When Cyrus R. Thurston bought himself a
single-motored Stoughton job he was looking for new thrills. Flying around the
east coast had lost its zest: he wanted to join that jaunty group who spoke so
easily of hopping off for Los Angeles.
The Earth lay
powerless beneath those loathsome, yellowish monsters that, sheathed in
cometlike globes, sprang from the skies to annihilate man and reduce his cities
to ashes.
And what Cyrus
Thurston wanted he usually obtained. But if that young millionaire-sportsman
had been told that on his first flight this blocky, bulletlike ship was to
pitch him headlong into the exact center of the wildest, strangest war this
earth had ever seen - well, it is still probable that the Stoughton company
would not have lost the sale.
They were roaring
through the starlit, calm night, three thousand feet above a sage sprinkled
desert, when the trip ended. Slim Riley had the stick when the first blast of
hot oil ripped slashingly across the pilot's window. "There goes your old
trip!" he yelled. "Why don't they try putting engines in these
ships?"
He jammed over
the throttle and, with motor idling, swept down toward the endless miles of
moonlit waste. Wind? They had been boring into it. Through the opened window he
spotted a likely stretch of ground. Setting down the ship on a nice piece of
Arizona desert was a mere detail for Slim.
"Let off a flare," he ordered, "when
I give the word."
The white glare
of it faded the stars as he sideslipped, then straightened out on his
hand-picked field. The plane rolled down a clear space and stopped. The bright
glare persisted while he stared curiously from the quiet cabin. Cutting the
motor he opened both windows, then grabbed Thurston by the shoulder.
"'Tis a
curious thing, that," he said unsteadily. His hand pointed straight ahead.
The flare died, but the bright stars of the desert country still shone on a
glistening, shining bulb.
It was some two
hundred feet away. The lower part was lost in shadow, but its upper surfaces
shone rounded and silvery like a giant bubble. It towered in the air, scores of
feet above the chaparral beside it. There was a round spot of black on its
side, which looked absurdly like a door...
"I saw something
moving," said Thurston slowly. "On the ground I saw... Oh, good Lord,
Slim, it isn't real!"
Slim Riley made
no reply. His eyes were riveted to an undulating, ghastly something that oozed
and crawled in the pale light not far from the bulb. His hand was reaching,
reaching... It found what he sought; he leaned toward the window. In his hand
was the Very pistol for discharging the flares. He aimed forward and up.
The second flare
hung close before it settled on the sandy floor. Its blinding whiteness made
the more loathsome the sickening yellow of the flabby flowing thing that
writhed frantically in the glare. It was formless, shapeless, a heaving mound
of nauseous matter. Yet even in its agonized writhing distortions they sensed
the beating pulsations that marked it a living thing.
There were unending ripplings crossing and recrossing through the
convolutions. To Thurston there was suddenly a sickening likeness: the thing
was a brain from a gigantic skull - it was naked - was suffering...
The thing poured
itself across the sand. Before the staring gaze of the speechless men an
excrescence appeared - a thick bulb on the mass - that protruded itself into a
tentacle. At the end there grew instantly a hooked hand. It reached for the
black opening in the great shell, found it, and the whole loathsome
shapelessness poured itself up and through the hole.
Only at the last
was it still. In the dark opening the last slippery mass held quiet for endless
seconds. It formed, as they watched, to a head - frightful - menacing. Eyes
appeared in the head; eyes flat and round and black save for a cross slit in
each; eyes that stared horribly and unchangingly into theirs. Below them a
gaping mouth opened and closed... The
head melted - was gone...
And with its going
came a rushing roar of sound.
From under the
metallic mass shrieked a vaporous cloud. It drove at them, a swirling blast of
snow and sand. Some buried memory of gas attacks woke Riley from his stupor. He
slammed shut the windows an instant before the cloud struck, but not before
they had seen, in the moonlight, a gleaming, gigantic, elongated bulb rise
swiftly - screamingly - into the upper air.
The blast tore at
their plane. And the cold in their tight compartment was like the cold of outer
space. The men stared, speechless, panting. Their breath froze in that frigid
room into steam clouds.
"It - it...
" Thurston gasped - and slumped helpless upon the floor.
It was an hour
before they dared open the door of their cabin. An hour of biting, numbing cold.
Zero - on a warm summer night on the desert! Snow in the hurricane that had
struck them!
"'Twas the
blast from the thing," guessed the pilot; "though never did[169] I
see an engine with an exhaust like that." He was pounding himself with his
arms to force up the chilled circulation.
"But the
beast - the - the thing!" exclaimed Thurston. "It's monstrous;
indecent! It thought - no question of that - but no body! Horrible! Just a raw,
naked, thinking protoplasm!"
It was here that
he flung open the door. They sniffed cautiously of the air. It was warm again -
clean - save for a hint of some nauseous odor. They walked forward; Riley
carried a flash.
The odor grew to
a stench as they came where the great mass had lain. On the ground was a fleshy
mound. There were bones showing, and horns on a skull. Riley held the light
close to show the body of a steer. A body of raw bleeding meat. Half of it had
been absorbed...
"The damned
thing," said Riley, and paused vainly for adequate words. "The damned
thing was eating... Like a jelly-fish,
it was!"
"Exactly,"
Thurston agreed. He pointed about. There were other heaps scattered among the
low sage.
"Smothered,"
guessed Thurston, "with that frozen exhaust. Then the filthy thing landed
and came out to eat."
"Hold the
light for me," the pilot commanded. "I'm goin' to fix that busted oil
line. And I'm goin' to do it right now. Maybe the creature's still
hungry."
They sat in their
room. About them was the luxury of a modern hotel. Cyrus Thurston stared
vacantly at the breakfast he was forgetting to eat. He wiped his hands
mechanically on a snowy napkin. He looked from the window. There were palm
trees in the park, and autos in a ceaseless stream. And people! Sane, sober
people, living in a sane world. Newsboys were shouting; the life of the city
was flowing.
"Riley!"
Thurston turned to the man across the table. His voice was curiously toneless,
and his face haggard. "Riley, I haven't slept for three nights. Neither
have you. We've got to get this thing straight. We didn't both become absolute
maniacs at the same instant, but - it was not there, it was never there - not
that... " He was lost in unpleasant recollections. "There are other
records of hallucinations."
"Hallucinations
- hell!" said Slim Riley. He was looking at a Los Angeles newspaper. He
passed one hand wearily across his eyes, but his face was happier than it had
been in days.
"We didn't
imagine it, we aren't crazy - it's real! Would you read that now!" He
passed the paper across to Thurston. The headlines were startling.
"Pilot
Killed by Mysterious Airship. Silvery Bubble Hangs Over New York. Downs Army
Plane in Burst of Flame. Vanishes at Terrific Speed."
"It's our
little friend," said Thurston. And on his face, too, the lines were
vanishing; to find this horror a reality was positive relief. "Here's the
same cloud of vapor - drifted slowly across the city, the accounts says,
blowing this stuff like steam from underneath. Airplanes investigated - an army
plane drove into the vapor - terrific explosion - plane down in flames - others
wrecked. The machine ascended with meteor speed, trailing blue flame. Come on,
boy, where's that old bus? Thought I never wanted to fly a plane again. Now I
don't want to do anything but."
"Where
to?" Slim inquired.
"Headquarters,"
Thurston told him. "Washington - let's go!"
From Los Angeles
to Washington is not far, as the plane flies. There was a stop or two for
gasoline, but it was only a day later that they were seated in the War Office.
Thurston's card had gained immediate admittance. "Got the low -
down," he had written on the back of his card, "on the mystery
airship."
