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Updated: May 21, 2025
He withdrew into a troubled silence as the fleet swept far from triumphantly for him. Denham had not spoken at all, though his eyes had blazed savagely upon the men of Rahn. Now he spoke, dry-throatedly: "Tommy Evelyn " "She is all right so far," said Tommy bitterly. "She's to be ransomed by foodstuffs, paid at the gates of Yugna. And Jacaro bragged he's running Rahn and they've got gas masks.
He wanted to be free to sell full privileges of rapine and murder to Jacaro. The result was unexpected. Von Holtz could not unravel the secret of the catapult he himself had operated. He could not sell the secret for which he had committed a crime.
An' I always wanted to break this guy's neck. I think I'll do it now." "Not till I've questioned him," said Tommy savagely. "He and Jacaro have started hell to popping, with that Tube design they stole from me. He's got to stay alive and tell us how to stop it. Von Holtz, talk! And talk quick, or back you go through the Tube for the Ragged Men to work on!" The Tree-Fern Jungle
"Every three hours one of our ships lands in Rahn and reports. We give the Rahnians their stuff at our own city gates. I've warned Jacaro that we've mounted thermit-throwers on our food stores. If he manages to gas us by surprise, nevertheless our foodstuffs can't be captured. They've got to turn over Evelyn and cart off their food before they dare to fight, else they'll starve."
His name was Von Holtz; he had once been laboratory assistant to Professor Denham, and he had betrayed Evelyn and her father to the most ghastly of possible fates for a bribe offered him by Jacaro. Now he groveled. He was horrible to look at. Where he was not scratched and torn his flesh was reddened as if by fire.
He stopped and listened. Once he grinned. "Wait!" he said after a moment. He covered the transmitter and turned to Fitzgerald. "What hospital is Jacaro in?" Fitzgerald said sourly: "He wasn't burned bad. Just blistered. They lent him some pants and he went home cussing." "Thanks," said Brink. He uncovered the transmitter. "He went home," he told the instrument. "You can ask him about it.
The laboratory was redolent of the tree-fern forest into which the Tube extended. And Smithers was watching amid those dank, incredible carboniferous-period growths now. Tommy put through calls, seeing all his and Denham's plans for a peaceful exploration party and amicable contact with the civilization of that other planet, utterly shattered by presumed outrages by Jacaro.
He was not quite sure that certain irregular sounds, yet far distant, were not actually quite regular ones. The Ragged Men Smithers had shot into had run away. But they would come back and they might come with Jacaro and his gunmen as allies. If those distant sounds were men.... She withdrew her hand from his. Her back was toward him then, as she tried to pierce the darkness with her eyes.
Von Holtz's story confirmed his own and Denham's guesses and made their worst fears seem optimistic. Von Holtz had made a Tube for Jacaro, working from the model of Tommy's own construction. It had been completed nearly a month before. But no jungle odors had seeped through that other Tube on its completion.
They hooked them all together." Smithers gulped. "Instead of four right-angled bends," said Tommy grimly, "you have six connected together. You turned on the steam in a hurry, not noticing. And I don't know how many series of dimensions there are in this universe of ours. We know of two. There may be any number. But Jacaro and his men didn't go back to Earth.
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