When Ralph burst into the machine room of the Martian's flyer and saw Alice lying dead in a pool of her own blood the shock was almost more than he could bear. Falling on his knees beside her he caught her small, yet warm hand in his, calling her name again and again in agonized tones. He covered her lovely white face with kisses, while dry tearless sobs tore at his throat. Then, thinking that perhaps he had made a mistake, that her heart must still beat, he tried, with trembling hands to discover the extent of her injuries. Llysanorh' had aimed at her heart but the dying man had missed his mark, and the sharp point of the dagger had slashed her arm, cutting into the large artery. And in those precious moments when Ralph had been connecting the two flyers, and making his way from one to the other, her warm rich life's blood had ebbed rapidly away.
He lifted the lifeless body in his arms and carried it to his machine, where he laid it on his bed. His mind was confused and disordered and he was unable to think coherently. A sickening sensation of depression so overwhelmed him that he felt physically ill.
Suddenly an electric thrill seemed to pass through his body and his clouded mental vision cleared. A picture[Pg 196] flashed upon his mind. He saw himself in his laboratory on Earth, bending over a "dead" dog. And there came to him a memory of the words of that Dean of scientists:
"What you have done with a dog, you can do with a human being."
In that instant Ralph was galvanized. For the first time in his life he doubted. Could he do it? What if he failed? Then he pushed such thoughts from him with stem resolution.
He would not fail!
He touched the body of the girl. It had not yet grown cold with the icy chill of death. He rushed for some electric heating pads, which he applied to her to keep what warmth remained.
Then came that which proved itself a terrible ordeal for him. It was absolutely necessary to drain away all the remaining blood, so that it would not coagulate.
It had been a simple matter to empty the blood vessels of a dog, but this was the girl he loved, and he shuddered as he began his work.
He opened the large artery, and it was only with supreme courage that he forced himself to complete the heart=breaking task, while scalding tears ran down his cheeks unheeded.
He had scarcely terminated his work, when he heard steps in the corridor. He could feel his hair bristling, and he whirled to face the door, reaching for his radioperforer as he did so. Could Llysanorh'?... The next moment a large woman stood in the doorway.
Ralph stared at her in amazement. Then suddenly it dawned upon him that this must be the maid Fernand had provided.
[Pg 197]
She had hidden herself in abject terror when the darkness came down, and had only now mustered enough courage to investigate. The first object she had seen upon creeping to the machine room was the dead body of the Martian. Horrified, she had fainted away, but later, recovering, she crawled through the connecting tube.
She was weak, trembling with fright, and could be of no use, and Ralph hastened to get her into another room, where he put her into a comfortable chair and left her, for he could not afford to lose a minute now.
A most important task was now before him. He had to pump an antiseptic solution through the veins of Alice, and after that the blood vessels must be filled with a weak solution of Radium-K Bromide, which, taking the place of the blood would prevent her body from undergoing physical and chemical changes.
With infinite care Ralph applied himself to his difficult task. After the blood vessels had been completely filled with the Radium preparation, he sewed up the arteries. In this gruesome task he was assisted by Lylette, who had recovered sufficiently to be of some help to him.
There remained only one more thing—to apply the Permagatol, the rare gas, having the property of conserving animal tissue, which Ralph had used successfully in his dog experiment, in keeping the respiratory organs from decomposing in the absence of blood in the blood vessels.
Ralph then quickly constructed a case of flexible glass, which he fitted around the upper part of Alice's body, covering her head and torso.
He took special precautions, moreover, to make the case air-tight.
When the case had been completed and the recording[Pg 198] and registering instruments put in place, Ralph went up to the laboratory to get the Permagatol.
When, however, he tested the steelonium bomb, labeled "Permagatol," he found it absolutely empty.
The discovery nearly paralyzed him. His head swam and he was forced to sit down to keep from slumping over in the gravitation-less flyer. This last blow was almost too much. His cup of hope, that Alice could be brought back to life, had been snatched out of his hands.
Without the Permagatol, it was impossible to save her. There was nothing to keep the beautiful dead body from disintegrating. While the Radium-K Bromide stayed the process to a certain extent, the respiratory organs could only be saved by means of the precious Permagatol.
