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?"
"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!"
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 available to all of the public and Earth officials who cared to look upon it. Within the circle of mirrors he stood drawn to his full height; his eyes flashing, heavy brows lowered, and a sardonic smile--almost a leer--pulling at his thin lips. The embodiment of defiance. Yet to those who knew him well--as I was beginning to know him--there was in his eyes a gleam of irony, as though even in this situation he saw humor. A game, with worlds and nations as his pawns--a game wherein, though he had apparently lost, with the confidence of his genius he knew that the hidden move he was about to make would extricate him.
The mirrors went dark. He turned away; and still without appearance of haste he drew Wolfgar, Elza and me to the balcony. Together we stood gazing over the lights of the city below us.
A cloudless, starry sky. Empty of air-craft; but to the north just below the horizon, we knew that the line of war vessels was hovering. Even now, doubtless, they had their orders to descend upon us. Tarrano seemed waiting, and I suppose we stood there half an hour. Occasionally he would sight an instrument toward the north; and by the orders he gave at intervals I knew that preparations for action on his part were under way.