The Pirate Planet

The Pirate Planet

_By Charles W. Diffin_

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER XVII

[Illustration: _He shot feet first into the waiting heads._]

[Sidenote: From Earth and sub-Venus converge a titanic offensive of
justice on the unspeakable man-things of Torg.]


The little ship that Captain Blake had thrown with reckless speed
through the skies over Washington, D. C., made history that day in the
records of the earth. None, now, could doubt that here, at last, was
the answer that the world had hoped for until hope had died.
Unbelievable in its field of action, incredible in its wild speed, but
real, nevertheless!--the countries of the earth were frantic in their
acclaim. Only the men who formed the International Board of Defense
failed to join in the enthusiasm. They sat by day and night in earnest
conference on ways and means.

This little ship--so wonderful, and so inadequate! It was only a
promise of what might come. There must be new designs made; men must
learn to dream in new terms and set down their dreams in cold lines
and figures on drafting boards. A cruiser of space must be designed,
to mount heavy guns, carry great loads, absorb the stresses that must
come to such a structure in flight and in battle. And above all, it
must take the thrust of this driving force--new and tremendous--of
which men knew so little as yet. And then many like it must be built.

The fuel must be prepared, and this, alone, meant new and different
machinery, which itself must be designed before the manufacturing
process could begin.

There was work to be done--a world of work!--and so few months in
which to do it. The attack from the distant gun had long since ceased
and the instruments of the astronomers showed the enemy planet
shrinking far off in space. But it would return; there was only a year
for preparation.

* * * * *

Captain Blake was assigned to the direction of design. An entire
office building in Washington was vacated for his use, and in a few
hours he rallied a staff of assistants who demanded the entire use of
a telephone system that spread countrywide. And the call went out that
would bring the best brains of the land to the task before them.

The windows of the building shone brightly throughout the nights when
the call was answered, and engineers and draftsmen worked at fever
heat on thrusts and stresses and involved mathematical calculations.
And, while owners of great manufacturing plants waited with
unaccustomed patience for a moment's talk with Blake, the white sheets
on the drafting boards showed growing pictures of braces and struts
and curved plates, of castings for gun mounts, and ammunition hoists.
And the manufacturers were told in no uncertain terms exactly what
part of this experimental ship they would produce, and when it must be
delivered.

"If only we dared go into production," said Blake; "but it is out of
the question. This first ship must demonstrate its efficiency; we must
get the 'bugs' out of our design; correct our errors and be ready with
a production schedule that will work with precision."

Only one phase of this proposed production troubled him; the
manufacture must be handled all over the world. He talked with men
from England and France, from Germany and Italy and a host of other
lands, and he raged inwardly while he tried to drive home to them the
necessity for handling the work in just one way--his way--if results
were to be achieved.

The men of business he could convince, but his chief disquiet came
from those whose thoughts were of what they termed "statesmanship,"
and who seemed more apprehensive of the power that this new weapon
would give the United States of America than they were of the threat
from distant worlds.

From his friends in high quarters came hints of the same friction, but
he knew that the one demand Winslow had laid down was being observed:
the secret of the mysterious fuel would remain with us. Winslow had
shown little confidence in the countries of the old world, and he had
sworn Blake to an agreement that his strange liquids--that new form of
matter and substance--should remain with this country.

* * * * *

And swiftly the paper ship grew. The parts were in manufacture, and
arriving at the assembly plant in Ohio. Blake's time was spent there
now, and he caught only snatches of sleep on a cot in his office,
while he worked with the forces of men who succeeded each other to
keep the assembly room going night and day.

There was an enormous hangar that was designed for the assembling of a
giant dirigible; it housed another ship now. Hardly a ship, yet it
began to take form where great girders held the keel that was laid,
and duralumin plates and strong castings were bolted home.

A thousand new problems, and innumerable vexing errors--the "bugs"
that inhere with a new, mechanical job--yet the day came when the ship
was a thing of sleek beauty, and her thousand feet of length enclosed
a maze of latticed struts where ammunition rooms and sleeping
quarters, a chart room and control stations were cleverly interspaced.
And above, where the great shape towered high in the big hangar, were
the lean snouts of cannon, and recesses that held rapid-fire guns and
whole batteries of machine guns for close range.

Rows of great storage batteries were installed, to furnish the first
current for the starting of the ship, till her dynamos that were
driven by the exhaust blast itself could go into action and carry on.
And then--

An armored truck that ground slowly up under heavy guard to deliver
two small flasks of liquid whose tremendous weight must be held in
containers of thick steel, and be hoisted with cranes to their resting
place within the ship. And Captain Blake, with his heart in his throat
through fear of some failure, some slip in their plans--Captain Blake,
of the gaunt, worn frame, and face haggard from sleepless
nights--stood quietly at a control board while the great doors of the
hangar swung open.

* * * * *

At the closing of a switch the current from the batteries flowed
through the two liquids, to go on in conductors of heavy copper to a
generator that was heavy and squat and devoid of moving parts. Within
it were electrodes that were castings of copper, and between them the
miracle of regenerated matter was taking place.

What came to them as energy from the cables was transformed to a
tangible thing--a vast bulk of gas, of hydrogen and oxygen that had
once been water, and the pressure of the gas made a roaring inferno of
the exhausts. A spark plug ignited it, and the heat of combustion
added pressure to pressure, while the quivering, invisible live steam
poured forth to change to vaporous clouds that filled the hangar.

The man at the control board stood trembling with knowledge of the
power he had unleashed. He moved a lever to crack open a valve, and
the clouds poured now from beneath the ship, that raised slowly and
smoothly in the air. It hung quietly poised, while the hands that
directed it sent a roaring blast from the great stern exhaust, and the
creation of many minds became a thing of life that moved slowly,
gliding out into the sunlight of the world.

