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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41049 ***
+
+                        The Onslaught from Rigel
+
+                           By FLETCHER PRATT
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Wonder Stories
+Quarterly Winter 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
+that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+[Illustration: A jagged beam of flame, intenser than the hottest furnace
+leaped through the air, struck the green globe and reached the earth in
+a thousand tiny rivulets of light.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                        THE ONSLAUGHT FROM RIGEL
+
+    _By the author of "The Reign of the Ray," "The War of the Giants," etc._
+
+
+                     [Illustration: FLETCHER PRATT]
+
+Mr. Pratt is well known for his "Reign of the Ray," and "The War of the
+Giants" where in both stories he showed his excellent knowledge of
+warfare, and what a future war might be like.
+
+In this story he combines that knowledge with a vivid and fertile
+scientific imagination to construct an interplanetary story that marks a
+new triumph for WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY.
+
+We know that many scientists believe that life may originally have come
+to earth in the form of spores, from other solar systems and other
+universes. We therefore might really have had our home dim ages ago, on
+worlds distantly removed from our earth.
+
+The ability to travel the interstellar spaces, however, might also be
+possessed by other creatures--creatures driven by fear, necessity and by
+the will to conquer. And if they come, in mighty waves, with scientific
+powers far beyond us, to dominate the earth, a terrible time will face
+the puny human race.
+
+And in this story they do come, and provoke some of the strangest and
+most exciting adventures that have yet been recorded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ONSLAUGHT FROM RIGEL
+
+
+Murray Lee woke abruptly, with the memory of the sound that had roused
+him drumming at the back of his head, though his conscious mind had been
+beyond its ambit. His first sensation was an overpowering stiffness in
+every muscle--a feeling as though he had been pounded all over, though
+his memory supplied no clue to the reason for such a sensation.
+
+Painfully, he turned over in bed and felt the left elbow where the ache
+seemed to center. He received the most tremendous shock of his life. The
+motion was attended by a creaking clang and the elbow felt exceedingly
+like a complex wheel.
+
+He sat up to make sure he was awake, tossing the offending arm free of
+the covers. The motion produced another clang and the arm revealed
+itself to his astonished gaze as a system of metal bands, bound at the
+elbow by the mechanism he had felt before, and crowned, where the
+fingers should be, by steely talons terminating in rubber-like
+finger-tips. Yet there seemed to be no lack of feeling in the member.
+For a few seconds he stared, open-mouthed, then lifted the other arm. It
+was the right-hand counterpart of the device he had been gazing at. He
+essayed to move one, then the other--the shining fingers obeyed his
+thought as though they were flesh and blood.
+
+A sense of expectant fear gripped him as he lifted one of the hands to
+unbutton his pajamas. He was not deceived in the half-formed
+expectation; where the ribs clothed in a respectable amount of muscle
+should have been, a row of glistening metal plates appeared. Thoughts of
+body-snatching and bizarre surgery flitted through his mind to be
+instantly dismissed. Dreaming? Drunk? A dreadful idea that he might be
+insane struck him and he leaped from the bed to confront a mirror. His
+feet struck the floor with a portentous bang and each step produced a
+squeak and clank--and he faced the mirror, the familiar mirror before
+which he had shaved for years. With utter stupefaction he saw an iron
+countenance, above which a stiff brush of wire hair projected
+ludicrously.
+
+One does not go mad at such moments. The shock takes time to sink in.
+"At all events I may as well get dressed," he remarked to himself
+practically. "I don't suppose water will do this hardware any good, so
+I'll omit the bath; but if I'm crazy I might as well go out and have a
+good time about it."
+
+Dressing was a process prolonged by an examination of himself and the
+discovery that he was a most efficient metal machine. He rather admired
+the smoothness of the hip joints and the way the sliding parts of his
+arms fitted together, and was agreeably surprised to find that in the
+metallizing process his toes had become prehensile. Just for the fun of
+it, he pulled one shoe on with the opposite foot.
+
+It was not until he was nearly dressed that he realized that the wonted
+noise of New York, which reached one as a throaty undertone at the
+forty-eighth story of a modern apartment building, was somehow absent.
+Surely, at this hour--he glanced at the clock. It had stopped at a
+quarter to two. No help there. His watch was inexplicably missing.
+Probably Ben had borrowed it.... Ah!
+
+That was the idea. Ben Ruby, with whom he occupied the duplex apartment
+in the penthouse of the Arbuckle Building, was a scientist of sorts
+(mainly engaged in the analysis of "booze" samples for millionaires
+distrustful of their bootleggers, these days)--he would be able to
+explain everything.
+
+He stepped across to the door and dropped the brass knocker, a little
+timorous at the sound of his own thudding steps. The door was snatched
+open with unexpected suddenness by a caricature of Ben in metal--as
+complete a machine as himself, but without most of the clothes.
+
+"Come in! Come in!" his friend bellowed in a voice with an oddly
+phonographic quality to it. "You look great. Iron Man MacGinnity! What
+did you put on clothes for? As useful as pants on a rock-drill. I have
+breakfast."
+
+"What is it? Am I crazy, are you, or are we both?"
+
+"Of course not. Greatest thing that ever happened. The big comet. They
+said she was radioactive, but most of 'em wouldn't believe it. Now look
+what it did." (Murray Lee remembered vaguely some newspaper palaver
+about a giant comet that was going to strike the earth--argument and
+counter-argument as to whether it would have a serious effect.)
+"Everybody's turned to metal; nize machinery, ate oop all de
+axle-grease. You need oil. Stick around."
+
+He disappeared into the bowels of the apartment, the sound of his
+footsteps ringing enormous in the vast silence. In an instant he was
+back with a radio battery in one hand and an oil-can in the other.
+
+"Sorry, no grease on tap," he remarked briskly. "Typewriter oil." He
+went to work busily, squirting drops of oil into Lee's new metallic
+joints. "Connect this thing up yourself. It fills you with what it
+takes." He indicated the battery with an extended toe. "One arm and the
+opposite leg. There seems to be a resistance chamber in us somewhere
+that collects the juice."
+
+Without in the least understanding what it was all about, Murray Lee
+made shift to follow his instruction. It was the most singular meal he
+had ever partaken of, but he found it curiously invigorating.
+
+"How about another? No? Have you seen anybody else? It finished most of
+them."
+
+"Will you sit down and tell me consecutively what it's all about before
+I bash you?" asked Murray, petulantly. "Being turned into a machine is
+not the easiest thing in the world on one's temper; it upsets the
+disposition."
+
+"Some sort of a special extra radioactive gas storm connected with the
+comet, I think, though I can't be sure. It's made machines of all of us,
+now and forever more. We'll live on electric current after this and
+won't have to bother about little things like doctors if we can find a
+good mechanic. But it killed a lot of people. Come along, I'll show
+you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His hand rang on Murray's arm as he grasped it to lead the way. The hall
+was portentously dark, and Ben pulled him straight across it to the door
+marked "Fire Exit."
+
+"Elevator?" queried Murray.
+
+"No go. No power."
+
+"Oh, Lord, forty-eight stories to walk."
+
+"You'll get used to it." They were clanking to the landing of the floor
+below and Ben, without the slightest compunction, pushed boldly into the
+door of the apartment there. The lock showed signs of being forced. "Oh,
+I broke it in," Ben answered Murray's unspoken query. "Thought I might
+be able to help, but it was no use. That fat woman lives here--you know,
+the one that used to sniff at us in the elevator when we went on a
+bender."
+
+Any qualms Murray felt about looking on the naked face of death were
+perfunctorily laid to rest as the scientist led him into the room
+occupied by the late lady of the elevator. She lay solidly in her bed
+amidst the meretricious gorgeousness she had affected in life, the
+weight of her body sagging the bed grotesquely toward its center.
+Instead of the clean-running mechanical devices which marked the
+appearance of the two friends, she was nothing but lumps and bumps, a
+bulging, ugly cast-iron statue, distending the cheap "silk" nightdress.
+
+"See?" said Ben, calmly. "The transmutation wasn't complete. Prob'ly
+didn't get it as strong as we did. Look, the window's closed. This will
+be a warning to people who are afraid to sleep in a draft. Come along."
+
+Murray lingered. "Isn't there anything ... we can do?" He felt
+uncomfortably responsible.
+
+"Not a thing," said Ben, cheerfully. "All she's good for is to stand
+in the park and look at. Come along. We've got a lot of stairs to go
+down ... we're too noisy; need a good bath in non-rusting oil."
+
+They reached the street level after an æon of stairs, Ben leading the
+way to the corner drug store. All about them was a complete silence;
+fleecy white clouds sailed across the little ribbon of blue visible at
+the top of the canyon of the New York city street.
+
+"Lucky it's a nice day," said Ben, boldly stepping into the drug store,
+the door of which stood open. "We'll have to figure out this rainy
+weather thing. It's going to present a problem."
+
+Within, the drug store presented the same phenomena of arrested
+development as the apartment of the fat lady at the forty-seventh story.
+A cast-iron statue of a soda-clerk leaned on the fountain in an attitude
+of studied negligence, its lips parted as though addressing some words
+to the equally metallic figure of a girl which faced him across the
+counter. On her steely features was a film of power, and the caked and
+curling remains of her lip stick showed she had been there for some
+time.
+
+"By the way," Murray asked, "have you any idea what day it is, and how
+long we were--under the influence? It couldn't have happened overnight."
+
+"Why not?" came Ben's voice from the rear of the store. "Say, old dear,
+rummage around some of those drawers for rubber gloves, will you? I'd
+hate to run into high voltage with this outfit."
+
+"Ah, here they are," came from Ben finally. "Well, let's go."
+
+"What's the next step?" They were outside.
+
+"Rubber shoes, I fancy," said Ben, as his feet skidded on the pavement.
+"Let's take a taxi there and go find a shoe store."
+
+Together they managed to slide the cast-iron taxi driver from his seat
+(Murray was surprised at how easily he was able to lift a weight he
+could not have budged in his flesh and blood days), deposited him on the
+curb and climbed in. The key was fortunately in the switch.
+
+As they swung around the corner into Madison Avenue, Lee gave an
+exclamation. A scene of ruin and desolation met their eyes. Two or three
+street cars had telescoped and an auto or so had piled into the
+wreckage. All about were the iron forms of the passengers in these
+conveyances, frozen in the various attitudes they had assumed at the
+moment of the change, and from one or two of them thin streamers of
+metal showed where blood had flowed forth before it had been
+irretrievably crystallized to metal.
+
+Murray Lee suddenly realized that an enormous amount of machinery had
+gone to smash everywhere when the guiding hands had been removed and the
+guiding brains frozen to useless metal. He gave a little shudder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They swung round before a shoe store with grating brakes. The door was
+locked, but Ben, lifting his foot, calmly kicked a hole in the show
+window. Murray extended a restraining hand, but his friend shook it off.
+
+"No use asking permission. If the proprietor of this place is still
+alive anywhere, it will be easy enough to settle up for the damage; if
+he isn't, we have as good a right to it as anybody."
+
+The new toes, which appeared to be longer than those he remembered, made
+fitting a difficulty, and Murray split two or three shoes before he got
+a pair on.
+
+"What next?" he asked. "I feel like a drink."
+
+"No use," said Ben. "You're on the wagon for good. Alcohol would play
+merry hell with your metalwork. The best thing is to find out how many
+people we are. For all we know, we're the only ones in the world. This
+thing seems to have knocked out everybody along the street level. Let's
+try some of the taller apartment buildings and see if we can find more
+penthouse dwellers."
+
+"Or maybe the others came to before us and went away," offered Murray.
+
+"True," Ben replied. "Anyhow, look-see." He led the way to the taxi.
+
+"Wait," said Murray. "What's that?"
+
+Above the sound of the starting engine came the echo of heavy footsteps,
+muffled by shoes.
+
+"Hey! Coo-ee! This way!" shouted Ben. The footsteps tentatively
+approached the corner. Murray ran forward, then stopped in amazement.
+The newcomer was a girl--or would have been a girl had she not been all
+metal and machinery like themselves. To his eyes, still working on
+flesh-and-blood standards, she was anything but good-looking. She was
+fully and formally dressed, save that she wore no hat--the high pile of
+tangled wire that crowned her head made this obviously impossible.
+
+"Oh, what _has_ happened?" she cried at them. "What can I do? I took a
+drink of water and it hurt."
+
+"Everything's all right. Just a little metal transformation," said Ben.
+"Stick around, I'll get you some oil. You squeak." He was off down the
+street in a clatter, leaving Murray with the newcomer.
+
+"Permit me to introduce myself," he offered. "I am--or was--Murray Lee.
+My friend, who has gone to get you some oil, is Benjamin Franklin Ruby.
+He thinks the big comet which hit the earth contained radioactive gas
+that made us all into metal. Did you live in a penthouse?"
+
+She eyed him darkly. "Somebody told you," she said, "I'm Gloria
+Rutherford, and we have the top floor of the Sherry-Netherland, but all
+the rest were away when this happened.... Oh, pardon me, it hurts me to
+talk."
+
+There came a crash from down the street, indicating that Ben was forcing
+another store, and in a minute he was back with a handful of bottles.
+With a flourish he offered one to the girl. "Only castor, but it's the
+best the market affords," he said. "What we need is a good garage, but
+there aren't many around here.... Go ahead, drink her down, it's all
+right," he assured the girl, who was contemplating the bottle in her
+hand with an expression of distaste.
+
+Following his own recommendation, he tipped up one of the bottles and
+drank a deep draught, then calmly proceeded to douse himself from head
+to foot with the remainder.
+
+She made a little grimace, then tried it. "Thank you," she said, setting
+the bottle down. "I didn't think it was possible anybody could like the
+stuff except in a magazine ad. Now tell me, where are all the other
+people and what do we do?"
+
+"Do?" queried Ben. "Find 'em. How? Ask Mr. Foster. Anybody else in your
+neck of the woods?"
+
+She shook her head. Murray noticed that the joints of her neck rattled.
+"Paulson--that's my maid--was the only other person in our apartment,
+and she seems to be even more solid-iron in the head than usual--like
+this lot." She swung her hand round in an expressive gesture toward the
+image of a policeman which was directing two similar images to pause at
+the curb.
+
+"How about a bonfire?" suggested Murray. "That's the way the Indians or
+South Africans or somebody, attract attention."
+
+"What could we burn?" asked Ben. "... A building, of course. Why not?
+Property doesn't mean anything any more with all the property owners
+dead."
+
+"I know," said Gloria Rutherford, falling into the spirit of his
+suggestion. "The old Metropolitan Opera. That eyesore has worried me for
+the last five years."
+
+The suggestion was endorsed with enthusiasm. They climbed into the taxi
+and twenty minutes later were hilariously kindling a blaze in the
+back-stage section of the old building, running out of it with childish
+delight to watch the pillar of smoke grow and spread as the flames
+caught the timbers, long dry with age.
+
+Murray sighed as they sat on the curb across the street. "This is the
+only time I've ever been as close as I wanted to be to a big fire," he
+complained, "and now there isn't even a policeman around for me to make
+faces at. But such is life!"
+
+"What if it sets fire to the whole city?" inquired Gloria practically.
+
+Ben shrugged. "What if?" he replied. "Doesn't mean anything. Bet there
+aren't more than a couple of dozen people alive. But I don't think it
+will. Modern construction in most of these places is too fireproof."
+
+"Look, there's a bird," said Gloria, indicating a solid metal sparrow,
+fixed, like the human inhabitants of the city, in his last position in
+life at the edge of the curb. "By the way, what do we eat? Do we live on
+castor oil all the time?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A Metal Community
+
+
+The conversation turned into a discussion of the possibilities of their
+new form. Whether they would need sleep was a moot point, and they were
+discussing the advisability of training mechanics as doctors when the
+first footsteps announced themselves.
+
+They belonged to a man whose face, ornamented by a neat Van Dyke in
+wire, gave him the appearance of a physician of the more fleshly life,
+but who turned out to be a lawyer, named Roberts. He was delighted with
+the extraordinary youthfulness and vitality he felt in the new
+incarnation. Fully dressed in morning clothes, he bore the information
+that he was one of a group of four who had achieved the metal
+transformation atop the French building. He promptly plunged into a
+discussion of technicalities with Ben that left the other two out of it,
+and they moved off to the Seventh Avenue side of the building to see
+whether any more people were visible.
+
+"Do you miss the people much?" asked Murray, by way of making
+conversation.
+
+"Not a bit," she confessed. "My chief emotion is delight over not having
+to go to the de la Poers' tea tomorrow afternoon. Though I suppose we
+will miss them as time goes on."
+
+"I don't know about that," Murray replied. "Life was getting pretty
+complicated and artificial--at least for me. There were so many things
+one had to do before one began living--you know, picking the proper
+friends and all that."
+
+The girl nodded understandingly. "I know what you mean. My mother would
+throw a fit if she knew I were here talking to you right now. If I met
+you at a dance in Westchester it would be perfectly all right for me to
+stay out with you half the night and drink gin together, but meeting you
+in daylight on the street--oh, boy!"
+
+"Well," Murray sighed, "that tripe is all through with now. What do you
+say we get back and see how the rest are getting along?"
+
+They found them still in the midst of their argument.
+
+"--evidently some substance so volatile that the mere contact with
+animal tissue causes a reaction that leaves nothing of either the
+element or the tissue," Ben was saying. "You note that these metal bands
+reproduce the muscles almost perfectly."
+
+"Yes," the lawyer replied, "but they are too flexible to be any metal I
+know. I'm willing to grant your wider knowledge of chemistry, but it
+doesn't seem reasonable. All I can think of is that some outside agency
+has interfered. These joints, for instance--," he touched Ben's elbow,
+"--and what about the little rubber pads on your fingers and toes and
+the end of your nose?"
+
+There was a universal motion on the part of the others to feel of their
+noses. It was as the lawyer had said--they were, like the fingers and
+toes, certainly very much like rubber--and movable!
+
+"Don't know," said Ben. "Who did it, though? That's what boggles your
+scheme. Everybody's changed to metal and nobody left to make the changes
+you mention. However, let's go get the rest of your folks. I wonder if
+we ought to have weapons. You two wait here."
+
+He clanked off with the lawyer to the taxi. A moment later, the tooting
+of the horn announced their return. The party consisted, beside Roberts
+himself, of his daughter, Ola Mae, a girl of sixteen, petulant over the
+fact that her high-heeled shoes were already breaking down under her
+weight; a Japanese servant named Yoshio; and Mrs. Roberts, one of those
+tall and billowy women of the earlier life who, to the irritation of the
+men, turned out to be the strongest of any of them. Fat, apparently, had
+no metallic equivalent, and her ample proportions now consisted of bands
+of metal that made her extraordinarily powerful.
+
+With these additions the little group adjourned to Times Square to watch
+the billowing clouds of smoke rising above the ruins of the opera house.
+
+"What next?" asked Gloria, seating herself on the curbstone.
+
+"Look for more people," said Murray. "Surely we can't be the only frogs
+in the puddle."
+
+"Why not?" put in Ben, argumentatively, with a swing of his arm toward
+the wreckage-strewn square. "You forget that this catastrophe has
+probably wiped out all the animal life of the world, and we seven owe
+our survival to some fortunate chance."
+
+The Japanese touched him on the arm. "Perhaps sir can inform inquirer,
+in such case, what is curious avian object?" he said, pointing upward.
+
+They heard the beat of wings as he spoke and looked up together to see,
+soaring fifty feet past their heads a strange parody of a bird, with
+four distinct wings, a long feathered tail, and bright intelligent eyes
+set in a dome-like head.
+
+There was a moment of excited babbling.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Never saw anything like it before."
+
+"Did the comet do _that_ to chickens?" And then, as the strange creature
+disappeared among the forest of spires to the east, the voice of the
+lawyer, used to such tumults, asserted its mastery over the rest.
+
+"I think," he said, "that whatever that bird is, the first thing to be
+done is find a headquarters of some kind and establish a mode of life."
+
+"How about finding more people?" asked Gloria. "The more the
+merrier--and there may be some who don't know how nice castor oil is."
+She smiled a metallic smile.
+
+"The fire--" began Ben.
+
+"It would keep some people away."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They debated the point for several minutes, finally deciding that since
+those present had all come from the top floors or penthouses of tall
+buildings, the search should be confined to such localities. Each was to
+take a car--there were any number for the taking around Times
+Square--and cover a certain section of the city, rallying at sundown to
+the Times building, where Ola Mae and Murray, who could not drive, were
+to be left.
+
+Roberts was the first one back, swinging a big Peugeot around with the
+skill of a racing driver. He had found no one, but had a curious tale.
+In the upper floors of the New Waldorf three of the big windows were
+smashed in, and in one corner of the room, amid a maze of chairs
+fantastically torn as though by a playful giant, a pile of soft cloths.
+In the midst of this pile, four big eggs reposed. He had picked up one
+of the eggs, and after weighing the advisability of bringing it with
+him, decided he had more important things to do. The owners of the nest
+did not appear.
+
+As he emerged from the building, however, the quick motion of a shadow
+across the street caused him to look up in time to catch a glimpse of
+one of the four-winged birds they had seen before, and just as he was
+driving the car away, his ears were assailed by a torrent of screeches
+and "skrawks" from the homecomer. He did not look up until the shadow
+fell across him again when he perceived the bird was following close
+behind him, flying low, and apparently debating the advisability of
+attacking him.
+
+Roberts waved his arms and shouted; it had not the slightest effect on
+the bird, which, now that it was closer, he perceived to move its hind
+wings only, holding its fore-wings out like those of an airplane. He
+wished he had a weapon of some kind; lacking one, he drew the car up to
+the curb and ran into a building. The bird alighted outside and began to
+peck the door in, but by the time it got through Roberts had climbed a
+maze of stairs, and though he could hear it screaming throatily behind
+him, it did not find him and eventually gave up the search.
+
+The end of this remarkable tale was delivered to an enlarged audience.
+Gloria had arrived, bringing a chubby little man who announced himself
+as F. W. Stevens.
+
+"The boy plunger?" queried Murray absent-mindedly, and realized from
+Gloria's gasp that he had said the wrong thing.
+
+"Well, I operate in Wall Street," Stevens replied rather stiffly.
+
+Ben came with three recruits. At the sight of the first, Murray gasped.
+Even in the metal caricature, he had no difficulty in recognizing the
+high, bald forehead, the thin jaws and the tooth-brush moustache of
+Walter Beeville, the greatest living naturalist. Before dark the others
+were back--Yoshio with one new acquisition and Mrs. Roberts, whose
+energy paralleled her strength, with no less than four, among them an
+elaborately gowned woman who proved to be Marta Lami, the Hungarian
+dancer who had been the sensation of New York at the time of the
+catastrophe.
+
+They gathered in the Times Square drug store in a strange babble of
+phonographic voices and clang of metal parts against the stone floor and
+soda fountains. It was Roberts who secured a position behind one of
+these erstwhile dispensers of liquid soothing-syrup and rapped for
+order.
+
+"I think the first thing to be done," he said, when the voices had grown
+quiet in answer to his appeal, "is to organize the group of people here
+and search for more. If it had not been for the kindness of Mr. Ruby
+here, my family and I would not have known about the necessity of using
+oil on this new mechanical make-up nor of the value of electrical
+current as food. There may be others in the city in the same state. What
+is the--ah--sense of the gathering on this topic?"
+
+Stevens was the first to speak. "It's more important to organize and
+elect a president," he said briefly.
+
+"A very good idea," commented Roberts.
+
+"Well, then," said Stevens, ponderously, "I move we proceed to elect
+officers and form as a corporation."
+
+"Second the motion," said Murray almost automatically.
+
+"Pardon me." It was the voice of Beeville the naturalist. "I don't think
+we ought to adopt any formal organization yet. It hardly seems
+necessary. We are practically in the golden age, with all the resources
+of an immense city at the disposal of--fourteen people. And we know very
+little about ourselves. All the medical and biological science of the
+world must be discarded and built up again. At this very moment we may
+be suffering from the lack of something that is absolutely necessary to
+our existence--though I admit I cannot imagine what it could be. I think
+the first thing to do is to investigate our possibilities and establish
+the science of mechanical medicine. As to the rest of our details of
+existence, they don't matter much at present."
+
+A murmur of approval went round the room and Stevens looked somewhat put
+out.
+
+"We could hardly adopt anarchy as a form of government," he offered.
+
+"Oh, yes we could," said Marta Lami, "Hurray for anarchy. The Red Flag
+forever. Free love, free beer, no work!"
+
+"Yes," said Gloria, "what's the use of all this metallizing, anyway? We
+got rid of a lot of old applesauce about restrictions and here you want
+to tie us up again. More and better anarchy!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Say," came a deep and raucous voice from one of the newcomers. "Why
+don't we have just a straw boss for a while till we see how things work
+out? If anyone gets fresh the straw boss can jump him, or kick him out,
+but those that stick with the gang have to listen to him. How's that?"
+
+"Fine," said Ben, heartily. "You mean have a kind of Mussolini for a
+while?"
+
+"That's the idea. You ought to be it."
+
+There was a clanging round of metallic applause as three or four people
+clapped their hands.
+
+"There is a motion--" began Roberts.
+
+"Oh, tie a can to it," said Gloria, irreverently, "I nominate Ben Ruby
+as dictator of the colony of New York for--three months. Everybody
+that's for it, stick up your hands."
+
+Eleven hands went up. Gloria looked around at those who remained
+recalcitrant and concentrated her gaze on Stevens. "Won't you join us,
+Mr. Stevens?" she asked sweetly.
+
+"I don't think this is the way to do things," said the Wall Street man
+with a touch of asperity. "It's altogether irregular and no permanent
+good can result from it. However, I will act with the rest."
+
+"And you, Yoshio?"
+
+"I am uncertain that permission is granted to this miserable worm to
+vote."
+
+"Certainly. We're all starting from scratch. Who else is there? What
+about you, Mr. Lee?"
+
+"Oh, I know him too well."
+
+The rest of the opposition dissolved in laughter and Ben made his way to
+the place by the counter vacated by Roberts.
+
+"The first thing we can do is have some light," he ordered. "Does
+anyone know where candles can be had around here? I suppose there ought
+to be some in the drug store across the street, but I don't know where
+and there's no light to look by."
+
+"How about flashlights? There's an electrical and radio store up the
+block."
+
+"Fine, Murray you go look. Now Miss Roberts, will you be our secretary?
+I think the first thing to do is to get down the name and occupation of
+everyone here. That will give us a start toward finding out what we can
+do. Ready? Now you, Miss Rutherford, first."
+
+"My name is Gloria Rutherford and I can't do anything but play tennis,
+drink gin and drive a car."
+
+The rest of the replies followed: "F. W. Stevens, Wall Street,"
+"Theodore Roberts, lawyer," "Archibald Tholfsen, chess-player," "H. M.
+Dangerfield, editor," "Francis X. O'Hara, trucking business," (this was
+the loud-voiced man who had cut the Gordian knot of the argument about
+organization). "Are you a mechanic, too?" asked Ben.
+
+"Well, not a first class one, but I know a little about machinery."
+
+"Good, you're appointed our doctor."
+
+"Paul Farrelly, publisher," "Albert F. Massey, artist"--the voices
+droned on in the uncertain illumination of the flashlights.
+
+"Very well, then," said Ben at the conclusion of the list. "The first
+thing I'll do is appoint Walter Beeville director of research. Fact
+number one for him is that we aren't going to need much of any sleep. I
+don't feel the need of it at all, and I don't seem to see any signs
+among you. O'Hara will help him on the mechanical side.... I suggest
+that as Mr. Beeville will need to observe all of us we make the
+Rockefeller Institute our headquarters. He will have the apparatus there
+to carry on his work. Let's go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Rebellion
+
+
+They whirled away to the east side of the city and up Second Avenue like
+a triumphal cortege, blissfully disregarding the dead traffic lights,
+though now and then they had to dodge the ruins of some truck or taxi
+that had come out second best from an argument with an elevated pillar
+where the driver's hand had been frozen at the wheel. At Forty-ninth
+Street Ben's car, in the lead, swung in to the curb and pulled up.
+
+"What is it?" ... "Is this the place?" ... "Anything wrong?"
+
+An illuminating voice floated up. "Electric store, get all the
+flashlights and batteries you can. We're going to need them."
+
+A few moments later they were at the great institution, strangely dark
+and silent now after all its years of ministering to the sick, with a
+line of rust showing redly on the tall iron fence that surrounded the
+grounds. They trooped into the reception room, flickering their lights
+here and there like fireflies. Ben mounted a chair.
+
+"Just a minute, folks," he began. "I want to say something.... What we
+have to do here is build civilization up all over again. Undoubtedly
+there are more people alive--if not in New York, then in other places.
+We have two jobs--to get in touch with them and to find out what we can
+do. Mr. Beeville is going to find out about the second one for us, but
+we can do a lot without waiting for him.
+
+"In the first place, there's that funny-looking bird that we all saw and
+that chased Roberts. There may be others like it and a lot of new queer
+forms of animal life around that would be dangerous to us. Therefore, I
+think it's in line to get some weapons. Miss Lami, you and Mr. Tholfsen
+are delegated to dig up a hardware store and find guns and
+cartridges.... Now for the rest, I'm open to suggestions."
+
+Everybody spoke at once. "Wait a minute," said Ben. "Let's take things
+in order. What was your idea, Mr. Stevens?"
+
+"Organize regular search parties."
+
+"And a good idea, too. We don't even need to wait for daylight.
+Everybody who can drive, get a car and trot along."
+
+"X-ray machines are going to be awfully useful in my work," offered
+Beeville. "I wonder if there isn't some way of getting enough current to
+run one."
+
+"As far as I remember, this building supplies its own current. Murray,
+you and Massey trot down and get a fire up under one of the boilers.
+Anything else?"
+
+"Yes," came from Dangerfield, the editor. "It seems to me that the first
+thing anyone else in the world would try to do if he found himself made
+into a tin doll like this is get hold of a radio. How about opening up a
+broadcasting station?"
+
+"I don't know whether you can get enough power, but you can try. Go to
+it. Do you know anything about radio?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"All right. Pick whoever you want for an assistant and try it out. Any
+more ideas?"
+
+"What day is it?" asked Ola Mae Roberts.
+
+Nobody had thought of it, and it suddenly dawned on the assemblage that
+the last thing they remembered was when the snow on the roof-tops
+bespoke a chilly February, while now all the trees were in leaf and the
+air was redolent of spring.
+
+"Why--I don't know," said Ben. "Anybody here got any ideas on how to
+find out?"
+
+"It would take an experienced astronomer and some calculation to
+determine with accuracy," said Beeville. "We'd better set an arbitrary
+date."
+
+"O. K. Then it's May 1, 1947. That's two years ahead of time, but it
+will take that long to find out what it really is."
+
+The assumption that sleep would be unnecessary proved correct. All night
+long, cars roared up to the door and away again on their quests. The
+number of people found was small--the cream had apparently been gathered
+that morning. O'Hara brought in a metallic scrubwoman from one of the
+downtown buildings, the tines that represented her teeth showing stains
+of rust where she had incautiously drunk water; Stevens turned up with a
+slow-voiced young man who proved to be Georgios Pappagourdas, the
+attaché of the Greek consulate whose name had been in the papers in
+connection with a sensational divorce case; and Mrs. Roberts came in
+with two men, one of them J. Sterling Vanderschoof, president of the
+steamship lines which bore his name.
+
+At dawn Dangerfield came in. He had set up a powerful receiving set by
+means of storage batteries but could find no messages on the air, and
+could find no source of power sufficient for him to broadcast.
+
+The morning, therefore, saw another and somewhat less optimistic
+conference. As it was breaking up Ben said, "You Tholfsen, take Stevens,
+Vanderschoof and Lee and get a truck, will you? You'll find one about
+half a block down the street. Go up to one of the coal pits and get some
+fuel for our boilers here. We haven't too large a supply."
+
+There was a clanking of feet as they left and Ben turned into the
+laboratory where Beeville was working, with the scrubwoman as a subject.
+
+"Something interesting here," said the naturalist, looking up as he
+entered. "The outer surface of this metal appears to be rust-proof, but
+when you get water on the inside, things seem to go. It acts like a
+specially annealed compound of some kind. And look--" He seized one of
+the arms of his subject, who gazed at him with mildly unresisting eyes,
+and yanked at the outer layer of metal bands that composed it. The band
+stretched like one of rubber, and she gave a slight squeal as it snapped
+back into position. "I don't know of any metal that has that
+flexibility. Do you? Why--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door swung open and they turned to see Murray and Tholfsen.
+
+"Beg pardon for interrupting the sacred panjandrum," said the former,
+"but Stevens and Vanderschoof are indulging in a sulk. They don't want
+to play with us."
+
+"Oh, hell," remarked Ben cheerfully and started for the door, the other
+two following him.
+
+He found the recalcitrants soon enough. The Wall Street man was seated
+across a doctor's desk from Vanderschoof and looked up calmly from an
+interrupted conversation as Ben entered.
+
+"Thought I asked you two to go with the boys for some coal," said Ben,
+waving at them. "My mistake. I meant to."
+
+"You did. I'm not going."
+
+Ben's eyes narrowed. "Why not?"
+
+"This is the United States of America, young man. I don't recognize that
+I am under your orders or anyone else's. If you think you are going to
+get us to accept any such Mussolini dictatorship, you've got another
+guess coming. As I was saying--" he turned back to Vanderschoof with
+elaborate unconcern, and Murray took a step toward him, bristling
+angrily.
+
+"Leave me alone, boys, I can handle this," said Ben, waving the other
+two back. "Mr. Stevens." The broker looked up with insolent politeness.
+"This is not the United States, but the colony of New York. Conditions
+have changed and the sooner you recognize that the better for all of us.
+We are trying to rebuild civilization from the ruins; if you don't share
+in the work, you shall not share in the benefits."
+
+"And what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Put you out."
+
+There was a quick flash, and Ben was staring into the business end of a
+Luger automatic, gripped tightly in the broker's hand. "Oh, no you
+won't. You forget that you made this anarchy yourself when you refused
+to have a president. Now get out of here, quick, and let me talk with my
+friend."
+
+For a moment the air was heavy with tension. Then Vanderschoof smiled--a
+superior smile. Stevens' eyes blinked, and in that blink Ben charged,
+and as he moved, Murray and Tholfsen followed. There was a report like a
+clap of thunder in the narrow room, a tremendous ringing clang as the
+bullet struck the metal plate of Ben's shoulder and caromed to the
+ceiling, whirling him around against the desk and to the floor by the
+force of the impact. Murray leaped across his prostrate body, striking
+at the gun and knocking it down just in time to send the second shot
+wild; Tholfsen stumbled and fell across Ben.
+
+Ben was up first, diving for Murray and Stevens, now locked in close
+grapple, but the chess-player's action was more effective. From his
+prone position he reached up, grabbed Stevens' legs and pulled them from
+under him, bringing him down with a crash, just as Ben's added weight
+made the struggle hopelessly one-sided. In a moment more the dictator of
+the New York colony was sitting on his subject's chest while Murray held
+his arms. Vanderschoof, with the instinctive terror of the man of
+finance for physical violence, sat cowering in his chair.
+
+"Get--some wire," gasped Ben. "Don't think--cloth will hold him."
+
+Tholfsen released his hold on the legs and climbed to his feet. "Watch
+the other one, Murray," said Ben, his quick eye detecting a movement
+toward the gun on Vanderschoof's part.
+
+"Now you, listen," he addressed the man beneath him. "We could tie you
+up and lay you away to pickle until you died for the lack of whatever
+you need, or we could turn you over to Beeville to cut up as a specimen,
+and by God," glaring with a kind of suppressed fury, "I wouldn't
+hesitate to do it! You're jeopardizing the safety of the whole
+community."
+
+The grim face beneath him showed neither fear nor contrition. He
+hesitated a moment.
+
+"If I let you go and give you a car and a couple of batteries, will you
+promise to clear out and never come back?"
+
+Stevens laughed shortly. "Do you think you can bluff me? No."
+
+"All right, Tholfsen, get his feet first," said Ben, as the chess-player
+reappeared with a length of light-cord he had wrenched from somewhere.
+The feet kicked energetically, but the task was accomplished and the
+arms secured likewise. "You watch him," said Ben, "while I get a car
+around."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Vanderschoof, speaking for the first
+time since the scuffle.
+
+"Throw him in the river!" declared Ben, with ruthless emphasis. "Let him
+get out of that." Stevens took this statement with a calm smile that
+showed not the slightest trace of strain.
+
+"But you can't do that," protested the steamship man. "It's--it's
+inhuman."
+
+"Bring him outside boys," said Ben, without deigning to reply to this
+protest, and clanged out to the car.
+
+They lifted the helpless man into the back seat, and with a man on
+either side of him, started for Queensboro Bridge. The journey was
+accomplished in a dead silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Halfway down the span, Ben brought the taxi round with a flourish and
+climbed out, the other two lifting Stevens between them. Murray looked
+toward his friend, half expecting him to relent at the last moment, but
+he motioned them wordlessly on, and they set down their burden at the
+rail.
+
+"Over with him!" said Ben remorselessly. They bent....
+
+"I give up," said Stevens in a strangely husky voice. Murray and
+Tholfsen paused.
+
+"Did you hear what I said?" said Ben. "Over with him!"
+
+They heaved. "Stop!" screamed the broker. "For God's sake, I'll give up.
+I'll go. Oh-h-h!" The last was a scream, as Ben laid a detaining hand on
+Murray's arm.
+
+"Let him down, boys," he said quietly. "Now listen, Stevens. I don't
+want to be hard on you--but we've got to have unanimity. You're done.
+Take a car and clear out. If I let you go now, will you promise to stay
+away?"
+
+"Yes," said the Wall Street man. "Anything, only for God's sake don't do
+that!"
+
+"All right," said Ben.
+
+As they were loading the banker in the car for the return trip a thought
+struck Murray. "By the way, Ben," he remarked, "didn't he nick you with
+that gun?" "That's right," said Ben, "he did." And gazed down at the
+long bright scratch in the heavy metal that covered his shoulder joint.
+It was uninjured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Flight!
+
+
+But when Tholfsen and Murray returned with the coal, Vanderschoof was
+missing as well as Stevens, and that evening when the car in which Marta
+Lami had accompanied Roberts on the exploration of the Brooklyn Heights
+district drew up at the Institute, it had only one occupant.
+
+"What happened to Miss Lami?" asked Ben.
+
+Roberts gazed at him, surprised. "Didn't you send them? While we were at
+the St. George Hotel a car came along with Stevens and two of those new
+men in it. One was the Greek. They spoke to her for a minute and she
+said they brought a message from you that she was to go with them."
+
+"M-hm," said Ben. "I see. Well, as long as they don't come back, it's
+all right."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car whirled out the Albany Post Road in a silence that was
+indicative of the rivalry that had already sprung up between Stevens and
+Vanderschoof. As for Pappagourdas he found himself demoted to the
+position of a "yes man."
+
+They had provided themselves with a liberal supply of guns and
+ammunition, and with the foolish conservatism of the very rich, refusing
+to believe that money was valueless, had raided store after store until
+they had acquired a considerable supply of currency.
+
+"This is the Bear Mountain Bridge, isn't it?" said the dancer. "Let's
+stop at West Point and pick up a cadet. They're so ornamental."
+
+Stevens glanced at her sourly from the wheel. "We've got to hurry if we
+want to get to Albany," he said.
+
+"Still," offered Vanderschoof protectingly, "why not stop at the Point?
+We might find some people there. I know Colonel Grayson. Played golf
+with him there last summer. Ha, ha! When I holed out an eighteen-footer
+at the seventh, he was so mad, he wouldn't speak to me all the rest of
+the afternoon. It was the turning point of the battle. Ha, ha!"
+
+Stevens, with a grunt, swung the wheel round and began the ascent of the
+long bridge ramp. He realized he had been outmaneuvered. To cover his
+retreat, he remarked, "Isn't that a bird?"
+
+"The high muck-a-muck said something about birds last night," said the
+dancer, "but he's such a Holy Joe that I didn't pay any attention."
+
+"Aren't the birds all dead?" asked the Greek, respectfully. "I saw some
+in the gutter outside my window and they were turned to iron."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car coughed to the rise, made it and slid across the bridge.
+
+"It is a bird," said the dancer, "and what a bird! Papa, look at the
+ostrich."
+
+Pappagourdas and Vanderschoof followed her pointing finger. Along its
+direction they saw, a couple of hundred feet behind and above them, the
+widespread wings and heavy body of the same type of four-winged bird
+Roberts had encountered. Vanderschoof tugged at his pocket. "Maybe it'll
+come close enough to give us a shot," he said hopefully.
+
+The bird was certainly gaining on them, though the speedometer of the
+car had risen beyond forty miles an hour. As it drew nearer, they could
+make out the high-domed, most un-birdlike head set with pop-eyes fixed
+in a permanent expression of astonishment, the short bill, slightly
+hooked at the tip, and the huge expanse of the wings. It seemed to be
+inspecting them as a smaller avian might inspect a bug crawling across a
+road.