"What you
have told me is incredible," the Secretary was saying, "or would be
if General Lozier here had not reported personally on the occurrence at New
York. But the monster, the thing you have described... Cy, if I didn't know you as I do I would have
you locked up."
"It's
true," said Thurston, simply. "It's damnable, but it's true. Now what
does it mean?"
"Heaven
knows," was the response. "That's where it came from - out of the
heavens."
"Not what we
saw," Slim Riley broke in. "That thing came straight out of
Hell." And in his voice was no suggestion of levity.
"You left
Los Angeles early yesterday; have you seen the papers?"
Thurston shook
his head.
"They are
back," said the Secretary. "Reported over London - Paris - the West
Coast. Even China has seen them. Shanghai cabled an hour ago."
"Them? How
many are there?"
"Nobody
knows. There were five seen at one time. There are more - unless the same ones
go around the world in a matter of minutes."
Thurston
remembered that whirlwind of vapor and a vanishing speck in the Arizona sky.
"They could," he asserted. "They're faster than anything on
earth. Though what drives them... that gas - steam - whatever it is... "
"Hydrogen," stated General Lozier.
"I saw the New York show when poor Davis got his. He flew into the
exhaust; it went off like a million bombs. Characteristic hydrogen flame
trailed the damn thing up out of sight - a tail of blue fire."
"And
cold," stated Thurston.
"Hot as a
Bunsen burner," the General contradicted. "Davis' plane almost
melted."
"Before it
ignited," said the other. He told of the cold in their plane.
"Ha!"
The General spoke explosively. "That's expansion. That's a tip on their
motive power. Expansion of gas. That accounts for the cold and the vapor.
Suddenly expanded it would be intensely cold. The moisture of the air would
condense, freeze. But how could they carry it? Or" - he frowned for a
moment, brows drawn over deep - set gray eyes - "or generate it? But
that's crazy - that's impossible!"
"So is the
whole matter," the Secretary reminded him. "With the information Mr.
Thurston and Mr. Riley have given us, the whole affair is beyond any gage our
past experience might supply. We start from the impossible, and we go - where?
What is to be done?"
"With your
permission, sir, a number of things shall be done. It would be interesting to
see what a squadron of planes might accomplish, diving on them from above. Or
anti-aircraft fire."
"No,"
said the Secretary of War, "not yet. They have looked us over, but they
have not attacked. For the present we do not know what they are. All of us have
our suspicions - thoughts of interplanetary travel - thoughts too wild for
serious utterance - but we know nothing.
"Say nothing
to the papers of what you have told me," he directed Thurston. "Lord
knows their surmises are wild enough now. And for you, General, in the event of
any hostile move, you will resist."
"Your order
was anticipated, sir." The General permitted himself a slight smile.
"The air force is ready."
"Of
course," the Secretary of War nodded. "Meet me here to-night - nine
o'clock." He included Thurston and Riley in the command. "We need to
think... to think... and perhaps their mission is friendly."
"Friendly!"
The two flyers exchanged glances as they went to the door. And each knew what
the other was seeing - a viscous ocherous mass that formed into a head where
eyes devilish in their hate stared coldly into theirs...
"Think, we
need to think," repeated Thurston later. "A creature that is just one
big hideous brain, that can think an arm into existence - think a head where it
wishes! What does a thing like that think of? What beastly thoughts could that
- that thing conceive?"
"If I got
the sights of a Lewis gun on it," said Riley vindictively, "I'd make
it think."
"And my
guess is that is all you would accomplish," Thurston told him. "I am
forming a few theories about our visitors. One is that it would be quite
impossible to find a vital spot in that big homogeneous mass."
The pilot
dispensed with theories: his was a more literal mind. "Where on earth did
they come from, do you suppose, Mr. Thurston?"
They were walking
to their hotel. Thurston raised his eyes to the summer heavens. Faint stars
were beginning to twinkle; there was one that glowed steadily.
"Nowhere on
earth," Thurston stated softly, "nowhere on earth."
"Maybe
so," said the pilot, "maybe so. We've thought about it and talked
about it... and they've gone ahead and done it." He called to a newsboy;
they took the latest editions to their room.
The papers were
ablaze with speculation. There were dispatches from all corners of the earth,
interviews with scientists and near scientists. The machines were a Soviet
invention - they were beyond anything human - they were harmless - they would
wipe out civilization - poison gas - blasts of fire like that which had
enveloped the army flyer...
And through it
all Thurston read an ill-concealed fear, a reflection of panic that was
gripping the nation - the whole world. These great machines were sinister.
Wherever they appeared came the sense of being watched, of a menace being
calmly withheld. And at thought of the obscene monsters inside those spheres,
Thurston's lips were compressed and his eyes hardened. He threw the papers
aside.
"They are
here," he said, "and that's all that we know. I hope the Secretary of
War gets some good men together. And I hope someone is inspired with an
answer."
"An answer
is it?" said Riley. "I'm thinkin' that the answer will come, but not
from these swivel-chair fighters. 'Tis the boys in the cockpits with one hand
on the stick and one on the guns that will have the answer."
But Thurston
shook his head. "Their speed," he said, "and the gas! Remember
that cold. How much of it can they lay over a city?"
The question was
unanswered, unless the quick ringing of the phone was a reply.
"War
Department," said a voice. "Hold the wire." The voice of the
Secretary of War came on immediately.
"Thurston?"
he asked. "Come over at once on the jump, old man. Hell's popping."
The windows of
the War Department Building were all alight as they approached. Cars were
coming and going; men in uniform, as the Secretary had said, "on the
jump." Soldiers with bayonets stopped them, then passed Thurston and his
companion on. Bells were ringing from all sides. But in the Secretary's office
was perfect quiet.
General Lozier
was there, Thurston saw, and an imposing array of gold-braided men with a
sprinkling of those in civilian clothes. One he recognized: MacGregor from the
Bureau of Standards. The Secretary handed Thurston some papers.
"Radio,"
he explained. "They are over the Pacific coast. Hit near Vancouver;
Associated Press says city destroyed. They are working down the coast. Same
story - blast of hydrogen from their funnel shaped base. Colder than Greenland
below them; snow fell in Seattle. No real attack since Vancouver and little
damage done - " A message was laid before him.
"Portland,"
he said. "Five mystery ships over city. Dart repeatedly toward earth,
deliver blast of gas and then retreat. Doing no damage. Apparently inviting
attack. All commercial planes ordered grounded. Awaiting instructions.
"Gentlemen,"
said the Secretary, "I believe I speak for all present when I say that, in
the absence of first hand information, we are utterly unable to arrive at any
definite conclusion or make a definite plan. There is a menace in this,
undeniably. Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley have been good enough to report to me.
They have seen one machine at close range. It was occupied by a monster so
incredible that the report would receive no attention from me did I not know
Mr. Thurston personally.
"Where have
they come from? What does it mean - what is their mission? Only God knows.
"Gentlemen,
I feel that I must see them. I want General Lozier to accompany me, also Doctor
MacGregor, to advise me from the scientific angle. I am going to the Pacific
Coast. They may not wait - that is true - but they appear to be going slowly
south. I will leave to-night for San Diego. I hope to intercept them. We have
strong air-forces there; the Navy Department is cooperating."
He waited for no
comment. "General," he ordered, "will you kindly arrange for a
plane? Take an escort or not as you think best.
"Mr.
Thurston and Mr. Riley will also accompany us. We want all the authoritative
data we can get. This on my return will be placed before you, gentlemen, for
your consideration." He rose from his chair. "I hope they wait for
us," he said.
