"ARMS AND THE MAN"
Two weeks went by before he once more opened the eyes of Jasor's body and found himself in a guarded room in the palace of Aphur's king.
He had spent them on earth in the study of firearms and munitions and the various devices required for making the same. Now he returned with a consciousness full of designs and an urgent desire to attempt their carrying out.
He sat up. "List, soldier, I would drink!" he announced.
The guard inside the door of his chamber started, shot a quick glance toward his bed, and approached none too swiftly, Croft thought. The man actually seemed afraid. "Wine!" he snapped, seeking to overcome the first shock induced by his words.
"Aye, my lord." The guard turned to the door and set it open. "Wine!" he bawled. "The Lord Jasor awakes!"
"My clothes." Croft left his couch.
Ten minutes later a rap fell on the door. Robur appeared. Word of Croft's waking had spread. The prince himself came with a page bringing wine. Croft drank: "I would see Jadgor at once," he declared.
"He sleeps," Prince Robur began.
"Then wake him. All Tamarizia totters to a fall unless we be ready in less than a single cycle, Rob."
"Zitu!" Robur stared. "Say you truly. How know you this, Jasor, my friend?"
Croft turned and pointed toward his couch. "I was told while my body lay there," he said quickly. "You call on Zitu in vain unless you give heed to my words!"
"Nay, not so. Come," replied Aphur's prince. "I myself shall take you to my father without delay."
That was a strange night in Himyra of Aphur, pregnant with the destinies of a nation—and nothing less. Jadgor, no king in seeming now, but a stern-faced man in a simple garment sat upon his couch while Croft revealed his knowledge of what Zollaria planned.
"By Zitu!" he roared at the end, "would Cathur dare this thing?"
"Aye—for the woman and Zitra's throne," said Croft.
"To foreswear his pledge to Aphur?"
"Aye."
"To surrender his state?"
"Aye—that too, Jadgor the king."
And suddenly Jadgor was king indeed despite the disadvantage of position and clothes. "Then let Zilla the Destroyer take me unless we meet them, spear to spear and sword to sword! Jasor of Nodhur, I understand you not—nor yet how your knowledge is obtained save Zitu speaks through you as a mouthpiece for his own designs. Yet know I that what you say falls out. Wherefore I shall once more heed your words. This falls on Aphur, Nodhur, Milidhur, I think, with Tamhys, man of peace on Zitra's throne. Yet shall Aphur, Nodhur, and Milidhur prepare. Inside a cycle, should we work together, we shall have a very horde of ready spears and swords."
"Nay, scarcely that," said Croft.
"What else?" Jadgor stared.
"Stronger weapons than those, for which I bring the plans. If made in time, a thousand men instructed in their use, can end this war almost before it starts. Let Aphur, Milidhur, and Nodhur plan together, that these weapons may be produced some in Himyra and some in Ladhra. The work is vast. Yet shall the final end be sure if this is done before Zollaria strikes. Robur and I shall undertake the carrying out of my designs, if Jadgor gives the word."
"Then Jadgor gives it," said the king. "On Nodhur will I call and Milidhur. No man may say that Aphur failed to think of Tamarizia's good. For though I see that should you do this thing your name will stand above all others in the state—I love my nation more than I love either fame or rank. Hence, Nodhur, make your weapons for this coming trial of strength, and I shall give you moneys, metals, men—all things you may require."
Croft's heart swelled in his breast. Had he ever doubted Jadgor's patriotic motives for a moment, those doubts died now as he heard him lay aside those dreams of imperial rank he knew had once been his. And in that moment there was born within his brain the plan he was fated to carry out—a plan which would make Tamhys the last emperor of Tamarizia, and after him no other ever again. "Then," he accepted the king's assurance, "Robur and I shall plan that this work may start at once. Aphur, I crave your pardon for having broken your sleep."
That was the beginning of Croft's real work. Oddly enough, on a planet where he had come upon seeming peace, his first task outside the original motor was in preparing for war; and even the motor entered largely into that.
At once he plunged into a very frenzy of action, almost appalled himself by the amount to be done inside a year. That first night he spent with Robur drafting to his attentive ears those things which they must do—the finishing of the motors—their installation in ships.
"The structure for that end is well-nigh completed," Robur said.
"Good!" Croft cried, and went on swiftly to demand the construction or appropriation of buildings for the making of arms. As to the nature of the latter, he held back the details for the time, and spoke of preparing a fleet of swift motor-driven galleys in which to transport the troops they would raise across the Central Sea when the need should arise.
Robur's eyes sparkled at that. "We shall come upon them ere they dream we can arrive. Jasor, my friend, your name shall be greatest among Tamarizia's men."
"No greater than that of Jadgor," Croft replied. "Rob, your father is a man above other men. None save a man of noble spirit forgets himself to assure his nation's good."
In the month that followed Croft did many things. He began the training of a number of men in assembling the motors, choosing only such as seemed peculiarly adapted to the work. He installed a motor in a galley and drove the craft through Himyra along the Na at a speed which had never been seen in a ship in Palos before. In this, with Jadgor himself and Lakkon, whom he persuaded to bring Naia along, he journeyed on up the river to make his long-promised visit to Jasor's parents at Ladhra and enlist Belzor, King of Nodhur, in their plans.