+
+As it drew nearer, it swooped to within a couple dozen feet of the car;
+they noticed that its feet, folded back beneath the body, had a metallic
+luster. Then Vanderschoof fired, with a bang that almost deafened the
+rest. The bird seemed surprised rather than frightened or resentful. At
+the sound of the gun it bounded upward a few feet and then swung again,
+moving along parallel with the car and twisting its neck to take a good
+look at the passengers. The chance was too good to be missed; both
+Pappagourdas and Vanderschoof fired this time, steadying themselves
+against the motion of the car. One of the shots evidently went home, for
+a couple of feathers floated down, and the bird, with a series of
+ear-piercing squawks, spiralled down the side of the mountain toward the
+river-bank, three or four hundred feet below.
+
+"Bull's eye!" yelled Pappagourdas. "Gimme the cigar! Let's stop the car
+and go get it."
+
+"What's the use," said Stevens, "you couldn't eat it, anyway. Listen to
+him yell, would you?"
+
+Above the sound of the motor the screeching of the wounded bird still
+reached them faintly from the bottom of the cliff.
+
+"I think it's a damn shame to shoot up the poor thing," said Marta Lami.
+
+"Oh, he'll be all right," declared Vanderschoof. "Don't believe we
+touched anything but one wing, and it'll just sit and eat ground-berries
+till it gets well."
+
+It was perhaps half an hour later, and the distant hills were beginning
+to acquire a fine powder of dusk when they saw the second bird--a
+rapidly moving speck, far behind them and to one side of the road.
+Vanderschoof saw it first and called the attention of the rest, but they
+quickly lost interest.
+
+He continued to observe it. Were there two? He thought so, yet--. A
+moment later he was sure there was more than one, as the car breasted a
+rise and gave them a better view. They seemed to be following fast. The
+ridiculous idea that they meant to do something about their fallen
+comrade came to him, to be dismissed instantly. Yet the birds were
+certainly following them and he thought he made out a third, behind the
+others.
+
+The car coasted down a long slope, crossed a bridge and began to go up a
+hairpin rise. Vanderschoof looked back. The birds were invisible; he
+looked again, in the right direction this time and saw them, so much
+larger and nearer that he cried out. The others ceased their low-voiced
+conversation at the sound of his voice. "What's the matter, papa?" asked
+the dancer.
+
+"Those birds. Look."
+
+"Why it looks almost as though they were following us."
+
+She sat upright in the seat and squinted at them under an upraised hand.
+The queer birds were close enough now so that the difference between
+their fore-wings and the steadily beating hind wings could be made out.
+
+"You don't suppose they could be mad at us?" she asked.
+
+"Don't be foolish," said Stevens, without turning around. "Birds aren't
+intelligent enough for that." A long straight stretch lay before him and
+he let the car out. Vanderschoof, watching with a trace of anxiety, saw
+the birds also put on more speed. "They are following us," he declared
+with conviction.
+
+"Look," said Marta Lami, "that one is carrying something, too."
+
+As she spoke, the bird, flying high, gained a position just above and
+ahead of the car, dropped the object and instantly wheeled off and down
+to one side. There was a heavy thud on the road ahead, and a big rock
+bounded and rolled a score of feet before the car.
+
+Marta Lami screamed. Vanderschoof swore, with feeling. "Get out your
+guns and drive them off," said Stevens. "You fools, why did you have to
+shoot at them in the first place?"
+
+Before he had finished speaking Vanderschoof had his revolver out and
+was firing at the second of the birds, now swinging into position above
+them with another rock. He missed, but the bird, surprised, dropped its
+burden too soon, and they had the satisfaction of seeing it bounce among
+the trees at the right of the road.
+
+"Keep after them, that's right," said Stevens. "We're not far from the
+Point and we can get under cover there."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Both the men in the back were shooting now--Vanderschoof slowly and with
+deliberate aim; Pappagourdas in a panic-stricken rafale at the third
+bird, which, higher than the others, paid not the slightest attention to
+them but jockeyed for position. Stevens began to twist the steering
+wheel--the car described a fantastic series of zigzags.
+
+"What are they?" he asked. "I never saw anything like them."
+
+"I don't know," replied Vanderschoof. (Bang!) "Like the condors (Bang!)
+I used to see in South America, only bigger."
+
+Crash! The third rock burst in a shower of fragments not ten feet away,
+one piece striking the windshield with a ping, and sending a long
+diagonal crack across it. The first of the three birds was swinging up
+again with another rock, screeching hoarse communications at the others.
+
+Marta Lami had fallen silent. As the bird began to circle above them,
+picking its position, Pappagourdas suddenly ceased firing, with a curse.
+"Have you got any more bullets?" he asked. "Mine are all gone...." His
+voice broke suddenly, half-hysterical, "It is the cranes of Ibicos," he
+cried.
+
+The stone struck behind them. Evidently the bird had a healthy respect
+for Vanderschoof's aim, which had kept it at such a height that it could
+not aim accurately. But as the next stone missed they changed their
+tactics, screaming to each other. The third bird, whose turn it was to
+drop a stone, merely flew along parallel with them, high enough to be
+out of range, waiting for the return of the others. When they arrived,
+all three strung out in a line and released their rocks simultaneously.
+There was a resounding crash, the car reeled perilously on the edge of
+the steep road, then righted and drove on with a clattering bang.
+Looking over the side Vanderschoof could see where the big rock had
+struck the right running board, tearing a foot or two of it loose to
+trail on the road.
+
+"Wait," he cried, but Stevens shook his head.
+
+They had a bit of luck at this point. The hunt for more stones or
+something of the kind delayed their enemies, and when they next saw the
+birds winging up behind them, the white classical lines of the West
+Point administration building already loomed ahead, clear in the
+gathering gloom.
+
+Stevens turned in, swung the car around at the door, and halted it with
+screaming brakes, just as the first of the birds overhead overshot the
+mark and turned to come back. In an instant the banker was out of the
+car, dragging at Marta Lami's hand. Vanderschoof climbed numbly out the
+other side, and ran around the car toward the door of the building, but
+the Greek missed his footing where the running board should have been
+and fell prone, just as one of the birds dived down with a yell of
+triumph and dropped his stone accurately onto the struggling man.
+
+"Run!" shouted Stevens.
+
+"But--the Greek," panted Vanderschoof as they climbed the steps.
+
+"Hell with him. Or here--wait." Stevens turned and thrust his fist
+through the glass upper portion of the door. Out in the dusk the three
+bird-forms were settling round their fallen foe. The flash of the
+banker's gun stabbed the night and was answered by a scream. Before he
+could take aim again, with a quick beat of wings, they were gone and
+when, daring greatly, he ran out a few moments later, he found that
+Pappagourdas was gone also.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found the others on one of the benches in the outer office of the
+building, the girl with her face buried in her hands in an agony of
+fright and reaction. Vanderschoof, too old and cool a hand to give way
+in this fashion, looked up.
+
+"What are they, Stevens?" he asked.
+
+The Wall Street man shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I don't know,"
+he said. "Some new kind of high-power bird that developed while we were
+all being made into machines by that comet, I suppose. It's terrible....
+They've got the Greek."
+
+"Can't we get after them? There ought to be airplanes here."
+
+"In this light? Can you fly one? I can't and I don't imagine the little
+girl here can."
+
+The "little girl" lifted her head. She had recovered. "What did we come
+to this joint for, anyhow?" she asked. "To hang crêpe on the
+chandeliers?"
+
+The words had the effect of an electric shock.
+
+"Why, of course," said Stevens, "we did come here to see if we could
+find someone, didn't we?" and turning round he pushed open the door into
+the next room. Nothing.
+
+"Wait," he said. "Not much use trying to do anything tonight. We haven't
+any flashlights."
+
+"Aw, boloney," said the dancer, "what do you want us to do? Sit here and
+count our fingers? Go on, big boy, find a garage, you can get a light
+from one of the cars."
+
+"Won't those birds see it?"
+
+"You got a yellow streak a mile wide, haven't you? Birds sleep at
+night."
+
+Stevens took a half-unwilling step toward the door. "Let me come with
+you," said Vanderschoof, rising.
+
+"What's the matter, papa? You got a little yellow in you, too?"
+
+He was dignified. "Not at all. Here I'll leave my gun with you, Miss
+Lami."
+
+"We'll be seeing you," said Stevens, over his shoulder. "Don't worry."
+And they were gone.
+
+To the dancer their absence was endless. She would have given anything
+for the velvet kick of a good drink of gin--"but I suppose it would burn
+out my bearings," she mused ruefully. Heavens, she must spend the rest
+of her days as a robot. In the fading light she ruefully contemplated
+the legs that had delighted the audiences of two continents, now become
+ingenious mechanical devices beyond the power of delighting anyone but
+their owner.
+
+More clearly than the rest, she realized that very little was left of
+the old relation between the sexes. What would happen when the forceful
+Stevens made the discovery also? Probably he would make a thinking robot
+of her to serve his ambition. Well, she had chosen to go with them--they
+seemed to offer more amusement than the stuffy prigs of the colony....
+
+What was that?
+
+She listened intently. A subdued rattling, slightly metallic in
+character. It might be a rat--no, too mechanical. The men--probably it
+was them, or one of them, returning. She glanced out of the window. Not
+there. The sound again--not from outdoors, but behind her--within the
+room? She gripped the gun Vanderschoof had given her. Rattle, rattle.
+She wished furiously for a light.
+
+The birds? No--birds sleep at night. Rattle, rattle. Persistently. She
+stood up, trying to pierce the gathering dimness. No, the birds would
+make more noise. They moved surely, with hoarse screams, as though they
+thought themselves the lords of the world. This sound was small, like
+the chatter of a mechanical rat. What new horror in this strange world
+might it not conceal? On slenderest tiptoes she backed cautiously across
+the rug toward the outer door. Better the chance of the birds than this
+unknown terror of the darkness.
+
+Holding the gun before her firmly, she stepped back, back, feeling with
+one hand for the door. Her hand met its smooth surface, then clicked as
+the metallic joints came in contact with the doorknob. She paused,
+breathless. Rattle, rattle, went the small sound, undiscouraged.
+
+With a sudden jerk she flung the door open and tumbled down the steps,
+half-falling, and as she fell, as though in answer to the metallic clang
+of her body on the stone, a long pencil of violet light sprang silently
+out from somewhere back in the hills, moved thrice across the sky and
+then faded as swiftly as it had come.
+
+She felt the beam of a flashlight in her eyes, and got up, hearing her
+voice with a sort of inward surprise as it babbled something slightly
+incoherent about "things--in there."
+
+Stevens' voice, rough with irritation. "What is it you're saying?" He
+shook her arm. "Come on, little woman, pull yourself together."
+
+"There must be someone else around here," remarked Vanderschoof,
+irrelevantly. "Did you see that searchlight?"
+
+Marta Lami pulled herself up short, shaking loose the hand with a touch
+of the arrogance that had made her the queen of the night life of New
+York.
+
+"Something in there gives me the heeby-jeebies," she said, pointing.
+"Sounds like some guy shooting craps with himself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stevens laughed, somewhat forcedly. "Well, it's nothing to be scared of,
+unless it's one of those damn birds, and if it was that he'd be taking
+us apart now. Come on!"
+
+He flung the door open and plunged in, the flashlight flickering before
+him. Empty.
+
+There was a door at the further end, next to the one they had
+investigated before. Toward this he strode, clump, clump on the carpet,
+and flung it open likewise. Empty again. No, there was something. The
+questing beam came to rest on a brown army tunic behind the desk,
+followed it up quickly to the face and there held. For, staring at them
+with mechanical fixity was another of those simulations of the human
+face in metal with which they were by now, so familiar. But this one was
+different.
+
+For it held the balance between the walking cartoons of men in metal,
+such as they themselves were, and the ugly and solid statues they had
+seen strewn about the streets of New York. It had the metal bands across
+the forehead that they possessed, above which issued the same wiry hair,
+but in this case curiously interwoven as though subjected to some great
+heat and melted into a single mass. And the nose was all of solid metal,
+and the eyes--the eyes ... were the eyes of a statue, giving back no
+lustrous reflexion of glass.
+
+A moment they paused breathless, then stepped forward, and as the beam
+of light shifted when Stevens moved, rattle, rattle, came the sound
+Marta Lami had heard, and when the light went back those unseeing eyes
+had moved.
+
+For a few seconds no one spoke. Then:
+
+"Good God, it's alive!" said Vanderschoof in a hushed voice and a thrill
+of horror went through the others as they recognized the truth of his
+words.
+
+Stevens broke the spell, stepping swiftly to the desk. "Can we do
+anything for you?" he asked. No movement from the metal figure--only
+that ghastly rustle of the eyes as they turned here and there in the
+fixed head, searching for the light they would never find again. The
+Wall Street man lifted one of the hands, tried to flex the arm that held
+it. It dropped back to the deck with a crash. Yet the metal of which
+they were composed seemed in itself to be as pliant as that of their own
+arms.
+
+A feeling of wonderment mingled with the horror of the spectators.
+
+"What happened to him?" asked Marta Lami in a whisper as though she
+feared awakening a sleeper.
+
+Stevens shrugged. "What's happened to all of us? He's alive, I tell you.
+Let's ... get out of here. I don't like it."
+
+"But where to?" asked Vanderschoof.
+
+"Follow the Albany road," said Stevens. "We ought to move on. If those
+birds come back in the morning--" he left the sentence unfinished.
+
+"But what about this poor egg?" asked Marta Lami.
+
+"Leave him," said Stevens, then suddenly giving way, "there's too much
+mystery about this whole business around here. I'm going, I tell you,
+going. You can stay here till you rot if you like. I'm clearing out."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The Menace
+
+
+Naturally, exploration of the familiar, yet unfamiliar world into which
+they had suddenly been thrown was the first preoccupation of the New
+York colonists. None of the group cared to wander far from the Institute
+during the first weeks, however, in view of the possible difficulty of
+obtaining electrical food for a long trip, and Beeville's researches on
+the potentialities of their new bodily form advanced so slowly that they
+hardly dared leave.
+
+His discoveries in the first weeks were, in fact, purely negative.
+Farrelly, the publisher, smashed a finger in some machinery, but when
+O'Hara turned an exact duplicate out on his lathe and Beeville attached
+it, the new member altogether lacked sensation and could be moved only
+with conscious effort--an indication that some as yet unfamiliar
+reaction underlay the secret of motion in their metal form.
+
+But the greatest difficulty in the way of any activity lay in the almost
+abysmal ignorance of the mechanical and technical arts on the part of
+the whole group. O'Hara was a fair mechanic; Dangerfield dabbled in
+radio, and Farrelly could run a printing press (he published a comical
+parody of a newspaper on one for several days; then abandoned the
+effort); but beyond that the utmost accomplishment was driving a car,
+and most of them realized how helpless the old civilization had been
+without its hewers of wood and drawers of water.
+
+To remedy this condition, as much as to keep them busy, Ben assigned to
+each some branch of mechanical science to be learned, the supply of
+information, in the form of books, and of experimental material, in
+every form, being inexhaustible. Thus the first week found Tholfsen and
+Mrs. Roberts scouring the line of the New York Central for a locomotive
+in running order. After numerous failures, they succeeded in getting the
+thing going, only to discover that the line was blocked with wrecks and
+they would need a crane to clear the track for an exploring journey of
+even moderate length.
+
+At the same time, Murray Lee, with Dangerfield and two or three others,
+made an effort to get the Park Central's broadcasting station in
+operation; a work of some difficulty, since it involved ventures into
+what were, for them, unknown fields. Daily they tap-tapped messages to
+each other on telegraph sets rescued from a Western Union office, in
+preparation for the time when they could get a sending set put together.
+
+But the most ambitious effort and the one that was to have the largest
+share of ultimate consequences, was the expedition of Farrelly, Gloria
+and a clothing-store proprietor named Kevitz in quest of naval
+adventure. After a week's intensive study of marine engines from books
+the three appropriated a tug from the Battery and set off on a cruise of
+the harbor.
+
+Half an hour later they were high and dry off Bedloe's Island, gloomily
+contemplating the prospect of spending their lives there, for an attempt
+to swim when weighted down with three hundred pounds of hardware could
+end only in failure. Fortunately the tide came to their rescue, and with
+more daring than judgment, they continued their voyage to Governor's
+Island, where they were lucky enough to find a solitary artilleryman,
+weak with hunger, but hilarious with delight at the discovery that his
+metallic form was not a delirium tremens delusion induced by the quart
+of gin he had absorbed on the night before the change.
+
+The giant birds, which Beeville had professionally named
+"tetrapteryxes," seemed to have vacated the city with the appearance of
+the colonists. Even the nest Roberts had stumbled on proved deserted
+when an expedition cautiously revisited the place; and the memory of the
+birds had sunk to the level of a subject for idle remarks when a new
+event precipitated it into general attention.
+
+Massey, the artist, with all the time in the world, and the art supplies
+of New York under his finger, had gone off on an artistic jag, painting
+day and night. One morning he took his canvas to the top of the Daily
+News building to paint the city at dawn from its weather-observation
+station. The fact that he had to climb stairs the whole way up and
+finally chisel through the door at the top was no bar to his enthusiasm.
+Kevitz, hurrying down Lexington Avenue in a car to join his fellow
+mariners in investigating the machinery of a freighter, saw him in the
+little steel cage, silhouetted against the reddening light of day.
+
+There was an informal rule that everyone should gather at the Institute
+at ten in the evening, unless otherwise occupied, to report on the day's
+events, and when Massey did not appear two or three people made comments
+on the fact, but it was not treated as a matter of moment. When the
+artist had not shown up by dawn of the next day, however, Murray and
+Gloria went to look for him, fearing accident. As they approached the
+building Murray noticed that the edge of the weather observation
+platform was twisted awry. He speeded up his car, but when they arrived
+and climbed the mountainous flights of stairs he found no bent and
+damaged form, as he had expected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The roof of the building held nothing but the painting on which he had
+been working--a half-completed color sketch of the city as seen from the
+tower.
+
+"Where do you s'pose he went?" asked Gloria.
+
+"Don't know, but he went in a hurry," replied Murray. "He doesn't care
+about those paintings much more than he does about his life."
+
+"Maybe he took a tumble," she suggested. "Look, there's his easel, and
+it's busted."
+
+"Yes, and that little chair he totes around, and look how it's all
+twisted out of shape."
+
+"Let's look over the edge. Maybe he went bugs and jumped. I knew a guy
+that did that once."
+
+"Nothing doing," said Murray, peering over the parapet of the building.
+
+Mystery.
+
+"Say--" it was Gloria who spoke. "Do you suppose those birds--the
+tetra-axes or whatever Beeville calls them--?"
+
+They turned and scanned the sky. The calm blue vault, flecked by the
+fleecy clouds of summer, gave no hint of the doom that had descended on
+the artist.
+
+"Nothing to do but go home, I guess," said Murray, "and report another
+robbery in Prospect Park."
+
+The meeting of the colonists that evening was serious.
+
+"It comes to this, then," said Ben, finally. "These birds are dangerous.
+I'm willing to grant that it might not have been they who copped Massey,
+but I can't think of anything else. I think it's a good idea for us to
+leave here only in pairs and armed, until we're certain the danger is
+over."
+
+"Ain't that kind of a strong step, Mr. Ruby?" asked Kevitz. "It don't
+seem to me like all that business is necessary."
+
+Ben shook his head decisively. "You haven't seen these things," he said.
+"In fact, I think it would be a good idea for us all to get some guns
+and ammunition and do target practice."
+
+The meeting broke up on that note and the members of the colony filed
+into the room where the supply of arms was stored, and presently to form
+an automobile procession through the streets in search of a suitable
+shooting gallery.
+
+When targets were finally set up in the street in automobile lights, the
+general mechanical efficiency of the colony revealed itself once more.
+Gloria Rutherford was a dead shot and the artilleryman from Governor's
+Island almost as good; Ben himself and Murray Lee, who had been to
+Plattsburg, knew at least the mechanism of rifles, but the rest could
+only shut their eyes and pull the trigger, with the vaguest of ideas as
+to where the bullet would go. And as Ben pointed out after the buildings
+along the street had been peppered with the major portion of Abercrombie
+and Fitch's stock of ammunition, the supply was not inexhaustible.
+
+"And what shall we do for weapons then?" he asked.
+
+Yoshio, the little Japanese, raised his hand for attention.
+
+"I have slight suggestion, perhaps merely cat's meow and not worthy
+exalted attention," he offered. "Why not all people as gentlemen old
+time in my country, carry sword? It is better than without weapon."
+
+"Why not, indeed?" said Ben above a hum of laughter. "Let's go." And an
+hour later the company re-emerged from an antique store, belted with the
+strangest collection of swords and knives and fishing gaffs ever borne
+by an earthly army.
+
+"I wonder, though," said Gloria to Murray Lee, as they reached the
+Institute as dawn was streaking up the sky. "All this hooey doesn't seem
+to mean much. If those birds are as big as that they aren't going to be
+scared by these little toad-stabbers."
+
+She was right. That night Ola Mae Roberts was missing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The siege came a week later.
+
+It was a week of strained tenseness; a certain electricity seemed at
+hand in the atmosphere, inhibiting speech. The colonists felt almost as
+though they were required to whisper....
+
+A week during which Murray, with Dangerfield and Tholfsen, worked
+energetically at their radio, and progressed far enough so they could do
+a fairly competent job of sending and receiving in Morse code. A week
+during which the naval party got a freighter from the South Street docks
+and brought her round into the Hudson.
+
+At dawn one morning, Gloria, with Farrelly, Kevitz and Yoshio, piled
+into a limousine with the idea of taking the freighter on a trip to
+Coney Island. Murray accompanied them to try communicating with the
+shore via the ship's wireless.
+
+The day was dark, with lowering clouds, which explains why they missed
+seeing the tetrapteryxes. But for the General Sherman statue they never
+would have seen them until too late. The general's intervention was
+purely passive; Murray noticed and called Gloria's attention to the
+curious expression the misty light gave the bronze face and she looked
+up to see, to be recalled to her driving by a yell from Kevitz
+announcing the metallic carcass of a policeman squarely in their path.
+
+Gloria twisted the wheel sharply to avoid it; the car skidded on the
+damp pavement, and reeling crazily, caromed into the iron fence around
+the statue with a crash. At the same moment an enormous mass of rock
+struck the place where they should have been and burst like a shell,
+sending a shower of fragments whistling about their ears.
+
+Shaken and dazed by the shock, they rolled out of the car, for the
+moment mistaking the two impacts for one; and as they did so there came
+a rush of wild wings, an eldritch scream and Yoshio was snatched into
+the air before their very eyes. Kevitz fired first, wildly and at
+random. Murray steadied himself, dropping his gun across his left
+forearm, and shot cool and straight--but at too great a distance, and
+they saw nothing but a feather or two floating down from the great
+four-winged bird as it swung off over Central Park, carrying the little
+Jap. They saw him squirm in the thing's grip, trying to get his sword
+loose, and then with a rattle of dropped stones around them, more of the
+birds charged home.
+
+Only Gloria had thought of this and withheld her fire. The others swung
+round as she shot and in an instant the whole group was a maze of
+whirling wings, clutching claws, shouts, shots and screams. In twenty
+seconds it was done: Gloria and Murray rose panting and breathless, and
+looked about. Beside them, two gigantic bird-forms were spilling their
+lives in convulsive agony. Dangerfield and Farrelly were gone--and a
+rending screech from behind the buildings told only too well where.
+
+"What's the next step?" asked Murray with such owlish solemnity that
+Gloria gave a burst of half-hysterical laughter. She looked round.
+
+"Beat it for that building," she said, and gathering her torn skirts
+about her, set the example.
+
+They made it by the narrowest of margins, standing breathless in what
+had been the Peacock Alley of one of New York's finest hotels to see one
+of the great birds strut past the door like a clumsy caricature of an
+angel.
+
+"And poo-poo for you," said Murray, thumbing his nose at the apparition.
+"But what we'll do now I don't know."
+
+"Play pinochle till they come look us up," suggested Gloria. "Besides,
+my bullets are all gone."
+
+... They waited all day, taking tentative glances from one or another of
+the windows. The birds remained invisible, apparently not caring for the
+prospect of a battle in the constricted space of the hotel rooms. But
+amid the rain and low-hung clouds they might be lurking just outside and
+both Murray and Gloria judged it too dangerous to venture a dash. As
+night came on, however, they made a try for the hotel's garage, achieved
+it without accident, and between them, rolled one of the cars to the
+door.
+
+"Wait," said Murray, as Gloria got in, "what was that?"
+
+"This dam' starter." She stirred her foot vigorously. "It won't work."
+
+"No. Wait." He held out a restraining hand. A sudden gust of wind bore a
+dash of rain down against them and with it, from the northeast, a
+far-away scream, then a tapping and a heavy thud.
+
+"Hot dog!" ejaculated Murray. "They're getting after the crowd. And at
+night, too."
+
+The car jerked forward suddenly as the starter caught. "Hold it," cried
+Murray. "Douse those headlights." They dodged the wreck of a street car,
+swung round a corner and headed for First Avenue, gathering speed.
+Another corner, taken on two wheels in the darkness, the way to the
+Institute lay before them.
+
+Suddenly a great flame of light sprang out in the sky, throwing the
+whole scene into sharpest relief. There was a crash of rifle-fire from
+window and door of the building and across the front of it one of the
+birds coasted past. Crash! In the street before them something like a
+bomb burst, vomiting pennons of fire. Gloria swung the wheel, swung it
+back; they had a mad glimpse of brilliantly burning flames inside one of
+the buildings across the street from the Institute, and then they were
+tumbling out of the car with rifle-fire beating all around them and the
+thud of dropping objects on either side.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Murray stumbled, but the door was flung open and they were jerked in,
+just as one of the huge bird forms flung itself down past them.
+
+"Thank God, you're safe," said Ben Ruby's voice. "They got Dearborn and
+Harris and they're besieging us here." He pointed out of the window
+across the street, where the rapidly-gaining fire was engulfing the
+building.
+
+"Did the birds do that little trick?" asked Gloria.
+
+"I hope to tell you, sister. You ain't seen nothing yet, either. They're
+shedding incendiary bombs all over the shop. How about Kevitz and
+Farrelly?"
+
+"Got them, too. At the Plaza--and the little Jap. Too bad; I liked that
+little sprout."
+
+"I thank gracious lady for kindly expressed sentiment, but oversize
+avians have not yet removed me," said a voice and Gloria looked down to
+see Yoshio bowing at her side.
+
+"Why, how did they come to let you off? Last I saw you were doing a
+headspin over Central Park."
+
+"I was fortune," replied the little man. "Removing sword I operate on
+said bird to such extent that he drop me as hot customer, plosh in large
+tree. To get home is not so easy but I remember armored car provided by
+intelligent corporation for transport of bankroll, so here I am. Cat's
+Meow!"
+
+"Bright boy," said Gloria. "Listen!" Above their heads came another
+crash, a tramp of feet and shouts. Roberts dashed into the room, rifle
+in hand. "They've got the place on fire," he said. "We'll have to clear
+out."
+
+Ben Ruby fumbled at his waist, drew forth a whistle and blew a piercing
+blast, which was answered by shouts, as members of the colony began to
+pour into the room from various points.
+
+Another bomb burst in a fluff of light, just outside the window,
+throwing weird shadows across the gathering and splitting a pane here
+and there by the force of its impact.
+
+"Hot stuff," remarked Gloria. "What are they trying to do--take us all
+at one gulp?"
+
+"Beeville says they never thought it up on their own," Ben assured her.
+"Not smart enough. He thinks somebody doesn't like us and is sending
+them around to tell us so. Listen, everybody!"
+
+The room quieted down.
+
+"We've got to go at once. Our destination is the Times Square subway
+station. They can't get us there. Anybody who gets separated meet the
+rest there. We'll go in groups of three to a car; one to carry a gun,
+one a sword and one a light. Everybody got it?... Good.... Somebody give
+Gloria one of those express rifles.... Here's the list then. First
+party--Miss Rutherford, gun; Yoshio, sword; O'Hara, light. Go ahead."
+
+A coil of smoke drifted across the room from somewhere above--the sough
+of the burning made the only background to his words. With a quick
+handshake the three made ready; a volley from the windows flashed out,
+and they dashed off. Those inside caught a glimpse of the dark form of
+their car as it rolled into the night. They were safe at all events. The
+second carload, in Yoshio's armored vehicle, also got free, but the
+third had trouble. They had hardly made half the distance to the parked
+cars before there was a whir of wings, a scream, and the quick burst of
+a bomb, luckily too far behind them to do damage. Those inside saw the
+light-man stop suddenly, flashing his beam aloft, saw an orange flame
+spring from the gun and then their view of the three was blotted out in
+a whirl of wings and action.
+
+"Everybody out!" yelled Ben. "Now! While they're busy." In a concerted
+rush the colonists poured through the door.
+
+Nobody could remember clearly what did happen. Someone was down--hurt
+somewhere--but was flung into a car. Through the turmoil the tossing
+form of one badly-wounded bird struggled on the ground, and with a roar
+of motors the cavalcade started.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Terror by Night
+
+
+It would be futile--and impossible--to chronicle all the events of that
+wild ride; to tell how the light-bombs dropped unceasingly from above;
+how the driver of one car, blinded by the glare, hurtled his vehicle
+through the plate-glass window of a store, and how McAllister, the
+artilleryman, fought off the birds with a huge shard of glass from the
+window; how the passengers in another car, wrecked by a bomb, got a
+fire-engine and cleared their way to Times Square with clanging bell and
+clouds of malodorous fire-extinguisher chemicals; or how Mrs. Roberts
+decapitated one of the monsters with a single blow of the cleaver she
+carried.
+
+Dawn found them, a depressed group of fourteen, gathered in the
+protection of the underground passages.
+
+"Well, what next?" asked Gloria, who seemed to have preserved more of
+her normal cheerfulness than anyone. "Do we stay here till they come for
+us, or do we go get 'em?"
+
+"We get out," said Ben Ruby. "No good here. They know too much for us."
+
+"Right," declared Beeville. "The usual methods of dealing with animals
+won't work this time. They are all based on the fact that animals are
+creatures of habit instead of intelligence, and unless I am much wrong,
+these birds are intelligent and have some bigger intelligence backing
+them."
+
+"You mean they'll try to bomb us out of here?" asked Roberts.
+
+McAllister looked up from the dice he was throwing. "You bet your sweet
+life they will. Those babies know their stuff. The one that was after me
+was onto the manual of the bayonet like he'd been raised on it."
+
+"That's nice," said Gloria, "but what are we going to do about it?"
+
+"Get an anti-aircraft gun from the Island and shell hell out of them
+when they come round again," suggested the artilleryman.
+
+"Said gun would be considerable weight for individual to transport in
+pocket," said Yoshio doubtfully, as Ben raised his hand for silence amid
+the ensuing laughter.
+
+"There's a good deal in that idea," he said, "but I don't think it will
+do as it stands. The birds would bomb our gun to blazes after they had a
+dose or two from it. They're not so slow themselves you know. How about
+some of the forts? Aren't there some big ones around New York?"
+
+McAllister nodded. "There's Hancock. We could get a ship through."
+
+"Say!" Gloria leaped suddenly to her feet. "While we're about it, can't
+we get a warship--a battleship or something? Those babies would have a
+hot time trying to bomb one of Uncle Sam's battleships apart and there's
+all kinds of anti-aircraft guns on them."
+
+"There's a destroyer in the Hudson," said someone.
+
+"How many men does it take to run her?"
+
+"Hundred and fifty."
+
+"But," put in Gloria, "that's a hundred and fifty of the old style men
+who had to have their three squares and eight hours' sleep every day,
+and they did a lot of things like cooking that we won't have to. What do
+you say, Dictator, old scout? Shall we give it a whirl?"
+
+"O. K.--unless somebody has something better to offer," declared Ben,
+and in fifteen minutes more the colonists were cautiously poking their
+way out of the subway station en route to take command of U. S. S.
+_Ward_.
+
+Cleaning up the ship before the start took the colonists a whole day. A
+sooty dust, like the product of a particularly obnoxious factory, had
+settled over everything, and dealing with the cast-iron bodies of the
+sailors, wedged in the queer corners where they had fallen at the moment
+of the change, was a job in itself.
+
+As night shut down, the whole crew, with the exception of Beeville and
+Murray Lee, who had spent some time in small boats and had therefore
+been appointed navigators, was busy going over the engine-room, striving
+to learn the complex detail of handling a warship.
+
+Murray and Beeville were poring over their navigating charts when a step
+sounded outside the chartroom and the wire-frizzled head of Gloria was
+thrust in.
+
+"How goes it, children?" she asked. "Do we sail for the cannibal islands
+at dawn?"
+
+"Not on your life," replied Murray. "This hooker is going to pull in at
+the nearest garage until we learn what it's all about. Talk about
+arithmetic! This is worse than figuring out a time-table."
+
+Gloria laughed, then her face became serious. "Do you think they'll bomb
+us again, Mr. Beeville?"
+
+"I don't see why not. They were clear winners in the last battle. But
+what gets me is where they come from. Why, they're a living refutation
+of the laws of evolution on the earth! Four wings and two legs!
+Although ..." the naturalist looked at the sliding parts of his own arm,
+"they are rather less incredible than the evolution that has overtaken
+mankind, unless we're all off our heads. Do you know any way to account
+for it?"
+
+"Not me," said Murray, "that's supposed to be your job; all we do is
+believe you when--" Bang! The anti-aircraft gun had gone off just
+outside with an earsplitting report. With a common impulse the three
+made for the door and looked upward to see the shell burst in a puff of
+white smoke, outlined against the dark clouds of evening, while above
+and beyond it sailed a black dot with whirring wings.
+
+"That settles it," said Murray. "Whether we like it or not, we're going
+away from here. I wish those nuts hadn't fired though. Now the birds
+know what we've got. Trot down and tell them to get up steam, that's a
+good girl, Gloria."
+
+The lone tetrapteryx seemed no more than a scout, for the attack was not
+followed up. But it takes time to get steam up on long disused marine
+engines and all hands were below when the real attack was delivered.
+
+It began with the explosion of a bomb somewhere outside and a dash of
+water against the vessel's side that threw all of them off their feet.
+There was a clang of metal and a rush for the deck--cut across by Ben's
+voice. "Take it easy! Everybody to the engines but McAllister, O'Hara
+and the navigators."
+
+The four sprang for the ladder, Murray in the lead. Crash! A sound like
+the thunder of a thousand tons of scrap iron on a sidewalk and the
+destroyer pitched wildly.
+
+Murray's head came level with the deck. Instead of the darkness he had
+expected it was flung into dazzling illumination by a flare burning on
+the water not fifty yards away, with a light so intense that it seemed
+to have physical body. There was a perceptible wave of heat from it and
+the water round it boiled like a cauldron.
+
+[Illustration: Instead of the darkness he had expected, the deck was
+flung into dazzling illumination.]
+
+He tumbled onto the deck, running forward to trip the release of the
+anchor chain. At the break of the forecastle, he stumbled, and the
+stumble saved him, for at that moment another of the bombs fell, just in
+front of the fore-deck gun. The whole bow of the ship seemed to burst
+into intense, eye-searing flame. Deafened and blinded, Murray lay face
+down on the deck, trying to recover his senses; behind him the others,
+equally overwhelmed, tumbled on the iron surface, rolling over and over,
+blindly.
+
+But the birds, apparently unaware of how heavy a blow they had struck,
+seemed wary of the gun. The four groveling on the deck heard scream and
+answering scream above them as the monsters discussed the question on
+the wing. If they reached a decision it was too late, for McAllister and
+O'Hara, blind, drunk and sick though they were, staggered to the gun and
+sent a shot shrieking at wild venture into the heavens. Beeville, nearer
+to the blinding blaze of light, recovered more slowly, but found his way
+to the bridge where he fumblingly pulled the engine-room telegraph over
+to "Full Speed Ahead."
+
+Below, in the bowels of the vessel, there was a rumble of activity; a
+rapid whoosh of steam came from an exhaust pipe, a dash of sparks from
+the destroyer's funnels, and slowly and haltingly she began to move.
+Bang! went the anti-aircraft gun. Beeville heard Murray climbing the
+bridge behind him and then his cry, "The anchor!"
+
+Too late--with a surge that changed to a rattle, the destroyer moved,
+tearing the anchor from its ground and swinging slowly half-way round as
+the weight dragged the damaged bow to one side. At that moment came
+another bomb which, but for their motion, would have struck fair and
+square amidships. Bang! Bang! went the anti-aircraft gun. Murray dragged
+at the wheel, then swung the engine-room telegraph back to "Stop." Just
+in time--the destroyer's bottom grated on something, her prow rent the
+side of a big speed-boat and she came to rest, pointing diagonally
+upstream.
+
+Fortunately the attack broke off as rapidly as it had begun. A few
+screams, lost in the darkness of the night were the only answer to
+another shell from the gun. But there was no assurance that this was
+more than a temporary respite. Murray and Beeville strove desperately to
+bring the warped bridge mechanism into running order while O'Hara
+routed out a blow-torch from somewhere and attacked the anchor chain,
+now welded into a solid mass with the deck by the force of the
+light-bomb. Finally, weaving to and fro in the hands of the
+inexperienced mariners, she was gotten round and pointed downstream and
+out to sea. If the birds sought them again in the darkness there was no
+sign of it.
+
+Day found them stumbling down the Jersey coast, the foredeck a mass of
+wreckage and the ship leaking badly.
+
+"Well, where are we now?" called a cheerful voice, as Murray Lee stood
+at the wheel. "Australia in sight yet?"
+
+He looked up to see Gloria's head emerging from the companion.
+
+"Come on up," he said, "I'm just going to turn the wheel over to
+Beeville and get busy with this radio. Don't think the bomb knocked it
+out. It did everything else, though. Look at that."
+
+He indicated the prow of the ship, where the big gun hung down like a
+tired candle and the whole fore part of the vessel had dissolved into
+tears of metal.
+
+"Golly," said Gloria, "that was some egg those birds laid. What was it,
+anyway?"
+
+"Don't know. Never saw anything like it before. Must be some kind of
+new-fangled high-power incendiary bomb to melt steel down like butter.
+Why, even thermit wouldn't do that."
+
+"I hope our friends don't think of looking us up here, then, or we'll be
+finding out what it's like to walk under water."
+
+"You said something, sister," declared Murray. "Wait! I think I got
+something."
+
+He fumbled with the radio dials before him, swinging them this way and
+that: then clamped on the headset. "Oh, boy, there's something coming
+through ... we're not alone in the world then.... Yes, there she is....
+Damn, I wish they wouldn't send so fast.... AAM2 calling.... Now who is
+AAM2?" His fingers pressed the key in reply as the others watched him
+with bated breath. "Position, seventy-three, fifty-three west longitude;
+forty, o-three, north latitude. Here ..." he wrote the figures down.
+"Take this, one of you and dope it out. Ssh, there's more coming. Oh, he
+wants to know who we are and where. Call Ben, will you Gloria?"
+
+She dashed off to return with the dictator of the colonists just as
+Beeville, who had been fumbling over the charts with one hand, called
+suddenly, "Why, the position they give is right near here--hardly a
+hundred miles away. I don't know just what ours is, but it can't be far
+from this spot. Tell them that."
+
+"Find out who they are first," Ben put in, practically. "After what
+they've done, I wouldn't put it past the tetrapteryxes to handle a radio
+set."
+
+"... His Majesty's Australian ship _Brisbane_, they say," said Murray.
+"Wait a minute, since they're so near, I think I can switch them over to
+the radiophone." He ticked the key a moment, then twisted more dials and
+leaned back as a full and fruity voice, with a strong English accent,
+filled the room.
+
+"Compliments of Captain Entwhistle of the Royal Australian Navy to the
+commander of the U. S. S. _Ward_, and can we arrange a meeting? The
+Comet appears to have done a good deal of damage in your part of the
+world and you are the first people we have encountered."
+
+"Where's your microphone?" asked Ben. "Oh, there.... Compliments of
+Benjamin Franklin Ruby, temporarily in command of U. S. S. _Ward_ to
+Captain Entwhistle of the Royal Australian Navy, and none of us are
+sailors. We just borrowed this ship, and if you want to see us you'll
+have to pick us up. We'll keep along the coast toward Cape May. Can you
+meet us?"
+
+A chuckle was audible from the radiophone. "I think we can manage it.
+Are there any of the big birds about in your part of the world? They
+have been bothering us all summer."
+
+"Yes," replied Ben, "that's what we're running away from now. They've
+got some bombs that are pure poison and they've been making regular war
+on us--or probably you know about it?"
+
+"We haven't seen anything like that yet," declared the voice from the
+loud-speaker, "but we've had plenty of trouble with them. Hold on a
+moment. Our lookout reports sighting smoke from your funnels. Hold your
+course and speed. We'll pick you up."
+
+The voice ceased with a snap, and the four in the control room of the
+destroyer looked at each other.
+
+"I'm glad he came around," remarked Ben. "This destroyer is getting
+shopworn. Besides with a good warship on hand we'll be able to give
+those birds what they're looking for. I hope he's got some airplanes."
+
+"And somebody to fly them," continued Murray. "What'll we do if he
+has--go back and give them hell?"
+
+"If we can. Apparently he doesn't like the birds any too well himself.
+It was the first thing he mentioned."
