XVIII
THE SILVER HEART
Mona leaped to the controls. She turned the craft about automatically and started toward Hafen. Then she glanced over the side. What she saw brought her heart to her throat.
About a mile below, and under Fort as he sank through the air, was another flying machine which neither had noticed before. In it was the figure of a man standing; he was maneuvering his craft so as to intercept the falling aviator. And the clear air of the high altitudes carried the sound of his voice faintly but surely to Mona's ears.
"Thought you'd get away, did you, Fort?" in heavy, insolent tones.
"Well, you get—left, my boy!"
"Eklan Norbith!" cried Fort at the same instant. Next second he had landed on the deputy's machine.
"Norbith!" thought Mona, immediately recalling her patient at the hospital. She hesitated only an instant, then dove in a steep spiral down toward the two.
Fort had fouled his parachute on a stanchion, in landing. Breathless, he lay in a tangle heap, looking up at the towering bulk of the deputy.
"You're not going to get clear this time, Fort, like you did that night with the Cobulus and Ernol's gang!" Norbith was saying savagely, gloating over the man at his feet. "Thought the lad killed me, I suppose. I was barely stunned. And I've been on your tail—ever since."
His eyes glowed with anger. Mona watched him in silence as she circled nearer. Norbith! The commission's deputy in Calastia; he represented all that was evil and cruel in the government. It was he who did the nasty work, the things which Powart himself was too much of a gentleman to do. Norbith—the strong, cruel right arm on an unjust law!
"Well"—Fort had regained his breath somewhat—"now that you've got me, Norbith, what do you intend to do about it?"
"Do!" The man's voice fairly boomed. "I'm going to tear that parachute off your back and pitch you overboard, you infernal outlaw! And I'm going to claim that you resisted arrest!"
At that instant he noted Mona for the first time. He started as he recognized her. "The surgeon!"
Then his rage came on him again. "You hold your tongue, young woman, or I shall have it—pulled out! Do you understand?" he demanded, thrusting his face up toward hers.
And then Fort was upon him. All he cared for now was to get his fingers in Norbith's throat. And next moment Mona was desperately steering his machine clear of the other as it swayed and thrashed about under the struggling of the two men.
The advantage was with the deputy. Powerful man that he was, he was more than a match for even Fort's great strength, while the athlete's agility did him no good in the restricted space of the cockpit. The parachute hindered him, too. Down on the ground, on a clear spot, it would have been different. As it was, Fort was quickly thrust to his knees, and, despite all that he could do, he could not fight off the deputy's grip. In a moment it had shifted to the athlete's throat.
"You would, would you!" roared the deputy. "By—you'll be dead even before you reach the ground!"
Fort struggled wildly. In a moment he was strangling; Mona could see his protruding eyes and lolling tongue. She could not help. She was not athlete enough to leap to his aid. But all of a sudden, just as Fort had once come to her own rescue, her tongue came to his.
"Boy! Boy! Tear open his shirt! Tear open his shirt!"
Fort heard. For a second he hesitated, dull wonder in his starting eyes; then he reached up, and with a spasmodic jerk of his hands, ripped Norbith's shirt wide open. The man's bare chest was exposed.
"Don't you see?" shrieked Mona hysterically. "Look, boy! Look!"
And Fort saw. Saw the two silver tubes leading from the brown scar in the breast of this man—the man whose heart had been replaced by a silver instrument. Saw the tubes, leading to a belt around the man's middle, where the pumping mechanism was concealed. And as Fort saw, he understood.
With a final burst of strength he raised his quivering fingers and clutched one of the little pipes. A jerk, an exclamation from Norbith; and then, even as Fort's head fell back insensate, his hand snapped the little tube in two.
"Good God!" swore the deputy. "You—you've—" He gasped and spluttered; he let go of Fort. The athlete dropped like a log into the bottom of the craft.
But Eklan Norbith stood upright, his hands thrashing wildly, his mouth twitching horribly. One end of the broken tube hissed with escaping air; the other end spouted blood. The deputy swayed; his head dropped to his shoulders.
And then the air rushed into his lungs for the last time; he gave a single piercing shriek, tottered, and fell backward out of the machine.
Fort opened his eyes to see Mona bending over him, bathing his head. He looked around dully, blinked once or twice, frowned as though trying to remember, and then said:
"How—did I get here?"
"I waited until Norbith's machine steadied," said she in a wonderfully soft voice, "and then flew down close enough to pick you up."
He remembered. Suddenly he grasped at her arm and tried to get up. "Hurry!" he cried. "You've only got time enough to make it! The gap—don't take any chances!"
But the girl was paying no attention to where the machine was going.
She was looking at the man and seeming to be perfectly satisfied.
"I don't care," she declared a little shakily. "Holl looks good enough to me, dear—if you're going to be living on it!"
The craft rocked perilously.
Back on the earth, three of the four stirred in their chairs. The doctor was the first to arouse. He sounded the gong to warn his wife, and the action helped to awaken the others; Billie first, then Smith. But Van Emmon did not rouse. Still connected with the dictator, Billie's husband was twisting and turning in his chair, moaning slightly under his breath. In his subconscious mind some terrible scene was being enacted. Suddenly his mouth flew open, and the words fairly tumbled forth:
"Ernol—at the contact—he's telephoned! Everybody knows now!" Next: "Billie: Why didn't you tell me? I could have warned Powart!" And then, in a voice of agony:
"God, what a mob! They'll kill him!"
But he was still unconscious. The doctor exclaimed in fear.
"Quick!" he ordered. "Into the connection again!" And he threw himself back into his chair.
In a minute the three were still. Except for two great tears from Billie's eyes, there were no signs of life. Two minutes passed, then three. Finally all four roused together.
"Well!" Van Emmon was the first to speak. His voice was harsh and strained. "By George, that was a narrow squeak! I thought sure I was a goner! They threw Powart—out of his yacht!"
Billie caught his hand and patted it. Her lips were trembling; she could not trust herself to speak. Her husband stared at her with eyes that were still bewildered and tried hard to understand.
Smith could say nothing. The doctor, however, got to his feet and stretched.
"Phew!" taking off the brass bracelets and reaching for a handful of the Venusian books. "That was—going some!"
He located a passage in one of the books. "I guess we've had enough of people like ourselves. What do you say," eagerly, "to visiting a place where they're not even the same sort of animals as we are?"
He looked around enthusiastically. Smith made a brief sound of agreement, and remained in his chair. Both he and the doctor looked to Billie and Van Emmon for comment.
But the man and the woman were content to look at one another. Their minds had room for only one problem; their eyes saw nothing, cared to see nothing, save that which love seeks and, having found, is satisfied with.
Did it make any difference to Billie that her husband had sympathized with Capellette's greatest despot and worst failure? Did it make any difference to Van that Billie approved when the woman she was allied with discarded the despot for the devolutionist?
Or was Billie still his chief reason for existing, and was Van hers?
That was the real question! Small matters like life in other worlds—they could wait!