CHAPTER TWELVE

The interior of the plane was glowing. The familiar humming sounded. George and Dee had started back into time.

"Dee! Dee! You all right?"

Her wan smile reassured him. "Where are we?"

"Going back into time," he said cheerfully. The dials were beside him. "Nearly forty years from where we started already. You'll feel all right soon."

"I am all right," she persisted. "I mean, George, are we still in the cavern?"

The question brought an idea to George that made his heart race. They _were_ still in the cavern, at a time forty years previous. What was the cavern like then? Suppose its entrance was closed? How could they get out?

Through the windows nothing could be seen but blackness. George hesitated.

"Dee, can your thoughts still reach Azeela?"

"Yes," she said. "She was frightened for me. She knows now we are coming after her. She and Toroh are past one hundred years."

"Still going?"

"Yes."

"Where are they in space?"

"She says in the air, over the Orleen Cavern. She thought it best to show Toroh how to fly the plane; she was afraid to remain underground."

"So am I," said George. "We'd better get out."

There were headlights on the plane; their glare showed the tunnel. George started up the Frazia motors, slowly; they rolled forward, faster as they left the tunnel-mouth and took to the air.

The scene was that familiar grayness, new to Dee. Beneath them lay the island with the blurred, gray city to one side.

"Over Orleen," George mused. "We must get there quickly. Further back in time the city will not be there--we might get lost in space."

At an altitude of perhaps a thousand feet they flew swiftly westward. Orleen was there when they reached its space; the dials were beyond two hundred years.

"Azeela is here," Dee announced. "She says the city is dwindling."

"What do her dials say? Will Toroh let her look at them?"

"Yes. She is very careful. He suspects nothing. She says the dials are nearly two hundred and thirty years."

"We're catching up with them," George exclaimed triumphantly. "We've got the faster plane. Where are they exactly? In space I mean."

A brief pause.

"Azeela says almost directly over the peak near the east edge of the city--the cavern peak."

There were twin peaks, not over six hundred feet apart. The cavern peak was the northern one; through the floor window, George could see the summit of the other, directly beneath his plane.

"How high is Toroh? They're using the 'copters?"

"Yes."

"How high up?"

"She says about five hundred feet."

It was the altitude at which George and Dee were hovering. George gazed through the side window. The other peak showed plainly. Above it was the exact space Toroh and Azeela were occupying. Their plane was invisible, of course--twenty-five years into the past.

"They've passed three hundred years, George," the girl's voice informed him. "Three hundred years just now."

"Two hundred and ninety," he read from their own dials. "Only ten years away! We'll overtake them shortly now."

In the stress through which they had passed, and their excitement, neither of them had considered what they would do when they overtook Toroh. Indeed, it was Azeela who brought it to their minds with her anxious questions to Dee.

They stared at each other in dismay.

"How about my thunderbolt glove?" George suggested.

"We can't use it," she reminded him. "If we destroy the other plane, Azeela would be killed."

It was obvious. They could not attack the other plane under any circumstances. But Toroh was going to stop for weapons. They would have to stay near him, both in space and time, and when he stopped, and perhaps left the plane, they would rush up and rescue Azeela.

It was all either of them could plan.

"Keep as near them as we can," George decided. "That's the idea. And watch our chance. Tell Azeela to keep you posted on everything."

They slowed their time-flight a trifle; it would have been foolish to let Toroh see them--merely put him on his guard. At a distance of about ten years they followed.

At eight hundred years before the time they had left, the city of Orleen had disappeared. The island looked almost the same; the peaks were still there. But now among the palms there were only a few rude shacks--the earliest Bas settlers.

The time-velocity of both planes was steadily increasing. Azeela's messages told them that the other plane was still hovering motionless. There was nothing to do. They waited, anxiously at first, and then, after an interval, fell into earnest conversation.

"Suppose we can't rescue Azeela," George suggested once. "Toroh will use her as a hostage against your father, won't he? Offer her life, perhaps, if your father will help him in the war?"

She nodded soberly.

"That's why he abducted her before, Loto said. Did he make the offer then?"

"No. But he was going to."

"Why didn't you go after her?" he suggested. "Didn't she send back messages to you, Dee?"

"Yes. But he took her north into the snow. She did not know where she was. Father sent out an expedition, but they couldn't find her. The Noths attacked them and they came back. They were going to start out again when Loto returned her to us."

"Oh," said George. He thought a moment. "I wonder what your father would have done--what he would do now if Toroh holds Azeela and offers her life against the war. Would your father let Toroh kill her?"

She hesitated. "I think he would," she said at last. "It would be a nation against one life. He would sacrifice himself, I know. And I think he would even sacrifice Azeela."

