
"Halt!" rasped a tall, hard-faced outlaw.
Because there was nothing else to do, the pair slithered to a stop. The girl's breathing was hurried, but there was no fear on her aristocratic countenance. She held her head high and proudly in the presence of these strange and terrible men. Kent looked longingly at the rocket ship. It was not over twenty yards away, but the outlaws were in between. And behind him, thumping with slow, halting tread, came the doomful steps of the man he had knocked down.
Silence held them all in a tight web. It would do no good to talk now, Kent decided. They were all comparatively young. Not one of them could have known his father. Not one would believe his fantastic story. He must wait.
A muffled growl came from behind. The erstwhile worker of Yorrick stepped into the glade. His hand gingerly caressed his swollen jaw. Triumphant hatred gleamed in his eyes.
"Thanks, comrades," he mumbled. "The girl is mine. And as for this fellow——" His other hand came up.
The ray gun he had retrieved glittered wickedly in the sun.
Kent rocked on the balls of his feet, poised for a last desperate leap.
"Hold on there, Marko," the tall outlaw snapped. "As for the girl, she's an Oligarch and fair game, I suppose. But the lad's a native of Washeen. We have no quarrel with that city."
"He knocked me down," Marko snarled. "Besides, there are no more cities; only the Purple Empire is left. He's a spy."
Kent swung toward the tall man. "Don't you believe him," he said quietly. "I knocked him down because I found him attacking the girl. I never met her before. As for myself, I am no spy. In fact I am——"
"I don't give a damn who you are," shouted the former worker. "You're dying right now."
His finger tightened on the trigger control. Anne screamed. Kent jerked desperately to one side.
"Drop it, Marko!" A new voice, cold, authoritative. At the sound every one stiffened. Marko opened nerveless fingers. The ray gun fell with a dull thud to the needled sod.
A man had appeared out of the very bowels of the earth. His frame was slight and spare, his hair was plentifully powdered with silver, his features were wrinkled. But his eyes were like those of a hawk.
He looked slowly from one to the other, and the men dropped their eyes. Only Marko stood his ground, sullen, but defiant.
"What's the meaning of this?" the newcomer demanded.
Kent stepped forward. "Just this. I came here on a message of the utmost importance from Washeen. I found this man"—he pointed to Marko—"attacking this young lady. I did what any man would have done. For that I am evidently to be killed without a trial, without a chance to explain."
The leader looked upon him with new interest. "From Washeen, you say? And with a message? For whom, may I ask?"
"For an outlaw named Allyn."
The old man's eyes glittered watchfully. "I am Allyn," he declared. "You may speak your message." Kent's heart leaped joyfully. What a lucky chance! Allyn, the trusted lieutenant of his father!
"I would rather deliver it in private," he said steadily, "inside my rocket ship." A growl went up from the outlaws. Marko cried eagerly: "Don't you see, chief, he wants to lure you into his power! Once inside——"
"Silence!" Allyn thundered. "I require no new recruit to teach me my business." His eyes wandered to the curious hemispherical ship. He started, swung back with strangely working features. His hand shot out, gripped Kent's shoulder in a grasp of steel. "Where did you find that craft?" he demanded in strangled, intense tones.
Kent grinned. He was sure of his ground now. "Rightfully enough, as you will see—inside."
Long and searchingly Allyn looked at him. Then his hand dropped. "Very well," he said. "Let us go."
"And Anne of the Hudsons, too. I would not trust her with your men," Kent declared.
The tall outlaw jerked forward. "But, chief," he started to protest.
Allyn waved him aside. "Wait out here, all of you," he commanded.
THEY went in through the open slide port. Anne first, Kent next, and Allyn last, hand resting on the grip of his conite disruptor.
Allyn's eyes widened at the well-remembered interior. A startled exclamation broke from him at the sight of the invisibility magnets. His disruptor was out now, trained on Kent. "If this is a trick——"
"Look at this," Kent answered, "and know the truth." His hand dipped into the chest. It came out rapidly. A blood-red bubble slipped into position over his head, masking his features. Yet, because it was univisual penetron, Kent could see every move outside.