The cheers of crowding men, insane with hysterical emotion at sight of
their work's fulfillment, were lost in the thunder of the ship. The
blunt bow lifted where the sun made dazzling brilliance of her
sweeping curves, and with a blast that thundered from her stern the
first unit of the space forces of the Earth swept upward in an arc of
speed that ended in invisibility. No enveloping air could hold her
now; she was launched in the ocean of space that would be her home.

* * * * *

Captain Blake, the following day, sat in Washington before a desk
piled high with telegrams of congratulation. His tired face was
smiling as he replaced a telephone receiver that had spoken words of
confidence and commendation from the President of the United States.
But he pushed the mass of yellow papers aside to resume his
examination of a well-thumbed folder marked: "Production Schedule."
The real work was yet to be done.

It was only two short months later that he sat before the same desk,
with a face that showed no mark of smiles in its haggard lines.

His ship was a success, and was flying continuously, while men of the
air service were trained in its manipulation and gunners received
practice in three-dimensioned range finding and cruiser practice in
the air. Above, in the airless space, they learned to operate the guns
that were controlled from within the air-tight rooms. They were
learning, and the ship performed the miracles that were now taken as
matters of fact.

But production!

Captain Blake rose wearily to attend a conference at the War
Department. He had asked that it be called, and the entire service was
represented when he reached there. He went without preamble or
explanation to the point.

"Mr. Secretary," he said, and faced the Secretary of War, "I have to
report, sir, that we have failed. It is utterly impossible, under
present conditions, to produce a fleet of completed ships.

"You know the reason; I have conferred with you often. It was a
mistake to depend on foreign aid; they have failed us. I do not
criticize them: their ways are their own, and their own problems loom
large to them. The English production of parts has come through, or is
proceeding satisfactorily, but the rest is in hopeless confusion. The
Red menace from Russia is the prime reason, of course. With the Reds
mobilizing their forces, we cannot blame her neighbors for preparing
to defend themselves. But our program!--and the sure invasion that
will come in six short months!--to be fighting among ourselves--it is
damnable!"

* * * * *

He paused to stare in wordless misery at the silent gathering before
him. Then--

"I have failed," he blurted out. "I have fallen down on the job. It
was my responsibility to get the cooperation that insured success.
Let me step aside. Is there anyone now who can take up the work and
bring order and results from this chaos of futility?"

He waited long for a reply. It was the Secretary of War who answered
in a quiet voice.

"We must not be too harsh," he said, "in our criticism of our foreign
friends, but neither should we be unfair to Captain Blake. You do
yourself an injustice; there is no one who could have done more than
you. The reason is here." He struck at a paper that he held in his
hand. "Europe is at war. Russia has struck without warning; her troops
are moving and her air force is engaged this minute in an attack upon
Paris. It is a traitor country at home that has defeated us in our war
with another world."

"I think," he added slowly, "there is nothing more that could have
been done: you have made a brave effort. Let us thank you, Captain
Blake, while we can. We will fight, when the time comes, as best we
can; that goes without saying."

A blue and gold figure arose slowly to speak a word for the navy. "It
is evident by Captain Blake's own admission, that the proposed venture
must fail. It has been evident to some of us from the start." It was a
fighter of the old school who was speaking; his voice was that of one
whose vision has dimmed, who sees but the dreams of impractical
visionaries in the newer inventions, and whose reliance for safety is
placed only in the weapons he knows.

"The naval forces of the United States will be ready," he told them,
"and I would ask you to remember that we can still place dependence
upon the ships that float in the water, and the forces who have manned
them since the history of this country began."

* * * * *

Captain Blake had sprung to his feet. Again he addressed the Secretary
for War.

"Mr. Secretary," he said, and there was a fighting glint in his eyes,
"I make no reply to this gentleman. His arm of the service will speak
for itself as it has always done. But your own words have given me new
hope and new energy. I ask you, Mr. Secretary, for another chance. The
industrial forces of the United States are behind us to the last man
and the last machine. I have talked with them. I know!

"We have only six months left for a prodigious effort. Shall we make
it? For the safety of our country and the whole world let us attempt
the impossible: go ahead on our own; turn the energy and the mind of
this whole country to the problem.

"The great fleet of the world can never be. Shall we build and launch
the Great Fleet of the United States, and take upon our own shoulders
the burden and responsibility of defense?

"It cannot be done by reasonable standards, but the time is past for
reason. Possible or otherwise, we must do it. We will--if you will
back me in the effort!"

There was a rising discord of excited voices in the room. Men were
leaping to their feet to shake vehement fists in the faces of those
who wagged their heads in protest. The Secretary of War arose to still
the storm. He turned to walk toward the waiting figure of Captain
Blake.

"You can't do it," he said, and gripped the Captain by the hand; "you
can't do it--but you may. This country has seen others who have done
the impossible when the impossible had to be done. It's your job; the
President will confirm my orders. Go to it, Blake!"


CHAPTER XVIII

The wires that bound the two men were removed, and McGuire and Sykes
worked in agony to bring life back to the hands and feet that were
swollen and blue. Then--red guards who forced them to stumble on their
numbed legs, where darting pains made them set their lips tight--a
car that went swiftly through the darkness of a tube to stop finally
in another building--a room with metal walls, one window with a
balcony beyond, high above the ground--a door that clanged behind
them; and the two men, looking one at the other with dismayed and
swollen eyes, knew in their hearts that here, beyond a doubt, was
their last earthly habitation.

They said nothing--there was nothing of hope or comfort to be
said--and they dropped soddenly upon the hard floor, where finally the
heavy breathing and nervous starts of Professor Sykes showed that to
him at least had come the blessed oblivion of exhausted sleep. But
there was no sleep for Lieutenant McGuire.

