“Do you know what lies behind the forbidden portal?” the Hertug asked, pointing to a barred, locked and guarded door at the other end of the room. “There is no way you can have seen what is there, but if you can tell me what lies beyond it I will know you are the wizard that you claim you are.”

“I have a very strange feeling that I have been over this ground once before,” Jason sighed. “All right, here goes. You people here make electricity, maybe chemically, though I doubt if you would get enough power that way, so you must have a generator of some sort. That will be a big magnet, a piece of special iron that can pick up other iron, and you spin it around fast next to some coils of wire and out comes electricity. You pipe this through copper wire to whatever devices you have, and they can’t be very many. You say you talk across the country. I’ll bet you don’t talk at all but send little clicks, dots and dashes…. I’m right aren’t I?” The foot shuffling and rising buzz from the adepts was a sure sign that he was hitting close. “I have an idea for you, I think I’ll invent the telephone. Instead of the old clikkety-clack how would you like to really talk across the country? Speak into a gadget here and have your voice come out at the far end of the wire?”

The Hertug’s piggy little eyes blinked greedily. “It is said that in the old days this could be done, but we have tried and have failed. Can you do this thing?”

“I can — if we can come to an agreement first. But before I make any promises I have to see your equipment.”

This brought the usual groans of complaint about secrecy, but in the end avarice won over taboo and the door to the holy of holies was opened for Jason while two of the sciuloj, with bared and ready daggers, stood at his sides. At almost the same instant Jason looked in through the door he heard the sound.

Now the reaction of the human body, while remarkably fast, need certain finite measures of time and have been measured over and over again with a great deal of accuracy. The commands of the brain, speedy as they may be, must be carried by sluggish nerves and put into operation by inert lumps of muscle. Therefore to say that Jason’s reactions were instantaneous is to tell a lie, or at least exaggerate. Only to his watchers did his actions appear to take place that fast; they were older, and less alert, and had not had the advantage of Pyrran survival training. So to their point of view the sacred portal was opened and Jason vanished in a flurry of activity. Two lightning blows sent his guardians spinning, and before they had fallen to the floor their supposed captive was through the door and it was slammed in their faces. Before the first dumfounded Persson could jump forward the bolt grated home inside and the door was sealed.

Things were a little more complex than that to Jason. When the door opened he had had a good view of the inside of the room, of a slave cranking the handle on a crude collection of junk that could only have been a generator. Thick wires looped across the room from the thing to a man who stood before some blades of copper pushing at them with a wooden stick, while above his head fat sparks leaped the gap between two brassy spheres. As if to complete this illustration for a bronze-age edition of “First Steps in Electricity” another cable twisted up from the spark gap and vanished out a small window. The entire thing might have been labeled “How to Generate A Radio Signal in the Crudest Manner.” As Jason reached this conclusion in the smallest fraction of a second, and at almost the very same instant, he heard the sound.

What he heard could have been distant thunder, an earthquake, a volcano or some giant explosion. It rumbled and rolled, muffled by distance, yet still clear. It resembled none of these things to Jason, but made him think only of a high altitude rocket or jet, cleaving through the atmosphere.

It must have been the juxtaposition of these two things, occurring as they did at the same time, the view of a radio transmitter, no matter how crude, and the thought that there might be a civilized craft or some kind up there containing men who would come to his aid if he could only contact them. The idea was an insane one, but even as he realized that fact he was through the door and bolting it behind him. Perhaps he did it because he had been pushed around entirely too much and felt like pushing someone else for a change. In any case it was done, insane or not, and he might as well carry through.

The generator slave looked up, startled, but when Jason glanced at him he lowered his eyes and kept cranking. The man who had been working the transmitter spun about, startled by the slam of the door and the muffled pounding and shouts that followed instantly from the other side. He groped for his dagger when he saw the stranger, but before it was clear of the scabbard Jason was on him and after a few quick Pyrran infighting blows the man lost all interest in what was happening and slid to the floor. Jason straddled his body, picked the stick up, nodded to the slave who began cranking faster, and began to tap out a message.

S-O-S… S-O-S… he sent first, then as fragments of code came back to him he spelled out J-A-S-O-N D-A-L-T H-R-E…. N-E-E-D A-I-D…. R-I–C-H…. R-E-W-A-R-D… F-O-R… H-E-L-P….

He varied this a bit, repeated his name often, and tried other themes appealing for off-world aid. It was a slim chance that he had heard a rocket, and even slimmer chance that they would pick his message out of the static if they happened to be listening. He had no evidence that any off-worlders were in contact with this planet, merely hope. He tapped on and the slave ground away industriously. His arm was growing tired by the time the old guard in the other room found something heavy enough to swing and broke the door down. Jason stopped tapping and turned to face the apoplectic Hertug, rubbing his tired wrist.

“Your equipment works fine, though it could use a lot of improvements.”

“Kill him…. Kill!” the Hertug sputtered.

“Kill me and there goes your caroj, as well as your telephone system and your only chance to wrap up all the industrial secrets in one big bundle,” Jason said, looking around for something heavy to swing.

***

A gigantic explosion slammed into the room; a crack appeared in one wall and dust floated down from the ceiling. There was a sound of snapping small arms fire in the distance.

“It worked!” Jason shouted with unrestrained glee and hurled a heavy roll of wire at the startled men in the doorway and followed instantly after it in a headlong dive. There was a flurry of action, most of the damage being done by his boots, then he was through and running out of the throne room with the men bellowing in pursuit.

A small war seemed to be raging ahead, the sharp explosions of gunfire being mixed with the heavier thud of bombs and grenades. Walls were down, doors blasted open while confused soldiers rushed in panic through the clouds of dust. One of them tried to stop Jason who kept on going, carrying the man’s club with him. Sunlight shone ahead and he dived through a riven wall and landed, rolling in the open ground next to the dock. A spaceship’s lifeboat stood there, still glowing hot from the speed of descent, and next to it stood Meta keeping up a continuous fire with her gun, happily juggling micro-grenades with her free hand.

“What were you waiting for,” she snapped. “I have been in orbit over this planet for a month now, waiting for some word from you. There are dozens of radio transmitters on this continent and I have been monitoring them all.” She fired a long burst at an upper story where some bowmen had been foolish enough to appear, then ran to Jason, eyes wet with tears. “Oh, darling, I was so worried.”