The chance that someone who shouldn't be, was tuned to us as we sat there in that lonely grove! With the doctor's widespread reputation—his more than national prominence—it did not seem to me to be such a long chance either, on this, of all nights.
"As you say, no use in putting private things into the public air," I remarked; and I felt then as though a thousand hostile eyes and ears were watching and listening. "We can talk of what everybody knows," Georg commented. "The Martian Ruler of the Little People was assassinated an hour ago. You heard that coming up?"
"No," I said; but I had imagined as much. "Did they say—"
"They said nothing," Dr. Brende put in. "The flash of a dozen helioed words—no more."
"It went dark, like Venus?"
"No. Just discontinued. I judge they're excited up there—the Bureau disorganized perhaps—I don't know. That was the last we got at the house, just before you came down. There may be something in there now—you Inter-Allied people are pretty reliable."
The ruler of the Venus Central State, the leading monarch of Mars, and our three chief executives of Earth—murdered almost simultaneously! It was incredible—any one of the murders would have been incredible—yet it was true.
There had been times—in the Inter-Allied Office, particularly—when I had been insulated from aerial eavesdropping. But never had I felt the need of it more than now. A constraint fell over me; I seemed afraid to say anything. I think we all three felt very much like that; and it was a relief when Elza arrived with my dainty little meal.
"Any word from Mars, Elza?" her father asked.
She sat down beside me, helping me to the food.