There was a face that shone too clearly in the dark, and his thoughts
revolved endlessly in words of reproach for his folly in allowing
Althora's love to lead her to share his risk. From the night outside
their window came a ceaseless clatter and hubbub, but to this he was
oblivious.

Only with the coming of morning's soft golden light did McGuire know
the reason for the din and activity that echoed from outside--and the
reason, too, for their being placed in this room.

* * * * *

Their lives should end with the sailing of the fleet, and there,
outside their window, were the ships themselves. Ships everywhere, as
far as he could see across the broad level expanse, and an army of men
who scurried like ants--red ones, who worked or directed the others,
and countless blues and yellows who were loading the craft with
enormous cargoes.

"Squawk, damn you!" said Lieutenant McGuire to the distant shrieking
throng; "and I hope they're ready for you when you reach the earth."
But his savage voice carried no conviction. What was there that Earth
could do to meet this overwhelming assault?

"What is it?" asked Sykes. He roused from his sleep to work gingerly
at his aching muscles, then came and stood beside McGuire.

"They have put us here as a final taunt," McGuire told him. "There is
the fleet that is going to make our world into a nice little hell, and
Torg, the beast! has put us here to see it leave. Then we get ours,
and they don't know that we know that."

"Your first way was the best," the scientist observed; "we should have
done it then. We still can."

"What do you mean?" The flyer's voice was dull and lifeless.

Sykes pointed to the little balcony and the hard pavement below.

"Althora," he said, and McGuire winced at the name, "seemed to think
that we were in for some exquisite torture. Here is the way out. It is
a hundred-foot drop; they think we are safe; but they have been
unintentionally kind."

"Yes," his companion agreed, "they don't know that we know of the torture.
We will wait ... and when I am sure that--Althora--is--gone ... when there
is nothing I can do to help--"

"Help?" queried the professor gently. "There is nothing now of help,
nor anyone who can help us. We must face it, my boy; _c'est fini_. Our
little journey is approaching its end."

* * * * *

There was no reply, and McGuire stood throughout the day to stare with
eyes of smouldering hatred where the scurrying swarms of living things
made ready to invade and infest the earth.

Food and water was pushed through the doorway, but he ate sparingly of
the odd-colored fruits; the only thing that could hold his thoughts
from the hopeless repetition of unanswerable "whys" was the sight of
the fleet. And every bale and huge drum was tallied mentally as it
passed before his eyes. The ships were being loaded, and with their
sailing--But, no! He must not let himself think of that!

Throughout the day ships came and departed, and one leviathan, ablaze
in scarlet color; sailed in to settle down where great steel arms
enfolded it, not far from the watching men. Scarlet creatures in
authority directed operations, and workmen swarmed about the great
ship. Once McGuire swore softly and viciously under his breath, for he
had seen a figure that could be only that of Torg, and the crowd
saluted with upraised arms as the scarlet figure passed into the
scarlet ship. This, McGuire knew, was the flagship that should carry
Torg himself. Torg and ----. He paled at the thought of the other
name.

The only break in the long day came with the arrival of a squad of
guards, who hustled the two men out into a passageway and drove them
to another room, where certain measurements were taken. The muscular
figures of the two were different from these red ones, but it was a
moment before McGuire realized the sinister significance of the
proceedings. Their breadth of shoulders, the thickness of their
chests--what had these figures to do with their captivity? And then
the flyer saw the measures compared with the dimensions of a steel
cage. Its latticed shape could be endlessly compressed, and within, he
saw, were lancet points that lined the ghastly thing throughout. Long
enough to torture, but not to kill; a thousand delicate blades to
pierce the flesh; and the instrument, it seemed, was of a size that
could enclose the writhing, helpless body of a man.

Other unnameable contrivances about the room took on new significance
with the knowledge that here was the chamber of horrors whose workings
had been seen by Althora in the mind of their captor--horrors of which
she could not speak.

* * * * *

McGuire was sick and giddy as the guards led him roughly back to their
prison room. And Professor Sykes, too, required no explanation of what
they had seen.

The guards were many, and resistance was useless, but each man looked
silently at the other's desperate eyes when the metal cords were
twisted again about their wrists, and their hands were tied securely
to metal rings anchored in the wall beside the window.

"And there," said the flyer, "goes our last chance of escape. They
were not as dumb as we thought: they knew how good a leap to the
pavement would look after we had been in there."

"Less than human!" Sykes was quoting the comment of Althora's brother.
"I think Djorn was quite conservative in his statement."

McGuire examined carefully the cords that tied his hands to the wall
beside him. The knots were secure, and the metal ring was smooth and
round. "I didn't know," he said, as he worked and twisted, "but there
might be a cutting edge, but we haven't a chance. No getting rid of
these without a wire cutter or an acetylene torch--and we seem to be
just out of both."

Professor Sykes tried to adopt the other's nonchalant tone. "Careless
of us," he began--then stopped breathless to press his body against
the wall.

"It's there!" he said. "Oh, my God, if I could only get it, it might
work--it might!"

"The battery," he explained to the man beside him, whose assumed
indifference vanished at this suggestion of hope; "--the little
battery that I used on the gun, to fire the explosive. It has an
astounding amperage, and a voltage around three hundred. It's in my
pocket--and I can't reach it!"

"You can't keep a good man licked!" McGuire exulted. "You mean that
the current might melt the wire?"

"Soften it, perhaps, depending upon the resistance." Sykes refused to
share the other's excitement. "But we can't get at it."

"We've got to," was the answer. "Move over this way." The man in khaki
twisted his arms awkwardly to permit him to bend his body to one side,
and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as the strain forced the
thin bonds into his wrists. But he brought his agonized face against
the other's body, and gripped the fabric of Sykes' coat between his
teeth.

