Читать книгу Triangle of Power - John Russell Fearn - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

HONEYMOON IN SPACE

Westminster Abbey in the late twenty-first century—not the time-­honoured edifice of grey stone and exquisite carvings beloved of history, but a bigger and even more lavish recreation. Around it people in tens of thousands, packing the streets and paths and parks, all straining for a glimpse of the pair who were to be married this day, the most extraordinary man and woman who had ever stepped into Earth history and directed its destiny by scientific power—Violet Ray Brant, The Golden Amazon, and Abna of Jupiter, descendant of Atlantis.

The breathtaking loveliness of’ the woman was something which held those nearest to her in thrall. She looked her eternal twenty-five, graceful in her oyster-satin gown. The bridal veil somewhat masked the shimmering gold of her hair, but it left the beauty of her features untouched. The mouth was full and red, the chin rounded but strong, the eyes a deep violet—unfathomable. Here was the woman who had a scientist’s gift of super­human strength and scientific intel­ligence, a woman whose brain had more than once saved the Earth from disaster and even rekindled a dying sun.

Yet still there was one cleverer—and stronger: the nearly seven-foot giant at her side. The grey suit he was wearing seemed inappropriate. He needed the toga-like uniform of his race. He was as handsome as the woman was beautiful.

The wedding was over. It was a signal for a stirring among the people. Among them, toward the rear of the mighty church, a slender man with heliotrope-coloured eyes sat musing. He was half smiling, a smile of scorn as if he considered this cere­mony the height of absurdity.

Neither the Amazon nor Abna noticed him as they went on their way to a limousine that took them to the main London airport, where in a special enclosure lay the giant gleaming space machine Ultra, owned by the Amazon.

Honeymoon among the stars. That was the plan. Out in the wastes of space, once they had cleared the space-traffic lines operated between Earth, the Moon, and Mars by the Dodd Space Line, they could find the peace and solitude that only the limitless void could give.

The Ultra took off in a blaze of exhaust tubes; then the fiery trail ceased as the atomic power plant took over. The man with heliotrope eyes was in the crowd, watching the speck vanish in the sky. He smiled, again with scorn. Sefner Quorne, ex-adviser of Abna and master scientist, had plans of his own to put in oper­ation while the Amazon and Abna were away.

Unaware of the intrigue in the mind of their sworn enemy—whom they had not seen since he had made an unsuccessful attempt to destroy all females in the Earth race many months before—Abna and the Amazon looked out on to the slowly shrinking globe from which they had come. They had changed now into attire more appropriate for their voyaging—the Amazon into a tight black suit with a golden belt at the waist; Abna into the toga-like costume of his race.

Mightily muscled, head and shoulders taller than the girl be had wed, he stood with his hand on her shoulder looking out of the main port.

“King and queen of Earth, Vi,” he murmured. “Just as I said we would be.”

The Amazon did not answer. Her eyes glanced over the switchboard at the automatic controls, then back at the massive atomic power plant. Even at this moment her mind was on the scientific issues upon which life or death depended. Any flaw in the mechanism or driving power of the Ultra could bring destruction.

“Nothing on our minds,” Abna added, smiling down on her in the quiet, patronizing way she still found irritat­ing. “No need to exert our knowledge or strength to crush some foe. Just you and I and the stars, and the future.”

“Yes,” the Amazon murmured, and gazed outside.

The endless stars were flung into infinity like diamonds on velvet. They were depthless, fantastically glittering, immeasurable. The sun blazed with his flaming girdle of prominences and eerie, space-flung corona; the moon sailed majestically, basking in her master’s light. Venus, Mars, Mercury—and more distant, the orbits of the giant outer planets and their scatterings of attendant moons. And beyond it all, like a great misty sluice pouring out of infinity, hung the Milky Way Galaxy, the swirling core from which Earth herself had been born in forgotten time.

Abna said: “You said something about going to the end of the System for the honeymoon, Vi. Think we’ve got enough power to do it?”

“Had I not thought that, I wouldn’t have suggested it.”

Abna frowned slightly. “What kind of an answer is that for your husband? I only asked a simple question. You don’t have to bite my head off.”

“Sorry, Abna.” The Amazon gave a faint smile. “I hadn’t quite realized—I’m inclined to get brusque when I’m thinking about something.”

