Quorne Returns. John Russell Fearn
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the blundering mistake you made in sending the living counterfeit of a dead man among your latest batch of transferences,” the Amazon commented, watching the slowly advancing guards narrowly.
“Yes.” Quorne looked bitter for a moment. “That was the fault of these idiots with whom I’m working. We have telescopic and radio powers sufficient to identify and study every living soul on earth, but on that particular occasion no second check-up was made of the person concerned, with the inevitable result that we received a corpse and sent a live man. I guessed you might look into the matter and, when I came to study you across space, I saw that was just what you were doing. Before you could act I brought you here, and here you will stay. Take them away,” he added, turning to the guards.
Though she knew escape was impossible, the Amazon’s fury spilled over. As the two nearest guards came to seize her, she lashed out with her fists. They howled in anguish as her knuckles smashed their jaws and sent them spinning backwards.
The other guards hesitated, but before they could drag out their guns Abna and Viona were upon them, each using their superhuman strength to wipe out a little score they owed. Quorne turned to the switch panel and moved a button. A slide shot up in the wall, and as the Amazon finished overpowering the last guard, she swung to look at six massive metal robots advancing with pincer-hands extended.
She waited until they were almost upon her and then slammed her bunched fist into the grille that formed the ‘stomach’ of the nearest creature. But her fingers were trapped in steel claws and all her frantic efforts failed to budge them. By the time Abna and Viona had hurried to her aid, it was too late.
Quorne moved over to the robot that was imprisoning the Amazon’s hand and made adjustments on its switch controls. Wincing, she pulled out her torn fingers as the steel grip relaxed.
“My apologies,” Quorne murmured cynically. “You have only yourself to thank for your condition, Amazon.”
The Amazon did not answer. She watched her hand swiftly restore itself to normal under the influence of Abna’s mental powers. Quorne studied the phenomenon with interest and then shrugged.
“A pity you do not turn such mental power to better uses, Abna,” he remarked. “You could master the universe if you wished.”
“I don’t wish,” Abna snapped. “I leave grandiose dreams like that to misguided intellectuals like yourself.”
Quorne turned away, and his mental orders reacted on the sensitive receiving apparatus of the robots to the extent of getting them on the move with the hapless trio in their midst. Unable to help themselves, they were taken from the laboratory and down the corridor outside, then in an elevator to the lowest depths of the building. Here in this subterranean space there was dim lighting and rows of barred metal doors, obviously dungeons.
But no ordinary cell had been prepared for the three. It was apart from the others, in the opposite wall, its door composed of solid metal except for ventilation holes at the top. In front of it, only waiting to be slid into position on a special wheeled platform, was a block of stone about ten feet square.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE BIG BREAK
The Amazon submitted to being half-thrown into the cell by the robots, Abna and Viona stumbling in after her. Then the door slammed shut, was electrically locked, and finally there came a heavy bump as the big stone was pushed into position.
“Do you suppose they intend to leave us here?” Viona asked presently, looking around her upon the metal walls, faintly visible in the dim light from the ceiling.
“I suppose so, until Quorne decides what comes next,” Abna replied. “We shan’t be left to die, since I gather he is hoping to use us in the future. In the meantime, since I have a distinct dislike for such complete confinement, I had better see how we can get out.”
The walls were composed of solid sheets of metal without any sign of joining. The ceiling was similar, a solitary lamp glowing in its centre. Above again, presumably, was the whole mass of the building. The only opening was in the ventilator grille at the top of the door, which the stone outside left clear.
“Even if we could smash open that grille we’d be no better off,” Abna said. “It would be too small for us to get through. And we have no weapons with us.”
The Amazon said: “I had just changed for dinner when Elsa Vincent arrived.”
Viona said: “Somebody is bound to come and feed us, and they can’t do it except by opening the door and pushing back the stone. We might do something then.”
“I think not,” came the voice of Sefner Quorne, apparently from the air itself. “I am aware of your conversation, but do not trouble to discover the loudspeaker from which my voice is emanating. There is no loudspeaker: it is a transmission to you direct, and your brains are capable of picking it up. Nobody will open the door until I am ready for them to do so. As for food, it will reach you like this.”
There was a pause, then out of the air itself there materialized a tray filled with quite a sizeable meal and costly essences. There came a dry chuckle from Sefner Quorne as the tray finally settled on the floor.
“The fourth dimension can be most useful at times,” he said. “Now I must leave you. I have much to do on Earth. We shall meet upon my return, and when that happens, I shall have partly achieved my ambition to dominate the System.”
His voice ceased and Abna clenched his fists in fury. Swinging around, he went to the door, locked his fingers in the grille, and pulled with all his colossal strength. But the metal was proof against him. He finally desisted and returned to the centre of the cell, where the Amazon and Viona were calmly partaking of a meal.
The Amazon whispered: “I can never understand why, when you have transcending powers, you never use them in a crisis!”
Abna said: “I prefer to be human and have some happiness.”
The Amazon mused. “I’ve wondered many a time— However, in regard to our present problem, the answer is to think our way out.”
“I have been trying to do that ever since we got in here!”
“I mean it literally,” the Amazon said, pouring herself a glass of restorative.
“You mean,” Viona asked, after a moment, “that we should break this prison down by mind force? That’s asking a lot, mother, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so—providing your father chooses to use the powers he possesses to the utmost degree. Matter is always subordinate to mind, so with his mind and my own—and yours, my dear—I do not see why we can’t get free. We might as well make the attempt, because we’ll certainly never escape by physical means, not this time.”
“And when we have escaped?” Abna asked, eating slowly, and it was curious to note that he did not entertain any doubt that escape was possible. “What then? We shall only walk right into the hands of the Neptunians!”
“There you go again!” the Amazon exclaimed, irritated. “One moment you admit the possibility of getting out of this prison, and the next you ask how we fare amongst the Neptunians! We destroy them, of course, if they get in our way, and we’ll use physical or mental means to do it, whichever is the more favourable.”
“Physically we have no weapons beyond our strength, Vi, and that wouldn’t be equal to an army of them. Neither would mental power. Destroying dead metal and stone is not difficult because there is no mental opposition—as I found on Saturn when I created the city of Millennia by thought alone—but when you deal with thinking beings there’s a terrific amount of opposition.”
“Only thing to do with that is deal with it when we come to it,” Viona said. “For my part, I’m willing to try mother’s suggestion.”
Abna considered while he finished his meal, then nodded.
“Very well, we’ll try it,” he