Lilla’s voice continued: “You and the other Formians may be interested to know that Prince Yuri is in complete control here. Baby Kew and I are well, and are being respectfully treated by Prince Yuri as his guests in the palace at Kuana. He has promised me that if I will marry him, Kew can have the succession after his death. And this I might have accepted for the baby’s sake, but now that I know that you still live, this cannot be.”
“She has made a slip,” Cabot moaned.
Evidently she realized it herself, for her voice hurried on: “You see, the whistling bees—”
Then Yuri’s voice cut in abruptly with: “Congratulations, Cabot. I don’t see how you did it. Your ex-wife would have gotten across a lot more information to you if she hadn’t inadvertently let me know to whom she was talking by her careless use of the word ‘you’. I don’t know what you said to her, but I shall be on my guard. No more radio for the Princess Lilla, until my henchmen in New Formia report your death, which I hope will be soon. Good-by, you cursed spot of sunshine. Yuri, king of Cupia, signing off for the night.”
So that was that. Myles switched off the set, and sat submerged in thought. Lilla and his baby were safe. He doubted not that she would sooner or later find means to send him a plane. He had given Yuri cause to doubt the glorious story told by the Formian radio operator. The new set had fulfilled its mission.
But how had Yuri succeeded in climbing into power again in Cupia, nine-tenths of the inhabitants of which were loyal to Princess Lilla and the baby king?
Then Myles remembered her closing words: “The whistling bees—” It was as little Jacqueline Farley had prophesied on her father’s New England farm, during Cabot’s brief revisit to the earth. Cabot had stated: “There can be no peace on any continent which is inhabited by more than one race of intelligent beings”; whereat little Jacqueline had pointed out that the whistling bees were intelligent beings.
Doubtless, Yuri had stirred up trouble between the bees and their Cupian allies, and had ridden to the throne on the crest of this trouble. Portheris, king of the bees, had undoubtedly been deposed; for he was too loyal to Myles to stand for this.
The earth-man’s reverie was rudely interrupted at this point by one of his soldiers who rushed into the laboratory shouting: “Sir, there is fighting in your very yard!”
Cabot slipped the bandoleer over his shoulders, adjusted the straps, picked up his rifle, and hurried to the door. In the yard, his guards were struggling in hand-to-hand combat with a superior force of Roies.