* * * * *

The twisting of his head raised the cloth an inch at a time, and
despite Sykes' efforts to hold the garment with his elbow, it slipped
back time and again. McGuire straightened at intervals to draw a
choking breath and ease the strain upon his tortured wrists; then back
again in his desperate contortions to worry at the cloth and pull and
hold--and try again to raise the heavy pocket where a battery made
sagging folds.

He was faint and gasping when finally the cloth was brought where the
scientist's straining fingers could grasp it to writhe and twist in
clumsy efforts that would force the battery's terminals within reach.

"I'll try it on mine," said Sykes. "It may be hot--and you've had your
share." He was holding the flat black thing to bring the copper tips
against the metal about his wrists. McGuire saw the man's lips go
white as a wisp of smoke brought to his nostrils the sickening odor of
burned flesh.

The metal glowed, and the man was writhing in silent self-torture when
at last he threw his weight upon the strands and fell backward to the
floor. He lay for a moment, trembling and quivering--but free. And the
knowledge of that freedom and of the greater torture they would both
escape, gave him strength to rise and work with crippled hands at his
companion's bonds, till McGuire, too, was free--free to forget his own
swollen, bleeding wrists in compassionate regard for the other.

Like an injured animal, Professor Sykes had licked with his tongue at
his wrists, where hot wire had burned deep and white, and he was
trying for forgetfulness an hour later, in examination of the door to
their room.

"What is the idea?" McGuire inquired, when he turned from his
ceaseless contemplation of the fleet. "Not trying to get out, are
you?"

"I am trying to stay in," said Sykes, and looked again at the object
that interested him. "These long bolts," he explained: "top and
bottom; operated from outside, but exposed in here. They come together
when unlocked; five inches apart now. If I had something to hold them
apart--

"You haven't a piece of steel about five inches long, have you?--or
anything to substitute for it? If you have, I can lock this door so
the devils won't come in and surprise us before we can make the jump."

"The battery?" suggested McGuire.

* * * * *

Sykes shook his head. "I tried it. Too long, and besides it would
crumble. They operate these with a lever; I saw it outside." He went
on silently with his study of the door and the little gap between
heavy bolts, which, if closed, would mean security from invasion.

"They're about through," McGuire spoke from his post at the window
after some time. "The rush seems to be about over. I imagine they'll
pull out in the morning."

He pointed as Sykes stood beside him. "Those big ones over beyond have
not been touched all day; only some of the crew, I judge, working
around them. And way over you see forty or fifty whaling big ones:
they must have been ready before we came. They have finished on these
nearer by. It looks like a big day for the brutes."

And Professor Sykes led him on to talk more of the preparations he had
seen, and his deductions as to the morrow. It was all too evident what
was really on the lieutenant's mind. It was not the thought of their
own immediate death, but the terrible dread and horror of Althora's
fate, that hammered and hammered in his brain. To speak of anything
else meant a moment's relief.

Sykes pointed to a tall mast that was set in the plaza pavement, some
hundred feet away. Wires swung from it to several points, one of them
ending above their window and entering the building. "What is that?"
he asked, "--some radio device? That ball of metal on the top might be
an aerial." But McGuire had fallen silent again, and stared stonily at
the deadly fighting ships he was powerless to combat.

* * * * *

On the morning that followed, there was no uncertainty. This was the
day! And from a balconied window up high in the side of a tall stone
building, two men stood wordless and waiting while they watched the
preparations below.

The open space was a sea of motion like flowing blood, where thousands
of figures in dull red marched in rank after rank to be swallowed in
the mammoth ships that McGuire had noted in the distance. Then other
colors, and swarms of what they took to be women-folk of this wild
race--a medley of color that flowed on and on as if it would never
cease, to fill one after another of the great ships.

"Transports, that's what they are," said McGuire. "I can see now why
they have no steel beaks like the others. They don't need any rams,
nor ports for firing that beastly gas. They are gray, too, while the
fighting ships are striped with red, all except the scarlet one of
Torg's. Those are colonists we are watching, and soldiers to conquer
the Earth where the damned swarm settles."

He stopped to stare at a body of red-clad soldiers, drawn up at
attention. They made a lane, and their arms were raised in the salute
that seemed only for Torg. They stood rigid and motionless; then, from
below the watching men, came one in the full splendor of his scarlet
regalia. The air echoed with the din of his shouted name, but the
bedlam of noise fell on deaf ears for McGuire. He could hear nothing,
and in all the vast kaleidoscope of color he could see only one
object--the white face of a girl who was half led and half carried by
a guard of the red ones, where their Emperor led the way.

* * * * *

It was a strangled cry that was torn from the flyer's throat--the name
of this girl who was going to the doom she had failed to avoid. Her
life, she had said, was hers to keep only if she willed, but her plans
had failed, and she went faltering and stumbling after a scarlet man
beast.

"Althora!" called the flyer, and the figure of the girl was struggling
with her guards in a frenzy that tore their hands free. She turned to
look toward the sound of the voice, and her face was like that of one
dead as her eyes found the man she loved.

"Tommy," she called: "oh, Tommy, my dear! Good-by!" The words were
ended by the clutch of the scarlet Emperor who turned to seize her.

A clatter came from the door behind them, but Lieutenant McGuire gave
no heed. Only Professor Sykes sprang back from the balcony to seize
and struggle with the moving bolts.

The man on the balcony was hardly less than a maniac as he glared
wildly about, but he was not too unreasoning to see the folly of a
wild leap into the throng below. He could never reach her--never. And
then his eyes fell upon the wire that led from above him to the great
pole in the open plaza. There was shouting from behind where the
executioners were wrestling with the bolts.

"Hold them," the flyer shouted, "just for a minute! For God's sake,
Sykes, keep them back! There's a chance!"

