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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f57f44 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text +*.htm text +*.html text +*.png binary +*.jpg binary +*.svg text +*.pdf binary +*.bmp binary +*.zip binary +*.midi binary +*.mp3 binary diff --git a/78979-0.txt b/78979-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a78c74 --- /dev/null +++ b/78979-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2270 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78979 *** + + + + + The Man Who Put Out the Sun + + By MURRAY LEINSTER + + _Author of "The City of the Blind," + "The Storm That Had to Be Stopped," etc._ + + _Novelette--Complete_ + + _"As surely as the sun will rise to-morrow" goes the + saying--but that day the sun did not rise, and the blinded + world was at the mercy of a merciless scientific madman._ + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + THE MORNING THE SUN DIDN'T RISE. + + +May the fifth was scheduled to be Police Inspector Hines's wedding day, +but it happened that on that morning the sun did not rise, and so the +wedding was postponed. + +Otherwise it was just like every other morning. There were no storms, +no earthquakes, no unusual phenomena of any kind. A great many people, +as a matter of fact, simply disbelieved their clocks when they got up +and therefore yawned and went back to bed again. + +Others, checking up with the telephone company's time, reasoned +sensibly that there was an eclipse or something of the sort, and +searched the morning newspapers for details while they breakfasted by +artificial light. But the morning newspapers, at least on the Atlantic +Coast, bore only their usual quotas of divorces, embezzlements, ax +murders and other diverting narratives. Having been printed during the +night, they were entirely silent about the sun's eccentric absence. So +it was quite a few hours before people became really alarmed. + +Probably the first man in the United States to notice any oddity in +the morning was a man wearing a green celluloid eyeshade, in the +operating office of New York's gigantic uptown power station. He has no +importance in the affair other than that priority. + +He sat in a very brilliantly lighted office with a huge instrument +board before him, on which were vast numbers of dials. A recording +ammeter ticked away at his left, tracing a graph of current-consumption +for one-half of the whole city. A master voltmeter and a visual master +ammeter were just before his eyes. + +There were windows on two sides of the room. Through them he could +look out over the sleeping city. Long rows of unwinking street lights +glittered in deserted avenues. The forms of the East River bridges +were outlined in lines of fire. The city was silent and still, +sleeping heavily. What few noises came from the empty streets seemed +extraordinarily loud. + +The man with the green eyeshade opened a window and took grateful +breaths of the cool morning air. He was in his shirt sleeves, with his +vest unbuttoned. It was hot in the office, with that peculiarly dry and +stuffy heat with which we Americans fill our office buildings. + +From far below, in the vast halls of the power station, there came a +constant subdued, contented humming. Turbine-driven dynamos purred +softly, making the electric current which supplied alike the street +lamps and the buildings of half the city. + + * * * * * + +From the other windows he could see toward the east, over the sprawling +bulk of Brooklyn toward the sea. There was a faint, pale-grayish glow +in the sky. False dawn. Stars began to dim against its brightness. +Gradually, very gradually, the dark shapes of buildings began to +take form. There were no colors in the sky as yet, merely a subdued +gray radiance. But a paler reflection of that pale gray light made +rectangular shapes out of irregular bulks. + +From the windows of the operating office the city ceased to be a +pattern of glittering lights against the dark. It acquired a third +dimension. Perspectives developed, and it was possible to discover that +this dim, ungainly shape was nearer or farther away than that one. + +The man with the green eyeshade--his name does not matter--lowered +the window and went back to his seat. It was his task to forecast the +demand of the city for power, and to see to it that there were always +humming steel monster dynamos in readiness to supply that force. + +An easy task, ordinarily. Framed upon the wall at his left, a typical +graph of the city's consumption of electricity showed the normal use +of current. From six to eight at night, when people dined and electric +signs flared, and all dwellings were lighted up, the demand was at +its peak. Then more lights burned. More cooking devices functioned. +More current was consumed by all the contrivances of an electrified +civilization. + +The downtown power station had a lesser peak at this hour, but its +greatest load came when electrically-driven power devices of lofts and +factories were operating. Uptown, the peak load came from homes. + +The man in the operating office rested his hand conveniently near a +certain switch. It would signal for the cutting off of certain dynamos, +assigned to run the street lighting system. He waited for those lights +to be extinguished. He did not look out the window for his information, +but at his master ammeter. When that needle flickered back to the +normal indication for this hour, the dynamos below would cease to run +until needed again. Most of the monster machines were idle now, anyhow. + +Presently there would come a slow creeping upward, when a myriad early +risers turned on lights for their dressing. The master ammeter would +record that activity. And then ten thousand electric toasters would +perform their function, beginning with half an hour after sunrise, and +from then on would come the steady increase in the amount of current +used, until ten o'clock would see the last electric dish-washing device +turned off; and the normal load of elevators, curling irons, and other +trivia would require only two giant generators to run until the noon +hour approached. + +The man with the green eyeshade waited. The needle held steady. The +street lights had not been turned off. Presently there was a slow climb +upward. A myriad early risers, wakened by their alarm clocks, had +turned on their lights. Time passed slowly. The load increased again. +Electric toasters were functioning, and eggs were being boiled. + +The man in the operating office of the uptown power station could +follow the activities of a city by watching a single giant dial. But +he was frowning a little. The load was increasing. There was no drop. +His eyes sought a clock at hand. Just the time for sunrise. The load +continued to increase. + +Frowning, he shifted his hand and swung another switch. A hitherto +silent, idle monster below began to hum contentedly. Watching the dial, +presently he threw another switch. Still another began to purr, down in +the echoful open space where metal monsters lay quiescent. + +A telephone rang beside him. He spoke impatiently. + +"I don't know. That's what the load calls for." He lifted his eyes and +searched a row of circuit ammeters. "No. Everything's all right. If you +have to start up another boiler, better go ahead." + +A few minutes later, frowning more markedly than before, he lifted the +instrument and called himself. + +"Get three extra boilers ready. I'm going to need them unless the load +falls off." + +He watched his instruments in frowning, concentrated attention. He was +entirely too busy to glance out of the window. Twice he looked at a +clock and at the graph on the wall. Three times the normal demand for +power at this time. Now four times. + +He called for more boilers to supply steam. Discipline in the power +plant is as strict, of course, as in any naval vessel. Orders are +obeyed. More and more of the metal monsters whirred and whined and +purred themselves into a contented humming. + +Eight o'clock. The man with the green eyeshade bit at his nails. Then +he looked out of the window. Three seconds of incredulous gazing, and +he picked up the telephone instrument. + +"Prepare for peak loading," he said curtly. "There's an eclipse or +something. It's still dark outdoors." + +And from then on he glanced at the windows as often as at his +instruments. It was dark outside. At eight o'clock in the morning the +street lights of New York were glittering jewels set in rows. The East +River bridges were limned in lines of glowing lights. Puzzled people +began to appear upon the streets. Store fronts were lighted. Windows in +apartments and in private homes began to glow in vivid small rectangles. + +At half past eight the man in the green eyeshade raised the window +and stared shakenly upward. The sky was a dull, dead, velvety black. +No stars were visible. No trace of illumination; no faintest ray of +light came down from above. The city lived and moved and had its being +in what would have been an entirely normal fashion--for night-time. +Nothing at all had happened. Nothing whatever had occurred. The only +oddity that could be discovered anywhere was simply the fact that on +that morning the sun had not risen. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + A WORLD IN DARKNESS. + + +Not everywhere did the phenomenon of darkness make its appearance +so quietly. In London a bright sunshiny morning had been in being. +The streets were filled with traffic. Children played in Kensington +Gardens. Small tugs puffed importantly up and down the rather +inadequate Thames. + +In the houses of Parliament an impassioned debate was going on upon +the subject of the manorial rights surviving in the village of Muttle +Deeping, West Harborough, Hants. At the palace, a popular member of the +royal family was in the act of entering a motor car to lay his fourth +cornerstone for the week. London was, it is clear, in the middle of a +normal, sunshiny morning. + +Then the sky flickered, and all at once it was night. The sky was a +dead, jet black. For a moment the city was stunned, before motor car +headlights flamed into being. Two minutes later electric light bulbs +began to glow in buildings. They dimmed, however, as the drain upon the +power houses grew far more swiftly than the dynamos could be prepared +to meet the load. + +It was half an hour before the street lamps began to glow dully, and +over an hour and a half before the city was illuminated as in a normal +night, by which time the first and natural explanation of an eclipse in +being was patently untrue. No eclipse ever lasted so long. And panic +swept over London and all England. + +In Budapest the darkness fell at high noon. In Madrid at eleven. At +Stamboul--Constantinople--the sky was blotted out while myriads of the +faithful bowed in prayer. In Calcutta the colors of the sunset were +wiped out by an instantaneous curtain of utter darkness. + +At Flagstaff, Arizona, an astronomer was peering patiently through a +giant telescope at the planet Mars when the planet and all the stars +beyond abruptly seemed to cease to be. He thought the telescope had +met with some accident. Even later, when from the outside of the +observatory the whole sky was seen to be blotted out, he still thought +the obscuration due to an extremely heavy bank of clouds. But he +puzzled bewilderedly over the suddenness of their forming. + +Professor Schaaf was probably the first man in the whole world to +evaluate the phenomenon at its true value. As May the fifth was the +wedding day of his bosom friend Hines, Schaaf had spent the previous +night at his flat, to listen patiently to the advantages of matrimony. +He had shooed Hines benevolently to bed at two in the morning, and had +slept peacefully himself. But at seven Schaaf was awake and found it +dark outside. + +The scientist looked at his watch and blinked, and listened to its +ticking. He got up and stared out over the city, illuminated as if at +midnight and already stirring. He saw the bright ribbon of an elevated +train, several blocks away. He could see that it was filled with people. + +He went to the telephone and called the apartment telephone operator. +The Negro's voice came up gladly: + +"Ya-as, suh, Professuh Schaaf! Seben o'clock. But, Professuh! Ah wish +yo'd tell me 'bout dishere eclipse. Hit's dark outside, suh. How long's +the eclipse goin' to last, suh? Sev'l of the tenants done asked me +a'ready, suh." + +Schaaf grunted, and turned around to squint out of the windows again. + +"Der defil! Hm... Giff me der Meteorological Bureau. Find der number +and call me back. I find out." + +He padded to a window in carpet slippers. He heard Hines breathing +evenly and regularly in the next room. Schaaf raised a window and +stared up at the sky. An even, velvety black. No variation