odel
back--nor would he destroy it. Yet if the Earth forces were to overwhelm
Tarrano, and the model were lost, a revolution upon Earth could easily
take place before Georg could convince the people that he was able to
build them another model.

This delay--while Tarrano was held virtually a prisoner in Venia--was
decided upon at the instigation of Georg himself. He--Georg--would
address the publics of the three worlds. With Maida beside him to
influence her own public in Venus, they would convince everyone that
Georg had the secret--and that he alone would use it for the public
good.

Youthful plans! Youthful enthusiasm! The belief that they could win
confidence to their cause by the very truthfulness in their hearts! The
belief that right makes might--which Tarrano would have told them was
untrue!

Yet it was a good plan, and the Earth Council approved it, since it
could do no harm to try. And it perhaps would have been successful but
for one thing, of which even at that moment I--in Venia--was aware.
Tarrano's trickery was not all on the surface. He had written into that
note--by a code of diabolically ingenious wording--a secret message to
his own spies in Washington. Commands for them to obey. A dozen of his
spies were in the Earth government's most trusted, highest service--and
some of them were there in Washington, close around Georg and Maida as
they made their altruistic plan.

The attempt was to be made from the high-power sending station in the
mountains of West North America.[13] Our observatory was there; and the
only one of its kind on the Earth. It was equipped to send a radio voice
audibly to every part of the Earth; and by helio, also to Mars and
Venus, there to be re-transformed from light to sound and heard
throughout those other worlds. And moving images of the speakers, seen
on the finders all over the Earth, Venus and Mars simultaneously. The
power, the generating equipment was at this station; and no matter where
in the sky Venus or Mars might be, from the Mountain Station the
vibrations of mingled light and sound were relayed elsewhere on Earth to
other stations from which the helios could be flashed direct.

[Footnote 13: The Rocky Mountains, in the United States or possibly
Alberta.]

To Skylan, as the Mountain Station was popularly called, Georg and Maida
were taken in official aero under heavy convoy. Yet, even then, at their
very elbows, spies of Tarrano must have been lurking.

Th