Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/124

124 sweep of deadly ray when all their "shorter" ray fans were off and they were unsuspecting.

Lane had time for one long sigh of relief, realizing that the fear that had plagued and killed his Red Legion was now gone. But why, why had Da Sylva sent killers on the trail of the Legion? Lane resolved to find out!

Lane sent his own telaug beam from his floating car upon Da Sylva's now half-conscious head. As that awful sub-conscious thought was augmented into overwhemingly loud impulses within his mind a terrible revulsion at even hearing what she thought took place. It was like reading Satan's mind, if Satan was a woman.

The things she had done, the terrible ideas that showed now to Lane as great images of reality of the past, were filtered and changed by time, but augmented by the telaug into reality again. The scenes of her past fascinated him as a bird is fascinated by a snake, for Lane did not know that the telaug cannot be used at too great strength for long periods without hypnosis, or he had forgotten Saba's warning in his first shocked mental immersion into evil female thought now taking place within his own mind more strongly than his own pale unaugmented thought. It was strange to feel oneself a woman, an evil, passionate, lusting, cruel and bloody woman with a past that Bluebeard would have envied. Strange and fascinating, for the joy of her mind in her past was relived by Da Sylva as she realized she had not long to live. Thankfully came her thought.

"Anyway, I got mine while the getting was good!"

UDDENLY into that garishly distorted beauty where the handiwork of this Da Sylva bunch had managed to alloy the original ancient beauty and the barbaric Indian additions of a different kind of charm with an overlay of modern gaudiness; into that scene of victory and vengeance came a mighty voice over a green beam of terrific power.

"Eemeeshee, I am Mexitli. You have brought war to people under my protection. I must kill you, Eemeeshee, even though you are of the old race. I cannot allow this insult.

Eemeeshee, whose beet-red apoplectic face had resumed its normal pallor through his unconscious fit and his subsequent awakening to a victory he had failed to contribute much to winning, suddenly went a beet red again, his great arms began to quiver, his lips to drool and tremble. Even Lane could see through the common ray trick, but the mighty Eemeeshee—no, he had to believe everything he heard. Some fleeing enemy had decided to make one more try at besting them—had flung an unobserved telaug beam into the chambers of Da Sylva and had carefully searched Eemeeshee's mind for his one greatest fear. Finding this fear in his memories of some feared enemy of the past, he had imitated the nature of this Mexitili—the voice at first—and now into the chamber came a great solidograph projection of the figure of this fake "Mexitli". Even Lane understood the nature of the ruse. This new enemy had seen the image in Eemeeshee's thought, had caught the thing with the antique thought recorder attachment, was now reprojecting the image from Eemeeshee's own mind. But not Eemeeshee—oh no. If some one said something, he had to believe it.

Lane understood now why Secumne had been so discouraged with the character of these creatures of Eemeeshee's kind. His great face purple with fear and upset circulation, his trembling hands sought the great control levers of his crystal mechanism. The anti-gravs lifted it, slowly at first, then rapidly, the great shining machine floated off down the corridor, swung into the wide ways toward the south. Deaf to all their shouted entreaties over their rays as they watched this craven flight of their leader from a mere voice and projection, Emeeshee's great floating temple of forgotten machinery began to speed away from them, was soon lost to their following search rays.

Meanwhile Saba, taking it all in with a half smile of sad understanding on her face, swung the huge rays from the war-ray chamber of Da Sylva's where she had remained with four stalwarts of the Legion to insure that the great old mech were properly manned. Swung them searching the distance for the origin of this fake voice and picture which had cost them their leader. Swung them, and, with gathering doubt and indecision on her face, failed to find the source.

Something that Eemeeshee was thinking as he fled puzzled Lane.

"Mexitli is a messenger from Apollo.