House of Many Worlds by Sam Merwin Jr

Author:Sam Merwin Jr [Merwin, Sam Jr]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SOMEHOW Elspeth found herself on her feet. Within her was memory of the sad, wise eyes of Mr. Horelle, of all she and Mack had been through on this mission, of Marshal John Henry, of the evil Everard, of the long motorized columns of armed men and their counterparts south of the border, moving toward inevitable collision at arms. It had to come out and it did.

"We can offer you the need of millions who want only a chance to follow the ways of peace and progress," she said, and she knew she was shouting and didn't care. "We offer you the job you seek to run away from, even though in your heart and the hearts of those who would go with you, you know you will never forgive yourselves.

"You can never fly from yourselves, you can never forget the ruin of those whose desertion by you will leave them at the mercy of men like President Wilkinson and the hungry Emperor. We can offer you the chance to find peace with yourselves in a world that needs you too sorely to let you go."

Reed Weston, who had been studying her while she talked as if she were some strange new species, blinked rapidly and shook his head as if to clear it of fuddlement. His voice, when it came, was arrogant in its dryness.

"And just how, Miss Marriner, are you proposing to show me a way to put this mad world at peace?" he said. "Against the disintegrators our weapons are worthless. No one can reach within a thousand yards of them—nothing can remain organically existent within a thousand yards of their intense heat. And nothing can prevent them from getting within a thousand yards of us."

"I have seen their weapon," said Marshal Henry quietly, and a sudden spark of hope lit up Mack's usually doubting eyes.

"We've got the hole in your inventory," he said with conviction that covered his malapropism. "You must have some idea of who sent us and why and where we're from."

"I do," said Reed Weston, and for the first time uncertainty showed itself in both voice and manner. "I was—informed of your journey and your purpose." He stopped, lowered his head, then lifted it to reveal his lumpy breadth of brow. "Otherwise would I be listening to you at all at a moment like this? But I fear you have arrived too late— forty-eight hours too late. The use of the disintegratory, which you, Miss Marriner, yourself saw, should convince you of this."

"But we have your way out," said Mack.

"We have a way out," said Reed Weston. "The most brilliant and experienced brains of Earth have already agreed with me that it is the only way out."

"You won't be alone on Mars long," said Elspeth. "We saw your ship when we flew in here today. We saw quarters for hundreds, perhaps thousands of men around it. We saw hundreds of men working on the ship itself.

"When you and your eminent friends take off

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