He sprang to the balustrade of the balcony, but he saw as he leaped
where Professor Sykes had raised his leg to force the thickness of his
knee between the bolts whose levers outside were bringing them closer
together.

"Go to it," was the answer. "I can hold them"--a stifled groan--"for
a--minute!" Professor Sykes had found his substitute for five inches
of steel, and the living flesh yielded but slowly to the pressure of
the bolts.

* * * * *

McGuire was working frantically at the wire, then held himself in
check while he carefully unwound it from its fastening. There was a
splice, and he worked with bleeding fingers to unfasten the tight
coils. And then the end was free and in his hands. He dropped to the
balcony to pull in the slack, and he wrapped the end about beneath his
arms and twisted it tight, then leaped out into space. No thought of
himself nor of Sykes in this one wild moment, only of Althora in the
grip of those beastly hands.

He was struggling to turn himself in the air as the colored masses of
people seemed sweeping toward him, and he shot as a living pendulum,
feet first, into the waiting heads.

He was on his feet in an instant and tearing at the twisted wire that
held him. About him was clamor and confusion, but beyond the nearer
figures he saw the one who waited, and beside her a thing in scarlet
that shrieked orders to his men.

He flung off one who leaped toward him, and ducked another to dash
through and reach his man. And he neither saw nor felt the creature's
ripping talons as he drove a succession of rights and lefts to the
blood-red face.

The scarlet one went backward under the fusillade of blows; he was
down, a huddle of color upon the pavement, and a horde of paralyzed
soldiers had recovered from their stupefaction and were rushing upon
the flyer. He turned to meet them, but their rush ended as quickly as
it began: only a step or two they came, then stopped, to add their
wild voices to the confusion of ear-splitting shrieks that rose from
all sides.

* * * * *

McGuire crouched rigid, tense and waiting, nor did he sense for an
instant that the assault was checked and that the faces of all about
him were turned to the sky. It was the voice of Althora that aroused
him:

"Tommy! Tommy!" she was calling, and now she was at his side, her
arms about him. "What is it, Tommy? Look! Look!" And she too was
gazing aloft. And then, above all other sounds McGuire heard the
roar--

The clouds were golden above with the brilliance of midday--and
against them, hard and sharp of outline, was a shining shape. A cloud
of vapor streamed behind it as it shot down from the clouds, and the
thunder of its coming was like the roar of many cannon.

A ship of the red ones was in the air--a fighting ship, whose stripes
showed red--and it drove at the roaring menace with its steel beak and
a swirling cloud of gas. It seemed that they must crash, when to
McGuire's eyes came the stabbing flash of heavy guns from the shining
shape. A crashing explosion came down to them as the great beak parted
and fell, and the body of the red-striped monster opened in bursting
smoke and flame, tore slowly into fragments and fell swiftly to the
earth.

It struck with a shattering crash some distance away, but one pair of
eyes failed to follow it in its fall. For in the clear air above, with
the golden light of distant clouds upon it, a roaring monster of
silvery sheen had rolled and swept upward to the heights. And it
showed, as it turned, a painted emblem on its bow, a design of
clear-cut color, unbelievably familiar--a circle of blue, and within
it a white star and a bull's eye of red--the mark of the flying
service of the United States!

* * * * *

McGuire never knew how he got Althora and himself back to the building
whence he had come. Nor did he see the struggling figures on a
balcony, or the leap and fall of a maimed body, where Professor Sykes,
when the door had yielded, found surcease and oblivion on the pavement
below.

He was to learn that later, but now he had eyes only for a sight that
could be but a dream, an unreal vision of a disordered brain. He held
the slim form of Althora to him in a crushing grip, while he stared,
dry-eyed, above, and his own voice seemed to shout from afar off:
"They're ours!" that voice was screaming in a frenzy of exultation.
"They're our ships! They've come across!"

The fighting fleet of the red man-things of Venus was taking to the
air! The ships rose in a swarm of speeding, darting shapes, and the
great one of Torg was in the lead, climbing in fury toward the
heights.

Far above them the clouds of gold silhouetted a strange sight, and the
air was shaking with the thunder from on high, where, straight and
true, a line of silver ships in the sharp V of battle formation drove
downward in a deadly, swift descent.

And even afar off, the straining eyes of a half-crazed man could see
the markings on their bow--a circle and a star--and the colors of his
own lost fighters of the air.


CHAPTER XIX

The Earth-fleet was a slanting line of swiftness that swept downward
from the clouds. A swarm of craft was rising from below. The
red-striped fighters met the attack first with a cloud of gas.

The scarlet monster--the flagship of Torg, the Emperor--was in the
lead, and they shot with terrific speed across the bows of the
oncoming fleet to leave a whirlwind of deadly vapor as they passed.
McGuire held his breath in an agony of fear as the cloud enveloped the
line of ships, but their bow guns roared staccato crashes in the
thunder of their exhausts as they entered the cloud. And they were
firing from the stern as they emerged, while two falling cylinders of
red and white proved the effectiveness of their fire.

The formation held true as it swept upward and back where the swarming
enemy was waiting. They were outnumbered three to one, McGuire saw,
and his heart sang within him as he watched the sharp, speeding V that
climbed upward to the enemy's level then swung to throw itself like a
lance of light at the massed ships that awaited the attack.

Another cloud of gas!--and a shattered ship!--and again the line
emerged to correct its broken formation and drive once more toward the
circling swarm.

They came to meet them now, the clusters of red-striped fighting
ships, and they tore in from all sides upon the American line, their
hooked beaks gleaming in the sun.

* * * * *

And now, at an unseen signal, the formation broke. Each ship fought
for its life, and the stabbing flashes of their guns made ceaseless
jets of light against the smoke and gas clouds that were darkening the
sky.