Two simultaneous gasps rose in the narrow confines of the control room. A single name leaped from the mouths of the elderly outlaw and the young girl of the Oligarchs.
"Redmask!"
"Not Redmask," Kent corrected, his voice hollow within the oval round, "but Kent Halleck, his son."
The old outlaw's shoulders sagged. The incredulous light that had sprung into his eyes dulled. "You are welcome, Kent Halleck," he said haltingly. "The son of Redmask is an honored guest wherever outlaws congregate. But for the moment I thought, perhaps, somehow, our old leader was still alive, returned."
"He is alive," Kent declared. "He refused to come with me to the Outlands. He preferred to stay in stricken Washeen to help his fellow citizens. He sent me on to seek your aid against the Purple Emperor."
Tears sprang unashamedly into the old man's eyes. "I knew it; I knew it all these years! Others declared him dead, but I felt that he had only gone; that some day he would return. Alas, he is sorely needed now. The outlaws have drifted into disorganized bands. They are thieves now, petty plunderers, like that Marko whom I should never have permitted to join our little band. They hardly deserve the noble name of outlaw any longer. The flood of newcomers know Redmask only as a legend, a memory. But I——"
"My father, Edward of the Hudsons," Anne broke in eagerly, "told me to seek safety in Washeen. He shouted the name, but I could not hear. For the Purple Horde was attacking and he slammed the port of the rocket plane into place so that I could escape."
Allyn nodded his head. "So you are the daughter of Edward of the Hudsons, and Janet of the Marches? Well I remember them. They were our prisoners. It was Redmask's most brilliant coup. It was he, my dear, who saved them from horrible deaths, and it was Redmask to whom your father commended you."
Kent, hidden behind the globe, said warmly—more warmly than he knew: "Redmask's son accepts the charge for him. I shall guard your safety with my life. But, Allyn"—he turned to the old lieutenant—"you haven't answered me. I come for aid against the Purple Emperor."
A look of pain swept the withered features. "The Purple Emperor!" he echoed. "What can we do against him? Even your father, Kent, in his day of greatest power, with the massed might of all the Outlands behind him, could not have coped with this ruthless, almighty being.
"He has hundreds of thousands of men, the fierce Anarcho-Individualists of the North whom he has persuaded or forced into his service; he has strange and mighty engines of destruction such as no man knows how to combat; he has now all the Continent in his grasp—the wealth and treasures and arms of the great city-states. What have we against him? My own small band of men—not more than a hundred—and a scattered disorganized band of outlaws, each under a petty leader, each engaged in mutual warfare. My jurisdiction extends over this glade and some ten square miles of forest. Nothing more."
Kent squared his shoulders proudly. "Once," he retorted, "Redmask ruled the Outlands. The city-states cowered behind their walls. Now the Purple Emperor has come. He will consolidate his power and harry the Outlands. He will conquer you, band by band, making slaves where only freemen roamed. Once you escaped from oppression and routine. Would you return to a slavery far worse than any city-state?"
Allyn's wrinkled features worked with emotion. "Never!" he answered fiercely. "We shall fight to the last man."
"Then fight while there is yet a chance of success. Redmask is not dead. His spirit is with the Outlands. And he has sent me, his son, all unworthy, to his old friends and companions for assistance. Shall I return and tell him it was denied?"
Fire flashed from the old outlaw's eyes. His hand shot out and gripped Kent's with tense emotion. "Hail, son of Redmask! Lead us as your father did in years gone by. We are yours to command. Speak and we follow—against the Purple Emperor, against the whole world, if you wish. Come!"
He pulled Kent out through the port into the sunlight of the glade. Anne, eyes shining, heart a tumultuous throb, hastened after.
The outlaws, grim and glowering, made a semicircle around the craft, weapons alert for any treachery. But at the apparition in the blood-red globe, weapons dropped from nerveless fingers and a great cry burst from a hundred throats.
