Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/36

36 "I know the feeling." Dane replied darkly. "I've watched my own people sink into stupidity and ignorance and prayed for the power to help them."

They were climbing slowly, side by side, up the steps. The city fell away beneath them. Ahead was the looming darkness surrounding the Intensifier. There was no one at work when they stopped in silence in the shadows, but the overhead machinery throbbed and there was the dripping of liquid into a vat somewhere.

A few lights sprinkled the sleeping city. Margo extended her arm to point at a V-shaped gap in the black chain of hills across from them.

"There is the cause of tonight's trouble. Three hundred died in the landslide. A whole section was buried. That means more crowding up of the survivors, fewer hands to do the work already far too great for us."

"But think—in a few days all these terrified people can be moved away to a fertile world such as they've never seen!"

"I wish it were that easy!" Margo shook her head sadly as she said that, and Dane looked into her troubled eyes. "If we can take half of them, we shall have done well. We haven't the transport ships to carry over five-hundred thousand. Night and day, for two years, we've been laboring to build them. But we were starting from almost nothing. Our great ship factories were across the hills, and they're buried now. Buried with the three hundred transports we had completed. All we can do is take the people in two loads, hoping the second is still alive when we return."

ANE found no words to console her. But a warm sympathy drew him close to the girl. Sympathy—and something stronger. Something that made him long to comfort and protect her. Brooke had never aroused that deep, poignant yearning. And Dane understood why; he and Brooke had so little in common. He and Margo had had the same heartbreaks, the same trials.

Rather suddenly, Dane remembered Kris. Staring off into the darkness, he murmured:

"You and Kris, I suppose, will be married when the colony is established on Earth?"

Margo's reply was so delayed that Dane glanced quickly at her. The girl's eyes avoided him.

"Yes, I—I suppose so," she said at last. "Father loves Kris like a son. He wanted us to marry before we left. But Kris agreed with me that it was better to wait."

Dane recalled the look she had given Kris at dinner. Admiring yet fearful.

In the next moment both of them were turning swiftly, as a foot rasped in the gravel. Apprehension chilled Dane. Kris had stepped out of the shadows behind them. His face was dark with fury, and his hand rested on his gun.

"Margo!" he snapped. "Why aren't you in your room?"

"Why should I be, Kris?" the girl countered. "I couldn't sleep. Dane came out because he couldn't sleep either."

Kris' thin features were sharp with distrust. Sarcasm whetted his words razor-sharp.

"Convenient! But I couldn't sleep because I saw the two of you leave together. So here I am. Is it your Earth-custom, Cabot, to try to steal the love "

"Cut it out!" Dane cracked out the words and stepped close to the Ionian. "It happened just as Margo said. I'm