George met her earnest dark eyes, so sparkling, usually, but now so sombre.

"Would you, Dee?"

"No," she said impulsively.

"Neither would I," he declared. "I wouldn't let harm come to Azeela for all the Anglese,--or harm to--to you, either."

She did not answer. Presently he said:

"I was thinking about that Aran Festival, Dee. You know you oughtn't to go to affairs like that. _Do_ you know it?"

Her gaze met his again, questioningly. "It is part of life," she said. "My father thinks Azeela and I should know what life is. In your time-world was it wrong?"

George felt himself flushing. "Wrong? What, the festival?"

"No. I mean my going there--a girl of the Scientists, who is not like the Aran women?"

"Yes," George said stoutly. "_I_ didn't want you to be there." His hand impulsively touched hers. "I didn't like it, Dee. You're too nice a girl. And I don't think Loto liked Azeela being there, either."

Instead of answering, she gave a sudden cry.

"What is it?" George demanded in alarm.

She had no opportunity to reply. Through the side window the other plane showed less than a thousand feet away; a shimmering ghost that was gone as soon as they had seen it!

George leaped to the proton switch, but Dee checked him.

"Wait! Wait till Azeela tells me what happened."

In the absorption of their conversation, Azeela's messages had been ignored. Toroh had slackened his time-flight; he was preparing to land. It was an unfortunate occurrence, for Toroh had seen the other plane. He still did not guess that Azeela herself was guiding the pursuit.

Again, without warning, the other plane appeared. This time it was flying, coming directly toward them. George held his breath. Toroh's plane was so close he had no opportunity even to move from his seat. It was running level with them in time; _it was charging them! Had Toroh gone mad? He would kill them all!_

It was no more than a second or two. Through the window George caught a brief glimpse of the shimmering thing rushing at them. Then it swerved upward.

"_He's going to fire a thunderbolt!_" Dee gasped.

George was aware of a flash; but he had not seen it, only imagined it.

The attacking plane swept overhead and vanished-dissolved into nothingness!

Toroh had fired a thunderbolt. The rush of electrons traveling at the speed of light from Toroh's plane to George's had been too slow. The mark was gone into a different time before the thunderbolt could reach it!

The incident left George and Dee shuddering; but confident now that, so long as they kept moving through time, Toroh could not harm them.

George's dials now registered the passage of some sixty-eight hundred years. He was amazed. Then he realized how long he and his companion had been talking, and the time-velocity at the twentieth intensity had been accelerating tremendously. He had forgotten to look beneath him; he did so now, and the island was not there. The channel was gone; the mountain range had disappeared. The cataclysm that had formed the island had been passed.

Azeela's messages told that her plane was now nearly a hundred years nearer the Anglese time-world. Toroh, finding his attack ineffective, had given it up. He had started a horizontal flight; he was looking for a city in which he could land.

George and Dee sat helpless, for Azeela could not describe which way she was flying.

"Lost!" George exclaimed. "We've lost them! Of course, she can't tell us which way they're going when there's nothing down there but gray forests--and blurred gray sky overhead."

It seemed probable that they would never see Toroh's plane again. Already it was many miles away from them in space, though in what direction they could not guess.

The two planes swept back through time, invisible to each other, yet no more than a few hundred years apart. The rescue of Azeela--for the present at least--was certainly impossible. Toroh was looking for a civilization, some gigantic city where he might secure weapons. George decided he must do the same. He discussed it earnestly with Dee, and again, temporarily, Azeela's thought messages were ignored.

At fifteen thousand years--more than halfway back to the time-world of the New York City of George's birth--structures began rising out of the forests. By retrograded changes made visible, at first they seemed moldering ruins; then, broken, neglected areas of deserted cities; then the inhabited cities themselves.

At eighteen thousand years George and Dee were poised no more than a few miles from where Orleen stood so many centuries later. A huge river with a delta emptied into the open gulf; a broad expanse of lake was near by. And on both sides of the river and around the lake a gigantic city rose in terraced buildings of masonry and steel. Dee stared in awe at its towers, bridges, aerial streets with the monorail structures stretching above.

"We might land here," George suggested. "Shall we, Dee? You'd think they'd have _something_ to help your father in the Anglese war."

She nodded, and he prepared to land on an open space a few miles north of the city outskirts. They came to the ground at the third intensity of proton current. Everything was gray, soundless.

"All ready, Dee?"

"Yes."

He flung over the switch. When the shock had passed, George stood up; Dee was already on her feet beside him. It was night outside; lights were flashing. They rushed to the window. The sky was lurid with bursting colored bombs; an inferno of noise sounded, an intermittent pounding that seemed to shake the earth.