anywhere. +As black as ink--blacker. Blacker than the darkness of an eclipse, +because even during the moments of totality the stars can be seen. And +starlight even upon a thick blanket of clouds would give more light +than this. + +Schaaf put down the window, blinking. He stood quite still, a +disreputable figure in dressing-gown and slippers, with his luxuriant +blond beard uncombed. And suddenly his eyes opened very wide, and he +began to swear softly to himself. + + * * * * * + +He went back to the telephone. + +"Der Meteorological Bureau? Professor Albert Schaaf speaking. Will +you giff me der bolometer-reading of der moment?... Der _bolometer_ +reading! Der amount of heat being radiated to der earth from der sky! +Yes!" + +He fumed and fretted while the telephone receiver was silent. Then he +became intent. + +"Yes... Hm... That is larger than a night reading, _hein_?... What +would be der reading during der moments of totality of an eclipse?..." + +He shook his head impatiently. "Nefer mind der corrections for +latitude. Abbroximate! Giff me der figures!" + +Again he fumed nervously. + +"Fery well. Thank you. Abbroximately one-fourth der normal amount of +heat is being radiated to der earth from der sky. Which is too much +for an eclipse, and fery much too much for night-time. I thank you. I +thought I was cuckoo in der head." + +He hung up the receiver and swore classic German profanity while he +jiggled the hook. + +"Der _verdammt_ deffil!" he said bitterly; then, into the telephone: +"Get police headquarters at once. Hurry!" + +He scowled at the universe, represented by a section of Hines's library +wall, until a voice answered. "Hello!" he said savagely into the +transmitter. "This is der Herr Professor Albert Schaaf. You know me?" + +A prompt affirmative came over the wire. In those few circles where +Schaaf was unknown on his own account--few indeed after his notable +part in battling the scientific fiend Preston--he was known as a friend +of Police Inspector Hines, who had directed those fights. + +"Now listen carefully. I am in Hines's apartment. He is still asleep. +I haff not wakened him because he is going to need sleep before this +thing is finished. But I giff an order in his name. Send some police at +once to giff adequate protection to Miss Kathryn Bush, who is to marry +Inspector Hines to-day. I haff reason to think she is in danger. Send +them at once, and send plenty of them! You understand?" + +A grunt of astonishment at the other end of the wire. Then the incisive +voice of a man of action. + +"Good!" said Schaaf, nodding into the telephone transmitter. "Fery +good. And then if you haff more men to Spare, send them up to watch +ofer Hines and me. We need them. And speed is der essence of der +contract."' + +The incisive voice asked a question. + +"Think!" said Schaaf sardonically. "Look out of der window and think, +if you can, of one man who makes a specialty of raising hell with der +heafens, and who has no fondness for Hines and me. That is der answer. +Good-by!" + +He hung up decisively, drummed nervously on his knee, and called +Kathryn Bush. She was not only Hines's fiancée, she was a very capable +newspaper woman, and Schaaf alternately scolded and flattered her +outrageously. He liked Kathryn very much, and since Hines was going to +marry somebody, Schaaf approved his choice. + +Her voice came clearly, hurried and uneasy. + +"Hello! What is it?" + +"Miss Bush," began Schaaf apologetically, "I am sorry that I am not +Hines, but--" + +"I'm leaving now," said Kathryn in a strained voice. "How is he, +Professor Schaaf? Is he conscious yet?" + +Sweat stood out suddenly on Schaaf's forehead. + +"_Gott in Himmel!_" he said unsteadily. "I am just in time! Miss +Bush! What kind of message haff you got? Hines is all right. There is +nothing wrong. What haff you heard?" + +Her voice--doubtful and desperately anxious--came over the wire, "Your +note said there'd been an explosion and you both were hurt--" + +"It is a forgery!" snapped Schaaf. "For der lofe of Gott, do not leafe +your apartment! Call to der police! Raise der deffil! But stay where +you are! Did you not look out of der window?" + +There was a little pause, and he heard her gasp of amazement. + +"I--I was awakened by the message," she said unsteadily, "and I didn't +think of anything.... It's Preston, isn't it?" + +"Der bolometer-reading has his name on it," said Schaaf grimly. "I haff +telephoned der police to go to your house at once. I haff not waked +up Hines, because I just found out what has happened. It must be der +Heaviside Layer gone cuckoo. Stay where you are!" + +"I will, I--I'm glad you telephoned." + +"And so am I," said Schaaf from his heart. "You will telephone, Miss +Bush, efery few minutes until der police come? They are on der way, but +it may be minutes yet before you are safe. I am going to wake up Hines +now." + +"A-all right," said Kathryn. "Don't be afraid for me." + +He heard the click of her receiver on its hook. And Schaaf wiped great +droplets of sweat from his face. + +"That deffil," he said unsteadily. "Oh, that damned deffil!" + + * * * * * + +He went padding into Hines's bedroom and shook the sleeping man. +Outside, the world was dark save for a multitude of electric bulbs, +which pierced the darkness with the effect of magic. Elevated trains +were roaring all over the city, now. The people of the cities of the +Atlantic coastline took the sun's absence with a quite astounding +calmness. They classed the darkness as that of an eclipse, and +thousands of offices opened, and hundreds of factories began their +work with nearly full forces of workers on hand, though the telephone +switchboards were nearly swamped with vain demands on the newspaper +offices and weather bureau for information they did not have. + +In his bedroom, Hines sat up and blinked, and was wide awake. He +grinned at Schaaf. + +"Good morning! This is my wedding day, isn't it?" + +"I haff my doubts," said Schaaf soberly. "Hines, damned near der worst +has happened. Preston is on der job again." + +Hines was on his feet in seconds. "Kathryn--?" + +"Is all right," said Schaaf. "I telephoned her minutes ago. She is all +right and she is going to stay all right. Look out of der window and +then at der clock." Hines stared blankly. Brightly lighted streets. +Brilliantly illuminated stores. Elevated trains like streamers of fire, +moving along distant steel trestles. Eight o'clock in the morning, and +the sky was black with an utter, unrelieved blackness. + +"But--it's night!" said Hines blankly. + +"_Verdamm!_" said Schaaf impatiently. "Of course it is night! Night +in der morning." He dropped into one of the wholly incongruous 'slang +phrases that adorned his speech. "You are darned tooting it is night, +Hines! Der sun did not rise this morning." + +"The--sun--did--not--rise--this morning," said Hines slowly. "I--see." + +The telephone rang shrilly. Hines started, and moved to answer it, +while Schaaf stared out at the incredible darkness that lay upon the +world hours after daylight should have appeared. + +His identification of the darkness with a man named Preston was not +an accident, of course. There was just one man in the world who could +cause meteorological disturbances on a large scale, and the three +previous disturbances of Preston's creation had been somewhat like this. + +It was one of Schaaf's bitternesses that he had unwittingly helped in +the development of the apparatus which had done so much harm. More than +a year before, he had done some highly abstruse technical research +for an electrophysicist named Preston. Schaaf's share had been the +determination of the mass and dimensions of the ionized bodies in +atmospheric air. + +He had done that work, not guessing the devilish application to be made +of it, for his fare back to his native Germany, since there seemed to +be no room for a theoretic physicist in the United States. But before +he sailed, he had been drafted by his present friend Hines to combat +the danger his measurements had enabled Preston to create. + +Using Schaaf's figures in his basic calculations, Preston had developed +a way to make the air opaque, black, as horribly black as the ocean's +deepest abyss. And he had done it. To be sure, heretofore he had +confined his blackness to the surface of the earth, but that dull, +dead, velvety sky overhead was like nothing as much as the darkness +Preston produced. + +Schaaf did not know what Preston had done now, or how he had done it, +but that Preston was responsible he was sure. + + * * * * * + +There was a sudden blaring of horns down in the street. Minutes later, +the clang of the elevator door outside the apartment. Then the doorbell. + +Schaaf opened the door cautiously, with Hines's service revolver in +the pocket of his dressing-gown pointed and ready. There were men in +uniform in the hall, with only two figures in civilian clothes, one +of whom carried a tripod and camera. Schaaf fixed those two with a +distinctly unpleasant expression. + +"Grab those two persons, please," he said shortly, "and bring them +inside here. Inspector Hines will talk in a fery few seconds." + +Hines hung up, smiling grimly, as they all crowded within. He nodded. + +"That was Kathryn," he said briefly. "Thanks, Schaaf!" + +The words said little. The tone said a great deal. Schaaf rumbled in +his beard and indicated the sputtering civilians. One of them was +snarling. Hines regarded them with a grim meditativeness. + +"Who are these two men?" he asked softly. + +"Lookin' for you, sir," said a sergeant of police, woodenly. "When +Professor Schaaf called up for a detail to come up at once, sir, he +said you were in danger. And these men were just asking for you at the +switchboard downstairs, sir, and they tried to bolt--" + +"I'm a reporter for the _Messenger_," snapped one of the two angrily, +"and this man is one of our staff photographers. There's some talk that +Preston's back of the sun not rising, and we came here to ask--" + +Hines nodded pleasantly. + +"Ah!" he said softly. "But reporters don't talk like that. If you were +really a reporter you'd say, 'I'm from the _Messenger_' or maybe that +you were 'on the _Messenger_,' but never that you were a reporter 'for +the _Messenger_'. Never! Search 'em, sergeant!" + +A search of the suddenly blaspheming man disclosed a pair of heavy +automatics and no newspaper credentials whatever. The supposed +photographer yielded the same, with a pair of brass knuckles as +additional armament. + +Hines smiled. + +"It looks as if you two men came from Preston. You may be interested +to hear that the attempt to kidnap Miss Bush has failed, and the taxi +driver who waited below for her has been pinched. He's going to talk. +Are you two going to tell what you know?" + +The pseudo-reporter snarled and shut his lips tightly. He stared +meaningly at the other man. The other man shook his head. Hines watched +the by-play. + +"Sergeant, I seem to remember that you were on the bomb squad +once. That camera seems to be unusually heavy. Suppose you open it +up--carefully?" + +[Illustration: _With infinite care he removed the pear-shaped bomb._] + +The sergeant lifted the camera, turned it this way and that, and began +to use a penknife. He handled the thing gingerly after the first two or +three incisions. Minutes later, with a grunt of satisfaction, he laid +down a pear-shaped bomb upon the table. Dangling from it there was the +exposure device, which here evidently functioned as a means of setting +it off. + + * * * * * + +The two men in civilian clothes regarded the thing in gray-faced +stupefaction. Hines looked at them. One of them tried to speak, and +could not. + +"You see," said Hines shortly, "it's a bomb. If you'd pulled the +trigger, it would have blown us all to bits. But especially you. If I +know Preston, he told you it was some kind of gun. Eh?" + +The photographer croaked, abandoning all pose of innocence: "He tol' us +it was a trick machine gun, an' if we sprayed y' wit' it--" + +"At a guess," said Hines dryly, "it's combined high explosive and +poison gas. That would seem logical. If I wasn't killed by the +explosion, the gas would get me. You two men would be finished either +way. A much better bet than a machine gun.... How much were you to get +for standing behind this thing and setting it off?" + +The pseudo-reporter cursed horribly. + +"Ten grand, damn his soul!" he raged. "And him sending us to bump +ourselves off--"' + +"I'll give you ten grand," said Hines evenly, "for the dope on where to +find him. Ten grand, and immunity." + +"All I know," said the photographer hoarsely, "is he give us five grand +ahead o' time an' said we'd get the rest if we croaked yuh. We don't +know where he's at. We seen him yesterday in Brooklyn." + +"Right," said Hines. "Tell me where and when you saw him, and you go +clear." + +The two