Could he use a substitute gas? It was a dangerous experiment to make, but he had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
He threw himself with a frenzy into the work and in six hours had compounded a gas that, in its general structure and atomic weight, came close to the properties and characteristics of Permagatol. The gas he evolved was Armagatol, and while he knew that it had never been used for the purpose for which he intended it, he felt justified in risking the experiment.
After the air had been drawn from the glass case, he immediately introduced the Armagatol into it.
The change in Alice's face shocked him, as he watched the Armagatol fill the case. The green gas-vapors cast an unearthly green pallor over her countenance, and the ghastliness was further enhanced by the deathly pallor of her face.
He arranged the electric heating pads around Alice's[Pg 199] body, and inspected the registering instruments.
It had now become necessary to take his bearings. He found to his amazement that instead of being close to Mars, as he had expected, he was moving away from that body.
The two space flyers, although their machinery was not working, had been moving rapidly, due to the gravitational action of the nearest large celestial body. This body was not Mars, however, but Earth. Although, at the time of the encounter with Llysanorh', the two machines had been slightly nearer to Mars, the larger mass, and consequently the stronger attraction of the Earth had overcome the pull that Mars exerted on the machines, and as a result the machines were now being drawn toward Earth.
A glance at the celestial chart revealed to Ralph that Earth and Mars would be in opposition the next day and that he was separated from Earth by twenty-two million miles. He would have to move faster than Earth if he were to overtake that body. Besides, he was twenty-two million miles to the east of the planet.
The Earth was traveling 65,533 miles per hour in its orbit. A simple calculation indicated that, by forcing his space flyer to the utmost, or 90,000 miles an hour, he could not hope to reach Earth in less than fifty days, as he could only gain about 24,400 miles an hour on Earth.
The next important step was to cut loose Llysanorh's machine. He instructed Lylette to get her things from the Martian's flyer. She started to crawl through the connecting tube, and that was the last time Ralph saw her alive.
A loud hissing noise, like escaping steam caused him to rush to the connecting tube, but he was too late. The[Pg 200] automatic safety valve had sprung, and the circular door of the connecting tube had been hermetically closed.
The two machines had drifted apart, and as Ralph peered anxiously through one of the windows, he was horrified at the sight of Lylette, hanging by her feet from the circular connecting-tube door of Llysanorh's machine.
The door had closed automatically when the two machines had become disconnected. The air had of course rushed out immediately from Llysanorh's flyer. She had died in a few seconds and her body had become distended to a great many times its normal size. Ralph, nauseated by the terrible spectacle, turned away from it. There was nothing he could do.
Few people realize that it is nothing but the atmospheric pressure that keeps our bodies from falling apart; thus, it is well known that when flying at high altitudes on the Earth, where the atmosphere becomes thin, blood will begin to flow from the mouth, nose and ears.
When he glanced backwards a few minutes later and saw Llysanorh's machine he gave an exclamation of astonishment. The machine was not to be seen, but in its place was a wondrous comet, its tail streaming thousands of miles behind it!
Llysanorh's flyer, which was somewhat larger in size than that of Ralph's, had "captured" the artificial comet! There remained not a part of it attached to Ralph's flyer. Ralph reasoned that the air that had been contained formerly in Llysanorh's machine had, upon rushing out of the flyer after Lylette's fatal accident, mixed with the gases of the "comet" and thereby assisted the latter in detaching itself from Ralph's flyer.
It remained within range of his vision for many weeks,[Pg 201] before it was finally lost in the depths of infinite space, where it would, in all probability, rush through the boundless universe for aeon upon aeon, ere it would eventually collide with some other body, and would be reduced to cosmic dust.
The long days during Ralph's flight back to Earth left their indelible imprint upon his mind. Never, in all the years to follow, could he look back upon them without a shudder, remembering the heart-break of the terrible hours in which he sat beside the bed on which lay his beloved.
The nearer he drew to Earth, the more his dread of the coming ordeal increased. He was by no means sure that he could bring Alice back to life; it was not even probable. It was but............