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He handed me my key from the rack. "Going far, Jac? What a night! They'll be ordering them off if many more go up.... Going north?" "No," I said shortly. I was away, rising with my helicopters until the city was a yellow haze beneath me. I was going north to Dr. Brende's little private island off the coast of Maine. The lower lanes were pretty well crowded.
Ahla was sitting obediently where I had left her. "You stay there," I told her. "If you move, I'll break every bone in your rotten little body." Back at the landing stage I found Dr. Brende in despair. Headquarters could not raise Robins. They had relayed the message to Wrangel and Spitzbergen Islands but the stations there reported similarly. Dr. Brende's laboratory did not answer its call.
For one he desired the Brende model and Dr. Brende's notes. He had them now; they were, in reality, at this present moment in the Great City of Venus. Also, with the Brende secret to control it absolutely he had to have Georg Brende. Well, as I was soon to realize, Georg was now his captive. And the Princess Maida? His purpose in holding her was two-fold.
We would hold to our treaty of friendship with the Central State. We would remain neutral for a time. But Tarrano himself we declared an outlaw. His presence was required in Washington to stand trial for the assassinations, and the delivery in Washington of Dr. Brende's notes and model was demanded.
Brende's affair, not mine; and I wanted to hide my perturbation from Elza. The viaduct reached the ground; a path led on to the houses. Suddenly Dr. Brende called out: "Robins! Robins! Grantley! Where are you!" The words seemed to echo back faintly to us; but the buildings remained silent. "You'd better wait here with Elza," Georg said. "I'll go on see what "
Georg whispered: "Father's model." The man with it passed beyond my sight. Others came along, carrying the cylinders of books Dr. Brende's notes and a variety of other paraphernalia. Carrying it back from the shore toward the headlands of the Cape, where I realized now they had an aero secreted. Argo was at a mirror; he had a head-piece on; he was talking into a disc talking in a private code.
Even greater than its real value as a medical discovery, it swayed the popular mind. Tarrano possessed the Brende secret. The only model, and Dr. Brende's notes were in his hands. Washington had ordered him to give them up, and he had refused. But now the status was changed. Georg held the secret also and Georg was in Washington. It left the Earth Council free to deal with Tarrano.
"Queer that I should meet you again, Lady Elza. Yet, I must admit, it comes not by chance, for I contrived it. My prisoner! Dr. Brende's daughter, held captive by little Taro!" It seemed to amuse him, this whimsical reminiscence of those days when he was struggling unknown. "I want to confess something to you, Lady Elza. You were so far above me then daughter of the famous Dr. Brende.
Hours of unprecedented turmoil on Earth, and on our neighboring worlds. We wondered how the Central State of Venus might be faring with the revolution. Would they ask aid of the Earth? This Tarrano merely a name to us as yet, but a name already full of dread. Where was he? Had he been responsible for all this? Dr. Brende's secret was in his hands now, we were sure. What would he do next?
Brende's effects, and in it half of the men were departing. It rose vertically until we could see it only as a speck in the blue of the morning sky a speck vanishing to the north over the Pole. With four or five of the men all those remaining Argo took us three to the Brende car. We did not pass Dr. Brende's body, lying there in the outer room.
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