Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/71

71 Tork suddenly joined us. He saw the optical instruments in Allaire's hand.

"So? What is this?" he demanded.

"Her eyes," Allaire said. "I am going to give her sight."

"Oh you are?" Tork's grin was ironic, but his eyes gleamed with a suppressed fury. "I do not wish it."

"Why," I gasped, "you told me—"

"I have changed my mind." He bent with his jeweled hand touching Doris' head. "I think I would rather have her without sight," he said. "Do not be too unhappy, my dear. There is little to see of any glories where we are going. You will stay by me, and I will be your eyes. And you will know what a wonderful man is Tork—your Master, and yet—your servant."

His hand toyed with his belt where a tiny weapon of gold, jewel-like, hung dangling.

"I should kill you, Allaire," he added calmly. But I won't. I need you. Go attend our men who are wounded."

He turned away. Allaire leaned over me.

"I'll find my chance—I'll fix her eyes."

HREE days of our trip passed. They were awesome days indeed. Since we could not possibly escape, Tork ironically gave us a fair freedom of movement. Much of the time we spent with him in the ship's glowing, humming control turret.

There was something queer about him—something that I could never quite seem to fathom. He radiated power, yet with it there was a simple childishness. Pleasant enough with us—and then he would gloat that we were his first condemned men, to be put to death at the great festival the night of our arrival. Our deaths—with ghastly torture which he delighted in picturing—would show all his men what a wonderful Emperor they had in him. And that he meant it, and would do it with the same smiling irony, I could not doubt.

There was a woman here who ministered to Doris. The woman Rhadana—she whom the red-shirted giant Greggson had toasted as their future Empress. She had joined Tork's band during one of the stops—at 6140. I recall my emotions when first I saw her. Tork had given me a little cubby alone, and Blake the one next to it. It was near the first time of sleep; and Rhadana came with food for me.

"You are called Bob Manse?" she said softly. "Here is your meal."

She had very much the same clipped accent as young Allaire. But her voice was throaty, purring. I had been staring out of the barred window of my dim little room—staring at the vast panorama which the changing centuries were bringing to this little vista of Space. The great city had risen to its height, been devasted by war most horrible—war that all the perverted genius of science could make terrible beyond anything my mind was capable of understanding. For centuries the city had lain in ruins, its despondent people the vassals of tyrants.

And then the city began to rise again. Perhaps a different civilization. I saw rising what seemed great pyramids, with their apex sliced off, with streets run-