The Officer of the Guard reached my quarters shortly after I did. I told him that I was going in search of Dejah Thoris and that he would be in charge of the household until I returned.
“While I am waiting for Jat Or,” I said, “I wish that you would go to the landing deck and signal for a patrol boat. I want it to escort me beyond the walls of the city, so that I shall not be delayed.”
He saluted and left, and after he had gone I wrote a short note to Tardos Mors and others to Mors Kajak and Carthoris.
As I completed the last of these, Jat Or entered. He was a trim and efficient-looking fighting man, and I was pleased with his appearance. Although he had been in our service for some time I had not known him intimately in the past, as he was only a minor padwar attached to the retinue of Dejah Thoris. A padwar, incidentally, holds a rank corresponding closely to that of lieutenant in an earthly military organization.
I motioned Jat Or to follow me, and together we went to the landing deck. Here I selected a fast two-man flier; and as I was running it out of its hangar, the patrol boat that the Officer of the Guard had summoned settled toward the deck.
A moment later we were moving toward the outer walls of greater Helium under escort of the patrol boat; and when we had passed beyond, we dipped our bows to one another in parting salute. I set the nose of my flier in the direction of Zodanga and opened the throttle wide, while the patrol boat turned back over the city.
The return journey to Zodanga was uneventful. I took advantage of the time at my disposal to acquaint Jat Or with all that had occurred while I was in Zodanga and of all that I had learned there, so that he might be well prepared in advance for any emergency which might arise. I also again tinted my flesh with the red pigment, which was my only disguise.
Naturally, I was much concerned regarding the fate of Dejah Thoris, and devoted much time to useless conjecture as to where her abductors had taken her.
I could not believe that Gar Nal’s interplanetary ship could have approached Helium without being discovered. It seemed, therefore, far more reasonable to assume that Dejah Thoris had been taken to Zodanga and that from that city the attempt would be made to transport her to Thuria.
My state of mind during this long journey is indescribable. I visualized my princess in the power of Ur Jan’s ruffians; and I pictured her mental suffering, though I knew that outwardly she would remain calm and courageous. To what insults and indignities would they subject her? A blood-red mist swam before my eyes as thoughts like these raced through my brain, and the blood-lust of the killer dominated me completely, so that I am afraid I was a rather surly and uncommunicative companion that Jat Or sailed with during the last hours of that flight.
But at last we approached Zodanga. It was night again.
It might have been safer to have waited until daylight, as I had on a previous occasion, before entering the city; but time was an all important factor now.
Showing no lights, we nosed slowly toward the city’s walls; and keeping constant watch for a patrol boat, we edged over the outer wall and into a dark avenue beyond.
Keeping to unlighted thoroughfares, we came at last in safety to the same public hangar that I had patronized before.
The first step in the search for Dejah Thoris had been taken.
XI. In the House of Gar Nal
Ignorance and stupidity occasionally reveal advantages that raise them to the dignity of virtues. The ignorant and stupid are seldom sufficiently imaginative to be intelligently curious.
The hangar man had seen me depart in a one-man flier and alone. Now he saw me return in a two-man flier, with a companion. Yet, he evidenced no embarrassing curiosity on the subject.
Storing our craft in a hangar and instructing the hangar man that he was to permit either one of us to take it out when we chose, I conducted Jat Or to the public house in the same building; and after introducing him to the proprietor, I left him, as the investigation that I now purposed conducting could be carried on to better advantage by one man than two.
My first objective was to learn if Gar Nal’s ship had left Zodanga.
Unfortunately, I did not know the location of the hangar in which Gar Nal had built his ship. I was quite sure that I could not get this information from Rapas, as he was already suspicious of me, and so my only hope lay in Fal Sivas.
I was quite sure that he must know, as from remarks that he had dropped, I was convinced that the two inventors had constantly spied upon one another; and so I set out in the direction of the house of Fal Sivas, after instructing Jat Or to remain at the public house where I could find him without delay should I require his services.
It was still not very late in the evening when I reached the house of the old inventor. At my signal, Hamas admitted me. He appeared a little surprised and not overly pleased when he recognized me.
“We thought that Ur Jan had finally done away with you,” he said.
“No such luck, Hamas,” I replied. “Where is Fal Sivas?”
“He is in his laboratory on the level above,” replied the major-domo. “I do not know that he will want to be disturbed, though I believe that he will be anxious to see you.”
He added this last with a nasty inflection that I did not like.
“I will go up to his quarters, at once,” I said.
“No,” said Hamas; “you will wait here. I will go to the master and ask his pleasure.”
I brushed past him into the corridor. “You may come with me, if you will, Hamas,” I said; “but whether you come or not, I must see Fal Sivas at once.”
He grumbled at this disregard of his authority and hastened along the corridor a pace or two ahead of me.
As I passed my former quarters, I noticed that the door was open; but though I saw nothing of Zanda within, I gave the matter no thought.
We passed on up the ramp to the level above, and there Hamas, knocked on the door of Fal Sivas’s apartment.
For a moment there was no answer; and I was about to enter the room when I heard Fal Sivas’s voice demand querulously, “Who’s there?”
“It is Hamas,” replied the major-domo, “and the man, Vandor, who has returned.”
“Send him in, send him in,” directed Fal Sivas.
As Hamas opened the door, I brushed past him and, turning, pushed him out into the corridor. “He said, ‘Send him in,’” I said. Then I closed the door in his face.
Fal Sivas had evidently come out of one of the other rooms of his suite in answer to our knock, for he stood now facing me with his hand still on the latch of a door in the opposite wall of the room, an angry frown contracting his brows.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
Naturally, I have not been accustomed to being spoken to in the manner that Fal Sivas had adopted; and I did not relish it. I am a fighting man, not an actor; and, for a moment, I had a little difficulty in remembering that I was playing a part.
I did even go so far as to take a couple of steps toward Fal Sivas with the intention of taking him by the scruff of the neck and shaking some manners into him, but I caught myself in time; and as I paused, I could not but smile.
“Why don’t you answer me?” cried Fal Sivas, “You are laughing; do you dare to laugh at me?”
“Why shouldn’t I laugh at my own stupidity?” I demanded.
“Your own stupidity? I do not understand. What do you mean?”
“I took you for an intelligent man, Fal Sivas; and now I find that I was mistaken. It makes me smile.”
I thought he was going to explode, but he managed to control himself. “Just what do you mean by that?” he demanded angrily.
“I mean that no intelligent man would speak to a lieutenant in the tone of voice in which you have just addressed me, no matter what he suspected, until he had thoroughly investigated. You have probably been listening to Hamas during my absence; so I am naturally condemned without a hearing.”