+
+They ceased speaking as the thin pennon of smoke, followed by two tall
+masts, became visible over the horizon. In a few minutes more the
+_Brisbane_ swept up, swung a circle and came to rest near them, while
+out from her side dropped a boat that began to move toward them with
+dipping oars.
+
+A moment later she was alongside. Ben stepped out on the deck, and as he
+did so, there was a mutual exclamation of horrified amazement--for
+Captain Entwhistle of the Royal Australian Navy was as much flesh and
+blood as any man they had seen in the old days, but a pale blue in
+color, and all his sailors were of the same extraordinary hue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+An Exploration
+
+
+There was a moment's silence as the Australian captain steadied himself
+against the roll of the vessel, staring incredulously at the group that
+gathered round him.
+
+"Are you--human?" he finally managed to gasp.
+
+"If we aren't somebody's been kidding us," said Gloria, irreverently.
+"But are you? You're all blue!"
+
+"Of course," said the captain. "It was the comet. We knew it struck in
+America somewhere but didn't know where or what it did. What's the
+matter with your ship?" He indicated the wrecked and leaking bow. "She
+seems to be down by the head."
+
+"Oh, that was a valentine from the birds," said Ben. "Can you give us
+quarters on your vessel? There aren't many of us."
+
+Captain Entwhistle seemed to come out of a dream. "Of course, of course.
+Come on. We can discuss things better in my cabin."
+
+As they mounted to the deck of the _Brisbane_, even the trained sailors,
+the light blue of their faces oddly at variance with the dark blue of
+their uniforms, could not refrain from staring at the colonists. They
+crowded into the captain's cabin past rows of eager blue faces.
+
+"I suggest," said Captain Entwhistle, "that we begin by telling each
+other how this happened. I can scarcely credit the fact that you are
+human and can walk and talk. Would any of you care for a whiskey and
+soda?"
+
+"No, thanks," said Murray, the spirit of fun stirring in him, "but I'll
+have a drink of lubricating oil if you can find any."
+
+The naval officer looked at him, and remarked, a trifle stiffly,
+"Certainly, if you wish. Williams--"
+
+"Oh, don't mind him," Ben Ruby cut in. "Pardon me, Captain, he can drink
+lubricating oil perfectly well, but he's just joking with you. You were
+saying about the comet--"
+
+"Why, you knew that the big comet struck the earth as predicted, didn't
+you? It was on the morning of February sixteenth, last year--evening of
+February fifteenth by American time. Even in our country, which is
+around on the other side of the earth, it caused a good deal of damage.
+The gases it set free put everybody to sleep and caused a lot of
+wreckage. Our scientists say the gases of the comet in some unexplained
+way altered the iron in the hæmoglobin of our blood to cobalt. It seems
+to work just as well, but that's why we're all blue. I don't quite
+understand it myself, but you know how these medical Johnnies are. Now
+what happened to you people?"
+
+"May I ask something first?" said Beeville. "What day is this?"
+
+"August eighteenth, 1946," said the captain as though slightly baffled
+by the question.
+
+"Good God!" said the scientist. "Then we were there for over a year!"
+
+"Yes," said Ben. "All of us you see here and several others returned to
+consciousness about the same time, two months ago. We know nothing of
+what the comet did to us or how this change occurred except that when we
+woke up we were just what you see. Dr. Beeville has been experimenting
+with a view to finding out what happened, but he hasn't made much
+progress so far. All we know is that we're composed of metal that
+doesn't rust easily, make our meals off electricity, and find the taste
+of any kind of oil agreeable. And the birds--" he broke off with a
+gesture.
+
+"Oh, yes, the birds," said the captain. "Have they been annoying you,
+too? That's one of the reasons, aside from exploration, why we're here.
+I assume you mean the big four-winged birds that we call dodos down
+under. We haven't seen much of them, but occasionally they come and fly
+away with a sheep or even a man. One of our aviators chased one several
+hundred miles out to sea recently and we had assumed they came from one
+of the islands. Our scientists don't know what to make of them."
+
+"Neither do ours, except that they're an unadulterated brand of hell,"
+put in Murray. "We were all living in New York, snug as bugs in a rug,
+when they began dropping incendiary bombs on us and carrying off anyone
+they could get hold of."
+
+"Including this insignificant person," said Yoshio, proudly.
+
+"Incendiary bombs! Do you mean to tell me they have intelligence enough
+for that?"
+
+"I'll tell the cockeyed world they have! Did you see the prow of our
+ship? That's where one of their little presents got home. If anyone had
+been there, he wouldn't be anything but scrap iron now. If you really
+want to find out what it's all about come on up to New York, but get
+ready for the fight of your life."
+
+The captain leaned back, sipping his drink meditatively. "Do you know,"
+he said, "that's just what I was thinking of doing? Frankly your story
+is all but incredible, but here you are as proof of it and you don't
+seem to be robots, except in appearance."
+
+"Oh, boy," whispered Murray to Gloria, "wait till these babies get after
+the birds with their eight-inch guns. They'll wish they'd never heard of
+us. I'm glad I'm going to be on hand to see the fun."
+
+"Yeh, but maybe the birds will have something up their feathers, too,"
+she replied. "I wouldn't like to place any bets. We thought we had them
+licked when we got the destroyer and now look at us."
+
+"Well, I'm willing to try an attack, or at least a reconnaissance of
+them," said the captain. "Just now we're in the position of an armed
+exploring party. The Australian government has sent out several ships to
+see what it could find on the other continents. After the comet struck
+all the cables went dead. We got into radio communication with the Dutch
+colonial stations at Batavia and later with South Africa, but the rest
+of the world is just being re-explored and my commission authorizes me
+to resist unfriendly acts. I think you could call an incendiary bomb an
+unfriendly act."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His eyes twinkled over this mild witticism, and the party broke up with
+a scraping of chairs. A couple of hours later, the blue line of Sandy
+Hook was visible, and then the vague cliffs of the New York skyscrapers.
+The clouds had cleared away after the rain of the last few days; not
+even a speck of mist hung in the air and everything stood out bright and
+clear. The colonists felt a pang of emotion grip them as they watched
+the tall towers of the city rise over the horizon, straight and
+beautiful as they had always stood, but now without a sign of life or
+motion, all the busy clamor of the place hushed forever.
+
+Of the tetrapteryxes or "dodos" as the Australian had called them, there
+was no sign. The sky bent high, unbrokenly blue, not a flicker of motion
+in it. Murray Lee felt someone stir at his side and looked round.
+
+"Oh, damn," said Gloria Rutherford, "it's so beautiful that I want to
+cry. Did you ever feel like that?"
+
+He nodded silently.... "And those birds--isn't it a shame somehow that
+they should have the most beautiful city in the world?"
+
+The shrill of a whistle cut off his words. With marvelous, machine-like
+precision, the sailors moved about the decks. The _Brisbane_ lost way,
+came to a halt, and there was a rush of steel as the anchor ran out.
+Captain Entwhistle came down from the bridge.
+
+"I don't see anything of your dodos yet," he said. "Do you think it
+would be wise to send out a landing party, Mr. Ruby?"
+
+"Most certainly not," said Ben. "You don't know what you're up against
+yet. Wait till they come round. You'll have plenty to do."
+
+The captain shrugged. Evidently he was not at all unwilling to match the
+Australian navy against anything the dodos might do. "Very well, I'll
+accept your advice for the present, Mr. Ruby. It is near evening in any
+case. But if there is no sign of them in the morning, I propose to land
+and look over the city."
+
+But the landing was never accomplished.
+
+For, in the middle of the night, as Ben, Murray and Gloria were seated
+in the chartroom of the ship, chatting with the young lieutenant on duty
+there, there came a quick patter of feet on the deck, and a shout of
+"Light, ho!"
+
+"There are your friends now, I'll wager," said the lieutenant. "Now
+watch us go get 'em. If you want to see the fun, better go up on the
+bridge. All we do here is wrestle slide-rules."
+
+Hastily the three climbed the bridge, where a little group of officers
+was clustered. Following the direction in which they were looking, they
+saw, just above the buildings on the Jersey shore, what looked like a
+tall electric sign, burning high in the air and some distance away, with
+no visible means of support.
+
+"What do you make of it?" asked Captain Entwhistle, turning and
+thrusting a pair of glasses into Ben's hands. Through them he could read
+the letters. Printed in capitals, though too small to be read from the
+ship with the naked eye, he saw:
+
+"SOFT MEN EXIT. HARD MEN ARE WORKERS BELONGING. MUST RETURN. THIS MEANS
+YOU."
+
+"Looks like a dumb joke by someone who doesn't know English very well,"
+he opined, passing the glasses to Gloria. "I don't think those birds
+would figure that out anyway."
+
+"Wait a minute, though," said Gloria, as she read the letters. "Remember
+they caught Dangerfield and Farrelly and the rest. Maybe they taught
+them how to speak."
+
+"Yes, but those two didn't know anything about 'soft men.' It's all
+crazy, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. And what do they mean by
+'belonging'? None of our gang thought up that bright remark."
+
+"Look, sir," said one of the younger officers, "it's changing."
+
+Abruptly the lights were blotted out, to reappear, amid a swimming of
+colors, nearer and larger. "WARNING" they read this time, "FLY AWAY
+ACCURSED PLACE."
+
+"What beats me," said Ben, "is what makes that light. I'll bet a dollar
+against a dodo-feather it isn't electrical and fireworks wouldn't hang
+in the air like that. How do they do it?"
+
+"Well, we'll soon find out," said the Captain, practically. "Mr.
+Sturgis, switch on searchlights three and four and turn them on the
+source of that light."
+
+A few quick orders and two long beams of light leaped out from the ship
+toward the source of the mysterious sky-writing--leaped, but not fast
+enough, for even as the searchlights sought for their goal the lights
+were extinguished and the long beams swung across nothing but the empty
+heavens.
+
+Gloria shivered. "I think I want to go away from this place," she said.
+"There's too much we don't know about around here. We'll be getting
+table-tappings next."
+
+"Apparently someone wants us to clear out," said Captain Entwhistle
+cheerfully. "Mr. Sturgis, get steam on three boilers and send the men to
+reserve action stations. We may have something doing here before
+morning."
+
+Orders were shouted, iron doors were slammed and feet pattered in the
+interior of the warship. From their station on the bridge Ben, Gloria
+and Murray could see the long shafts of the turret guns swing upward to
+their steepest angle, then turn toward the Jersey shore. The _Brisbane_
+was preparing for emergencies.
+
+But there was to be no fight that night, though all night long the weary
+sailors stood or slept beside their guns. The dark skies remained
+inscrutable; the mysterious lights did not reappear.
+
+At four o'clock, Captain Entwhistle had retired, reappearing at eight,
+fresh as though he had slept through the whole night. The colonists, of
+course, did not need sleep, but while the sailors stared at them,
+submitted themselves to an electric meal from one of the ship's dynamos.
+Morning found them gathering about the upper decks, eager for action,
+particularly McAllister, who had spent most of the night engaged in
+highly technical discussions of the _Brisbane's_ artillery with one of
+the turret-captains.
+
+"What do you suggest?" asked the captain. "Shall we land a party?"
+
+"I hate to go without taking a poke at those birds," said Ben, "but
+still I don't think it would be safe--"
+
+"What's the matter with that airplane?" asked Gloria, pointing to the
+catapult between the funnels, where a couple of blue-visaged sailors had
+taken the covering from a seaplane and were giving it a morning bath.
+
+The captain looked at Ben. "There may be something in that idea. What do
+you say to a scout around? I'll let you or one of your people go as an
+observer."
+
+"Tickled to death," Ben replied. "We never got beyond the upper part of
+the city ourselves. The dodos were too dangerous. I'd like to find out
+what it's all about."
+
+"How about me?" offered Gloria.
+
+"Nothing doing, kid. You get left this time. If those birds get after us
+we may land in the bay with a bump and I don't want this party to lose
+its little sunshine."
+
+"Up anchor!" came the command. "Revolutions for ten knots speed.... I'm
+going to head down the bay," he explained to the colonists. "If anything
+happens I want to have sea-room, particularly if they try bombing us."
+
+Fifteen minutes later, with the _Brisbane_ running into the morning
+land-breeze in an ocean smooth as glass, the catapult let go and Ben and
+the pilot--a lad whose cheeks would have been rosy before the comet, but
+were now a vivid blue--were shot into the air.
+
+Beneath them the panorama of New York harbor lay spread; more silent
+than it had been at any day since Hendrick Hudson brought his
+high-pooped galleys into it. As they rose, Ben could make out the line
+of the river shining through the pearly haze like a silver ribbon; the
+towers of the city tilted, then swung toward them as the aviator swept
+down nearer for an examination. Everything seemed normal save at the
+north and east, where a faint smoky mist still lingered over the
+buildings they had occupied. Of birds, or of other human occupation than
+their own, there was no slightest sign.
+
+A faint shout was borne to his ears above the roar of the motor and he
+saw the pilot motioning toward a set of earphones.
+
+"What do you say, old chap?" asked the pilot when he had clamped them
+on. "What direction shall we explore?"
+
+Ben glanced down and around. The cruiser seemed to hang in the water, a
+tiny droplet of foam at her bow the only sign she was still in motion.
+"Let's go up the Hudson," he suggested. "They seemed to come from that
+direction."
+
+"Check," called the pilot, manipulating his controls. The airplane
+climbed, swung and went on. They were over Yonkers; Ben could see a
+river steamer at the dock, where she had made her last halt.
+
+"Throw in that switch ahead of you," came through the earphones. "The
+one marked RF. That's the radiophone for communicating with the ship. We
+may need it."
+
+"O.K.," said Ben.... "Hello.... Yes, this is Ruby, in the airplane.
+Nothing to report. Everything serene. We're going to explore farther up
+the river."
+
+In the distance the Catskills loomed before them, blue and proud. Ben
+felt a touch on his back and looked round. The pilot evidently wished
+to say something else. He cut in and heard, "What's that off on the
+left--right in the mountains? No, there."
+
+Following the indicated direction Ben saw something like a scar on the
+projecting hillside--not one of the ancient rocks, but a fresh cut on
+the earth, as though a wide spot had been denuded of vegetation.
+
+"I don't know," he answered. "Never saw it before. Shall we go see?...
+Hello, _Brisbane_. Ruby reporting. There is a mysterious clearing in the
+Catskills. We are investigating."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The Dodos are Bombing
+
+
+The bare area seemed to run all down a long valley and spread out as it
+rounded the crest of a hill which hid what lay behind it from their
+view. As they watched a grey speck that might have been an ant at that
+height and distance, lumbered slowly down the valley, and then Ben
+noticed a tiny flicker of red light, so bright as to be clearly visible
+even in the day, where the grey speck moved against the hillside. A door
+seemed to open in the hillside; focusing the glasses the aviator handed
+him, he could just make out a square, bulky object that trundled forth.
+And then one--two--three--four--five of the huge dodo-tetrapteryx birds
+shot out, poised for a moment, and leaped into flight.
+
+"Hello, _Brisbane_," called Ben into the radiophone. "Five dodos have
+taken off from the cutting in the hills. I think they are after us.
+Better turn back this way and get ready for trouble."
+
+The aviator, understanding without being warned, had turned the plane.
+Ben swung round to look over his shoulder. The dodos were already some
+yards in the air; behind them the bulky object was running slowly out of
+the opening in the hillside. It had the appearance of a very long,
+flexible cannon. As he held his glasses on it, it stopped, straightened
+out and the muzzle was elevated in their direction.
+
+"Dive!" he shouted suddenly into the voice-tube, entirely on impulse.
+The airplane banked sharply and seemed to drop straight down, and at the
+same instant right through the spot where they had just passed shot a
+beam of light so brilliant that it outshone the morning sun. There was a
+roar louder than that of the motor; the plane pitched and heaved in the
+disturbed air, and the light-beam went off as suddenly as it had snapped
+on.
+
+"Didn't I tell you those babies were poison?" he remarked. "Boy, if that
+ever hit us!"
+
+"What was it?" asked the aviator's voice.
+
+"Don't know, but it was something terrible. Let's head for home and
+mamma. I don't care about this."
+
+The plane reeled as the pilot handled the controls. Rrrr! said something
+and the light-beam shot out again, just to one side this time. Out of
+the corner of his eye Ben could see one of the birds--gaining on them!
+
+"How do you work this machine-gun?" he asked.
+
+"Just squeeze the trigger. Look out! I'm going to dive her again."
+
+With a roar, the light-beam let go a third time. Ben saw the edge of it
+graze their right wing-tip; the airplane swung wildly round and down,
+with the pilot fighting for control; the earth seemed to rush up to meet
+them, tumbling, topsy-turvy. Ben noted a warped black spot where the
+beam had touched the wing-tip, then surprisingly, they were flying
+along, level with the surface of the Hudson beneath them, and hardly a
+hundred feet up.
+
+"That was close," came the aviator's voice, shaky with relief. "I
+thought they had us that time. Say, that's some ray they have."
+
+"It sure is one first-class heller," agreed Ben. "Are you far enough
+down to duck it now?"
+
+"I think so, unless they can put it through the hills or chase us with
+it. Do you suppose those dodos thought that up themselves?"
+
+"Can't tell. They're right on their toes, though. Look!" He pointed up
+and back. Silhouetted against the sky, they could see three of them,
+flying in formation like airplanes. "Can we make it?"
+
+"I'm giving the old bus all she'll stand. The _Brisbane_ will come
+toward us though. Wait till those guys get going. They'll find we can
+take a trick or two."
+
+Yonkers again. Ben looked anxiously over his shoulder. The three
+silhouettes were a trifle nearer. Would they do it? 125th Street and the
+long bridge swung into view, then Riverside Drive and the procession of
+docks with the rusting liners lying beside them. Ben waggled the
+machine-gun, tried to adjust its sights and squeezed the trigger. A
+little line of smoke-puffs leaped forth. Tracer bullets--but nowhere
+near the birds. On and on--lower New York--the Battery. Wham! The water
+beneath and behind them boiled. Ben looked up. The birds were above
+them, too high to be reached, dropping bombs.
+
+"All right, old soaks," he muttered, "keep that up. You'll never hit us
+that way."
+
+Again something struck the water beneath them. The airplane pitched and
+swerved as the pilot changed course to disturb the aim of the bombers.
+In the distance the form of the cruiser could be seen now, heading
+toward them. As he watched, there was a flash from her foredeck. Up in
+the blue above them appeared the white burst of a shell, then another
+and another.
+
+One of the dodos suddenly dived out of the formation, sweeping down more
+swiftly than Ben would have believed possible. He swung the gun this way
+and that, sending out streams of tracers, but the bird did not appear to
+heed. Closer--closer--and then with a crash something burst right behind
+him. The airplane gyrated; the water rushed upward. The end? he thought,
+and wondered inconsequentially whether his teeth would rust. The next
+moment the water struck them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Ben Ruby came to, he beheld a ceiling which moved jerkily to and
+fro and stared lazily at it, wondering what it was. Then memory returned
+with a snap; he sat up and looked about him. He was in one of those
+cubby-holes which are called "cabins" on warships, and alone. Beneath
+him he could hear the steady throb of the engines; at his side was a
+small table with a wooden rack on it, in one compartment of which stood
+a glass, whose contents, on inspection, proved to be oil. He drank it,
+looked at and felt of himself, and finding nothing wrong, got out of the
+hammock and stepped to the door. A seaman was on guard in the corridor.
+
+"Where is everybody?"
+
+"On deck, sir. I hope you are feeling all right now sir."
+
+"Top of the world, thanks. Is the aviator O.K.?"
+
+"Yes, sir. This way."
+
+He ascended to the bridge, to be greeted riotously by the assembled
+company. The _Brisbane_ was steaming steadily along in the open sea,
+with no speck of land in sight and no traces of the giant birds.
+
+"What happened?" Ben asked. "Did you get rid of 'em?"
+
+"I think so. We shot down two and the rest made off after trying to bomb
+us. What did you two find out?"
+
+Ben briefly described their experiences. "I thought there was something
+wrong with one of your wingtips," said the captain, "but your plane sank
+so quickly after being hit that we didn't have time to examine it. That
+light-ray cannon of theirs sounds serious. Do you suppose the dodos
+managed it?"
+
+"Can't tell," said Ben. "From what I could make out through the glasses,
+it didn't look like birds that were handling it."
+
+"But what could it be?"
+
+"Ask me! Delirium tremens, I guess. Nothing in this world is like what
+it ought to be any more. Where did those birds come from; how did we get
+this way, all of us; who is it up there in the Catskills that don't like
+us? Answer me those and I'll tell you who was handling the gun."
+
+"Message, sir," said a sailor, touching his cap, and handing a folded
+paper. The captain read it, frowning.
+
+"There you are--" he extended the sheet to Ben. "My government is
+recalling all ships. Our sister-ship, the _Melbourne_, has been attacked
+off San Francisco and severely damaged by bomb-dropping dodos, and they
+have made a mass descent on Sumatra. Gentlemen, this has all the
+characteristics of a formal war." He strode off to give the necessary
+orders to hurry the cruiser home, but Walter Beeville, who had joined
+the group at the bridge, said under his breath:
+
+"If those birds have enough intelligence to plan out anything like that
+I'll eat my hat."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If you were not before my eyes," said Sir George Graham Harris,
+president of the Australian Scientific Commission, "as living proof of
+what you say, and if our biological and metallurgical experts did not
+report that your physiology is utterly beyond their comprehension, I do
+not know but that I would believe you were some cleverly constructed
+machines, actuated in some way by radio. However, that is not the
+point ... I have here a series of reports from different quarters on
+such explorations as have been made since the arrival of the comet and
+our recovery from its effects. We are, it appears, confronted with a
+menace of considerable seriousness in the form of these birds.
+
+"In the light of your closer acquaintance with them and with conditions
+generally in the devastated areas, they may be more suggestive to you
+than to us." He stopped and ruffled over the papers piled beside him at
+the big conference table. He was a kindly old gentleman, whose white Van
+Dyke and pale blue lips contrasted oddly with the almost indigo tint of
+his visage (before the comet it had been a rich wine-red, the result of
+a lifelong devotion to brandy and soda). Smiling round the table at his
+scientific colleagues and at Ben, Murray, Gloria and Beeville, who
+occupied the position of honor, he went on:
+
+"I give you mainly excerpts.... The first is from the South African
+government. They have ... hm, hm ... sent an aerial expedition
+northward, all lines of communication appearing to be broken. At
+Nairobi, they report for the first time, finding a town entirely
+unoccupied and its inhabitants turned into cast-metal statues ... Addis
+Ababa the same ... Wadi Hafa likewise. Twenty miles north of Wadi Hafa
+they noted the first sign of life--a bird of some kind at a considerable
+distance to the west of them and flying parallel with them and very
+rapidly."
+
+The scientist looked up. "It would appear beyond doubt that this bird
+belonged to the species we call dodos and to which Dr. Beeville has
+given the excellent scientific name, tetrapteryx.... As the expedition
+proceeded northward, they encountered more of them; sometimes as many as
+four being in sight at one time. At Alexandria, where they halted for
+supplies, the dodos closed in. When the expedition took the air again
+with the object of flying to Crete and thence to Europe, these
+remarkable avians came very close, apparently trying to turn the
+expedition back. They reached Crete that afternoon, in spite of the
+interference of the birds, but that night were actively attacked on the
+ground. The phenomena that accompanied all other attacks were observed;
+the birds used incendiary bombs of great intensity. One machine was
+entirely destroyed with its aviators. The others, since their object was
+exploration, at once took to the air and returned.
+
+"Any comments, gentlemen? No? Well the next is the report of the Dutch
+ship _Corlaer_, which attempted to reach Japan. She was permitted to
+proceed to within a few miles of the islands, and then began to receive
+light-warnings in the sky, such as Captain Entwhistle reports.
+Unfortunately they were in Japanese characters and there was no one
+aboard who could read them. She put in at the port of Nagasaki and sent
+out a landing party. It never returned; as in the other cases the ship
+was bombed at night and only made Sumatra with the greatest difficulty,
+one of the bombs having fallen on the quarter-deck, wrecking the
+steering-gear and causing extensive internal damage....
+
+"There are minor reports with which I will not bother you. But the
+report of H. M. A. S. _Melbourne_ appears highly significant. She
+touched at several South American ports. In the cities she reports
+finding all life at a standstill, although at Iquique, the landing party
+encountered some hill-Indians who had suffered a bluing of the blood
+similar to ours, and who proved distinctly unfriendly. They are reported
+as engaged in looting the city and getting drunk on the contents of the
+bodegas.
+
+"North of Callao she found no signs of life until she reached San Pedro
+Bay. There a man was observed to be waving from the beach. The
+_Melbourne_ put in and launched a boat, but before it reached shore, one
+of the birds made its appearance overhead and the man disappeared into
+the trees and was not seen again. From the ship he appeared to be a
+mechanical man, such as you. Shortly afterward, the _Melbourne_ began to
+see the dodos constantly, and at the region of San Francisco, she saw
+one of the light signals. The wording of it was: 'DEPART AWAY FAREWELL
+FOREVER.'"
+
+Gloria stirred and Sir George looked at her with mild eyes. "Nothing,
+sir. I was just thinking that these dodos are uncommonly poetical. They
+told us to fly from the accursed place."
+
+"Yes, yes.... Naturally the _Melbourne_, not anticipating any trouble as
+the result of a refusal to obey this absurd command, did not heed the
+warning, and steamed into the bay. Like the other ships she was attacked
+at night. One of the bombs fell on the fire-control station and wrecked
+it, bringing down the tripod mast and fusing the top of the conning
+tower. She got under way immediately and replied with all guns, but
+before escaping number three turret was struck by another bomb and all
+the men in the turret were killed. The roof of the turret was driven in
+and even the breeches of the guns melted.... That, I think, summarizes
+the reports we have. We have seen a little of the birds, mostly at a
+distance, and they appear to have carried off several individuals,
+especially in Sumatra. I am afraid that is all we can offer."
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Well, what the material in the bombs is I can't say," said Ben, "but
+they know all about projecting it from guns in the form of a beam. I
+told you about my experience in company with the aviator from the
+_Brisbane_?"
+
+"The eggs Roberts found, too," said Gloria.
+
+"Oh, yes, Dr. Beeville can tell you about that."
+
+"Why, there's nothing much to it," said the scientist. "One of our
+people found what appeared to be a nest of these birds in a building.
+The nest was built of soft cloths and contained large eggs, but when the
+place was revisited the eggs had been removed.... I may say that I have
+examined the remains of one rather badly mangled specimen. The
+brain-case is extraordinarily large--larger than I have ever seen in any
+animal, and they appear to be of a high order of intelligence.
+
+"On the other hand I should certainly put the use and control of such a
+material as these bombs contain beyond their powers. And the fact that
+the nest was found in a building would indicate that the headquarters in
+the Catskills were used by some other and higher intelligence which was
+separate from and perhaps in control of these birds. Moreover, they do
+not appear to wish to destroy us mechanical men, but to carry us off,
+and the messages seen by the ships seem to indicate that the
+intelligence behind these birds is capable of reading and understanding
+English. I cannot conceive that the birds themselves would be able to do
+this.
+
+"Further, there is the very strong evidence of the gun which fired on
+Mr. Ruby. In every case where these birds have attacked man, they have
+used bombs of this material put up in portable form, although the gun
+would have been much more effective. It would have gone right through
+the _Melbourne_ or the _Brisbane_ like a red-hot poker through a board.
+From this I argue that the birds are directed rather than directing, and
+that the directing intelligence is either too indolent or too
+contemptuous of us to attack man except through their agency. Finally, I
+deduce that we are dealing with some powerful and as yet unknown form of
+life. What it is or how it reached the earth, I am not prepared to say."
+
+"Wunnerful," said Gloria irreverently, and a smile passed across the
+faces of the conferees.
+
+"But what are the bombs made of and what makes them tick?" asked Murray
+Lee.
+
+"That is a question to which I would very much like to know the answer,"
+said Sir George, stroking his white beard. "Perhaps Mr. Nasmith, our
+chemical member, will be good enough to give us something on the point."
+
+"Not much," said Nasmith, a lantern-jawed man with black hair. "We made
+a chemical analysis of the portions of the _Melbourne_ which had been
+struck by the bombs, and all we can say is that it gave a most
+extraordinary result. These portions were originally made of Krupp armor
+steel, as you know. Our analysis showed the presence of a long series of
+chemical elements, including even gold and thorium, most of them in
+minute quantities. Titanium appeared to be the leading constituent after
+iron."
+
+"Then," said Sir George, "the situation appears to be this. We don't
+know what the dodos are or what is behind them, but they have possession
+of a large part of the world to which they are disposed to forbid us
+any access. They have powerful weapons and the intelligence to use them,
+and they appear to be unfriendly. I suggest that the sense of this
+meeting is that the government should take immediate measures of
+investigation and if necessary, of hostility."
+
+"Swell," said Gloria, "only you didn't go half far enough. We've been
+there and you haven't. You want to get the best guns you've got and go
+for them right away."
+
+There was a murmur of approval. As Sir George rose to put the question
+to a vote there came a knock at the door. Heads were turned to greet a
+young man who hurried to the president and whispered something. Sir
+George turned to the meeting with a startled face.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "the dodos are bombing Canberra, the
+capital of Australia, and are being engaged by the Australian air
+force."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Opening of the Conflict
+
+
+"I'm glad," said Gloria to Murray Lee, as they leaned against the rail
+of the steamer _Paramatta_ in their new American Army uniforms, "that
+they're going to attack these things in the old U. S. I'd hate like
+anything to think we last Americans were shoved out of our country by a
+lot of chickens."
+
+Murray glanced around him. In every direction the long lines of the
+convoy stretched out, big liners loaded to the funnels with men, guns,
+tanks and ammunition. On the fringes of the troopships the sleek grey
+sides of the cruisers and destroyers that protected them were visible,
+and overhead there soared an armada of fast airplanes--no mere
+observation machines, or peaceful explorers like the South Africans, but
+fierce, deadly fighting planes, rocket-powered, which could step along
+at four miles a minute and climb, dive and maneuver better than a dodo.
+
+He nodded. "You said something, sister. Say won't it be great to take a
+whack at them under the Stars and Stripes. I'm glad they let us do it,
+even if there are only fourteen of us."
+
+In the four months since the conference with the Australian Scientific
+Committee it had been amply demonstrated to the three remaining
+governments of the world that there was not room for both man and dodos
+on the same planet. A carefully-worked out campaign had evidently been
+set in operation by whatever central intelligence led the four-winged
+birds with the object of wiping human life from the earth. The bombing
+of Canberra was merely the first blow.
+
+While Australia was arming and organizing to meet the menace the second
+blow fell--on Sourabaya, the great metropolis of Java, which was wiped
+out in a single night. At this evidence of the hostile intentions of the
+dodos radio apparatus began to tap in Australia, in the Dutch colonies
+and in South Africa; old guns forgotten since the last great war, were
+wheeled out; the factories began to turn out fighting airplanes and the
+young men drilled in the parks.
+
+When, late in November, a flock of twenty-five dodos was observed over
+north Australia, headed for Sydney, the forces of the defence were on
+their guard. Long before the birds reached the town they were met by a
+big squadron of rocket-powered fighting planes and in a desperate battle
+over the desert, with claw and beak and bomb against machine-gun, were
+shot down to the last bird. With that the attacks had suddenly ceased,
+and the federated governments, convinced that it was but the calm
+before a greater storm, had gathered their strength for a trial of arms.
+
+It was realized that whatever lay behind this attempt to conquer all
+there was left of the old earth must be in some way due to the coming of
+the great comet and must center somewhere in America, where the comet
+had struck. So for the first time the race of man began to learn what
+international cooperation meant. Delegates from the three surviving
+governments met in conference at Perth with Ben Ruby accorded a place as
+the representative of the United States. The decision of the conference
+was to mobilize every man and weapon to attack the birds in America and
+exterminate them there if possible; if impossible to do this, then to
+keep them so occupied at home that they would be unable to deliver any
+counter-attack.
+
+There was plenty of shipping to carry an army far larger than the
+federated governments could mobilize; the main weakness of the
+expedition lay in the lack of naval protection, for the great navies of
+the world had perished when the northern hemisphere passed under the
+influence of the comet. It was sought to make up for this deficiency by
+a vast cloud of airplanes, flying from the decks of many merchant ships,
+converted into aircraft carriers, though some of the new rocket-planes
+were powerful enough to cruise around the world under their own power.
+And so, on this March morning in 1947 the whole vast armada was crossing
+the Atlantic toward the United States. In view of the fact that the
+headquarters of the dodos seemed to be somewhere in the Catskills, it
+had been decided to land in New Jersey, form a base there and work
+northward.
+
+In the preliminary training for the coming conflict the metal Americans
+had played an important part. Their construction made them impossible as
+aviators, which they would have preferred. But quite early it was
+discovered that they made ideal operators for tanks. The oil fumes and
+the lack of air did not in the least affect beings to whom breathing had
+become unimportant, and the oil was actually a benefit.
+
+As a result the little American army had been composed of fourteen tanks
+of a special type, fitted at the direction of the military experts, with
+all the latest and best in scientific devices. They were given
+extra-heavy armor, fitted in two thicknesses, with a chamber between, as
+a protection against the light-bombs, and each tank, intended to be
+handled by a single operator, was provided with one heavy gun, so
+arranged that it could be used against aerial attack.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A stir of motion was visible at the head of the convoy. A destroyer
+dashed past the _Paramatta_, smoke pouring from her funnels, the white
+bow-wave rising as high as her bridge as she put on full speed. From the
+airplane carrier just behind them in the line, one, two, three flights
+of fighters swung off, circled a moment to gain altitude and then
+whirled off to the north and west.
+
+"What is it?" asked Gloria.
+
+A sailor touched his cap. "Sighted a dodo, I believe, miss," he said.
+
+"Oh, boy," said Gloria, "here we go. What would you give to be in one of
+those planes?"
+
+They craned their necks eagerly, but nothing was visible except a few
+flecks in the sky that might be dodos or might equally well be
+airplanes. Faint and far, a rattle of machine-guns drifted down; there
+was a flash of intense light, like the reflection in a far-distant
+mirror, and the machine-guns ceased. A few moments later the airplanes
+came winging back to their mother ship. A sailor on her deck began to
+swing his arms in the curious semaphore language of the sea.
+
+"What happened?" asked Gloria of the man by their side.
+
+"I'm trying to make out, miss. One dodo, he says, carrying a
+bomb--hit--by--machine-gun.... Oh, the bomb went off in the dodo's claws
+and blew him all to pieces."
+
+The echo of a cheer came across the water from the other ships. The
+first brush had gone in favor of the race of man!
+
+That night dodos announced their presence by a few bombs dropped
+tentatively among the ships, but did no damage, being so hurried and
+harried by the airmen, and by morning the dream-towers of Atlantic City,
+necked with the early morning sun, rose out of the west. Far in the
+distance the aviators of the expedition had spied more of the birds, but
+after the first day's encounter with the airplanes they kept a healthy
+distance, apparently contented to observe what they could.
+
+As ship after ship swung in toward the piers and discharged its cargo of
+men, guns and munitions, the birds became bolder, as though to inspect
+what was going on. But the Australian aviators attacked them fiercely,
+driving them back at every attempt to pierce the aerial cordon, and when
+night came on, nearly a third of the force had been landed and quartered
+in parts of the one-time pleasure city.
+
+Covered by the darkness a few dodos came down to drop bombs that night.
+They met with poor success. Delicate listening apparatus, intended
+originally to pick up the sound of approaching enemy airplanes had been
+one of the first things landed. The whir of the birds' wings was plainly
+audible, and before they had realized that man had a weapon to meet
+their night attacks half a dozen of them had been caught in the bursts
+of anti-aircraft guns and more had been met and shot down by the
+night-patrolling airmen.
+
+The next morning saw the unloading beginning anew, while the emptied
+transports were taken around into Delaware Bay. Fortunately, the weather
+continued unusually fine for late March, bright with sunshine, giving
+the dodos no opportunity to attack behind the cover of clouds. There was
+just enough cold in the air to make the Australians and South Africans
+lively, though the Americans found the temperature caused the oil to
+move sluggishly in their metallic joints.
+
+At daybreak the whole American unit had been pushed out to the railroad
+line at Greenwood with the advance guard of tanks, and finding no
+opposition they continued on to Farmington, where there was an airport
+that would serve for the leading squadrons of planes.
+
+"Do you know," said Ben to Murray, "I wish those dodos would show a
+little more pep. Fighting them is no cinch. We're a little ahead of the
+game now, but it's largely because they've let us alone and haven't
+brought up any of those light-beam guns."
+
+"Maybe we've got 'em on the run," replied Murray. "You can't tell when
+anyone will develop a yellow streak, you know."
+
+"Yes, but we've seen enough of these babies to know they haven't got a
+yellow streak a millimeter wide in their whole make-up. Yet here they
+let us do just about as we please. Makes me think they're just laying
+for us, and when they get us where they want us--zowie!"
+
+"Mebbe so, mebbe so," replied Murray. "Beeville still thinks it isn't
+the birds at all; that they've got a big boss somewhere running the
+whole works and till we find out what's behind it we're fighting in the
+dark. Well, they'll unload the rest of the army tomorrow and then we'll
+get down to cases."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The country between Atlantic City and Philadelphia is flat, with a few
+gentle elevations and dotted with small towns, farms and tiny bits of
+woodland. In the cold spring morning of the next day, with rain
+portended, the army of the federated governments pushed out along the
+roads through this land like a huge, many-headed snake, tanks and
+airplanes in the lead, the steady ranks of infantry and the big guns
+coming behind. Back at Atlantic City all machine-shops and factories had
+been set in operation and wrecking crews were already clearing the
+railroads and mounting huge long-range guns on trucks, preparatory to
+covering the advance. All along the route was bustle and hurry; camp
+kitchens rumbled along, harassed officers galloped up and down the lines
+on their horses (now, like their masters with a strange bluish cast of
+skin) and messengers rushed to and fro on popping motorcycles.
+
+Out with the advance the American division of fourteen tanks rolled
+along. The dodos seemed to have completely disappeared, even the
+scouting aviators, far ahead, reporting no sign of them. The army was
+succeeding in establishing itself on American soil.
+
+But around noon a "stop" signal flashed on the control boards of the
+tanks. They halted at the crest of a little rise and climbed out to look
+around.
+
+"What is it?" asked someone.
+
+"Perhaps gentlemanly general wishes to disport in surf," suggested
+Yoshio, with his flashing, steel-toothed smile, "and proceeding is
+retained without presence."
+
+"Perhaps," said Gloria, "but I'll bet a dollar to a handful of blue
+kangaroos that the dodos are getting in their licks somewhere."
+
+"Well, we'll soon know," said Murray Lee. "Here comes a dispatch rider."
+
+The man on the motorcycle dashed up, saluted. "General Ruby?" he
+inquired, and handed the dispatch to Ben. The latter read it, then
+motioned the others about him.
+
+"Well, here it is, folks," he said, "Listen to this--'General Grierson
+to General Ruby. Our flank guard was heavily attacked at Atsion this
+morning. The Third Brigade of the Fourteenth Division has suffered
+heavy loss and has been forced back to Chew Road. We are bringing up
+heavy artillery. The enemy appear to be using large numbers of light-ray
+guns. Advance guard is recalled to Waterford in support of our left
+flank.'"
+
+"Oh--oh," said somebody.
+
+"I knew they'd start giving us hell sooner or later," remarked Murray
+Lee as he climbed into his tank.
+
+At Waterford there was ordered confusion when they arrived. Just outside
+the town a long line of infantrymen were plying pick and shovel in the
+formation of a system of trenches. Machine-gun units were installing
+themselves in stone or brick buildings and constructing barricades
+around their weapons; line after line of tanks had wheeled into position
+under cover of woods or in the streets of the town, the little whippets
+out in front, fast cruiser-tanks behind them and the lumbering
+battle-tanks with their six-inch guns, farther back.
+
+Artillery was everywhere, mostly in little pits over which the gunners
+were spreading green strips of camouflage. As the American tanks rolled
+up, a battery of eight-inch howitzers behind a railroad embankment at
+the west end of the town was firing slowly and with an air of great
+solemnity at some target in the invisible distance, the angle of their
+muzzles showing that they were using the extreme range. A couple of
+airplanes hummed overhead. But of dead or wounded, of dodos or any other
+enemy there was no sign. It might have been a parade-war, an elaborately
+realistic imitation of the real thing for the movies.
+
+Guides directed the Americans to a post down the line toward Chew Road.
+"What's the news?" asked Ben of an officer whose red tabs showed he
+belonged to the staff.
+
+"They hit the right wing at Atsion," replied the officer. "Just what
+happened, I'm not sure. Somebody said they had a lot of those light-ray
+guns and they just crumpled up our flank like that." He slapped his
+hands together to show the degree of crumpling the right flank had
+endured. "We lost about fifteen hundred men in fifteen minutes. Tanks,
+too. But I think we're stopping them now."
+
+"Any dodos?" asked Ben.
+
+"Just a few. The airplanes shot down a flock of seven just before the
+battle and after that they kept away.... What is it? General
+Witherington wants me? Oh, all right, I'll come. Excuse me, sir," and
+the staff officer was off.