Time was when a
commander called loudly for a horse, but in this day a Secretary of War is not
kept waiting for transportation. Sirening motorcycles preceded them from the
city. Within an hour, motors roaring wide open, propellers ripping into the
summer night, lights slipping eastward three thousand feet below, the Secretary
of War for the United States was on his way. And on either side from their
plane stretched the arms of a V. Like a flight of gigantic wild geese, fast
fighting planes of the Army air service bored steadily into the night,
guarantors of safe convoy.
"The Air
Service is ready," General Lozier had said. And Thurston and his pilot
knew that from East coast to West, swift scout planes, whose idling engines
could roar into action at a moment's notice, stood waiting; battle planes
hidden in hangars would roll forth at the word - the Navy was cooperating - and
at San Diego there were strong naval units, Army units, and Marine Corps.
"They don't
know what we can do, what we have up our sleeve: they are feeling us out,"
said the Secretary. They had stopped more than once for gas and for wireless
reports. He held a sheaf of typewritten briefs.
"Going
slowly south. They have taken their time. Hours over San Francisco and the bay
district. Repeating same tactics; fall with terrific speed to cushion against
their blast of gas. Trying to draw us out, provoke an attack, make us show our
strength. Well, we shall beat them to San Diego at this rate. We'll be there in
a few hours."
The afternoon sun
was dropping ahead of them when they sighted the water. "Eckener
Pass," the pilot told them, "where the Graf Zeppelin came through.
Wonder what these birds would think of a Zepp!
"There's the
ocean," he added after a time. San Diego glistened against the bare hills.
"There's North Island - the Army field." He stared intently ahead,
then shouted: "And there they are! Look there!"
Over the city a
cluster of meteors was falling. Dark underneath, their tops shone like pure
silver in the sun's slanting glare. They fell toward the city, then buried
themselves in a dense cloud of steam, rebounding at once to the upper air,
vapor trailing behind them.
The cloud
billowed slowly. It struck the hills of the city, then lifted and vanished.
"Land at
once," requested the Secretary. A flash of silver countermanded the order.
It hung there
before them, a great gleaming globe, keeping always its distance ahead. It was
elongated at the base, Thurston observed. From that base shot the familiar
blast that turned steamy a hundred feet below as it chilled the warm air. There
were round orifices, like ports, ranged around the top, where an occasional jet
of vapor showed this to be a method of control. Other spots shone dark and
glassy. Were they windows? He hardly realized their peril, so interested was he
in the strange machine ahead.
Then: "Dodge
that vapor," ordered General Lozier. The plane wavered in signal to the
others and swung sharply to the left. Each man knew the flaming death that was
theirs if the fire of their exhaust touched that explosive mixture of hydrogen
and air. The great bubble turned with them and paralleled their course.
"He's
watching us," said Riley, "giving us the once over, the slimy devil.
Ain't there a gun on this ship?"
The General
addressed his superior. Even above the roar of the motors his voice seemed
quiet, assured. "We must not land now," he said. "We can't land
at North Island. It would focus their attention upon our defenses. That thing -
whatever it is - is looking for a vulnerable spot. We must... Hold on - there he goes!"
The big bulb shot
upward. It slanted above them, and hovered there.
"I think he
is about to attack," said the General quietly. And, to the commander of
their squadron: "It's in your hands now, Captain. It's your fight."
The Captain
nodded and squinted above. "He's got to throw heavier stuff than
that," he remarked. A small object was falling from the cloud. It passed
close to their ship.
"Half-pint
size," said Cyrus Thurston, and laughed in derision. There was something
ludicrous in the futility of the attack. He stuck his head from a window into
the gale they created. He sheltered his eyes to try to follow the missile in
its fall.
They were over
the city. The criss-cross of streets made a grill-work of lines; tall buildings
were dwarfed from this three thousand foot altitude. The sun slanted across a
projecting promontory to make golden ripples on a blue sea and the city
sparkled back in the clear air. Tiny white faces were massed in the streets,
huddled in clusters where the futile black missile had vanished.
And then - then
the city was gone...
A white
cloud-bank billowed and mushroomed. Slowly, it seemed to the watcher - so
slowly.
It was done in
the fraction of a second. Yet in that brief time his eyes registered the
chaotic sweep in advance of the cloud. There came a crashing of buildings in
some monster whirlwind, a white cloud engulfing it all... It was rising - was on them.
"God,"
thought Thurston, "why can't I move!" The plane lifted and lurched. A
thunder of sound crashed against them, an intolerable force. They were crushed
to the floor as the plane was hurled over and upward.
Out of the mad
whirling tangle of flying bodies, Thurston glimpsed one clear picture. The face
of the pilot hung battered and blood-covered before him, and over the limp body
the hand of Slim Riley clutched at the switch.
"Bully
boy," he said dazedly, "he's cutting the motors... "The thought
ended in blackness.
There was no
sound of engines or beating propellers when he came to his senses. Something
lay heavy upon him. He pushed it to one side. It was the body of General
Lozier.
He drew himself
to his knees to look slowly about, rubbed stupidly at his eyes to quiet the
whirl, then stared at the blood on his hand. It was so quiet - the motors -
what was it that happened? Slim had reached for the switch...
The whirling
subsided. Before him he saw Slim Riley at the controls. He got to his feet and
went unsteadily forward. It was a battered face that was lifted to his.
"She was
spinning," the puffed lips were muttering slowly. "I brought her
out... there's the field... " His voice was thick; he formed the words
slowly, painfully. "Got to land... can you take it? I'm - I'm - " He
slumped limply in his seat.
Thurston's arms
were uninjured. He dragged the pilot to the floor and got back of the wheel.
The field was below them. There were planes taxiing out; he heard the roar of
their motors. He tried the controls. The plane answered stiffly, but he managed
to level off as the brown field approached.
Thurston never
remembered that landing. He was trying to drag Riley from the battered plane
when the first man got to him.
"Secretary
of War?" he gasped. "In there...
Take Riley; I can walk."
"We'll get
them," an officer assured him. "Knew you were coming. They sure gave
you hell! But look at the city!"
Arms carried him
stumbling from the field. Above the low hangars he saw smoke clouds over the
bay. These and red rolling flames marked what had been an American city. Far in
the heavens moved five glinting specks.
His head reeled
with the thunder of engines. There were planes standing in lines and more
erupting from hangars, where khaki-clad men, faces tense under leather helmets,
rushed swiftly about.
"General
Lozier is dead," said a voice. Thurston turned to the man. They were
bringing the others. "The rest are smashed up some," the officer told
him, "but I think they'll pull through."
The Secretary of
War for the United States lay beside him. Men with red on their sleeves were
slitting his coat. Through one good eye he squinted at Thurston. He even
managed a smile.
"Well, I
wanted to see them up close," he said. "They say you saved us, old
man."
Thurston waved
that aside. "Thank Riley -" he began, but the words ended in the roar
of an exhaust. A plane darted swiftly away to shoot vertically a hundred feet
in the air. Another followed and another. In a cloud of brown dust they
streamed endlessly out, zooming up like angry hornets, eager to get into the
fight.
"Fast little
devils!" the ambulance man observed. "Here come the big boys."
A leviathan went
deafeningly past. And again others came on in quick succession. Farther up the
field, silvery gray planes with rudders flaunting their red, white and blue
rose circling to the heights.
"That's the
Navy," was the explanation. The surgeon straightened the Secretary's arm.
"See them come off the big airplane carriers!"
