Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction; Venus (Planet) -- Fiction
The first ant-man whom he met within the building was Emu, one of the
three members of the council who had been a party to the original
conspiracy. This ant was fleeing from something in very evident terror,
so that it was all Cabot could do to stop him, but the threat of
rifle-shooting was finally effective.
Then, extracting a cartridge from the magazine of his firearm, Cabot
scratched upon the smooth wall the brief question: “What of Doggo and
Formis?”
Emu snatched the cartridge and quickly wrote the reply: “Dead, both
dead. The revolution has collapsed. Flee for your life!”
Then the ant-man clattered rapidly off down the corridor, taking the
precious cartridge with him. He had not been too flustered to think of
that.
Myles heaved a sigh of self-reproach at having brought his friends to
this sad end. But then, he reflected, Doggo had been in a situation in
which conflict with the authorities and then execution would have been
inevitable sooner or later. The revolution had been his one best bet,
and it was no one’s fault that it had failed.
Now that Doggo and Formis were dead, there was no longer any obligation
binding Myles to stay and fight. In fact, he owed it to his loved ones
in Cupia to preserve his own life until he could find some way of
rejoining them. So he set out to escape from the city.
For some time he threaded the corridors without meeting any ants,
although occasionally there drifted down to him the sounds of fighting
on the upper levels. But at last, as he rounded a turn, he saw before
him a Formian, and it was one whom he recognized, namely the messenger
ant who had brought to the trial the radiogram from Prince Yuri. The
ant’s back was toward him. Cabot cautiously withdrew a step; then
raising his rifle, he again advanced and fired full at his enemy.
But the hammer merely clicked. There was no explosion. The magazine was
empty.
Cabot’s first impulse was to throw the weapon away. Then he reflected
that even an unloaded gun might well serve to awe his enemies and hold
them at a distance; so he retained it.
By this time the messenger ant had disappeared around a turn farther
down the corridor, so Cabot hastened after him; for it had suddenly
occurred to the earth-man that this ant was undoubtedly returning to the
hidden radio set, whence he had come.
Radio! Means of a communication with his own continent, if he could but
reach the instruments!
The messenger had announced at the trial that Yuri was in Cupia and knew
of Cabot’s presence in this new land. Thus it was certain that complete
wireless communication had been established between the two continents.
But, equally, undoubtedly, this communication had been established at a
wave-length which kept the knowledge of Cabot’s return pretty much a
secret of Prince Yuri and his own followers. This information would
probably induce the renegade prince to speed up whatever nefarious
schemes he had afoot in Cupia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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