+
+Most of the afternoon was spent in an interminable period of waiting and
+watching the laboring infantry sink themselves into the ground. About
+four o'clock a fine, cold drizzle began to fall. The Americans sought
+the shelter of their tanks, and about the same time their radiophones
+flashed the order to move up, toward the north and east through a barren
+pasture with a few trees in it, to the crest of a low hill. It was
+already nearly dark; the tanks bumped unevenly over the stony ground,
+their drivers following each other by the black silhouettes in the
+gloom. Off to the right a battery suddenly woke to a fever of activity,
+then as rapidly became silent and in the intervals of silence between
+the motor-sounds the Americans could catch the faint rat-tat of
+machine-guns in the heavens above. Evidently dodos were abroad in the
+gloom.
+
+At the crest of the hill they could see across a flat valley in the
+direction of Chew Road. Something seemed to be burning behind the next
+rise; a ruddy glare lit the clouds. Down the line guns began to growl
+again, and the earth trembled gently with the sound of an explosion
+somewhere in the rear. Murray Lee, sitting alone at the controls of his
+tank. So this was war!
+
+There were trees along their ridge, and looking through the side
+peep-hole of his tank Murray could make out the vague forms of a line of
+whippets among them, waiting, like themselves, for the order to advance.
+He wondered what the enemy were like; evidently not all dodos, since so
+many tanks had been pushed up to the front. This argued a man or animal
+that ran along the ground. The dodos seemed to spend most of their time
+in the air....
+
+He was recalled from his meditations by the ringing of the attention
+bell and the radiophone began to speak rapidly:
+
+"American tank division--enemy tanks reported approaching. Detain them
+as long as possible and then retire. Your machines are not to be
+sacrificed; Radio your positions with reference to Clark Creek as you
+retire for guidance of artillery registering on enemy tanks. There--"
+
+The voice broke off in mid-sentence. So the dodos had tanks! Murray Lee
+snapped in his controls and glanced forward. Surely in the gloom along
+that distant ridge there was a darker spot--next to the
+house--something.
+
+Suddenly, with a roar like a thousand thunders, a bolt of sheer light
+seemed to leap from the dark shape on the opposite hill, straight toward
+the trees where Murray had noticed the whippets. He saw one of the trees
+leap into vivid flame from root to branch as the beam struck it; saw a
+whippet, sharply outlined in the fierce glow, its front armor-plate
+caving; then its ammunition blew up in a shower of sparks, and he was
+frantically busy with his own controls and gun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Hopelessness
+
+
+All along the line of the American tanks the guns flamed; flame-streaked
+fountains of dirt leaped up around the dark shape on the opposite hill
+and a burst of fire came from the farmhouse beside it as a misdirected
+shell struck it somewhere.
+
+The beam from the unknown enemy snapped off as suddenly as it had come
+on, leaving, like lightning, an aching of the eyes behind it. Murray Lee
+swung his tank round, making for the reverse slope of the hill to avoid
+the light-beam. Crack! The beam came on again--right overhead this time.
+It flashed through the tree-tops leaving a trail of fire. He heard a
+torn branch bang on the roof of his tank, manipulated the gun to fire at
+the source of the beam and discovered that the magazine was empty. As he
+bent to snap on the automatic shell-feeding device, a searchlight from
+somewhere lashed out toward the black shape that opposed them, then went
+off. In the second's glimpse it afforded the enemy appeared as a huge,
+polished, fish-shaped object, its mirror-like sides unscarred by the
+bombardment it had passed through, its prow bearing a long, prehensible
+snout--apparently the source of the light-beam.
+
+Suddenly a shell screamed overhead and the whole scene leaped into
+dazzling illumination as it burst just between the enemy tanks and their
+own. It must be a shell from the dodos! The federated armies had no
+shells that dissolved into burning light like that. Then another and
+another, a whole chorus of shells, falling in the village behind them.
+Murray had a better look at their opponent in the light. It seemed to
+lie flush with the ground; there was no visible means of either support
+or propulsion. It was all of twenty feet in diameter, widest near the
+head, tapering backward. The questing snout swung to and fro, fixed its
+position and discharged another of those lightning-bolts. Off to the
+right came the answering crash as it caved in the armor of another of
+the luckless whippets. He aimed his gun carefully at the base of the
+snout and pulled the trigger; on the side of the monster there appeared
+a flash of flame as the shell exploded, then a bright smear of metal--a
+direct hit, and not the slightest damage!
+
+Ben Ruby's voice came through the radiophone, cool and masterful. "Pull
+out, folks, our guns are no good against that baby. I'm cutting off;
+radio positions back to the heavy artillery. Put the railroad guns on."
+
+Murray glanced through the side peep-hole again--one, two, three, four,
+five--all the American tanks seemed undamaged. The monster had confined
+its attention to the whippets, apparently imagining they were doing the
+shooting. He pulled his throttle back, shot the speed up, rumbling down
+the hill, toward the village. As he looked back, darkness had closed in;
+the brow of the hill, its rows of trees torn and broken by the
+light-beam stood between him and the enemy. Before him amid the flaring
+light of the enemy shells was a stir of movement, the troops seemed to
+be pulling out also.
+
+The tanks rumbled through the streets of Waterford and came to a halt on
+a corner behind a stone church which held three machine-gun nests.
+Murray could see one of the gunners making some adjustment by the light
+of a pocket torch and a wave of pity for the brave man whose weapon was
+as useless as a stick swept over him.
+
+A messenger dashed down the street, delivered his missive to someone,
+and out of the shadows a file of infantry suddenly popped up and began
+to stream back, getting out of range. Then, surrounded by bursts of
+artillery fire, illumined by the glare of half a dozen searchlights that
+flickered restlessly on and off, the strange thing came over the brow of
+the hill.
+
+It halted for a moment, its snout moving about uneasily as though it
+were smelling out the way, and as it did so, it was joined by a second.
+Neither of them seemed to be in the least disturbed by the shells all
+the way from light artillery to six-inch, that were bursting about them,
+filling the air with singing fragments. For a moment they stood at ease,
+then the left-hand one, the one that had led the advance, pointed its
+snout at the village and discharged one of its flaming bolts. It struck
+squarely in the center of an old brick house, whose cellar had been
+turned into a machine-gun nest. With a roar, the building collapsed, a
+bright flicker of flames springing out of the ruins. As though it were a
+signal every machine-gun, every rifle in the village opened fire on the
+impassive shapes at the crest of the hill. The uproar was terrific; even
+in his steel cage Murray could hardly hear himself think.
+
+The shining monster paid no more attention to it than to the rain. One
+of them slid gently forward a few yards, turned its trunk toward the
+spouting trenches, and in short bursts, loosed five quick bolts; there
+were as many spurts of flame, a few puffs of earth and the trenches
+became silent, save for one agonized cry, "First aid, for God's sake!"
+
+Ben Ruby's voice came through the microphone. "Retreat everybody.
+Atlantic City if you can make it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With a great, round fear gripping at his heart, Murray Lee threw in the
+clutch of his machine and headed in the direction he remembered as that
+of the main road through the town toward Atlantic City. The night had
+become inky-black; the town was in a valley and the shadow of trees and
+houses made the darkness even more Stygian. Only by an occasional match
+or flashlight glare could the way be seen, but such light as there was
+showed the road already filled with fugitives. Some of them were
+helmetless, gunless, men in the last extremity of terror, running
+anywhere to escape from they knew not what.
+
+But through the rout there plowed a little company of infantry, revealed
+in a shell-burst, keeping tight ranks as though at drill, officers at
+the head, not flying, but retreating from a lost battle with good heart
+and confidence, ready to fight again the next day. The dancing beam of a
+searchlight picked them out for a moment; Murray Lee looked at them and
+the fear died within him. He slowed up his machine, ran it off the road
+and out to the left where there seemed to be a clearing that opened in
+the direction of the town. After all, he could at least observe the
+progress of the monsters and report on them.
+
+He was astonished to find that he had come nearly a mile from the center
+of the disturbance. Down there, the glittering monsters, still brightly
+illumined by searchlight and flare, seemed to be standing still amid the
+outer houses of the town, perhaps examining the trench system the
+Australians had dug that afternoon. The gunfire on them had ceased. From
+time to time one of the things, perhaps annoyed at the pointlessness of
+what it saw, would swing its trunk around and discharge a light-bolt at
+house, barn or other object. The object promptly caved in, and if it
+were wood, began to burn. A little train of the blazing remains of
+buildings marked the progress of the shining giants, and threw a weird
+red light over the scene.
+
+[Illustration: One of the things would swing its trunk around and
+discharge a light-bolt at a house or other object.]
+
+Now that he could see them clearly, Murray noted that they were all of
+fifty or sixty feet long. Their polished sides seemed one huge mirror,
+bright as glass, and a phosphorescent glow hung about their tails. Along
+either side was a slender projection like the bilge-keel of a ship,
+terminating about three quarters of the way along, and with a small dot
+of the phosphorescence at its tip. They seemed machines rather than
+animate objects. Murray wondered whether they were, or (remembering his
+own evolution into a metal man) whether they were actually metal
+creatures of some unheard-of breed.
+
+As he watched, a battery out beyond the town that had somehow gotten
+left behind, opened fire. He could see the red flash-flash-flash of the
+guns as they spoke; hear the explosions of the shells as they rent the
+ground around the giants. One of them swung impassively toward the
+battery; there were three quick stabs of living flame, and the guns
+ceased firing. Murray Lee shuddered--were all man's resources, was all
+of man, to disappear from the earth? All his high hopes and aspirations,
+all the centuries of bitter struggle toward culture to be wiped out by
+these impervious beasts?
+
+He was recalled from his dream by the flash of light at his control
+board and a voice from the radiophone "... to all units," came the
+message. "Railroad battery 14 about to fire on enemy tanks in Waterford.
+Request observation for corrections ... General Stanhope to all units.
+Railroad battery 14, twelve-inch guns, about to fire on enemy tanks in
+Waterford. Request observation for correction...."
+
+"Lieut. Lee, American Tank Corps, to General Stanhope," he called into
+the phone. "Go ahead with railroad battery 14. Am observing fire from
+east of town."
+
+Even before he had finished speaking there was a dull rumble in the air
+and a tremendous heave of earth behind and to one side of the shining
+enemy, not two hundred yards away. "Lieut. Lee to railroad battery 14,"
+he called, delightedly, "two hundred yards over, ten yards right."
+Berrrroum! Another of the twelve-inch shells fell somewhere ahead of the
+giants in the village. As Murray shouted the correction one of the metal
+creatures lifted its snout toward the source of the explosion curiously
+and as if it had not quite understood its meaning, fired a light-beam at
+it. Another shell fell, just to one side. A wild hope surging in him, he
+called the corrections--these were heavier guns than any that had yet
+taken a hand.
+
+"Lieut. Lee, American Tank Corps, to railroad battery 14--Suggest you
+use armor-piercing shell. Enemy tanks appear to be armored," he called
+and had the comforting reply. "Check, Lieut. Lee. We are using
+armor-piercers." Slam! Another of the twelve-inch shells struck, not ten
+yards behind the enemy. The ground around them rocked; one of them
+turned as though to examine the burst, the other lifted its snout
+skyward and released a long, thin beam of blue light, not in the least
+like the light-ray. It did not seem to occur to either of them that
+these shells might be dangerous. They seemed merely interested.
+
+And then--the breathless watchers in the thickets around the doomed town
+saw a huge red explosion, a great flower of flame that leaped to the
+heavens, covered with a cloud of thick smoke, pink in the light of the
+burning houses, and as it cleared away, there lay one of the monsters on
+its side, gaping and rent, the mirrored surface scarred across, the
+phosphorescent glow extinguished, the prehensile snout drooping
+lifelessly. Murray Lee was conscious of whooping wildly, of dancing out
+of his tank and joining someone else in an embrace of delight. They were
+not invincible then. They could be hurt--killed!
+
+"Hooray!" he cried, "Hooray!"
+
+"That and twelve times over," said his companion.
+
+The phrase struck him as familiar; for the first time he looked at his
+fellow celebrant. It was Gloria.
+
+"Why, where in the world did you come from?" he asked.
+
+"Where did you? I've been here all the time, ever since Ben ordered us
+home. Didn't think I'd run out on all the fun, did you? Are those things
+alive?"
+
+"How do I know? They look it but you never can tell with all the junk
+that comet left around the earth. They might be just some new kind of
+tank full of dodos."
+
+"Yeh, but--" The buzzing roar of one of the light-rays crashing into a
+clump of trees not a hundred yards away, recalled them to themselves.
+Gloria looked up, startled. The other monster was moving slowly forward,
+systematically searching the hillside with its weapon.
+
+"Say, boy friend," she said, "I think it's time to go away from here.
+See you at high mass."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the conference at headquarters in Hammonton that night was anything
+but cheerful.
+
+"It comes to this, then," said General Grierson, the commander-in-chief
+of the expedition. "We have nothing that is effective against these dodo
+tanks but the twelve-inch railroad artillery, using armor-piercing shell
+and securing a direct hit. Our infantry is worse than useless; the tanks
+are useless, the artillery cannot get through the armor of these things,
+although it damages the enemy artillery in the back areas."
+
+Ben Ruby rubbed a metal chin. "Well, that isn't quite all, sir. One of
+the American tanks was hit and came through--damaged I will admit. The
+lightning, or light-ray these dodos threw, penetrated the outer skin but
+not the inner. We could build more tanks of this type."
+
+General Grierson drummed on the table. "And arm them with what? You
+couldn't mount a twelve-inch gun in a tank if you wanted to, and we
+haven't any twelve-inch guns to spare."
+
+One of the staff men looked up. "Has airplane bombing been tried on
+these--things. It seems to me that a one or two-thousand pound bomb
+would be as effective as a twelve-inch shell."
+
+"That was tried this afternoon," said the head of the air service, with
+an expression of pain. "The 138th bombing squadron attacked a group of
+these tanks. Unfortunately, the tanks kept within range of their
+light-ray artillery and the entire squadron was shot down."
+
+"Mmm," said the staff man. "Let's add up the information we have secured
+so far and see where it leads. Now first they have a gun which shoots a
+ray which is effective either all along its length or when put up in
+packages like a shell, and is rather like a bolt of lightning in its
+effect. Any deductions from that?"
+
+"Might be electrical," said someone.
+
+"Also might not," countered Walter Beeville. "Remember the _Melbourne's_
+turret. No electrical discharge would produce chemical changes like that
+in Krupp steel."
+
+"Second," said the officer, "they appear to have three main types of
+fighting machines or individuals. First, there are the dodos themselves.
+We know all about them, and our airplanes can beat them. Good....
+Second, there is their artillery--a large type that throws a beam of
+this emanation and a smaller type which throws it in the form of shells.
+Thirdly, there are these--tanks, which may themselves be the individuals
+we are fighting. They are capable of projecting these discharges to a
+short distance--something over four thousand yards, and apparently do
+not have the power of projecting it in a prolonged beam, like their
+artillery. They are about fifty feet long, fish-shaped, heavily armored
+and have some unknown method of propulsion. Check me if I'm wrong at any
+point."
+
+"The projection of these lightning-rays would seem to indicate they are
+machines," offered General Grierson hopefully.
+
+"Not on your life," said Beeville, "think of the electric eel."
+
+"As I was saying," said the staff man, "our chief defect seems a lack of
+information, and--"
+
+General Grierson brought his fist down on the table. "Gentlemen!" he
+said. "This discussion is leading us nowhere. It's all very well to
+argue about the possibilities of man or machine in time of peace and at
+home, but we are facing one of the greatest dangers the earth has ever
+experienced, and must take immediate measures. Unless someone has
+something more fruitful to develop than this conference has provided
+thus far, I shall be forced to order the re-embarkation of what remains
+of the army and sail for home. My duty is to the citizens of the
+federated governments, and I cannot uselessly sacrifice more lives. Our
+supply of railroad artillery is utterly inadequate to withstand the
+numbers of our adversaries. Has anyone anything to offer?"
+
+There was a silence around the conference table, a silence pregnant with
+a heavy sense of defeat, for no one of them but could see the General
+was right.
+
+But at that moment there came a tap at the door. "Come," called General
+Grierson. An apologetic under-officer entered. "I beg your pardon, sir,
+but one of the iron Americans is here and insists that he has something
+of vital importance for the General. He will not go away without seeing
+you."
+
+"All right. Bring him in."
+
+There stepped into the room another of the mechanical Americans, but a
+man neither Ben Ruby nor Beeville had ever seen before. A stiff wire
+brush of moustache stood out over his mouth; he wore no clothes but a
+kind of loin-cloth made, apparently, of a sheet. The metal plates of his
+powerful body glittered in the lamp-light as he stepped forward.
+"General Grierson?" he inquired, looking from one face to another.
+
+"I am General Grierson."
+
+"I'm Lieutenant Herbert Sherman of the U. S. Army Air Service. I have
+just escaped from the Lassans and came to offer you my services. I
+imagine your technical men might wish to know how they operate their
+machines and what would be effective against them, and I think I can
+tell you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Capture
+
+
+Herbert Sherman had wakened with a vague sense of something wrong and
+lay back in his seat for a moment, trying to remember. Everything seemed
+going quietly, the machine running with subdued efficiency.... It came
+to him with a jerk--he could not hear the motor. With that subconscious
+concentration of the flying man on his ship, he glanced at the
+instrument board first, and taking in the astonishing information that
+both the altimeter and the air-speed meter registered zero, he looked
+over the side. His vision met the familiar dentilated line of the
+buildings surrounding the Jackson Heights airport, with a tree plastered
+greenly against one of them. Queer.
+
+His sense of memory began to return. There was the night-mail flight
+from Cleveland; the spot of light ahead that grew larger and larger like
+the most enormous of shooting stars, the sensation of sleepiness.... He
+remembered setting the controls to ride out the short remainder of the
+journey with the automatic pilot on the Jackson Heights' radio beam,
+since he was clearly not going to make Montauk. But what came after
+that?
+
+Then another oddity struck his attention. He recalled very clearly that
+he had been flying over the white landscape of winter--but now there was
+a tree in full leaf. Something was wrong. He clambered hastily from the
+cockpit.
+
+As he swung himself over the side, his eye caught the glint of an
+unfamiliar high-light on the back of his hand and with the same
+stupefaction that Murray Lee was contemplating the same phenomenon
+several miles away, he perceived that instead of a flesh-and-blood
+member he had somehow acquired an iron hand. The other one was the
+same--and the arm--and the section of stomach which presently appeared
+when he tore loose his shirt to look at it.
+
+The various possibilities that might account for it raced through his
+mind, each foundering on some fundamental difficulty. Practical
+joke--imagination--insanity--what else? Obviously some time had elapsed.
+But how about the ground staff of the airport? He shouted. No answer.
+
+Muttering a few swears to himself he trudged across the flying field,
+noting that it was grown up with daisies and far from newly rolled, to
+the hangars. He shouted again. No answer. No one visible. He pounded at
+the door, then tried it. It was unlocked. Inside someone sat tilted back
+in a chair against the wall, a cap pulled over his face. Sherman walked
+over to the sleeper, favoring him with a vigorous shake and the word,
+"Hey!"
+
+To his surprise the stranger tilted sharply over to one side and went to
+the floor with a bang, remaining in the position he had assumed.
+Sherman, the thought of murder jumping in his head, bent over, tugging
+at the cap. The man was as metallic as himself, but of a different
+kind--a solid statue cast in what seemed to be bronze.
+
+"For Heaven's sake!" said Herbert Sherman to himself and the world at
+large.
+
+There seemed to be nothing in particular he could do about it; the man,
+if he had ever been a man, and was not part of some elaborate scheme of
+flummery fixed up for his benefit, was beyond human aid. However there
+was one way in which all difficulties could be solved. The sun was high
+and the town lay outside the door.
+
+... He spent a good deal of the day wandering about Jackson Heights,
+contemplating such specimens of humanity as remained in the streets,
+fixed in the various ungraceful and unattractive attitudes of life. He
+had always been a solitary and philosophical soul, and he felt neither
+loneliness nor overwhelming curiosity as to the nature of the
+catastrophe which had stopped the wheels of civilization. He preferred
+to meditate on the vanity of human affairs and to enjoy a sense of
+triumph over the ordinary run of bustling mortals who had always
+somewhat irritated him.
+
+In justice to Herbert Sherman it should be remarked that he felt no
+trepidation as to the outcome of this celestial joke on the inhabitants
+of the world. Beside being an aviator he was a competent mechanic, and
+he proved the ease with which he could control his new physique by
+sitting down in a restaurant next to the bronze model of a sleepy cat,
+removing one shoe and sock and proceeding to take out and then replace
+the cunningly concealed finger-nut which held his ankle in position,
+marvelling at how any chemical or other change could have produced a
+threaded bolt as an integral part of the human anatomy.
+
+Toward evening, he returned to the flying field and examined his
+machine. One wing showed the effect of weathering, but it was an
+all-metal Roamer of the latest model and it had withstood the ordeal
+well. The gasoline gauge showed an empty tank, but it was no great task
+to get more from the big underground tanks at the field. Oil lines and
+radiators seemed all tight and when he swung the propeller, the motor
+purred for him like a cat.
+
+With a kind of secret satisfaction gurgling within him Herbert Sherman
+taxied across the field, put the machine into a climb, and went forth to
+have a look at New York.
+
+He thought he could see smoke over central Manhattan and swung the
+Roamer in that direction. The disturbance seemed to be located at the
+old Metropolitan Opera House which, as he approached it, seemed to have
+been burning, but had now sunk to a pile of glowing embers. The fire
+argued human presence of some kind. He took more height and looked down.
+Times Square held a good many diminutive dots, but they didn't seem to
+be moving.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He swung over to examine the downtown section. All quiet. When he
+returned he saw a car dodging across Forty-Second Street and realizing
+that he could find human companionship whenever he needed it, which he
+did not at present, he returned to the flying field.
+
+At this point It occurred to him to be hungry. Reasoning the matter out
+in the light of his mechanical experience, he drank a pint or more of
+lubricating oil and searched for a place to spend the night. Not being
+sleepy he raided a drug store where books were sold, for as much of its
+stock as he could use, and arranging one of the flares at the field in a
+position convenient for reading, he settled down for the night. In the
+course of it he twice tried smoking and found that his new make-up had
+ruined his taste for tobacco.
+
+With the first streaks of day he was afoot again, going over the Roamer
+with a fine-toothed comb, since he had no mechanic to do it for him,
+tuning her up for a long flight. He had no definite purpose in mind
+beyond a look round the country. Was it all like this, or only New York?
+
+Newark attracted his attention first. He noted there were ships at most
+of the piers in the river and that none of them bore signs of life.
+Neither had the streets on the Jersey side of the river any occupants
+other than those who were obviously still forever.
+
+As he flew along toward the Newark airport, a shadow fell athwart the
+wing and he looked up.
+
+A big bird was soaring past, flying above and fully as fast as the
+plane. In his quick glance Sherman caught something unfamiliar about its
+flight, and leaned over to snap on the mechanical pilot while he had
+another look. The bird, if bird it was, was certainly a queer specimen;
+it seemed to have two sets of wings and was using them as though it were
+an airplane, with the fore pair outstretched and rigid, the hind wings
+vibrating rapidly. As he gazed at the bird it drew ahead of the plane,
+gave a few quick flips to its fore-wings and banked around to pick him
+up again.
+
+It was coming closer and regarding him with an uncommonly intelligent
+and by no means friendly eye. Sherman swung his arm at it and gave a
+shout--to which the bird paid not the slightest attention. Newark was
+running away under him. Reluctantly, he resumed control of the stick,
+put the plane into a glide and made for the airport. It occurred to him
+that this would be an awkward customer if it chose to attack him and he
+meditated on the possibility of finding a gun in Newark.
+
+The field was bumpy, but he taxied to a stop and climbed out to look
+over the silent hangars before one of which a little sports plane stood
+dejectedly, with a piece of torn wing flapping in the breeze. As the
+Roamer came to rest he looked back at the bird. It was soaring away up
+in a close spiral, emitting a series of screams. Sherman determined to
+find a gun without delay.
+
+Newark was like Jackson Heights; same stony immobility of inhabitants,
+same sense of life stopped at full tide in the streets. He prowled
+around till he found a hardware store and possessed himself of a fine
+.50-.50 express rifle with an adequate supply of cartridges as well as a
+revolver, added to it a collection of small tools, and stopped in at a
+library to get a supply of reading matter more to his taste than the
+drug store could provide.
+
+As he took off again two specks in the sky far to the north represented,
+he decided, additional specimens of the peculiar bird life that had
+spread abroad since the change. How long it could have been, he had no
+idea.
+
+He decided on a flight northwest, following the line of the mail route.
+There was a chance that the whole country might not be engulfed by this
+metal plague, though the absence of life in New York was not
+encouraging.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Port Jervis was his first control point, but Sherman was fond enough of
+the green wooded slopes of the Catskills to run a little north of his
+course, bumpy though the air was over the mountains. He set the
+automatic pilot and leaned back in his seat to enjoy the view.
+
+Just north of Central Valley something seemed different about the
+hillside; a new scar had appeared along its edge. He turned to examine
+it, swooping as he did so and in a quick glance from the fast-moving
+airplane saw that the great forest trees, maples and oaks, were all
+down, twisted, barren and leafless, along a line that ran right up the
+valley and across the hill, as though they had been harrowed by some
+gigantic storm. The line was singularly definite; there were no
+half-broken trees.
+
+He swooped for another look, and at that moment was conscious of the
+beat of swift wings and above the roar of the motor heard the scream of
+one of those strange four-winged birds. Half-unconsciously, he put the
+Roamer into a steep climb and kicked the rudder to one side, just as the
+bird flew past him on whistling pinions, like an eagle that has missed
+its plunge, and recovered to rise again in pursuit. Sherman flattened
+out, and without paying any attention to direction, snapped in the
+automatic pilot and reached for his gun.
+
+As he bent there came a sharp crack from above and behind him and
+another scream right overhead. He looked over his shoulder to see a
+second bird clutching at the edge of the cockpit with one giant claw,
+its forewings fluttering rapidly in the effort to keep its balance in
+the propeller's slipstream. With the other claw it grabbed and grabbed
+for him.
+
+Sherman flattened himself against the bottom of the cockpit and fired up
+and back, once--twice--three times. The plane rocked; the bird let go
+with a shrill scream, a spurt of blood showing on its chest feathers,
+and as Sherman straightened up he saw it whirling down, the wings
+beating wildly, uselessly, the red spot spreading. But he had no time
+for more than a glance. The other bird was whirling up to the attack
+beneath him, yelling in quick jerks of sound as though it were shouting
+a battle-cry.
+
+The pistol, half-empty, might too easily miss. Sherman sought the rifle,
+and at that moment felt the impact of a swift blow on the floor of the
+plane. The bird understood that he had weapons and was attacking him
+from beneath to avoid them! The thought that it was intelligent flashed
+through his mind with a shock of surprise as he leaned over the side,
+trying to get a shot at his enemy. Beneath the plane he caught a
+momentary glimpse of the ground again, torn and tortured, and in the
+center of the devastation the ruins of a farmhouse, its roof canting
+crazily over a pulled-out wall.
+
+The bird dodged back and forth, picking now and then at the bottom of
+the plane with its armored beak. He leaned further trying to get in a
+shot, and drew a chorus of yells from the bird, but no more definite
+result. Bang! Again. Miss. Out of the tail of his eye he saw the line of
+green leap into being again. Flap, flap went the wings beneath him.
+
+Suddenly from below and behind him there rose a deep humming roar, low
+pitched and musical. Abruptly the screaming of the bird ceased; it
+dropped suddenly away, its forewings folded, the rear wings spread,
+glider-like as it floated to the ground. He turned to look in the
+direction of the sound, and as he turned a great glare of light sprang
+forth from somewhere back there, striking him full in the eyes with
+blinding force. At the same moment something pushed the Roamer forward
+and down, down, down. He could feel the plane give beneath him, but in
+the blind haze of light his fumbling fingers could not find the stick,
+and as he fell a wave of burning heat struck his back and the sound of a
+mighty torrent reached his ears. There was a crash and everything went
+out in a confusion of light, heat and sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he recovered consciousness the first thing he saw was a blue dome,
+stretched so far above his head that it might have been the sky save for
+the fact that the light it gave had neither glare nor shadow. He puzzled
+idly over this for a moment, then tried to turn his head. It would not
+move. "That's queer," thought Herbert Sherman, and attempted to lift an
+arm. The hands responded readily enough but the arms were immovable.
+With an effort he tried to lift his body and discovered that he was
+tightly held by some force he could not feel.
+
+Herbert Sherman was a patient man but not a meek one. He opened his
+mouth and yelled--a good loud yell with a hard swearword at the end of
+it. Then he stood still for a moment, listening. There was a sound that
+might be interpreted as the patter of feet somewhere, but no one came
+near him, so he yelled again, louder if possible.
+
+This time the result accrued with a rapidity that was almost startling.
+A vivid bluish light struck him in the face, making him blink, then was
+turned off, and he heard a clash of gears and a hum that might be that
+of a motor. A moment later he felt himself lifted, whirled round,
+dropped with a plunk, and the blue dome overhead began to flow past at
+rapidly mounting speed to be blotted out in a grey dimness. He perceived
+he was being carried down some kind of a passage whose ceiling consisted
+of dark stone. A motor whirred rapidly.
+
+The stone ceiling vanished; another blue dome, less lofty, took its
+place. The object on which he was being carried stopped with a
+mechanical click and he was lifted, whirled round again and deposited on
+some surface. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of
+something round, of a shining black coloring, with pinkish highlights,
+like the head of some enormous beast, and wiggled his fingers in angry
+and futile effort.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was flopped over on his face and found himself looking straight down
+at a grey mass which from its feel on nose and chin, appeared to be
+rubber.
+
+He yelled again, with rage and vexation and in reply received a tap over
+the head with what felt like a rubber hose. He felt extraordinarily
+helpless. And as the realization came that he was helpless, without any
+control of what was going on he relaxed. After all, there was no use....
+Some kind of examination was in progress. There was the sound of
+soft-treading feet behind him.
+
+After a slight pause he was bathed in a red light of such intensity as
+to press upon him with physical solidity. He closed his eyes against it,
+and as he did so, felt a terrible pain in the region of his spine. Was
+it death? He gripped metallic teeth together firmly in an effort to
+fight the pain without yelling (perhaps this was deliberate torture and
+he would not give them the satisfaction) and dully, amid the throbbing
+pain, Sherman heard a clatter of metal instruments. Then the pain
+ceased, the light went off and something was clamped about his head.
+
+A minute more and he had been flipped over on his back, and with the
+same whirring of motors that had attended his arrival, was carried back
+through the passage and into the hall of the blue dome. He was still
+held firmly; but now there was a difference. He could wiggle in his
+bonds.
+
+With a clicking of machinery, he was tilted up on the plane that held
+him. A hole yawned before his feet and he slid rapidly down a smooth
+incline, through a belt of dark, to drop in a heap on something soft.
+The trapdoor clicked behind him.
+
+He found himself, unbound, on a floor of rubber-like texture and on
+rising to look around, perceived that he was in a cell with no visible
+exit, whose walls were formed by a heavy criss-crossed grating of some
+red metal. It was a little more than ten feet square; in the center a
+seat with curving outlines rose from the floor, apparently made of the
+same rubbery material as the floor itself. A metallic track ended just
+in front of the seat; following back, his eye caught the outline of a
+kind of lectern, now pushed back against the wall of the cell, with
+spaces below the reading flat and handles attached. Against the back
+wall of the cell stood a similar device, but larger and without any
+metal track. Beside it two handles dangled from the wall on cords of
+flexible wire.
+
+This was all his brief glance told him about the confines of his new
+home. Looking beyond it, he saw that he was in one of a row of similar
+cells, stretching back in both directions. In front of the row of cells
+was a corridor along which ran a brightly-burnished metal track, and
+this was lined by another row of cells on the farther side.
+
+The cell at Sherman's right was empty, but he observed that the one on
+the left had a tenant--a metal man, like himself in all respects and
+yet--somehow unlike. He stepped over to the grating that separated them.
+
+"What is this place, anyway?" he inquired.
+
+His neighbor, who had been sitting in the rubber chair, turned toward
+him a round and foolish face with a long, naked upper lip, and burst
+into a flood of conversation of which Sherman could not understand one
+word. He held up his hand. "Wait a minute, partner," he said. "Go slow.
+I don't get you."
+
+The expression on the fellow's face changed to one of wonderment. He
+made another effort at conversation, accompanying it with gestures.
+"Wait," said the aviator, "_Sprechen Sie Deutsch?... Francais?... Habla
+Espanol?..._ No? Dammit what does the guy talk? I don't know any
+Italian--Spaghetti, macaroni, Mussolini!"
+
+No use. The metal face remained blankly uninspired. Well, there is one
+thing men of all races have in common. Sherman went through the motions
+of drawing from his pocket a phantom cigarette, applying to it an
+imaginary match, and blowing the smoke in the air.
+
+It is impossible for a man whose forehead is composed of a series of
+lateral metal bands to frown. If it were the other would have done so.
+Then comprehension appeared to dawn on him. He stepped across to his
+lectern, and _with his toes_, pulled the bottom slide open, extracted
+from it a round rubber container and reaching through the bars, handed
+it to Sherman.
+
+The aviator understood the difference that had puzzled him in the
+beginning. Instead of the graceful back-sweeping curve that sets a man's
+head vertical with his body, this individual had the round-curved neck
+and low-hung head of the ape.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Poisoned Paradise
+
+
+To hide his surprise Sherman bent his head to examine the object the
+ape-man had handed him. It was about the size of a baseball with little
+holes in it. He inserted a finger in one of the holes, and a stream of
+oil squirted out and struck him in the eye. His neighbor gave a cry of
+annoyance at his clumsiness and reached through the bars to have the
+ball returned. As he received it there came sudden flickerings of lights
+along the hall from somewhere high up, like the trails of blue and green
+rockets. The mechanical ape-man dropped the oil-ball and dashed to the
+front of his cell.
+
+Sherman saw a vehicle proceeding down the line of cells; a kind of truck
+that rode on the track of the corridor and was so wide it just missed
+the gratings. It had a long series of doors in its sides, and as it came
+opposite an occupied cell, stopped. Something invisible happened; the
+bars of the cell opened inward and the inmate emerged to step into a
+compartment which at once closed behind him.
+
+When it stopped at the ape-man's cage Sherman watched the procedure
+closely. A little arm appeared from beneath the door of the compartment
+and did something to one of the lower bars of the cell. But the truck
+passed Sherman by, moving silently along to other cells beyond him.
+
+He turned to examine the room more closely, and as he did so, saw that a
+second truck was following the first. This one, with an exactly reversed
+procedure, was returning robots to their cells. This second truck
+dropped an inmate in the cell at his right (another ape-man) and
+trundled along down the line, but as it reached the end of the corridor,
+turned back and running along till it came to his cell, stopped, flung
+out the metal arm, and opened the bars in invitation.
+
+Sherman had no thought of disobeying; as long as he was in this queerest
+of all possible worlds, he thought, one might as well keep to the rules.
+But he was curious about the joint of the cage and how it unlocked and
+he paused a moment to examine it. The machine before him buzzed
+impatiently. He lingered. There came a sudden clang of metal from inside
+the car, a vivid beam of blue light called his attention, and looking
+up, he saw the word "EXIT" printed in letters of fire at the top of the
+compartment.
+
+With a smile he stepped in. A soft light was turned on and he found
+himself in a tiny cubbyhole with just room for the single seat it
+provided and on which he seated himself. There was no window.
+
+The machine carried him along smoothly for perhaps five minutes, stopped
+and the door opened before him. He issued into another blue-domed hall.
+A small one this time, containing a rubber seat like that in his cell,
+but with an extended arm on which rested a complex apparatus of some
+kind. The seat faced a white screen like those in movie theaters.
+
+He seated himself and at once a series of words appeared in dark green
+on the screen. "Dominance was not complete," it said. "Communication?"
+Then below, in smaller type, as though it were the body of a newspaper
+column. "Lassans service man. Flier writing information through
+communication excellent. Dinner bed, book. No smoking. Yours very
+truly."
+
+As he gazed in astonishment at this cryptic collection of words it was
+erased and its place was taken by a picture which he recognized as a
+likeness of himself in his present metallic state. A talking picture,
+which made a few remarks in the same incomprehensible gibberish the
+ape-man had used, then sat down in a chair like that in which he now
+rested, and proceeded to write on the widespread arm with a stylus which
+was attached to it. The screen went blank.... Evidently he was supposed
+to communicate something by writing.
+
+The stylus was a metal pencil, and the material of the arm, though not
+apparently metallic, must be, he argued from the fact that it seemed to
+have electric connections attached. As he examined it, the blue lights
+flickered at him impatiently. "The white knight," he wrote in a fit of
+impish perversity, "is climbing up the poker." Instantly the words
+flashed on the screen.
+
+Pause. "IS CLIMBING" declared the screen, in capitals; then below it
+appeared a fairly creditable picture of a knight in armor followed by a
+not very creditable picture of a poker. Sherman began to comprehend.
+Whoever it was behind this business had managed a correspondence course
+of a sort in English, but had failed to learn the verbs and he was
+being asked to explain.
+
+For answer he produced a crude drawing of a monkey climbing a stick and
+demonstrated the action by getting up and going through the motions of
+climbing. Immediately the screen flashed a picture of the knight in
+armor ascending the poker by the same means, but it had hardly appeared
+before it was wiped out to be replaced by a flickering of blue lights
+and an angry buzz. His interlocutor had seen the absurdity of the
+sentence and was demanding a more serious approach to the problem. For
+answer Sherman wrote, "Where am I and who are you?"
+
+A longer pause. "Dominance not complete," said the screen. Then came the
+picture of the first page of a child's ABC book with "A was an Archer
+who shot at a frog" below the usual childish picture. Then came the word
+"think." With the best will in the world Sherman was puzzled to
+illustrate this idea, but by tapping his forehead and drawing a crude
+diagram of the brain as he remembered it from books, he managed to give
+some satisfaction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The process went on for three or four hours as nearly as Sherman could
+judge the time, ending with a flash of the word "Exit" in red from the
+screen and a dimming of the blue-dome light. He turned toward the door
+and found the car that had brought him, ready for the return journey. As
+it rumbled back to his cell he ruminated on the fact that none of the
+men (or whatever it was) behind this place had yet made themselves
+visible, for it was incredible that beings of the type of the metallic
+ape-man who occupied the next cell to his should have intelligence
+enough to operate such obviously highly-developed machinery.
+
+But what next? He pondered the question as the car deposited him in his
+cell. Obviously, he was being kept a prisoner. He didn't like it,
+however comfortable the imprisonment.
+
+The first thing that suggested itself was a closer inspection of his
+cell. The lectern yielded an oil-ball like that the ape-man had given
+him and another, similar device, containing grease. There were various
+tools of uncertain purpose and in the last drawer he examined a complete
+duplicate set of wrist and finger joints. The larger cupboard had deep
+drawers, mostly empty, though one of them contained a number of books,
+apparently selected at random from a good-sized sized library--"Mystery
+of Oldmixon Hall," "Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1903," "The
+Poems of Jerusha G. White"--a depressing collection.
+
+This seemed to exhaust the possibilities of the cell and Sherman looked
+about for further amusement. His ape neighbor had pressed himself close
+to the bars on that side, indicating his interest in what Sherman was
+doing by chuckling bubbles of amusement. Further down the line one of
+the ape-men was holding the pair of handles that projected from the wall
+beside his cabinet. Sherman grasped his also; there was a pleasant
+little electric shock and in the center of the wall before him a slide
+moved back to disclose a circle of melting light that changed color and
+form in pleasing variations. The sensation was enormously invigorating
+and it struck the aviator with surprise that this must be the way these
+creatures.... "These creatures!" he thought, "I'm one of them...." the
+way these creatures acquired nourishment. The thought gave him an
+inspiration.
+
+"Hey!" he called in a voice loud enough to carry throughout the room.
+"Is there anyone here that can understand what I'm saying?"
+
+There was a clank of metal as faces turned in his direction all down the
+line of cages. "Yes, I guess so," called a voice from about thirty feet
+away. "What do you want to say?"
+
+Sherman felt an overwhelming sense of relief. He would not have believed
+it possible to be so delighted with a human voice. "Who's got us here
+and why are they keeping us here?" he shouted back.
+
+A moment's silence. Then--"Near's I can make out it's a passel of
+elephants and they've got us here to work."
+
+"What?" Sherman shouted back, not sure he had heard aright.
+
+"Work!" came the answer. "Make you punch the holes on these goddam light
+machines. It wears your fingers off and you have to screw new ones in at
+night."
+
+"No, I mean about the elephants."
+
+"That's what I said--elephants. They wear pants, and they're right
+smart, too."
+
+Insoluble mystery. "Who are you?" called the aviator.
+
+"Mellen. Harve Mellen. I had a farm right here where they set up this
+opry house of theirs."
+
+Along the edge of Sherman's cell a blue light began to blink. He had an
+uncomfortable sensation of being watched. "Is there any way of getting
+out of here?" he shouted to his unseen auditor.
+
+"Sssh," answered the other. "Them blue lights mean they want you to shut
+up. You'll get a paste in the eye with the yaller lights if you don't."