If his remarks
were part of his professional training in removing a patient's thoughts from
his pain, they were effective. The Secretary stared out to sea, where two great
flat-decked craft were shooting planes with the regularity of a rapid fire gun.
They stood out sharply against a bank of gray fog. Cyrus Thurston forgot his
bruised body, forgot his own peril - even the inferno that raged back across
the bay: he was lost in the sheer thrill of the spectacle.
Above them the sky was alive with winged shapes.
And from all the disorder there was order appearing. Squadron after squadron
swept to battle formation. Like flights of wild ducks the true sharp-pointed Vs
soared off into the sky. Far above and beyond, rows of dots marked the race of
swift scouts for the upper levels. And high in the clear air shone the
glittering menace trailing their five plumes of gas.
A deeper
detonation was merging into the uproar. It came from the ships, Thurston knew,
where anti-aircraft guns poured a rain of shells into the sky. About the
invaders they bloomed into clusters of smoke balls. The globes shot a thousand
feet into the air. Again the shells found them, and again they retreated.
"Look!"
said Thurston. "They got one!"
He groaned as a
long curving arc of speed showed that the big bulb was under control. Over the
ships it paused, to balance and swing, then shot to the zenith as one of the
great boats exploded in a cloud of vapor.
The following
blast swept the airdrome. Planes yet on the ground went like dry autumn leaves.
The hangars were flattened.
Thurston cowered
in awe. They were sheltered, he saw, by a slope of the ground. No ridicule now
for the bombs!
A second blast
marked when the gas-cloud ignited. The billowing flames were blue. They writhed
in tortured convulsions through the air. Endless explosions merged into one
rumbling roar.
MacGregor had
roused from his stupor; he raised to a sitting position.
"Hydrogen,"
he stated positively, and pointed where great volumes of flame were sent
whirling aloft. "It burns as it mixes with air." The scientist was
studying intently the mammoth reaction. "But the volume," he
marveled, "the volume! From that small container! Impossible!"
"Impossible,"
the Secretary agreed, "but..." He pointed with his one good arm
toward the Pacific. Two great ships of steel, blackened and battered in that
fiery breath, tossed helplessly upon the pitching, heaving sea. They furnished
to the scientist's exclamation the only adequate reply.
Each man stared
aghast into the pallid faces of his companions. "I think we have
underestimated the opposition," said the Secretary of War quietly.
"Look - the fog is coming in, but it's too late to save them."
The big ships
were vanishing in the oncoming fog. Whirls of vapor were eddying toward them in
the flame-blaster air. Above them the watchers saw dimly the five gleaming bulbs.
There were airplanes attacking: the tapping of machine-gun fire came to them
faintly.
Fast planes
circled and swooped toward the enemy. An armada of big planes drove in from
beyond. Formations were blocking space above...
Every branch of the service was there, Thurston exulted, the army,
Marine Corps, the Navy. He gripped hard at the dry ground in a paralysis of
taut nerves. The battle was on, and in the balance hung the fate of the world.
The fog drove in
fast. Through straining eyes he tried in vain to glimpse the drama spread
above. The world grew dark and gray. He buried his face in his hands.
And again came
the thunder. The men on the ground forced their gaze to the clouds, though they
knew some fresh horror awaited.
The fog-clouds
reflected the blue terror above. They were riven and torn. And through them
black objects were falling. Some blazed as they fell. They slipped into
unthought maneuvers - they darted to earth trailing yellow and black of
gasoline fires. The air was filled with the dread rain of death that was spewed
from the gray clouds. Gone was the roaring of motors. The air-force of the San
Diego[176] area swept in silence to the earth, whose impact alone could give
kindly concealment to their flame-stricken burden.
Thurston's last
control snapped. He flung himself flat to bury his face in the sheltering
earth.
Only the driving
necessity of work to be done saved the sanity of the survivors. The commercial
broadcasting stations were demolished, a part of the fuel for the terrible furnace
across the bay. But the Naval radio station was beyond on an outlying hill. The
Secretary of War was in charge. An hour's work and this was again in commission
to flash to the world the story of disaster. It told the world also of what lay
ahead. The writing was plain. No prophet was needed to forecast the doom and
destruction that awaited the earth.
Civilization was
helpless. What of armies and cannon, of navies, of aircraft, when from some
unreachable height these monsters within their bulbous machines could drop
coldly - methodically - their diminutive bombs. And when each bomb meant
shattering destruction; each explosion blasting all within a radius of miles;
each followed by the blue blast of fire that melted the twisted framework of
buildings and powdered the stones to make of a proud city a desolation of
wreckage, black and silent beneath the cold stars. There was no crumb of
comfort for the world in the terror the radio told.
Slim Riley was
lying on an improvised cot when Thurston and the representative of the Bureau
of Standards joined him. Four walls of a room still gave shelter in a
half-wrecked building. There were candles burning: the dark was unbearable.
"Sit
down," said MacGregor quietly; "we must think... "
"Think!"
Thurston's voice had an hysterical note. "I can't think! I mustn't think!
I'll go raving crazy... "
"Yes,
think," said the scientist. "Had it occurred to you that that is our
only weapon left?
"We must
think, we must analyze. Have these devils a vulnerable spot? Is there any known
means of attack? We do not know. We must learn. Here in this room we have all
the direct information the world possesses of this menace. I have seen their
machines in operation. You have seen more - you have looked at the monsters
themselves. At one of them, anyway."
The man's voice
was quiet, methodical. Mr. MacGregor was attacking a problem. Problems called
for concentration; not hysterics. He could have poured the contents from a
beaker without spilling a drop. His poise was needed: they were soon to make a
laboratory experiment.
The door burst
open to admit a wild-eyed figure that snatched up their candles and dashed them
to the floor.
"Lights
out!" he screamed at them. "There's one of 'em coming back." He
was gone from the room.
The men sprang
for the door, then turned to where Riley was clumsily crawling from his couch.
An arm under each of his, and the three men stumbled from the room.
They looked about
them in the night. The fog-banks were high, drifting in from the ocean. Beneath
them the air was clear; from somewhere above a hidden moon forced a pale light
through the clouds. And over the ocean, close to the water, drifted a familiar
shape. Familiar in its huge sleek roundness, in its funnel-shaped base where a
soft roar made vaporous clouds upon the water. Familiar, too, in the wild dread
it inspired.
The watchers were
spellbound. To Thurston there came a fury of impotent frenzy. It was so near!
His hands trembled to tear at that door, to rip at that foul mass he knew was
within... The great bulb drifted past.
It was nearing the shore. But its action! Its motion!
Gone was the
swift certainty of con[177]trol. The thing settled and sank, to rise weakly
with a fresh blast of gas from its exhaust. It settled again, and passed waveringly
on in the night.
Thurston was
throbbingly alive with hope that was certainty. "It's been hit," he
exulted; "it's been hit. Quick! After it, follow it!" He dashed for a
car. There were some that had been salvaged from the less ruined buildings. He
swung it quickly around where the others were waiting.
"Get a
gun," he commanded. "Hey, you," - to an officer who appeared -
"your pistol, man, quick! We're going after it!" He caught the tossed
gun and hurried the others into the car.
"Wait,"
MacGregor commanded. "Would you hunt elephants with a pop-gun? Or these
things?"
"Yes,"
the other told him, "or my bare hands! Are you coming, or aren't
you?"
The physicist was
unmoved. "The creature you saw - you said that it writhed in a bright
light - you said it seemed almost in agony. There's an idea there! Yes, I'm
going with you, but keep your shirt on, and think."
He turned again
to the officer. "We need lights," he explained, "bright lights.