"Redmask!"
Allyn threw up his hands. "Yes, Redmask. Or rather, his son, heir to his ship and his potent mask. Your leader, outlaws, from now on, and ruler of all the Outlands."
The men burst into a mighty shout. "Son of Redmask, only lead us as your father did. Lead us to victory and spoils!"
SUCH was the legendary spell of a name. For only Allyn of all that group had served under Kent's father.
Kent took command at once with curt, short phrases. There was no time to be lost. The Purple Emperor would soon be swooping with his mighty battle fleet against the Outlands.
"Thank you, men, for your confidence in me. I hope to merit it fully before we are through. You, Allyn, shall remain my second in command as you were for my father. How many rocket ships have you available for instant use?"
"Three."
"Good! Tell off three competent pilots; send them out over the Outlands. Let them seek out every hidden band of outlaws; let them spread the news that Redmask has returned; that once more the Outlands owe him obedience. Let them give strict orders that there shall be no more looting or harrying or internecine conflicts. Let each band send its leader to the rendezvous by fast rocket plane for conference and further orders. And you, my men, I charge you keep the secret well. From now on I am Redmask, not his son. What say you?"
A chorus of approving cries greeted him. Allyn called out sharply: "Balen! Odo! Maslon!" Three outlaws stepped forward. "You are to proceed with the planes at once on your missions."
They saluted and withdrew rapidly into the interlacing woods. The remainder of the band streamed tumultuously into the underground cavern. Only Kent, Allyn and Anne were left behind.
The girl flushed as she stared at the inscrutable globe of penetron. "You have proved yourself a leader, Kent Halleck," she breathed softly. "My father, Edward of the Hudsons, not even my grandfather, Charles of the Marches, could have done better."
"Thank you, Anne," Kent returned with a little laugh. "Perhaps you had better wait before you praise so highly. But please remember, I am no longer Kent Halleck. I am Redmask."
She threw the tall, well-knit figure a sidelong glance. "Your wishes are now my commands, sir," she murmured. "I am no longer an Oligarch of Yorrick. I am an outlaw even as you."
"We had better move your ship to its old hiding place within the woods," Allyn interrupted. "That spot has been kept sacred against its return."
"Look!" Anne cried suddenly, pointing. "Your messengers are taking off." Two bullet-shaped ships leaped from the forest floor in a cradle of soft-roaring flame. They fled through the sky like blazing meteors, one to the north and one to the south, fiery missionaries to spread the news to all the Outlands.
Allyn's wrinkled skin puckered up in a worried frown. "Strange that Balen hasn't taken off yet. He is the fastest usually of the three."
Something stumbled heavily down the tortuous trail. Anne gasped. "Oh, look at that poor man! What has happened to him?"
Allyn jerked his head around, then ran with a speed surprising in one of his age over the trodden sod. "Balen! For Heaven's sake, what's wrong?" The outlaw pilot staggered blindly out into the open. His face was a gory pulp; the top of his head seemed crushed in by some tremendous blow. He collapsed with a gurgling moan at their very feet.
Allyn caught his battered head in his arms. "Speak, man! Who did this?" Balen opened his bleeding lips with a tremendous effort. "Marko—was hiding," he whispered thickly. "He—hit me from behind. Stole the plane. Catch—him. O-oh!" A long exhalation, and the man was dead.
Kent waited to hear no more. Already he was diving down the trail, tight-lipped behind his masking globe. But even as he hit the recessed cut in the sloping mound, rockets jetted into flame-scarred pits.
The ship blazed up into the heavens like an evil comet. In seconds it was a disappearing dot to the southeast. Kent clenched his fist and swore bitterly. Before he could get back to his own craft and start in pursuit, pursuit would be hopeless. The ship was gone, and with it the traitor. Blind rage was succeeded by wiser thoughts. He must not be diverted from his tremendous task by what had happened. But some day, he swore with grim, set lips, he would find Marko, and then——
But Marko, dark face aflame with triumph, had other ideas as he winged toward the Washeen Channel. The Purple Emperor would be mightily interested in what he had to tell. He chuckled harshly. What should he claim for reward?
