<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
<h2><i>In the Tower</i></h2>
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<p>hat I can't figure out," said Dex, striding up and down the big bare
room, "is why we're needed to tell them about the atomic motor.
They've got our ship, and three others besides. I should think they
could learn about the motor just by taking it apart and studying it."</p>
<p>Brand grinned mirthlessly, recalling the three years of intensive
study it had taken him to learn the refinements of atomic motive
power. "If you'd ever qualified as a space navigator, Dex, you'd know
better. The Rogans are an advanced race; their control of polar
magnetism and the marvelously high-powered telescopes Greca mentions
prove that; but I doubt if they could ever analyze that atomic motor
with no hint as to how it works."</p>
<p>Silence descended on them again, in which each was lost in his own
thoughts.</p>
<p>How many hours had passed, the Earthmen did not know. They had spent
the time in fruitless planning to escape from their tower room and go
back to the ship again. Though how they could get away in the ship
when the Rogans seemed able to propel it where-ever they wished
against the utmost power of their motor, they did not attempt to
consider.</p>
<p>One of Jupiter's short nights had passed, however—a night weirdly
made as light as day by red glares from the plates, which seemed to
store up sunlight, among their other functions—and the tiny sun had
risen to slant into their window at a sharp angle.</p>
<p>Suddenly they heard the familiar drawing of the great bolts outside
their door. It was opened, and a dozen or more of the Rogans came in,
with Greca cowering piteously in their midst and attempting to
communicate her distress to Brand.</p>
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<p>t the head of the little band of Rogans was one the prisoners had not
seen before. He was of great height, fully two feet taller than the
others; and he carried himself with an air that proclaimed his
importance.</p>
<p>The tall one turned to Greca and addressed a few high-pitched, squeaky
words to her. She shook her head; whereupon, at a hissed command, two
of the Rogans caught her by the wrists and dragged her forward.</p>
<p>"They have come to question you," Greca lamented to Brand. "And they
want to do it through me. But I will not! I will not!"</p>
<p>Brand smiled at her though his lips were pale.</p>
<p>"You are powerless to struggle," he said. "Do as they ask. You cannot
help us by refusing, and, in any case, I can promise that they won't
learn anything from us."</p>
<p>The tall Rogan teetered up to the prisoners on his gangling legs, and
stared icily at them. Crouched beside him, her lovely body all one
mute appeal to the Earthmen to forgive her for the part she was forced
to play, was Greca.</p>
<p>At length the Rogan leader spoke. He addressed his sibilant words to
Greca, though his stony eyes were kept intently on the Earthmen.</p>
<p>"He says," exclaimed Greca telepathically, "to inform you first that
he is head of all the Rogan race on this globe, and that all on this
globe must do as he commands."</p>
<p>Brand nodded to show he understood the message.</p>
<p>"He says he is going to ask you a few questions, and that you are to
answer truthfully if you value your lives:"</p>
<p>"First, he wants to know what the people of your world are like. Are
they all the same as you?"</p>
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<p>ex started to reply to that; but Brand flung him a warning look.
"Tell him we are the least of the Earth people," he answered steadily.
