LITMIR.BIZ

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by me in such a way that he will not detect the switch and will pronounce the death as due to natural causes, without need for an autopsy. He will be buried with full church ceremony. I stayed at this switchboard as much as I could so the amplifier could carry my will over the gulf. I didn’t want the archbishop—the synthetic one—to collapse too soon. It might have seemed—strange.”

      “And the reason for all this double-dealing?” Abna demanded, still fighting with all his giant strength to keep control over his slipping senses.

      “I have told you why,” the Amazon answered. “I mean to learn every scientific secret you possess, Abna, and so add your knowledge to my own. I could never have done it without marrying you—or apparently marrying you. Only by marrying you could we be together as we are now, on this supposed honeymoon.”

      Abna smiled cynically. “It shouldn’t have been difficult for a woman like you to have pulled this trick without the farce of a supposed marriage.”

      “True, but I preferred it this way. I want all the world to believe we are married. I rely a great deal on the mood of the people. They will trust me implicitly if they think I married you; if they knew I had thrown you overboard just to gain more power, they might turn against me. So, let them think our marriage is genuine. I can explain away your disappearance as a space accident. By the time you are found—if you are—my position will be unassailable.”

      “Disappearance?”

      The Amazon came and seated herself close beside the wall couch where Abna still wrestled with paralysis. There was a triumphant gleam in her violet eyes.

      “I’m leaving you on Io, Abna—one of the moons of your own world of Jupiter. The Cosmic Engineers of the Earth government were instructed by me many months ago to come to this moon—and also Ganymede—to adapt them into worlds suitable for colonisation. They could be used as bases from which to mine valuable minerals in the asteroid belt—and the other moons in the Jovian system. It is merely an extension of the same work already being conducted on Mars, so that the colonists there will no longer need to live under protective domes. Following out my own designs, the Engineers buried within each Moon’s core a gravity generator that would enable those bodies to retain an atmosphere. Deep shafts have also been sunk, to release trapped gases. These were mephitic and poisonous, but vast quantities of special bacteria have been released, which will convert it into what will ultimately become a breathable mixture containing high levels of oxygen and nitrogen, and also water. Similarly, certain genetically-engineered vegetation has been introduced that will assist in the process. The cosmic Engineers completed their work some time ago, and have now left. However, the “conversion process” may take several years before the moons are fully fit for colonisation. At the present time, Io is still a desert island of a world, where a man of your super constitution can perhaps still live, but where you will remain until the Engineers return to check on progress, when you may be found if you are still alive. Once I have your secrets, Abna, you cease to be of interest to me.”

      Abna could not say any more. He sat motionless, his eyes fixed on her. His mind was alive, his body temporarily dead. With his will suspended, there was nothing he could do to block the mental probing of the woman who sat opposite him.

      She worked methodically, making notes, exerting her extraordinary telepathic gifts to the full. An hour passed, perhaps two hours, then she was finish­ed. Abna still sat like a stone im­age. She knew everything he had ever known, had a complete grasp of every scientific secret. Only his innate metaphysical powers were denied to her, as this gift could not be transferred or learned in so short a time.

      Rising, she considered him; then with a sudden effort she heaved his massive form on to her shoulder and carried him to the empty compartment at the tail of the ship, which had been left empty. She laid Abna down on the floor and then spoke. He could hear and see her even though he could not respond.

      “The next stop is Io, Abna,” she said. “There we must part. You have still a lot to learn about women—and one woman in particular.”

      With that she went out and pushed over the heavy metal clamps. Return­ing to the control room, she studied again the notes she had made, then sat­isfied that they were indelibly impress­ed upon her brain, she set fire to them and turned to the control board.

      The Ultra had just cleared the orbit of Mars, and was hurtling through the emptiness of space safely above the plane of the asteroid belt. In eight or nine hours at present speed, the field of mighty Jupiter would be reached, and that of his attendant moons. The Amazon studied the deeps ahead, Jupiter already looming like a tiny ball with flattened poles, his cloud-belts girdling him in dark bands.

      Setting the radar alarm, she got up and went to the small chamber that served as her bedroom. She threw herself on the bunk, fully dressed as she was, and lay thinking.

      She thought back on the time when she had wondered if she really loved Abna. For a period she had believed in this possibility: the woman in her had overpowered the scientist. But now, so unpredictable was her ruthless temperament, the scientist was in charge again. With the knowledge of Atlantean science added to her own, there was nothing she could not do. Besides, Abna was a man—a godlike man, perhaps, but still male, and deep in the nature of the Golden Amazon was a burning hatred of the opposite sex. Its reason lying buried in the scientific operation that had made her a scientific machine in the vestment of the most beautiful woman the world had ever known.

      Presently she fell asleep, regardless of the man locked in the metal room. But he was recovering rapidly from the gas that had paralyzed him. When finally all its after-effects had gone, he struggled to his feet and looked about him in the dim light of the single roof globe. He knew better than to attempt anything with the metal walls, his only barrier against the searing cold of absolute space-zero; so he moved to the door and pushed at it with his giant muscles. Nothing happened: the massive clamps were proof against him.

      Finally he decided to wait. There must come a time when the Amazon would release him, and when that happened, tigress though she was, when it came to physical strength, he was more than her equal. Since she had renounced all love and friendship, she must play the game the hard way. So Abna relaxed, smiling grimly, listening to the steady throb of power from the atomic plant. By alterations in its rhythm he would be able to tell when the Ultra was moving off course and action could be expected.

      At the first sound of the alarm buzzer, the Amazon awoke and hurried to the control board. The Ultra was just com­ing into the huge gravitational field exerted by Jupiter, greatest of all the planets. The Amazon swung the ship round gently, playing tag with the gravity fields, until the nose was pointing directly to Io, one of Jupiter’s largest moons.

      CHAPTER TWO

      PLAN FOR CONQUEST

      As the Ultra moved swiftly toward it, Io changed visibly from a rough, craggy world into something more interesting. There were deep valleys, heavily cratered plains and hillsides clothed with fantastic vegetation. Unlike the parent body, Jupiter, Io now had breathable air, most of it centred up to a height of three-quarters of a mile in the vegetation-covered valleys.

      Io was a weird, fantastic little world, bathed in the triple lights of Europa, Ganymede, and the distant sun, to which was added the sullen green of vast Jupiter occupying all the sky. And yet, it was a world on which an oxygen-breathing animal could now live, which was more than could be said of the ammoniated-hydrogen atmosphere of Jupiter.

      Finally the instrument showed the shallow air level had been contacted. The Amazon closed a switch and the Ultra came to a gradual halt, hovering helicopter-style over a valley.

      The Amazon hurried to the chamber in which Abna was sealed. Taking her protonic gun from her belt as a safeguard, she pushed away the clamps with her free hand and then stood back.

      “Come out, Abna,” she ordered—and waited.

      The metal door opened slowly and Abna’s gigantic figure appeared. He looked at the alert girl, and at the protonic gun in her hand. To try conclu­sions with that deadly weapon would be suicidal, so he walked slowly past her into the control room. She followed him, her weapon keeping him covered.

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