Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction; Venus (Planet) -- Fiction
Lilla’s voice continued: “You and the other Formians may be interested
to know that Prince Yuri is in complete control here. Baby Kew and I are
well, and are being respectfully treated by Prince Yuri as his guests in
the palace at Kuana. He has promised me that if I will marry him, Kew
can have the succession after his death. And this I might have accepted
for the baby’s sake, but now that I know that you still live, this
cannot be.”
“She has made a slip,” Cabot moaned.
Evidently she realized it herself, for her voice hurried on: “You see,
the whistling bees—”
Then Yuri’s voice cut in abruptly with: “Congratulations, Cabot. I don’t
see how you did it. Your ex-wife would have gotten across a lot more
information to you if she hadn’t inadvertently let me know to whom she
was talking by her careless use of the word ‘you’. I don’t know what you
said to her, but I shall be on my guard. No more radio for the Princess
Lilla, until my henchmen in New Formia report your death, which I hope
will be soon. Good-by, you cursed spot of sunshine. Yuri, king of Cupia,
signing off for the night.”
So that was that. Myles switched off the set, and sat submerged in
thought. Lilla and his baby were safe. He doubted not that she would
sooner or later find means to send him a plane. He had given Yuri cause
to doubt the glorious story told by the Formian radio operator. The new
set had fulfilled its mission.
But how had Yuri succeeded in climbing into power again in Cupia,
nine-tenths of the inhabitants of which were loyal to Princess Lilla and
the baby king?
Then Myles remembered her closing words: “The whistling bees—” It was as
little Jacqueline Farley had prophesied on her father’s New England
farm, during Cabot’s brief revisit to the earth. Cabot had stated:
“There can be no peace on any continent which is inhabited by more than
one race of intelligent beings”; whereat little Jacqueline had pointed
out that the whistling bees were intelligent beings.
Doubtless, Yuri had stirred up trouble between the bees and their Cupian
allies, and had ridden to the throne on the crest of this trouble.
Portheris, king of the bees, had undoubtedly been deposed; for he was
too loyal to Myles to stand for this.
The earth-man’s reverie was rudely interrupted at this point by one of
his soldiers who rushed into the laboratory shouting: “Sir, there is
fighting in your very yard!”
Cabot slipped the bandoleer over his shoulders, adjusted the straps,
picked up his rifle, and hurried to the door. In the yard, his guards
were struggling in hand-to-hand combat with a superior force of Roies.
He could tell them apart, not only by the contrast between the fine
features of his own men and apelike faces of the intruders, but more
easily by the contrast between the leather tunics of the Vairkings and
the nakedness of the Roies. So, standing calmly in the doorway, Myles
began picking off the enemy, one by one, with his rifle. It was too
easy; almost like trap-shooting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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