THE next morning brought a hundred planes fluttering to the little glade. The messengers had done their work well. A hundred outlaws stepped suspiciously from control rooms, glared at each in mutual distrust, and sank on the broad sod platform into the vast underground hollow, hands close to weapons, alert for any treachery. Only three had known Redmask in the early days. The Outlands were intolerant of age and those whose limbs had lost their pristine vigor. These Allyn took aside, whispered long and earnestly in their ears.
Kent stood lithe and alert before them. His head was covered by the penetron globe. A long murmur of awed respect greeted his appearance. The younger generation was not critical. The sight of the legendary mask was enough for them. Redmask, whose deeds were fabulous, had come back once more to rule the Outlands. And Allyn, who had been the hero's trusted lieutenant, was there as proof that all was well.
Kent made his speech brief and to the point. He did not want too close examination. He knew of his father's ancient exploits only from the tales current in the cities. Accordingly he played skillfully upon their predisposed veneration; he spoke of the menace of the Purple Horde, of this all-conquering, devastating flame that was sweeping the Continent, that soon, in its insane ambition, would leap at the Outlands themselves. A groan went up from the leaders of the hitherto warring bands. For long centuries the Outlands had been invulnerable against outside invasion, and now——
But Redmask had returned. That was enough for them. Their faces lifted to the blood-red globe with blind, unquestioning faith. Who was the Purple Emperor to compare with him?
Kent sensed their implicit obedience, and was at once exultant and afraid. Exultant that the Outlands would be a single unit behind him; afraid that he could not measure up to the mighty standards of his father.
"And now," he concluded, "return to your tribes. Organize at once on the ancient footing. Mass your men and rocket ships for immediate warfare. Further orders will come by radio signal. You have the code already. That is all."
A half hour later they were gone. East, west, north and south. Once more the Outlands were animated with a single resistless purpose. Once more the outlaws, spawn of a hundred diverse city-states, heeded the call of Redmask. The name ran like a fiery gospel over mountains and prairies, over lakes and broad rivers.
"What are your plans?" Allyn asked respectfully.
Anne listened quietly, eyes bright with interest. Already, she saw, the elder man had slipped with manifest relief into the old accustomed grooves of obedience. His long years of command had slid from his shoulders like an outworn cloak. While Kent—and she was surprised at the way in which this former lowly democrat and present outlaw dominated her thoughts—had slipped as easily into leadership.
Kent lifted his mask and breathed deeply. It was not a comfortable head-gear, and they were now in the privacy of a rock-hewn chamber which once had been his father's quarters. "I haven't fully thought them out," he confessed, "but in broad outlines they are something like this——"
Sudden sound filled the chamber. It beat with unaccustomed echoes from the walls; it surged in a tumult of strange, thrilling rhythms about their ears. It was a succession of sounds such as Kent and Anne had never heard before. It was music, but not the music of the fifty-sixth century. Cerebral, inhuman music that was built up from tonic scales and scientific formulas and spewed out by the music machines in endless flow.
This was the rhythm of an earlier and more primitive day; when song was fused in the warm alembic of human emotions; when sensitive human fingers evoked melting melodies and stirring pulse beats at the twist of a wrist. A resined bow drawing across vibrating catgut, tossing off the wild, warning notes of the Erl-King!
Anne looked fearfully around. Where was the unseen player? But Allyn knew. His aged countenance was a blaze of excitement; he raised his hand for silence; he tapped out with frowning eagerness the sweep and surge of the ancient song. The last somber note of plucked despair died abruptly. The cavern was a hushed stillness.
Kent breathed in an awed whisper. "That was my father, broadcasting a coded signal. Allyn, what did it say?"
