Not, at least, until he reached the great arch of the Throne Room itself. The crystal doors were shut and a line of four impassive guards blocked the way. He moved to step between them, and a sharp challenge sounded.
He paused. "I want to see the Princess," he said firmly.
"None to pass," snapped the guard. "Master's orders."
"But is the Princess in there?"
"Her Highness," responded the guard, "entered here five minutes ago, She said nothing of any one to follow."
The Atomic Bomb
Reluctantly, Tom Connor fell back. This was the only way to her laboratory; of that he was certain. He leaned against the wall and clenched his fists in a frenzy of impatience.
The glass doors opened and the Master emerged, accompanied by Martin Sair, and two other tall Immortals.
"Sir," Connor begged eagerly, "tell this fellow to pass me. I want to see the Princess."
A curious, quizzical expression flickered in the eyes of the great ruler. He shook his head.
"I'm sorry, Thomas," he said mildly. "In fifteen minutes the Princess will be needed. You can wait."
"But—I think she wants to see me!"
"Then she can wait as well.," His eyes flickered again. "She has waited, not too patiently, for more than seven centuries." He moved away down the corridor, leaving Connor nonplussed.
He curbed his impatience. After all, the Master was right. Time stretched before him and Margaret of Urbs —years upon years of it. But it was hard to lose these precious moments.
He thought of the vision screens. Just behind him was the vast office opposite the Throne Room. He turned in there, bursting in upon a scene of feverish activity as the records of half the world were made ready for the Immortals of the Southern Hemisphere. Glancing about, he descried a screen on a table at the far end of the room, and twisted his way down the line of desks, ignoring a thousand staring clerks.
"The Princess," he said eagerly, snapping the switch. "In her laboratory behind the Throne Room."
On the screen flashed a girl's face, but not that of Margaret of Urbs.
"I'm sorry," she said. "No calls to any at the Conclave. Master's orders." The screen clicked blank again as he growled an angry epithet.
In the hallway he saw Evanie, staring with strange intentness at the closed glass doors. He pushed his way to her side.
"Hello," he said, and was puzzled by her sudden look of fear. But she recovered herself and glanced coolly at him.
"Oh, it's you," she said briefly.
He thought wonderingly how different was this Evanie from the timid, modest little Ormon girl of so few days ago. But he hardly cared. The Flame had burned him free of Evanie.
"Waiting for the parade of the Immortals?" he asked with a quiet smile.
"Perhaps."
"I thought you hated them so that you'd prefer not even looking at them."
Her voice changed to bitterness. "I do."
"Well, what's the answer, then?"
She glanced at a watch on her wrist.
"You'll know in a moment or two." She gave him a curiously sardonic smile. "I'm not afraid to tell you now. I'll even tell you what was in the package I took from the amphimorph. Would you like to know?"
"Of course."
Her voice quivered excitedly. "In that package was an atomic bomb!"
"An atomic bomb?"
"Yes. And do you know where it is now?" The voice rose exultant, fanatically elated. "At the wall behind the Throne of Urbs! Behind the throne where the Master's sitting this moment!" She laughed at his horrified face. "My thanks for sponsoring my request for freedom, Tom. It helped."
"The Master isn't in there," he said tightly. "I saw him leave."
He saw her face whiten—and then an appalling thought struck him.
"Oh, God! But the Princess is! The Princess is!"
He dashed toward the guarded door, disregarding Evanie's cry of warning: "Tom, it's due! It's due!"
He rushed at the impassive guards, but before their challenge was uttered a thunderous roar reverberated in the vast hall like the rumbling thunder of a collapsing mountain.
A continuous screaming bellow like the clamor in hell rose in an ear– blasting crescendo, and beyond the glass doors rolled billowing clouds of steam, shot through with jagged fires.
Maddened to desperation, Tom Connor plunged against the doors. They swung inward and closed behind him, and he was in the room of the blast. Far down, behind the Master's throne, an erupting geyser of destruction appalled him—a mighty, roaring, billowing cloud of smoke–streaked steam that shrieked louder than the tortured souls of the seventh circle of hell.
Crashing discharges of stray energy etched flames through the cloud, like lightning behind a thunder–head, and the reverberations echoed above the roar of the disrupting hydrogen. The Master's throne was hidden by the bellowing fires that grounded to it.
But even that holocaust had not yet filled the vast concave of the Throne Room. The end where Connor stood, momentarily bewildered, was as yet clouded only by shreds and streamers. He lowered his head, and charged into the inferno. Margaret was caught somewhere behind that hellish blast!
Scalding steam licked at him, swirling about his body. His bare legs and shoulders stung at the touch, his face burned, but he gained the line of thrones and paused a single moment on the shielded side. What an engine of destruction! A bomb that, instead of venting its force in a single blast, kept on exploding as successive billions of atoms shattered.
No need to look for the door. The detonation, the first blast, had blown the wall open. Instantly he made a dash over the scorching debris, where the mighty girders were fantastically twisted and bent away from the roaring center, pointed up in the misty light. He launched himself at the edge of the opening, passing close to the very threshold of the trap–door of Tophet.
Gamma radiations excoriated his body. The shriek of dying atoms thundered against his tortured eardrums, and he was burning—blistering. But an implacable thrust urged him on. He was responsible for this chaos, this holocaust, and Margaret of Urbs— He had violated his oath to the Master! Evanie had betrayed him into that! She had tricked him into sponsoring her plea for freedom, and because he had aided her this had happened! Jan Orm could have done no damage alone. Only Evanie, because of the inhuman blood in her, could have dealt with an amphimorph. Evanie, with whom he had thought himself in love!
And the Princess, whom he did love, was somewhere beyond. He raged on, his mind turbulent as the blast itself, into Martin Sair's laboratory, a flaming outer region of hell clouded to invisibility. Suffocating, scorching, he crashed against its farther wall, slid along it, at last found the door.
The luxurious room of the Princess was in chaotic disorder, but only lazy wisps of steam drifted there, and the bellow of the blast was muffled. But even now the wall was cracking.
"Margaret!" he cried. "Margaret of Urbs!"
Her voice answered him. She was in a corner, crouching. Injured? No, she was searching earnestly through a pile of debris that had been swept across the room by the first concussion. He rushed toward her.
"Come on!" he shouted. "We'll break a window and get out."
She