Withdrawing from the gentle grip Abna had on her shoulder, she settled at the control board and began the complicated task of plotting the course through space. Abna watched her for a while, then he looked puzzled.

“Taking a chance, aren’t you?” he asked. “Pulling in so close to Jupiter, I mean? You know what kind of a gravitational pull he’s got; if we drop into it we’ll consume nearly all our power trying to get out.”

“It won’t be the first time we’ve pulled away from Jupiter,” the Amazon smiled. “Besides, our honeymoon would hardly be complete if we didn’t pass close to the planet from which you came, would it?”

“But that’s all over and done with, Vi. My own race and land are finished. You know that.”

“Because the protective dome was smashed and allowed the poisonous air of Jove to sweep in and asphyxiate all your fellows—with the one exception of Sefner Quorne? That doesn’t mean that all the machines are not still use­ful, does it? Jove—the mighty city which dwelt under the dome, and of which you were king—could be revived, Abna. It would be a tremendous addition to the forces of science with which we intend in time to ring the Solar System.”

“Yes, it’s a good suggestion,” he agreed, “but doesn’t it turn our honeymoon into a working tour? I thought we were going to abandon all our scientific notions for awhile and behave like a natural man and woman?”

“We are not natural,” the Amazon said. “You and I are akin to god and goddess, Abna. Giant and giantess, in strength and knowledge. We can never be ordinary people.”

“Do you regret it?” he asked, his hand returning to her slender shoulder; and she shook her blonde head.

“Not now. I did once. I used to think I would like to be on a par with Ethel, my foster-niece; or Bee, my foster-sister. Just a woman, with perhaps children of my own. Then I realized how different life can be when there is all the universe before one—when there are still unexplored worlds to conquer and rule. I had a plan once—the conquest of the whole solar system and its control by Earth with me at the head. I still have that dream.”

“With me to help you now?”

“Of course.”

For a moment Abna met the girl’s wide violet eyes. They were darkly unfathomable as usual, masked by their big curling lashes. Her beauty fascinated him. But her manner he could not understand. It was as though the ceremony in the Abbey had counted for nothing. She was still the quiet, coldly calculating woman with whom he had fought a battle of wits before chance had put all the aces in his hand and, rather than be beaten, she had agreed to marry him.

“We’ve a long way to go before we’re anywhere near Jupiter,” she said at length. “Might as well have a meal and then relax. You fix it up while I make sure our course is correct.”

Abna nodded and left the control room, heading for the big storage compartment where the essences and restoratives were kept. The Amazon watched him go and a thin, cold smile curved her lips. She continued with her course-checking un­til Abna announced that the meal was ready. With a nod she rose and went to the dining area. Her walk was steady, and the fixtures remained in place. Though the Ultra was hurtling at terrific velocity through free space, the gravity-nullifiers in the floor kept the weight down to earth-normal.

“I don’t quite understand your attitude, Vi,” Abna said, as he handed over the compressed food concentrates.

“No? You have the chance to read my thoughts, even as I can read your thoughts. There shouldn’t be any mystery between us.”

“Shouldn’t be, but there is. As for your thoughts, they are completely sealed. You’ve learned the art of mask­ing them.”

The Amazon smiled inscrutably. “Sometimes it’s necessary, Abna. Marriage does not mean being bought body and soul: there are some things I like to keep to myself. Don’t forget there are quite a few scientific secrets I have which you have not—and vice versa.”

“But surely the very purpose of our marriage was to pool those ideas?”

“Later, perhaps....” And the Amazon withdrew into her own mysterious per­sonality and said no more.

Abna was a man in every sense ­of the word: the woman he had wed was a woman in form only. In all the time he had known her, though he fancied he had analyzed her nature and thoughts completely, he had failed—as all men had—in penetrat­ing the armour with which she had sur­rounded herself. The Golden Amazon’s body and mind were infinities apart.

“Do you suppose,” Abna asked, “that Earth will be safe while we’re away?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?” The Amazon finished her meal and sat back to regard him.

“I’m thinking of Sefner Quorne. You remember he sent you a letter saying he’d do all manner of things. If he does act, we’ll be up against it, Vi. His science is far ahead of yours and mine combined. And don’t forget you can’t trace him, either. Now he has altered his bodily energy content, you can’t put an aura-compass on him.”

