“To me there’s a bigger worry,” Buck retorted. “How do we explain the disappearance of the Master? We are known to be the last people to see him alive — the guard will verify that — and I’m getting cold all over thinking what the law will do when it investigates.”
Clem got to his feet and looked at the clothes on the floor.
“For the moment,” he said, “those clothes will, I hope baffle those who find them. Our only chance is to walk out of here as though nothing had happened and get back quick to the underground where we’ll think up what comes next. Come on.”
CHAPTER SIX: THE PAST IS PRESENT
To get safely out of the official building was not particularly difficult since it was assumed by the guards, number sixty-seven amongst them, that the Master had released Clem and Buck from audience and allowed them to go on their way, and they reached the underground workings safely and, to Clem’s intense relief, Lucy was still where she had been left, high up amidst the rockery and effectively screened. She listened in silent amazement to the story Clem had to tell.
“Then what happens now?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t dare to think,” Clem groaned. “Once the disappearance of the Master is discovered trouble is going to come our way with a capital T. That guard, number sixty-seven, is a particularly vindictive specimen who’ll shift heaven and earth to make capital out of this.”
“It all seems so queer,” Lucy mused. “That so many people are dying because of me. Even queerer that the Master of this amazing world should be a descendant of mine! I don’t know whether to feel proud or — or revolted! Queer too that steel and all the rest of it should be wiped out in so many places because I happened to be wearing them at the time. Why don’t I disappear then? I should, surely, if everything is to hang together?”
“That is a possibility even yet,” Clem said quietly, and searched her face. He read no fear there: only that same look of bewilderment that had been hers ever since the rescue from the entropy globe.
“Well, if it comes to it,” she said seriously, “I shan’t even have the chance to thank you for all you’ve done — you and Buck and Eva, so I’ll thank you now, just in case. I also apologize most sincerely for having thrown a good-sized spanner into the works of 3004.”
Clem gave a fleeting smile as he patted her hand, and then he became serious again. “I only hope this entropy business doesn’t work out to its logical conclusion in your case, Lucy, because I’ve more than a liking for you — as you may have noticed.”
“I’ve noticed,” she assented, smiling. “But you’ve forgotten, surely, that I’m a misfit? The odd girl out? And, anyway, I’m a thousand years behind the times.”
“That doesn’t signify to me. What I want to do, if some scientific miracle spares your dissolution, is to prove to the world what I proved to the Master — that you are a helpless victim in need of assistance and not condemnation. I did prove it to him, and he accepted the theory. Then he had to die before he could speak! It’s damnable. It puts us right back where we started, but with the added burden of knowing that the Master is dead—”
“Hey, listen to that radio,” Buck interrupted, making his way amidst the rockery. “If it doesn’t smell like trouble I don’t know what does!”
Clem and the girl listened, and so did the working crew in the great open space below. The words from the speaker came through with a powerful echo.
“Attention all listeners! The Master has disappeared! No trace of him can be found, and the only clue is his clothes on the floor of his office, obviously left there by his abductors. We need no further proof that spies are at work and this is their supreme and most audacious move. War with the East is imminent, according to private papers, which the Master had in his possession — so imminent indeed that Leslie Hurst, our ambassador, is already on his way home. The move of abducting the Master is plain. Without him, and his guiding genius we cannot possibly survive in the struggle with the East that is to come!
“Attention all listeners! To round up every spy in the Western organization here in the West is obviously impossible. We have already tried and made little headway — but it is known that one of these spies is being shielded by Clement Bradley and his partner ‘Buck’ Cardew at the foundation site of the Protection Tower — which Tower, incidentally, should have been erected by now if it is to be of service in defeating the invaders. The delay in constructing the foundations is now shown as obviously intentional. Further — a vital fact — it is known that the two last people to be present with the Master before his mysterious disappearance were Bradley and Cardew. Find them at the Protection Tower site — and find the woman with them — then we shall have the answer to many of our problems. One hostage, in the form of this woman, may do much to deter Eastern onslaught. All of you, men and women, wherever you may be, have freedom to act as you see fit in bringing these traitors to account.”
“I wouldn’t be sure of it,” Buck said, “but that sounded like the voice of Guard Sixty-Seven, taking a great deal of authority unto himself!”
“It was Sixty-Seven,” Clem confirmed. “As for him taking authority unto himself, he wouldn’t dare without the sanction of the Council over which the Master ruled. The only explanation is that he must have told them he has special knowledge regarding us, so they’ve put him in charge of the situation for the moment. Far as we’re concerned, the people will be out to get us — particularly as the news of imminent war has now been broken.”
“We’ll fight it out,” Buck decided. He got to his feet and called to the assembly of men gathered in the space below. “Hey, boys! You heard that broadcast? You willing to fight it out against the mob?”
The steel-helmeted heads nodded and one of them called back: “Sure thing, Buck! We’ll give them a run for their money if they come down here!”
“All right then — scatter to convenient positions and use the blast-guns as weapons,” Buck ordered. “That ought to let ’em see we mean business.”
“I think this is a waste of time,” Clem said frankly. “I know the blast-guns can wreak a tremendous amount of havoc — massacre if you like — but it won’t stop a determined people who think we’ve sold them into defeat against the East. If anything it’ll only make our case all the blacker because it will look as though we really are guilty if we try and defend ourselves.”
“That’s s right,” Lucy assented, clinging to Clem’s arm. “Honest, Buck, I think Clem’s got the right idea.”
“Then you’re both crazy!” Buck snorted. “If you’re both so chicken-hearted that you intend to let yourselves be taken without a struggle, I’m not. Don’t you realize what it will mean when the mob gets you? Law will be thrown overboard. Many will revert to type and maybe you’ll even be lynched. In fact, if Sixty-Seven is controlling things for the moment I’m more than sure you will be!”
“No.” Clem shook his head. “Even Sixty-Seven would not dare go that far: the Council would prevent it. My idea is to let ourselves be taken and then prove the truth of what did happen to the Master, and his acceptance of my theory concerning Lucy.”
“Oh, talk sense, can’t you!” Buck cried. “We can never prove what happened in that office—”
“Yes we can,” Clem interrupted. “Providing it’s still there, that is, and I’m hoping it will be. Don’t you remember that when our interview with the Master began he switched on a recording apparatus so our entire conversation could be taken down. When I’d finished he switched it off.”
“Yes, that’s true, but—” Buck scratched his neck. “But that doesn’t explain the Master’s disappearance!”