An uneasy, sullen, murmuring crowd was gathered around the ragged old man although they left a broad circle of vacant space around him and the body of his granddaughter. A few troopers of the garrison were making a half-hearted effort to push the crowd back. They were uncomfortable in the face of the unspoken but obvious hatred of the throng. Larry and the others prudently kept to the back of the crowd. Even so, they were near enough to see what happened next.
Silver bells rang sharply, and lackeys called an arrogant summons to clear the way. In the midst of a circle of armed guards, porters carried a swaying gilt litter. On the cushions of the litter rested a man. It was one of the nobles of Gral-Thala, a perfumed degenerate in silken robes with a rouged and painted face. For a moment he stared at the crowds with his arrogantly scornful eyes. Then, as he saw the old man beside the girl's body and heard the curses he was shouting, his patrician face was distorted into a sneering frown.
The noble snarled an order, and one of his guards lifted his electronic rifle. There was a flash of blinding light! A sudden clap of miniature thunder, and a smell of ozone. The man-made lightning bolt struck the old man in the chest and knocked him sprawling across the body of his granddaughter. With a faint smile the noble leaned back on the cushions of the litter and waved languidly to his porters to move on again.
"Let us go, my friends!" Pyatt whispered hoarsely. "We cannot right all the wrongs of Gral-Thala at one stroke, and our mission is the most important thing at the moment."
XIV
They were walking slowly down one of the quiet streets of the city, a quarter where there were few guards and little chance of discovery. Larry noticed that all the windows were equipped with heavy shutters, so that the light could be closed out when the inhabitants of this land desired to sleep. It was a place of unending daylight, always turned toward the sun, where darkness never came. Colton was more interested in the metal rails that ran along the walks on the outside of the buildings.
"My Lord!" he said softly, "These are gold!"
"Of course," Pyatt of Kagan said absently, "Gold is one of the most common metals in Gral-Thala. Our problem is the matter of the radium salts. I happen to know that they are stored in small boxes made of ura-lead, in one of the government storehouses. It would be easier to steal some direct from the mines, but there is no time for that because of the question of proper packing and handling. We must risk everything on a bold attempt to raid the warehouses."
"Suits me," Larry said quietly. Just then Diana gripped him by the arm and jerked him back against the wall of the nearest building.