"Don't call me that!" The man whirled like a tiger ready to spring.
"Don't call me that! I am Master here! Call me Master! Say it." His
voice rose to a shriek. "Say it--Master!"
* * * * *
I clamped my teeth against the bloodless horror of that maniacal
voice. It chilled my veins. Again I felt the hair rise on my scalp.
Brice bowed quietly; and his eyes, serene and blue, met Fraser's
fairly.
"Of course, Master." His low English voice soothed the bristling
silence. "I am sure I speak for Monsieur Foulet and Lieutenant Ainslee
when I say that we would be most deeply interested in your
achievements."
Fraser was placated. He relaxed. He softly rubbed his hands while a
smug, crafty smile flitted across his lips. "You will follow me," he
murmured.
He led the way back through the ante-room and down the passageway till
we stood again under the stars, and again I was struck by the strange
light, warm and faint and rosy like a sunset afterglow. As if he read
my thought Fraser turned to me.
"I will show you first the source of this rosy light; that, I believe,
will explain a great deal." He led the way down one of the narrow
pathways between the low, domed houses--if they could be called
houses, for they were little larger than kennels. At the six-foot wall
that surrounded this plateau he paused. "Would you like to look over
the wall?" he asked.
For the space of a breath we hesitated. Was this a trap? Through my
mind flashed the words of the man who had guided us to Fraser. "You
are two thousand feet above the earth," he had said. Was that true?
And if it were, might not Fraser push us over the wall? But instantly
logic came to my rescue. Fraser had brought us here, and he could have
brought us for but one thing: to question us. Would he be apt to do us
harm before those questions were asked? And besides, would Fraser's
brilliantly subtle mind stoop so low as to destroy enemies by pushing
them over a wall?
"Thank you," we murmured simultaneously. "This whole achievement is of
tremendous interest to us," Foulet added.
Fraser chuckled. "It will be of greater interest--later," he said, and
his blank, glittering eyes rested on first one of us, then another
with a cold, satisfied gleam. Then he lifted his hand and opened a
square door in the wall about the size of a port-hole. To my surprise
the little door swung back as lightly as a feather and made scarcely a
sound as it slammed against the wall itself. Again Fraser answered my
unspoken thought.
"It has only substance," he said with his vain smirk. "No weight
whatever. This entire platform together with its huts is lighter than
air. If I should tear loose this little door it would float out of my
hands instantly and go straight up to the stars. The substance--I have
called it Fleotite--is not only lighter than air but lighter than
ether."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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