men gave an address, and, to a second question, the time of +their talk. Hines went to the telephone and asked for a number. + +"All right, sergeant," he said impatiently, while he waited. "Turn 'em +loose. And you two men remember there's ten grand in it for you if you +get him. There's that much for anybody that gets him. And you'll get +well taken care of if you tip off the man who gets him. Clear out!" + +The two men stumbled to the door, too much shaken by the knowledge that +they had been intended to blow themselves to bits, to be incredulous +about their release. + +Hines got his connection, in Brooklyn. He ordered a raid at once, with +a succinct statement that Preston--who was sufficiently well known by +name to the police and the nation at large--had been there the day +before. He stood up. + +"Why did you turn them loose?" demanded Schaaf irritably. + +The doorbell rang. Hires nodded to a policeman to open it, and said +dryly: + +"Those two men spreading that offer and news of Preston's double +crossing are a lot more useful out of jail than in.... What 've we got +here?" + +Three messenger boys had arrived simultaneously with sheafs of +telegrams, radios, and cables. The extraordinary nightfall had been +reasoned out in six nations as possibly an extension of certain +previous events in the United States. The cables were mostly addressed +to Schaaf, and were from every variety of scientific body and +government authority, reporting the sudden falling of darkness and +asking if he could explain its cause or possible duration. + +Schaaf opened the first of them and swore. He opened more, and +swore more luridly. He was sputtering German profanity in a steady +stream before he reached the end of them. He looked up, still in his +dressing-gown and slippers, and with his blond beard bristling in every +direction, to find the room empty of police and Hines hunched over the +telephone, talking quietly. + +"Better get some clothes on, Schaaf," said Hines. "Kathryn's coming +over here. We're going down to my office." + +Schaaf scowled at him. + +"Hines," he said hopelessly, "der _verdammt_ scoundrel has cofered +der whole world with darkness! I know what it is, of course. Fife to +fifteen miles up in der air, all ofer der earth, there is a layer of +ionization. It is der Heaviside Layer, which raises der deffil with +wireless telegraphy. Breston has somehow managed to penetrate it, and +he has filled it with an electric field which makes der air _no longer +transparent_. Der whole world is in darkness, and there is no way +in which we can possibly locate der sending-station. Because he has +practically charged der entire roof of der world with darkness. What +are we going to do?" + +Hines grinned. + +"I've already got him located within a couple of hundred miles," he +said dryly. "Get busy finding out what he's got, and I'll find where he +is, and together we'll settle him." + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + TO STEAL A WORLD. + + +The morning passed in unbroken darkness. Traffic thickened, grew dense, +and thinned out again. Two million people, balked of information from +the usual sources, were asking two other million people what they +thought about the darkness, and the second two million were telling the +first that they didn't know what to make of it, but so-and-so was going +down to the office and there was no use being docked for absence. + +Crowds filled the subway platforms and the elevated trains, and other +crowds swarmed up and down from the rapid-transit stations and split up +into infinitesimal fragments which coalesced at the entrances to office +buildings, and always the topic of conversation was the extraordinary, +inexplicable continuation of night. + +Modern civilized man, however, pays the very minimum of attention to +the natural part of his environment. There are literally hundreds of +thousands of people in New York who are outdoors less than one hour in +twenty-four. To those people the absence of daylight was an extremely +trivial matter. Something to be puzzled about and something to ask +questions about, but not especially anything to be worried about. + +In the lesser cities of the United States, of course, the darkness +loomed more largely. In the small towns it was a matter of immediate +and overwhelming importance. In the villages it produced apprehension +bordering on panic. On the farms it was stark tragedy. But on the whole +the matter was taken with a surprising calmness. If it was a precarious +sort of composure, likely to break into mob hysteria at any moment, it +was nevertheless composure. + +But the darkness held for hour after hour, unbroken and menacing. Ten +o'clock arrived. Half past ten. Eleven. The sky remained a jetty black. +The temperature of the air fell below the daunting chill which normally +fills the small hours before dawn. + +People in the offices and factories had worked almost gayly at first, +taking the use of artificial light in daytime as a sort of adventure. +But as time went on and the unwontedly protracted night continued, +little groups gathered at windows, staring out uneasily. + +The interchange of questions about the darkness ceased to be jocular. +The adventure became serious. Concern deepened to apprehension. More +and more offices were quietly closed for the day. More and more +factories announced a holiday. A stream of homeward-bound folk began to +crowd the elevated trains and subways. + +The newspaper extras were late in getting out, and Hines, cooperating +and conferring with the Washington authorities, was responsible. He had +put police on guard at the publishing offices, and would not let one +copy of the newspapers leave the publishing plants until he had made +provision for the public reaction. + +The subway and elevated lines needed to be prepared for a monster +homeward rush. Traffic squads needed to be reinforced. The reserves +of the police department posted themselves at strategic points, the +elevated and subway lines prepared for a jam, and the Newspapers were +unleashed. All over the city a chorus of voices was upraised, crying +extra editions. In ten thousand office buildings the elevators became +jammed with folk going down to buy them. And the subway tunnels roared +and rumbled with empty trains rushing down town to carry back the mob +that within minutes would be fighting for places. + +The newspapers were much alike, though Kathryn Bush's story in the +_Star_ was naturally the one which gave the fullest account. All the +papers, however, had reasonably complete accounts of the phenomenon. +This was no time to play favorites. And nearly all of them printed +Schaaf's explanation in full. He had lectured for nearly half an hour +in Hines's office at police headquarters, and his explanation--though +given so promptly--still holds good. + + * * * * * + +"Last year," said Schaaf, "there was a sudden flood of darkness on +Fifth Avenue, and there were many robberies. Hines and myself, we +discovered that a deffil named Breston had done it. He had learned +that under der influence of certain fery short Hertzian wafes, der +air ceases to be transparent. Actually, it was der phenomenon of +der fluorescence of der ionized bodies in der atmosphere, when they +absorbed all der fisible colors of light and emitted infisible ones +instead. + +"Der essential thing is that der air is opaque, there is no light. Now, +three times, so far, those short short wafes haff been used. Once on +Fifth Afenue. Once der whole city was made dark. Some few months ago +Breston created a storm in der Catskill Mountains by means of der fact +that when der air is no longer transparent it absorbs der heat of der +sun, becomes hot, and rises in huge folumes." All this, of course, was +ancient history. Everybody knew it. The Storm That Had to be Stopped +was one of the most distressing catastrophes in the history of the +United States. + +"Now, at der time of der Storm," Schaaf went on bitterly, "when we +got to der sending-station which sent out der short short wafes, we +blew it to pieces and der storm stopped. But der apparatus for making +those short short wafes had had thermit and explosifes placed about +it so that it was destroyed. Breston did that. Also we found der body +of a man, burned with der explosifes and der thermit. Der newspapers +printed that it was the body of Breston. We hoped it was so. But later +infestigation profed that it was not. Breston is fife feet three inches +tall. Der dead body was fife feet nine inches tall. + +"For months past, Inspector Hines has been defoting all his time to a +search for Breston. And I haff worked on der problem of combating der +short wafes. _Himmel!_ How I haff worked! But in both cases, Breston +has so far kept ahead of us. This morning's darkness is of Breston's +contrifance. But we haff licked him three times before, we will lick +him again, and anything that he says to der contrary is banana oil!" + + * * * * * + +So far, Schaaf was quoted verbatim. But the rest of his lecture was +expanded in most of the papers, because Schaaf's mixture of technical +terms and slang was confusing. The essence of his explanation, though, +was very simple. + +To make the earth's whole atmosphere opaque would have required +millions of billions of horse-power. But far above the surface of the +earth the Heaviside Layer in the atmosphere seemed as if made for +Preston's purposes. From five to fifteen miles up there is an abrupt +change in the characteristics of the air. At that height there is a +layer of highly ionized air, markedly electrically conducting, which +spreads over the whole earth. Schaaf likened it to a roof of conducting +metal over the whole earth. + +It was clear that if the short short waves of Preston's discovery could +be introduced into that conducting layer of the atmosphere, they would +spread out over the whole earth with but little loss of power. Five +thousand horse-power would do it. + +"Der thing we do not yet understand," said Schaaf, "is how Breston +manages to introduce his short short wafes into der Heaviside Layer. We +will find it out, fery shortly. Breston cannot bring der darkness down +to der surface of der earth, because he can haff power enough to darken +only a small part of it, and der moment he does that we locate him, +and when we locate him we kill him. And sooner or later we locate him +anyhow!" + +His expressed optimism was not altogether unfeigned, of course. He +had the desperate certitude of a man who simply dares not admit +the possibility of failure. At the moment that the newspapers were +blazoning his announcement on their front pages, Schaaf was actually in +something close to despair. + + * * * * * + +Long, explorative fingers of light were poking upward toward the sky, +from warships anchored in the harbor. Half a dozen giant ships of +the Atlantic Fleet were in port. Army tanks had been loaned Hines to +destroy Preston's storm-making apparatus, and all the resources of +the government, of course, would be used to restore sunlight to the +world again. The harbor was smoothly rippling, almost oily on its +surface. Long lights glimmered on its waves. Then, suddenly, from the +flagship of the fleet there came three or four staccato detonations. +Seconds later there were thin crackling explosions high overhead. The +searchlights shot back and forth, searching the roof over the world. + +A little later, three or four more explosions. After a longer interval, +brittle detonations high above. The searchlights moved restlessly over +the ebon ceiling of the earth. And still again came the sharp sound of +an anti-aircraft gun firing at an empty sky. + +The searchlights followed a thin thread of whitish vapor upward. It +stretched like a kite-string toward the sky. It was the trail of +tracer-smoke left by the anti-aircraft shell. + +Blinkers began to operate on the ships. A man on shore spoke crisply +into a telephone. + +Schaaf got the message, frowning bitterly in his despair. + +"Yes. I haff it. Thank you." + +He was in Hines's office, waiting for the information. An anti-aircraft +gun had fired time-fused shells to burst at progressively greater +heights. The shell which burst at an elevation of forty-two thousand +feet had been unseen, because its cloud of smoke had been formed inside +the now opaque Heaviside Layer of the atmosphere. The layer of darkness +which kept the whole world deep in night was eight miles above the +surface. + +"What can we do, Hines?" demanded Schaaf in despair. "Can we send an +afiator up eight miles to do intricate obserfations with delicate +apparatus? We cannot. Then how are we going to locate der point of +dissemination of der _verdammt_ darkness-producing wafes?" Hines held +up his hand, spoke quietly into a telephone. He was deathly pale, but +Schaaf was too excited to notice it. + +"We're coming along pretty