What is there? Magnesium? Lights of any kind?"
"Wait."
The man rushed off into the dark.
He was back in a
moment to thrust a pistol into the car. "Flares," he explained.
"Here's a flashlight, if you need it." The car tore at the ground as
Thurston opened it wide. He drove recklessly toward the highway that followed
the shore.
The high fog had
thinned to a mist. A full moon was breaking through to touch with silver the
white breakers hissing on the sand. It spread its full glory on dunes and sea:
one more of the countless soft nights where peace and calm beauty told of an
ageless existence that made naught of the red havoc of men or of monsters. It
shone on the ceaseless surf that had beaten these shores before there were men,
that would thunder there still when men were no more. But to the tense
crouching men in the car it shone only ahead on a distant, glittering speck. A
wavering reflection marked the uncertain flight of the stricken enemy.
Thurston drove
like a maniac; the road carried them straight toward their quarry. What could
he do when he overtook it? He neither knew nor cared. There was only the blind
fury forcing him on within reach of the thing. He cursed as the lights of the
car showed a bend in the road. It was leaving the shore.
He slackened
their speed to drive cautiously into the sand. It dragged at the car, but he
fought through to the beach, where he hoped for firm footing. The tide was out.
They tore madly along the smooth sand, breakers clutching at the flying wheels.
The strange
aircraft was nearer; it was plainly over the shore, they saw. Thurston groaned as
it shot high in the air in an effort to clear the cliffs ahead. But the heights
were no longer a refuge. Again it settled. It struck on the cliff to rebound in
a last futile leap. The great pear shape tilted, then shot end over end to
crash hard on the firm sand. The lights of the car struck the wreck, and they
saw the shell roll over once. A ragged break was opening - the spherical top
fell slowly to one side. It was still rocking as they brought the car to a
stop. Filling the lower shell, they saw dimly, was a mucouslike mass that
seethed and struggled in the brilliance of their lights.
MacGregor was
persisting in his theory. "Keep the lights on it!" he shouted.
"It can't stand the light."
While they
watched, the hideous, bubbling beast oozed over the side of the broken shell to
shelter itself in the shadow beneath. And again Thurston sensed the pulse and
throb of life in the monstrous mass.
He saw again in his rage the streaming rain of
black airplanes; saw, too, the bodies, blackened and charred as they saw them
when first they tried rescue from the crashed ships; the smoke clouds and
flames from the blasted city, where people - his people, men and women and
little children - had met terrible death. He sprang from the car. Yet he
faltered with a revulsion that was almost a nausea. His gun was gripped in his
hand as he ran toward the monster.
"Come
back!" shouted MacGregor. "Come back! Have you gone mad?" He was
jerking at the door of the car.
Beyond the white
funnel of their lights a yellow thing was moving. It twisted and flowed with
incredible speed a hundred feet back to the base of the cliff. It drew itself
together in a quivering heap.
An out-thrusting
rock threw a sheltering shadow; the moon was low in the west. In the blackness
a phosphorescence was apparent. It rippled and rose in the dark with the
pulsing beat of the jellylike mass. And through it were showing two discs. Gray
at first, they formed to black, staring eyes.
Thurston had
followed. His gun was raised as he neared it. Then out of the mass shot a
serpentine arm. It whipped about him, soft, sticky, viscid - utterly loathsome.
He screamed once when it clung to his face, then tore savagely and in silence
at the encircling folds.
The gun! He
ripped a blinding mass from his face and emptied the automatic in a stream of
shots straight toward the eyes. And he knew as he fired that the effort was
useless; to have shot at the milky surf would have been as vain.
The thing was
pulling him irresistibly; he sank to his knees; it dragged him over the sand.
He clutched at a rock. A vision was before him: the carcass of a steer, half
absorbed and still bleeding on the sand of an Arizona desert...
To be drawn to
the smothering embrace of that glutinous mass... for that monstrous appetite... He tore afresh at the unyielding folds, then
knew MacGregor was beside him.
In the man's hand
was a flashlight. The scientist risked his life on a guess. He thrust the
powerful light into the clinging serpent. It was like the touch of hot iron to
human flesh. The arm struggled and flailed in a paroxysm of pain.
Thurston was
free. He lay gasping on the sand. But MacGregor!... He looked up to see him
vanish in the clinging ooze. Another thick tentacle had been projected from the
main mass to sweep like a whip about the man. It hissed as it whirled about him
in the still air.
The flashlight
was gone; Thurston's hand touched it in the sand. He sprang to his feet and
pressed the switch. No light responded; the flashlight was out - broken.
A thick arm slashed
and wrapped about him... It beat him to
the ground. The sand was moving beneath him; he was being dragged swiftly,
helplessly, toward what waited in the shadow. He was smothering... A blinding glare filled his eyes...
The flares were
still burning when he dared look about. MacGregor was pulling frantically at
his arm. "Quick - quick!" he was shouting. Thurston scrambled to his
feet.
One glimpse he
caught of a heaving yellow mass in the white light; it twisted in horrible
convulsions. They ran stumblingly - drunkenly - toward the car.
Riley was half
out of the machine. He had tried to drag himself to their assistance. "I
couldn't make it," he said: "then I thought of the flares."
"Thank
Heaven," said MacGregor with emphasis, "it was your legs that were
paralyzed, Riley, not your brain."
Thurston found
his voice. "Let me have that Very pistol. If light hurts that damn thing,
I am going to put a blaze of magnesium into the middle of it if I die for
it."
"They're all
gone," said Riley.
"Then let's
get out of here. I've had enough. We can come back later on."
He got back of
the wheel and slammed the door of the sedan. The moonlight was gone. The
darkness was velvet just tinged with the gray that precedes the dawn. Back in
the deeper blackness at the cliff-base a phosphorescent something wavered and
glowed. The light rippled and flowed in all directions over the mass. Thurston
felt, vaguely, its mystery - the bulk was a vast, naked brain; its quiverings
were like visible thought waves...
The phosphorescence
grew brighter. The thing was approaching. Thurston let in his clutch, but the
scientist checked him.
"Wait,"
he implored, "wait! I wouldn't miss this for the world." He waved
toward the east, where far distant ranges were etched in palest rose.
"We know
less than nothing of these creatures, in what part of the universe they are
spawned, how they live, where they live - Saturn! - Mars! - the Moon! But - we
shall soon know how one dies!"
The thing was
coming from the cliff. In the dim grayness it seemed less yellow, less fluid. A
membrane enclosed it. It was close to the car. Was it hunger that drove it, or
cold rage for these puny opponents? The hollow eyes were glaring; a thick arm
formed quickly to dart out toward the car. A cloud, high above, caught the
color of approaching day...
Before their eyes
the vile mass pulsed visibly; it quivered and beat. Then, sensing its danger,
it darted like some headless serpent for its machine.
It massed itself
about the shattered top to heave convulsively. The top was lifted, carried
toward the rest of the great metal egg. The sun's first rays made golden arrows
through the distant peaks.
The struggling
mass released its burden to stretch its vile length toward the dark caves under
the cliffs. The last sheltering fog-veil parted. The thing was halfway to the
high bank when the first bright shaft of direct sunlight shot through.
Incredible in the
concealment of night, the vast protoplasmic pod was doubly so in the glare of
day. But it was there before them, not a hundred feet distant. And it boiled in
vast tortured convulsions. The clean sunshine struck it, and the mass heaved
itself into the air in a nauseous eruption, then fell limply to the earth.