"Tell him we are of an inferior race. Most of those on Earth are
giants five times as large as we are, and many times more powerful."</p>
<p>Greca relayed the message in the whistling, piping Rogan tongue. The
tall one stared, then hissed another sentence to the beautiful
interpreter.</p>
<p>"He wants to know," said Greca, "if there are cities on your globe as
large and complete as this one."</p>
<p>"There are cities on Earth that make this look like a—a—" Brand cast
about for understandable similes—"like a collection of animal
burrows."</p>
<p>"He says to describe your planet's war weapons," was the next
interpretation. And here Brand let himself go.</p>
<p>With flights of fancy he hadn't known he was capable of, he described
great airships, steered automatically and bristling with guns that
discharged explosives powerful enough to kill everything within a
range of a thousand miles. He told of billions of thirty-foot giants
sheathed in an alloy that would make them invulnerable to any feeble
rays the Rogans might have developed. He touched on the certain
wholesale death that must overtake any hostile force that tried to
invade the planet.</p>
<p>"The Rogan shock-tubes are toys compared with the ray-weapons of
Earth," he concluded. "We have arms that can nullify the effects of
yours and kill at the same instant. We have—"</p>
<p>But here the Rogan leader turned impatiently away. Greca had been
translating sentence by sentence. Now the tall one barked out a few
syllables in a squeaky voice.</p>
<p>"He says he knows you are lying," sighed Greca. "For if you on Earth
have tubes more effective than theirs why weren't you equipped with
them on your expedition here to the red kingdom?"</p>
<p>Brand bit his lips. "Check," he muttered. "The brute has a brain in
that ugly head."</p>
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<p>he Rogan leader spoke for a long time then; and at each singsong
word, Greca quivered as though lashed by a whip. At length she turned
to Brand.</p>
<p>"He has been telling what his hordes can do, answering your boasts
with boasts of his own. His words are awful! I won't tell you all he
said. I will only say that he is convinced his shock-tubes are
superior to any Earth arms, and that he states he will now illustrate
their power to you to quell your insolence. I don't know what he means
by that...."</p>
<p>But she and the Earthmen were soon to find out.</p>
<p>The Rogan leader stepped to the window and arrogantly beckoned Brand
and Dex to join him there. They did; and the leader gazed out and down
as though searching for something.</p>
<p>He pointed. The two Earthmen followed his leveled arm with their eyes
and saw, a hundred yards or so away, a bent and dreary figure trudging
down the metal paving of the street. It was a figure like those to be
seen on Earth, which placed it as belonging to Greca's race.</p>
<p>The tall leader drew forth one of the shock-tubes. Seen near at hand,
it was observed to be bafflingly simple in appearance. It seemed
devoid of all mechanism—simply a tube of reddish metal with a sort of
handle formed of a coil of heavy wire.</p>
<p>The Rogan pointed the tube at the distant figure.</p>
<p>Greca screamed, and screamed again. Coincident with her cry, as though
the sound of it had felled him, the distant slave dropped to the
pavement.</p>
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<p>hat was all. The tube had merely been pointed: as far as Brand could
see, the Rogan's "hand" had not moved on the barrel of the tube, nor
even constricted about the coil of wire that formed its handle. Yet
that distant figure had dropped. Furthermore, fumes of greasy black
smoke now began to arise from the huddled body; and in less than
thirty seconds there was left no trace of it on the gleaming metal
pavement.</p>
<p>"So that's what those things are like at full power!" breathed Dex.
"My God!"</p>
<p>The Rogan leader spoke a few words. Greca, huddled despairingly on the
floor, crushed by this brutal annihilation of one of her country-men
before her very eyes, did not translate. But translation was
unnecessary. The Rogan's icy, triumphant eyes, the very posture of
his grotesque body, spoke for him.</p>
<p>"That," he was certainly saying, "is what will happen to any on your
helpless planet who dare oppose the Rogan will!"</p>
<p>He whipped out a command to the terror-stricken girl. She rose from
her crouching position on the floor; and at length formulated the
Rogan's last order:</p>
<p>"You will explain the working of the engine that drove your space ship
here."</p>
<p>Dex laughed. It was a short bark of sound, totally devoid of humor,
but very full of defiance. Brand thrust his hands into the pockets of
his tunic, spread his legs apart, and began to whistle.</p>
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<p> quiver that might have been of anger touched the Rogan leader's
repulsive little mouth. He glared balefully at the uncowed Earthmen
and spoke again, evidently repeating his command. The two turned their
backs to him to indicate their refusal to obey.</p>
<p>At that, the tall leader pointed to Dex. In an instant three of the
guards had wound their double pairs of arms around his struggling
body. Brand sprang to help him, but a touch of the mysterious
discharge from the leader's tube sent him writhing to the floor.</p>
<p>"It's no use, Brand," said Dex steadily. He too had stopped
struggling, and now stood quietly in the slimy coils of his captors'
arms. "I might as well go along with them and get it over with. I
probably won't see you again. Good luck!"</p>
<p>He was borne out of the room. The Rogan leader turned to Brand and
spoke.</p>
<p>"He says that if your comrade does not tell him what he wants to know,
your turn will come next," sobbed Greca. "Oh! Why does not The Great
White One strike these monsters to the dust!"</p>
<p>She ran to Brand and pressed her satiny cheek to his. Then she was
dragged roughly away.</p>
<p>The great door clanged shut. The heavy outer fastenings clicked into
place. Dex had gone to experience whatever it was that Journeyman and
the rest had experienced in this red hell. And Brand was left behind
to reflect on what dread torments this might comprise; and to pray
desperately that no matter what might be done to his shrinking body he
would be strong enough to refuse to betray his planet.</p>
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