well," said Hines grimly, "except that +you've still got to find out more about Preston's weapons. I think I +know, roughly, where he is." + +Schaaf sat up and blinked. + +"It's been apparent from the first that when we do locate Preston we +have everything in our favor. We have an army we can fling against him, +on land. We have aircraft to attack him by air. We can send the shells +from fourteen-inch guns against him from the sea. He knows all that." + +Schaaf ran his fingers through his beard. "Shoot der works," he said +harassedly. + +"The President received a letter from him telling what his demands are +going to be. Other governments have got similar letters. He's fighting +the whole world, and he knows it. What weapons has he got?" + +"Darkness," said Schaaf bitterly, "and storms, and a total lack of +humanity." + +"And we have all the other weapons. Where can he defend himself, with +the weapons he has, if we do locate him?" + +Schaaf scratched his chin, underneath his beard. + +"Wherefer he is. Tell me, Hines." + +"If he's on an island," said Hines, "he can't be attacked by an army. +If he can blind any ship within twenty or thirty miles by making all +the atmosphere--not only the Heaviside Layer--opaque to light, no ship +can navigate to that island. And if he cuts the darkness on the rest +of the world, he can make a storm that will sink any ship or wreck any +aircraft in the world." + +"He is on an island!" said Schaaf instantly. + +"Of course he is on an island! But where?" + + * * * * * + +"He gave himself away," said Hines grimly. "He talked to his assassins, +in Brooklyn, just fourteen hours before the darkness went on. And he +wouldn't trust anybody else to work an affair the size of this, so he's +at his darkness plant. At most he's not more than twelve hours from New +York. More probably only ten. And the last eleven of those hours were +night hours, and there are no night-flying passenger air lines out of +the metropolitan district now. He traveled by train or boat or motor +car. Averaging, he's not more than four hundred miles from New York if +he made the longest part of his journey by train or car. He's probably +not less than two hundred, for reasons of discretion. Here's a map. +Draw the two circles--two hundred miles and four hundred miles away. +We can block off the land between the circles. He isn't there. We can +block off the area where there are no islands. If he needs to make a +storm, he'll want to be on an island, not a steamer." + +Schaaf looked at the area that was left. + +"Der Maine coast!" + +"Of course," said Hines. "And now remember he wants an island well +out at sea so storms can sweep clear around it, and one that's +fairly isolated, so he could have built his plant without attracting +attention." + +Schaaf scrutinized the map with painstaking care. + +"Hm. This little speck looks promising, Hines." + +Hines said grimly, "The police of all New England have been questioning +fishermen. I mentioned that island especially. Only one man has been +near it recently. He was ordered off by guards who told him a rich man +had bought it and was making a summer home on it. And so I've checked +up, and it hasn't been sold, and the present owner knows nothing about +guards there. And also, it isn't a rum-runner's rendezvous. What does +that add up to?" + +"Plenty!" said Schaaf exuberantly. "I take off der hat. I make der +grand salaam! Now we go there and haff a _Schrecklichkeit_ party; wait +until night, because we do not want to haff him start a storm. And we +line up der Nafy, and they take der sights, and there is a signal, and +_bam_, _pow_, _biff_, and he is blooey! Blown off der map!" + +Hines looked at Schaaf. And for the first time Schaaf saw how pale his +friend was. His face was like a mask. He reached over his desk and +tossed Schaaf a little envelope. + +"I was to be married to-day," said Hines steadily. "Preston's men tried +to kidnap Kathryn this morning, just as they tried to blow the two of +us to bits. We beat the assassins, and Kathryn, thanks to you, Schaaf, +escaped the trap that was set for her. We've been busy ever since. She +wrote the account for the extra edition of the Star. We postponed our +wedding as a matter of course." + +Schaaf said suddenly, "Gott! Hines, you look like der deffil!" + +"You blocked one attempt to kidnap Kathryn," repeated Hines evenly. +"She went to the office of the Star. And another attempt was made three +hours ago. The one thing she didn't expect was another attempt to +kidnap her, made in exactly the same fashion as the first. This time it +succeeded. Kathryn's disappeared. And I had a telegram from his man, +sent from here in New York, saying that he's taking her direct to his +headquarters. So she'll be killed if we kill Preston." + +Hines moistened his lips and said with difficulty, "The--thing--that +makes it bad is that we were to have been married to-day." + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE LONGEST NIGHT IN HISTORY. + + +The lights of the city glowed in long, long rows. The whiter arc-lights +on the Jersey side of the Hudson glittered more palely, but all lights +shone bright, in the longest night in history. The gigantic electric +signs flamed their advertising slogans for the world to admire at three +o'clock in the afternoon. The Hudson River day boat came downstream as +a glittering mass of lights. Her searchlight shot out and she docked by +its rays. There was a deep-toned roaring on the surface of the river. +Another. A third. A fourth motor added its roaring hum to the din. +Then the four roaring noises swept swiftly across the harbor waves and +lifted suddenly, and rose into the darkness that overlay the world. +Tiny navigation lights flashed on, and drifted across the empty black +sky where sun or moon or stars should have been. They headed out toward +Long Island Sound and vanished. + +The city, left behind, went valorously on about its business. At +three in the afternoon of the day that the sun did not rise, New York +was perhaps typical of the whole civilized world. The more savage +territories of the planet were sunk in panic, and pagan gods were +passionately besought to give back the sun to the world again. In China +the shrines were filled with the sounds of gongs and firecrackers. In +Soviet Siberia long-neglected chapels resounded to cries of "_Hospodi +pomilui!_" Everywhere that men had temples, those temples were swarming +masses of terror-stricken suppliants, pleading for the sun to come back +again. + +But New York was more typical of the more scientifically minded +Occident. In one sense the terror was more acute, because New York had +had bitter and-repeated experience of Preston and his works. But Hines +and Schaaf had said there was no more danger, that Preston had done his +worst. + +New York had learned, by now, that they knew what they were talking +about. Therefore, while there was not complete confidence in their +ability to beat Preston again, there was a definite knowledge of the +cause of the darkness and a definite idea that the source of the +darkness was being attacked. So that New York was frightened but +hopeful; terrified, but not panic-stricken because of its belief in +Hines and Schaaf. + +People in New York, too, had no clear idea of the magnitude of the +disaster that impended. As long as artificial light could be used, the +average New Yorker considered the matter a nuisance and a cause for +alarm, but no immediately dangerous matter. + +He read his newspapers avidly, and the statements issued by various +scientists consulted by the newspapers struck him as melodramatic in +the same way that his newspaper headlines were always melodramatic. But +he considered them quite as remote from his own life as his morning +torch-fiend narratives. + +The darkness was, however, a serious matter enough. Leaving aside the +matter of illumination from the sun, the earth was receiving only +one-fourth its normal daily supply of solar heat. The layer of darkness +intercepted the rest. True, the part of the earth that should have been +dark was losing less than its usual nightly amount of heat by radiation +into interstellar space, but matters were bad enough anyhow. + +The equator was receiving no more heat from the sun than southern +Greenland normally receives. New York was receiving less than is normal +at the north pole itself. Only the fact that the stored up warmth of +the earth's surface layers was being lost very slowly, prevented an +immediate drop to below zero temperatures. + +But by three o'clock in the afternoon, when the four seaplanes took +off for a search of the Maine coast, the official thermometer in the +Meteorological Bureau of New York City showed forty-four degrees +Fahrenheit--twelve degrees above freezing. The nearness of the ocean +with its vast supplies of stored heat had prevented a greater drop. + +Inland, the temperature fall was greater yet. A heavy snow was falling +in Cleveland. In Butte. Montana, zero had actually been reached. It was +not at all difficult to compute a progressive temperature loss which +would average twenty degrees a day after the first twenty-four hours, +and in one week would make the normally temperate zones uninhabitable +and permit of glacier formation in the Panama Canal Zone. + +In the face of such figures as this, estimates that two weeks' darkness +would destroy all planted crops and cause inescapable famine, seemed +hardly worth worrying about. Agricultural experts were pointing out +that unless Preston was defeated or his terms met, the world would +starve to death. Sunlight is essential to vegetable growth, on which +all life depends. But such fears, as a few physicists recognized +grimly, were quite needless. Long before that catastrophe came about, +mankind would not need to worry about planted crops. Long before the +world went hungry, it would have frozen to death. + + * * * * * + +Schaaf was sunk in a bitter gloom as the four planes roared northward. +Big planes, they were. Three Navy bombers, carrying flares and bombs +and radio, and the multi-passenger flying transport which carried Hines +and Schaaf and an impressive array of apparatus for measurements and +photography. + +The glow against the black sky, which was New York, faded away +against the horizon. Only, there was no horizon. Little pin-pricks of +light showed beneath the speeding ships. There were three men in the +transport beside Hines and Schaaf. The pilot and his relief, and a +radio operator who spoke from time to time to the pilot. + +Schaaf saw Hines looking at him and said gloomily, "We are doing radio +nafigation. I haff nefer been so helpless; I know more about Breston's +apparatus than anybody else in der world--and I do not know der +beginning of it! How does he get his wafes into der Heaviside Layer? +How does he do it?" + +Hines shrugged. His face was a mask, dead white and quite +expressionless. + +"They must have got Kathryn through," he said irrelevantly. "I had a +cordon out that I didn't think a fly could break through. Every road, +every bypath covered. There was a destroyer fleet out of Boston, too, +to pick up any launch. But they got her through. I don't know how." + +Schaaf said helplessly. + +"What are we going to do, Hines? Tell me!" + +Hines spoke tonelessly, without expression. + +"Preston found out his power by accident. At first, I suppose, he +merely thought of getting rich by helping out in robberies. But then he +found he could manipulate the stock market by turning on the dark. He +tried that, and found he could make storms. And now--you know his terms +for making the sun shine again?" + +"They haff not been made public," growled Schaaf, "and I haff been +busy." + +"He demands the submission of all the nations of the earth. He is +to be Emperor of Earth--or he'll let the earth freeze until the +survivors make him their emperor." Hines shrugged. "He has some +involved conditions. Every living man to swear allegiance. Some trick +arrangement by which he'll always have a corps of his gangsters about +a darkness-transmitter somewhere, to keep the world cowed... Of course +nobody is thinking of accepting his terms while there's a chance to +fight. But there isn't much time." + +"If he is on that Metinic Island," growled Schaaf, "we can mass +artillery and ships and blow der whole damned thing to bits." + +Hines fumbled for a cigar and smiled drearily. "Isn't it funny? Kathryn +and I were to have been married to-day, and I'm massing artillery to +blow Preston to bits--and she'll be blown to bits with him." + +Schaaf swallowed something. + +"Hines! _Gott_, Hines, I am sorry!" + +"Don't be," said Hines. "I'm going to be on that island when it's +destroyed by shell fire. So don't be sorry for me." + + * * * * * + +The planes flew steadily on through the darkness. Snow swirled about +them for a while, and ceased. This was the