The Amazon frowned in annoyance. The aura-compass, that infallible instrument of her own design, had the power of pointing to any given person if the aura—the electrical energy—of that person were known. Until Quorne had come into the scene the aura of every living thing had been changeless: he, however, had accomplished the miracle of altering his energy, and, the new aura number being unknown, he was virtually undetectable. It was not a happy thought for the Amazon. Sefner Quorne might be anywhere, waiting to implement his threat.

“All I can say is, Earthlings must take care of themselves for a change, Abna.”

She became silent again, as though waiting for something. Abna rubbed a hand drowsily over his forehead.

“I feel uncommonly tired,” he said, puzzled. “A thing I’ve never experienced before. Sure the air’s all right in here?”

“Far as I know.”

He got up unsteadily, rubbed his fore­head again, then went to the air-con­ditioning apparatus. The gauges showed it was functioning perfectly. He looked at the Amazon again. She seemed un­disturbed.

“Not affecting you,” he said, frowning.

“No reason why it should, Abna. I intended it exclusively for you.”

“Intended—what?”

“The gas in the store cupboard. Didn’t you notice it when you went to get the food?”

“That tart smell? I thought it was some kind of preserving chemical you’d put in— You mean it—”

“I mean it was lethal gas, released by the action of opening the door. That was why I told you to get the meal. Maybe ‘lethal’ is hardly the term for a man of your constitution, Abna. It won’t kill you, as it would an ordinary man, but it will numb your body and certain areas of your brain. Chiefly those areas connected with the will.”

Abna moved ponderously and sat down with a thump on the wall couch.

“What—what have you done?” he whispered. “You marry me and then kill me.”

“I haven’t done either.” The Amazon rose, tall, majestic, in her black uniform. Her violet eyes were wide and gleaming. “All I have done, Abna, is para­lyze every faculty by which you can shield your thoughts from me. Shortly you will be unable to move, but your thoughts will be bare for me to read. Every secret you have ever had will be there for me to take—and your will power being deadened, you will not be able to protect yourself.”

“A she-devil,” Abna muttered, staring at her. “That’s what I have always suspected. Wait a minute! Did you say you didn’t marry me?”

“That’s right. We’re not married. We never shall be.”

“But, the ceremony. The archbishop—!”

“The ceremony was illegal. As for the archbishop, he was a synthetic image of himself, controlled entirely by my will.”

“I don’t—believe it.” Abna got the words out with difficulty.

“No?” The Amazon turned to the switchboard and snapped on the short-wave radio that still gave contact with Earth. After a few moments of sorting out the stations, she tuned in to the midst of a news bulletin.

“...was the marriage of Miss Violet Ray Brant to Abna of Jupiter. It is tragic that the aftermath of the ceremony should be marred by the sudden collapse and death of Dr. Cranton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, but—”

“Satisfied?” the Amazon asked, switch­ing off. “As we passed out into space here, beyond range, my will power over him naturally weakened, until finally it lost its efficiency altogether and the synthetic archbishop just collapsed and became clay. The deception will not be discovered. His body will be examined by his personal doctor, who has been hypnotized by me in such a way that he will not detect the switch and will pronounce the death as due to natural causes, without need for an autopsy. He will be buried with full church ceremony. I stayed at this switchboard as much as I could so the amplifier could carry my will over the gulf. I didn’t want the archbishop—the synthetic one—to collapse too soon. It might have seemed—strange.”

“And the reason for all this double-dealing?” Abna demanded, still fighting with all his giant strength to keep control over his slipping senses.

“I have told you why,” the Amazon answered. “I mean to learn every scientific secret you possess, Abna, and so add your knowledge to my own. I could never have done it without marrying you—or apparently marrying you. Only by marrying you could we be together as we are now, on this supposed honeymoon.”

Abna smiled cynically. “It shouldn’t have been difficult for a woman like you to have pulled this trick without the farce of a supposed marriage.”

“True, but I preferred it this way. I want all the world to believe we are married. I rely a great deal on the mood of the people. They will trust me implicitly if they think I married you; if they knew I had thrown you overboard just to gain more power, they might turn against me. So, let them think our marriage is genuine. I can explain away your disappearance as a space accident. By the time you are found—if you are—my position will be unassailable.”

“Disappearance?”

The Amazon came and seated herself close beside the wall couch where Abna still wrestled with paralysis. There was a triumphant gleam in her violet eyes.

