The Radio Planet, Ralph Milne Farley [manga ereader txt] 📗
- Author: Ralph Milne Farley
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Occasionally he would come upon groups of defenders; but they, naturally assuming that he was one of them—especially as he still wore the black toga of the arsenal guard—gave him but little heed. Whenever the group was not too numerous he would shoot them. He hated to do this, but he knew he had to in order to save his loved ones.
Thus he traversed practically the whole of the upper reaches of the palace without encountering his arch enemy Yuri, or any of the womenfolk. Yuri was no coward. However much of a scoundrel he might be, no one would ever accuse him of that. Therefore he was not in hiding. He was apparently not in command of the defense. Therefore he must be either away from the palace, or concocting some devilment.
Figuring thus, Cabot continued to descend to levels below the ground floor. While treading these subterranean passages, searching, ever searching for either Lilla or Yuri, he came upon one of the palace guards. The fellow was unarmed, so Cabot did not shoot.
Instead he ordered, “Up with your hands.”
The guard promptly obeyed.
“Now,” said his captor, “the price of your life is to lead me to your king.”
“Indeed, I will with pleasure,” the soldier replied with a sneer, “for King Yuri will make short work of one who turns traitor to his black garb.”
The earth-man smiled. “I am no traitor,” he announced, “and this black toga is mere borrowed fur. Do you not know Cabot the Minorian?”
The other blanched. “Good Builder!” he exclaimed. “We did not believe the story that you had returned from the planet Minos. But I am at your orders, for I am one of the old guard who served under King Kew the Twelfth, the father of Princess Lilla, may he rest beyond the waves.”
“Lead on, and no treachery,” Myles curtly replied. “I trust no one who has ever worn the livery of Prince Yuri.”
So the guard led the way through many winding passages, down into the very bowels of the subterranean labyrinths of the palace. What could Prince Yuri be doing way down here unless he was hiding, which seemed unlikely? Cabot became very suspicious, and, rifle in hand and finger on trigger, watched his guide with eagle eye.
Finally they came upon a form in an elaborate yellow toga, huddled in a corner.
“King Yuri,” said the soldier laconically.
At the sound of the voice the usurper looked around; and now it became evident that he was crouching there not for fear, but rather because he was engaged in repairing something with a set of typical Porovian queer-looking tools.
Apparently not at all surprised, he hailed his deadliest enemy and rival as though the latter were a long lost friend, “Yahoo, Cabot the Minorian. I rather expected you would turn up sooner or later. Just a minute until I fix this wire, and then I will be at your service. You see, one of my mines wouldn’t explode; no one else seemed able to get at the cause of the trouble, and so I had to come down here in person.”
And so saying he turned back to his work. Myles stepped forward to see what Prince Yuri was doing. For a brief moment the earth-man’s scientific curiosity got the better of his caution. But that moment, brief as it was, proved long enough for the watchful soldier, who had led him hither, to snatch Myles’ rifle from his hand, and cover him with its muzzle.
“Up with your hands!” the soldier peremptorily commanded.
Cabot obeyed. Not to do so would have been suicide.
Yuri, still unperturbed, remarked, “Well done, Tobo; you shall be promoted for this.”
“Shall I shoot him, sire?” Tobo eagerly asked.
“N-no,” the usurper ruminated, waving his antennae thoughtfully, “not just now. Wait until I finish with this wire. In the meantime you might let the Minorian lean against the wall, so that he will be more comfortable.”
So Myles leaned against the wall and waited, his hands still held high, while the prince puttered around in the corner. Finally, after a seemingly interminable period, Yuri arose, slung his tools together, brushed one hand against the other, and looked at his victim with a cruel smile.
“Shall I kill him now?” asked Tobo.
“No. I am reserving that pleasure for myself,” the prince replied. Then to Cabot: “At last, you are in my power. I intend to shoot you myself. I intend to shoot you down, unarmed.”
Turning to Tobo, the prince asked, “How is our battle going?”
“Very well, sire,” the soldier replied. “We are repulsing all assaults, in spite of the departure of the bees to the southward.”
A momentary cloud of doubt spread over the sinister handsome visage of Prince Yuri. Then he smiled and said, “Doubtless the bees know what they are about, and will soon return to the fray. So let us proceed with the execution. Follow me!”
Myles followed. Almost was he tempted to spring upon his enemy and attempt to throttle him before the inevitable bullet from Tobo could do its work. It would be well worth the sacrifice of his own life to rid Cupia of this incubus. But what if Yuri should survive? No, it would never do to risk this. So he meekly followed.
The prince led the way up several levels, until they came to a small circular chamber hung with curtains. At one side was a dais. An electric vapor-lamp on the ceiling furnished the light.
Prince Yuri took the rifle from the guard, stood Myles in the center of the room, and sat down himself on the dais.
Then he directed Tobo, “Go and summon the Princess Lilla hither, for I wish her to see me kill this lover of hers, this beast from another world.”
Myles winced at the mention of his beloved, and thereat his tormentors smiled.
The soldier departed on his errand. Yuri toyed with the weapon, and watched his victim, with a sneer on his handsome lips. Myles returned his stare without flinching.
“You can put down your hands now, if you wish, you fur-faced mathlab,” the prince remarked.
Cabot did so, and instinctively felt of his face. The insult was unwarranted, for he had shaved only that morning.
“Don’t go too far!” he admonished his captor. “Remember Poblath’s proverb: ‘You cannot kill a Minorian’.”