+
+So that was it! They were being held as the servants--slaves--of some
+unseen and powerful and very watchful intelligence. As for "elephants
+with pants" they might resemble that and they might not; it was entirely
+possible that the phrase represented merely a picturesque bit of
+metaphor on the part of the farmer.
+
+Why it must be an actual invasion of the earth, as in H. G. Wells' "War
+of the Worlds," a book he had read in his youth. The comet could have
+been no comet then, and.... Yet the whole thing--this transformation of
+himself into a metal machine, the crash of the Roamer and his subsequent
+bath in the painful red light. It was all too fantastic--then he
+remembered that one does not feel pain in dreams....
+
+They were giving him books, food--if this electrical thing was indeed
+the food his new body required--little to do; keeping him a prisoner in
+a kind of poisoned paradise.
+
+... At all events the locks on these bars should offer no great
+difficulty to a competent mechanic. He set himself to a further
+examination of the tools in the lectern.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The main difficulty in the way of any plan of escape lay in his complete
+lack of both information and the means of obtaining it. The mechanical
+ape-men were hopeless; they merely babbled incoherent syllables and
+seemed incapable of fixing their attention on any object for as long as
+five minutes. As for the New York farmer his cage was so far away that
+the conversation could be carried on only in shouts, and every shout
+brought a warning flicker of the blue lights. On the second day, out of
+curiosity, Sherman kept up the conversation after the blue lights went
+on. A vivid stream of yellow light promptly issued from one corner of
+the cage, striking him fully in the eyes, and apparently it was
+accompanied by some kind of a force-ray for he found himself stretched
+flat on the floor. After that he did not repeat the experiment.
+
+The next question was that of the lock on the cell-bars. The closest
+inspection he could give did not reveal the joints; they were
+extraordinarily well fitted. On the other hand, he remembered that the
+arm of the truck had reached under one of the lower bars. Lying flat on
+his back, Sherman pulled himself along from bar to bar, inspecting each
+in turn. About mid-way along the front of the cell, he perceived a tiny
+orifice in the base of one bar--a mere pin-hole. Marvelling at the
+delicacy of the adjustment which could use so tiny a hole as a lock he
+sat down to consider the question.
+
+He was completely naked and had nothing but the objects that had been
+placed in his cell by his jailers. However--
+
+Among the assortment of tools in his bureau was a curve-bladed knife
+with the handle set parallel to the blade as though it were meant for
+chopping, and forming the wall of the same drawer was a strip of a
+material like emery cloth. After some experimenting he found a
+finger-hole which, when squeezed, caused this emery-cloth to revolve,
+giving a satisfactory abrasive.
+
+Thus armed with a tool and a means of keeping an edge on it, he took one
+of the metal bands from the drawer that contained the duplicate set of
+hands and set to work on it....
+
+Producing a needle that would penetrate the hole in the bars was all of
+three days' work, though he had no means of marking the time accurately.
+The metal band was pliable, light, and for all its pliability and
+lightness, incredibly hard. His tool would barely scratch it and
+required constant sharpenings. Moreover, he had little time to himself;
+his unseen scholar required constant lessons in English. But at last the
+task was done. Choosing a moment when one of the cages at his side was
+empty and the occupant of the other was busy over some silly sport of
+his own--tossing a ball from one hand to another--Sherman lay down on
+the floor, found the opening and drove his needle home. Nothing
+happened.
+
+He surveyed the result with disappointment. It was disheartening, after
+so much labor to attain no result at all. But it occurred to him that
+perhaps he had not learned the whole secret of the arm, and the next
+time the car came down the corridor for him, he was lying on the floor,
+carefully watching the opening.
+
+As he had originally surmised, a needle-like point was driven home. But
+he noted that on either side of the point the arm gripped the bar
+tightly, pressing it upward.
+
+This presented another difficulty. He had only two hands; if one of them
+worked the needle he could grip the bar in only one place. But he
+remembered, fortunately, that his toes had showed a remarkable power of
+prehension since the change that had made him into a machine.
+
+He finally succeeded in bracing himself in a curiously twisted attitude
+and driving the needle home under the proper auspices. To his delight
+it worked--when the needle went in the bars opened in the proper place,
+swinging back into position automatically as the pressure was withdrawn.
+
+With a new sense of freedom Sherman turned to the next step. This was
+obviously to find out more of the place in which he was confined and of
+the possibilities of escape. It seemed difficult.
+
+But even on this point he was not to be long without enlightenment. His
+unseen pupil in English was making most amazing progress. The white
+screen which was their means of communication now bore complicated
+messages about such subjects as what constituted philosophy. Sherman
+felt himself in contact with an exceptionally keen and active mind,
+though one to which the simplest earthly ideas were unfamiliar. There
+were queer misapprehensions--for instance, no process of explanation he
+could give seemed to make the unseen scholar understand the use and
+value of money, and they labored for a whole day over the words
+"president" and "political."
+
+In technical matters it was otherwise; Sherman had barely to express the
+idea before the screen made it evident that the auditor had grasped its
+whole purport. When he wrote the word "atom" for instance, and tried to
+give a faint picture of the current theory of the atom, it was hardly a
+second before the screen flashed up with a series of diagrams and
+mathematical formulae, picturing and explaining atoms of different
+types.
+
+After four weeks or more (as nearly as Sherman could estimate it in that
+nightless, sleepless place where time was an expression rather than a
+reality) the car that came for him one day discharged him into a room
+entirely different from the school-room. Like the school-room it was
+small, and some twenty feet across. Against the wall opposite the door
+stood a huge machine, the connections of which seemed to go back through
+the wall. Its vast complex of pulleys, valves and rods, conveyed no hint
+of its purpose, even to his mechanically-trained mind.
+
+Across the front of it was a long, black board, four feet or more across
+and somewhat like the instrument board of an airplane in general
+character. At the top of this board was a band of ground glass, set off
+in divisions. Beneath this band a series of holes, each just large
+enough to admit a finger, and each marked off by a character of some
+kind though in no language Sherman had ever seen.
+
+To complete the picture, one of the mechanical ape-men stood before the
+board as though expecting him. On the ape-man's head was a tight-fitting
+helmet, connecting with some part of the machine by a flexible tube. As
+Sherman entered the room the ape-man motioned him over to the board,
+pointed to the holes and in thick, but intelligible English, said
+"Watsch!" A flash of purple light appeared behind the first of the
+ground-glass screens. The ape-man promptly thrust his finger into the
+first of the holes. The light went out, and the ape-man turned to
+Sherman. "Do," he said. The light flashed on again, and Sherman, not
+unwilling to learn the purpose of the maneuver, did as his instructor
+had done.
+
+He was rewarded by a tearing pain in the finger-tip and withdrew the
+member at once. Right at the end it had become slightly grey. The
+ape-man smiled. Behind the second ground-glass a red light now appeared
+and the ape-man thrust his finger into another of the apertures,
+indicating that Sherman should imitate him. This time the aviator was
+more cautious, but as he delayed the light winked angrily. Again he
+received the jerk of pain in the finger-tip and withdrew it to find
+that the grey spot had spread.
+
+[Illustration: He was rewarded by a tearing pain in his fingertip.
+Behind the ground glass a red light now appeared.]
+
+When the third light flashed on he refused to copy the motion of his
+instructor. The light blinked at him insistently. He placed both hands
+behind his back and stepped away from the machine. The ape-man, looking
+at him with something like panic, beckoned him forward again. Sherman
+shook his head; the ape-man threw back his head and emitted a long,
+piercing howl. Almost immediately the door slid back and the car
+appeared. As Sherman stepped to its threshold, instead of admitting him,
+it thrust forth a gigantic folding claw which gripped him firmly around
+the waist and held him while a shaft of the painful yellow light was
+thrown into his eyes; then tossed him back on the floor and slammed shut
+vengefully.
+
+Dazed by the light and the fall, Herbert Sherman rolled on the floor,
+thoughts of retaliation flashing through his head. But he was no fool,
+and before he had even picked himself up, he realized that his present
+cast was hopeless. Gritting his teeth, he set himself to follow the
+ape-man's instructions, looking him over carefully to recognize him
+again in case--.
+
+The course of instruction was not particularly difficult to memorize. It
+seemed that for each color of light behind the ground-glass panels one
+must thrust a finger into a different one of the holes below; hold it
+there in spite of the pain, till the colored light went out, and then
+remove it. The process was very hard on the fingers, made of metal
+though they were. What was it the farmer had shouted down the hall?
+"Wears your fingers out?" Well, it did that, all right. After an hour or
+two of it, when he had learned to perform the various operations with
+mechanical precision and the tip of his index finger had already begun
+to scale off, the ape-man smiled at him, waved approval and reaching
+down beneath the black board, pulled out a drawer from which he
+extracted a finger-tip, made in the same metal as those he already bore,
+and proceeded to show Sherman how to attach it.
+
+As a mechanic, he watched the process with some interest. The "bone" of
+the finger, with its joint, screwed cunningly into the bone of the next
+joint below, the lower end of the screw being curiously cut away and
+having a tiny point of wire set in it. The muscular bands had loose ends
+that merely tucked in, but so well were they fashioned, that once in
+position, it was impossible to pull them out until the finger-tip had
+been unscrewed.
+
+The instruction process over, he was returned to his cell, wondering
+what was to happen next. The poisoned paradise was becoming less of a
+paradise. He speculated on the possibility of wrecking the car that bore
+him from place to place, but finally decided that it could not be done
+without some heavy tool and was hardly worth the trouble in any case
+until he was more certain of getting away afterward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Lassan
+
+
+When the car next called for him, it took a much longer course; one
+steadily downward and around a good many curves as he could judge from
+the way in which it swayed and gained and lost speed. It was fully a
+twenty-minute ride, and when he stepped out it was not into a room of
+any kind, but in what appeared to be a tunnel cut in the living rock, at
+least six feet wide and fully twice as high. The rock on all sides had
+been beautifully smoothed by some unknown hand, except underfoot where
+it had been left rough enough to give a grip to the feet.
+
+At his side were two of the ape-men who had been released from the car
+at the same time. The tunnel led them straight ahead for a distance,
+then dipped and turned to the right. As he rounded the corner he could
+see that it ended below and before him in some room where machinery
+whirred. The ape-men went straight on, looking neither to the right nor
+the left. As they reached the door that gave into the machine-room they
+encountered another ape-man wearing the same kind of helmet with its
+attached tube, as Sherman's instructor had worn. The ape-men who came
+with him stopped. The helmeted one looked at them stupidly for a moment
+and then, as though obeying some unspoken command, took one by the arm
+and led him across the room to the front of a machine and there thrust
+one of the ubiquitous helmets on his head.
+
+The machine, as nearly as Sherman could make out, was a duplicate of
+that on which he had injured his fingers; as the helmet was buckled on
+the ape-man who stood before it he immediately began to watch the
+ground-glass panels and put his fingers in the holes below.
+
+The process was repeated with the second ape-man, and then the sentinel
+returned to Sherman. Taking him by the arm, the mechanical beast led him
+past the row of machines (there seemed to be only four in the room) and
+to a door at one side, giving him a gentle push. It was the opening of
+another tunnel, down which Sherman walked for some forty or fifty yards
+before encountering a second door and a second helmeted ape-man sentry.
+
+This one did exactly as the first had done. Stared at him for a moment,
+then took him by the arm and led him across the room to a machine, where
+it left him. Sherman perceived that he was supposed to care for it, and
+with a sigh, bent to his task.
+
+It was some moments before the rapid flashing of lights gave him a
+respite. Then he had an opportunity to look about him and observed that,
+as in the other room, there were four machines. Two of them were
+untenanted, but at the one next to his, there was someone working. When
+he glanced again, he was sure it was a mechanized human like
+himself--and a girl!
+
+"What is this place?" he asked, "and who are you?"
+
+The other gave a covert glance over his shoulder at the sentry by the
+door.
+
+"Sssh!" she said out of the corner of her mouth, "not so loud.... I'm
+Marta Lami--and I think this place is hell!"
+
+After a time they contrived a sort of conversation, a word at a time,
+with covert glances at the ape-man sentry. He looked at them
+suspiciously once or twice, but as he made no attempt to interfere they
+gained confidence.
+
+"Who--is--keeping--us--here?" asked Sherman.
+
+"Don't--know," she replied in the same manner.
+"Think--it's--the--elephants."
+
+"What elephants?" he asked a word at a time. "I haven't seen any."
+
+"You will. They come around and inspect what you're doing. Are you new
+here?"
+
+"New at these machines. They had me teaching them to write English. This
+is my first day in here."
+
+"This is my eightieth work-period. We lost track of the days."
+
+"So did I. Where are we? Are there any other humans with you?"
+
+"One in the cage across the corridor from me. Walter Stevens the Wall
+Street man."
+
+"Have they got him on this job, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Sherman could not avoid a snicker. Back in the days before the comet he
+had had Stevens as a passenger once, and a more difficult customer to
+satisfy, a more cocksure-of-his-own-importance man he had never seen.
+The thought of him burning his fingertips up in one of these machines
+gave him some amusement. But his next question was practical.
+
+"Do you know what these machines are for?"
+
+"Haven't the least idea; Stevens said they were for digging something.
+They had the helmets on him twice."
+
+"What helmets?"
+
+"Like the dopey at the door wears. The dopeys all have to wear them."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Haven't got any brains, I guess. I had one on once when they were
+teaching me to do this. They tell you what to think."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You put the helmet on and it's like you're hypnotized. You can't think
+anything but what they want you to think."
+
+Sherman shuddered slightly. So that was how the mechanical ape-men were
+controlled so perfectly!
+
+"How did they get you?" asked the girl who had described herself as
+Marta Lami.
+
+"In an airplane. I'm an aviator. They shot me down somewhere and when I
+came to, put me in one of those cages. How did you get here?"
+
+"The birds. I was at West Point with Stevens and that old fool
+Vanderschoof. They started shooting at the birds and the birds just
+picked us up and flew away with us."
+
+"Where were you after you came to? I mean after the comet."
+
+"New York. Century Roof. I was dancing there before."
+
+"You aren't Marta Lami, the dancer?"
+
+"Sure. Who the hell do you think?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned and regarded her deliberately, careless of the aroused
+attention of the sentry. So this was the famous dancer who had blazed
+across two continents and three divorce suits--who had been proclaimed
+the most beautiful woman in the world in starring electric lights before
+an applauding Broadway; for whose performances speculators held tickets
+at prize-fight premiums! How little she resembled it now, a parody of
+the human form, working her fingers off as the slave of an alien and
+conquering race.
+
+She asked the next question:
+
+"Where have they got you?"
+
+"I don't know. In a cage somewhere. The only people around there are
+like these mugs." He nodded toward the ape-man.
+
+"I wonder how long they'll keep us at this."
+
+"I wish I could tell you. How's chances of making a break?"
+
+"Rotten. There was a guy at the next machine tried it three or four
+work-periods ago. He socked the dopey at the door."
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"They sent a machine down for him and gave him the yellow lights all
+over. It was fierce, you should have heard him scream."
+
+"How far down are we, anyway?"
+
+"You got me, boy friend. Sssh! Watch the dopey."
+
+Sherman glanced over his shoulder to see the ape-man moving aside from
+the door and bent back to his work. Evidently something important was
+imminent, judging from the actions of the sentry and the energetic
+attention the ex-dancer was giving to her machine. He was not deceived.
+Down the passage came something moving; something flesh-like and smooth,
+of a pale, grey-blue, dead-fish color, like a dangling serpent, then a
+round bulging head and finally the full form of an elephant!
+
+But such an elephant as mortal eye had never before seen. For it stood
+barely eight feet high and its legs were both longer and infinitely more
+slender and graceful than the legs of any earthly elephant. The ears
+were smaller, not loose flaps of skin, but possessed of definite form
+and pressed close to the head. The skull was enormous, bulging at the
+forehead, and wrinkled in the middle down over the large intelligent
+eyes in an expression permanently cross and dissatisfied. As for the
+trunk it reached nearly to the floor, longer and thinner in proportion
+than the trunk of an ordinary elephant, and at its tip divided into four
+finger-like projections set around the circle of the nostril.
+
+Oddest of all, the elephant wore clothes! Or at least an outer garment,
+a kind of long cloak which appeared to be attached underneath its body
+and which covered every portion except the ankles. The feet also were
+covered. A kind of hood hung back from the head on that portion of the
+cloak which rested on the creature's back. But what chiefly aroused
+Sherman's sense of strangeness and loathing was that the naked skin,
+wherever exposed, was of that same poisonous, dead-fish blue.
+
+For a moment the thing stood in the doorway, regarding them, swinging
+its long trunk around restlessly, as though it could tell something
+about them by its sense of smell. Then it advanced a step or two into
+the room, and placing its trunk close to Sherman's body, began to run
+over it, sniffing, a few inches away. He felt that he wanted to shriek,
+to turn and strike the thing, or to run, but a warning glance from the
+dancer kept him motionless.
+
+Apparently satisfied with the result of its examination the elephant
+turned to go, stopping as it did so to unhook some projection on the
+ape-man's helmet and apply it to its ear. After listening for a moment,
+it put the end of the trunk to this projection, snorted into it, and
+went away with soundless steps.
+
+For several minutes the two worked on in silence after this. Then:
+
+"Well, now you seen him," said the dancer, in the same word-by-word
+fashion as before. "That was our boss."
+
+"That--thing?" asked Sherman, incredulously.
+
+"I'll tell the cockeyed world. Say, those babies know more than Einstein
+ever heard of. Try to get fresh with one of them and see."
+
+"What do they do?"
+
+"Shoot you with one of the light-guns. They carry little ones around
+with them. They melt you down wherever they hit you and you have to go
+to the operating room to have things put back and it hurts like hell."
+
+"Oh, I must have been there after they brought me down in my plane. They
+did something to my back."
+
+"Then you know, boy friend. After that they put the helmet on you and
+you have to tell 'em what you're thinking about. You can beat that game,
+though, if you're careful. All I'd give 'em was how good a couple of
+Scotch highballs would taste and it made monkeys of 'em."
+
+It was all very strange and not a little bewildering. Intelligent
+elephants that controlled forces beyond the powers of men; who could
+place a helmet on your head and read your thoughts; who could repair the
+new mechanized human form after it had apparently suffered irreparable
+damage, and who treated men and women as lower animals. Their arrival
+must have been that of the comet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Herbert Sherman had read deeply enough, though not widely. He remembered
+some Englishman--Colvin--Kevin--Kelvin, that was it!--who had a theory
+that life had drifted to the earth from somewhere out in the void of
+space and time. Had these, too, drifted in, in the same way the
+ancestors of man had come, to set a period to the day of man's dominance
+over creation? A strange enough creation it was now, though, with its
+mechanical men and its animals turned to metal statues. He wondered what
+Noah would say, and giggled at the thought.
+
+"What's the joke, boy friend?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. I had an idea."
+
+Their plight at the hands of these master-animals was bad, but it might
+be worse. At least he had a certain amount of freedom, he was stronger
+than he had ever before been in his life, and felt quite as intelligent.
+It would be strange if he could not accomplish something.... He fell to
+planning out ways of escaping and failed to notice the pain in his
+fingers in the intensity of his thoughts.
+
+Everything seemed to show that the operation of most of these machines
+was predominantly electrical. It would be strange if the car that
+carried them to and fro was not, yes and by Jove, the helmets the
+ape-men wore. If he could short-circuit the works, or even a part of
+them....
+
+Apparently his new body was a good conductor and impervious to the
+injurious effects of the electric current. Short-circuit something, that
+was the idea, create a confusion--and trust to escaping in the midst of
+it? Perhaps--but at all events a good deal could be learned about these
+elephant-men and their methods by watching them in such an emergency.
+Their machinery was so efficient that a child could operate it; it was
+in a pinch that their real intelligence would show.
+
+It struck him that it would do little good to escape unless he did learn
+something about these elephant-people, their mysterious light-guns,
+their vast city that they seemed to have hollowed out of the heart of
+the solid Catskill rock, their chemistry and metallurgy and methods of
+attack and defense. Otherwise escape would be a jumping from the
+frying-pan into the fire. There would be nothing for it but a desperate,
+harried existence, the existence of one of the lower animals faced by
+the insupportable competition of man.
+
+Information! That was the first need. He must bend all his energies to
+the task of obtaining it.
+
+"By the way, what do these eggs call themselves?" he asked.
+
+"Lassans," said the dancer.
+
+A light flickered along the corridor. The ape-man at the door came
+forward, touched him on the arm and led him to the passage where he
+caught the car back to his cage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+In the Passages
+
+
+The first thing to be done, Sherman decided, was to short-circuit the
+mind-reading helmet of the guard at the door, if it were possible. He
+was not certain that the thing was electrical, and ignorant of how the
+current was conveyed if it were. He realized that he was dealing with
+the products of an utterly alien form of mentality, one that might not
+produce its results in the same way as an earth-man would at all. But
+something had to be dared, and this seemed to offer the best
+opportunity.
+
+If the thing were electrical, the current must come through the tube to
+the top of the head. On his second work-period he observed this tube
+with care. It ran through an aperture in the stone roof and was
+apparently provided with some spring device, for a considerable length
+of it reeled out when the ape-man wished to walk across the room, and
+was absorbed as he returned.
+
+The tube seemed to be made of the rubber-like material that composed the
+floor of his cage. The simplest plan, of course, would be to bring his
+chopping-knife with him and when the ape-man paused before the wall,
+swing it up in a sweep, severing the tube. But this, he felt, was not to
+be recommended. It would not necessarily short-circuit the current and
+the damage would be too readily laid at his door. The desideratum was
+some damage that apparently accidental, would yet produce a good deal of
+uproar.
+
+He talked it over with Marta Lami.
+
+"I think you're bugs," she said frankly, "but anything for excitement.
+What do you want me to do about it?"
+
+"Well, here's what I figured out," Sherman explained. "We both arrive
+about the same time. I'll bring my knife. When we come in you hang back
+a bit, and while you're doing it, I'll take a poke at that cable with
+the knife, not enough to cut it, but enough to damage it. Then about
+half-way through the work period, I'll turn around and say something to
+you. If I do it quick enough, I think the monk will start for me, and if
+the cable doesn't go then, I'll miss my guess."
+
+The next period proved unsuitable; the dancer's car arrived considerably
+before Sherman's and the plan was dropped for the time, but on the
+following occasion, as Sherman came down the passage, he noticed Marta
+Lami just ahead of him. He hurried to catch up and she evidently
+understood, for she avoided the guard's outstretched hand and hung back
+a minute against the wall as Sherman came up behind. He made one quick
+motion; the cable sheared half-way through exposing two wires of bright
+metal.
+
+As luck would have it, it proved unnecessary to put the second part of
+the plan into operation. For just as Sherman was nerving himself to
+swing round and attract the ape-man's attention, he heard the soft
+pad-pad of one of the approaching Lassans. The ape-man stepped back to
+clear the entrance as he had before, and as he did so, there was a
+trickle of sparks, a blinding flash, and the cable short-circuited.
+
+The result was totally unexpected. From the great machine before Sherman
+there came an answering flash; the ground glass split across with a
+bang, there was a hissing sound and something blew up with a roar that
+rocked the underground chambers....
+
+Sherman came to himself flat on his back and with pieces of rock and the
+debris of the machine lying across his legs. He looked around; Marta
+Lami lay some little distance across the room, half covered with fallen
+rock, one arm flung across her eyes as though to protect them. Above,
+the solid granite looked as though a blasting charge had been fired in
+its midst. Sherman pulled himself to a sitting posture, and finding
+nothing damaged, stood upright. The machine, badly shattered, lay in
+fragments of bent rods, broken pulleys and wrecked cylinders all about
+him. In the place where it had stood was a long narrow opening, down at
+the end of which something irregular shut off a bright point of light. A
+blast of heat exuded from the place and a steady, deep-voiced roaring
+was audible. The ape-man guard was nowhere to be seen.
+
+He bent to pick up the unconscious girl, wondering how one revived a
+mechanical woman, especially without water, but she solved the problem
+for him by opening her eyes and asking:
+
+"Who touched off the pineapple, boy friend?"
+
+"I did. Come out of it and tell me what we do next. Anything busted?"
+
+"Only my head." She patted the mass of stiff wire. "Boy, am I glad I
+wore my hair long before they made a robot of me!" And with an effort
+she stood up, looked down the pit where the machine had been and said,
+"Say, let's get out of here. That don't look so good."
+
+"All right," said Sherman, "which way? Wait till I get my knife."
+
+"No, leave it," she said. "Those babies are nobody's saps. If they find
+it on you they'll know you shot the well. Come on, I think that thing is
+going to pop again."
+
+The roaring had increased in both volume and intensity, and the
+machine-room had become unbearably hot. They turned toward the door, but
+just at the entrance into the passage a pile of debris had descended,
+making egress impossible. Behind them the roaring increased still more.
+"Come on, boy friend," called the dancer, tearing at the rocks. "Get
+these out of the road unless you want to be stewed in your own juice."
+
+Together they toiled over the blocks of granite, hurling them backward
+toward the wreck of the machine. One minute, two, three--the roaring
+behind them grew and spread, the heat became terrific.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Ah!" cried Marta Lami at last. A tiny opening at the top of the heap
+was before them. Sherman tugged at a rock--one more, and they would be
+through. But it was too big, would not budge.
+
+"No, this one," shouted his companion and together they dragged at it.
+It gave--a cascade of smaller stones rolled down the heap to the floor.
+"You first," said Sherman and stood aside.
+
+The dancer wriggled through and reached back a hand to pull him after.
+He dived, grunted, pushed--made it. As they turned to slide down the
+other side of the heap, he looked back. A little rivulet of something
+white, hot and liquid was creeping through the ruins of the machine and
+into the room.
+
+Up the passage, strewn with wreckage, but with no more blockades, into
+the upper machine room. The machines here also were deserted and from
+one of them issued a minor variation on the roaring sound they had heard
+in their own room. The guard was not on duty. They turned, sped up the
+next passage to the place where the cars ordinarily met them. The
+car-track was dark; by the illumination from the passage they could see
+the rail on which it ran, a foot or two down from the level of the
+passage, and about a foot broad--a single shining ribbon of metal.
+Sherman looked in one direction, then the other. Nothing. The roaring
+behind them continued.
+
+"Drive on, kid," said Marta Lami. "The boojums are going to get us if we
+wait."
+
+"Stop, look, listen, watch out for the cars," he quoted as they leaped
+down and both laughed.
+
+The roadbed was as smooth as glass, the rail set flush with it. Judging
+that the best route was the one taking them upward Sherman turned to the
+right and they began climbing, hand in metal hand.
+
+The track was on a curve as well as an ascent. After a few steps they
+were in complete darkness and could only feel their way along, running
+into the wall every few minutes. They climbed for what seemed hours. The
+tunnel continued dark, without branches, simply winding on and on.
+Finally, so quickly that Sherman missed his step, they reached a level
+place, rounded one more curve, and saw ahead of them a band of light
+across the track from some side-tunnel.
+
+"Shall we try it?" he asked as they reached the opening.
+
+"Might be another machine room," she said, "but let's go. This track is
+terrible. If I wasn't made of iron I'd have bruises all over."
+
+He vaulted over the sill, reached down and hauled her after him. From
+behind them came the roar, sunk to a vague purring by the distance. They
+were in another granite-lined passage; one that went straight ahead for
+a few yards, then branched sharply. The right hand fork seemed to lead
+downward; automatically they took the other turn. A diffused radiance
+from somewhere high in the walls, as though the granite had been
+rendered transparent here and there, filled the whole place with
+shadowless light. For a time the passage ran level, then it climbed
+again, with another fork to the right, which dipped away from their
+level and which they again avoided. Of any other living being there was
+thus far no sign.
+
+The passage began climbing again, in a tight spiral, this time.
+
+"Good thing we're in training," remarked Marta Lami. "This is worse than
+the stairs in the Statue of Liberty."
+
+"Oh, did you fall for climbing that, too?" asked Sherman.
+
+"Sure. Publicity stunt about a year ago. Dumb bunny of a publicity man.
+Photographed on the old lady's spikes. Never will again."
+
+The spiral ended, a side passage branched off. The dancer stopped.
+
+"Sh," she said, "someone's coming. Duck in here." She seized Sherman's
+hand and led him into the side passage, down which they ran for a few
+feet, then paused to look back. Down the passage they had just vacated
+came a group of the ape-men, four or five of them, each carrying on his
+left arm a long, cylindrical shield like those one sees in pictures of
+Roman soldiers, and in his right hand some instrument that looked like
+a fire extinguisher with a long, flexible nozzle.
+
+Each of the group wore one of the helmets and behind them, wearing a
+similar headgear to which all the tubes were connected from the
+ape-men's helmets came one of the Lassans. The group hurried past
+without a sideward glance, the metal feet of the ape-men ringing oddly
+loud on the granite of the echoing passage. After a minute Sherman and
+the dancer crept cautiously forward; the procession had gone straight on
+down. Very likely a wrecking crew.
+
+Sherman and Marta sprinted up the passage in the direction from which
+the ape-men and their guide had come. The passage no longer rose with
+the same steepness, and as the ascent grew more gentle, the tunnel
+widened, with frequent side-passages to the right and branches leading
+down to the track at the left. Finally, after a sharp turn, it opened
+out into a big room, untenanted like all they had seen so far, filled
+with a complex maze of machinery, but machinery of a different character
+from that they had labored at. At the farther end of the room a door
+stood open. They dashed across it, plunged through--and found themselves
+in one of the enormous blue-domed halls, whose ceiling seemed to stretch
+miles above them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It must have been all of three hundred feet across, and there was no
+visible support for the ceiling. All about the place stood various
+objects and pieces of machinery, and figures moved dimly among the
+titanic apparatus at the far end. But what most attracted their
+attention was the huge object that stood right before them.
+
+It looked like a metal fish on an enormous scale. Fully fifty feet long
+and twenty feet high, its immense proportions dwarfed everything about
+it, and its sides, of brilliantly polished metal, shone like a mirror.
+The tail came to a stubby point, from which projected a circle of four
+tubes; down the side was a rib which ended in a similar tube about half
+way, and at the nose-end of the mechanical fish was a ten-foot snout,
+not unlike an elephant's trunk in shape and apparently made of the same
+rubbery material which held the cables of the helmets.
+
+Marta pulled Sherman down behind the thing, and they peered around the
+edge seeking for a means of egress from the room. The nearest was twenty
+or thirty feet away. Watching their opportunity, they chose a moment
+when they seemed least likely to attract attention and made a dive for
+it.
+
+They found themselves in another passage, terminating in two doors.
+
+"Which?" asked Sherman.
+
+"Eeny-meeny," said Marta--"this one," and stepping boldly to the right
+hand door, pushed it open....
+
+For a moment they could only gaze. The room they had entered was another
+and smaller blue-domed hall. Around its sides was a row of curious
+twisted benches of green material, each of which was now occupied by one
+of the Lassans, hood thrown back from head, and elephant-trunk thrust
+into a large pool of some viscous, green stuff with bright yellow flecks
+in it, in the center of the circle. Half a dozen helmeted ape-men stood
+behind the benches of their masters, apparently serving them at this
+singular meal.
+
+[Illustration: Half a dozen ape-men stood behind the benches of their
+masters apparently serving at this singular meal.]
+
+As the two humans entered there was one of those silences which are
+pregnant with events. Then:
+
+"Good evening, folks. How's the boy?" said Marta, and curtsied
+gracefully.
+
+The sound of her words seemed to release the spell. With a bellow of
+rage the nearest Lassan leaped from his bench, fumbling at one of the
+pouches in his cloak. "The light-gun!" thought Sherman and braced
+himself to spring, but another of the masters extended his trunk and
+detained the first one. There was a momentary babble of rumbling
+conversation, then one of the Lassans reached behind him, picked up a
+helmet and placed it on his head, and attaching a tube to one of the
+ape-men, rose.
+
+The ape-man moved toward Marta and Sherman like a being in a dream. They
+turned to run, but the Lassan produced a light-gun with such evident
+intention of using it at the first motion that they paused.
+
+"Looks like we're in for it," said the dancer. "Oh, well, lead on
+Napoleon. What do we care for expenses?"
+
+Under the direction of the Lassan the ape-man took them each by an arm
+and led them back through the hall of the metal fish, down among the
+machines, where two or three others stared at them curiously or lifted
+inquisitive trunks in their direction. Then into another passage which
+had one of the inevitable car-tracks. Their Lassan conductor reached
+around the corner into the passage, applied his trunk briefly to
+something and a moment later one of the cars slid silently into
+position. The door opened.
+
+"So long, old scout," said Marta Lami. "Even if I never see you again,
+we had a great time together."
+
+"So long," replied Sherman, taking his place in the car. He felt a
+distinct pang at leaving this dancer--vulgar, no doubt, and flippant,
+but gay and debonair, and the best of companions.
+
+The car did not take them far. It discharged Sherman in a little passage
+before a narrow door, which opened automatically to admit him to a small
+blue-domed room containing nothing but a seat, one of the benches on
+which he had seen the Lassans reclining and a mass of wires and tubes.
+There seemed nothing in particular to do. He was at liberty, save that
+the door closed firmly behind him, cutting off escape, and seeing that
+he was left alone, he seated himself and began to examine the machinery,
+most of which was attached to his chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The Lassan Explains
+
+
+Before he had time to riddle out any of its secrets the door opened
+again and one of the Lassans came in--a distinctly different type than
+any he had hitherto seen. This one was smaller than most; his skin,
+where exposed, was covered by a tracery of fine wrinkles and his
+coloring was whiter than the rest. Little crowfeet stood around the
+corners of his eyes, giving him an expression that was singularly
+humorous. He approached Sherman on noiseless feet, moved his trunk up
+and down as though examining him and then, producing from a pocket in
+his cloak one of the thought-helmets, set it on Sherman's head,
+tightened a connection or two with his trunk and placing a like device
+on his own head, settled himself on the twisted bench.
+
+The ordeal of the helmet! "They make you think whatever they want you
+to; it's like being hypnotized," Marta Lami had said. He braced himself
+resolutely. This alien intelligence should not plumb his thoughts
+without a struggle....
+
+To his surprise, there seemed no attempt to force his mind. The thought
+leaped up, unbidden, "Why, this--this Lassan is friendly!" No definite
+image or plan or connection of ideas formed itself in his brain; he
+merely felt enormously soothed and strengthened. After all, he found
+himself arguing, nobody desired to hurt him; merely to discover what
+curious process of thought had led him to act as he had.
+
+"You are too intelligent, too high a type to have been put to work at
+the machines," came the unspoken thought of the Lassan. "We might better
+have put you at the controls of one of the fighting machines." (This
+thought caused a mental image of the giant silver fish he had seen in
+the hall of the dome to rise in his mind; he pictured himself as seated
+amid a mass of levers before a panel set with complex gauges.)
+
+"It was a mistake," the thought he was receiving went on, "that you were
+sent there. The Alphen of the mental department, who had your case in
+charge should have known better. You earth-men make much better machines
+than the ones we brought with us. You do not even need the helmets in
+order to control. Some of you are even capable of understanding and
+operating the lights." (This, he explained afterward appeared not as a
+consecutive sentence in Sherman's mind, but as a succession of ideas,
+almost as though he were thinking them himself. With the word "lights" a
+complex picture presented itself, involving the light-guns and a large
+amount of other complex apparatus, whose exact uses he did not then or
+later understand, but which he felt he understood at the moment.)
+
+"Now," the Lassan's thought went on, "I don't blame you for being
+frightened and trying to run away, but you know we are different and I
+don't quite understand what frightened you. You were working at a
+machine, were you not?" And as Sherman unconsciously thought of himself
+sticking his fingers in the apertures of the machines, "I thought so.
+What happened?"
+
+Unbidden, the memory of the explosion came to him. Again he heard the
+Lassan's step in the corridor, saw the guard move aside, the sputter
+from the cable, and then the explosion; then his memory jumped to the
+moment of tugging at the stones with the roar and heat all round and the
+white-hot stream in pursuit.
+
+A vague, but sympathetic thought reached him, followed by a
+question--"But what made that happen? You're intelligent, you understand
+these things, you are a mechanic--what made it happen?"
+
+With a start of surprise Sherman realized that the Lassan had been
+leading him gently along from place to place--to trap him! He struggled
+desperately to keep the thought of the short-circuiting of the guard's
+helmet from his mind; struggled to think about anything else at
+all--thought of a plate of steaming corned beef and cabbage, of the
+multiplication table--5 x 5 = 25, all in neat rows of figures, thought
+of how to control a plane that had gone into a tail-spin....
+
+The pressure suddenly relaxed, the mind opposite his became friendly
+again; once more he received the vague intimation of sympathy and
+understanding, even of admiration of his mental strength.
+
+"Why," the thought was telling him, "you have quite as much mentality as
+a Lassan! That is a very high compliment. I have never before met one of
+the lower animals who could withhold his thoughts from me. It is most
+extraordinary. Is it possible for you to withhold your thoughts from
+your own kind as well?"
+
+Not at all difficult, thought Sherman, relaxing a bit; indeed the
+difficulty in human communication lies not in withholding thoughts but
+in expressing them.
+
+His interlocutor went on, "Ah, but the feeling, the thought is generally
+understood, though it may not be clear. Tell me, have you never withheld
+a thought from someone who wished to know it?"
+
+Yes, thought Sherman, I have--and remembered the poker game at the
+Cleveland airport when he had drawn two cards and unexpectedly filled a
+straight flush to win the biggest pot of the evening from Barney's full
+house; and of the time when he had thought of numerous unpleasant ways
+of slaying the mechanic who had left a leak in his oil-line and of the
+time when a girl had tried to gold-dig him and he had divined her
+intention first, and of the time when he had lifted the knife--!!!
+
+Again that jar! He realized with a start that the Lassan having failed
+to pick his brain with friendliness, was trying to do it with flattery,
+and the realization so filled him with anger that he had no difficulty
+in resisting the pressure that was applied to make him tell, tell, tell
+what had happened in the machine-room at the end of the passage.
+
+Once more the pressure relaxed. The Lassan was congratulating him again.
+"No, this is sincere this time and not flattery. You win. I shall not
+try to make you tell me again. We can probably obtain it from the other
+one anyway. Oh, man of a debased and alien race, I salute you. If your
+race were all like you we might breed them for intelligence and live in
+cooperation with you. It is almost a pity you had to be mechanized. If
+there is any information you wish, I will gladly exchange with you. We
+have seen your homes, we are curious--imagine living above the
+ground!--and from others of your race we know that you have many fine
+machines, almost a civilization, in fact. We would willingly know more
+of it and in return will tell you of our accomplishments."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Could this offer conceal some new trap? Sherman wondered, but the Lassan
+divined this thought as soon as formed, and reassured him. "Since we now
+live here and since there are so few of your folk left it is important
+that we know about each other. We must live side by side--why not in
+friendship?"
+
+The offer seemed fair enough. At all events if there were any
+injudicious questions he could turn them aside, and there was a good
+deal he wished to learn--about his mechanized body, about the purpose of
+those curious machines, the blue-domed halls, the silver fish, the
+interweavings of this underground city, where the Lassans had come
+from--he assented.
+
+"Good," the message reached him. "Suppose you ask a question and then I
+will. What do you wish to know?"
+
+"How I was made into a machine."
+
+"I do not know that I can explain it to you. I perceive your knowledge
+of the nature of light is elementary.... But the material with which we
+surrounded the space-ship in which we came, in order to protect it from
+the radiation of suns unknown to you, has a powerful action on all
+animal substances. It is a material not unlike your radium, but a
+thousand times more powerful. When we reached your planet, your
+atmosphere carried it to every part of the earth, and all living things
+received it. Those who were most affected by it were turned to metal
+which retained that quality called 'life' within its interior reaches;
+the others became merely solid metal.
+
+"Our birds are under instructions to bring us all such individuals as
+possess life. In our laboratories we make their forms over, so they will
+be useful to us as servants. Those who have become solid, of course,
+nothing can be done for. We have found in the past that when we take a
+new planet and make the individuals over into machines, unless we return
+them to familiar surroundings, they lose their brains when they reawake.
+Therefore you woke in the same place in which you passed from
+consciousness."
+
+"Wonderful," said Sherman, "and where do you come from and how did you
+get here?"
+
+He felt the Lassan's amusement. "That is two questions you have asked,
+and not one. Nevertheless I will answer. We come from a planet of
+another star, very far away--I do not know how to express it to you.
+Your methods of measurement for these things are different from ours."
+In Sherman's mind appeared a picture of the night heavens with the
+tremendous ribbon of the Milky Way swinging across its center; his
+attention was directed to one star, a very bright one.
+
+"Rigel!" his mind called, and the thought went on. He was suddenly
+transported to the neighborhood of the star, felt that it was ages ago,
+long before the earth had cooled, and saw that the star, then a sun like
+our own, was threatened by some enormous catastrophe, a titanic
+explosion. Abruptly the picture was wiped out and he beheld the comet,
+the great comet the earthly astronomers had watched for so long before
+it struck on that fateful night, and realized that it was no comet, but
+an interplanetary vehicle bound from the planet of Rigel to the earth.
+
+[Illustration: The star, like our own sun, was threatened by some
+enormous catastrophe, a titanic explosion.]
