Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/33

Rh What can I tell them?"

"Tomorrow—no! It's impossible." Cabot's hawk-nose grew red. "Tell them this: That we can leave in three days if they don't slow us up by constant bickering. That they'll have new homes on Earth in a week. But that if they kill us, they'll die right here in Good Hope Valley!"

Margo relayed the new promises. At last the mob, still grumbling, filtered back into the dingy streets from which they had come.

HEY went back to their dinner with less appetite. Margo picked distastefully at her food. Dane finally turned to her.

"This is the last livable place on your planet?" he queried.

"—and these are the last of the Ionians," the girl finished sadly. "There were eight million Ionians at one time. Falling mountains, starvation, and plagues have killed off seven-eighths of those souls. In a few weeks—days, perhaps—Good Hope Valley will be a vast graveyard, filled to the brim with stones. Io will soon have disintegrated completely."

Kris put in: "You see why we must conquer Earth. There is no other inhabitable planet, and The Hundred would certainly not hear of a settlement."

Sam Cabot was drumming on the table with his fingertips, scowling.

"There was a day when I should have died rather than take up arms against my countrymen. But that was the day of the true democracy. I tell you, Dane, that these poor people have a truer democracy than Earth has known in seventy-five years! We call Kris and Margo, Prince and Princess. That's a mere title. A vote of the people could oust them overnight. They hold elections every five years, and believe me there are no stuffed ballot boxes on Io. Every man appoints himself a guardian of the polls."

"Why haven't they elected new rulers, if they're dissatisfied?" Dane asked.

"Who would accept the job? Besides, they are inwardly certain that Margo and Kris and I, as their Triumvirate, are capable and sincere. But fear does terrible things to men and women."

"There's something I've wondered since I saw you kill Jeffery Anson," Dane said to Kris. "Why, if you have such deadly weapons, haven't you overcome Earth years ago?"

Kris winced.

"It would have been easy, of course. But the slaughter! Millions of soldiers, guilty only of following orders, cut down like cattle! Our hope has been for a bloodless revolution. Had we been able to arrange mass sabotage to paralyze every function of the nation, the people would have been easily molded to our ideas. But, now—"

Suddenly the fork Samuel Cabot was using dropped on his metal plate with a clatter. All eyes snapped to the elderly expatriate; and Dane glimpsed with cold shock his pallid skin and shaking hands. He was at his side in an instant.

"Dad! What is it?"

Cold sweat shone on Cabot's face and his lips were blue. He gulped the water Margo held to his lips. Then he fell back, whispering:

"Be—all right—a minute—!"

Dane glanced anxiously at Kris.

"One more reason we must leave, soon," grunted the Ionian. "Your father is radiation-sick. The Red Spot, you know."

Sam Cabot struggled upright and waved the worried rulers aside.

"It's all right," he smiled feebly. And