“But they’ll get back to Earth!” he raged. “They’ll get off clear!”
The sharp, cracking sound of a gun-cotton explosion came out of the doorway into which Jacaro and his men had dived. Tommy smiled very grimly indeed.
“They’ve gone through,” he said drily, “and they’ve blown up the Tube behind them. But—I didn’t tell you—I took a look at your castings. Your pupils were putting them together, ready for the steam to go in, in place of the coils I used. But—er—Smithers! You’d discarded one pair of castings. They didn’t satisfy you. Your pupils forgot that. 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. God only knows where they landed, or what it’s like. Maybe somewhere a million miles in space. Nobody knows. The main thing is that Earth is safe now. The Death Mist has faded out of the picture.”
He turned and smiled warmly at Evelyn. He was a rather horrible sight just then, though he did not know it. He was bloody and burned and wounded. He ignored all matters but success, however.
“I think,” he said drily, “we have won the confidence of the Golden City, Evelyn, and that there’ll be no more talk of gassing Earth. As soon as the Council meets again, we’ll make sure. And then—well, I think we can devote a certain amount of time to our personal affairs. You are the first Earth-girl to be kissed in the Fifth Dimension. We’ll have to see if you can’t distinguish yourself further.”
Again the Council hall in the tower of government in the Golden City of Yugna. Again the queer benches about the black wood table—though two of the seats that had been occupied were now empty. Again the guards behind the chairs, and the crowd of watchers—visitors, citizens of Yugna attending the deliberations of the Council. The audience was a queer one, this time. There were bandages here and there. There were men who were wounded, broken, bent and crippled in the fighting. But a warmly welcoming murmur spread through the hall as Tommy came in, himself rather extensively patched. He was wearing the tunic and breeches of the Golden City, because his own clothes were hopelessly beyond repair. The bearded old Councilor gathered the eyes of his fellows. They rose. This Council seated itself as one man.
Quiet, placid formalities. The Keeper of Foodstuffs murmured that the ransom paid to Rahn had been recaptured after the fight. The Keeper of Rolls reported with savage satisfaction the number of enemies who had been slain in battle. He added that the loss to Yugna was less than one man to ten of the enemy. And he added with still greater emphasis that the shops being fitted with automatic controls had released now—it had grown so much—two thousand men from the necessary day-and-night working force, and further releases were to be expected. The demands of the machines were lessened already beyond the memory of man. Eyes turned to Tommy. There was an expectant pause for his reply.