"A dog-fight!" breathed Lieutenant McGuire; "and what a dog-fight!"
His words were lost in the terrific thunder from above: the roar of
the ships and the dull thuds of the guns engulfed them in a maelstrom
of noise that battered like physical blows on the watchers below. He
swore unconsciously and called down curses upon the enemy as he saw
two fighters meet while the shining beak of a ship of the reds crashed
through the body of an opposing craft.

The red ship dipped at the bow; it backed off with terrific force; and
from the curved beak a ship with the insignia of the red, white and
blue slid downward in a swift fall to the death that waited.

They had fought themselves clear, and the Americans, by what must have
been arrangement or wireless order, went roaring to the heights. There
were some who followed, but the guns of the speeding ships drove them
off. Red-and-white shapes fell swiftly from the clouds where the
fighting had been, and McGuire knew that his fellows had given an
account of themselves in the fighting at close range.

Again the thundering line was sharp and true, and another unswerving
attack was launching itself from above. And again the deadly
formation, with ever-increasing speed, drove into the enemy with
flashing guns, then parted to close with the ones that drove
crushingly upon them, while the sharper clatter of rapid-firing guns
came to shatter the air.

The fighting craft had been rising from their level field in a
succession that seemed endless. They were all in the air now, and only
the great transports remained on the paved field.

* * * * *

A red-striped fighter swept downward in retreat, and, from the smoke
clouds, a silvery shape followed in pursuit. It reached the red and
white one with its shells, and the great mass crashed with terrific
impact on the field. Its pursuer must have seen the monsters still on
the ground, and it swung to rake them with a shower of small-caliber
shells.

There were machine-guns rattling as it passed above the thronged
reds--the troops who were huddled in terror in the open court. It tore
on past them--past a figure in khaki who raced forward with the golden
form of a girl within his arms, then released her to wave frantically
as the silver ship shot by.

Unobserved, McGuire and Althora had been, where they stood beside the
buildings: the eyes of their enemies, like their own, were on the
monstrous battle above. But now they had called themselves to the
attention of the reds, and there were some who rushed upon them with
faces livid with rage.

McGuire reached for a weapon from a victim of the machine-gun fire and
prepared to defend himself, but the weapon was never used. He saw the
silvery shape reverse itself in the air; it turned sharply to throw
itself back toward the solitary figure in uniform of their service and
the golden-clad girl beside him.

The flyer raised his weapon, but the jostling swarm that rushed upon
him melted: the ripping fire of machine guns was deafening in his
ears. Their deadly tattoo continued while the great ship sank slowly
to touch and rest its huge bulk upon the pavement. A door in the
ship's curved side opened that the blocky figure of a man might leap
forth.

He was grimy of face, and his uniform was streaked with the smoke and
sweat of battle, but the face beneath the grime, and the hands that
reached to embrace and pound the flyer upon the back, could be only
those of one he had known as his captain--Captain Blake.

"You son-of-a-gun!" the shouting figure was repeating. "You damned
Irish son-of-a-gun! A. W. O. L.--but you can't get away with it! Come
on--get in here! I'm needed up above!"

* * * * *

McGuire was struggling to speak from a throat that was suddenly tight
and voiceless. Then--

"Althora," he gasped; "take Althora!" and he motioned toward the girl.
And then he remembered the companion he had left in the room above.
The battle that had flashed so suddenly had blasted from his mind all
other thoughts.

"My God!" he said. "--Sykes! I--must get Sykes!"

He turned to run back to the building, only to stop in consternation
where a huddle of clothing lay beneath the balcony of their prison
room.

It was Sykes--Sykes who had sacrificed himself to make possible the
escape of his friend--and McGuire dropped to his knees to touch the
body that he knew was shattered beyond any hope of life. He raised the
limp burden in his arms and staggered back where more khaki-clad
figures had gathered. Two came quickly out to meet him, and he let
them take the body of his friend.

"_C'est fini!_"--he repeated the words that Sykes had said; "the end
of our little journey!" The arms of Althora were about him as Blake
hurried them into the waiting ship, and the roar of enormous power
marked the rising of this space ship to throw itself again into the
fray.

* * * * *

A small room with a dome of shatter-proof glass; a pilot who sat there
to look in all directions, a control-board beneath his hands. Beside
him on his elevated station was room for Captain Blake, and McGuire
and Althora, too. The ship was climbing swiftly. McGuire saw where
flashing shapes circled and roared in a swelling cloud of smoke and
gas.

Blake spoke sharply to an aide: "General orders! All ships climb to
resume formation!"

An enemy ship was before them: it flashed from nowhere to bear down
with terrific speed. The floor beneath them shook with the jarring of
heavy guns, and McGuire saw the advancing shape bursting with puffs of
smoke, while their own ship shot upward with a sickening twist. A
silver ship was falling!--and another!

"Two more of ours gone," said Captain Blake through set teeth. "How
many of them are there, Mac? Tell me what you know: we've got a hell
of a fight on our hands."

"They're all here," McGuire told him, in jerky, breathless speech.
"These are transports on the ground. Their weapons are gas and speed,
and the rams on their beaked ships. There are other weapons--deadlier
ones!--but they haven't got them: they belong to another race. I'll
tell you all that later!"

"Keep them at a distance, Blake," he said. "Make them come to
you--then nail them as they come."

"Right!" was the answer; "that's good dope. We didn't know what they
had; expected some devilish things that could down us before we got
within effective range; had to mix it with them to find out what they
could do, and get in a few solid cracks before they did it.

"How high are we?" He glanced quickly at an instrument. "Ten thousand.
Order all ships to withdraw," he instructed his aide. "Rendezvous at
fifty thousand feet for echelon formation."

* * * * *

Another brush with an enemy craft that slipped quickly to one
side--then the smoke clouds were behind them, and a score, of silvery
shapes were climbing in vertical flight for the level at fifty
thousand.

