Tarrano the Conqueror | Page 7

But I was not satisfied. "That girl, Ahla--can you trust her?"
They all looked at me in surprise. When one is close to danger,
sometimes one recognizes it least; with Ahla in this household for over
a year now, they could not imagine her an enemy.
"I saw her looking up at the insulator," I added swiftly. "Out there in

the corridor. Am I talking wild? Perhaps I am. But she seemed startled;
and she was standing just under the insulator, wasn't she?"
"But--" began Elza.
"Wait," I exclaimed. "When I first saw the President fall, at Park Sixty,
I felt that a Venus man had done it. These other murders--they're all the
same. Done by Venus men of the Cold Country."
"Ahla's country," Elza murmured.
"Yes. Exactly. And the Venus Central State has been attacked and has
fallen. An assassination on Mars, and three here on Earth--all
simultaneously. It's one gigantic plot, I tell you--and the Cold Country
of Venus is at the bottom of it."
Georg jumped to his feet. "I'll see if the room has been tampered with."
He was back presently. "The insulator is intact. I set the alarm bell. If
she touches it--"
"Where is she?"
"In the cookery, where she should be. I told her we would eat in an
hour. That ought to keep her busy."
Dr. Brende made an attempt at a smile. "I think we are all a little
overwrought--though with reason, no doubt. Sit down, Jac. Elza, come
here by me. Don't look so solemn, child."
He drew Elza to him, with his arm about her. I would have spoken, but
his gesture checked me. "I have much to say, Jac. I think I understand
these events, perhaps better than any of you. Let me go back two
years--when I was in the Venus Central State."
I nodded my remembrance; and he went on:
"At that time the authorities there were greatly perturbed. They were
menaced by rebellion in the Cold Country. They would not let the Cold

Country people into the Central State, for it is already overcrowded.
You did not know that, did you?"
"You mean the threatened rebellion?" I asked. "They were trying to
keep it secret, but we heard rumors."
"Just so. And Jac, I will tell you why they kept it secret. The Central
State was encouraging emigration to the Earth. The Venus Cold
Country is a poor place to live in--and on a whole its inhabitants are
miserable people. Villainous, too, I should say. The Central State did
not want them within its borders; and so it kept secret its troubles with
them--and encouraged emigration to the Earth.
"We--as you know--make no distinction between Venus people. We are
friendly with the Central State, and the Cold Country is governed by
it--or was until tonight. Thus, you see, we have been in the position of
having to receive these renegade immigrants. Shut out from all the
good land and decent climate of Venus, they began coming here.
"But we did not want them, and of late we have been holding them off,
cutting the quota allowed very materially. Last week, as you also know,
in Triple Conference, our three races decided to allow at each Inferior
Conjunction of the Earth and Venus, so small a quota that the Central
State protested vigorously.
"The controversy has been hot; but the Central State--trying to foist off
its undesirables on us--knows it is in the wrong. And fundamentally, it
is friendly to us--I think it has proven that in the last two hours."
Again I would have spoken, but he went on at once.
"I know you're familiar with most of this, Jac. But you news-gatherers
sometimes reason in too lurid a fashion. Let me go on. Mars was drawn
into the affair. To extricate ourselves, we offered to admit--under
temporary guard--all Venus immigrants who would pass on at once--at
the first astronomical opportunity--to Mars. This would have been very
nice for us--but not for Mars."

"They are hot-headed, in Mars," Georg commented.
"Quite so," said the doctor. "But very direct and forceful, nevertheless.
They met our suggestion with a law excluding Venus immigrants
entirely. It was this, I think, that precipitated tonight's events--though of
course they must have been brewing for a long time."
"This Tarrano--" I began.
"I heard of him when I was in Venus," said Dr. Brende. "He was at that
time a lower official in the Cold Country. Evidently he has risen in his
world.
"I come now to conjecture--but I think it must be fairly close to truth.
Tarrano, leading the Cold Country, has risen to open rebellion. His
attack upon the Central State must have come suddenly--"
"You mean, just this evening?" Elza asked.
"No, of course not. But hoping to quell the rebellion,