+
+"But how--?" he began to frame another question. The Lassan cut across
+it firmly. "It is my turn to seek information now. We are interested in
+the machine that brought you here--the bird machine. How does it
+operate?"
+
+Sherman imagined himself in the airplane's seat, operating the controls
+and as well as he could to a strange type of mind, explained how they
+worked. "But what drives it?" insisted the Lassan. "I do not understand.
+No, not the queer thing at the front that turns round. We have that
+principle ourselves. But the thing that makes it turn."
+
+For answer, Sherman tried to picture the interior of the engine and show
+the gasoline exploding and driving it. The mind opposite his became
+thoughtful at once, and then flashed a question. "Are there
+many--explosives--in this earth?"
+
+Sherman pictured gunpowder, dynamite and all the others he could think
+of. He at once sensed that the Lassan was both astonished and troubled.
+Something like a mental curtain which he could not pierce, dropped
+between them. A moment later the elephant-man rose.
+
+"That will be sufficient for the present," he flashed, and came forward
+to remove the helmet from Sherman's head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few moments later the door was swung open; Sherman saw that one of the
+cars was waiting for him with the word "EXIT" beckoning him on and he
+was soon back in his cage.
+
+As nearly as he could judge time, he was left alone for quite
+twenty-four hours before being recalled for further questioning. As soon
+as he entered the interrogation room he perceived that something serious
+had engaged the attention of the Lassans. The seat was prepared for him
+as before, but instead of one of the twisted benches, there were now
+three. His acquaintance, the old Lassan, occupied the center one; on one
+side was a chubby elephant-man whose obesity gave a singularly infantile
+expression to his features and on the other a slender-limbed type, as
+though by contrast. All three had tubes connected to the helmet which
+was placed on his head, but he soon recognized that the older Lassan was
+the only one to ask questions.
+
+"We wish to ask you about these explosives," came the message. "Are they
+all alike?"
+
+"No," he answered instantly.
+
+"What causes them to explode?"
+
+"I am not a chemist. I don't know." The idea of chemistry was slightly
+unfamiliar to them; it was apparent from their thoughts that chemistry
+had never occurred to them as the subject of a special study. Then came
+another question, "Are there many chemists?"
+
+An idea struck Sherman. He closed his mind resolutely against the
+question and flashed back the message that he had come to learn as well
+as teach. He sensed a certain annoyance among the new auditors, but the
+old Lassan answered, "That is only just. What do you wish to know?"
+
+"What the machines are for."
+
+"In the center of this as of every other earth lies the substance of
+life, as it lies at the heart of every sun. The machines pierce to it
+and draw it up for our uses."
+
+"What is this substance of life?"
+
+"You would not understand if we told you. Sufficient that it is nothing
+known on the surface of your world. Your idea that most nearly
+approaches it is--" he paused for a moment, feeling about in Sherman's
+mind for the proper expression "--is pure light; light having material
+body and strength. Now let me ask--do you use explosives as we use the
+substance of life, to fight your enemies?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What weapons do you use them in?"
+
+Sherman thought of a revolver and then of a cannon.
+
+"And do these weapons act at a distance?"
+
+"Yes. May I ask a question?"
+
+"If it is a brief one. This interview is important to us."
+
+"How many of your people are there on the earth?"
+
+"It is inadvisable to answer that fully, but there are some hundreds.
+Now tell us, are there any of these weapons near this place?"
+
+Sherman thought. West Point--Watervliet Arsenal--Iona Island, leaped
+into his mind. All three Lassans leaned back with a sigh of satisfaction
+and exchanged thoughts among themselves so rapidly that he could not
+follow the process. Then the two younger Lassans disconnected their
+helmets and the older one said,
+
+"We are disposed to be generous to you, we will demonstrate one of our
+fighting machines to you if you will show us how to use these
+explosives."
+
+There could be no particular harm in it, he argued to himself. The army
+was a thing of the past, and if there were other people out in the
+world, and he could take them a knowledge of the Lassan fighting
+machines it would be of as much value as any information he could give.
+He agreed.
+
+The old Lassan rose. "You will retain your helmet. It is a rule that
+none of the lower races are allowed in the fighting machines without
+them, and you would be unable to control one without our help in any
+case."
+
+The car carried them to the blue-domed hall where he and Marta Lami had
+hidden behind the shining fish. A little pang of loneliness leaped up in
+him at the sight; he wondered where she was and whether she had been
+sent back to the machines. "No," the Lassan's thought answered his, "the
+other servant has not been returned to the machines. Many of them are
+not working as a result of the recent trouble and the servant has been
+placed on other work instead. But I do not understand your idea that the
+other servant is somehow different from you."
+
+"Do the Lassans, then, have no sex?" the thought raced through his
+brain.
+
+"Sex? Oh, I understand. The difference between two of the lower soft
+races that makes reproduction possible. Our birds have it. No, we have
+abolished it of course, as all higher races have. Our young are produced
+artificially."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A Dash for Freedom
+
+
+They stood before the big machine. "You must do exactly as I tell you,"
+the Lassan informed him. "The machinery of this instrument is very
+delicate. First, to enter, you must reach up there, by that fin, and
+insert one of your fingers in the hole you will find."
+
+As he did so Sherman saw a door, so closely fitted that when it closed
+there was no visible seam in the metal, swing back. They entered.
+
+The interior of the machine was disappointingly smaller than its outside
+would have led one to expect. A narrow walk, railed on both sides, led
+down the center to the forward part. Along and slightly below this walk
+was a row of instrument boards not unlike those of the mining machine,
+and at each of these one of the ape-men lay, helmet on head, apparently
+asleep. "No, not asleep," the Lassan told him, "they do not require it,
+like all our mechanical servants. They have merely been thrown into a
+state of nothingness till we need them."
+
+At the prow of the machine the cat-walk widened into a control chamber.
+One of the Lassan couches was here and above it dangled a helmet which
+was connected with those of the slumbering ape-men. The Lassan removed
+the helmet he wore and exchanged it for this. Before this was another
+seat in which Sherman took his position. A complex of controls
+surrounded him, most of them with the fingerholes which were the
+ordinary Lassan method of handling machinery. Directly in front of this
+seat was a ground-glass panel, now dark but which lit up as soon as the
+Lassan had connected up his helmet, to give an accurate picture of the
+hall in which the fighting machine stood.
+
+"And can you see to a distance?" Sherman wondered. The answer he
+received was either confused or beyond his comprehension. He gathered
+that the four-winged birds of the Lassans acted in some way or other as
+their scouts, remaining in a kind of telepathic communication with the
+Lassan in the fighting-machine they were assigned to help....
+
+Sherman was surprised to find how readily the enormous bulk and weight
+of the thing handled under the Lassan's skilled control. He understood,
+without definitely asking, that the power was furnished by that
+"substance of life" to which the Lassan had referred; in some way
+connected with the absolute destruction of matter....
+
+The door swung open before them, leading them down a passage that went
+up for some distance, then through an immense room where some twenty
+more of these giants lay stored, through it, and with surprising
+suddenness into the bright sunlight of a Catskill autumn day. As they
+emerged the viewing plate swung round to show them three of the big
+four-winged birds go whirring up from some unseen covert, spiral into
+the air above them and flying level with them, form an escort.
+
+Like most mail aviators, Sherman held a commission in the Army Reserve
+and had been to West Point. It was not difficult for him to guide the
+great fighting machine there, to find a field gun and ammunition and
+load it into the fighting machine. He knew very little about artillery
+of any kind, but when they returned to the door of the Lassan city, he
+was enough of a mechanic to get the shell into the breech and find the
+firing mechanism. The gun went off with an earsplitting crack and the
+shell whistled down the valley to burst against a green hillside where
+they saw a graceful pine dip and fall to the shock.
+
+And just at that moment such a sense of disturbance and alarm invaded
+Sherman's mind as he had never felt before. He looked around; the group
+of Lassans who had poured out of the city to see the experiment with the
+gun was gathered in a tight knot, eagerly conversing with one another.
+The old Lassan who was conducting him turned round abruptly. "Into the
+fighting-machine at once," he commanded. "Our birds have sent a message
+that they are being attacked by some strange creature of your world."
+
+As Sherman climbed through the door of the fighting machine he glanced
+over his shoulder to see, far down the valley a black speck against the
+sky. An airplane? he wondered and it suddenly occurred to him that
+however great his thirst for information, he should have kept his
+knowledge of guns from the Lassans; for if there were other people alive
+out there in the world the day might come when it would be a battle--and
+explosives were as new to the Lassans as the light-ray to the children
+of men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that it became a struggle.
+
+Sherman found he had to be constantly on his guard; constantly he had to
+conceal knowledge from the probing, insistent mind-helmets. The Lassans
+seemed interested in only one subject now: human methods of making war,
+human guns, human armor, human ships. Once they brought him an
+encyclopedia and as he held it on his lap went over every word of the
+articles on military subjects, questioning and cross-questioning him.
+Fortunately, it was an old encyclopedia, and he knew so little about it
+that in most cases he was able to throw open his mind and let his
+opponents see that it lay empty on these subjects. And still they were
+not satisfied.
+
+Yet if he gave information, he also received it; for little by little an
+understanding of the subtle material they called pure light became part
+of his mental equipment....
+
+One day, as he returned from a long session in the questioning room and
+his cage clicked into position behind him, he was startled by a cheery,
+strident voice:
+
+"Well, well, if it isn't my old pal, Herbie. How's the boy?"
+
+Sherman looked around. In the next cage was Marta Lami, grinning and
+extending her hand through the bars.
+
+"For Heaven's sake!" he said, and took the offered hand. "How did you
+get here?"
+
+"How does anyone get anywhere around this place? In one of those patent
+Fords of theirs."
+
+They gazed at each other for a moment, too glad of a familiar face to
+make the ordinary banal remarks. The dancer spoke first:
+
+"Well, did they put the screws on you, big boy? They tried to pump me
+about that accident but all I'd think about was how good Broadway would
+look with all the lights, and they didn't make much out of me."
+
+"I'll say they put the screws on me. They've had me in there every day
+since, trying to find out something about guns."
+
+"Guns? What t'hell! Ain't they got that light-ray? They could give cards
+and spades to all the guns in the world with that. Wait a minute,
+though...." She thought for a moment. "Do you know, I think they're
+scared yellow about something and I'll bet a hundred dollars against a
+case of bathtub gin I know what it is."
+
+"Yeh? Spring it. They keep pumping me and I'd like to know what it's all
+about."
+
+The dancer glanced around. On the far side of her cage was an
+inattentive ape-man tossing his oil-ball about, across the corridor
+another. "Come over here," she said. "They haven't put me next to you
+for the fun of it, and they may have a dictaphone stuck around
+somewhere."
+
+Obediently Sherman approached the bars of the cage.
+
+"They put me to work making those fighting-machines," she whispered,
+"you know, those big shiny things like we hid behind that day we tried
+to make the break. They had the helmets on me most of the time because I
+didn't know how to use their tools and machines and I got a lot of what
+the guy that was running me was thinking about. He was damn nervous
+about something, and I think it was because there are some people
+outside going to take a whack at these babies."
+
+"People like--us?" asked Sherman.
+
+"I don't know. I didn't get it very good, but I think they're ordinary
+flesh-and-blood people. They came and got a lot of the dopeys from the
+room where I lived the other day and put them in one of the new
+fighting-machines and took it out. It never came back."
+
+"Mmm," said Sherman, "do you s'pose that was because it got cracked up
+or because they took it somewhere else?"
+
+"Dunno. But something's stirring."
+
+If the Lassans had set a dictaphone or some similar device to spy on
+them there was no sign of it in the conversation which Sherman's
+interrogator held with him during the next period. But when he saw the
+dancer again, she beckoned him silently to her side, and producing from
+one of her drawers a book, began to trace letters on it with a
+fingernail dipped in grease.
+
+"_Be careful what you say_," she wrote. "_They know what we're talking
+about. They pumped me._"
+
+He nodded. "Well, kid," he said aloud. "What do you think? Will you ever
+make dancers of these Lassans?"
+
+She giggled her appreciation of this remark for their unseen audience.
+"I'll say I won't. They're too slow on their pins. Rather sit still and
+suck up that green gooey than do anything. Cheez! What would I give for
+some good music."
+
+"If I had a hand-organ now--" said Sherman. "We've got the monk." He
+nodded toward the ape-man, while with his own fingernail he wrote.
+"_How's chances of getting out of here? Do you know the way?_"
+
+"I'll speak to one of the big shots tomorrow," she said aloud. "Maybe we
+can get him to let us run a show." On the book's flyleaf appeared the
+words. "_Only from the work-room on. It has an outside door._"
+
+"How would I do as a dancing partner?" asked Sherman. "_Good_," he
+wrote. "_I've doped out how to work these cars. Are you game for a try
+at it?_"
+
+"You haven't got the figure," she said. "I'd rather dance with that old
+papa Lassan that does the questions." "_Sure_," she wrote, "_any time
+you say._"
+
+They broke off the conversation at this point, and Sherman set himself
+to study out a plan for escape. He had watched the cars intently both
+inside and out. The same needle arrangement that released the cage bars,
+apparently, actuated the mechanism of the car doors, and it was located
+inside. This meant that he could secure admission to the same car that
+carried the girl, and with luck, would be able to get out at the same
+time she did. What to do after that was a matter of chance and
+inspiration. If only he had a weapon!... The oil and grease balls. They
+would do to throw--might spoil a Lassan's aim or check the rush of one
+of the ape-man servants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As finally arranged between them the plan was that he was to get in the
+same car she did. She would tap on the back of her compartment to assure
+him that everything was in order, and tap again when the door opened for
+her to get out. He would leave her a second to get her bearings, then
+they would make a rush of it. He weighed the usefulness of the knife as
+a weapon and discarded it--too clumsy for throwing and in a close
+struggle with one of the ape-men slaves, made of metal like himself, it
+would be quite useless. But another tool, rather like a short-handled
+and badly shaped hammer, he did take.
+
+At last the hour arrived. The car ran down the line of cages, paused;
+opened before Marta Lami's. She smiled at him, nodded, and purposely
+delayed getting in. He fumbled desperately with his needle, fearing he
+could not make it, then it went home, the little arm at the bottom of
+the car swung out and its door opened. As he stepped in he heard the
+dancer's tap of encouragement from the compartment ahead.
+
+Evidently it was some little distance to the work room. The car made
+several stops on the way, but Sherman, braced and ready, listened in
+vain for the tap that would tell him they had reached their destination.
+At last it came; two soft knocks. He bent, thrust home the needle. The
+door slid back, and he stepped out into one of the blue-domed rooms. His
+eyes caught a fantastic maze of machinery, helmeted ape-men busy at it
+and beyond them the huge forms of several uncompleted fighting machines.
+
+The dancer gripped his hand. "This way," she said, pointing along the
+wall past the machines. "Take it easy; don't run till they notice us."
+
+A feverish passion for activity burned in him. "Hurry, hurry," called
+every sense, but he fought it down and followed Marta Lami down the line
+of machines, past the impassive ape-men.
+
+They made over half the distance to the door before they were spotted.
+Then one of the Lassans, who had sauntered over to the car stop,
+evidently expecting Marta, missed her and looked around. The first
+warning the two had was a sudden flickering of blue lights here and
+there among the machines. "Come on," shouted Marta. "There she goes!"
+
+Sherman looked over his shoulder, saw the Lassan tugging at his pouch
+for a ray-gun, and paused to throw one of the oil-balls, straight and
+true, as one pitches a baseball. It struck the elephant-man squarely
+between the eyes, at the base of his trunk. He squealed with pain and
+fright and dropping the ray-gun, ran behind a machine. For a second all
+the eyes in the room turned toward him; then with another flickering of
+lights, the hunt was up.
+
+Sherman saw a helmeted ape-man at a machine just ahead turn slowly
+round, gazing vacantly, and then fling himself at Marta. As she
+side-stepped to avoid his rush, Sherman swung his left from the heels.
+The metal fist took the slave flush on the jaw, and down he went with a
+crash. The dazzling spout of a ray-gun shot past them, spattering
+against the wall in a shower of stars, and they had reached the exit.
+
+"Come, oh come!" shouted Marta, tugging at the heavy door. Sherman
+pulled with her, and at that moment another ray-gun flash struck it,
+just over their heads. The door gave suddenly; they tumbled through.
+
+Into a gray twilight they struggled, shot with little dashes of rain
+that had beaten the valley to mud.
+
+"Cheez!" said Marta, struggling through the gelatinous stuff. "If I live
+through this, I'll live to be a million."
+
+"No, not that way," called Sherman. "They'll look for us down the valley.
+Come on, up the hill."
+
+He pulled her upward. They slipped, stumbled, slid, gripped the stump of
+a tree, then another. Below and behind them came a confused rumble and
+they heard the great door swing open again. A burst of light, like a
+star in the cloudy dark, broke out, and Sherman pulled the girl down
+behind the stump of a huge tree.
+
+"What do you s'pose they'll bring after us?" he whispered, his lips
+close to her ear.
+
+"Dunno. One of the little machines maybe. Look."
+
+Sherman peered cautiously round his side of the stump. In the valley
+beneath them, shining brilliantly in the pure white light it had
+released, was one of the metal fish--but a smaller one than the usual
+fighting machine, and without the projecting trunk.
+
+"We've been working on them for a while," the girl whispered. "I don't
+know what they're for, but they aren't fighting machines."
+
+Remembering how the vision plate of the fighting machine he had
+controlled had reflected every object within range, Sherman made himself
+small behind the stump. The machine below was probably trying to locate
+them in the light it had released.
+
+"Wonder they don't bring the birds out," he thought, and as if in answer
+to this idea, one of the four-winged creatures strutted around the
+machine, blinking in the light, then took off with a whir of wings, and
+spiralled upward. The light went out, reappeared as a beam, pointing
+down the valley and the machine moved off, slowly sweeping the sides of
+the hills with its pencil of illumination. He could see the multiple
+glow of the tubes at the stern, greenly phosphorescent, as the machine
+progressed. High above the bird screamed shrilly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Marta's Sacrifice
+
+
+Progress up the hillside was slow. It had become completely dark; they
+were without any means of making a light and would not have dared to
+make one if they could. The mud was tenacious, the constant contact with
+stumps and rocks both irritating and difficult. But at last in their
+fumbling way, they reached a spot where the denudation gave place to a
+line of trees, looming dark and friendly overhead against the skyline,
+and after that they went faster. Where they were or what route to take
+neither had any idea. That portion of the Catskills is still as wild as
+in the days of the Iroquois, save for the few thin roads along the line
+of the valleys and these they dared not seek.
+
+They solved the difficulty by keeping to the hillcrest till it ran out
+in a valley, then rapidly climbing the next hill and proceeding along
+that in the shelter of the forest. Though they necessarily went slowly
+they did not halt; neither felt the need of rest or sleep, their metal
+limbs took no serious bruises, and the slip of the hill kept them from
+running in circles as people usually do when lost in the woods.
+
+Just as the eastern sky began to hold some faint promise of dawn they
+came upon a farmhouse in a clearing at the top of a hill. It was an
+unprepossessing affair with a sagging roof, but they burst in the door
+and went through it in the hope of finding weapons and perhaps an
+electric battery, for both were used to the bountiful electric meals of
+the Lassans and were beginning to feel the lack.
+
+The best the place afforded, however, was a rather ancient axe, of which
+Sherman possessed himself, and a large pot of vaseline with which they
+anointed themselves liberally, for the continued damp was making them
+feel rusty in the joints.
+
+They pressed on, and did not halt to consider the situation till full
+day had come.
+
+"Where do we go from here?" asked Marta, perching herself on a
+tree-bole.
+
+"South, I guess," offered Sherman. "They may be looking for us there,
+but we got to find a city and get some things."
+
+"There's Albany," she suggested.
+
+"Yes, and Schenectady and they have a lot of electric power there we
+could use. But I vote for New York. If we head in there I can pick up a
+plane at one of the airports and walk right away from them."
+
+"Well, it's a chance," she said, "but anything is. Come on...." and as
+they forced their way through the underbrush, "You know, from what I
+understood of those Lassans' thoughts, they've got something hot cooking
+up. I'm almost sure there are other people in the world and they're
+getting ready to fight them."
+
+"Let 'em come," said Sherman grimly. "That light-ray won't stand the
+chance of a whistle in a whirlwind when they get after them with heavy
+artillery and airplane observation."
+
+"That's just where you're all wet," replied the dancer. "They've been
+figuring on that for a long time. They got a gun from somewhere, and
+they've had all their fighting machines out, shooting it at them, and
+then armoring up the fighting machines to stand it. And they're
+building guns of their own to shoot those light-bombs. I ought to know.
+I was on the job."
+
+Sherman cursed himself inwardly. So that had been the result of his
+exchange of information with the old Lassan who was so anxious to know
+about guns.
+
+"How do they get away from it?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I don't know quite," she said. "I'm a sap about stuff like that.
+All I know is what the guy that was controlling me thought about and let
+me have without knowing it. But I got this much out of it--that the
+outside of these fighting machines is coated with this 'substance of
+life' they talk about some way, so it's a perfect mirror, and reflects
+everything that hits it, even shells. The coating reflects their light
+ray, too, but it has to have a lead backing for that. It's no good
+without the lead. Seems like lead will stop that light-ray every time."
+
+"I wonder how about big guns," murmured Sherman.
+
+"Don't know. I didn't get anything like that in what the boss was
+thinking. He seemed to imagine the gun he had was the biggest there
+was."
+
+They toiled on. As they progressed southward the thinning forest and the
+increasing walls of the cliffs drove them farther and farther toward the
+river, till they were forced to take to the main road willy-nilly. Along
+it they could walk faster, but there was more danger. They watched the
+heavens narrowly for any sign of the four-winged birds, but the skies
+seemed deserted.
+
+At Kingston they found a filling station, and kicking in the door,
+located a couple of storage batteries that supplied them with a needed
+meal. "What do you say to a car?" asked Sherman.
+
+"Maybe yes, maybe no," said the dancer. "It's running a chance, isn't
+it? Still, we're getting nowhere awful fast this way. Let's try it."
+
+Finding a car in running order was a procedure of some difficulty, and
+Kingston seemed a weaponless town, though Marta finally did locate one
+little pearl-handled .25 calibre pop-gun. Sherman eyed it dubiously.
+
+"That's a good thing to kill mosquitoes with," he remarked, "but I don't
+think it will be much use for anything else."
+
+"Boloney," she replied. "These Lassans are yellow from way back. If I
+stuck this under the nose of one of them he'd throw a fit. Come on.
+Let's go."
+
+Eventlessly, the road flowed past under their wheels--Newburgh,
+Haverstraw, Nyack--one, two, three hours. Then, just south of Chester
+the dancer suddenly gripped Sherman's arm.
+
+"What's that?" she said. "No, over there. Isn't it--?"
+
+But in one swift glance he had seen as clearly as she. Like a living
+thing, the car swerved from the road, dived across the ditch, and losing
+speed, rolled to a halt on the green lawn of a suburban bungalow.
+Sherman leaped out. "Come on, for God's sake," he cried. "It's a
+fighting machine. If they've seen us they'll start shooting."
+
+Dragging her after him, he dived around the house, through a seedy
+flower-garden, down a path. As though to lend emphasis to his words
+there came the familiar buzzing roar, and as Sherman dropped, pulling
+the girl flat on her face after him, they saw the wall of the bungalow
+cave in, and the roof tilt slowly over and drop into the burning mass
+beneath. A vivid blue beam, brighter than the sunlight of the dark day,
+swept across the sky, winked once or twice, and disappeared.
+
+Marta would have risen, but "Take it easy," said Sherman. "If they see
+us they'll pop another of those tokens at us."
+
+He wriggled along on his stomach, picking up weeds in his body plates in
+the process, and making for the shelter of an overgrown hedge that ran
+behind the next bungalow.
+
+"Look out," called the dancer suddenly. "Here come the birds."
+
+She waved her hand up and back, and by screwing up his eyes Sherman
+could just make out a black speck against the clouds, far north. They
+rolled under the shelter of the hedge and lay still, scarcely daring to
+whisper.
+
+The Lassan in command of the fighting machine was evidently not
+satisfied that he had hit them with his hasty shot. Peering through the
+stems, they made out the shimmering form of the machine, sliding slowly
+past the burning house, its snout moving hither and thither
+questioningly. It passed through the garden, went on down the path. The
+bird swung to and fro overhead. Nearer. Evidently it had noticed the
+prints their feet left in the soft ground.
+
+"Listen, partner," said Marta Lami, "get through and find some people,
+then come and get me out of that hellhole up there. If they see me,
+they'll let you alone."
+
+"No!" cried Sherman, but she was already running out across the field.
+The snout of the machine lifted toward her as though to deliver a blast,
+then rose and discharged another beam of blue light. Sherman heard one
+of the birds scream in answer, saw it sweep down on soaring pinions, and
+in a single motion snap the dancer up and away. The shimmering fighting
+machine swung round and turned back toward the road.
+
+He lay still until he was sure it had gone, then, moving carefully for
+fear of the terror from the skies, crawled to the next bungalow. It
+yielded treasure-trove in the shape of a flashlight and a serviceable
+revolver, and securing a sheet from one of the beds to wrap around him
+as a loin-cloth, he set out to trudge to New York.
+
+After a time it occurred to him that the disaster had taken place not
+because they were in a car, but because it had been driven unreasonably
+fast, and without precaution. He looked for and ultimately found another
+one, and keeping to the back streets and driving slowly, worked his way
+toward the city again. Then another idea came to him--Newark had an
+airport as well as New York and it was far nearer. He changed the
+direction of his advance, swinging west to avoid the long bridges over
+the Passaic River. Bridges were focal points; the birds would surely
+watch them, as intelligent as they were.
+
+Late in the afternoon he spied one of them, far ahead and flying
+southward, but took no chances. He drew his car up to the side of the
+road and remained motionless for long after it had disappeared. When
+evening came on, he had already reached the outskirts of the city and
+could proceed without headlights.
+
+Newark was a dead city, the diminished purr of the motor ringing
+curiously loud in the silent streets. Their complication bothered him;
+he was unfamiliar with the town and his flashlight gave out long before
+he reached his destination. But he kept steadily on, certain that the
+airport was somewhere at the south and east of the city. Toward the
+later evening a fine, cold rain began to fall, congealing to ice on the
+streets and on his metallic body.
+
+The airport was just as he had remembered it on the first day of his
+awakening--it now seemed uncountable ages in the past. The little sports
+plane still stood on the platform, its torn wing dangling. The hangars
+were all locked; he was an inefficient burglar and spent an hour or two
+breaking one open and when he did, found nothing but a tri-motored
+monster quite beyond his powers to get out, and a rocket-plane requiring
+special fuel that he did not have. The next hangar yielded an autogiro
+and a training machine. He had no watch, but was sure that the night was
+passing fast, and not wishing to be abroad by daylight with an airplane,
+decided to chance it on the autogiro. Luckily she was full of fuel, and
+everything seemed tight. With some labor he removed the chocks and
+managed to wheel the machine out.
+
+Not till he had it in the air did the thought of what direction he was
+to take occur to him. Boston--New York--Philadelphia--Chicago, he
+canvassed the possibilities. What was it Marta Lami had said--something
+about one of the fighting machines heading south? And he remembered how
+the astronomers had predicted that the comet would fall, probably,
+somewhere in New York State. If there were a borderline along which
+Lassans were meeting humans in any kind of conflict it was most likely
+to lie southward. With this thought in mind, he turned his plane to the
+south, and keeping the white line of foam along the coast beneath him as
+a guide, began to let her out.
+
+The ceiling was low; between clouds and fitful squalls of rain flying
+was difficult and the weight of Sherman's mechanical body seemed to make
+the machine move loggily. It must have been all of an hour and three
+quarters later that he saw beneath him the tossing whitecaps of Great
+Bay, with the ribbon of Wading River running back into the distance.
+Just beyond, he knew, lay Atlantic City. He was debating with himself
+whether to land on the beach there or hop across to the Philadelphia
+airport when, sharp and clear from somewhere ahead and below him, came
+the sound of gunfire. He tried for altitude, but only ran into clouds.
+Nevertheless the sound was unmistakable, and as he approached it became
+clearer and more pronounced, a long intermittent beat, heavy guns and
+light, mingled together, off to the right. There was fighting going on!
+
+Exulting in his escape from the Lassans and in the fact that he could
+take their opponents information that would be of value, he swung the
+autogiro toward the sounds that became clearer every minute. He was
+getting right over them now, he thought; he could see red flashes along
+the horizon. Down there they were locked in battle--men and Lassans, his
+own people and the invaders from far-away Rigel.
+
+Suddenly a beam of the light-ray leaped from the ground. Sherman thought
+it was directed at him; tried to loop the plane and cursed as he
+remembered autogiros wouldn't loop; then saw that the light was after
+all, not turned in his direction, but at some object on the ground. He
+banked the plane over and swung lower. Undoubtedly a Lassan fighting
+machine--and the beam was hitting things, things large and solid, for
+they collapsed under the stabbing ray. A red flame rose over the wreck;
+the roar of an explosion reached his ears. The battle-line!
+
+He soared again. He must reach the headquarters of whatever men were
+down there. The information he could bring and that Marta Lami had given
+him might make all the difference between the loss of the world and its
+salvation "... perfect mirror--reflects everything that hits it, even
+shells, but they don't know about the big ones.... The lead will reflect
+their light-rays, too ... no good against lead. Their armor is made of
+the same stuff...."
+
+In the darkness beneath him troops were moving. He could catch glimpses
+of dark masses on the roads. Somewhere down there he distinctly heard
+the call of one of the four-winged birds, quite near. Then with a rush,
+it was suddenly upon him. He set the automatic pilot, and drew his
+revolver, but the bird, unfamiliar with the machine it was attacking,
+had dashed recklessly in. There was a rending screech as it came into
+contact with the wings of the autogiro; Sherman got in one shot, and
+then bird, man and plane tumbled toward the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The End of the Light-Ray
+
+
+"The Lassans?" said General Grierson, in a puzzled tone, looking at the
+sheet-clad apparition. "You mean these--mechanical monsters?"
+
+Sherman winced. "Like myself? No, sir, those are their slaves. I thought
+you were familiar with them. They are elephant-men and quite different."
+
+[Illustration: This shows that Mr. Pratt's conception of the elephant-men
+is not so far-fetched. This photo is Ganesha, a Hindu god, patron of art
+and literature Ganesha symbolizes to the Hindus wisdom and knowledge.]
+
+"I meant those damned, long, shining objects that shoot that light-ray
+of theirs. Their guns shoot it out in packages, but we can understand
+that and deal with them; our artillery is just as good. But if we can't
+stop those shining things there will be no army left and that means no
+men left on this planet. This army is our last resource. If you know of
+anything, anything, that will stop them, for God's sake tell us! All
+we've found that does any good so far are the twelve-inch railroad guns
+and we have only four of them. One was knocked out by their shells this
+afternoon."
+
+"You mean their fighting-machines," Sherman replied. "Why, I'm not
+absolutely certain. I only know what I picked up from them and what
+Marta Lami"--he swallowed hard at the mention of her name--"the bravest
+woman in the world, told me. But I think that a shell with a lead cap
+would go through those fighting machines like a knife through a piece of
+cheese."
+
+There was a tiny silence in the room at this momentous announcement.
+Then an artillery officer said, dreamily, "The armor-piercing shells the
+railroad guns use have lead caps."
+
+As though his words had released a spell there came a quick drumfire of
+questions:
+
+"What are they armored with?"
+
+"What kind of a power-plant do they use?"
+
+"Can you stop the light-ray?"
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+Sherman smiled. "Just a moment. One question at a time. I'm not sure I
+can answer them all, anyway. As to what makes me think so and what
+they're armored with, they have a coating of steel armor, but it isn't
+very thick. It's plated on the outside with a coat of lead and outside
+that with the substance they call 'pure light.' I don't know what it is,
+but it's the same stuff they use in the light-ray and in their shells,
+and I know that lead sheeting will stop it, even when the lead is very
+thin."
+
+General Grierson swung round in his chair. "Hartnett! write out an order
+to General Hudson, Chief Quartermaster, at once. Tell him to remove
+every piece of lead he can find in Atlantic City and get it melted down.
+Also to set up a plant for tipping all shells with lead...."
+
+Ben Ruby leaned forward. "Can we get into their city, their
+headquarters, or whatever they call it?"
+
+"My God, I hope so!" cried Sherman. "Marta Lami's in there."
+
+"All right, young man, you'll have your chance for that," said General
+Grierson. "Now suppose you tell us as much as you know about
+these--things. Every bit of information we can get will be valuable....
+Oh, by the way, Hartnett. Have an order made out to the infantry to cut
+the points of their bullets with their knives. That will make them
+dum-dum and bring the lead out. Also another one to evacuate as much
+infantry as possible. They aren't going to be a great deal of use...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the factory of the Atlantic City Packing Company men were toiling,
+stripped to the waist, in an inferno of heat. The huge row of vats that
+had once held clams, oysters and fish to grace a nation's palate, now
+simmered with green-phosphorescent kettles of molten lead; the hand
+trucks that once bore piles of canned goods to and fro now pushed by
+blue-faced men in khaki, held long stacks of pointed shells. In at one
+end of the building they came in ceaseless procession to pause before
+the lead tanks where the workmen took each shell and dipped its tip
+briefly in the lead, then returned it to the truck. Out the other end
+they wheeled to be loaded in trucks, buses, limousines, everything that
+had wheels and would move, to be rushed to the maw of the ceaselessly
+crying guns.
+
+For the offensive was on--the advance of the Lassans had been turned to
+a retreat. Along the water's edge, with its back to the sea and the
+steamers ready to pick up the survivors of the defeat of the last army
+of man, the last army of man had rallied; rallied and stood as the new
+lead-tipped shells began to come in and the artillery spouted them at
+the Lassan fighting-machines, no longer invincible, invulnerable
+monsters, but hittable and smashable pieces of mechanism.
+
+It was Ben Ruby in a tank shining dully with the new lead plating who
+led the charge against the Lassan fighting machines on the first day of
+the battle, and who, with his little division of American tanks, had
+encountered three of the huge Lassan monsters outside the city. For a
+moment, as though dazed by the audacity of this attack, they had done
+nothing at all. Then all three had turned the light-rays on him. Would
+it hold?
+
+The deadly rays glanced off, danced to the zenith in a shower of
+coruscating sparks and the gun of the American tank spoke--once, twice.
+A round hole, with a radiating star-pattern running out from it,
+appeared in the nose of the nearest Lassan fighting-machine, and it sank
+to the earth like a tired animal, rolling over and over, helpless. The
+other two turned to flee, swinging their long bodies around. Surrounded
+by shell-bursts, riddled by the lead-tipped weapons they too, struggled
+and sank, to rise no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that there had been losses, of course. The Lassan shells
+occasionally burst in the back areas and claimed a toll. But the advance
+had gone on steadily for a whole day, unchecked; the Lassans were driven
+back.
+
+And then, as suddenly as they had come, they disappeared. South African
+aerial scouts, far ahead of the army, reported there was no sign of the
+enemy in the whole of New Jersey. The dodos vanished from the skies, the
+fighting machines from the earth. The Lassans seemed to have abandoned
+the struggle and retired to their underground city to wait for the end.
+
+"Frankly," said Sherman, "I don't like it. Those johnnies are too smart
+to give up like that. I'll bet you a thousand dollars against a lead
+bullet that they've gone back there to figure out some surprise for us,
+and when it comes it's going to be a beaner. Those babies may be
+elephants to the eye, but there's nothing slow about their brains."
+
+"General Grierson doesn't think so," said Ben Ruby. "He's all ready to
+hang out the flags and call it a day. He sent home two more divisions of
+infantry yesterday."
+
+"General Grierson hasn't got the finest girl in the world locked up in
+that hole under the Catskills, burning her fingers off," said Sherman
+with a set face. "Say, those babies aren't licked by a million miles.
+Their guns are just as good as ours and that light stuff they put in
+them is worse than powder when it goes off. They just didn't have as
+many guns. I'm taking even money that when they come out again, they'll
+have something that will make our artillery look sick."
+
+They stood on a street-corner in Philadelphia, the new headquarters of
+the army of the federated governments.
+
+"Yes, but what are we going to do about it?" asked Ben.
+
+"A lot. For one thing we might go up there and try to bust in, but I
+don't think that would be very hot. They'll be expecting it. What we can
+do though, is get General Grierson to give us one of the laboratories
+here in town and some men to help us, and dope out a few little presents
+on our side of the fence. I learned plenty through those thought helmets
+of theirs while I was in that place, though I didn't realize I was
+getting a lot of it at the time. Those helmets work both ways, you know,
+and they couldn't keep me from picking up some of their stuff,
+especially as they were so anxious to find out what I knew they didn't
+watch themselves."
+
+"Nice idea," said Ben. "I know a little about chemistry and between us
+we might put over something good. Let's Go."
+
+An hour later, they were installed in their own experimental laboratory,
+just off Market Street, with enough assistants to help them with routine
+work and Gloria Rutherford and Murray Lee to keep them amused.
+
+"All right, chief," said Ben, when they were installed. "What do we do
+first?"
+
+"Figure out some kind of armor that will stand off whatever kind of ray
+they pop up with, I guess," offered Sherman.
+
+"May I stick my two cents in?" said Murray Lee. "I don't think that any
+kind of armor is going to do a lot of good. For one thing, you don't
+know what the Lassans are going to produce. Those tanks we had were
+armored against the best kind of shells, and the Lassans turned up with
+the light-ray that made them look like Swiss cheese. It's your show, but
+if I were fishing for something, it would be a way to sock those guys.
+In this kind of war, the man that gets in the first punch is going to
+beat."
+
+"That light-ray of theirs is pretty good," said Ben. "From what you know
+about it already, you ought to be able to dope out a pretty good heat
+ray."
+
+"No soap," said Sherman. "Too slow. They'll be all set for that, anyway.
+It's right along the line they think. No, what we've got to have is
+something along a new line, and I'm thinking it can't be anything like a
+gun, either. They're onto that now." He closed the door to the inner
+office with a bang.
+
+"By the way," asked Gloria, "why don't the Australians send some
+airplanes up there to the Catskills and shoot up the Lassan
+headquarters?"
+
+"Didn't you know?" asked Ben. "They tried it. They dumped about a
+hundred tons of explosives all over the joint, and it might have been so
+much mud for all the good it did. Then they ran a railroad gun up there
+and tried to shell the door, but that wasn't any good, either. They've
+got a signal station up there watching, waiting for them to come out,
+and we'll just have to wait for that. Sherman"--he indicated the door
+behind which the aviator had retired--"is nearly bughouse. They've got
+his girl a prisoner in there."
+
+"Tough break," commented Gloria. "Wish I could do something for the
+lady."
+
+They talked about minor matters for a time, Ben speaking absently and
+cudgeling his brains for a line on which to work toward the new weapon.
+It is not easy to sit down and plan out a new invention without anything
+to start on beyond the desire to have it.
+
+Suddenly, the inner door was flung open. In the aperture they saw
+Sherman, his face grinning, a small piece of metal in his hand.
+
+"I've got it, folks!" he cried. "A gravity beam!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Gravity Beam
+
+
+"A gravity beam!" they ejaculated together in tones varying from
+incredulity to simple puzzlement. "What's that?"
+
+"Well, it'll take quite a bit of explaining, but I'll drop out the
+technical part of it.... You see, it's like this--You remember old man
+Einstein, the frizzy-hair Frisian, demonstrated that magnetism and
+gravity are the same thing down underneath? And that some of the
+astronomers and physicists have said that both magnetism and light are
+the same thing? That is, forms of vibration. Well, one of the things I
+picked up from the lads in this Lassan city was that light, matter,
+electricity, gravitation, magnetism and the whole works, are the same
+thing in different forms.
+
+"They've just jumped one step beyond Einstein. Now, they've got a way of
+producing, or mining, pure light, that is, pure matter in its simplest
+form. When it's released from pressure it becomes material and raises
+hell all over the shop. How they get the squeeze on it, I can't say.
+Anyway, it isn't important."
+
+"Very interesting lecture--very," commented Gloria, gravely.
+
+"You pipe down and listen to your betters till they get through,"
+Sherman went on. "Children should be seen, not heard. But what I've got
+here is a piece of permalloy. Under certain magnetic conditions it
+defies gravity. Now if we can screen gravity that way, why can't we
+concentrate it, too?"
+
+"Why not? Except that nobody ever did it and nobody knows how," said Ben
+Ruby.
+
+"Well, here's the catch. We can do anything we want to with gravity if
+we go about it right. What is it in chemical atoms that has weight? It's
+the positive charge, isn't it? The nucleus. And it's balanced by the
+negative charges, the electrons, that revolve around it. Now if we can
+find a way to pull some of these negative charges loose from a certain
+number of atoms of a substance, there are going to be a whole lot of
+positive charges floating around without anything to bite on. And if we
+can shoot them at something, it's going to have more positive charges
+than it can stand. And when that happens, the something is going to get
+awful heavy, and there are going to be exchanges of negative charges
+among all the positive charges, and things are going to pop."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Ben. "But what good does all this do? Give us the real
+dope on how you're going to do it."
