“I hope, Mister Bradley, you are not going to be so foolish as to use the present all-prevailing senility as an excuse for your behavior? The Master couldn’t have died of old age. Such a thing is not even possible. He has been hidden somewhere, was probably removed under heavy disguise which accounts for his clothes being left behind.”
Clem breathed hard. “If I were to explain this matter in full detail I would only be derided by you and the people, because it involves a most complicated scientific theory — but the Master understood it, and accepted it. Will you be content to base your decision on the Master’s own conclusions?”
“So you mean to restore him from — wherever you have hidden him?”
“Nothing of the kind. The Master is extinct, dying of age so great that even his body turned to dust. However, he recorded the interview Mister Cardew and I had with him, and to the best of my knowledge that recording is still in his office if I could be allowed to obtain it.”
“That’s only fair, surely?” Buck demanded.
“You have overlooked the fact that you are prisoners,” the ‘judge’ snapped, “and such a request as you have made cannot be granted. In any case we have no guarantee that the recording to which you refer would prove genuine. Since the abduction of the Master must obviously have been planned in detail long ago, there would be nothing to prevent scientists faking a recording purporting to belong to the Master. Nothing would be easier than to leave it in his office at the time of the abduction, to be used later as so-called proof of innocence. I, and the people, can well understand how essential it is that you three should escape justice since you are obviously the cleverest spies in the entire Eastern organization—”
“We’ve nothing to do with the Eastern organization!” Buck roared in fury. “Why can’t you three men up there use some commonsense? Any man, or woman, no matter what their crime, is entitled to use every available form of evidence to prove innocence. That’s all we’re asking for.”
“And it is not granted!” the ‘judge’ retorted.
“Who says it isn’t?” a voice asked coldly — and immediately attention was distracted from the ‘judge’ to a man at the back of the hall. Somehow he had reached one of the higher windows and evidently entered thereby. At the moment he stood against the empty top balcony, using its ledge upon which to rest the heavy barrel of a blast-gun. His steel helmet and grimy face immediately betrayed where he had come from.
“The boys!” Buck cried in delight, glancing about him to behold other engineers from the foundation site at different parts of the balcony, their blast-guns poised. “They’ve followed us up.”
“That’s right, Buck,” agreed the one who had first spoken. “Since you’d been taken away by the people we decided to see that the people gave you a fair deal — and at the moment they don’t seem to be doing so—”
“Get those men from that balcony!” the ‘judge’ shouted in fury. “Whose negligence allowed them to get in, anyway?”
“Not a matter of negligence,” responded the spokesman engineer. “Everybody’s so confoundedly busy trying to crush into this place that nobody’s about in the city — and certainly nobody was guarding this building. We just went round the back of it and climbed up to the first story. Now — how about letting the three prisoners have a fair hearing?”
“Waste of time,” Clem called. “Even if the record was produced they’d say it was faked.”
The engineer considered, his sharp eyes glancing to his comrades at the ready along the balcony, their guns aimed.
“All right,” he said. “In that case you’d better go — whilst you’re safe. We’ll cover you.”
The people jumped to their feet in fury, then they hesitated as Clem spoke to them.
“Better look at this thing sensibly,” he warned. “I invented the blast-guns these engineers are using and I warn you their power is sufficient to mow down everybody in this hall. Better give us a safe passage if you wish to stay in one piece.”
“And where do we go?” Buck murmured.
“To the Master’s office,” Clem whispered. “The highest point in the city and easy to defend against most comers. Right, let’s risk it.”
“I’m going to let the boys know where we’re going,” Buck said. “They can be of tremendous help to us with those blast guns— Follow us to the Master’s office, boys!” he yelled, and then hurried after Clem and Lucy as they got on the move.
Under the circumstances there was nothing the people could do with the deadly blast-guns threatening them. Even without the warning Clem had given them they knew the power of the guns because the news announcements had been full of the details at the time Clem had secured his Government contract.
“You can’t possibly get away with this!” Guard Sixty-Seven shouted angrily. “Even less so since you’ve told us where you’re going! What are you people scared of?” he demanded, wheeling round. “Don’t you realize they’re getting away? Those men with the blast-guns can’t get all of us! Come on!”
Pretty well sure of his safety because he was so hemmed in by the people around him Sixty-Seven plunged in the wake of the departing trio and, moved by his example, the people also started to push and shove. The spokesman-engineer watched the proceedings for a moment, his keen eyes to the sights of his blast-gun.
“I never did like that guard,” he muttered. “Too much to say for himself—”
Abruptly the guard became visible in the sight for a second or so and the engineer instantly pressed the button. A shaft of violet flame stabbed down from the balcony and struck Sixty-Seven straight in the back. He howled in sudden anguish and then dropped flat on his face, the people around him recoiling hastily and staring over their shoulders, upwards to where the engineer stood.
“Just to warn you,” he shouted. “If you dare follow those three you know what you’ll get! Now get back before I give the order for every gun to be used.”
By this time Clem, Buck and Lucy had reached the main doorway at a slithering run. They glanced back quickly over their shoulders.
“The boys are pinning ’em,” Buck exulted. “Quick! With things like this we may just make it to the Master’s office, and if we get that far there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get the Council to listen to us later. If they won’t listen, then we’ll barricade ourselves in until they do.”
“And use what for food?” Clem questioned. “Anyway, we’ll sort that out later— Ready for a sprint, Lucy? Here we go.”
Helping the girl between them they hurried out into the main street and, as the engineer had said, it was almost empty of people, most of them having congregated in the vast public hall. What few there were glanced after the scurrying trio but paid no more attention — and since the guards within the public hall were unable to send advance warning to the main headquarters building there was no danger in this direction at the moment, either.
“We’d better take the back entrance and use the service lift,” Clem said quickly, when at last they had reached the broad avenue leading to the rear of the vast building. “We’re not so liable to be questioned.”
Buck nodded, not letting up for a moment in his run. The main doorway to the rear was gained and so was the lift marked STAFF ONLY, which at this period was empty.
“Done it,” Clem panted, slamming across the grille and pushing in the button. “We’ll think out later what we do next.”
To Lucy the journey to the top of the vast edifice seemed interminable and every moment she was expecting the lift to stop, halted by some official order or other, but nothing happened — and at last there was a click as the ascent finished and the lift gates automatically opened on to an opulent corridor. Here indeed were the sacrosanct regions of the building, as Clem and Buck well knew — the private chambers and office of the departed Master.