Page:Amazing Stories Volume 10 Number 13.djvu/57

Rh ceptance? Why shouldn't it receive your aid?"

Marenin sneered at his challenger. "Comrade Boyarsky, though you are a member of the secret police, you have no power over the decisions of this tribunal. We must all be of one mind. Even though my two colleagues favor your appeal, I deny it. It is not necessary that I give any reason for my ruling, and I hereby order you, Peter Mikhailloff to dismantle and destroy your apparatus within twenty-four hours. The American engineer and your other assistants will be transferred to our latest power project in Ukraine. Now conclude the experiment that I may repeat my instructions to Comrade Lyons."

The aged scientist's shoulders drooped dejectedly. Mina's fists clenched in exasperation. Slowly Mikhailloff retarded a rheostat and the crackling of electrical discharges died to silence.

Mina's tense lips softened with relief as she saw Earl's figure reappear. He sprang from the cage and caught her in his arms.

Before he could say anything of his experiences, Marenin came to his feet and announced: "Comrade Lyons, this tribunal has refused to advise your continued support. This plant must be demolished by this hour tomorrow. No appeal can be made."

Earl's grey eyes narrowed curiously. Instead of becoming angry he flashed a quick wink in Mina's direction and said. "If there is no objection I should like to withdraw into an ante-room with Comrade Mikhailloff and Miss Boyarsky."

Sullenly, Marenin nodded. His colleagues regarded him helplessly and shrugged their shoulders.

Wondering at Earl's strange request, Mina and the old man followed him to an adjoining room.

When the door had been closed behind them, Mina grasped Earl's arm.

"What can we do?" she asked. "Marenin is as obstinate as a old-time bourgeois peasant."

"Fifty years of incessant labor for nothing!" groaned Mikhailloff. "The stupid bureaucrat!"

Earl smiled mysteriously. "Do you think the others would help us if Marenin were er-er away?"

"Of course," replied Mina and Mikhailloff in one voice.

"Then listen," whispered the American. "I was under suspension for but a few moments, wasn't I?"

They nodded eagerly.

"We must find some way to exactly control our machine," he began excitedly, "for unless I was imagining things, we'll have no further trouble with Marenin. In the short time I was in the cage, I could see only a little, way into the future. But what I did see was enough. MARENIN IS ABOUT DUE FOR A FATAL HEART ATTACK!"

A loud cry and the heavy thud of a falling body in the next room immediately followed his ominous statement!

ITH Marenin out of the way all was simple. Moscow voted funds and labor with generous hands. The work went on, in leaps and bounds.

Earl wearily leaned back from a close inspection of a projected improvement to their apparatus. He yawned and turned to Vassily Khalin, whose brown face was wrinkled in deep thought.

"What's bothering you Vassily?" asked the American.

Khalin scowled. "The news I heard in Moscow. There's trouble brewing in the Far East."