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.
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.
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 chapparal 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
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 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 control. 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 himself 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," 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 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.
* * * * *
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