afternoon of May the +fifth. On the earth below, people were gazing hopelessly up at the +sky of ebony. All over the world there was despair, as varied in its +expression as the people who expressed it. + +In Alabama, farmers moved along their cornfield rows with lanterns, +watching the young shoots turning black with frost. There was frost as +far south as Havana. In the western mountains, dry land farmers motored +to the edges of mountain streams that had begun to flow freely. Now +they were trickles again, flowing ever more slowly beneath a thickening +shell of ice. + +Men cursed the black sky that would not let the sun's warmth through. +There was beach ice on the Great Lakes. A borax prospector in Death +Valley saw by a thick miner's candle that there was a deposit of hoar +frost even in that unbelievable place. + +Everywhere human beings began to realize that darkness was not the +worst of the evils upon them. The world was growing colder and ever +colder beneath its sky of black. It was a dark world whose inky +obscurity was broken only by the tiny yellow flames where yet hoping or +desperately enduring people comforted themselves by the light it seemed +would never come down from the sky again. + +But the wild things had no comfort. Those creatures of the night which +prey on others, at first moved freely. Bats soared in their erratic +fashion until the increasing cold set them hunting their caves again. +Owls swept abroad on noiseless wings. And some--not many--of the +four-footed animals crawled or crept or slithered upon their private +businesses. + +But the other things lay hidden. Songbirds crouched in their nests +while the night hung on interminably and the air grew icy. Little +nestlings roused and chirped querulously from hunger. But night still +remained. The age-old instincts, bred of terror, held the old birds +still, though their young ones starved. And besides, to have left the +nests after the cold increased would be to let the featherless young +ones freeze. + +There were very many small, bewildered tragedies in woods and forests +and jungles while the darkness held. + + * * * * * + +Four planes roared on, ever northward, in their quest of the island +where Preston had his stronghold. Gradually, the three bombers dropped +down toward the earth. Gradually, the transport plane climbed. And then +a signal came by radio. Schaaf grew tense and watchful. Hines grew grim +and still, staring at the world of darkness all below. And then, quite +suddenly, there was a vast, blinding glare below. A bomber had dropped +a flare. + +The sky above remained like ebony. The sea remained like ink. But +there was a line of surf upon the sea, and an enormous glare beneath a +swaying parachute, and three huge bombing planes in silhouette against +a world all black and white. + +Hines stared downward through powerful binoculars, focusing them quite +calmly on the land beyond the surf. + +"I see a man--two men, running," he said steadily. + +The first ball of fire was dropping swiftly. A second bloomed suddenly, +farther on. An island was made clearly visible. An irregular, jagged +shape, outlined by surf, with here and there a streak of white sand. +Schaaf put his glasses to his eyes, and the earth seemed to leap toward +him. Low, squat structures of a curiously ungainly form. A bowl-shaped +apparatus ten feet or more across, made of wires which glittered in the +unbearable light. And one other, incredible thing... + +Schaaf blinked, and swore, and then shouted. + +"I haff it!" + +From the enter of the island a column of solid, jetty black reared +upward toward the sky. It was opaque, solid-seeming, and utterly black. +It looked like the drooping tentacle of some colossal waterspout, +anchored and moored. It looked like a throbbing hose through which +darkness was being pumped upward to discolor the sky. + +Schaaf babbled. + +"Four-centimeter wafes! He has got der four-centimeter wafes! Oh, der +clefer scoundrel! Der _verdammt_ clefer scoundrel!" + +On the island three men were running toward the bowl-shaped apparatus +of wires. A third flare blazed vividly. In the big ship seven thousand +feet up the aircraft camera clicked steadily, exposing plates and +changing them and exposing more. The radio operator was working his key +feverishly. + +The three bombing planes circled and soared over the island. A fourth +flare filled the world with light. And suddenly one of the monster +flying things down below wheeled in its flight and dived savagely. + +"Difing for der blackness-beam!" panted Schaaf. "Difing--" + +Three men were working frantically about the bowl-shaped apparatus +on the ground. The giant bomber showed clearly for an instant, as if +poised before its suicidal dash against the apparently solid column of +blackness reaching upward to the sky. It shot into that blackness-- + +The sky split open! + +From horizon to horizon lurid flames flashed into being. The sea and +the island and all the world was lit by an unbearable, a terrific +glare. It seemed as if all the world were being destroyed in one vast +explosion, the steam and fumes of which had already mounted colossally +toward the zenith. + + * * * * * + +But there was no blast of sound. The sky closed once more. There was +utter silence save for the loud droning of the motors outside the cabin +of the big plane. Far below, three magnesium flares glittered brightly. + +"Gawd!" said the radio operator, awed, "What was that?" + +Hines said dryly: "That was daylight, my friend. The sunlight and +clouds. That was what we expect to see for twelve hours every day." + +Schaaf was muttering, while he rubbed his light-dazed eyes: "There was +four thousand kilowatts in that beam. What happened?" + +He peered down again. There was a sudden flaring upward of lurid yellow +flames. The bomber that had dived into the darkness-beam had crashed, +now, and was burning fiercely on a narrow beach. + +"Get der other ships away!" snapped Schaaf suddenly. "Recall them! And +we haff to go like der deffil! Quick!" + +But he was too late. The bowl-shaped contrivance of glittering wires +moved suddenly. A beam of blackness shot out from it. That blackness +swept upward and enveloped a burning flare. The flare went out. The +beam of darkness swept on, and the flare was a dripping, swiftly +falling mass of tiny yellow sparks. The beam swung sharply to one +of the two remaining bombers. The plane dived and dodged, but the +darkness caught it, enveloped it. The bomber dropped crazily out of the +blackness, spitting sparks and burning. It crashed into the sea. + +The third bomber was racing for safety. The beam shot toward it, and +when it careened wildly to escape, expanded widely. It became an +apparently solid object a hundred yards across. It closed over the +bomber, and there was a terrific explosion. When the beam died away +there was no falling, burning wreck. There was only a rain of small +particles of debris. + +"Go like der deffil!" snapped Schaaf. "Cut off der motors and glide! We +haff to carry der news back. And for der lofe of Gott, do not use der +radio! He will pick it up and we are geflooey!" + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + FIGHTING BACK. + + +Hines sat at a telephone in Portland, and things began to move. He +called Boston, and long, lean, greyhound-like ships with many funnels +slipped their moorings and slid smoothly out to sea. Three cruisers +raised steam and went after them. And there was vast activity in the +Navy yard, and presently an old harbor-defense monitor went staggering +gamely after the more modern ships. + +He called New York, and trains were shunted swiftly here and there, and +there were shouted orders and the rattling of accouterments and much +profanity; then flatcars with squat, ungainly-wheeled shapes upon them +rolled out of the city bound northward. They traveled at the speed of +the fastest express trains, and passenger flyers were sidetracked to +let them pass. + +Hines called here and there, and everywhere there were swift and +deadly preparations for action. At Newport, two battalions of Marines +entrained with an astounding celerity. At other scattered cities other +fighting men and fighting machines made ready. Three howitzer batteries +were bumping at top speed over the rails to Maine. Two twelve-inch guns +with railroad mountings formed a racing special train with cars of +shells and their gun crews. + +All the preparations were Hines's doing, and he explained his orders +as he gave them in the manner of a man who does not expect to survive +their carrying out. Metinic Island was no more than six miles from an +accessible part of the mainland. Artillery will range that distance +easily. Within two hours after Hines's return from the reconnaissance +flight in which three bombing planes were lost, artillery officers +had reached the future firing-point by plane and were marking out +gun-emplacements and swearing at the inadequacy of the local maps. + +Hines's plan was to mass artillery in such quantity and with such a +supply of ammunition that Preston's headquarters could be smothered +under a rain of explosives. One field gun to ten yards of target can +keep that target under an adequate barrage fire. No man can live in the +open under such a hail of death. But in addition there would be the +warships. Four super-dreadnaughts, three cruisers, and a monitor would +pound the island. Three hours before dawn there would be over twenty +guns of twelve and fourteen-inch caliber trained upon the island, and +upward of thirty eight-inch rifles to assist. Nothing should be able +to live on the surface or beneath it, however deep the dugouts Preston +might have prepared. Hines was grimly calculating that within three +minutes of the opening of fire every square foot of earth upon the +island should have been plowed up by explosives. And Kathryn was there. +She must be. + +It looked perfect, however, from the standpoint of destruction. The +resources of one regional department of the Army would be at hand +before dawn. The Navy would have its ships at hand with shotted +guns. The air would be alive with flying craft. A signal; a blast of +cannon-fire; a terrific, long-continued battering, and Metinic Island +should disappear forever. + + * * * * * + +It did look perfect. Too perfect, considering that Preston knew what +to expect now. Schaaf paced nervously back and forth as Hines gave his +orders. + +"He has something up his sleefe, Hines," he said irritably. "He has +taken plenty from der cuffs, but he has something more." + +Hines relaxed deliberately, with an effort. + +"What has he got?' + +"He has four-centimeter wafes," said Schaaf desperately. "They explain +nearly eferything. It was calculated a year and a half ago that der +death-ray of der imaginatif nofelists is theoretically impossible. +But if a man makes Hertzian wafes of four centimeters frequency, he +has der world by der tail. All der armies haff been trying to make +them, because it can be proofed by mathematics that in der path of a +beam of four-centimeter wafes der air will be a conductor der same as +metal. Breston has them. He has sent a beam of them straight up to der +Heaviside Layer. And his short wafes that make der air opaque, they +trafel along der four-centimeter beam until they hit der Layer. There +they spread out. So much is simple. Der bomber that was destroyed when +we went to look simply difed through a beam of four-centimeter wafes +that was carrying four thousand kilowatts of Breston's prifate short +short wafes up to der Heaviside Layer. It is no wonder it crashed! + +"Der thing that destroyed der other bombers is just as simple. A beam +of der same conducting wafes, with darkness in it so they could see to +aim it, and high-frequency current shot into it at der critical moment. +A plane in a beam of those four-centimeter wafes is just like a plane +touching a power-transmission line. If der frequency is high enough, +there is no need of a ground wire to electrocute efery man on board. +Der whole plane starts sparking, it bursts into flame and der bombs +explode. That is what he has used!" + +"I wonder," said Hines drearily, "if he can use it on the artillery?" + +Schaaf shrugged. He resumed his impatient pacing up and down the room. + +"But he has something else up der sleefe. I know he has something else +up der sleefe. It is too easy! Much too easy!" + +The clocks announced seven o'clock. Eight. Nine o'clock. Reports began +to come in. Artillery units had arrived, were digging in. A battery of +field 'guns was ready to fire. + +Nine thirty: Two guns of a howitzer section were ready to fire. One +naval gun on a railroad mounting was in position. + +Ten: All the howitzers were ready to fire. The cruisers were in +position and the battleships were coming up. Destroyers had ventured +into the dense mass of darkness that hung about