The lieutenant seemed older than ever. There was the quaver of a defeated man in his voice. "He says, son of Redmask, that the enemy has discovered our plans; that even now he has taken off with all his forces from Washeen to seek our hiding place. Within an hour he will be here."
"The Purple Emperor!" Anne gasped.
"Exactly."
KENT'S eyes burned. "That means Marko has proved traitor." He filed that away for future reference and forgot it. No time for vain regrets, for futile rages. There was much to be done, and time was hideously short. Already, young and untried as he was, he was rising to true leadership.
He sprang to the alarm signal. The brazen note filled all the outer cavern. Outlaws jumped up from their couches, left their various tasks at the imperative summons. Once more Kent was Redmask, clothed in the red penetron sphere. Orders crackled like a blaze of Dongan pellets.
"Remove all equipment; hide it in the depths of the Outlands. Odo, Maslon, tell off full crews for your fliers. Twenty each. Take off at once for the nearest outlaw caverns; join forces with them. The rest of you men proceed into the forest to designated rendezvous. Odo and Maslon will return to pick you up as soon as possible. Jonker, send warning signals to all the Outlands. Spread the news that the invasion has commenced. Tell all the chieftains to proceed at full speed ahead to point 4-9-5-0. near Pisbor. Pelnord of the Pisbor District will assume command.
"The massed fleet will descend on Washeen and destroy the garrison guard of the Purple Horde. On achieving control of the city Pelnord is to seek out one Stephen Halleck, a native of Washeen, and place his entire force under his direction. Stephen Halleck's orders are to be obeyed as implicitly as my own. Allyn, rig up at once an electric connection with the elevator. Leave sufficient conite shells to destroy the cavern and all within on contact of the platform with the underground passage. Perhaps the Purple Emperor may prove foolhardly enough to venture down."
In seconds the men scattered on their respective tasks under the driving lash of his orders.
"And we?" asked Anne. "What do we do?"
Kent stared at her. He had almost forgotten about this young and pretty Oligarch who had been thrown unwittingly on his hands. Where could she find safety now?
She seemed to read aright the inscrutable blankness of the globe. "I said we," she repeated determinedly. "I am not afraid."
"Very well," Kent retorted. "We are taking off in our own rocket with Allyn."
"And——"
"We attack the Purple Horde on its arrival."
For the moment Anne was breathless. "Why, that would be suicide!" she exclaimed finally.
Kent grinned in the secrecy of his mask. "Not at all. I'll have the invisibility magnets on. They won't even see us, but our spy instruments will direct our weapons to their marks."
One hour later, on the dot, they took off, soaring high above the Outlands. Everything was clear. The outlaws had departed on their respective missions; the massed bands were congregating near Pisbor for their surprise thrust on Washeen; and the death trap was set in the cavern.
The rocket craft purred with muted sound through the stratosphere, swinging in a wide circle. Nothing was in sight; the sky was an immense void in which the stars burned steadily. No sign of movement in the Outlands; no sign that battle and sudden death were in the offing. Kent was at the controls. Allyn watched anxiously at the teleview screen.
"That's queer," he muttered. "They should have been here by this time."
"Do you think your father made a mistake?" Anne asked.
Allyn answered for Kent. "Redmask never makes a mistake," he told her proudly.
Kent grinned, and Anne subsided. The Oligarchs of Yorrick, she reflected, were not the only ones who had traditions.
Tiny dots formed on the screen, tiny dots that swelled into innumerable small spheres of flashing metal. Hundreds of them. And within their serried array, surrounded on all sides in a protective mantle, gleamed a deep-purple orb. The Purple Ball of the Emperor.
Tiny dots formed on the screen, tiny dots that swelled
into innumerable small spheres of flashing metal.
"Quick!" Allyn shouted. "They're coming!"
Kent snapped on the magnets. There was a deep humming sound, and the view screen blurred. The mighty, on-rushing fleet hazed into nothingness. Then all was a dull-gray blank. The light deflected around their hull, met again behind. They could not see outward any more, but neither could they be seen.
