you think it’s time you explained what this is all about, Abna?” she asked curtly. “You seem to forget that I am the ruler of Earth, and that what happens to Earth people is very much my business. I don’t intend to tolerate your having this monstrous vessel of yours here, causing havoc whenever the mood seizes you. What do you intend doing next—take over Atlantis?”
“Why not? It has been drawn from the depths by the simple process of degravitation. A neutralizing beam was directed from this space-globe, which negated gravity around the area of Mu and caused that continent to rise, with Atlantis intact upon it, still sealed as it was at the time of the Deluge. The next step is to destroy the sealing dome that surrounds it. Then we shall come to Earth and restore the scientific amenities of the city.”
“I won’t allow it!” the Amazon snapped. “It’s tantamount to invasion!”
“Maybe, but don’t forget we have four-dimensional weapons and you have not. They can strike you down before you can deal with them.”
The Amazon was silent. She knew Abna spoke the truth. Four-dimensional science was an art the Atlanteans thoroughly understood.
“Of course,” Abna added, with a reassuring smile, “you have synthesis, and that is a secret we have yet to master.”
The Amazon flashed a glance at him. “You don’t intend to let me forget that, do you?”
“No reason why I should, is there? I was merely intimating that with synthesis you could put legions of zombies against me and create them as fast as I could destroy them. You might even beat me that way, by sheer weight of numbers.”
The Amazon smiled faintly. “As for your race mastering synthesis, you will never learn that secret from me. I haven’t forgotten that was one of the reasons you tried to trick me into marriage the last time.”
Abna tightened his lips. “There was no trickery intended. The only trickery came from you, when you ran out on me on Mercury!”
There was a grim, smouldering silence for a moment; then Sefner Quorne came forward quietly. For the first time he spoke, in a richly mellow voice. “Perhaps, highness, this is an opportune moment to suggest a little refreshment for Miss Brant?”
Abna said, “Yes, excellency. See to it, will you?” The adviser withdrew and Abna continued:
“Have a seat, Vi. Let me have your suit.”
She hesitated and then unfastened the clamps that caused the rubber-and-metal sheathing to fall away from her in slack folds. Abna took it and laid it on one side, following her thereafter to the table.
“Now,” he said, seating himself comfortably, “let’s talk like civilized people. You’re far too nice a girl to be spitting brimstone with every word you utter.”
The Amazon half opened her mouth to say something and then thought better of it.
Before Abna could speak again, the adviser returned, motioning to two servants to lay out the meal. When he was satisfied that everything was as it should be, he retired to a distance and remained watchful.
“I’m not particularly impressed by your adviser,” the Amazon commented.
“Quorne?” Abna smiled a little. “Oh, he’s all right, Vi. A bit tight-lipped but extremely efficient. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
He began the task of serving the rich, exquisitely cooked food. “The issue,” he said, when the meal was under way, “is quite simple, Vi. Either you marry me, or I shall have to perform the painful task of obliterating these Earth people whom you cherish so much.”
She stared at him for a moment and then went on eating as she thought the statement over. “How do you mean, obliterate them?” she questioned.
“You have seen the sixteen mirrors which ring this space-globe? They are so devised that they can bring the sun’s rays into one focus from sixteen different points. Imagine those sixteen reflected rays concentrated into a single burning beam! A whole city could be destroyed in a matter of minutes by concentrated sunlight. It is just the little boy with the magnifying glass on a gigantic, scientific scale.”
“So that is your intention!” Anger flamed again in the girl’s eyes. “You would destroy the cities of Earth and resurrect Atlantis with its scientific devices, thereby enforcing a victory for yourself.”
“That is my aim—and why not?” Abna shrugged. “It’s so perfectly logical and therefore should appeal to you. I am still an Earthman at heart, remember, even though I was born on Jupiter. The Atlanteans were Earth people to begin with. I am merely intending to return to the world whence my race sprang. I know that as long as you rule the people of Earth, you will never submit to my control; so the only alternative is to destroy you—or them. I have too much regard for you to ever kill you, so the other way is to leave you with nobody to control, which means obliteration of Earth people, or else complete bondage.”
“I’ll stop you somehow.”
“On the other hand,” he continued, “you have a way out. Compromise by marrying me. Then, together, pooling our respective sciences, we can rule not only the Earth but my own small territory on Jupiter as well. You will add another world to your collection of colonised planets and everybody will be happy.”
“The gain being all to you! You have no real love for me, Abna, even though I was once fool enough to think so. You simply regard me as a woman, and believe thereby that you can bring life once again to your dying race. You believe our offspring could form the basis of a new race.”
“Mighty in strength and in knowledge,” Abna agreed, smiling again. “What is so outlandish about that? We understand each other and can regard the biological implications dispassionately. I admit that is the primary reason for my desiring union with you, but it’s not the only reason. I do love you, Vi, and always shall, even if we have to become sworn enemies through our differing viewpoints. A man who did not love you would never have gone through what I have to keep in contact with you. I would never have sought you out again after that synthesis trick you played on me. In the end, all universal issues come down to that one inescapable factor.”
The Amazon relaxed, her lips tight. In her earlier contact with Abna, she had at times had to fight a similar battle to this, but never before had she so clearly realized that she had two sides to her fantastic character. The hard, cruel shell of a scientific woman which had gained her such tremendous power and eminence was at last desperately at war with the underlying woman, the woman who would not admit, even to herself, that she was becoming weary of her lone path, even a little nauseated at having greater power and intelligence than anybody else on Earth. The one side of her loathed the quiet mastery of Abna of Atlantis; the other side felt a sense of relief that a stronger personality could support her in moments when she was unsure.
“Naturally,” Abna said, “it takes some thinking out—even though I should have imagined that you’d had time enough to consider in these past months. You knew perfectly well that I would return one day, and that union between us is inevitable in the end.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” she responded, without looking at him.
“It is inevitable because there is no room in the immediate solar system for both our sciences—and because we have too much regard for one another to resolve matters by destroying each other. If you