“I’ve a mind to kill you right now,” the prince replied, “just to prove to you that your friend is wrong.”
“Go ahead and try it,” Myles challenged, half hoping that Yuri would take him at his word, and thus spare Lilla the pain of attending the execution.
A grim look settled on the usurper’s face as he slowly raised the rifle and pointed it at the earth-man’s right side.
“Left side,” Myles admonished. “Remember that my heart is on the other side than is the case with you Cupians.”
“My, but you are a cool one!” Yuri admired, shifting his arm as directed. “Now, are you prepared to die?”
“Yes,” Myles replied.
It all seemed like a dream. It couldn’t be possible that he was really going to die on the far-away planet Venus. Perhaps all his adventures in the skies had been a mere dream, and he was now about to be awakened.
“Thus do I bring peace to Poros!” the Cupian sententiously declaimed.
His finger closed upon the trigger.
The rifle spat fire.
PEACE ON POROS
Myles felt a sharp warm pain in his shoulder. But he still stood erect. He was not dead. Could it be that Yuri had missed? Shaking himself together and blinking his eyes, Myles stared at the prince.
The prince stared back with an open-mouthed expression of surprise. His eyes were fishlike. His body was no longer erect. The rifle lay in his lap, and he seemed to be feebly trying to raise it and point it at Cabot.
Then, with a gurgle, some blood welled from the prince’s mouth and trickled down his chin.
With one supreme effort his antennae radiated the words, “Curse you!”
Then the rifle dropped clattering from his nerveless hands, and his body slouched forward prone on the floor at the foot of the dais. From the right side of his back there protruded the jewelled hilt of a dagger.
Behind the couch, between parted curtains, stood a wild-eyed Cupian woman, her face hideous with pent-up hate and triumph.
For a moment Myles stood rooted to the spot; then, tearing his feet free, he rushed to his fallen enemy and plucked out the dagger. From the wound there gushed bright cerise-colored blood, foamy with white bubbles. Myles turned the body over, and listened at the right side of the chest. Not a sound. Then, the Prince’s chest collapsed, with a sigh, a little more blood welled out of the mouth, and all was still once more.
Prince Yuri, the most highly developed specimen of Cupian manhood—but a renegade, traitor, rejected wooer of the Princess Lilla, pretender to the throne of Cupia—Prince Yuri was dead!
And such an ignominious death for one of his high spirit to die! Stabbed in the back by a woman.
Cabot rose and faced her, the jeweled dagger still in his hand. “Who are you?” he asked. “And why did you do it?”
“I am Okapa,” she replied in a strained voice—“Okapa from the mountain village of Pronth. Do you remember how in the Second War of Liberation you found Luno Castle deserted and a slain infant lying on the royal bier?”
“Can I ever forget it?” he answered, his mind going back into the past. “Naturally I thought it was my baby son, whom I had never seen. Therefore I fought all the harder against the usurper Yuri until I drove him and his ant allies southward, rejoined Lilla in Kuana, and learned that little Kew was safe, and that the dead child was but an orphan baby whom Lilla had substituted for our own baby for fear of just such an outcome.”
“It was no orphan!” Okapa shrieked. “It was mine—mine! The dead child was mine! Yuri stabbed my child and now I have stabbed him with the selfsame dagger. Yuri killed my baby, and I have slain him, and now I must die myself for killing a king.”
So saying, her anger spent, she flung herself upon the couch and wept silently, as is the habit of Cupians.
Just then the Princess Lilla in a black gown swept into the room.
“They told me the king wished to see me here,” she said. “Where is the king?”
She stopped abruptly as she saw the body on the floor. Then her eyes rose until they rested on Myles Cabot. With a glad cry she rushed toward his outstretched arms.
But a peremptory shout of “Hands up!” from the doorway caused her to halt. She was between Myles and the door. He still held the jeweled dagger in his hand. Stepping quickly to one side, he cast it straight at Tobo who stood by the entrance, a rifle in his hands; and before the Cupian soldier could raise his weapon to fire, the missile had penetrated his heart. Down he went with a crash.
While this had been going on, Okapa, the madwoman, had crept stealthily toward Yuri’s body with a view to securing the rifle which he had dropped. Seizing it, she leaped to her feet with a shriek.
“You too!” she cried, pointing at Lilla with one skinny finger. “For it was you who took my babe from the orphanage and exposed him to danger. You are joint murderer with Yuri. Him I have slain, and now it is your turn.”
But Myles stepped between her and the princess and wrenched the gun from her poor mad hands, whereat she flung herself upon him, clawing and biting like a demon. It was only the work of a few minutes, however, to get both her wrists behind her back.
Lilla, sensing the need, ripped some strips from the hanging draperies; together they tied the woman and seated her to one side. Then once more the long separated earth-man and his Cupian beloved started to embrace, while Okapa glared at them with baleful eyes.
This was too much for Myles.
“Just one paraparth!” he said; and, stepping over to Okapa, he spun her around until she faced the wall.
Then he clasped his princess to him in a long embrace.
But at last a pang intruded in his bliss. “Lilla dearest,” he asked, “where is our little son?”
She shook herself together.
“I know not,” she replied, “They would not let me know, for fear that the usurper—may he rest beyond the waves—might force the secret from me. But our country is more important than our child. While we tarry here the battle rages. Quick, to the upper levels, and let us take control.”
“We cannot do so without a message from their king,” her husband asserted. “Let us therefore bring them one.”
Stooping down, he picked up the dead body of Prince Yuri and flung
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