CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"It fell," Rogers murmured. "Was that Toroh's plane, or George's?"

Loto did not answer; he stared with set face at the crystal mirror, which was turning purple with the deepening shadows of nightfall. The mountains into which the plane had fallen were a vague silhouette against a sky of stars.

"If we could only see over there," Rogers added wistfully. "Is this tower we're looking from now the nearest to the mountains, Loto?"

It was the nearest. But Fahn was talking swiftly into a small mouthpiece beside him.

"We may be able to see into the mountains," he said in a moment. "We must find out which plane it was. Perhaps Toroh fell and was killed."

The anxiety on his face belied the calmness of his tone. His two daughters were out there; possibly one or both had met death in that falling plane.

A man entered the cave-room hurriedly, a solitary worker whom Fahn had summoned from another part of the cavern. A youngish man, he wore dark glasses, a black robe and gloves.

Fahn questioned him briefly; he brightened, nodded, and hastened away again.

Loto explained: "He's been working on a new invention, Father. We hoped to use it in the war, but now we fear the attack may come before it's ready. There is only one small model constructed--finished today."

The man returned with a small mechanism--a black circular disk, an inch thick and two feet in diameter. On it was mounted a cone-shaped lens a foot high. It looked something like a tiny model of the lighthouse lens. An operating mechanism was fastened behind the lens; it was an open box with tiny coils of wire inside. And near this was what looked like a miniature searchlight.

Fahn inspected the apparatus. His assistant made some connections, adjusting another mechanism on the table. Then, turning the disk over and holding it in the air above his head, he released it. The thing floated, motionless, its lens-tower hanging downward. The small searchlight also pointed downward and from it a beam of blue-white light struck the cave-floor with a circle of brilliant illumination.

Fahn smiled his approval; the young assistant seemed gratified.

"It's a development of the communication towers, combined with the levitation dais you saw at the Festival--the apparatus Toroh's brothers tried to steal," Loto said to his father.

A moment later the young scientist had disappeared with his flying lens, taking it outside the cavern to release it into the air.

Fahn sat at the table with the newly installed mechanism under his fingers. In a few moments the assistant was back, empty-handed; he stood before the now blank crystal mirror with the other men, anxiously watching for the success of his work.

"This was greatly used a few centuries ago," Fahn said. He sighed. "Our ancestors knew so much; it is so hard to keep up with them."

The crystal mirror presently became illumined. The scene was the darkness of night; stars reflected moonlight from a moon just outside the line of vision. Below--a thousand feet, perhaps--a vague palm-dotted landscape was sliding into view.

To the watchers, the illusion was like flying through the night, looking downward.

"I shall light the searchlights," Fahn said.

A broad circle of blue-white illumination fell upon the shifting land. Across it, the palms of the island were moving backward. The viewpoint of the whole scene was unsteady. The horizon bobbed up and down, like the horizon viewed from a plunging ship. The moon showed momentarily, them swung sidewise out of sight.

Soon the channel appeared; the dark mountains were coming nearer; they tilted downward, almost out of sight, as the lens mounted an incline to pass above them.

"Can we find where the plane fell?" Loto asked anxiously.

Fahn did not answer at once. At last he said: "It will be difficult. It may have fallen behind the mountains, or into them. I do not know."

In the mirror, the shifting viewpoint presently showed the mountains from above; the searchlight circle was sweeping across a tumbled land of crags, plateaus and ravines--a white band of snow lying thick on the higher peaks. The lens was circling now; the turning, swaying viewpoint made the watchers dizzy.

Finally they saw it--a broken plane lying on its crumbled wing. The searchlight clung to it; the lens lowered until the image of the plane seemed more than a hundred feet below.

"_Toroh's plane!_" Rogers exclaimed.

There were figures moving about the plane, men and dogs. The men were dragging some apparatus from it, loading it onto a sled. One of the men was Toroh! The viewpoint was close enough now to distinguish him--_alive!_

But the flying lens had descended too close; the Noths were staring upward. A flash mounted from below; the crystal mirror turned a blinding white--then went black.

Toroh's thunderbolt had struck the flying lens and destroyed it.

* * * * *

George and Dee gazed from their hovering plane at the empty surface of the level rock face below them. Somewhere in time Azeela was lying there, unconscious, killed perhaps; the thought messages from her were stilled. Had Toroh gone on? Or had he stopped to try and find her?

They were anxious moments for George and Dee--moments that by George's watch stretched into an hour or more. They were both at the point of exhaustion. They had eaten a little--the plane was provisioned--but they had not slept throughout the trip. George made a close calculation. He knew the time-speed of Toroh's plane; he could estimate closely what Toroh's dials must have read at the instant Azeela jumped.

They found her at last, lying on the rock, unconscious. They stopped, carried her into the plane, and, before they started again, revived her. There was a heart stimulant among the plane's medicines; she drank it gratefully. She was not injured, though badly bruised by her fall. She had been knocked unconscious as she left the plane. The instant her body parted contact with its vibrations, blackness had come to her; she did not remember striking the rock.

George was jubilant. Had he been able to rest, he would have wanted to go on after Toroh. But he did not dare rest.

"We'll go on home," he decided. "You're a brave girl, Azeela." He smiled down at her as she lay stretched out on the leather seat. "I'll start slowly; you've had all the shock you can stand."

That same night in which the flying lens had been destroyed found George piloting his plane into the cavern at Anglese City. Fahn and Rogers were there to greet them. George handed down the girls, and descended with a flourish. In the excitement of his triumphant return, he forgot how tired and sleepy he was.

At the moment Loto was in another part of the cavern. He came running forward. He did not see Azeela at first.

"George!"

"Hello, Loto! Here we are. Were you worried?"

Then Loto saw Azeela.

"I brought her back to you," George said softly. "There she is, old man--all safe and sound."

But Loto did not hear him; his arms were around Azeela.

George turned to Dee. "You think he'd sacrifice her for the whole nation of the Anglese? I should say not!"