the island. The +darkness was nearly a circle, six miles across. One of the destroyers +came scuttling out with flames pouring from it. It reached the clear +air and was aflame from end to end. It floated, a lurid torch, while +its crew was taken off. It blew up and sank at eleven ten precisely. + +At eleven thirty the basket-mast of a battle cruiser glowed red, +halfway up its height, and its separate steel rods bent and buckled, +and then cooled off again, leaving the fighting-top careened crazily +over at right angles and far out over the ship's side. + +"Breston is trying to fight," said Schaaf shortly. "He is swinging der +beam of four-centimeter wafes around and shooting all der juice he +can supply into it. It happened to hit der fighting-mast. The beam is +infisible now. Since he cannot see what he is aiming at, he does not +want anybody else to see der beam. It is infisible death, that beam." + + * * * * * + +Hines smiled queerly. He picked up a telephone and spoke almost softly +into it. + +"All ready for me?... Very well. It's understood that zero hour is 3 +A.M. if the darkness is not cut before then. If it is cut, bolometer +readings are to be taken and action judged by their indications. +All ships and guns are to stand by in any event until the island is +occupied. Very well. Good luck!" + +He stood up and held out his hand to Schaaf. + +"I'm going to the island, Schaaf. Good-by." + +Schaaf scowled at him. + +"Of all der double-barreled, triple-distilled idiots I efer saw," he +said bitterly, "you are der worst! Hines, you are a _verdammt_ fool! +You are going to der island--" + +Hines shrugged. + +"It's a form of suicide," he said evenly. "I know it. But that devil +has got Kathryn there. I've arranged for him to be blown off the earth. +She'll be blown up with him. We were to have been married this morning. +So I--well, I'm going to be there, too." + +Schaaf swore explosively in guttural German. + +"That is not what I am talking about!" he snapped. "That is lunacy, +yes! But der magnificent imbecility is that you think I am going to let +Breston's short-wafe outfit be blown to bits without getting a look at +it! There is a place reserfed for me in der boat that is going to der +island. Try and keep me out of it!" + +Hines looked steadily at Schaaf for nearly half a minute. Then he +smiled. + +"You're a damned liar, Schaaf. You're going because--" + +"Shut up!" snapped Schaaf again. He drew himself up to his full six +feet and something of whiskered blondness. "Hines, I am a damned liar, +yes! And you are a damned fool! So that makes two of us going out to be +fery unpleasantly bumped off, and if you try to talk silly sentiment I +will poke you in der eye. Come on!" + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE ISLAND OF DARKNESS. + + +A destroyer took the pair northward, flinging itself madly over the +dark, dark sea. After the lights of Portland vanished behind them there +was a period when the solid deck beneath seemed the only object in +existence. There was no sky, no sun, no horizon. There was no land. +There was only an invisible bulk beneath them which quivered insanely, +and a wind blowing from the oblivion before them to the oblivion +behind. There was no up, no down. One grew giddy from the sheer absence +of anything by which to orient oneself. The utter loneliness of the +dark was terrifying, because not even the sea could be seen. Even in +some imagined spaceship, isolated in empty space, there would be stars +for comfort. Here there was only nothingness. + +When a yellow light glowed far away and seemed like a star, it was +actually a lamp in a farmhouse window overlooking the sea. And in that +farmhouse the sense of isolation was so great as to induce hysteria. +The folk in the farmhouse were experiencing exactly the sensations +of people on a tiny fragment of earth set floating free in a cosmos +containing nothing else--nothing! Not even other worlds unthinkably +remote. + +It was a loneliness, a desolation, that clutched at the throat. All +through the world that same despair was descending. In the cities it +was less appalling, but on ships that steamed over invisible seas, and +in lighthouses that were always isolated and now became small hells, +and in tiny mountain cabins, and small hamlets and places innumerable, +the dread of the dark grew and grew. + +Some people went insane, and many grew hysterical. It is a matter of +record that folk went solemnly out of their villages and set the woods +about them on fire so that the flames and firelit smoke would give them +something to look at other than the awful blackness which lay over +the world. It was a curious aftermath of the darkness that the use of +illuminants at night was multiplied many times. But on the destroyer +these things were unknown. It swept on northward, horribly alone, +until presently lights appeared to the left, and searchlights stabbed +futilely upward, and there was a confused droning tumult over the land. +The whole air force of the Army and Navy was being massed for action, +together with the ships of a naval division and the artillery of an +army corps. + +Then the destroyer slackened speed, and went on into a bay where +bonfires burned brightly, and its engines stopped and its anchor-chain +clanged thunderously as it ran out. A thirty-foot cutter came +alongside, moving by oars, and made fast to the landing-ladder of the +destroyer. It waited. + +"Efficiency," said Hines dryly. "No time lost, Schaaf. These men are +volunteers for our forlorn hope. You know why I want to be on the +island, but I'm able to have the zero hour held off only because the +government wants to get hold of Preston's apparatus if it can. As a +military weapon. We're going to try to take the island by storm." + +"Der idea," observed Schaaf grimly, "is a lot of hooey." + +Hines said nothing. He led the way down to the boat. + + * * * * * + +Oars dipped. The cutter pulled away. A navy launch swarmed up +officiously and flung a line. Half a minute later the launch was +speeding for the blackness of the open sea and the cutter went tearing +through the water after it, squatted down astern until it seemed the +waves should come in over the gunwale. + +They could see little as the two boats moved, of course, but Hines +stared up at the dark shore line. Guns were massed and massing there. +Waiting and ready along a four-mile front. At one single word a storm +of steel would spring from the hungry muzzles. A hurtling, screaming +hail of death would leap upward and forward through the darkness. Six +miles away it would descend. + +Four miles of guns, packed as closely together as they could be brought +up by straining locomotives and racing, swearing men. Four miles of +guns concentrating on a little more than one mile of target, with the +heaviest guns of the fleet to blast away what little of the island the +shore artillery left. + +There was no wind save that made by the movement of the towing launch, +but that was bitter. The men on the seats of the cutter huddled down +into their greatcoats, taking it easy. A flash light signaled off to +seaward. + +"We're passing between some islands," said Hines evenly. "They'll cast +off when we're well on our way. The oars are muffled. If we can land on +the damned island secretly, so much the better." + +Five minutes, and the launch on ahead was slowing up. The men in the +cutter bestirred themselves. A man in the bow tossed the towline +overboard. The oars stretched out again. The launch swept around and +went purring softly back into the darkness. + +The cutter, without a word of command, began to move with the rhythmic +pulsatory effect of a rowed boat toward the utter blackness of the open +sea. + +"Who's in command here?" demanded Hines. + +"I am," said a voice. A flash light glowed through cupped fingers. A +clean-shaved and rather anxious young ensign's face could be made out. + +"Shoot der works," said Schaaf amiably. "What haff you done?" + +"I've a pair of microphones overboard," explained the young officer +nervously, "of the sort used for listening for submarines. They'll give +us the line on two launches that are working submerged sounders for us. +I can get the angles from both of them to make a course for the island +even if we are blinded. And besides, we'll be able to hear the waves on +the beach when we get near." + +"Clefer," said Schaaf. "Fery good." + +"And my men are all in linemen's boots and rubber. They're armed +with--er--the regular mopping-up equipment." + +"Which is?" said Schaaf encouragingly. + +"Why--er--grenades, automatic pistols, and automatic shotguns throwing +nine extra-sized buckshots to a shell. Also we've a couple of Lewis +guns with us. We have twenty men." + +"I can think of nothing you haff left out for a fine party but der +beer," said Schaaf. "You haff done excellently, sir." + +Oars rose and fell in a ghostlike silence. There was no splashing. +Hines had ordered a boat propelled by oars because any motor-driven +craft would be heard approaching the island. Hines had no hope of +leaving that spot of land, but he did want to land on it alive. He +fumbled for a cigar and lit it. The light of his match was the only +glow of illumination in all the world. + +They were far enough from shore and low enough in the water to make +any possible light invisible. The sky was wholly black. The water was +wholly black. Ahead and behind and to the right hand and the left there +was no relief from the abysmal blackness anywhere. Hines's cigar small +as was its gleam, provided a literal illumination by which the farthest +man in the bow of the boat saw the face of his seat-mate faintly +pinkened. + +"If that darkness--" began the ensign. + +He stopped. He was watching Hines's cigar fascinatedly. It had been a +dull-red coal, brightening to what seemed a vivid incandescence when +Hines puffed on it. Now it seemed to have gone out, and revived very, +very faintly at each puffing. A moment later it seemed no longer to +exist. + + * * * * * + +"We're in the darkness now," said Hines dryly. + +His tone was entirely matter-of-fact, which was wise; for the men at +the oars had been watching the glow of his cigar. It was the only spot +of light in the universe. And when it went out, the effect was horrible. + +"How do der microphones work?" asked Schaaf interestedly. + +"I have the line," said the ensign unsteadily. "We're a shade under +three miles from the island." + +The boat went on silently. About the island Preston had brought +darkness down to earth over a circular space some six miles across. + +The cutter rose and fell, and rose and fell, and the three men in the +stern felt the rhythmic pulling of the oars. Every man felt the opacity +of the air weighing upon him, pressing upon him. + +All the world had been dark enough anyhow, but to feel that by no +possible device could a light be made to shine was queerly horrible. +A man felt as if he were buried alive. He had an almost hysterical +impulse to beat at the darkness with his hands, to thrust it away from +him. + +"I hear the surf on the beach in the headphones," said the ensign, a +long time later. + +"You should," said Schaaf placidly. + +Hines then spoke shortly. + +"We land and form a line. By the way, we want to land at the +southern-most tip of the island. I know the lay of the land, roughly. +We are to be entirely silent, passing signals by touching each other in +the blackness. There are probably charged wires about the island. If +we run into lines of wire, we will short-circuit them with gun-barrels +to the earth, and then cut them. When Preston's instruments show a +short-circuit, he will probably cut the darkness to see about it. We +go ahead then. Mop up the island. There is one woman here. Be careful +not to hurt her. But this is one time to fight hard! If we don't kill +Preston, he'll kill us!" + +The ensign said--steadily this time--"You men heard that. Those are +your orders." + +There was a little gurgling noise ahead, a washing, splashing sound. +It ran a long distance in a straight line across the bow of the boat. +The rudder squeaked, and the boat's course shifted until the sound was +abeam. The oars worked monotonously. Presently the washing sound seemed +to come to an end and to go away in the distance. The rudder squeaked +again. They went on their former course once more. + +"If you put your ear to the gunwale," said the ensign in a voice that +was barely a whisper, "you'll hear a queer humming, sir. The hull picks +up the sound from the water. I've been hearing it in the microphones +for some time. It sounds like engines, sir." + +"Dynamos," said Schaaf in as low a tone. "Der dynamos and der Diesel +engines that make der juice." + +"I'm heading in for the beach," whispered the ensign. "Easy, men! Get +ready to beach her, up forward." + +The word passed to the bow in murmurs. The