+
+"Well, with what I picked up from the Lassans, I think I know. They
+know all about light and mechanics, but they're rotten chemists, and
+don't realize how good a thing they've got in lots of ways. Now look--if
+you throw a beam of radiations from a cathode tube into finely divided
+material you break up some of the atoms. Well, all we have to do is get
+an extra-powerful cathode tube, break up a lot of atoms, and then
+deliver the positive charges from them onto whatever we're going for.
+That would be your gravity beam."
+
+"How are you going to get radiation powerful enough to split up enough
+atoms to do you any good?" inquired Ben.
+
+"Easy. Use a radium cathode. The Lassans have the stuff, but never think
+of using it seriously. They think it's an amusing by-product in their
+pure light mines, and just play round with it. Nobody ever used it
+before on earth, because it was too expensive for such foolishness, but
+with so many less people around, we can get some without too much
+trouble, I guess."
+
+"Mmm. Sounds possible," said Ben. "That is, in theory. I'd like to see
+it work in practice. How are you going to throw this beam?"
+
+"Cinch. Down a beam of light. Light will conduct sound or radio waves
+even through a vacuum and this stuff I'm sending isn't so very
+different. Whatever we hit will act as an amplifier and spread the
+effect through the whole body."
+
+"Boy, you want to be careful you don't blow up the earth," said Murray
+Lee. "Well, Gloria, I guess we're indicated to go out and dig up some
+radium. Let's fool them by going before they ask us. There ought to be a
+supply in some of the hospitals."
+
+They rose and the other two plunged into an excited and highly technical
+discussion. When they returned, the workmen had already constructed a
+black box, not unlike an enormous camera in shape, in the center of the
+floor. At its back and attached to it, stood a stand fitted with a
+series of enormous clamps. Ben and Sherman were at a bench, working
+blowpipes, and shaping the delicate, iridescent glass of a long tube
+with a bulge at its center.
+
+"Here you are," said Murray Lee. "I had to row with the Surgeon-General
+of the Dutch Colonial contingent to get this. He wanted to use it on
+some tuberculosis experiment. But I convinced him that he wouldn't be
+worrying about 't. b.' if the Lassans came out of their hole and stood
+the army on its head. How goes the job?"
+
+"Swell," said Sherman. "Now you children run along and play. We're busy.
+We won't be finished with this thing before tomorrow afternoon, if
+then."
+
+As a matter of fact it was the next evening before Murray and Gloria
+were summoned back to the laboratory. The device they had seen was now
+mounted on a stand of its own, with long ropes of electrical connections
+running back from it, and had been pushed back to the end of the room.
+Opposite it was another stand with a two-foot square piece of sheet iron
+resting on a chair in its center. The lens of the big camera was pointed
+in that direction.
+
+"Now," said Sherman, "watch your uncle and see what happens."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned a switch; the tube at the back of the apparatus lit up with a
+vivid violet glow and a low humming sound filled the room.
+
+"I decided to use powdered lead in the box," he explained. "It is the
+heaviest metal there is available, and gives us the largest number of
+nuclei to project."
+
+A second switch was thrown in and a beam of light leaped from the camera
+and struck in the center of the iron sheet, producing merely a mild
+white illumination.
+
+"Poof!" said Gloria. "That isn't such a much. I could do that with a
+flashlight."
+
+"Right you are. I haven't let her go yet. Hold your breath now."
+
+He bent over, drove a plunger home. For just a second the only visible
+effect was a slight intensification of the beam of light. Then there was
+a report like a thunder-clap; a dazzling ball of fire appeared on the
+stand; a cloud of smoke, and Murray and Gloria found themselves sitting
+on the floor. The iron plate had completely vanished; so had the chair,
+all but two of its legs, which, lying in the center of the stand, were
+burning brightly. The acrid odor of nitrogen dioxide filled the room.
+
+"Golly," said Ben Ruby, seizing a fire extinguisher from the wall and
+turning it on the blaze. "That's even more than we expected. Look, it
+made a hole right through the wall! We'll have to keep that thing tied
+up."
+
+"I'll say you will," said Murray, helping Gloria up. "It's as bad for
+the guy that's using it as the one at the other end. But seriously,
+you've got something good there. What happened to the iron plate?"
+
+"Disintegrated. Let's see, where does iron come in the periodic table,
+Ben? Twenty-six? Then you'll probably find small quantities of all the
+chemical elements from twenty-five down in that heap of ashes. Phooey,
+what a rotten smell! That must be the action of the beam on the nitrogen
+in the air."
+
+"There's a lot to be worked out in this thing, yet, though," declared
+Ben, "and if you're right about the Lassans making a comeback, precious
+little time in which to work it out. For one thing, we've got to get a
+searchlight that will throw a narrow pencil of light for a long
+distance. I don't think those elephant-men are going to let us poke this
+thing under their noses. And for another we've got to dope out something
+to keep it in and some way to furnish current for it...."
+
+"Can't you work it from a tank?" asked Murray, "and rig up a friction
+accumulator to work from the tracks?"
+
+"I can, but I don't like the idea," Sherman replied. "From the way those
+Lassans took to our airplanes, I could make a guess that when they come,
+they're going to come in some kind of flying machine. The dodos are no
+good in modern war. We'd never catch any kind of an airplane with a
+tank."
+
+"How about an airplane for yourselves?"
+
+"Too unsteady and too frail. I want something that will take a few pokes
+and not fold up."
+
+"Say, you guys have less ingenuity for a couple of inventors than anyone
+I ever heard of," Gloria put in. "Why don't you get one of these
+Australian rocket-planes and fix it up. It's big enough to hold all your
+foolishness, and if this thing is half as powerful as it looks, you
+ought to be able to harness it some way for a power-plant. Then you can
+plaster your rocket all over with armor. I think--"
+
+Sherman interrupted her by bringing his fist down on the table with a
+bang that made the glasses rattle.
+
+"You've got it! By the nine gods of Clusium! With the punch this thing
+gives us used as a rocket, we'd have power enough to fly to the moon if
+we wanted to. Why a rocket airplane at all? Why not a pure rocket? Let's
+go."
+
+It was another week before workmen, even toiling with all the
+machine-shop facilities of Philadelphia at their disposal, and working
+day and night, could turn out the machine to Sherman's design, and it
+was two more before the apparatus was installed. The trial trip was set
+for the early morning when there would be least chance of atmospheric
+disturbance.
+
+The _Monitor_ (she had been named for the famous fighting craft with
+which the American navy ushered in a new age in the history of war) now
+stood near the center of the flying field at the Philadelphia airport--a
+long, projectile-like vessel with gleaming metal sides, set with heavy
+windows, ten feet in diameter and nearly twice as long. At her stern a
+funnel-like opening led to the interior. This was the exhaust for the
+power-plant. At her bow the sharp nose was blunted off and its tip was
+occupied by the lens of a high-powered parabolic searchlight, slightly
+recessed, and with the discharge tubes for the atomic nuclei arranged
+around its edge so they would be thrown directly into the light-beam as
+soon as generated.
+
+As the four approached her she had been placed on the ramp from which
+she was to start, slanting slightly upward, with a buffer of timber and
+earth behind it, to take up the enormous recoil her power plant was
+expected to develop.
+
+"How do you get in?" asked Gloria, walking around the _Monitor_ and
+discovering no sign of a door.
+
+"Oh, that's a trick I borrowed from our friends the Lassans," explained
+Sherman. "Look here." He led her to a place half way along one side,
+where two almost imperceptible holes marred the shining brightness of
+the new vessel's sides. "Stick your fingers in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She did as directed, pressed, and a wide door in the side of the
+projectile swung open. "Bright thought. No handles to break off."
+
+They stepped in, bending their heads to avoid the low ceiling.
+
+"She isn't as roomy or comfortable or as heavily armored as the one I
+mean to build later," explained Sherman, "but this is only an
+experimental craft, built in a hurry, so I had to take what I could
+get.... Now here, Murray you sit here. Your job is going to be to mind
+the gravity beam that furnishes us our power. Every time you get the
+signal from me, you throw this power switch. That will turn on all three
+switches at the stern, and shoot the gravity beam out for the
+exhaust.... You see, we can't expect to keep up a steady stream of
+explosions with this kind of a machine. We wouldn't be able to control
+it. We'll travel in a series of short hops through the air, soaring
+between hops, like a glider."
+
+"How are you going to do any soaring without wings?" asked Murray.
+
+"We have wings. They fold into the body at the back. I've made them
+automatic. When the power switch is thrown the wings fold in; after the
+explosion they come out automatically unless we disconnect them. If we
+want to really go fast, we'll disconnect them and go through the air
+like a projectile."
+
+"Oh, I see. Will the windows stand the gaff?"
+
+"I hope to tell you they will. I had them made of fused quartz, with an
+outer plating of leaded glass, just in case the Lassans try to get fresh
+with that light-ray of theirs.
+
+"Now, Gloria, you sit here. You're the best shot in the crowd, and it's
+going to be your job to run that searchlight in the prow. As soon as you
+pick up anything with it, Ben will throw his switch, and whatever is at
+the end of it will get a dose of pure protons. We'll have to do a good
+deal of our aiming by turning the ship itself. I made the searchlight as
+flexible as I could, but I couldn't get a great deal of turn to it on
+account of the necessity of getting the nuclei into the light beam."
+
+"By the way," asked Murray. "Won't this pure light armor of the Lassans
+knock your beam for a row of ashcans?"
+
+"I should say not! If they use it, we've got 'em. That stuff has weight
+and the minute this beam of ours hits it, it will intensify the effect,
+and no matter how much pressure they have on it, it will blow up all
+over the place.... All set? Let's go. Throw in your switch, Murray."
+
+Murray did as directed. There was a humming sound and the tiny beam of
+light leaped across the rear end of the ship and out the exhaust. Across
+it fell a thin powder of iron filings--the material that was to be
+decomposed to furnish the power.
+
+Bang! With a roar, the _Monitor_ leaped forward, throwing all of them
+back into their heavily padded seats, then dipped and soared as the
+wings came into play. The passengers glanced through the windows.
+Beneath them the outskirts of Philadelphia were already speeding by.
+
+"Say," said Ben, "this is some bus. We must be making five hundred miles
+an hour."
+
+"Sure," said Sherman. "We could do over seven hundred as a pure
+projectile, but we can't use that much speed and keep our maneuvering
+power."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Coming of the Green Globes
+
+
+"Where to, folks?" asked Sherman, during one of their periods of
+soaring, as they floated high above the hilly country to the west of the
+Delaware River.
+
+"Oh, most anywhere," said Ben. "I would like to see you try out this
+new-fangled gun of yours on something, though."
+
+"What shall we try it on? A house?"
+
+"No, that's too easy. We saw what it could do to things like that in the
+laboratory. Find a nice rock."
+
+"O. K. Here goes. Don't give her the gun for a minute, Murray."
+
+With wings extended, the _Monitor_ spiralled down toward the crest of
+the mountain. A projecting cliff stood just beneath them, sharply
+outlined in the rays of the morning sun.
+
+"Now this is going to be difficult," warned Sherman. "Throw that
+connecting bar, Ben. It holds the power switch and the beam switch
+together so they're both turned on at once. Otherwise the recoil we'd
+get on this end of the beam would tumble us over backward. Hold it,
+while I set the controls. We've got to take a jump as soon as we fire,
+or we'll pop right into the mess we make.... Ready? All right, Gloria,
+go ahead with your searchlight."
+
+The beam of the searchlight shot out, pale in the daylight, wavered a
+second, then outlined the crest of the cliff.
+
+"Shoot!" cried Sherman.
+
+There was a terrific report; a shock; the _Monitor_ leaped, quivering in
+every part, and as they spiralled down to see what damage they had done,
+they beheld no cliff at all, but a rounded cup at the tip of the
+mountain in which a mass of molten rock boiled and simmered.
+
+"Fair enough," said Ben. "I guess that will do for the Lassans, all
+right. Home, James?"
+
+"Right," answered Sherman. "We've found out all we want to know this
+trip."
+
+The homeward journey was accomplished even more swiftly than the trip
+northward as Sherman gained in experience at the controls of the
+machine. As it glided slowly to earth at the airport a little group of
+officers was waiting to meet them.
+
+"What in thunder have you been doing?" one of them greeted the
+Americans. "Your static, or whatever it was you let loose, burned out
+all the tubes in half the army radio sets in New Jersey."
+
+"By the nine gods of Clusium!" said Sherman. "I never thought of that.
+We're reducing matter pretty much to its lowest terms, and it's all a
+good deal alike on that scale--vibrations that may be electricity,
+magnetism, light or matter. Of course, when we let go that shot there
+was enough radiation to be picked up on Mars. I'll have to figure out a
+way to get around that. Those Lassans are no bums as electricians and
+after we've been at them once or twice, they'll be able to pick up our
+radiation whenever we're coming and duck us."
+
+"There's another thing," said Ben. "I thought the _Monitor_ vibrated a
+good deal when you let that shot go."
+
+"It did. We'll have to get more rigidity or we'll be shaking ourselves
+to pieces every time we shoot. But this, as I said, is an experimental
+ship. What we've got to do now is turn in and build a real one, with
+heavy armor and a lot of new tricks."
+
+"How are you going to know what kind of armor to put on her?"
+
+"That's easy. Steel will keep out any kind of material projectiles
+they're likely to have, if it's thick enough. It won't keep out the
+light-ray, but we'll put on a thin lead plating to take care of that,
+just in case, though I don't think they're likely to try it after the
+one failure.
+
+"Then inside the steel armor, we'll put a vacuum chamber. That will stop
+anything but light and maybe cosmic radiation, and I don't think they're
+up to that, although we'll get a little of the effect through the struts
+that support the outer wall of the chamber. What I would like though, is
+a couple of these Lassan thought-helmets. Not that you people are slow
+on the uptake, but we'd be a lot faster if we had them, and we're going
+to need all the speed we can get."
+
+They were crossing the flying field as they spoke, making for
+headquarters, where Sherman presently laid out the design for the second
+_Monitor_, embodying the improvements he had mentioned. The engineer who
+looked it over smiled doubtfully.
+
+"I don't think we can give this to you in less than three or four
+weeks," he said. "It will take a lot of time to cast that armor you
+want and to build the vacuum chamber. I assume your own workmen are
+going to make the internal fixtures."
+
+"Correct from the word go," Sherman told him. "But you better have it
+before three or four weeks are up. Ben, what do you say we run over to
+the lab and see if we can dig up something new."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was two days later when they stood at headquarters on the flying
+field again. The _Monitor_ had made three more trips, on one of them,
+flying over the Lassan city without seeing anything more important than
+the Australian signal station perched on a nearby hill. Meanwhile the
+army of the federated governments had pushed out its tentacles,
+searching the barren waste that had been the most fruitful country in
+the world. East, west, south and north the report was the same; no sign
+of the Lassans or any other living thing.
+
+"I could wish," said Gloria, "that those lads would stick their noses
+out. I'd like to try the _Monitor_ on them."
+
+"You'll get all you want of that," said Ben a trifle grimly. "I'm glad
+they're giving us this much of a break. It lets us get things organized.
+Sherman is monkeying with a light-power motor now. If he catches it, our
+troubles will be over."
+
+"Wait a minute," called an officer at a desk, as a telegraph key
+began tapping. "This looks like something." He translated the dots
+and dashes for them. "Lassan--city--door--opening.... It's from the
+signal station on that mountain right over it.... Big--ball--coming
+out--will--will--what's this? The message seems to end." He depressed
+the key vigorously and then waited. It remained silent.
+
+"Oh, boy," said Sherman, "there she goes! They got that signal station,
+I'll bet a dollar to a ton of Lassan radiation."
+
+The officer was hammering the key again. "We're sending out airplane
+scouts now," he said. "Too bad about the signal station, but that's
+war!"
+
+"Come on, gang," said Ben. "Let's get out to the flying field. Looks
+like we're going to be in demand."
+
+In a car borrowed from the headquarters staff they raced out to the
+field where the _Monitor_ stood, ready on its ramp for any emergency.
+Just as they arrived an airplane became visible, approaching from the
+north. It circled the field almost as though the pilot were afraid to
+land, then dipped and came to a slow and hesitating stop. The onlookers
+noticed that its guy wires were sagging, its wheels uneven; it looked
+like a wreck of a machine which had not been flown for ten years, after
+it had lain in some hangar where it received no attention at all.
+
+As they ran across the field toward it, the pilot climbed slowly out.
+They noticed that his face was pale and horror-struck, his limbs
+shaking.
+
+"All gone," he cried to the oncoming group.
+
+"What? Who? What's the matter?"
+
+"Everything. Guns. Tanks. Airplanes. The big ball's got 'em. Almost
+got--" and he collapsed in Ben's arms in a dead faint.
+
+"Here," said Ben, handing the unconscious aviator to one of the
+Australian officers. "Come on. There's something doing up there. Big
+balls, eh? Well, we'll make footballs of 'em. That chap looks as though
+he'd been through a milling machine, though. The Lassans certainly must
+have something good."
+
+With a shattering crash as Murray Lee gave her all the acceleration she
+would take, the _Monitor_ left the ramp, soared once or twice to gain
+altitude, and headed north amid a chorus of explosions. In less than ten
+minutes the thickly-settled districts of northern New Jersey were
+flowing past beneath them.
+
+"Wish we had some radio in this bus," remarked Ben Ruby. "We could keep
+in touch with what's going on."
+
+"It would be convenient," said Sherman, "but you can't have everything.
+The Lassans aren't going to wait for us to work out all our problems....
+Look--what's that over there?"
+
+At nearly the same level as themselves and directly over the city of
+Newark a huge globular object, not unlike an enormous green cantaloupe,
+appeared to float in the air. From its under side the thin blue beam of
+some kind of ray reached to the ground. From the face turned diagonally
+away from them a paler, wider beam, yellowish in color, reached down
+toward the buildings of the city. And where it fell on them, they
+collapsed into shattering ruin; roof piled on walls, chimneys tumbled to
+the ground. There was no flame, no smoke, no sound--just that sinister
+monster moving slowly along, demolishing the city of Newark almost as
+though it were by an effort of thought.
+
+"Hold tight, everybody," cried Sherman. "Going up."
+
+The _Monitor_ slanted skyward. Through the heavy quartz of her windows
+they could see a battery of field guns, cleverly concealed behind some
+trees in the outskirts of the city, open fire. At the first bursts the
+monster globe swung slowly round, the pale yellow ray cutting a swath of
+destruction as it moved. The shells of the second burst struck all
+around and on it. "Oh, good shooting," said Gloria, but even as she
+spoke the yellow ray bore down like a fate and the guns became silent.
+
+"What have they got?" she shouted between the bursts of the _Monitor's_
+rocket motor.
+
+"Don't know," replied Sherman, "but it's good. Ready? Here goes. Cut
+off, Murray."
+
+From an altitude of 15,000 feet the _Monitor_ swept down in a long
+curve. As she dived Gloria swung the searchlight beam toward the green
+globe.
+
+"Go!" shouted Sherman, and Ben threw the switch. There was a terrific
+explosion, the _Monitor_ pitched wildly, then, under control swung round
+and began to climb again. Through the thinning cloud of yellow smoke,
+they could see a long black scar across the globe's top, with lines
+running out from it, like the wrinkles on an old, old face.
+
+"Damn!" said Sherman. "Only nicked him. They must have something good
+in the line of armor on that thing. Look how it stood up. Watch it,
+everybody, we're going to go again, Gloria!"
+
+Again the searchlight beam swung out and down, sought the green monster.
+But this time the Lassan globe acted more quickly. The yellow ray
+lifted, probed for them, caught them in its beam. Instantly, the
+occupants of the _Monitor_ felt a racking pain in every joint; the
+camera-boxes of the gravity-beam trembled in their racks, the windows,
+set in solid steel though they were, shook in their frames, the whole
+body of the rocket-ship seemed about to fall apart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Desperately Sherman strove with the controls; dived, dodged, then
+finally, with a raised hand to warn the rest, side-slipped and tumbled
+toward the earth, pulling out in a swinging curve with all power on--a
+curve that carried them a good ten miles away before the yellow ray
+could find them.
+
+"Boy!" said Murray Lee, feeling of himself. "I feel as though every
+joint in my body were loose. What was that, anyway?"
+
+"Infra-sound," replied Sherman. "You can't hear it, but it gets you just
+the same. Like a violinist and a glass. He can break it if he hits the
+right note. I told you those babies would get something hot. They must
+have found a way to turn that pure light of theirs into pure sound and
+vibrate it on every note of the scale all at once, beside a lot the
+scale never heard of. Well, now we know."
+
+"And so do they," said Ben. "That bozo isn't going to hang around and
+take another chance on getting mashed with our gravity beam. Even if we
+did only tip him, I'll bet we hurt him plenty."
+
+"All I've got to say," replied Sherman, "is that I'm glad we're made of
+metal instead of flesh and blood. If that infra-sound ray had hit us
+before, we'd be mashed potatoes in that field down there. No wonder the
+signal station went out so quick."
+
+"Do we go back and take another whack at them?" asked Murray Lee.
+
+"I don't like to do it with this ship," Sherman replied. "If we had the
+_Monitor II_ it would be easy. With that extra vacuum chamber around
+her, she'll take quite a lot of that infra-sound racket. Vacuum doesn't
+conduct sound you know, though we'd get some of it through the struts.
+But this one--. Still I suppose we'll have to show them we mean
+business."
+
+The _Monitor_ turned, pointed her lean prow back toward Newark, and bore
+down. In their flight from the infra-sound ray the Americans had dived
+behind a fluffy mass of low-hanging cloud; now they emerged from it,
+they could see the huge green ball, far up the river, retreating at its
+best speed.
+
+"Aha," Sherman said. "He doesn't like gravity beams on the coco. Well,
+come on, giddyap horsey. Give her the gun, Murray."
+
+Under the tremendous urge of the gravity-beam explosions at her tail,
+the _Monitor_ shot skyward, leaving a trail of orange puffs in her wake
+as the beam decomposed the air where it struck it. Sherman lifted her
+behind the clouds, held the course for a moment, called "Ready, Gloria?"
+and then dropped.
+
+Like a swooping hawk, the _Monitor_ plunged from her hiding place.
+Sherman had guessed aright. The green ball was not five miles ahead of
+them, swinging over the summits of the Catskills to reach its home. As
+they plunged down the yellow ray came on, stabbed quickly, once, twice,
+thrice--caught them for a brief second of agonizing vibration, then lost
+them again as Sherman twisted the _Monitor_ round. Then Gloria's beam
+struck the huge globule fair and square, Ben Ruby threw the switch, and
+a terrific burst of orange flame swallowed the whole center of the
+Lassan monster.
+
+Prepared though they were for the shock, the force of the explosion
+threw the ship out of control. It gyrated frantically, spinning up, down
+and sidewise, as Sherman worked the stick. The Catskills reared up at
+them; shot past in a whirl of greenery; then with a splash they struck
+the surface of the Hudson.
+
+Fortunately, the _Monitor's_ wings were extended, and took up most of
+the shock at the cost of being shattered against her sides. Through the
+beam-hole at the stern the water began to flow into the interior of the
+ship. "Give her the gun!" called Sherman frantically, working his
+useless controls. There was a report, a shock, a vivid cloud of steam,
+and dripping and coughing like a child that has swallowed water in
+haste, the _Monitor_ rose from the stream, her broken wings trailing
+behind her.
+
+"I don't know--whether--I can fly--this crate or not," said Sherman,
+trying to make what was left of the controls work. "Shoot, Murray--if we
+put on enough power--we won't have to soar." There was a renewed roar of
+explosions from the _Monitor_. Desperately, swinging in a wide curve
+that carried her miles out of her way, she turned her nose southwards.
+
+"Make Philly," cried Sherman cryptically, above the sound of the
+explosions that were driving their craft through the air at over six
+hundred miles an hour. Almost as he said it, they saw the airport
+beneath them. The _Monitor_ swerved erratically; the explosions ceased;
+she dived, plunged and slithered to a racking stop across the foreshore
+of the seaplane port, ending up with a crash against a float, and
+pitched all four occupants from their seats onto the floor.
+
+"Well, that's one for you and one for me," said Sherman as he surveyed
+the wreckage ruefully. "We used up that green ball all right, but the
+old _Monitor_ will never pop another one. Did anyone notice whether
+there were any pieces left, by the way?"
+
+"I did," said Gloria. "As we came up out of the water I could see a few
+hunks lying around on the hill."
+
+"Mmm," remarked Sherman, "they must be built pretty solid. Wish I knew
+what was in them; that's one thing I never did get through that
+thought-helmet. Probably something they just figured out. You gave her
+all the power we had, didn't you?"
+
+"There's something else I'd like to know," said Ben. "And that's whether
+they had time to warn the rest of the Lassans what they were up against.
+If they did, we stand a chance. The way I have these guys figured is
+that they're good, but they have a yellow streak, or maybe they're just
+lazy, and they don't like to fight unless they're sure of winning. If
+I'm right we'll have time to get _Monitor II_ into commission and before
+they come out again, we'll be ready for them. If I'm wrong we might as
+well find a nice hole somewhere and pull it in after us."
+
+"Yes, and on the other hand, if they did have time to warn them, they'll
+sit down and dope out some new trick. Though I have a hunch they won't
+find an answer to that gravity-beam so easily. There isn't any that I
+know of."
+
+"Well, anyway," said Murray Lee, "nothing to do till tomorrow. What are
+you two rummies up to now?"
+
+"Run up and push them along on _Monitor II_ if we can," replied Ben. "I
+think I'll round up the rest of the mechanical Americans and put you all
+to work on it. We can work day and night and get it done a lot
+quicker."
+
+"Me," said Sherman, "I'm going to figure out some way to install radio
+on that new bus or bust a button. That's one thing we ought not to do
+without. If we'd known the position of that green lemon before we saw
+it, we could have dived out of the clouds on it and made it the first
+shot before we got all racked up with that yellow ray."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Reinforcements
+
+
+The little group separated, going about their several tasks. From
+whatever cause, Ben proved to be right about the Lassan green spheres.
+After that one brief incursion, in which they had wrecked the greater
+part of Newark and most of the artillery the Australians had established
+to bear on the door of the Lassan city, they seemed to have returned to
+their underground home, realizing that the earth-men still had weapons
+the equal of anything the creatures of Rigel could produce.
+
+For a whole week there was no sign of them. Meanwhile, the federated
+army dug itself in and prepared for the attack that was now believed
+certain. The success of the first _Monitor_ had been great enough, it
+was decided to warrant the construction of more than one of the second
+edition. General Grierson wished to turn the whole resource of the
+Allied armies to building an enormous number, but under Ben's persuasion
+he consented to concentrate on only five.
+
+For, as Ben pointed out to the general, the training of flesh and blood
+men for these craft would be labor lost.
+
+"They couldn't stand the acceleration that will be necessary, for one
+thing. With _Monitor II_ we expect to be able to work up swiftly to over
+a thousand miles an hour, and the most acceleration a flesh and blood
+man can stand won't give us that speed quickly enough. Of course, we
+could make 'em so they worked up speed slowly, but then they wouldn't be
+able to cut down fast enough to maneuver. And for another thing this
+infra-sound ray the Lassans project would kill a flesh-and-blood man the
+first time it hit him. What we need for this kind of war, is supermen in
+the physical sense. I don't want to make any such snooty statement as
+that Americans are better than other people, but we happen to be the
+only ones who have undergone this mechanical operation and we're the
+only people in the world who can stand the gaff. You'll just have to let
+us make out the best we can. In fact, it might be better for you to
+re-embark the army and leave us to fight it out all alone. The more
+women we have here, the more we'll have to protect."
+
+The general had been forced to agree to the first part of this
+statement, but he gallantly refused to abandon the Americans, though he
+did send away men, troops and guns which had become useless in this new
+brand of warfare. But he insisted on retaining a force to run the
+factories that supplied the Americans with their materials and on
+personally remaining with it.
+
+Even as it stood, there were only fourteen of the mechanical Americans
+remaining--enough to man three of the Monitors.
+
+But one day, as _Monitor II_, shining with newness, stood on her ramp
+having the searchlights installed, Herbert Sherman came dashing across
+the flying field, waving a sheet of paper.
+
+"I've got it," he cried, "I've got it! I knew I got something from those
+Lassans about electricity that I hadn't known before, and now I know
+what it is. Look!"
+
+"Radio?" queried Ben.
+
+"No, read it," said Sherman. "Radio's out. But this is a thousand times
+better."
+
+He extended the sheet to Ben, who examined the maze of figures gravely
+for a moment.
+
+"Now suppose you interpret," he said. "I can't read Chinese."
+
+"Sap. This is the formula for the electrical device I was talking
+about."
+
+"Yeh. Well, go on, spill it."
+
+"Well, I suppose I'll have to explain so even your limited intelligence
+will grasp the point.... In our black box, we've been breaking up the
+atoms of lead into positive and negative charges. We've been using the
+positive, and then just turning the negative loose. This thing will make
+use of both, and give us a swell new weapon all at once.
+
+"Look--the negative charges will do for our gravity beam just as well as
+the positive. They will create an excess of negative electrons instead
+of an excess of positive protons in the object we hit, and cause atomic
+disintegration. It's a gravity process just the same, but a different
+one. Now that gives us something else to do with the positives.
+
+"You know what a Leyden jar is? One of those things you charge with
+electricity, then you touch the tip, and bang, you get a shock. Well,
+this arrangement will make a super-Leyden jar of the _Monitor_. Every
+time she fires the gravity-beam, the positive charges will be put into
+her hull, and she'll soon be able to load up with a charge that will
+knock your eye out when it's let loose."
+
+"How's that? I know the outside of the _Monitor_ is covered with lead
+and so is the outside of a Leyden jar, but what's the connection?"
+
+"Well, it's this way. When you load up a Leyden jar the charge is not
+located in the plating, but in the glass. Now the _Monitor_ has a lot of
+steel, which will take up the charge just as well as glass. As soon as
+she fires the gravity-beam, these filaments will load her up with the
+left-over positives till she grunts. See?"
+
+"And since the earth is building up a lot of negative potential all the
+time, all you have to do is get your bird between you and the earth and
+then let go at him?"
+
+"That's the idea. It'll make an enormous spark-gap, and whatever is
+between us and the earth will get the spark. Sock them with a flash of
+artificial lightning. We'll use the light-beam as a conductor just as
+with the gravity-beam."
+
+"Sounds good, but I want to see the wheels go round. How much of a
+potential do you think you can build up in the _Monitor_?"
+
+"Well, let's see. We've got two thicknesses of nine-inch steel ... volts
+to a cubic inch ... by cubic inches.... Holy smoke, look how this
+figures out--over eleven million volts! That's theory, of course.
+There'll be some leakage in practice and we won't have time to build up
+that much negative potential every time we shoot, but if we only do half
+that well, we'll have a pretty thorough-going charge of lightning ...
+Peterson, come over here. I want you to make some changes on this
+barge."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Monitor II_ stood on the ramp that had once held her elder sister, her
+outer coating of lead glimmering dully in the morning sun. Here and
+there, along her shining sides, were placed the windows through which
+her crew would watch the progress of the battle. Her prow was occupied
+by the same type of searchlight the earlier _Monitor_ had borne. But
+this time the searchlight was surrounded by a hedge of shining silver
+points--the discharge mechanism for the lightning flash. At the stern,
+instead of the opening running right through into the ship, was a tight
+bulkhead, with the connections for the gravity-beam rocket-mechanism
+leading through it. As Sherman had pointed out, "If this lightning is
+going to do us any good, we've got to get above our opponent, and those
+Lassans have built machines that made interplanetary voyages. We've got
+to make this boat air-tight so that we can go right after them as far as
+Rigel if necessary."
+
+It had been decided, in view of the other monitors that were building,
+to make the trial trip of the second rocket-cruiser also a training
+voyage, with Beeville and Yoshio replacing Murray Lee and Gloria in her
+crew. They climbed in; the spectators stood back, and with a thunderous
+rush of explosions and a cloud of yellow gas, the second _Monitor_
+plunged into the blue.
+
+"Where shall we go?" asked Sherman, as the ship swooped over the plains
+of New Jersey.
+
+"How much speed is she making?" asked Ben Ruby.
+
+"I don't know exactly. We didn't have time to invent and install a
+reliable speed gauge. But--" he glanced at the map before him, then down
+through the windows at the surrounding country. "I should say not far
+short of eight hundred an hour. That improved box sure steps up the
+speed. I'm not giving her all she'll stand, even yet."
+
+"If you've got that much speed, why don't you visit Chicago?" asked
+Beeville. "The Australians have only pushed out as far as Ohio and there
+may be some people there."
+
+"Bright thought," remarked Sherman, swinging the prow of the vessel
+westward. "No telling what we'll find, but it's worth a look, anyway."
+
+For some time there was silence in the cabin as the rocket-ship, with
+alternate roar and swoop, pushed along. Yoshio was the first to speak:
+
+"Ah, gentlemen," he remarked, "I observe beneath window trace of city of
+beer, formerly Cincinnati."
+
+"Sure enough," said Ben, peering down. "There doesn't seem to be much
+beer there now, though."
+
+The white city of the Ohio vanished beneath them, silent and deserted,
+no sign of motion in its dead streets.
+
+"You know," said Sherman, "sometimes when I see these cities and think
+of all the Lassans have wrecked, it gives me an ache. I think I'd do
+almost anything to knock them out. What right did they have to come to
+this country or this earth, anyway? We were letting them alone."
+
+"Same right wolf obtains when hungry," said Yoshio. "Wolf is larger than
+rabbit--end of rabbit."
+
+"Correct," agreed Beeville. "They were the strongest. It's a case of hit
+or be hit in this universe. Our only out is to give them better than
+they give us."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Ben Ruby, "it may be a good thing for the old
+world at that. You never heard of all the governments of the world
+cooperating before as they are now did you? There are still people alive
+you know. Civilization hasn't been killed off by a long shot. And the
+lousy blue coloring that affected all the people who didn't get
+metallized isn't going to be permanent. The babies that are being born
+there now are normal, I hear. In a few generations the earth will be
+back to where it was, except for us. I don't know of any way to reverse
+this metal evolution."
+
+"Neither do I," said Beeville, "unless we can get another dose of the
+'substance of life' as the Lassans call it, and we won't get that
+unless they decide to leave the earth in a hurry."
+
+"Look," said Sherman, "there's Chicago now. But what's that? No, there,
+along the lake front."
+
+Following the direction of his pointing finger they saw something moving
+vaguely along Lake Shore Boulevard; something that might be a car--or a
+man!
+
+"Let's go down and see," offered Ben.
+
+"O. K. chief, but we've got to pick a good landing place for this tub. I
+don't want to get her marooned in Chicago."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The explosions were cut off, the wings extended, and Sherman spiralled
+carefully downward to the spot where they had seen the moving object.
+With the nicety of a magician, he brought the ship to a gliding stop
+along the park grass, and followed by the rest, Ben Ruby leaped out. The
+edge of the drive was a few yards away. As they emerged from the ship no
+one was visible, but as they walked across the grass, a figure, metallic
+like themselves, and with a gun in one hand, stepped from behind a tree.
+
+"Stand back!" it warned suspiciously. "Who are you and what do you
+want?"
+
+"Conversation with sweet-looking gentleman," said Yoshio politely, with
+a bow.
+
+"Why, we're members of the American air force," said Ben, "cooperating
+with the federated armies against the Lassans, and we were on an
+exploring expedition to see if we could find any more Americans."
+
+"Oh," said the figure, with evident relief. "All right, then. Come on
+out, boys."
+
+From behind other trees in the little park, a group of metallic figures,
+all armed, rose into sight.
+
+"My name's Ben Ruby," said Ben, extending his hand, "at present General
+commanding what there is of the American army."
+
+"Mine's Salsinger. I suppose you could call me Mayor of Chicago since
+those birds got Lindstrom. So you're fighting the Lassans, eh? Good.
+We'd like to take a few pokes at them ourselves, but that light-ray they
+have is too much for us. All we can do is pot the birds."
+
+"Oh," said Ben, "we've got that beat and a lot of other stuff, too. How
+many of you are there?"
+
+"Eight, including Jones, who isn't here now. Where are you from, anyway?
+St. Louis?"
+
+"No, New York. Is anybody alive in St. Louis or the other western
+cities?"
+
+"There was. We had one man here from St. Paul, and Gresham was from St.
+Louis. The birds got him and carried him off to the joint the Lassans
+have in the Black Hills, but he got away."
+
+"Have they a headquarters in the Black Hills, too? They have one in the
+Catskills. That's where we've been fighting them."
+
+The explanations went on. It appeared that Chicago, St. Louis and other
+western cities had been overwhelmed as had New York--the same rush of
+light from the great comet, the same unconsciousness on every side, the
+same awakening and final gathering together of the few individuals who
+had been fortunate enough to attract the attentions of the Lassans'
+birds and so be sent to their cities for transformation into robots.
+
+Since that time the birds had raided Chicago and the other western
+cities unceasingly, and had reduced the original company of some
+thirty-odd to the eight individuals whom Ben had encountered. Before the
+birds had attacked them, however, they had managed to get a telegraph
+wire in operation and learn that people were alive at Los
+Angeles--whether mechanized or not they were uncertain, but they thought
+not.
+
+Once, several weeks before, a Lassan fighting-machine had passed through
+the city, wrecked a few buildings with the light-ray, and disappeared
+westward as rapidly as it had come.
+
+With some difficulty and a good deal of crowding the eight Chicagoans
+were gotten into the _Monitor II_ for the return journey. They were a
+most welcome reinforcement and would furnish enough Americans to man all
+five of the extra rocket-cruisers.
+
+"I hope," remarked Sherman, a couple of days later, "that those Lassans
+don't come out quite yet, now. We've got the ships to meet them now, but
+the personnel isn't as well trained as I should like. Salsinger nearly
+smashed up one of the ships yesterday making his landing and one of the
+wings on another cracked up this morning when Roberts tried to turn too
+short. These rocket-ships are so fast you need a whole state to handle
+them in."
+
+"And I," replied Ben Ruby, "hope they come out damn soon. As you say,
+we've got the ships now, but they're not so slow themselves, and with
+the building methods they have, they can turn out ships faster than we
+can."
+
+"All the same, I'd like a few days more," Sherman countered. "In this
+brand of war it isn't how much you've got, but what you've got that
+counts. Look at all the Australians--half a million men, and the only
+good they are is to work in factories."
+
+"Can't blame them for not being made of metal like us," said Ben.
+"They're doing their best and we wouldn't be here but for them. Grierson
+is having the shops build us another ten rocket-cruisers, on the chance
+that we pick up some reinforcements somewhere in the west."
+
+"Good," said Sherman, "and I have another idea. I think we ought to keep
+at least one monitor on patrol over the Lassan city all the time.
+They're apt to get out and sneak one over on us. She can stay high up,
+near the edge of the atmosphere. Of course, she can't radio, but she can
+fire a couple of shots if she sights them coming out, and we can make a
+static detector that will register the disturbance. Then we can catch
+them as fast as they come out, when they'll be easiest to attack."
+
+"How about the other Lassan city out in the Black Hills?" asked Ben.
+
+"Would be bad strategy to try to handle them both at once, wouldn't it,"
+said Sherman, "Still, if you think so ..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The Great Conflict
+
+
+It was _Monitor VII_, manned by the Chicagoans, which had the honor of
+sighting the enemy. Just as the twilight of a bright May day was closing
+down over the radio men at the Philadelphia airport, the static detector
+marked an unusual disturbance, then two quick shocks, which must have
+come from the patrol's bow beam. In quick succession, the other five,
+standing ready on their starting ramps, took in their crews, and roared
+up and away in a torrent of explosions at a thousand miles an hour.
+
+Soaring to fifty thousand feet above the earth, the squadron of
+rocket-ships made its way north, _Monitor II_ in the lead.
+
+"Well, here we go," called Gloria, gaily, from her seat behind the
+searchlight. "Hope they don't give us the run-around this time."
+
+"They won't have the chance," said Ben. "That is, provided those
+Chicago boys have sense enough to remember their instructions and let
+them alone till we all get there. With six of these ships we ought to be
+able to rough 'em up a little bit."
+
+At a speed of over a thousand miles an hour, thanks to the thinness of
+the atmosphere through which they were traveling, it was only a few
+minutes' hop from Philadelphia to the Catskill city of the elephant-men.
+Ben had hardly finished speaking before Sherman called from the control
+seat, "There they are!"
+
+Far beneath, half revealed, half-hidden by the few tiny clouds of fleece
+that hung at the lower altitudes, they could see the naked scar in the
+hills that marked the Lassan headquarters. Around it floated half a
+dozen of the huge green balls they had encountered on the last occasion.
+As they swept by, another one, looking like a grape at the immense
+distance, trundled slowly out from the enormous door, swung to and fro
+for a second or two and then swam up to join those already in the sky.
+_Monitor VII_ was to the north and above them--as she perceived the
+American fleet she swept down to join the formation, falling into her
+prearranged place.
+
+"Do we go now?" asked Sherman.
+
+"Not yet," said Ben. "Give them all a chance to get out. The more the
+merrier. I'd like to finish the job this time. We can't get in that
+door, and if we did the rocket-ships would be no use to us in those
+passages, and they're the best we've got. Besides they're playing snooty
+too, and aren't paying a bit of attention to us. I hope they intend to
+fight it out to a finish this time."