“I’m leaving you on Io, Abna—one of the moons of your own world of Jupiter. The Cosmic Engineers of the Earth government were instructed by me many months ago to come to this moon—and also Ganymede—to adapt them into worlds suitable for colonisation. They could be used as bases from which to mine valuable minerals in the asteroid belt—and the other moons in the Jovian system. It is merely an extension of the same work already being conducted on Mars, so that the colonists there will no longer need to live under protective domes. Following out my own designs, the Engineers buried within each Moon’s core a gravity generator that would enable those bodies to retain an atmosphere. Deep shafts have also been sunk, to release trapped gases. These were mephitic and poisonous, but vast quantities of special bacteria have been released, which will convert it into what will ultimately become a breathable mixture containing high levels of oxygen and nitrogen, and also water. Similarly, certain genetically-engineered vegetation has been introduced that will assist in the process. The cosmic Engineers completed their work some time ago, and have now left. However, the “conversion process” may take several years before the moons are fully fit for colonisation. At the present time, Io is still a desert island of a world, where a man of your super constitution can perhaps still live, but where you will remain until the Engineers return to check on progress, when you may be found if you are still alive. Once I have your secrets, Abna, you cease to be of interest to me.”

Abna could not say any more. He sat motionless, his eyes fixed on her. His mind was alive, his body temporarily dead. With his will suspended, there was nothing he could do to block the mental probing of the woman who sat opposite him.

She worked methodically, making notes, exerting her extraordinary telepathic gifts to the full. An hour passed, perhaps two hours, then she was finish­ed. Abna still sat like a stone im­age. She knew everything he had ever known, had a complete grasp of every scientific secret. Only his innate metaphysical powers were denied to her, as this gift could not be transferred or learned in so short a time.

Rising, she considered him; then with a sudden effort she heaved his massive form on to her shoulder and carried him to the empty compartment at the tail of the ship, which had been left empty. She laid Abna down on the floor and then spoke. He could hear and see her even though he could not respond.

“The next stop is Io, Abna,” she said. “There we must part. You have still a lot to learn about women—and one woman in particular.”

With that she went out and pushed over the heavy metal clamps. Return­ing to the control room, she studied again the notes she had made, then sat­isfied that they were indelibly impress­ed upon her brain, she set fire to them and turned to the control board.

The Ultra had just cleared the orbit of Mars, and was hurtling through the emptiness of space safely above the plane of the asteroid belt. In eight or nine hours at present speed, the field of mighty Jupiter would be reached, and that of his attendant moons. The Amazon studied the deeps ahead, Jupiter already looming like a tiny ball with flattened poles, his cloud-belts girdling him in dark bands.

Setting the radar alarm, she got up and went to the small chamber that served as her bedroom. She threw herself on the bunk, fully dressed as she was, and lay thinking.

She thought back on the time when she had wondered if she really loved Abna. For a period she had believed in this possibility: the woman in her had overpowered the scientist. But now, so unpredictable was her ruthless temperament, the scientist was in charge again. With the knowledge of Atlantean science added to her own, there was nothing she could not do. Besides, Abna was a man—a godlike man, perhaps, but still male, and deep in the nature of the Golden Amazon was a burning hatred of the opposite sex. Its reason lying buried in the scientific operation that had made her a scientific machine in the vestment of the most beautiful woman the world had ever known.

Presently she fell asleep, regardless of the man locked in the metal room. But he was recovering rapidly from the gas that had paralyzed him. When finally all its after-effects had gone, he struggled to his feet and looked about him in the dim light of the single roof globe. He knew better than to attempt anything with the metal walls, his only barrier against the searing cold of absolute space-zero; so he moved to the door and pushed at it with his giant muscles. Nothing happened: the massive clamps were proof against him.

Finally he decided to wait. There must come a time when the Amazon would release him, and when that happened, tigress though she was, when it came to physical strength, he was more than her equal. Since she had renounced all love and friendship, she must play the game the hard way. So Abna relaxed, smiling grimly, listening to the steady throb of power from the atomic plant. By alterations in its rhythm he would be able to tell when the Ultra was moving off course and action could be expected.

At the first sound of the alarm buzzer, the Amazon awoke and hurried to the control board. The Ultra was just com­ing into the huge gravitational field exerted by Jupiter, greatest of all the planets. The Amazon swung the ship round gently, playing tag with the gravity fields, until the nose was pointing directly to Io, one of Jupiter’s largest moons.