Sinon and Mellia scarcely knew how to take him they thought their son.
"By Zitu! You have done it!" Sinon cried as he rode the galley across the Na's yellow flood.
Later, loaded with honors, both by Jadgor and Belzor himself, he grew abashed. "That my son should raise me to noble station," he faltered to Mellia at his side. "Strange days are coming to Tamarizia, wife of my heart, when he who was a dullard sits in the council of the kings."
For Croft had appeared before Belzor inside the first day after Ladhra was reached. And Belzor, startled by the fact of a galley which ran up the turgid current of the mighty river without oars or sails, had listened to him and Jadgor and joined his support to their plans. That settled, he arranged with Sinon to send several galleys to Himyra to be equipped with motors, and returning to that city for a few days, dropped down stream, entered the Central Sea, and sailed to the capital city of Milidhur.
On this trip Gaya made one of their party, and though Croft perforce acted as engineer, he managed more than one word with Naia during the course of the voyage, and once the fleeting bliss of a stolen kiss.
In Milidhur, Gaya's voice helped to turn the tide to Jadgor and Croft. A princess of state, she brought all her influence to bear. And since Milidhur was asked only to form a part of the army, to be equipped before Zollaria struck, the matter was soon arranged.
Back in Himyra at length, Croft found the work on the motors progressing swiftly under Robur's direction and at once began the actual construction of machines for the fashioning of arms. Now and then he stole away for an evening and drove out to Lakkon's mountain palace for a meal. Not only did he find pleasure in the going, but Naia pleaded for the all too short hours they managed to spend together, and to Croft it seemed that each time he brought back from her presence a freshened and driving energy to his work.
That work progressed. Of that progress he spoke to her from time to time. And always she spurred him on with eyes and lips through the task at the end of which she herself was the waiting and willing prize.
Day and night the fire of creation flared in Himyra, and so soon as work was started, and he had shown Robur how to keep busy the many men Jadgor had furnished for their needs, Croft put some of the new motors into commission between Himyra and Ladhra and started other work there, in a mighty building set apart by Belzor for his use. Those necessary bits of machinery first installed in the Himyra shops he had made, like the motor parts were now made, in numbers.
Sinon's first galley up the Na carried as its cargo partly assembled engines of queer design to a Palosian mind, which should when set up in the shops at Ladhra fulfil their portion of Croft's plan. Thereafter the fires of the new era flared in Ladhra, too, and Croft spent his time between the two shops, motoring back and forth mainly at night, regardless of the loss of sleep until he should have everything running smoothly.
Twenty of the hundred cars which were gradually taking shape he set apart, however, after they were tested—and these he had equipped with all-metal wheels carrying cross-bars on their tires like short, strong teeth. He put workmen to the task of making metal walls to bolt upon each chassis. And these walls were pierced with slots. Thus he arranged for twenty armored cars and had them set aside. Likewise he speeded the construction of numbers of flat-bottomed power-boats capable of speed, yet having floor space enough to transport no small number of men.
A month passed, two months, three. Always the fires in Ladhra and Himyra flared. Men toiled day and night. Croft's plans were drawn for each part of the arm he intended to make. Machines were assembled and set up—motors were harnessed to them to Robur's amazement. Croft found the Tamarizians apt of comprehension and willing to work. Each man employed was sworn to fealty to the State. Each knew himself a member in an army working for the safety of the nation. At the end of three months he found himself the supreme captain of a picked corps. And at the end of a month he was ready to begin the actual making of arms.
Now and then Croft went back to his earthly body, not only to renew its physical life, but to gain help in the work he was carrying on by learning fresh details on each trip. He gave up any intention of manufacturing machine guns, as a thing requiring too much time. On an average he spent two days of every week on earth. His sleeps on Palos had become too frequent to cause any further comment when they occurred. Thus a fourth month passed.
In it Croft accomplished several things. He did not stop motor production with the first hundred. He continued their building and began selling the output of the shops to private owners. The things became a not too unusual sight on the Himyra streets, and the first motor caravan was organized and crossed the inland desert to Milidhur with success.
One special car Croft had built. On it he lavished all his present ability of refinement. And when it was done he drove it to Lakkon's mountain mansion in the twilight of a busy day. It was for Naia, and himself he gave it to her, and after the evening meal when the three moons rose he placed her in it and taught her how to drive.
Far down the mountain road and out upon the desert between the foot of the hills and Himyra they went. They were alone in the soft light which turned the dun plain to silver. Far off the red fires in Croft's workshops flared over Himyra's walls.
Croft stopped the car and pointed to that red reflection in the lesser light. Suddenly it seemed to him that in all the world there were just they two—that they were alone—that nothing else mattered. His heart swelled.
"For you!" he said, and drew Naia into his arms, and against his breast. "For you!" He kissed her on eyes and lips. "To free you and give you to me always. Those fires are burning away all need of your sacrifice. In the end they shall make you mine."
"Yours." Naia sighed in his arms as one content. "Here in the desert you preserved my life. Why should it not belong to you?
"Your work progresses well?" she went on after a time.
"Beyond my hopes," Croft assured her. "Have no fear. All shall be ready—in time."
"My lord," she whispered.
"Aye—your lord, beloved," said Croft.
"Beloved," she repeated.
For a time Croft simply held her, and then he turned the car and drove back up the mountain road.