Elza was staring downward. A barren waste. Rocks bare of verdure. Grey, with red ore staining them. A desolation of empty rock, with grey flat shadows. And far ahead, the broken, serrated ranks of mountains with rocky peaks, white-hooded with the snow upon their summits. The Cold Country. Bleak; forbidding.
This brittle air was cold; yet Elza and Tarrano were warm. Before the platform, a ray darted—a low-powered ray of a type that was to be so great a factor in the warfare into which we were all so soon to be plunged. It heated the air, so that the platform rushed always through a wind that was balmy.
"What did you say?" Elza looked up to meet Tarrano's steady gaze.
"I said it is wonderful to be thus alone with you, my Elza."
"Oh." She looked away.
He persisted; but his voice was gentle and earnest. "Soon we will be at my home, Lady Elza. And now—there are some things I would like to say while I have the opportunity.... You will listen?"
"Yes," she said; and tried to keep from him the trembling within her. "I'll listen, of course."
He nodded. "Thank you.... My Elza, you have heard me talk of conquering the world. My dream—my destiny. It will come to pass, of course. Yet—" A smile pulled at his lips. "Do you know, my Elza, what you and I are doing now?"
She stared, and he did not wait for her to answer.
"We're making my first retreat. I wonder if you can realize how I feel, having to admit that? Tarrano in retreat!... Our escape from Venia? Pouf! That was a jest. I was there on Earth merely to get you, and the Brende model. I had no thought of conquering the Earth just then. I accomplished my two purposes—and left.... It was not a retreat, merely a planned departure.