I am coming to Venus at once--with the
Brende model...."

"Master, you wish to see Venus? I have direct communication----"

Another voice interrupted. "The Earth Council, Master! They demand an
explanation of why you say the Brende model is going to Mars. You have
promised it to Earth. They demand----"

Tarrano rasped: "Tell them to wait ... I don't want Venus,
Olgan.... Megar! Give me the Earth Mountain Station."

He turned to me, and his voice dropped again to that characteristic
sardonic drawl:

"We must see how your friend Georg Brende is faring."

The mirror showed Georg, standing irresolute on the platform before the
sending discs.

Tarrano called: "The Princess Maida--can't you locate her?"

The scene blurred momentarily, then showed us the outside of the
Station. A white expanse of snow, with purple starlit sky above. From a
side door of the building, as we watched, the figures of two women
appeared. A woman leading Maida. As they came out, with Maida all
unsuspecting, from the shadows a group of men pounced upon them--dragged
Maida away.

Tarrano laughed. "Enough!... Show me Georg Brende again.... Hurry!"

We saw Georg waver and leap through the window, fall into the snow,
where, from the shadows of the building, other men rushed out upon
him ... hurried him away after the captive Maida....

Tarrano's laugh was grim and triumphant. "Ha! We win there, also!
Enough! Nunz? Nunz--now you can give me the Earth Council! Where is it
sitting? Washington, or Great London?"

"Washington, Master."

"Very well.... No, never mind connecting me. You speak for me. Tell them
I've changed my mind. The Brende model is not coming to Washington. Tell
them Georg Brende is lost to them, also. Tell them I declare war!
_Tarrano the Conqueror_ declares war on the Earth! Tell them that, with
my compliments. Tell them to come down here and overwhelm me--it ought
to be very easy!"

CHAPTER XV

_Escape_

That _Tarrano_ should thus defy the Earth, when by every law of rational
circumstance the move seemed to spell only his own disaster, was
characteristic of the man. He stood there in the instrument room at the
peak of the skeleton tower in Venia and rasped out to the Earth Council
his defiance. Silence followed--silence unbroken save by the hiss and
click of the instruments as the message was sent.

And then Tarrano ordered thrown upon himself the lights and sending
mirrors so that his own image might be avai