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Might it not be near at hand over on the mainland? Might not these enemies arrive on the island at any moment? Georg suggested that we send our messages from the aeros. We had my own car and a larger car of the Brendes. More than ever now, Dr. Brende was worried over the safety of his Siberian laboratory; but from the aero we could talk to Robins. We went to the landing stage.
Tarrano in retreat!... Our escape from Venia? Pouf! That was a jest. I was there on Earth merely to get you, and the Brende model. I had no thought of conquering the Earth just then. I accomplished my two purposes and left.... It was not a retreat, merely a planned departure. "But this, my Elza, is very different. I did not wish to do what I am doing now.
It was a message in code from Potomac National Headquarters. We watched the queer-looking characters printing on the tape. Very softly, in a voice hardly above a whisper, Georg decoded it. "Dr. Brende, see P.C.S. 10.42, warning you, probably of Venus immigrants now here. Do you need guard? Or will you come to Washington at once for personal safety?" "Father!" cried Elza. Georg burst out.
Elza cried in horror. I can appreciate the shock to Elza, who had trusted, even loved this girl. Dr. Brende stood in confused astonishment, staring at the wreck of the instrument table. From a naked wire a little black coil of smoke was coming up. I fumbled about and switched the current out of everything. We were cut off from all communication with the world.
Either he must yield himself and the Brende secret, or a war in which he would be immediately overwhelmed here in Venia would follow. It was nearly ten o'clock that first night. Elza had gone to the balcony. We heard her call us softly, but with obvious tenseness. Out there we found her pointing excitedly. A few hundred feet away and somewhat below us was a tower similar to our own.
He had escorted her once to a Venus festival; in a strange, brooding, humble, yet dignified fashion, he had spoken of love. She had laughed, and soon forgot the incident. But Tarrano had not forgotten. The daughter of the great Dr. Brende had fired his youthful imagination. Who knows what dreams even then born of the genius as yet merely latent were within him?
A moment more, and Georg and Maida were taken aboard it. The volan fluttered to the forest unguided and was lost in the black treetops, now no more than a thousand feet below. Surrounded by amazed officials, Maida and Georg entered the patrol vessel. Georg Brende, escaped safely from Tarrano! The Brende secret released from Tarrano's control!
The model was in the City of Ice; it must be captured. As a matter of fact, to us of the government, the Brende model was not indispensable. The greatest factor was that the threat of Tarrano's universal conquest must be forever removed. Like a rocket-bomb, this man of genius had risen from obscurity had all but conquered the three greatest worlds of the universe.
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.
This then was the secret the existence of which Tarrano had learned. He had.... But Dr. Brende was quietly voicing my thoughts. "It seems obvious, Jac, that this Tarrano at least suspects that I have made some such discovery as this. That he would withhold it from mankind, for the benefit of his own race, seems also obvious. That he is about to make an attempt to get it from me, I am convinced."
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