The spy instruments, inconceivably delicate secrets stolen from Yorrick by escaped workers, sprang into operation. They warned of obstacles; they held the ship to its appointed course; they plotted the vibrations of the approaching enemy.
The Purple Horde quivered beneath. They were directly over the hidden cavern of the outlaws. Anne shuddered, thinking what might have happened had they not received due warning. The three waited breathlessly, watching the tiny red streaks that delineated the tremendous fleet. Would it fall into the careful trap that had been set?
THE Purple Emperor sat motionlessly in his shrouded sphere. His eyes were fathomless and a faint smile wreathed his thick, coarse lips. He pressed a button. The three-dimensional image of Marko, the renegade outlaw, appeared within the hollow shell. It prostrated itself blindly.
"Is this the place?" inquired the Emperor.
"Yes, Magnificence." The traitor trembled. "If you will deign to descend, I know the method of entrance. They will all be caught like rats in a trap."
The Emperor did not answer. He pressed another button. Spy instruments, similar to those of Yorrick and of Redmask, buzzed. Kent had forgotten that the City of the Oligarchs had yielded its secrets also to the Purple Horde. The red dots remained quiescent—all except one. That one moved in strange, cabalistic twistings. Twistings that were decipherable as the tiny flow of an electric current along wires to a gap that was as yet unbridged.
The Emperor's face darkened. Rage flamed over his features, died to cold, inhuman cruelty. His eye fell on the knowing simulacrum. His voice was expressionless.
"Like rats in a trap, eh?" he repeated. "Yes, Magnificence."
The Emperor leaned forward, said coldly: "And we were to be the rats in the trap! It was a pretty scheme, a clever one. But the Purple Emperor is wiser than you, wiser than your masters, oh double traitor!"
The image of Marko cowered even as the outlaw himself cowered in the confines of Mogra's vessel. "I do not understand what you mean, Magnificence!" he cried frantically.
The Emperor's lips curled. "Of course not. You do not know that the cavern is vacated, that no one remains within its depths. You do not know that a current flows, waiting for us to bridge the gap in reliance on your treacherous word; you do not know that there are enough shells stored to blast us all to the moon."
Marko groveled. "I do not know of that. It is impossible; I——"
The Emperor pressed a button. Mogra appeared. "Your will, Magnificence?"
"Rid me of that lying slave."
A faint, blue haze streaked across the battle sphere. Marko whiffed into component atoms. He had received his reward.
The scene faded from within the Purple Ball. The Emperor frowned. He had forgotten it already. His mind was on weightier matters. There was something strange about these Outlands. The stillness, the boundless peace.
What had Mogra said of Redmask back in Washeen when five of his spheres had crashed? Something about an invisible ship, was it not? His brow wrinkled; he adjusted all the spy instruments.
High overhead, at a designated point on the screen, a vibrational pattern appeared and took form. Yet nothing showed on the view instruments. He smiled mirthlessly and his lips bared back from his teeth. That meant only one thing.
His orders went out swiftly. A ray leaped like a lightning bolt to the ground. There was a tremendous concussion. Earth and rocks and trees heaved like a billowing sea into the air. At the same instant every deflector in the fleet tore at the huge magnetic beam that flowed interminably from the machines imbedded securely within the ice caves of the Magnetic Pole.
A huge tongue of force lashed out from the hurtling current, straight for the vibration focus. It smashed with supernal power into the invisible rocket ship. It blanked the controls, all electrical equipment. It plucked with terrible fingers at the magnets in their riveted stanchions; it overwhelmed their puny fields of force.
It swung the light waves back to their original paths, and behold! on the view instruments of the Purple Ball a strange, hemispherical rocket craft loomed into being with startling suddenness. The outlaw ship was naked to the weapons of its enemies.
The Emperor smiled and issued expressionless orders.
Kent swore and swung violently on the controls. The flier was rocking and twisting in a dizzy fall. Allyn and Anne fell in a tumbling heap to the floor.