The yellow
membrane turned paler. Once more the staring black eyes formed to turn
hopelessly toward the sheltering globe. Then the bulk flattened out on the
sand. It was a jellylike mound, through which trembled endless quivering
palpitations.
The sun struck
hot, and before the eyes of the watching, speechless men was a sickening,
horrible sight - a festering mass of corruption.
The sickening
yellow was liquid. It seethed and bubbled with liberated gases; it decomposed
to purplish fluid streams. A breath of wind blew in their direction. The stench
from the hideous pool was overpowering, unbearable. Their heads swam in the
evil breath... Thurston ripped the gears
into reverse, nor stopped until they were far away on the clean sand.
The tide was
coming in when they returned. Gone was the vile putrescence. The waves were
lapping at the base of the gleaming machine.
"We'll have
to work fast," said MacGregor. "I must know, I must learn." He
drew himself up and into the shattered shell.
It was of metal,
some forty feet across, its framework a maze of latticed struts. The central
part was clear. Here in a wide, shallow pan the monster had rested. Below this
was tubing, intricate coils, massive, heavy and strong. MacGregor lowered
him[180]self upon it, Thurston was beside him. They went down into the dim
bowels of the deadly instrument.
"Hydrogen,"
the physicist was stating. "Hydrogen - there's our starting point. A
generator, obviously, forming the gas - from what? They couldn't compress it!
They couldn't carry it or make it, not the volume that they evolved. But they
did it, they did it!"
Close to the
coils a dim light was glowing. It was a pin-point of radiance in the
half-darkness about them. The two men bent closer.
"See,"
directed MacGregor, "it strikes on this mirror - bright metal and
parabolic. It disperses the light, doesn't concentrate it! Ah! Here is another,
and another. This one is bent - broken. They are adjustable. Hm! Micrometer
accuracy for reducing the light. The last one could reflect through this slot.
It's light that does it, Thurston, it's light that does it!"
"Does
what?" Thurston had followed the other's analysis of the diffusion
process. "The light that would finally reach that slot would be hardly
perceptible."
"It's the
agent," said MacGregor, "the activator - the catalyst! What does it
strike upon? I must know - I must!"
The waves were
splashing outside the shell. Thurston turned in a feverish search of the
unexplored depths. There was a surprising simplicity, an absence of complicated
mechanism. The generator, with its tremendous braces to carry its thrust to the
framework itself, filled most of the space. Some of the ribs were thicker, he
noticed. Solid metal, as if they might carry great weights. Resting upon them
were ranged numbers of objects. They were like eggs, slender, and inches in
length. On some were propellers. They worked through the shells on long slender
rods. Each was threaded finely - an adjustable arm engaged the thread. Thurston
called excitedly to the other.
"Here they
are," he said. "Look! Here are the shells. Here's what blew us
up!"
He pointed to the
slim shafts with their little propellerlike fans. "Adjustable, see? Unwind
in their fall... set 'em for any length of travel... fires the charge in the
air. That's how they wiped out our air fleet."
There were others
without the propellers; they had fins to hold them nose downward. On each nose
was a small rounded cap.
"Detonators
of some sort," said MacGregor. "We've got to have one. We must get it
out quick; the tide's coming in." He laid his hands upon one of the slim,
egg-shaped things. He lifted, then strained mightily. But the object did not
rise; it only rolled sluggishly.
The scientist
stared at it amazed. "Specific gravity," he exclaimed, "beyond
anything known! There's nothing on earth... there is no such substance... no
form of matter... " His eyes were incredulous.
"Lots to
learn," Thurston answered grimly. "We've yet to learn how to fight
off the other four."
The other nodded.
"Here's the secret," he said. "These shells liberate the same
gas that drives the machine. Solve one and we solve both - then we learn how to
combat it. But how to remove it - that is the problem. You and I can never lift
this out of here."
His glance darted
about. There was a small door in the metal beam. The groove in which the shells
were placed led to it; it was a port for launching the projectiles. He moved
it, opened it. A dash of spray struck him in the face. He glanced inquiringly
at his companion.
"Dare we do
it?" he asked. "Slide one of them out?"
Each man looked
long into the eyes of the other. Was this, then, the end of their terrible
night? One shell to be dropped - then a bursting volcano to blast them to
eternity...
"The boys in
the planes risked it,"[181] said Thurston quietly. "They got
theirs." He stopped for a broken fragment of steel. "Try one with a
fan on; it hasn't a detonator."
The men pried at
the slim thing. It slid slowly toward the open port. One heave and it balanced
on the edge, then vanished abruptly. The spray was cold on their faces. They
breathed heavily with the realization that they still lived.
There were days
of horror that followed, horror tempered by a numbing paralysis of all
emotions. There were bodies by thousands to be heaped in the pit where San
Diego had stood, to be buried beneath countless tons of debris and dirt. Trains
brought an army of helpers; airplanes came with doctors and nurses and the
beginning of a mountain of supplies. The need was there; it must be met. Yet
the whole world was waiting while it helped, waiting for the next blow to fall.
Telegraph service
was improvised, and radio receivers rushed in. The news of the world was theirs
once more. And it told of a terrified, waiting world. There would be no
temporizing now on the part of the invaders. They had seen the airplanes
swarming from the ground - they would know an airdrome next time from the air.
Thurston had noted the windows in the great shell, windows of dull-colored
glass which would protect the darkness of the interior, essential to life for
the horrible occupant, but through which it could see. It could watch all
directions at once.
The great shell
had vanished from the shore. Pounding waves and the shifting sands of high tide
had obliterated all trace. More than once had Thurston uttered devout thanks
for the chance shell from an anti-aircraft gun that had entered the funnel
beneath the machine, had bent and twisted the arrangement of mirrors that he
and MacGregor had seen, and, exploding, had cracked and broken the domed roof
of the bulb. They had learned little, but MacGregor was up north within reach
of Los Angeles laboratories. And he had with him the slim cylinder of death. He
was studying, thinking.
Telephone service
had been established for official business. The whole nation-wide system, for
that matter, was under military control. The Secretary of War had flown back to
Washington. The whole world was on a war basis. War! And none knew where they
should defend themselves, nor how.
An orderly rushed
Thurston to the telephone. "You are wanted at once; Los Angeles
calling."
The voice of
MacGregor was cool and unhurried as Thurston listened. "Grab a plane, old
man," he was saying, "and come up here on the jump."
The phrase
brought a grim smile to Thurston's tired lips. "Hell's popping!" the
Secretary of War had added on that evening those long ages before. Did
MacGregor have something? Was a different kind of hell preparing to pop? The
thoughts flashed through the listener's mind.
"I need a
good deputy," MacGregor said. "You may be the whole works - may have
to carry on - but I'll tell you it all later. Meet me at the Biltmore."
"In less
than two hours," Thurston assured him.
A plane was at
his disposal. Riley's legs were functioning again, after a fashion. They kept
the appointment with minutes to spare.
"Come
on," said MacGregor, "I'll talk to you in the car." The
automobile whirled them out of the city to race off upon a winding highway that
climbed into far hills. There was twenty miles of this; MacGregor had time for
his talk.
"They've
struck," he told the two men. "They were over Germany yesterday. The
news was kept quiet: I got the last report a half-hour ago. They pretty well
wiped out Berlin. No[182] air-force there. France and England sent a swarm of
planes, from the reports. Poor devils! No need to tell you what they got. We've
seen it first hand. They headed west over the Atlantic, the four machines. Gave
England a burst or two from high up, paused over New York, then went on. But
they're here somewhere, we think. Now listen:
"How long
was it from the time when you saw the first monster until we heard from them
again?"