+
+They turned north, giving the Lassans time to assemble their fleet.
+"What's the arrangement?" asked Gloria. "Do we all go for them at once?"
+
+"No. We dive in first and the rest follow behind, pulling up before they
+get in range. If anything happens to us, they'll rescue us--if they can.
+You see we don't know what they've got any more than they know what
+we've got, and I thought it would be a good idea to try the first attack
+with only one ship. In a pinch the rest can get away--if the Lassans
+haven't developed a lot of speed on those green eggs of theirs."
+
+"How many now?" asked Sherman, from the controls, as the squadron swung
+back southward and the scarred mountain swam over the horizon again.
+
+"Two--five--nine--eleven--oh, I can't count them all," said Gloria,
+"they keep changing formation so. There's a lot of them and they're
+coming up toward us, but slowly. They haven't got that blue beam at the
+base any more, either--you know the one that globe we got after was
+riding on."
+
+As they approached it was indeed evident that the green globes were
+rising slowly through the twilight in some kind of loose formation. It
+was too complex for the American observers to follow in the brief
+glimpses they were vouchsafed as they swept past at hurricane speed.
+There seemed to be dozens of the Lassan globes; as though they expected
+to overwhelm opposition by mere force of numbers. Nearer and nearer came
+the rocket-ships, nearer and nearer loomed the sinister Lassan globes,
+betraying no signs of life, silent and ominous.
+
+"Go?" called Sherman from his seat at the controls.
+
+"Go!" said Ben.
+
+The _Monitor II_ dived; and as she dived, Gloria Rutherford switched on
+the deadly beam of the searchlight which would carry the gravity-beam
+against their enemies. For a moment it sought the green globes; then
+caught one fairly. Ben Ruby threw the switch; and down the light beam
+leaped the terrible stream of the broken atoms like a wave of death.
+Leaped--and failed!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For as it struck the green globe, instead of the rending explosion and
+the succeeding collapse, there came only a bright handful of stars, a
+coruscating display of white fire that dashed itself around the Lassan
+ship like foam on some coast-rock. It reeled backward, driven from its
+position under the tremendous shock of the sundered atoms, but it
+remained intact.
+
+"Well, I'm a son-of-a-gun!" declared Sherman, as he put the _Monitor_
+into a spiral climb at nine hundred miles an hour to avoid any
+counter-attack. "If they haven't found a gravity screen! I didn't think
+it was possible. Goes to show you you never can tell, especially with
+Lassans. Look out folks, here comes the gaff, I'm going to loop!"
+
+For as he spoke the formation of green globes had opened out--swiftly by
+ordinary standards, though slowly in comparison with the frantic speed
+of the American rocket-vessel. From half a dozen of them the racking
+yellow ray of infra-sound leaped forth to seek the audacious ship that
+had attacked them single-handed. All round her they stabbed the
+atmosphere, striking the few clouds and driving them apart in a fine
+spray of rain, but missing the _Monitor_ as she twisted and heaved at
+frantic speed.
+
+Twenty miles away and high in the air they pulled up to recover
+themselves.
+
+"And _that_," Sherman went on with his interrupted observation,
+"explains why they aren't using those blue beams for support any more.
+Of course a gravity screen that would work against our beam would work
+against the gravity of the earth just as well. They must have some way
+of varying its effect, though. They aren't rising very fast and haven't
+got much speed."
+
+"Probably the Lassans can't stand the acceleration," suggested Murray.
+
+"Probably you're right. They can't have less than one Lassan in each
+globe.... Of course, they might control them by radio, with the
+thought-helmets and have the crews all robots, but that wouldn't be a
+Lassan way of doing things. And I doubt if they'd think radio safe,
+anyhow, even if they know about it, of which I'm not sure. We're
+shedding any amount of static around, and would play merry hell with
+most any radio. Wish I knew how they worked that gravity screen, though.
+I'll bet a boat-load of Monitors against a thought-helmet that it's
+magnetic."
+
+"Wish we had some way to signal the rest of the fleet," said Ben, as
+they swung into their position at the head of the formation again. "I
+don't want them pushing in there with the gravity-beam if it isn't going
+to do any good."
+
+Murray laughed. "They'll find it out soon enough. I think we've got
+plenty speed to beat those infra-sound rays, too. If that's as strong as
+they come, we've got 'em licked."
+
+"Don't crow yet, boy friend," said Gloria. "You don't know what those
+babies have up their sleeves--excuse me, their trunks."
+
+As the American fleet formed for a mass attack, the Lassan globes had
+been rising, and now they were a bare five thousand feet below the
+rocket-cruisers, swinging along at a height of 25,000 feet above the
+earth in the last rays of the setting sun. As the green globes rose they
+took their places in a formation like an enormous crescent, the ends of
+which were extended as each new globe came up to join it.
+
+"Looks like they want to get us in the middle and pop us from all
+directions at once," observed Sherman. "Well, here goes. Pick the end of
+the line; that's our best chance. How's your potential, Gloria?"
+
+"O. K., chief," she answered. "Lightning this time?"
+
+He nodded. The rockets of the _Monitor II_ roared; its prow dipped
+forward, and at an incredible speed it swept down on the line of Lassan
+warships, followed by the rest of the American fleet. But it was no
+surprise this time. As the monitors plunged in, from every green globe
+that could bring them to bear, the long yellow rays shot forth. Right
+through them the _Monitor II_ plunged; the grate of it, even through
+their double coating of armor and the vacuum chambers, set their teeth
+on edge; then the rocket-ship was pointing directly down at one of the
+Lassans and Gloria snapped the key that released the artificial
+lightning.
+
+A jagged beam of flame, intenser than the hottest furnace, leaped
+through the air, struck the green globe, and sought the earth in a
+thousand tiny rivulets of light. For just a second the globe seemed
+unharmed; then slowly, and almost majestically, it began to dissolve in
+mid-air, spouting flames at every pore. Fully ten miles down and beyond,
+the _Monitor_ turned again, and not till then did the sound of the
+explosion reach them, a terrific, rending thunder-clap.
+
+"See that?" cried Sherman. "That formation of theirs isn't so dumb.
+They've got it all ranged out; none of our ships can get at them without
+coming through at least one of those yellow rays, and if we stay in them
+too long--blooie!"
+
+They peered through the windows at the formation. Off at one side, they
+could make out the forms of two more rocket-ships, outlined against the
+sky, while behind and above them pursued by the searching yellow beams,
+came the rest. As they turned, they saw the gravity-beam shoot from one
+of the American ships, crumple uselessly against a green globe. Then
+they plunged in, again, firing the gravity beam earthward to work up the
+potential for another lightning discharge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hills below rocked and roared to the repeated shock. Trees fell in
+crashing ruin as lightning-bolt or infra-sound shivered them to bits;
+great cars of burned earth and molten rock marked the spots where the
+gravity-beam struck the ground. All round was a maze of yellow rays,
+lightning flashes, and green globes that reeled, rose, fell, sometimes
+blowing up, sometimes giving ground, but always fighting back sternly
+and vigorously and always rising through the clear spring evening.
+
+Murray Lee, at the rear of the ship, was the only one to see an American
+rocket-ship, caught and held for a few fatal moments by two yellow rays,
+slowly divest itself of its outer armor, then of its inner, and go
+whirling to the earth, dissolved into its ultimate fragments by those
+irresistible pennons of sound.
+
+Gloria Rutherford at the prow was the only one to see another caught
+bow-on in a yellow ray, reply by firing its gravity-beam right down the
+ray and into the green globe through the port from which the ray had
+issued. The ray went out--a spreading spot of flame appeared at the port
+and the great green globe crumpled into a little ball of flame before
+her eyes. But such events as these were the merest flashes in the
+close-locked combat. For the most part they had time to do nothing but
+handle the controls, throw switches to and fro, shoot forth gravity-beam
+and lightning-flash in endless alternation at the Lassan ships of which
+there always appeared to be one more right before them as Sherman
+twisted and turned the _Monitor_ with a skill that was almost uncanny.
+
+Suddenly he pulled out; the four looked round. They were miles high;
+below half hidden in the dusk, were the red and brown roofs of a city.
+Far away on the horizon the battle still roared; a rolling cloud of
+smoke now, shot with the vivid fires of the American lightning flashes.
+The wings of their ship were spread; they were soaring gently earthward
+without the application of the rocket power.
+
+"Had to get away for a minute," Sherman explained. "We were heating up
+from the speed. My God, but we're high up; at least 45,000 feet!"
+
+"Yes, and getting higher," Ben pointed out. "Those green globes must be
+headed for the moon."
+
+"Do you know, I wouldn't be a bit surprised but what you're right,"
+replied Sherman, "I'll bet an oil-ball against the whole Lassan city
+that they think we can't navigate space and they're trying to get above
+us and then hang around and pop us when we have to land. Well, come on
+gang, let's get back."
+
+He shot the wings in again, worked the controls, and they headed back
+toward the conflict.
+
+It was less of a turmoil now, more of an ordered swing, charge, pass and
+charge again against the diminishing number of the Lassan globes. Of the
+American rocket-ships Gloria could now count but two beside their own.
+One she had seen break up; whether the others, badly damaged, had hauled
+out for repairs, or whether, riven by the deadly yellow ray, they had
+gone crashing to the earth, there was no way of knowing. But the Lassans
+were not escaping unharmed; there were hardly a third as many as at the
+beginning and even as they approached another one disappeared in the
+vivid flash of the rocket's lightnings. Still the rest rose steadily on,
+going straight up as though they indeed hoped to escape their tormentors
+by rising to the moon.
+
+They dived in: Gloria pressed the lightning key and another Lassan globe
+blew up; then they were climbing again. Beneath them the night had come.
+The earth was a dark mass, far down, and from that enormous distance
+looked slightly dished out at the edges. But though the earth was dark,
+at that ultimate height of the atmosphere the sun had not yet set. Still
+the strange fight went on, higher and higher. The roar of the exhaust
+explosions died away behind them and Murray looked questioningly at
+Sherman.
+
+"Out this far, there isn't much air," he said. "Takes air to conduct
+sound. Wonder what they're up to, anyway. All right, Gloria."
+
+He dived at another Lassan and she pressed the lightning ray; but this
+time there was no flash, no flaming Lassan ship falling in ruins to the
+ground.
+
+"Who'd have thought it!" said Sherman, as he swung the _Monitor_ round
+after the charge. "Of course--we're up so high that we've made a spark
+gap that even lightning won't jump. But I don't get their idea; those
+sound rays won't be any good out here, either."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Into the Depths
+
+
+The _Monitor_ turned again, speeding back toward the remaining Lassan
+ships; with a startling shock of surprise, Gloria noticed that there
+were only two. Down below them one of the last three American
+rocket-cruisers had spread her wings and was gliding gently toward the
+earth. Like the _Monitor's_, her crew had evidently found the lightning
+flash worthless at the enormous altitude and was abandoning the battle
+till conditions became more favorable. The other rocket remained
+faithful; turned as they turned and charged up with them toward the last
+of the Lassans.
+
+It was a weird scene. They had climbed so far that the earth was now
+perceptibly round beneath them; a vague line marked the westward
+progress of the sunset and beyond it the sun, an immense yellow ball,
+set with a crown of vividly red flames, hung in the inky-black heavens.
+On the opposite side, the stars, more brilliant and greater in number
+than any ever before viewed by the eye of man, made the sky a carpet of
+light across which the green globes moved like shadows, their undersides
+illumined by the sun.
+
+As the _Monitor_ approached, the nearest globe seemed to be turning on
+its axis. Suddenly, out of the side that faced them, came the quick,
+stabbing beam of the light-ray, like the flicker of a sword. It struck
+the _Monitor_ full on the prow. There was a burning rain of sparks past
+the windows; the rocket-ship leaped and quivered, and those within felt,
+rather than saw, something give. Then, with a tremendous explosion, all
+the more horrible because utterly without sound, the great globe that
+had thrown the ray, burst into fragments.
+
+And at the same moment the _Monitor_ began to fall. Down, down, down
+went the rocket-cruiser with the round ball of the earth rising to meet
+them at a speed incredible. The sun went out; they were swallowed in a
+purple twilight as they plunged. The earth changed from a ball to a
+dish, from a dish to a plane, from a plane to a dark mass without form,
+and in the mass vague lights and glimmerings of water came out, and
+still their course was unchecked, still Sherman fought frantically with
+the useless controls.
+
+Desperately Murray pressed the firing keys of the stern-rockets;
+unchecked she drove on, almost straight down, plunging to certain
+destruction. The earth loomed nearer, nearer, the end seemed
+inevitable--.
+
+Then Gloria saved them. In some moment of inspiration, she threw on the
+searchlight; and the automatic connection fired the gravity-beam. There
+was a shattering report; the course of the _Monitor_ was halted, and
+bruised and broken, she tumbled over and over to the ground, safe but
+ruined.
+
+"Suffering Lassans!" said Ben Ruby, as they picked themselves out of the
+wreckage, "but that was a jar. What hit us, anyway?"
+
+Sherman pointed to Gloria, breathlessly. "Give the little girl a hand,"
+he ejaculated. "She sure pulled us out of the fire that time."
+
+"I'll say she did," said Murray, "but what happened, anyway? I thought
+that light-ray of theirs wouldn't work on these ships."
+
+"It won't--in air," said Sherman ruefully, surveying the wreck of the
+_Monitor_. "But the air blankets down the effect a lot. Out there we got
+the whole dose. Even then it shouldn't have hurt us so seriously, but I
+expect a lot of our lead sheathing got jarred loose when we went through
+those yellow rays and when they let that light-ray go, she leaked all
+over the place. Wonder what made that Lassan ship blow up like that,
+though? I thought she sure had us."
+
+"Oh," said Ben, "I think maybe I did that. When the light-ray came on it
+occurred to me that the gravity-beam might go down their beam of light
+just as fast as it would down ours, and they must have a port-hole or
+something through their gravity-screen or they couldn't let the ray out.
+So I just let them have it."
+
+"Boy, you sure saved the lives of four of Uncle Sam's flying men that
+time. About one second more of that stuff and we'd have cracked up right
+there. Look at the front of our bus. The outer plating is all caved in
+and the inner is starting to go."
+
+"She is pretty well used up isn't she? What gets me though, is that
+there's one more of those things loose."
+
+"Look!" cried Gloria suddenly, pointing upward.
+
+Far in the zenith above them they saw a point of light; a point that
+grew and spread and became definite as a great star; then it became a
+shooting star, plunging earthward, and so great was its speed that even
+as they watched they could make out a green fragment, flame-wrapped in
+its midst.
+
+"The last one!" said Sherman. "Thank God for that. Wonder how they got
+her?"
+
+"Wonder what we do next," remarked Murray, practically.
+
+They looked about them. They were on a hillside in a little clearing in
+a high, narrow valley. On every side were woods, dark and impenetrable.
+Just below they could hear the purl of a brook, and the trees about them
+were bare with the dark bareness of spring, a few fugitive buds being
+the only announcement that the season of growing was at hand. No
+landmarks, no roads were visible, and the sky was darkening fast.
+
+"The question," said Gloria, "is not where do we go, but where are we
+going from."
+
+"It might be most anywhere," remarked Murray. "Adirondacks, Catskills,
+or even Laurentians. I don't think we got far enough west for it to be
+the Blue Ridge or the Appalachians, but there's no way of telling."
+
+"Well," Gloria offered, "I've been in a lot of mountains in my day, but
+I never saw any where following a stream didn't take you somewhere
+sooner or later. I vote we trail along with that brook there and see
+what happens."
+
+"Bright thought," commented Ben. "Let's see what we can dig out of the
+wreck by way of weapons."
+
+"What for? There aren't any animals, and they couldn't hurt you if there
+were. If we meet any of the Lassans any weapon you got out of that mess
+wouldn't be much use. Wish we had a flashlight though."
+
+Treading carefully, but with a good deal of noise and confusion, they
+began to crash their way through the underbrush along the bank of the
+stream. At the foot of the valley it dived over a diminutive waterfall
+and then tumbled into another similar brook. Along the combined streams
+ran a road--a dirt road originally, now long untraveled, muddy and bad,
+but still a road.
+
+An hour's walking brought them around the foot of another mountain and
+into a valley where the road divided before a projecting buttress of
+rock. A teetering sign-post stood at the fork. With some trouble, and
+after getting himself immersed to the knees in the ditch, Murray managed
+to reach it and straining his eyes in the starlight, made out what it
+said. "THIS WAY TO HAMILTON'S CHICKEN DINNERS. 1 MILE" it read. With a
+snort of disgust he hurled the deceitful guidepost into the ditch and
+joined the others.
+
+"Toss a coin," someone suggested. No coins. A knife was flipped up
+instead. It fell heads and in accordance with its decision they took the
+road to the right. It led them along beside the stream for a while, then
+parted company with it and began to climb, and they soon found
+themselves at the crest of the hill. The night had become darker and
+darker, clouding over. But for the road they would have been completely
+lost. Finally, after skirting the hillcrest for a distance, the road
+dipped abruptly, and as it did so, they passed out of the forest into a
+region cleared but not cultivated, with numerous close-cut stumps coming
+right to the roadside.
+
+"But for the fact that it's a long ways away," remarked Sherman, "I
+would say that this was the district around the Lassan headquarters."
+
+"What makes you think it's a long ways away?" asked Gloria. "Do you know
+where we are? Neither do I."
+
+"By the nine gods of Clusium, I believe that's it, at that!" said
+Sherman suddenly as the road turned past a place where a long scar of
+earth ran up the hillside, torn and blackened. "Look--that looks exactly
+like the result of one of our gravity-beam shots! And there--isn't that
+the door?"
+
+They were on the hillside now, directly above the place he had
+indicated. From above and in the darkness it appeared as a cliff,
+breaking down rapidly to the valley, but Sherman led them to one side,
+straight down the hill and in another moment they were at its base. The
+great door through which the green balls had poured out that evening
+stood before them, a mighty arch reaching up into the dimness--and it
+was open.
+
+"Looks like the boys haven't come home to supper yet," said Gloria in an
+awed whisper, contemplating the gigantic arch and the dark passage into
+which it led.
+
+"Yes, and a lot of them aren't coming, either," replied Murray in a
+similar tone. "But what do we do--make a break for it or poke in and see
+if anybody's home?"
+
+"Listen, you three," said Sherman. "You run along and build some more
+monitors and go get whatever comes out of here. Me, I'm going to have a
+whirl at this door. The swellest girl in the world is in there, or was,
+and I'm going to find her."
+
+"Nothing doing, old scout," said Ben. "If you go in we go too--except
+Gloria."
+
+"What's the matter with me?" she demanded. "I'm made of the same kind of
+machinery you are, aren't I? And I'm good enough to run your foolish
+fighting-machine. Don't be a goop." And she stepped forward.
+
+The blue-domed hall that gave directly on the outer air had disappeared
+since Sherman and Marta Lami had raced out of it on that night that now
+seemed so long ago. In its place was an enormous tunnel, lined
+apparently with some metal, for its sides were smooth and shimmering.
+The portion they entered was lightless, but it curved as it ran down,
+and around the curve they could see the faint reflection of a light
+somewhere farther along the passage. Their feet echoed oddly in the
+enormous silence of the place. There seemed nothing alive or dead
+within.
+
+"Boy," whispered Murray to Gloria, "if one of those green globes comes
+back now it will squash us flatter than a false prosperity bankroll.
+This is the craziest thing we ever did."
+
+"Right," she said, "but what the hell? I just came for the ride. Look,
+what's that?"
+
+Before them, around the bend of the passage, they could see another door
+from which the light which glittered along the tunnel was streaming. In
+the opening stood a man, or what seemed to be a man, facing,
+fortunately, inwards.
+
+After a moment's cautious peering, Sherman pronounced him one of the
+ape-man slaves. He wore a thought-helmet, and had some kind of a weapon
+in his hand. The four held a cautiously whispered conference.
+
+"Listen," said Sherman, "we've got to jump that baby before he does
+anything. I think he's got one of those small light-guns. Didn't know
+they trusted them to the slaves, but I suppose so many of the Lassans
+got shot up that they had to do it. Now, who's got a knife?"
+
+A search of pockets revealed that Murray Lee had the only one in the
+company.
+
+"Never mind," said Sherman, "one is enough. Now we three will sneak up
+on him. The main thing is not to let him see us; if he makes a move,
+jump him quick. Remember there's a Lassan at the other end of the line,
+and the Lassan is getting everything he thinks. He doesn't think very
+fast, but don't take chances. If he sees us, you hop in, Murray, and cut
+the wire that leads out of his helmet and short-circuit it. They may
+have it fixed so that it won't short-circuit by now but I don't think
+so. If he doesn't see us before we jump him, clap your hands over his
+eyes, Ben, and I'll try to get the helmet off him and pass out some
+information to the Lassan at the other end that will keep him quiet. But
+the main thing is to get that gun first. Everybody understand?"
+
+Three heads nodded in unison.
+
+"All right. Come on."
+
+They crept up the passage together avoiding touching hands lest the ring
+of the metal should warn the sentry. As they approached they could see
+the room he looked out on was one of the familiar blue-domed halls; the
+passage ended sharply some six feet above its floor ("Taking no chances
+on more escapes" thought Sherman) and that the hall was of enormous
+size. There were machines in one corner of the floor. In another stood
+one of the green globes, half finished, with spidery trellises of red
+metal outlining what would be the surface of the sphere. Around it
+helmeted mechanical men came and went busily. The rest of the hall, for
+all its vast extent, was completely empty. At the far end was a row of
+doors; high on the far side an opening that looked like a door but had
+no obvious purpose.
+
+This much they saw; then the sentry stirred as though to turn, and with
+a quick patter of feet, they were upon him. Before he had time to turn
+around Ben Ruby launched himself in a perfect football tackle for his
+legs, bringing the ape-man down with a crash. As he fell, Sherman
+snatched at the helmet, and Gloria the light-gun, which had dropped from
+his fingers, while Murray pinioned the struggling creature's arms. In a
+moment Sherman found the finger-holes in the helmet, pressed, and it
+came loose in his hands while the ape-man ceased to struggle.
+
+"Let him up now, folks," said Sherman, "give him a swift kick and point
+him toward the door. He won't come back." And he rapidly adjusted the
+thought-helmet to his own head.
+
+The Lassan at the other end was evidently disturbed. He had received the
+sound of the crash from the ape-man's brain and was asking querulously
+what it meant.
+
+"What has happened?" the thought demanded insistently. "What is it that
+struck you? Have the fighting machines returned? Show a picture of what
+you see. Are the slaves escaping?"
+
+"Everything's all right," Sherman sent back. "Something broke loose down
+below and I stumbled trying to look at it." He closed his eyes, forming
+a mental picture of the hall, with everything in order, then one of the
+passage, and reached up and detached the helmet, motioning to Murray for
+the knife. An instant's sawing and the device short-circuited with a
+fizzing of blue sparks.
+
+"That will give that one a headache for a while," he remarked. "We'll
+have to hurry, though. When he comes to he'll investigate and then
+there'll be trouble."
+
+"What's that?" asked Gloria, pointing across the hall at the aperture
+high up in the wall. A gleaming beak had been thrust out and the bright,
+intelligent eye of one of the dodo-birds was regarding them malevolently
+from the opening.
+
+"Shoot, quick!" said Sherman, "For God's sake! They're telepathic.
+They'll have every Lassan in the place after us."
+
+Gloria fumbled a second with the gun, located the finger hole, sent a
+spurt of light flying across the room. It missed the head, but found its
+mark somewhere in the body of the bird, for there was a squawk and the
+head disappeared. Sherman vaulted down the six-foot drop, landing with a
+bang. "Come on," he cried, "short-circuit every wire you can find; tear
+them loose if you can't cut them any other way--and make for the middle
+door at the back."
+
+They ran across the hall toward the work benches. It seemed enormous;
+like a race in a dream, in which one seems to make no progress whatever.
+But the workers did not appear to notice them. Driven by the thoughts of
+the controlling Lassans, they were incapable of attending to anything
+else unless it was forced on their attention.
+
+As they approached the benches, however, one flat-faced ape-man almost
+ran into them. His face took on an expression of puzzled inquiry and at
+the same moment a figure whose carriage plainly showed it human stepped
+down toward them from the half-completed green globe. Gloria paused,
+leveled her light-gun at the ape-man, and his face vanished in a spray
+of fire. The human advanced slowly as though struggling against some
+force that was too strong for him. Sherman reached him first, wrenched
+the helmet from his head and dropping it on the floor stamped on it till
+the fine mechanism was irretrievably ruined. The mechanical human fell
+to his knees.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked, "God?"
+
+"We're all right," said Murray, and Sherman, "which way to the living
+cages? Do you know Marta Lami?"
+
+The man shook his head like one recovering from a dream. "I do' know,"
+he said, "they had the helmets on me for twenty periods. I do' know
+nothing. We came through that door. In the little automobiles."
+
+He indicated a door behind some of the machines.
+
+Speed was urgent, but Sherman paused to instruct them briefly. "There'll
+be another sentry at the door. Pop him first, Gloria. Murray, take your
+knife, and Ben, get anything you can and cut all the wires on those
+birds around here. There are some more wires leading out of the
+machines. Be sure to get them, too. You might let loose something
+important. We'll try to get you another gun."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Ending of It All
+
+
+Impassively, oblivious of the invasion about them, the workers kept on
+at their machines like ants when their nest is broken open. Sherman and
+Gloria dodged around one of them, avoiding the direct line of sight of
+the robot who worked at it and walked rapidly toward the door giving on
+the car-tracks. The man on duty had no weapon, but paid them no
+attention, being occupied in watching a car just sliding in to the
+station. "It's a shame" began Gloria, but "Shoot!" insisted Sherman and
+the light-ray struck him in the back of the neck fusing head and neck to
+a single mass. As he sank to the floor he turned partly over.
+
+"Good heavens, it's Stevens!" said Gloria, "the man who organized the
+rebellion against Ben Ruby in New York and brought the dodos down on
+us."
+
+"Never mind. Hurry," her companion urged in a fever of activity. The
+doors of the car were opening and half a dozen mechanical men stepped
+out, mostly with the foolish visages and shambling steps of the ape-men,
+but two whose upright walk proclaimed them human.
+
+"Listen, everybody," called Sherman, quickly. "We're from outside. We're
+trying to bust up this place. Get back in the car, quick, and come help
+us." Suiting the action to the word, he leaped for the first
+compartment, reached it just as it was closing and wedged himself
+inside.
+
+The car had a considerable run to make. In the dimly-lighted
+compartment, Sherman was conscious of turns, right, left, right again,
+and of a steady descent. He wondered vaguely whether he had taken the
+right method; whether the cage rooms lay near one another or were widely
+separated. At all events the diversion in the hall of the green globes
+would hold the attention of the Lassans for some time, and the
+short-circuiting of so many lines would hamper their methods of dealing
+with the emergency....
+
+The car came to a stop. Sherman heard a door or two open, but his own
+did not budge, and he had no needle to stir it. He must wait, hoping
+that Gloria had not been isolated from him. She had the ray-gun at all
+events, and would not be helpless. Then the door opened again.
+
+He was released into a cage that seemed already occupied, and one look
+told him that his companion was an ape-man.
+
+"Gloria!" he called.
+
+"Right here," came the cheerful answer from two cages down. "This is a
+swell thing you got me into. How do we get out of here?"
+
+"Have you got a pin or needle of any kind?" he asked.
+
+"Why--yes. Turn your back." She did something mysterious among her
+feminine garments and held up an open safety-pin for him to see across
+the intervening cage.
+
+"Stick your arm through the bars and see if you can toss it down the
+track. If I don't get it, you'll have to blast your way out with the
+light-gun, but I don't like to do that. Don't know how many shots it
+holds and we need them all."
+
+She swung with that underarm motion which is the nearest any woman can
+achieve to a throw. The pin struck the gleaming car-rail, skidded,
+turned and came to rest before Sherman's cage. He reached for it, but
+the ape-man in the cage, who had been watching with interested eyes, was
+quicker. Fending Sherman off with one huge paw, he reached one of his
+feet through the bars for the object and held it up before his eyes
+admiringly.
+
+Sherman grabbed, but this only fixed the ape-man in his evident opinion
+that the object he held was of value. He gripped it all the tighter,
+turned an amiable face toward Sherman and gibbered. Losing patience at
+this unfortunate contretemps when time was so precious, the aviator
+lifted an iron foot and kicked him, vigorously and with purpose, in the
+place where kicks do the most good. The ape-man pitched forward,
+dropping the fascinating pin, then rose and came toward Sherman, his
+expression clearly indicating his intention of tearing the American limb
+from limb. The cage was narrow: the ape-man the bigger of the two.
+Sherman thought hard and fast. The oil-ball!
+
+He leaped for the lectern, snatched it open, seized the ape-man's
+oil-ball and held it aloft as though to throw it out into the corridor.
+With a wail of anguish the simian clutched at the precious object.
+Sherman squeezed it enough to let a little stream run forth, holding it
+just out of his reach, and as he stabbed for it again, tossed it back
+into a corner of the cell. The ape-man leaped upon it covetously, and
+Sherman bent over the bars, fumbling in his nervous haste to unlock
+them.
+
+Luckily the safety-pin fitted. With a subdued click the bars swung
+inward and he was out in the corridor. Another moment and Gloria was
+free also.
+
+"Any more people in here?" Sherman called. Three voices answered and he
+hurried from cage to cage, setting them free as the warning blue lights
+that prohibited shouting began to flicker around the roof.
+
+"Come on," he called, "we must get out of here, quick!"
+
+They hesitated a moment between the two doors, chose that at the upper
+end. As they raced through it, they heard a panel clash somewhere. The
+Lassans were investigating.
+
+They were in one of the passages through which the cars ran, with
+alternate bars of light and dark across it marking the termination of
+side-passages. "Look!" said Gloria. Into the cage-room they had just
+quitted a car was coming, its featureless front gliding noiselessly
+along the track. "In here," said Sherman, pulling the others after him
+down the nearest lighted passage.
+
+Followed by the other four Sherman followed it steadily along to the
+right, where it ended at a door.
+
+"What now?" said someone.
+
+"In," decided Gloria. "Likely to be a cage-room as not."
+
+Sherman searched for the inevitable finger-holes, found them and
+pressed. The door swung back on--
+
+A Lassan reclining at ease on one of the curious twisted benches beside
+which stood a tall jar of the same yellow-flecked green material they
+had seen the others devouring. The room was blue-domed but very small,
+and its walls were covered with soft green hangings in pendulous drops.
+A thought-helmet was on the elephant-man's head; its other end was worn
+by one of the mechanical people whose back was to the door as they
+entered, and who appeared to be working some kind of machine that
+punched little holes of varying shape in a strip of bright metal.
+
+As the five Americans pressed into the room, the Lassan rose, reached
+for his ray-gun, but Gloria pushed the one she held into his face and he
+relaxed with a little squeal of terror, while Sherman reached into his
+pouch and secured the weapon.
+
+As he did so the Lassan reached up and snapped loose the thought-helmet;
+the metal figure turned round and gazed at them.
+
+"Marta!"
+
+"The boy friend!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Lassan was very old. His skin was almost white and seamed with sets
+of diminutive wrinkles, and as he regarded the two mechanical people,
+locked in each other's embrace an expression of puzzlement and distaste
+came over his features, giving place to one of cool and lofty dignity as
+he perceived that Gloria did not mean to kill him on the spot. Lifting
+his trunk, he motioned imperiously toward the thought-helmet which Marta
+had cast aside, then set the other end of it on his own head.
+
+To the invading Americans, crowded into the little room, it seemed for a
+moment as though they had somehow burst into a temple. Sherman's face
+became grave, and following the Lassan's direction, he picked up the
+helmet and fitted it on his head. The thought that came through it gave
+a feeling of dignity and power such as he had never experienced before;
+almost as though it were some god talking.
+
+"By what right," it demanded, "do you invade the room of scientific
+composition? Why are you not in your cages? You know you will receive
+the punishment of the yellow lights in the greater degree for this
+unauthorized invasion. Save yourself further punishment now by retiring
+quietly. You can take my life, it is true, but I am old and my life is
+of no value. Think not that I am the only Lassan in the universe."
+
+"Sorry," Sherman gave him back, "but this is a rebellion. You are not
+familiar with the history of this planet, or you would know that
+Americans can't be anybody's slaves. Let us go in peace and we will let
+you return to your own planet."
+
+"Let us go!" came the Lassan's answer. "Your obstinate presumption
+surprises me. Do you think that the Lassans of Rigel, the highest race
+in the universe will let go where they have once grasped?"
+
+"You will or we'll jolly well make you," replied the American. "Do you
+think your silly green globes are going to do you any good? The last
+one fell beside us tonight."
+
+Sherman could sense the sudden wave of panic in the Lassan's thought at
+this unexpected answer. He had evidently assumed that they were from the
+underground labor battalions and were not familiar with events outside.
+But he rallied nobly.
+
+"And do you imagine, foolish creature of a lower race, that the green
+globes are our last resource? Even now I have perfected a device that
+will wipe your miserable people from the planet. But if it did not,
+rather would we Lassans perish in the flames of a ruined world than
+abandon a task once undertaken; we who can mold the plastic flesh to
+enduring metal and produce machines that have brains; we who can control
+the great substance that underlies all life and matter."
+
+"Well, here's one task you're going to abandon," Sherman thought back.
+"We, who can call lightning from the skies, are going to give you a
+terrible sock on the--trunk, if you don't. If you doubt it try and find
+how many Lassans live after today's battle. Go on back where you came
+from. You're not wanted in this world."
+
+"You know, or should know, the law of evolution," replied the Lassan.
+"The weaker and less intelligent must ever give way before the stronger.
+By the divine right of--" his flow of thought stopped suddenly, changed
+to a wild tumult of panic. Sherman looked up. Round the rim of the blue
+dome, where it stood above the hangings, a string of lights was winking
+oddly, in a strange, uneven rhythm. "God of the Lassans, deliver us!"
+the thought that reached his own was saying. "The tanks are broken--the
+light is loose!" Then suddenly his mind was closed and when it opened
+again it had taken on a new calmness and dignity and a certain god-like
+strength.
+
+"I do not know how or where," it told Sherman, "but an accident has
+happened. Perhaps an accident produced by your strange and active race.
+The connections have broken; the tanks of the substance of life in the
+bowels of this mountain have broken and the whole is set free. It is
+hard to see the labor of centuries thus destroyed; to see you, creatures
+of a lower race, inherit a world so divinely adapted to the rule of
+intelligence.
+
+"For in this accident the whole of our race must perish if you have told
+the truth about the destruction of our green globes. We called in all
+the Lassans from your world for the work of the destruction of your
+armies. Yes, you told the truth. Your mind is open, I can see it. We are
+lost.... There is no hope remaining; it means destruction or the metal
+metamorphosis for every living Lassan, and there will be none to endow
+them with the life in metal we have given you.
+
+"Perhaps it was our own fault. Your curious race, for all its defects,
+has certain qualities of intelligence, and above all that strange
+quality of activity and what you call courage. If we could have summoned
+up the same activity; if we had possessed the same courage to attack
+against odds, this would not have happened. It is our failure that we
+have depended too much on naked intellect; learned to do too many things
+through the hands of our servants. Had Lassans been at the controls of
+our fighting ships, instead of the automatons we used, you would never
+have conquered them so easily.
+
+"Be that as it may. We have lost and you have won. I can show myself
+more generous than you would have been, and thus can gain a victory over
+you. If you would escape, follow the car-track straight on to where it
+forks; then take the left-hand turning. If you would be restored to
+your former and imperfect and repulsive form (though I cannot conceive
+why you should, being permanently fixed in beautiful and immortal
+metal), do not run away, but await the coming of the substance of life
+in the outer hall or passage, being careful not to approach it too
+closely or to touch it, so that you may receive the emanation only. It
+is this emanation, surrounding our space ship that produced your present
+form, which we changed to machinery by our surgery; and it so acts on
+the metal of which you are composed that it will reverse the case. As
+for me I am old and tired; already the walls of this place tremble to
+the coming of my doom. Leave me, before I regret what I have told you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He reached his trunk up and disconnected the thought-helmet, and
+standing up, with a certain high dignity, pointed to the door.
+
+Relieved of the helmet Sherman could hear a confused roaring like that
+on the day when Marta Lami and he had short-circuited the mining
+machine. "Come on," he called to the rest, dropping the helmet. "Hell's
+let loose. We've got to hurry."
+
+Outside the roaring was perceptibly louder and seemed to be approaching.
+As they leaped down to the track a faint glow was borne to them redly
+along the rail. The ape-men in the cage-room they had escaped from were
+howling and beating the bars of their cages, with no blue lights to
+forbid them.
+
+The track was slippery--Marta Lami and the three they had released from
+the cage room, unshod. Sherman gripped her by the hand. "Hurry, oh,
+hurry," he panted, pulling her along.
+
+They passed another passage, down which a door stood open. The soft
+light that normally illuminated the place was flickering wildly, they
+caught a glimpse of three or four Lassans within, stirring wildly,
+rushing from place to place, trying this connection and that. The dull
+sound behind them increased; the track grew steeper.
+
+"What about the rest?" gasped Gloria, running by his side.
+
+"Don't know," he answered. "They did something. The whole place is
+coming down."
+
+As they rounded a corner the track forked before them. Remembering the
+Lassan's parting instructions, Sherman led them to the left, passed
+another passage mouth, and they found themselves in a small blue-domed
+hall, empty save for a single car that stood on the track. There was
+just room to squeeze past it where the passage began again at the other
+end. And as they made it the roaring sound changed to a series of
+explosions, sharp and clear. The ground trembled, seemed to tilt; the
+car slid backward into the passage they had just vacated.
+
+Ten feet, twenty-five feet more--and they were on the platform leading
+to the hall of the green globes. Sherman swung himself up, offered a
+hand to Marta. In a moment the others were beside them and they were
+darting for the door. The ground was trembling again, shock after shock.
+Something fell with a crash as they raced across the platform and into
+the hall.
+
+Within, all was confused darkness and a babble of sound. A dodo screamed
+somewhere. An ape-man ran past them, gibbering, mad with fright, and
+dived to the track. Sherman ran across the hall, followed by Marta and
+the three he had released. Gloria halted.
+
+[Illustration: Behind them something fell with a crash; ape-men ran
+gibbering with fright.]
+
+"Murray!" she cried, "Murray!" and then lifted the light-gun and sent a
+pencil of fire screeching to the roof. There was an answering shock as
+something tumbled from the ceiling.
+
+"Murray!" she called again, at the top of her voice. Behind them,
+through the platform something fell with a crash and a long red flame
+licked through the door, throwing tall shadows and weird lights across
+the bedlam within.
+
+"Here!" came a voice, and Gloria turned to see Murray and Ben running
+toward her.
+
+"Come on," she said, "hurry. The works is busted."
+
+They made the doorway just as Sherman was pulling Marta up the six-foot
+step. Ben and Murray lifted Gloria in their arms, tossed her up. The red
+flame in the background had given place to a white one, and a boiling
+white mass of something was sending a long tongue creeping across the
+floor.
+
+Willing arms snatched at those of Ben and Murray, pulling them upward to
+safety. They turned to run down the tunnel.
+
+"No!" cried Sherman. "Stick! It's all right. The old bloke told me so."
+
+There was another explosion and a great white cloud rolled toward them
+above the liquid tide. Then they lapsed into unconsciousness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Murray Lee yawned and sat up.
+
+The others lay around him in curious piled attitudes as though they had
+dropped off to sleep in the midst of something. He noted, with a shock
+of surprise, that Ben Ruby's face, turned in his direction, was not
+metal, but good, honest flesh and blood. He gazed at his own hands.
+Flesh and blood likewise. He looked around.
+
+The hall of the blue dome had vanished. A tangled mass of rock, cemented
+in some grey material, was before them, obscure in the darkness. At the
+other end was the passage, its ceiling fallen here and there, its sides
+caved in. But a stream of light showed that an opening still led to the
+outside.
+
+He bent over and shook Gloria. She came to with a start, looked about
+her, and said with an air of surprise, "Oh, have I been asleep? Why,
+what's happened to you Murray? You need a shave." Then felt of her own
+face and found it smooth again.
+
+"For Heaven's sake!" she ejaculated.
+
+The sound brought the rest bolt upright. Sherman looked round at the
+others, then at the passage, and smiled with satisfaction.
+
+"That old Lassan," he remarked, "told me the metal evolution would
+reverse if we got the emanation without letting the stuff touch us.
+Well, he was a sport."
+
+"Yes, but--" said Marta Lami, standing up and feeling of herself. "Look
+what they did to us. My toes are flexible and my figure bulges in such
+queer places. I'll never be able to dance again. Oh, well, I suppose it
+doesn't matter--I'll be marrying the boy friend anyway." She took
+Sherman's hand and he blushed with embarrassment.
+
+"Good idea," said Murray Lee and looked hard at Gloria.
+
+She nodded and turned her head.
+
+"Ho hum," said Ben Ruby. "The dictator of New York seems to be _de
+trop_. How does one get out of here?"
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Onslaught from Rigel, by Fletcher Pratt
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41049 ***