“Nice work,” Buck complimented them. “Even though I don’t quite understand what you did.”
“Simple enough, Buck. When we departed from the balcony of the public hall the people were more concerned in finding you than bothering with us — particularly as we had blast-guns with which to protect ourselves — so we carried the stuff unmolested to the airfield and used six heli-jet planes. The authorities couldn’t stop us. We were in the air before the facts had dawned on them. Seemed to me the only way to get here ahead of the mob, and now we are here,” the engineer finished grimly, “we’ll give them a run for their money the moment they show themselves through that opening.”
“I don’t want any massacre,” Clem snapped.
“Maybe not, Clem, but this is out of your hands now,” Buck answered. “You’ve given them the record of the interview and it seems pretty clear that they haven’t accepted it. They’ve come into the building and any moment now they’ll be on top of us. I’m for fighting them — to the finish. Even if we go down let’s thin their numbers in the process.”
“At least let one of them speak, then,” Clem insisted. “We don’t know that they didn’t believe what they heard. If they’re still after us then let ’em have it, with my blessing.”
“Right!” Buck gave a grim nod and stood beside the chief engineer behind the line of blast-guns that had now been set in position. Lucy moved back also, Clem’s arm about her.
So they waited, listening to the growing sound of the mob ascending from the depths. They were coming by the moving stairways and had evidently swept all opposition out of the way in the process for, normally, nobody could get past the guards in the main hall of the building.
Nearer and nearer still, until their voices began to take on distinctness and their feet made a muffled thunder. And it last the first man and woman appeared — and stopped dead at the sight of the trained blast-guns.
“One step,” Buck warned, “and it’s the finish! If you’re resolved to take us to your blasted people’s justice you’re going to lose an awful lot of your numbers doing it!”
More men and women piled up behind the two hesitating in the broken doorway, until at last the space was jammed and there were shouts in the corridor demanding to know what was causing the hold-up.
“You heard my broadcast,” Clem snapped. “What more do you want?”
“We don’t believe a word of that rubbish!” one of the men shouted. “The whole thing was faked to sound like an interview with the Master — just as we were warned it would. You’re spies, all three of you, and you’ve brought about just the chaos you wanted! The whole city full of people out chasing you when we ought to be looking to our defences. Everybody knows by now that at any moment an Eastern armada might be sighted.”
“Hardly so soon,” Clem corrected. “Ambassador Hurst has not yet returned, and the attack is not likely to start until he has done so. There are rules, even in war.”
“What’s all the delay about?” bawled somebody, invisible to those inside the office. “Go in and get ’em.”
“That’s right! Wipe ’em out! They’ve done their best to ruin the city and—”
“Oh, stop talking like a lot of fools!” Clem cried, incensed. “You don’t seriously believe that any agents, no matter how capable, could bring about the death of people from old age in widely differing parts of the world, do you? The whole thing is explained by released entropy, entropy chained down for a thousand years by an unusually clever scientist. The Master believed it, and so must you—”
He broke off for the sudden surging of the people to the rear of those in the broken doorway forced those almost within the office to tumble inside it. Buck half raised his arm to give the signal to fire, but when it came to it even. he could not give the okay to a massacre, which it certainly would have been had the blast-guns opened up. A second later he regretted it for, seizing their chance, the mob rolled in irresistibly, surrounding the guns and the trio who now stood together.
The man who had appointed himself the spokesman of the mob came forward, a sour grin of triumph on his face.
“This time there won’t be any mistakes,” he said. “Not even a trial for we’re convinced it isn’t necessary anymore. When the partial wrecking of a city and the killing off of its people — to say nothing of cattle — is put down to entropy being tied up for a thousand years you stand condemned by your own audacity. Unfortunately the Council won’t let us use the lethal chamber: in fact they won’t let us do anything without a trial. So we’ll act on our own. Members of the Council did their best to stop us getting into this building — but most of ’em won’t do it again. All right, tie ’em up,” he ordered.
There was nothing the three could do, pinioned on all sides. Thin cabling was ruthlessly ripped from the instruments on the Master’s desk and used to bind the wrists and ankles of the three tightly.
“Why all this preliminary?” Clem asked bitterly. “There are blast-guns there. Why don’t you use them and get it, over with?”
“Bit too effective,” the spokesman answered. “Like using a cannon to swat a fly. Besides, some of us might get hurt, too. No, there’s a better way. We’re two thousand feet up here. Do I have to say more? Start moving to that window!”
“What?” Lucy gasped in. horror. “You don’t mean that you’re going to—”
“We mean that you’re going to go down a lot quicker than you came up. Drastic but necessary. In fact much too good for three spies who—” The spokesman broke off and turned, frowning, at interruptions from the corridor. A second or two later the reason became obvious as a strongly-built immaculately-dressed man, carrying a bulging briefcase in his hand, stepped through the broken door.
“Leslie. Hurst!” Clem cried thankfully, recognizing the famous ambassador. “Oh, thank God you came at this moment. Mister Hurst! These people will not believe—”
“These people,” Hurst said, with a cold glance around him, “are behaving like a lot of recessive units. Every one of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” he went on angrily. “What’s the use of a scientific upbringing if you don’t use it? Cut those three free instantly.”
Such was his air of command he was obeyed, though reluctantly and the people stood looking at him grimly. It was only his unexpected arrival and apparent complete lack of fear that had enabled him to stride into their midst in any case.
“For your edification,” he said, “I heard over my personal radio, which is tuned to the Master’s private waveband, all that was going on in here. When you gave your original announcement concerning the interview you had with the Master, Mister Bradley, you evidently didn’t switch off afterwards. I gathered exactly what was happening and came on the last lap of my journey with all speed. I would have been here some days ago except for an important happening in the Eastern hemisphere.”
Everybody waited, then Hurst finished: “You idiots who were so determined to kill this young woman, along with Mister Bradley and Mister Cardew here, ought to go down on your knees to her in thankfulness. Because of her, because of the fact that she lived a thousand years ago and revived again in this age, the threat of war has been destroyed. If that doesn’t prove she isn’t a spy I don’t know what does.”
“But — but how do you mean?” Lucy herself asked blankly.
“I mean,” Hurst replied deliberately, “that Generals Zoam and Niol, who were directly responsible for wanting war with the West, have both died of extreme senility. President Ilof radioed the news to me when I was on my return flight, so I went back. I found, as I have always believed, that president Ilof is a peace-loving man and desires nothing more than friendly relations between the hemispheres. Apart from Generals Niol, and Zoam, hundreds of other people in the Eastern hemisphere have died too. The reason? This woman here! Zoam and Niol, like many Easterners, were also remote descendants of Lucy Denby. That fact has saved all of us, and re-established relations between the two hemispheres on a better footing than ever.… As for our own Master, it is for the Council to decide who must succeed him.”