They were fewer now than they had been, and the line that formed
behind the flagship of Blake was shorter than the one that had made
the V which shot down so bravely to engage with an unknown foe.

The enemy was below; an arrangement of mirrors showed this from the
commander's station. They were emerging from the clouds of smoke to
swarm in circling flight through the sky. And now the bow of their own
craft was depressed at an order from Blake, and the others were behind
them as they drove to renew the attack.

"They're ganging up on us again," said Blake. "We'll fool them this
time; we'll just kid them a little."

The flagship swerved before reaching the enemy, and the others
followed in what looked like frightened retreat. Again they were in
the heights, and some few of the enemy were following. Blake led in
another descent.

* * * * *

No waiting swarm to greet them now! Blake gave a quick order. The
roaring column shifted position as it fell: the flagship was the apex
of a great V whose arms flung out and backward on either side--a V
formation that curved and twisted through space and thundered upon the
smaller formations that scattered before the blasting guns.

"Our bow guns are the effective weapons," Blake observed; his casual
tone was a sedative to McGuire's tense nerves. "We can use a broadside
only of lighter weight; the kick of the big 'sights' has to be taken
straight back. But we're working, back home, on recoil-absorbing guns:
we'll make fighting ships of these things yet."

He spoke quietly to the pilot to direct their course toward a group
that came sweeping upon them, and the massed fire of the squadron was
squarely into the oncoming beaks that fell beneath them where the
mirrors showed them crashing to the earth.

They were scattered now; the enemy was in wild disorder; and Blake
spoke sharply to his aide.

"Break formation," he ordered; "every ship for itself. Engage the
enemy where they find them; shoot down anything they see; prevent the
enemy reforming!" He was taking quick advantage of the other's
scattered forces, and he scattered his own that he knew could take
care of themselves while they engaged the enemy only by ones or twos
or threes.

"Clear the air of them!" he ordered. "Not one of them must escape!"

The skies were a maze of darting shapes that crossed and recrossed to
make a spider's web of light. Ship drove at ship, to swerve off at the
last, while the air quivered and beat upon them with the explosion of
shells and guns.

"There's our meat!" Blake directed the pilot, and pointed ahead where
a monster in scarlet was swelling into view.

It came swiftly upon them, darting down from above, and McGuire
clutched at the arm of the man beside him to shout: "It's the leader;
the flagship! It's the Emperor--Torg, himself! Give him hell, Blake,
but look out--he's fast!"

* * * * *

The ship was upon them like a flash of fire; no time for anything but
dodging, and the pilot threw his craft wildly aside with a swerve that
sent the men sprawling against a stanchion. Then up and back, where
the other had turned to come up from below.

"Fast!" McGuire had said, but the word was inadequate to describe the
speed of the fiery shape.

Another leap in the air, as their pilot swung his controls, and the
red shape brushed past them in a cloud of gas, while the quick-firers
ripped futilely into space where the great ship had been.

"Get your bow guns on him!" Blake roared. The ship beneath them
strained and shuddered with the incredible thunder of the generator
that threw them bodily in the air. The pilot had opened in full force
the ports that blasted their bows aside.

No time to gather new speed; they were motionless as the scarlet
monster came upon them, but they were in position to receive him. The
eight-inch rifles of the forward turret thundered again and again, to
be answered by flashes of flame from the scarlet ship.

McGuire crouched over the bent form of the pilot, whose steady fingers
held the ship's bow straight upon the flashing death that bore down
upon them. Another salvo!--and another!--hits all of them.... Smoke
bursting from ripping plates, and flaming fire more vivid than the
scarlet shape itself!--and the floor beneath McGuire's feet drove
crushingly upward as their pilot pulled a lever to the full.

The great beak flashed beneath--and the mirrors, where McGuire's eyes
were fastened, showed the terrific drive continue down and down, where
a brilliant cylinder that marked the power of Venus tore shriekingly
on to carry an Emperor to his crashing death.

* * * * *

The skies were clear of the red-striped ships: only the survivors of
the attacking force showed their silvery shapes as they gathered near
their flagship. There were two that pursued a small group of the
enemy, but they were being outdistanced in the race.

"We have won," said Blake in a tone of wonder that showed how only now
had come a realization of what the victory meant. "We have won, and
the earth--is saved!"

And the voice of McGuire echoed his fervent "Thank God!" while he
gripped the soft hand that clung tightly to his, as if Althora, this
radiant creature of Venus, were timid and abashed among the joyful,
shouting men-folk from another world.

"And now what, Captain?" asked McGuire of his command. "Will you land?
There is an army of reds down there asking for punishment."

Blake had turned away; his hand made grimy smears across his face
where he wiped away the tears that marked a brave man's utter
thankfulness. He covered his emotion with an affectation of
disapproval as he swung back toward McGuire.

"Captain?" he inquired. "Captain? Where do you get that captain
stuff?"

He pointed to an emblem on his uniform, a design that was unfamiliar
to the eyes of McGuire.

"You're talking to an admiral now!--the first admiral of the newest
branch of your country's fighting service--commanding the first fleet
of the Space, ships of the United States of America!" He threw one arm
about the other's shoulders. "We'll have to get busy, Mac," he added,
"and think up a new rank for you.

"And, yes, we are going to land," he continued in his customary tones;
"there may be survivors of our own crashes. But we'll have to count on
you, Mac, to show us around this little new world of yours."

* * * * *

There was an army waiting, as McGuire had warned, but it was waiting
to give punishment and not to take it. The vast expanse of the landing
field was swarming with them, and the open country beyond showed
columns of marching troops.

They had learned, too, to take shelter; barricades had been hastily
erected, and the men had shields to protect them from the fire of
small arms.

