“They already have an outpost in the System, you say?”
“Yes,” continued the lifeless monotone.
“They’ve already conquered the Moon of Earth.
They’re generating a new atmosphere for it, filled with this red poison gas. And they’re building a fortress there, out of this black alloy they used in place of kon, for their base against the Earth.”
“But the Legion!
Surely———” “The Legion of Space is destroyed.
The last, disorganized remnant of it was annihilated in a vain attack on the Moon.
The Green Hall, too, is gone.
The System has no organization left.
No defense.
“And the Medusae, from the fort on the Moon, are proceeding with the destruction of the human race.
They’re firing great shells, filled with the red gas, at Earth and all the other human planets.
Slowly, in every atmosphere, the concentration of the gas is increasing.
Soon men everywhere will be insane and rotting.
“Only a few of the Medusas, I believe, have already gone to the System. But their great fleet is now being organized and equipped, to carry the migrating hordes to occupy our conquered planets.”
There had been a change in Eric Ulnar’s manner.
On that first occasion, his voice had been a thin, hysterical scream.
Now his dull tones were hardly audible.
His face—it still had a sort of pallid beauty from his long yellow hair, worn and haggard and pain-drawn as it was—his face was vacantly calm.
He spoke of the plans of the Medusa? with an unconcern that was almost mechanical, as if the fate of the System no longer mattered to him.
“And Aladoree?” John Star demanded.
“Where is she?”
“She is locked in the next cell, beside us.”
“She is!” gasped Hal Samdu, hoarse with gladness.
“So near?”
“But you say she’s been———” John Star could not keep a little sob of pain and anger from his voice, “been tortured?”
“The Medusae want to know her secret,” came the lifeless, expressionless reply.
“They want the plans for AKKA.
Since they can’t communicate with her themselves—she doesn’t know the code—they made me try to get the secret for them.
But she won’t tell.
“We’ve used different means,” his dull drone went on.
“Fatigue, hypnotism, pain.
But she won’t tell.”
“You———” choked Hal Samdu.
“You—beast—coward———”
He charged across the cell, great hands clenching savagely.
Eric Ulnar shrank from him, shuddering, cried out:
“Don’t!
Don’t let him touch me!
I’m not to blame!
They tortured me!
I couldn’t stand it!
They tortured me.
And they wouldn’t let me die!”
“Hal!” protested Jay Kalam, gravely.
“That won’t help things a bit.
We need to know what he can tell us.”
“But he———” gasped the giant, “he—tortured Aladoree!”
“I know, Hal,” soothed John Star, holding his arm, though he shared the savage impulse to destroy this no longer human creature.
“What he tells us will help to rescue her.”