The Greatest Sci-Fi Books of Erle Cox. Erle Cox

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СКАЧАТЬ put in Barry, "whereas if it came to the point you would probably do it if it cost you your life."

      "I'll be hanged if I would, Dick. No, I mean it absolutely. I would think no more of it than you would of cutting into a malignant growth. You talk of parallels. Well, the Turk is a cancer on humanity, and nothing else. He would have been wiped out fifty years ago if the big nations were not afraid of one another."

      Here Earani interrupted. "Can you tell me the present proportion of black to white, Dick?"

      Barry shrugged his shoulders. "Afraid I can't," and he looked inquiringly at Alan.

      Dundas rose from his chair. "I can't say, but I expect 'Whittaker' can. I had to get a copy to satisfy Earani's appetite for facts and figures." He took a volume from a casket and turned its pages rapidly. "Humph–here we are!" Then with his pencil he jotted figures on the margin of the page. "Here's what I make of it. Total estimate of human races–One thousand six hundred millions approximately. Caucasian, six hundred and fifty millions, leaving a balance of about nine hundred and fifty millions coloured. Roughly five to three against the whites."

      Earani looked up. "You see, Dick, even now it is five to three, and the odds will go on increasing."

      Barry looked at her in dismay. "Earani, for God's sake, say what is in your mind."

      She answered calmly. "Nothing as yet, Dick–but think–were Odi's deed to be done again, would it better be done now or when those numbers were double, and when you think, remember too, Dick, there is no place in the world for the unfit."

      Barry shook his head. "My profession is saving life, not destroying it. Are there none amongst the whites who are unfit? If you follow your theory to its conclusion where does it stop?"

      "We found the means to eradicate the unfit, even amongst the white races," came the answer serenely. "But it took a man who could stamp his will on the world before it could be done. Dick, your ideas strike me as being absurd. You would hold in honour as the greatest of your citizens a soldier who would lead his countrymen to kill another people by hundreds of thousands and send as many of his own to their death, merely on account of an international squabble, right or wrong. He is a hero. A national demigod almost. But is he any better than Odi, or any different from him, who dared to save a civilisation? To my mind Odi is the better man. He had a reason for his 'Death Ray.' As often as not your soldier is wrong in the cause he fights for. Even putting the best construction on his deeds he frees the world of an overburdening population, only the worst of it is that the finest type of man is killed in warfare, and the weeds are left to breed. Pity you couldn't form your armies of the unfit."

      "Earani, I don't surrender I merely won't argue with you any more," and Barry sat down, pursing his lips sourly.

      The woman walked to his side, and laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. "Wise boy, Dick," she said gently. "Come, I must put you in a better humor. Why should we quarrel because millions of years ago some people died? Listen to this and forget your worries." She moved to the keyboard, and a moment later a burst of heavenly music throbbed through the great gallery. It held the listening group spell-bound while it lasted, and when the last grand notes had echoed away there were tears in the eyes of the two men. There was a long silence, as though no one cared to break the spell, until Earani spoke. "That was one of our greatest choirs and the work of one of our master musicians. Tell me, Dick, was the price we paid for that, and all it means, too great? That is but an infinitesimal part of what we owe Odi?"

      Barry made no answer, but rose to leave, and at a gesture from Earani, Alan followed his example. When they walked from the shed to the homestead that evening Dick spoke very soberly. "Dun, God send we have not done an evil thing for the world. If I could read her mind my own might be easier."

      "I don't think we have cause to worry, Dick, though I'll admit she looks at things from a different point of view. Earani would be influenced by us in her actions."

      "I'm not thinking so much of Earani as of that cold-blooded devil in the Himalayas. How far is he likely to be influenced by us?"

      "Sufficient to the day–let us hope that Andax can't be found. It seems a pretty tall order to me."

      Barry shook his head. "Dun, if Earani says she can do a thing, she can do it, and I'm perfectly certain that she can and will resurrect that damned friend of her youth, and, what's more, we can't stop her."

      Chapter XXI

       Table of Contents

      If Alan Dundas had forgotten his world, his world had by no means forgotten him. A man in a comparatively small community cannot entirely disappear from it without exciting comment. In the club at Glen Cairn men talked, and asked questions that were not answered. Over afternoon teacups tongues wagged and heads nodded. Hector Bryce was uneasy, but kept his thoughts to himself, even from Mistress Doris. A girl who went amongst her friends giving no sign carried a sore and sad heart with her. Why, she thought, was Alan behaving so queerly? Before that night when they had looked into one another's eyes in the moment of danger no week passed that did not bring its meeting. Since then he had gone out of her life. Why? Why? Why? The question racked her day and night. True to him even in her thoughts, she would not believe that the man who had held her hand that night, and spoken her name so, had done it lightly and then ridden away. She felt that it was no small thing that had come between them, but she felt she could only wait until he gave a sign. That he would come to her again she would not let herself doubt.

      Rickardson, who was wasting High Court abilities in a country town, sat in the club and smoked placidly. To him entered George MacArthur. Rickardson gave no greeting to the newcomer beyond pushing a chair over to him with his foot. MacArthur pressed the bell, and while the steward brought the necessary bottles he stared gloomily at the fire, while Rickardson stared at him. The steward departed. MacArthur sipped the whisky, and turned abruptly to his friend. "I'm damned if I know what to make of it!" Then he turned back to the fire again.

      Rickardson took his pipe out of his mouth and spoke. "You went out there, George?"

      "Yes," absently, "I went out." There was a long silence. Then he went on. "This is just between ourselves, Rick. He hasn't pruned a single vine, much less put a plough onto the place. The house was open, and the dogcart was in the shed. Billy B.B. was in the paddock, and I'm ready to swear that Dundas was about the place somewhere. I raised no end of a row, but that was all I did raise. Never saw a vestige of him. Now what the deuce does it mean?"

      Rickardson tapped the ashes from his pipe into his hand, and uttered one brief word, "Skirt."

      MacArthur snorted. "Skirt! Rot! You're one-eyed on that idea, Rick. I hate this damned gossiping, and you're about the only one I'd open out to about Dun. But I've a pretty fair idea that Mrs. Bryce was working Dun for Miss Seymour, and Dun wasn't unwilling. Now, I know he hasn't been near Seymour's for months. I got that from Seymour himself. Now who else could there be? McCarthy's women are the nearest to him, two miles away, and I'd stake my life Dun isn't one of that sort. He's got some pretty highfalutin' notions about women."

      "Did you try, Barry?" asked the lawyer presently.

      "Humph! I did!" answered the other with a chuckle. "You know Dick. He told me nothing, with strictly professional politeness. Got nothing there, though the wily old beggar knows things, I'll swear. I didn't want to risk being told to mind my own dashed business. What about Bryce?"

      "Bryce knows about as much as we do. That yarn about the study was all tosh. He was trying СКАЧАТЬ