washing of waves became +louder and louder. The booming of small breakers on sand grew more +distinct. Hines visualized the southern end of the island as he had +seen it from the air and tried to guess at the spot from the fact that +they were headed for a sandy beach. He nodded to himself. + +The boat checked with a grating sound. There was the little lifting +feel of men leaping out to ease it ashore. + +"And now," said Schaaf grimly, "_Gott strafe_ Breston!" + + * * * * * + +They disembarked as blind men, feeling the foaming small breakers +beating utterly unseen about their rubber-booted legs. They fumbled at +each other to form a skirmish-line. At a low word from Hines they moved +on. + +It was a slow, a stumbling, an infinitely cautious party of the blind. +Every man's eyes were wide and staring, through sheer instinctive +effort to catch some glimmer of the light that in nature is nowhere +quite absent. But here, the very air was opaque. + +The blackness was oppressive past conception. A man felt as if he were +buried alive, as if the darkness pressed upon him, as if a shifting +stuff pressed upon his breast and would presently stop his breathing. + +A tiny clatter, off in the darkness. The line halted. A message passed +along its length in a murmur. + +"A wire about a foot off the ground. It isn't charged." + +"Step over it and go on," ordered Hines. "At any alarm, fling +yourselves flat on the ground and wait." The line moved on again. Hines +had cracked the crystal from a watch-compass and by the feel of its +needle led the way. He, also, came upon that uncharged wire, stretched +upon stakes no more than a foot above ground. It gave a little as he +touched it. He passed over it. + +Then, quite suddenly, a man screamed, down at the end of the line. A +weapon went off thunderously in the blackness. One of the two Lewis +guns roared itself empty. There was the clatter of men flinging +themselves to the earth. Then silence. + +Hines pressed his jaws tightly together. Instinctively he peered about, +though his eyes could convey no possible sensation to his brain. There +was only blackness and stillness. + +Presently he became aware of the surf drumming away behind him. Then +he heard the faintest possible humming noise overheard. At the same +time a pungent odor stung his nostrils. He heard Schaaf exclaim softly, +swearing under his breath. + +Some one came writhing along the ground, counting the prone figures he +passed. + +"Inspector Hines!" + +The faint humming noise passed toward the right. It died away. + +"Here," said Hines quietly. + +The ensign's voice panted. + +"We've lost three men. Stone dead. Electrocuted." + +Schaaf's voice came from astonishingly near by. + +"Der four-centimeter beam," he said grimly. "They heard us. Perhaps +der low wires were burglar-alarms. Breston passed der beam of +four-centimeter wafes all about, with der high-tension current in it. +Those three men were struck by it. It was like being struck by a life +wire with ten thousand volts in it. I smelled ozone just now. My nose +stings yet with it. Der beam passed humming ofer our heads." + +The ensign asked nervously: "What do we do now, sir?" + +"Lie still," said Hines coldly. "They'll get curious presently." + +The ensign crawled away. Darkness. Blackness. The sound of the surf +behind them. Time seemed endless, waiting. One had a ghastly feeling +that it had been an hour or more, two hours--that it was time for the +massed guns, six miles away, to open fire. One's ears strained for the +whistling sound of that first flight of projectiles from four miles of +guns. + +Gradually an infinitely faint rumbling noise made itself felt. It was +felt as much as heard. The sound came through the earth. The dynamos +and the monstrous generators in Preston's underground dugouts, making +the power that had darkened the world. + + * * * * * + +Without a trace of flickering, the darkness broke. With startling +clarity the line of prone men could see. An unbearable glare smote upon +their eyes, but despite it they saw. + +The darkness had vanished from before their eyes. They seemed to be +in a monstrous cavern whose walls were angular masses of jetty black. +A great magnesium flare was burning on the ground. It lighted up +three clumsy concrete structures three-quarters sunk in the ground. +There were men standing near those structures. Three of them stood +by a bow!-shaped thing of wires. They were looking--all the men were +looking--at the line of prone riflemen. The darkness seemed to have +been lifted for the precise purpose of permitting Preston's aids to +look. From half a dozen tripods some six feet or so across darkness +poured out in wide, fanlike beams. Those beams united overhead to form +a roof of darkness, seemingly supported by the inverted pyramids of +black. They united to shut off the rest of the world. They blended +almost at the edge of the surf to cut off all vision upon the water. +Hines and Schaaf and the volunteers gazed for exactly three seconds the +length of a colossal cavern in which lights could glow, but which was +roofed and walled with opacity. + +Three seconds; while a man could breathe in and out and in again. Then +from all along the line of prone men gunfire flashed at the exact +instant that darkness fell upon them again. The remaining Lewis gum +blared into nothingness, emptying its drum of cartridges. The automatic +shotguns bellowed their magazines empty. + +Somewhere off in the darkness a man shrieked, and there were shoutings, +and then a deadly, snarling voice cried out. Something was roaring +horribly, off there in the new-fallen blackness. A spark was leaping a +colossal gap with the tearing thunderous rasp that only a current up in +the thousands of volts will make. + +"Scatter!" snapped Hines. "They've sighted that beam on us!" + +He leaped to his feet and bolted--ahead. Some one pounded along beside +him, though the presence of the other man was felt rather than heard, +and of course nothing at all could be seen. Up ahead the sparking sound +cut off sharply, leaving Hines's ears ringing with the sudden silence. + +It seemed as if some wire--perhaps the high-tension wire to the +four-centimeter beam--had been cut by a bullet, and now a switch +was thrown. Through the ringing in his ears Hines heard the snarling +voice ahead of him shout an order. He blundered on and tripped over +something. The smell of scorched rubber rose from his boots. + +He struck savagely at the thing with his gun-barrel, and somehow +the darkness about him seemed to change. It was probably a beam +darkness-transmitter, which he had smashed. But in an intangible cavern +whose walls were opacity there was no great difference. + +He went racing on, straining his yet-ringing ears for sounds, and +crashed headlong into concrete. He gave a cry of satisfaction and began +to fumble his way feverishly along its length. The man who had run +beside him, panting, grunted with satisfaction as he in turn felt the +concrete. + +It was Schaaf. He mumbled to himself and Hines caught, "_verdammt_," +and "_Schrecklichkeit_" and other much less repeatable words. + +A door! Hines fumbled at his belt and found one single grenade. + +"A steel door, Schaaf!" he panted. "I'm setting off a grenade before +it. Get back around the corner!" + +He deposited the little globe of iron, jerked out the pin, and fled. + +The earth shook and a blast of sound which was like a blow on the chest +smote them--for all that they were around the corner of the concrete. +Then Hines flung himself forward again, rasping his fingers on the +rough concrete and choking on the fumes of the explosive. + +The door was blown away, blasted from its frame. No glimmer of +illumination came through the awful darkness that was everywhere, but +Hines stepped boldly through the opening with his automatic shotgun +held ready for the instant light should reach him. + +The curious feeling of a metal floor under his foot. Then emptiness! +He went hurtling downward, falling into bright and blinding light. +He struck something with his shoulder in the act of falling, and it +wrenched his muscles cruelly but partly broke the drop. He wound up +with a crash on concrete, all of fifteen feet down, and lay still for +an instant, dazed. + + * * * * * + +He had a vague impression of a room that was sunk deep in the ground. +There were masses of glittering glass, and many lights, and a humming +noise filled all the air with a monotonous drone. Hines realized +indistinctly that the curious squat structures on the island were +merely the roofs of dugouts, dug down to safety below the surface of +the earth. Then he heard a peculiar tearing, spitting sound near by. + +His eyes focused dazedly on his shotgun, lying on the floor a little +distance off. It was smoking strangely. Sparks were darting from it +into the stone floor. It began abruptly to glow a dull red. Suddenly +it exploded luridly. Every shell in its magazine went off in a single +blast which was not disastrous solely because the red hot metal offered +so little resistance to the expanding gases. They tore it apart almost +like so much dough. + +Somebody or other was racing down the steel steps Hines had tumbled +from. Huge hands swept Hines from the floor. He smelled burning rubber. +He knew that it was Schaaf who tore his automatic pistol out of his +belt and flung it away. He knew, also, that it was Schaaf who leaped +with him to one side of the room. He had a dizzy impression of glowing +tubes of glass ail about him. + +Then a snarling, arrogant voice said in insolent satisfaction: + +"Police Inspector Hines, I believe, and my former assistant, Professor +Schaaf. Very well met! I've wanted to have you two men killed for a +long time." + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + THE MAN WHO MURDERED LIGHT. + + +Hines's automatic pistol tore itself to pieces as the shells in its +butt went off all at once. Its fragments on the concrete floor glowed +dully red, then slowly cooled off when they ceased to emit sparks. + +Hines staggered to his feet and found himself penned in behind a +monster bank of vacuum tubes which glowed redly. The glass of the tubes +was inordinately thick. These tubes would not break by concussion, nor +by however determined a blow of a man's fist--Preston had learned, from +his debacle in the Storm. + +Hines was conscious of them, and of things below them which might have +been gigantic transformers of the type used in radio. But as his brain +cleared from the crack on the concrete floor, his whole attention was +taken up by the facts which it was immediately necessary for him to +face. + +Schaaf was beside him, crouching a little to have his whole body behind +the banks of vacuum tubes. Schaaf was snarling a little, and his blue +eyes were glinting fire. He seemed to be unarmed as well as Hines, +and he was gazing across the deep-sunk room with an expression of +concentrated malevolence. + +Preston was there, the man Hines had seen exactly once, and for half a +minute only, but whom he had been hunting for months. He was standing +by a small platform which itself was next to a wide door through which +the humming noise came. Preston's hand was on a small thing which +looked rather like a searchlight, except that instead of a mirror for +a reflector it had a sort of grid of glistening wires. There were two +switches on its top. + +Preston was small and dapper, and wore a neat Vandyke beard trimmed +to an accurate point. He looked like a highly civilized man, even +alongside the nattily attired pair of followers who lounged always +within feet of him. + +They were gangsters, those two, from impeccably tailored clothing to +impossibly expensive haberdashery in vivid color. + +Preston seemed precisely the pattern of the professional man--until one +noticed his eyes. They were blank and hard and triumphant, precisely +the eyes of a madman with paranoiac delusions of grandeur. They were +insolent and scornful and very, very arrogant eyes. They were the eyes +of a man who has persuaded himself that he is invested with supreme +authority, and who derides and despises the mere worms of humans within +his gaze. Unfortunately, Preston's ideas of his own powers were not +delusions. They were facts. + +He smiled at them, and his smile was filled with the same +vanity-inspired scorn. + +"I assure you, Schaaf," he said in a metallic voice that made one long +to kick him, "I assure you that your being alive now is due to my +forbearance." + +Schaaf spoke, his voice purring with rage. He spoke in German, and the +words crackled. At the end he added wrathfully: + +"And if you don't understand der names I called you, you are a lot of +banana oil!" + +He turned to Hines, growling, and Hines knew somehow that Schaaf was +inspecting the contrivances, the elaborate hook-ups, the involved +array of apparatus with a desperately concentrated attention, working +frantically to understand their operation. + +Hines's head was clearing swiftly, and he looked about, and went sick +with a helpless rage at the same time that his pulses pumped with fury. +He looked at Preston with eyes like flames. Preston had had Kathryn +kidnaped. Preston had-- + +"You saw what happened to your weapons," said Preston, smiling +unpleasantly. "I'm letting you live because it amuses me to watch you. +I have--" he looked at a wrist watch--"I have more than half an hour +before Inspector Hines's artillery blows this island out of the water. +And I am inclined to let you two beg your lives. I won't give them to +you, but I'll listen." + +"Beg, der deffil!" snapped Schaaf. "Breston, you are der most complete +idiot in der history of der human race! With der brains I reluctantly +admit you possess, you could haff been a benefactor of mankind! And now +we haff to kill you!