From-almost directly overhead a red rocket exploded. Its light persisted, illuminating the scene for miles around with a vivid red glare. The giant city buildings were visible. As George stared, a great flame seemed to leap from the sky. One of the buildings fell.

Nearer at hand a cloud of swarming mechanisms burst out of the air, swooping down, circling. Beams of light from them and from the city crossed like swords in the sky. The earth under the plane was rocking. Beside it, a green flash struck and sent rocks, boulders, and dirt flying up like a waterspout.

"George! _George!_"

Dee's terrified cry in his ear was almost drowned by the scream of dynamos; the whistling, bursting, and pounding.

George's trembling fingers found the proton switch; he pulled it. The inferno of the night melted, slipped away into a gray, soundless blur.

War! They had fallen into the midst of a battle--that giant Earth city defending itself, perhaps against invaders from another planet.

"We won't try that again," George murmured.

"Azeela," said the girl suddenly. "She tells me that Toroh has secured weapons! He is returning to our time-world!"

Toroh had landed at another city, in another time, but still in that same greater civilization. He had chosen a night, bound Azeela, left her in the plane and stolen weapons.

George listened blankly. "What sort of weapons?"

"Azeela does not know. One large piece of apparatus. He has it in the plane covered by a black bag. He will not let her touch it. And there are other things--a pile of disks or something. White--like steel. She can't see them well--he has covered them also. He is filled with triumph. His plane is speeding toward Anglese City."

"In space or time?"

"In time. They are hovering in space. Azeela does not know where they are. Toroh says he will wait, and when the time-world of the island is reached they will recognize the land. Then Toroh will take Azeela to the Noths. He says if our father does not yield, he will _kill her_. And then he and the Noths will conquer the Anglese."

George had lost. But still there seemed nothing that they could do but try and keep as close to the other plane in time as they could.

Toroh's plane was sweeping forward. He had released Azeela, commanding her to instruct him in more detail in the handling of the Frazia motors. Azeela's dials now read some fifty-five hundred years behind the Anglese time-world. George's read about six thousand.

They came to the cataclysm that formed the island. George had forgotten it, but he chanced to be gazing down. The gray forests suddenly blurred; vague chaos passed over the earth, the air, and the sky; then there were the familiar mountains, the channel, the island! The myriad details of those hours of upheaval had been compressed, blended into a fraction of a second. The eye and the mind could not grasp it. The thing was past, done and away, with only its _effect_ left as evidence that it had occurred.

George and Dee were above the channel and west of Orleen. No more than a hundred years now separated the planes.

"What shall we do?" George demanded for the tenth time. And then an idea came to him. They could not attack Toroh until he reached his destination. He would be among his own army then, and rescue of Azeela would be impossible. But if Azeela could separate herself from Toroh now, he could never find her in time and probably wouldn't try.

George explained it to Dee. Azeela was not bound; could she persuade Toroh on some pretext to land on the ground--then leap from the plane? The shock of stopping in time should be no different than when the plane itself stopped.

Azeela had already thought of it; the idea had been prompted by the fact that Toroh's plane was running out of fuel. He would have to conserve it, not use the 'copters, or else he would have none left with which to get up north.

George was trembling with excitement. "Tell her to suggest that they land."

Toroh was, at that instant, landing. It was a familiar spot to Azeela; she described it exactly to Dee, and the younger sister recognized it.

Toroh's plane had entered the second century before Fahn's time-world when George--some fifty years further back--arrived at the spot in space Azeela was describing. There was the little rise of ground, with the channel beyond. The vegetation was different, but the level rock was there. And Toroh's plane was resting on that level rock.

Dee's voice was shaking so that she could hardly talk. "Will it--kill her, George?"

He was white faced, tense. "Tell her to read the dials as exactly as she can."

Azeela read them. George held his watch in his hand; he noted the hour and minute it gave.

"She has called Toroh's attention to something outside," Dee's voice translated swiftly. "She opens the cabin door. He is behind her but he does not suspect."

George kept his eyes on his watch. Two minutes since Azeela gave them her dial-reading, and he knew the approximate time-velocity of the other plane.

Three minutes!

"She is on the platform. The blurred rock is only a few feet below her. Azeela is pretending something is wrong under the plane. Toroh is beside her--but he does not touch her. He does not suspect she would dare...."

Three minutes and a half.

"She jumps--"

George waited. "Is she all right? Is she all right?"

Silence.

"Can't you get her? Oh, Dee, can't you get her?"

The communication was broken.