Thurston forced
his mind back to those days that seemed so far in the past. He tried to
remember.
"Four
days," broke in Riley. "It was the fourth day after we found the
devil feeding."
"Feeding!"
interrupted the scientist. "That's the point I am making. Four days.
Remember that!
"And we knew
they were down in the Argentine five days ago - that's another item kept from
an hysterical public. They slaughtered some thousands of cattle; there were
scores of them found where the devils - I'll borrow Riley's word - where the
devils had fed. Nothing left but hide and bones.
"And - mark
this - that was four days before they appeared over Berlin.
"Why? Don't
ask me. Do they have to lie quiet for that period miles up there in space? God
knows. Perhaps! These things seem outside the knowledge of a deity. But enough
of that! Remember: four days! Let us assume that there is this four days
waiting period. It will help us to time them. I'll come back to that later.
"Here is
what I have been doing. We know that light is a means of attack. I believe that
the detonators we saw on those bombs merely opened a seal in the shell and
forced in a flash of some sort. I believe that radiant energy is what fires the
blast.
"What is it
that explodes? Nobody knows. We have opened the shell, working in the absolute
blackness of a room a hundred feet underground. We found in it a powder - two
powders, to be exact.
"They are
mixed. One is finely divided, the other rather granular. Their specific gravity
is enormous, beyond anything known to physical science unless it would be the
hypothetical neutron masses we think are in certain stars. But this is not
matter as we know matter; it is something new.
"Our theory
is this: the hydrogen atom has been split, resolved into components, not of
electrons and the proton centers, but held at some halfway point of
decomposition. Matter composed only of neutrons would be heavy beyond belief.
This fits the theory in that respect. But the point is this: When these solids
are formed - they are dense - they represent in a cubic centimeter possibly a
cubic mile of hydrogen gas under normal pressure. That's a guess, but it will
give you the idea.
"Not
compressed, you understand, but all the elements present in other than
elemental form for the reconstruction of the atom... for a million billions of
atoms.
"Then the
light strikes it. These dense solids become instantly a gas - miles of it held
in that small space.
"There you
have it: the gas, the explosion, the entire absence of heat - which is to say,
its terrific cold - when it expands."
Slim Riley was
looking bewildered but game. "Sure, I saw it snow," he affirmed,
"so I guess the rest must be O.K. But what are we going to do about it?
You say light kills 'em, and fires their bombs. But how can we let light into
those big steel shells, or the little ones either?"
"Not through
those thick walls," said MacGregor. "Not light. One of our
anti-aircraft shells made a direct hit. That might not happen again in a
million shots. But there are other forms of radiant energy that do penetrate
steel... "
The car had stopped beside a grove of eucalyptus. A
barren, sun-baked hillside stretched beyond. MacGregor motioned them to alight.
Riley was afire
with optimism. "And do you believe it?" he asked eagerly. "Do
you believe that we've got 'em licked?"
Thurston, too,
looked into MacGregor's face: Riley was not the only one who needed
encouragement. But the gray eyes were suddenly tired and hopeless.
"You ask
what I believe," said the scientist slowly. "I believe we are
witnessing the end of the world, our world of humans, their struggles, their
grave hopes and happiness and aspirations... "
He was not
looking at them. His gaze was far off in space.
"Men will
struggle and fight with their puny weapons, but these monsters will win, and
they will have their way with us. Then more of them will come. The world, I
believe, is doomed... "
He straightened
his shoulders. "But we can die fighting," he added, and pointed over
the hill.
"Over
there," he said, "in the valley beyond, is a charge of their
explosive and a little apparatus of mine. I intend to fire the charge from a
distance of three hundred yards. I expect to be safe, perfectly safe. But
accidents happen.
"In
Washington a plane is being prepared. I have given instructions through hours
of phoning. They are working night and day. It will contain a huge generator
for producing my ray. Nothing new! Just the product of our knowledge of radiant
energy up to date. But the man who flies that plane will die - horribly. No
time to experiment with protection. The rays will destroy him, though he may
live a month.
"I am asking
you," he told Cyrus Thurston, "to handle that plane. You may be of
service to the world - you may find you are utterly powerless. You surely will
die. But you know the machines and the monsters; your knowledge may be of value
in an attack." He waited. The silence lasted for only a moment.
"Why, sure,"
said Cyrus Thurston.
He looked at the
eucalyptus grove with earnest appraisal. The sun made lovely shadows among
their stripped trunks: the world was a beautiful place. A lingering death,
MacGregor had intimated - and horrible...
"Why, sure," he repeated steadily.
Slim Riley shoved
him firmly aside to stand facing MacGregor.
"Sure, hell!" he said. "I'm your
man, Mr. MacGregor.
"What do you
know about flying?" he asked Cyrus Thurston. "You're good - for a
beginner. But men like you two have got brains, and I'm thinkin' the world will
be needin' them. Now me, all I'm good for is holdin' a shtick" - his
brogue had returned to his speech, and was evidence of his earnestness.
"And,
besides" - the smile faded from his lips, and his voice was suddenly soft -
"them boys we saw take their last flip was just pilots to you, just a
bunch of good fighters. Well, they're buddies of mine. I fought beside some of
them in France... I belong!"
He grinned
happily at Thurston. "Besides," he said, "what do you know about
dog-fights?"
MacGregor gripped
him by the hand. "You win," he said. "Report to Washington. The
Secretary of War has all the dope."
He turned to
Thurston. "Now for you! Get this! The enemy machines almost attacked New
York. One of them came low, then went back, and the four flashed out of sight
toward the west. It is my belief that New York is next, but the devils are
hungry. The beast that attacked us was ravenous, remember. They need food and
lots of it. You will hear of their feeding, and you can count on four days.
Keep Riley informed - that's your job.
"Now I'm
going over the hill. If this experiment works, there's a chance we can repeat
it on a larger scale. No certainty, but a chance! I'll be back. Full
instructions at the hotel in case... " He vanished into the scrub growth.
"Not exactly
encouraging," Thurston pondered, "but he's a good man, Mac, a good
egg! Not as big a brain as the one we saw, but perhaps it's a better one -
cleaner - and it's working!"
They were
sheltered under the brow of the hill, but the blast from the valley beyond
rocked them like an earthquake. They rushed to the top of the knoll. MacGregor
was standing in the valley; he waved them a greeting and shouted something
unintelligible.
The gas had
mushroomed into a cloud of steamy vapor. From above came snowflakes to whirl in
the churning mass, then fall to the ground. A wind came howling about them to
beat upon the cloud. It swirled slowly back and down the valley. The figure of
MacGregor vanished in its smothering embrace.
"Exit,
MacGregor!" said Cyrus Thurston softly. He held tight to the struggling
figure of Slim Riley.
"He couldn't
live a minute in that atmosphere of hydrogen," he explained. "They
can - the devils! - but not a good egg like Mac. It's our job now - yours and
mine."
Slowly the gas
retreated, lifted to permit their passage down the slope.
MacGregor was a
good prophet. Thurston admitted that when, four days later, he stood on the
roof of the Equitable Building in lower New York.
The monsters had
fed as predicted. Out in Wyoming a desolate area marked the place of their
meal, where a great herd of cattle lay smothered and frozen. There were ranch
houses, too, in the circle of destruction, their occupants frozen stiff as the
carcasses that dotted the plains. The country had stood tense for the following
blow. Only Thurston had lived in certainty of a few days reprieve. And now had
come the fourth day.
In Washington was
Riley. Thurston had been in touch with him frequently.