The fathomless gray of the visor screens turned swiftly to a normal white. The controls did not respond. They were dead. Kent braced himself against the hurtling gyrations, pressed his nose to the glassine view port. He swore again, luridly.
Sky and earth and a hundred whirling spheres tumbled dizzily about him. He knew now what had happened. Somehow the Emperor had smashed his electrical units, shut off his magnets. At the same time streaks of flame flared from the sides of the Purple fleet, seared through the air with disintegrating beams. One missed by inches. Death swirled around the falling plane; death by enemy weapons or by a crack-up. Either way——
KENT lunged for the manual controls. He swung levers. Rocket chambers opened under the emergency equipment; fuel pumped under pressure into the nozzles. Flame jetted from the vents. Luckily the tubes were still hot enough to ignite the mixture without a spark.
The ship steadied, trembled and soared upward again. The hull was made of a nonmagnetic alloy. The Emperor saw his prey escaping and howled orders within the privacy of his Purple Ball. The fleet surged up into the stratosphere after the fleeing craft. Disruptors, rays, exploding shells, sent their cargoes of destruction ahead.
Allyn staggered to his feet. There was a wide gash on his forehead, but he did not care. His veined hands clawed at the Dongan units. They were the only ones that required no electric current. Pellets screamed back defiantly. Kent jerked lever after lever, making their course the zigzag of a fluttering bird. The atmosphere was a blaze of ruining fire about them. It seemed impossible to outlive the destroying rain; the slightest touch would flame them into nonexistence.
"Got one of them that time!" Allyn chuckled exultantly. A shining metal ball fell in meteoric ruin behind. But there were a hundred more, coming on faster and faster, growing hugely large in the glassine ports, hurtling disintegrating rays before them.
"It's no use," Kent said grimly. "They're all much speedier than our ship. They'll catch us in minutes if something doesn't happen."
"Why don't you try for the Purple Ball of the Emperor?" Anne asked breathlessly. "If he should die——"
"Good girl!" Allyn shouted. He swung the Dongan unit a little to the left, aimed carefully. The tiny pellets sped backward, true on their course. They flared into a red, spreading blaze over the purple sheen of the crystal sphere.
"A hit! A hit!" Allyn danced insanely. For Dongan pellets had this peculiar property: They burned with inextinguishable fires on whatever they impinged; they ate relentlessly through metal and flesh and the substance of any material known to man. The flames licked out, spread. The Ball was clothed in a blazing mask. Allyn swerved on Kent.
"The others will run like hares when they see their master dead."
Kent laughed mirthlessly. "Take another look," he advised.
Allyn stared out through the smoky blaze of weapons. Incredulity leaped into his eyes. The flaming, inextinguishable pellets were quenched, and after them, like the lead wolf heading the pack, surged the Purple Ball, shimmering with serene light, unharmed, seemingly untouched. The Emperor took no chances. The interlocking polarization was on. Nothing could penetrate that.
"If only we could contact your father," Allyn groaned.
"Not a chance of that," Kent answered. "Our receivers and transmitters are short-circuited."
They gyrated forward in a flaming inferno. It was a miracle that they had not already been hit. Their luck could not last. Kent's eyes stole to the girl. Her face was white, but her smile was steady. "A thoroughbred," he thought admiringly. "Too bad that——"
"Hello, Kent!" Stephen Halleck said conversationally.
The three whirled around. Kent almost fell away from the controls. "Father, where are you?" he cried, eyes searching desperately, unbelievingly, the narrow confines of the control room.
"Hello, Kent! Hello, Kent!" the voice repeated. "Signal that you are listening."
"Good night!" his son exclaimed. "I forgot. He has a crystal set installed in the receiver. Something that dates from the very birth of radio transmission. It requires no current to operate. He equipped this ship for every eventuality."