Their bodies were enclosed in their gas-tight uniforms whose ugly
head-pieces served only to conceal the greater ugliness beneath. They
met the ships as they landed with a showering rain of gas that was
fired from huge projectors.

"Not so good!" Blake was speaking in the safety of his ship. "We have
masks, but great heavens, Mac!--there must be a million of those
brutes. We can spray them with machine-gun fire, but we haven't
ammunition enough to make a dent in them. And we've got to get out and
get to our crashed ships."

He waited for McGuire's suggestions, but it was Althora who replied.

"Wait!" she said imperatively. She seemed to be listening to some
distant word. Then:

"Djorn is coming," she exclaimed, and her eyes were brilliantly
alight. "He says to you"--she pointed to McGuire--"that you were
right, that we must fight like hell sometimes to deserve our
heaven--oh, I told him what you said--and now he is coming with all
his men!"

"What the devil?" asked Blake in amazement. "How does she know?"

"Telepathy," McGuire explained: "she is talking with her brother, the
leader of the real inhabitants of Venus."

He told the wondering man briefly of his experience and of the people
themselves, the real owners of this world.

"But what can they do?" Blake demanded.

And McGuire assured him: "Plenty!"

* * * * *

He turned to Althora to ask, "How are they coming? How will they get
here?"

"They are marching underground; they have been coming for two days.
They knew of our being captured, but the people have been slow in
deciding to fight. Djorn dared not tell me of their coming; he feared
he might be too late.

"They will come out of that building," she said, and indicated the
towering structure that had been their prison. "It has the old
connection with the underground world."

"Well, they'd better be good!" said Blake incredulously.

He was still less optimistic when the building before them showed the
coming of a file of men. They poured forth, in orderly fashion and
ranged themselves in single file along the walls.

There must be a thousand, McGuire estimated, and he wondered if the
women, too, were fighting for their own. Then, remembering Althora's
brave insistence, he knew his surmise was correct.

Each one was masked against the gas; their faces were concealed; and
each one held before him a tube of shining metal with a larger bulbous
end that rested in their hands.

"Electronic projectors," the lieutenant whispered. "Keep your eye on
the enemy, Blake; you are going to learn something about war."

The thin line was advancing now and the gas billowed about them as
they came. There were some few who dropped, where masks were
defective, but the line came on, and the slim tubes were before them
in glittering menace.

* * * * *

At a distance of a hundred feet from the first of the entrenched enemy
there was a movement along the line, as if the holders of the tubes
had each set a mechanism in operation. And before the eyes of the
Earth-men was a spectacle of horror like nothing in wars they had
known.

The barricades were instantly a roaring furnace; the figures that
leaped from behind them only added to the flames. From the steady rank
of the attackers poured an invisible something before which the hosts
of the enemy fell in huddles of flame. Those nearest were blasted from
sight in a holocaust of horror, and where they had been was a
scattering of embers that smoked and glowed; even the figures of
distant ones stumbled and fell.

The myriad fighters of the army of the red ones, when the attackers
shut off their invisible rays, was a screaming mob that raced wildly
over the open lands beyond.

Althora's hands were covering her eyes, but McGuire and Blake, and the
crowding men about them, stared in awe and utter astonishment at the
devastation that was sweeping this world. An army annihilated before
their eyes! Scores of thousands, there must be, of the dead!

The voice of Blake was husky with horror. "What a choice little bit
out of hell!" he exclaimed. "Mac, did you say they were our friends?
God help us if they're not!"

"They are," said McGuire grimly. "Those are Althora's people who had
forgotten how to fight; they are recapturing something that they lost
some centuries ago. But can they ever destroy the rest of that swarm?
I don't think they have the heart to do it."

"They do not need." It was Althora speaking. "My people are sickened
with the slaughter. But the red ones will go back into the earth, and
we will seal them in!--it is Djorn who tells me--and the world will be
ours forevermore."

* * * * *

A matter of two short days, crammed to the uttermost with the
realization of the astounding turn of events--and McGuire and Althora
stood with Blake and Djorn, the ruler, undisputed, of the beautiful
world of Venus. A fleet of great ships was roaring high in air. One
only, the flagship, was waiting where their little group stood.

The bodies of the fallen had been recovered; they were at rest now in
the ships that waited above. McGuire looked about in final wonder at
the sparkling city bathed in a flood of gold. A kindly city
now--beautiful; the terrors it had held were fading from his mind. He
turned to Althora.

"We are going home," he said softly, "you and I."

"Home?" Althora's voice was vibrant with dismay.

"We need you here, friend Mack Guire," the voice of Djorn broke in, in
protest. "You have something that we lack--a force and vision--something
we have lost."

"We will be back," the flyer assured him. "You befriended me: anything
I can do in return--" The grip of his hand completed the sentence.

"But there is a grave to be made on the summit of Mount Lawson," he
added quietly. "I think he would have preferred to lie there--at the
end of his journey--and I must return to the service where I have not
yet been mustered out."

"But you said--you were going home," faltered Althora. "Will that
always be home to you, Tommy?"

"Home, my dear," he whispered in words that reached her only, "is just
where you are." His arm went about her to draw her toward the waiting
ship. "There or here--what matter? We will be content."

Her eyes were misty as they smiled an answer. Within the ship that was
lifting them, they turned to watch a city of opal light grow faintly
luminous in the distance ... an L-shaped continent shrunk to tiny size ...
and the nebulous vapors of the cloudland that enclosed this world folded
softly about.

"We will lead," the voice of Blake was saying to an aide: "same
formation that we used coming over. Give the necessary orders. But,"
he added slowly to himself, "the line will be shorter; there are fewer
of us now."

An astronomical officer laid a chart before the commander. "We are on
the course, sir," he reported.

"Full speed," Blake gave the order, and the thundering generator
answered from the stern. The Space Fleet of America was going home.


(_The End_)