"Sure, it's
a crazy machine," the pilot had told him, "and 'tis not much I think
of it at all. Neither bullets nor guns, just this big glass contraption and
speed. She's fast, man, she's fast... but it's little hope I have." And
Thurston, remembering the scientist's words, was heartless and sick with
dreadful certainty.
There were
aircraft ready near New York; it was generally felt that here was the next
objective. The enemy had looked it over carefully. And Washington, too, was
guarded. The nation's capital must receive what little help the aircraft could
afford.
There were other
cities waiting for destruction. If not this time - later! The horror hung over
them all.
The fourth day!
And Thurston was suddenly certain of the fate of New York. He hurried to a
telephone. Of the Secretary of War he implored assistance.
"Send your
planes," he begged. "Here's where we will get it next. Send Riley.
Let's make a last stand - win or lose."
"I'll give
you a squadron," was the concession. "What difference whether they
die there or here...?" The voice was that of a weary man, weary and
sleepless and hopeless.
"Good-by Cy,
old man!" The click of the receiver sounded in Thurston's ear. He returned
to the roof for his vigil.
To wait, to
stride nervously back and forth in impotent expectancy. He could leave, go out
into open country, but what were a few days or months - or a year - with this
horror upon them? It was the end. MacGregor was right. "Good old
Mac!"
There were
airplanes roaring overhead. It meant... Thurston abruptly was cold; a chill gripped at
his heart.
The paroxysm
passed. He was doubled with laughter - or was it he who was laughing? He was
suddenly buoyantly carefree. Who was he that it mattered? Cyrus Thurston - an
ant! And their ant-hill was about to be snuffed out...
He walked over to
a waiting group and clapped one man on the shoulder. "Well, how does it
feel to be an ant?" he inquired and laughed loudly at the jest. "You
and your millions of dollars, your acres of factories, your steamships,
railroads!"
The man looked at
him strangely and edged cautiously away. His eyes, like those of the others,
had a dazed, stricken look. A woman was sobbing softly as she clung to her
husband. From the streets far below came a quavering shrillness of sound.
The planes
gathered in climbing circles. Far on the horizon were four tiny glinting
specks...
Thurston stared
until his eyes were stinging. He was walking in a waking sleep as he made his
way to the stone coping beyond which was the street far below. He was dead -
dead! - right this minute. What were a few minutes more or less? He could climb
over the coping; none of the huddled, fear-gripped group would stop him. He
could step out into space and fool them, the devils. They could never kill
him...
What was it
MacGregor had said? Good egg, MacGregor! "But we can die fighting...
" Yes, that was it - die fighting. But he couldn't fight; he could only
wait. Well, what were the others doing, down there in the streets - in their
homes? He could wait with them, die with them...
He straightened
slowly and drew one long breath. He looked steadily and unafraid at the
advancing specks. They were larger now. He could see their round forms. The
planes were less noisy: they were far up in the heights - climbing - climbing.
The bulbs came
slantingly down. They were separating. Thurston wondered vaguely.
What had they
done in Berlin? Yes, he remembered. Placed themselves at the four corners of a
great square and wiped out the whole city in one explosion. Four bombs dropped
at the same instant while they shot up to safety in the thin air. How did they
communicate? Thought transference, most likely. Telepathy between those great
brains, one to another. A plane was falling. It curved and swooped in a trail
of flame, then fell straight toward the earth. They were fighting...
Thurston stared
above. There were clusters of planes diving down from on high. Machine-guns
stuttered faintly. "Machine-guns - toys! Brave, that was it! 'We can die
fighting.'" His thoughts were far off; it was like listening to another's
mind.
The air was
filled with swelling clouds. He saw them before the blast struck where he
stood. The great building shuddered at the impact. There were things falling
from the clouds, wrecks of planes, blazing and shattered. Still came others; he
saw them faintly through the clouds. They came in from the West; they had gone
far to gain altitude. They drove down from the heights - the enemy had drifted
- they were over the bay.
More clouds, and
another blast thundering at the city. There were specks, Thurston saw, falling
into the water.
Again the
invaders came down from the heights where they had escaped their own shattering
attack. There was the faint roar of motors behind, from the south. The squadron
from Washington passed overhead.
They surely had
seen the fate that awaited. And they drove on to the attack, to strike at an
enemy that shot instantly into the sky leaving crashing destruction about the
torn dead.
"Now!"
said Cyrus Thurston aloud.
The big bulbs were back. They floated easily in the
air, a plume of vapor billowing beneath. They were ranging to the four corners
of a great square.
One plane only
was left, coming in from the south, a lone straggler, late for the fray. One
plane! Thurston's shoulders sagged heavily. All they had left! It went swiftly
overhead... It was fast - fast. Thurston
suddenly knew. It was Riley in that plane.
"Go back,
you fool!" - he was screaming at the top of his voice - "Back - back
- you poor, damned, decent Irishman!"
Tears were
streaming down his face. "His buddies," Riley had said. And this was
Riley, driving swiftly in, alone, to avenge them...
He saw dimly as
the swift plane sped over the first bulb, on and over the second. The soft roar
of gas from the machines drowned the sound of his engine. The plane passed them
in silence to bank sharply toward the third corner of the forming square.
He was looking
them over, Thurston thought. And the damn beasts disregarded so contemptible an
opponent. He could still leave. "For God's sake, Riley, beat it -
escape!"
Thurston's mind
was solely on the fate of the lone voyager - until the impossible was borne in
upon him.
The square was
disrupted. Three great bulbs were now drifting. The wind was carrying them out
toward the bay. They were coming down in a long, smooth descent. The plane shot
like a winged rocket at the fourth great, shining ball. To the watcher, aghast
with sudden hope, it seemed barely to crawl.
"The ray!
The ray... " Thurston saw as if straining eyes had pierced through the
distance to see the invisible. He saw from below the swift plane, the
streaming, intangible ray. That was why Riley had flown closely past and above
them - the ray poured from below. His throat was choking him, strangling...
The last enemy
took alarm. Had it seen the slow sinking of its companions, failed to hear them
in reply to his mental call? The shining pear shape shot violently upward; the
attacking plane rolled to a vertical bank as it missed the threatening clouds of
exhaust. "What do you know about dog-fights?" And Riley had
grinned... Riley belonged!
The bulb swelled
before Thurston's eyes in its swift descent. It canted to one side to head off
the struggling plane that could never escape, did not try to escape. The steady
wings held true upon their straight course. From above came the silver meteor;
it seemed striking at the very plane itself. It was almost upon it before it
belched forth the cushioning blast of gas.
Through the
forming clouds a plane bored in swiftly. It rolled slowly, was flying upside
down. It was under the enemy! Its ray...
Thurston was thrown a score of feet away to crash helpless into the
stone coping by the thunderous crash of the explosion.
There were
fragments falling from a dense cloud - fragments of curved and silvery metal...
the wing of a plane danced and fluttered in the air...
"He fired
its bombs," whispered Thurston in a shaking voice. "He killed the
other devils where they lay - he destroyed this with its own explosive. He flew
upside down to shoot up with the ray, to set off its shells... "
His mind was
fumbling with the miracle of it. "Clever pilot, Riley, in a dog-fight...
" And then he realized.
Cyrus Thurston,
millionaire sportsman, sank slowly, numbly to the roof of the Equitable
Building that still stood. And New York was still there... and the whole
world...
He sobbed weakly,
brokenly. Through his dazed brain flashed a sudden, mind-saving thought. He
laughed foolishly through his sobs.
"And you
said he'd die horribly, Mac, a horrible death." His head dropped upon his
arms, unconscious - and safe - with the rest of humanity.
