Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/79

Rh stant when I saw Rhadana silently drop her draperies. The prismatic sheen painted her milk-white body, clothing her with color. And now she was gliding forward; the light glinted on the knife-blade in her hand. But suddenly she stopped. Greggson had seen her. He gestured, and she slunk aside.

And then Greggson was raising his weapon. By some miracle Tork suddenly was aware of the danger. He whirled. Greggson's flash of weapon was met in mid-air by one from Tork—a little shower of red, green and yellow sparks with a tiny thunderclap. And then from Tork's belt some other ray spat. It cut through the spark-shower. Greggson's body fell.

There was a sudden shock of silence. Then into it came the muttering of the startled, angry men. Greggson; one of them, perhaps their favorite. A mutter as they surged forward. It was a little fire in prairie grass—it spread. A shout; a thrown misslemissile [sic]; girls screaming.

I was aware in that pregnant second that the guards here by Blake and me had jumped forward. One of them called with a burst of profanity at Tork.

Blake seized me. "Come on! Around the back of that throne—"

E JUMPED together. A hiss of radiance stabbed at us, but missed. It added to the turmoil—confusion—and in another second, chaos. Some of the girls had escaped from the men holding them. They ran, screaming. Down on the dark slopes the little watching creatures also were shouting, milling, surging forward to see better. A hundred or so of them, like stampeded, bewildered animals, came plunging into the light area. A little wave of them got between me and the throne. I plunged into them, scattering them as with squeals of terror they tried to avoid me.

Myriad things happening at once, in those crowded seconds. Up on the throne-platform, close before me now, Tork stood motionless, gazing down at the body of Greggson and then at the surging chaos before him. Tork, with an expression so weird on his face that it made me gasp. A stricken tableau up there

Doris, to one side, was crouching, huddled in her Empress robe—staring numbed, with a hand at her breast in her terror.

Tableau—and in it, only the voluptuous figure of Rhadana was moving; again with sinuous glide advancing upon Tork. And as he had been aware of Greggson, so now he was aware of her. With a little muttered scream of anger he whirled. Her white, painted body wilted under his flash—wilted and fell in a quivering heap at his feet.

In the distance I saw some of the men running now for the time-ship, dragging the girls with them. Between me and the throne there was a solid mass of struggling natives. Blake was gone; separated from me in the rush.

All in only a few crowded, chaotic seconds. The collapse of Tork's world. Up on the platform he was still standing stricken, on his face amazement, disillusionment, despair. Emperor here. Of what? Just chaos. And suddenly his face was contorted by ghastly rage—the maniacal rage of his disillusionment, his despair.

From his belt he whipped a jeweled weapon. It spat with a spreading, electronic blast. Amazing pyrotechnics of hurtling free electricity! It went out in a wave of crackling, sparkling color.

Other blasts from some of the running men came stabbing, but Tork's current beat them back. The air crackled and hissed with showers of sparks, gleaming in the lights. And then