Tarrano the Conqueror

_The New Murders_ I was standing fairly close to the President of the Anglo-Saxon Republic when the first of the new murders was committed. The President fell almost at my feet. I...

_Warning_ It must have been nearly nine o'clock when a personal message came for me. Not through the ordinary open airways, but in the National Length, and coded. It came to my de...

_Spy in the House_ The insulated room was small, with a dome-shaped ceiling, no windows, and but one small, heavy door through which we entered, closing it carefully behind us. "...

_To the North Pole_ "You stand back! You do not touch me!" The Venus girl fairly hissed the words. Her eyes were dilated; her white hair hung in a tumbling, wavy mass over her sh...

_Outlawed Flight_ Dr. Brende was dead. We knew it in the moment that followed our sudden assault and capture. Elza knelt there sobbing. Then she stood up, her tears checked; and o...

_Man of Destiny_ Tarrano! He rose slowly to his feet, his gaze on us for an instant, then turning to Argo. "So! You took them? Well done, Argo!" His gesture dismissed his subord...

_Prisoners_ From the garden where Tarrano was talking with Elza, the Mars man Wolfgar led us to the tower in which we were to be imprisoned. Quite evidently it had been placed in ...

_Unknown Friend_ "Sit down." Tarrano motioned us to feather hassocks and stretched himself indolently upon our pillowed divan. With an elbow and hand supporting his head he regard...

_Paralyzed!_ The isolation barrage which Wolfgar had flung around us was dissolving. Someone--something--was in the room, breaking down the barrage, struggling to get at us. We st...

_Georg Escapes_ I come now to recount events at which I was not present, and the details of which I did not learn until later. Fronted by Tarrano, in those few seconds of confusio...

_Recaptured_ In Washington during those next few days, events of the Earth, Venus and Mars swirled and raged around Georg as though he were engulfed in the Iguazu or Niagara. Pass...

_Tara_ I must revert now to those moments in the tower room when Tarrano dissolved the isolation barrage which Wolfgar had thrown around us. Georg escaped, as I have recounted. Ta...

_Love--and Hate_ I did not harm this Tara, though I was sorely tempted to; and after a moment we quieted her. She was crying and laughing by turns; but when we seated her on the d...

_Defying Worlds_ "So?" Tarrano eyed us, evidently in no hurry to speak further, seemingly amused at our confusion. Had he heard much of what the two women had said? All of it, or ...

_Escape_ That _Tarrano_ should thus defy the Earth, when by every law of rational circumstance the move seemed to spell only his own disaster, was characteristic of the man. He st...

_Playground of Venus_ After a trip uneventful--save that to me, taking it for the first time, it was an experience never to be forgotten in a lifetime--we landed at the Great City...

_Violet Beam of Death_ We landed on a stage at the summit of one of the nearer hillsides. Our coming--unheralded since we had carried no sending instruments--created a furor. The ...

_Passing of a Friend_ Wolfgar was not dead; but when we picked him up it was obvious that he was dying. The violet beam vanished as his body struck it--vanished with a hiss and sp...

_Waters of Eternal Peace_ Little Wolfgar was gone. It seemed at first very strange, unreal. It lay a shadow of grief upon our spirits, for many hours a deeper shadow than all thos...

_Unseen Menace_ That day following the burial of Wolfgar, there was nothing of importance occurred. No news from the Earth could get in. I felt that the Earth might be planning an...

_Love, Music--and a Warning_ The Water Festival! As our barge rounded a bend in the canal, under the archways of dangling colored lights, the festival spread before us. Involuntar...

_Revolution!_ I realize that I am, by nature, not overly observant; and in those moments, when I stood out there beside the pool, I think I came most forcibly to appreciate how li...

_First Retreat_ I must recount now what Elza later told me, going back to those moments when Elza sat upon the balcony watching Tarrano and the Red Woman. The significance of what...

_Attack on the Palace_ I must take you back now to the Water Festival and the events in the Great City which followed it. _Slaans_ in murderous frenzy were plunging through the th...

_Immortal Terror_ To Elza, approaching with Tarrano on the tiny flying platform the City of Ice, the place seemed truly like a child's dream of Fairyland. The rude snow huts of th...

_Black Cloud of Death_ I must revert now to that time in the gardens of Maida's palace at the Great City when we stood upon its roof-top, threatened below by that mob of _slaans_....

_Tarrano the Man_ "Wake up, Lady Elza." A silence. His hand touched her white shoulder. "Wake up, Lady Elza. It is I--Tarrano." Elza opened her eyes, struggling to confused wake...

_Thing in the Forest_ "All in good time, Lady Elza, you will know where we are." Alone, unnoticed, they had departed from the City of Ice on a small flying platform similar to th...

_A Woman's Scream_ "The black Cloud of Death!" We stood there at the casement of the palace, gazing with a growing terror at the visible evidence of the tragedy which threatened....

_The Monster_ I stood frozen with horror; but as my brain cleared--awake at last to full rationality and consciousness--beneath the horror came a surging joy of the knowledge that...

_Industriana_ It must have been two days later when at last we were rescued by the _Rhaal_ patrol and taken to Industriana. Back there in the forest I had suddenly remembered that...

_Departure_ Georg and Maida were very busy in Industriana; and now Elza and I were admitted to their activities--Elza and I, with our new-found love and happiness neglected for th...

_First Assault_ Our spies had informed us that of recent weeks there had arisen about the City of Ice a huge wall behind which Tarrano would make his stand. It was our plan to app...

_Invisible Assailants_ We did not locate the source of the bomb, and no others rose to assail us. The mountain defiles, so far as our lights could illuminate them, seemed deserted...

_Attack on the Power House_ Stricken with surprise and awe, Elza and I sat there motionless. Our encampment was in a turmoil of confusion--chaos, out of which very soon order came...

_City of Ice Besieged_ We were not greatly harmed by this surprise attack; the power house was superficially damaged, but soon repaired. That night--I call it that though the cons...

_Battle_ I found myself in the air; with my men around me we hovered. Then Georg's command from the instrument room sounded in my ears. I gave the signal; and flying wedge-shaped,...