"You have not signalled." Stephen Halleck's voice grew sharp with anxiety. "That means that your power has failed or else——"
Somehow his voice trailed into faintness, then grew strong again. "Listen to me if you can. Washeen has succumbed to the surprise attack of the outlaws. Three hundred fliers are taking off at once to come to your assistance. The chances are we'll be too late. And even if we come in time, the Purple Emperor is invulnerable. I've discovered the secret of his power. It's a magnetic beam that sweeps around the earth. With that tremendous force under his control, he is unbeatable. Without it, he is defenseless. He would be naked to our attack. Kent, if you are still alive, listen well. We'll reach the path of the beam within an hour. That is too late."
Despair etched his voice as he spoke desperately into the silence, not knowing whether his son heard or not. "The Purple Emperor knows my plan. One of his men overheard our conference and got away to warn him. It is up to you. That magnetic beam of force has its origin at the Magnetic Pole. The Emperor's power plant is there. Now if you could only——
A HOWL of interference screamed through the tense control room. The Purple Emperor had tapped the wave and scrambled up the ether to blast the message.
Allyn turned to Kent with a hopeless gesture. "He was just going to tell us what to do. Now there is no other chance. Look!"
The pursuing fleet was not over ten miles behind. The rocket ship tossed in the lash of hurtling thunderbolts as if it were a cork in a hurricane.
But Kent's face was aflame with inspiration. His eyes had seen through the view port the peculiar spreading flare of the missiles where they impinged on the electromagnetic field.
"I've got it," he shouted. "Just what dad was trying to tell me when they scrambled his message."
Anne forced her voice to steadiness. "What have you got?"
"Hold tight!" Kent flung over his shoulder. He swung the controls upward, and catapulted the ship into the area of the field. The next instant they looped over and over in a long, helical drive. Earth was underneath one second; sky the next.
"Oh!" Anne gasped dizzily, and held on for dear life to a looped support. Allyn's blood pounded in his temples. "For Heaven's sake, son of Redmask, have you gone crazy?"
Kent grinned a tight-lipped grin. Deliberately he increased the speed of his spinning gyrations.
"Not at all," he shouted. "I'm merely imitating the operation of a simple dynamo. I'm thrusting the invisibility magnets in a helical drive through the field of force, thus setting up an induced current of electricity. This induced current constitutes a back E.M.F. or electromotive force, which, because of the path of my spiral, will flow along the electromagnetic beam to its point of origin. The greater the number of spirals, the higher the E.M.F. If it's large enough, it should overheat the armatures in the operating motors at the Magnetic Pole and bum them out. That would mean——
The control room was filled with an unbearable whine. The universe was rocking with their mad flight, with the slashing path of the projectiles from the Purple Horde.
Suddenly there was silence. That is, silence in which the normal roar of the rockets could be heard once more. The frightful whine had ceased.
Allyn clawed madly to the view port. "Stop it," he screamed. "Straighten out, son of Redmask! Look!"
They peered eagerly out. Behind them, dropping like plummets through the empty air, fell the all-conquering battle fleet of the Purple Horde. Down, down, without a pause, accelerating in dreadful flight. And in their tumbling midst, protected even in death, fell the Purple Ball.
Anne averted her eyes quickly. The fleet, one hundred strong, smashed simultaneously into the Outlands. There was a great puff of disintegrating matter, then the dust settled back into immemorial quietude. The Purple Horde was no more!
Kent's voice held awe. "An armature did burn out, and the magnetic beam failed. They had no other source of power." His arm reached for the trembling girl, tightened around her. She did not attempt to free herself.
"Anne! Do you realize what it means? The Continent is free again. Free of the Purple Horde and free of the city-states! Oligarchs, Dictators, Aristocrats, what-not, have disappeared. Henceforth there are free men only, bowing to no man or group of men." Allyn raised his withered face. The glow of a new day was upon it. "Hail to Redmask, and the son of Redmask! They have saved the world from a tyranny worse than death. Look, Kent Halleck, out yonder to the south." Through the view port they could see the massed might of the outlaws—hundreds of planes—surging toward them under full rocket blasts.
Kent grinned at the girl in his arms. "Dad will have more than one surprise ahead of him," he said meaningly.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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