--Where is Miss Bush?" + +Preston threw back his head to laugh. His two guards regarded the two +men behind the vacuum tubes with a wary, indifferent alertness. They +were killers, hired to do murder to order. They regarded Schaaf and +Hines as the professional killer always does regard his prospective +victims. + +"She's here," said Preston sardonically. "She's here! Quite a pretty +girl, too. And safe--so far!" + +Hines's teeth ground together. Face to face with Preston, a +consummation for which he had hoped and worked for months. And +helpless. Preston had destroyed his weapons with that little +searchlight-like thing. "It is lucky for you that she is safe," snapped +Schaaf. "Breston, you _verdamumt_ fool, do you realize that you are +licked before you start?" + + * * * * * + +Sweat was standing out on Schaaf's face. He stood tense in every +muscle, and Hines had a queer impression that Schaaf was all brain, +that every particle of him was racing madly to absorb the meaning of +the wires, the tubes, the switches, the connections in this diabolical +control room. He seemed to feel Schaaf working desperately to piece +together the meaning of every appliance and how it worked. + +"Licked?" Preston laughed, the mirthless, scornful laugh of the +paranoiac. "You are living by my pleasure, because it amuses me to +watch--" + +"That is true to a certain extent only," said Schaaf. He spoke with +a measured calmness in which only Hines could detect the false note. +"I tell you why. I haff solfed your apparatus! Before I left der +mainland to come here, I had explained to my assistants der entire +method of all your defices. I tell you you are licked, and I proof +it. Der darkness wafes I have made myself. And moreotfer, I haff made +der four-centimeter wafes that make der air conducting and enable you +to throw a beam of radiation that is like a life wire charged with +electricity, wherefer you will. And der people on der mainland haff der +apparatus too!" + +Hines's eyes flickered. Schaaf was bluffing. It was a monumental sort +of bluff, and the one thing that might work--if Schaaf could carry it +out. Schaaf was bluffing for both their lives, now, and Kathryn's to +boot. + +"I tell you how you and I make der four-centimeter wafes," said Schaaf, +grimly. "Der vacuum tube as at present designed cannot possibly go +below a quarter of a meter, and then der wate is not a pure sine +wafe. I know! But you haff four-centimeter wafes, and smaller. Yes! +And der word of how you do them is going all ofer der cifilized world +right now. Because you can take six tubes, each one emitting wafes of +one-fourth meter length, and so adjust them that der separate wafes of +der separate tubes come four centimeters after each other, gifing you a +beam of der death rays. Hein?" + +He grinned savagely at Preston, though sweat stood out on his forehead. +And Preston snarled. + +"You can carry der process farther," said Schaaf in a judicial tone. +Hines, listening, marveled at the assurance with which Schaaf was +stating, as definite facts, his hurried deductions from the apparatus +about them. "By der use of a sufficient number of tubes, you can make +wafes of any length you choose, merely by der superimposition of one +wafe-outline upon another. Der United States Gofernment is now turning +out this apparatus in quantity!" + +He waved his hands about the room. "Der darkness wafes are made in that +way. Der conducting beam is made in that way. Eferything you haff is +made in that way. And we haff eferything you haff efer thought of, with +ten times der power you haff, and a hundred times der brains! You are +licked, Breston! Hines and I, we came to this island because you are +der damnedest scoundrel in forty nations. You haff Miss Bush here. Giff +her back and we giff you half an hour's start. No more! You are licked! +We make der bargain! Turn ofer Miss Bush, unharmed. Turn off der +darkness. We giff you half an hour to escape in. That is efery damned +thing we will giff you. And then we come after you, and I, personally, +choke you by der neck until I kill you!" + + * * * * * + +Preston was livid. Hines's pulse leaped in savage satisfaction. Schaaf +had worked out the whole thing from sight of Preston's outfit. His +bluff was working. Preston did believe the whole world was equipped to +fight him with his own weapons. + +But his madman's eyes flamed with the crazy rage of shattered vanity. + +"Everything I've got?" he snarled. "This too? Tell me how this is done!" + +He flung a switch on the top of the tiny projector. There was a sudden +vivid glow at a table against the wall some fifteen feet from Hines. A +long, serried ray of tubes leaped into light. Utter silence fell. + +"Look at that metal!" raged Preston. "Look at it!" + +He pointed a shaking hand at the fragments of Hines's two weapons +on the concrete floor. And they turned suddenly white--snow white. +Then they became wet. A liquid trickled from them and dripped to the +concrete, where it bubbled furiously and formed a thick white mist +that spread out over the floor. Preston flung back his switch and as +the bank of tubes went out, he laughed in shrill, insolent, vanity mad +triumph--because Schaaf's cheeks had become drained of every particle +of blood. + +"That's what I'm going to use on Hines's artillery?" boasted Preston +hysterically. "This little projector is all I need! All!" + +Schaaf clenched his hands more tightly still. + +"_Gott!_" he muttered thickly. "_Gott!_" + +"You didn't work out that one, eh?" demanded Preston arrogantly. "Now +I'll tell you: that's the same thing as all the rest! Fluorescence! +Causing one type of energy to be changed to another! Under my +four-centimeter waves, the air becomes fluorescent. But these waves +work on iron! + +"Where these waves strike, the surface of the iron becomes fluorescent. +It absorbs heat from the air and from its own interior! It turns heat +to short radio waves, and every particle of iron in the beam of these +waves, no matter how far away it is, radiates away every particle of +energy it possesses! It sinks to absolute zero! Four, hundred and +sixty-two degrees below zero Fahrenheit! + +"You saw air liquefy in contact with the iron that was red hot a +moment ago. What's going to happen to the men on your battleships +when every particle of iron or steel drops to the temperature of +liquid air? What's going to happen to your guns when they're down to +the temperature of liquid helium and the gun crews try to fire them? +They'll fly to bits like brittle ice! Licked, am I? I'll wipe out your +damned artillery with half a kilowatt in this projector! Ill sink your +battleships with their crews frozen solid. + +"I'll play that beam on New York and every particle of steel in the +city will be brittle as ashes! I'll bring down every damned skyscraper +in the town. I'll teach them a lesson they won't forget. Make my +apparatus and try to work it against me? I'll--" + +He was working himself into frothing rage. He was shouting. He was +bellowing. His voice was a strident scream of rage, the rage of the man +who has convinced himself that he is the most intelligent of all living +men and then finds the distinction threatened. + +"You fools?" Preston gasped. "Trying to fight me! Like savages with +clubs going against a battleship! I'll show you! I'll show--" + +Schaaf had bluffed, working out what Preston had done, after a swift +survey of the apparatus about him. He'd seen Preston's transmitters +and had raced his brain to the manner of their operation. He'd tried +to bluff that all the world knew now how Preston had kept it sunk in +night. But he hadn't known this one last trick, which was the most +deadly of all. And Schaaf muttered thickly to himself with his eyes +sunken in and dull. Because this last weapon was invincible. + +Then Hines looked sharply upward and snapped, "All right, men! +Everybody in here!" + +He gained two seconds only; two seconds in which Preston was looking +upward, and his guards with him, toward the door into which Hines +himself had stumbled. But that two seconds was enough. Before they +could look down, Hines had leaped, dragging from their sockets two of +the thick tubes to use as missiles. + +The first one struck Preston and flung him against the projector. Hines +was within a yard of Preston when he heard Schaaf cry out. But it was +too late to stop then. He sank his fingers in Preston's throat as one +of the guards screamed. + +The projector of the freezing beam had been whirled around. A guard +had felt his arm frozen to the elbow as he tried to raise his weapon. +He screamed, and screamed, and Schaaf went into action frantically, +flinging the huge vacuum tubes about and crashing them until the second +guard was helpless and the freezing beam was off. + +But Hines paid no attention. He forgot that he should be getting a +bullet in the back of his head at any instant. Preston was squirming +under him, getting at something in his pocket. There was a sickeningly +muffled explosion in the middle of the battling pair of men. Another. + +Preston seemed literally to go mad. Frothing at the mouth, he tried to +sink his teeth in Hines. He fought crazily, insanely, with maniacal +strength. Hines forgot that there was anything in the world but this +one single man he hated. He forgot everything-- + +And then Schaaf was pulling him to his feet, crying: + +"We haff fife minutes, Hines! Fife minutes only! Find Miss Bush!" + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + ZERO HOUR. + + +The two of them came above ground with Kathryn, and only two minutes +to spare. The ensign and ten men were about to assail a squat concrete +structure after the orthodox fashion of warfare when Hines gasped, "Get +your men! Get 'em to the boat! We killed Preston but not his men! Zero +hour's two minutes off!" + +The air upon the island itself was no longer opaque. Schaaf's berserk +rage among the vacuum tubes had cut that off. But the column of +darkness leading to an utterly black sky still held steady. Somewhere +in the extraordinarily clear air a rocket shot up, very far away. + +The ensign's whistle shrilled madly. Hines, Schaaf, Kathryn, and a +dozen men raced for the boat. Other men loomed up, panting, and flung +themselves through the night. Once a man tripped over a low wire and +four men fell on top of him. There was a long drawn out, deliberate +whining sound in the air. It was growing louder. It rose to a shriek +and passed overhead and went off deafeningly a quarter of a mile away. +The four fallen men were up in the fractional part of a split second at +that sound. + +Into the boat in desperate, panting haste. Shoving off. + +They had been rowing a pitifully short time when little licking flames +became visible on the skyline toward shore. Somewhere in the upper +darkness there was a hail of steel and high explosive hurtling toward +the island. + +Something shrieked and splashed overboard not a dozen yards away. The +drumming noise of a barrage began and held for nearly a second, and +then the sound of exploding shells was not like a barrage at all. It +was like one long, continuous explosion, punctuated with monstrous +blasts of sound which could be nothing less than twelve-inch shells +exploding. + +The men at the oars pulled like madmen. The air was full of the +shrieking of steel missiles, and the island behind them was lost in a +mass of darting flames like marsh fire. Things fell into the sea on +all sides with monstrous splashings, and the cutter pitched crazily, +and more shells screamed and whistled and howled, and lambent flames +of death and destruction played over the island, with ever and again a +blinding flash and an overpowering concussion where a big projectile +had hit. + +It seemed to Hines, holding fast to Kathryn, that they would be +battered to pieces by sheer waves of sound if stray shells did not +do the work. For that was a more immediate danger still. Many shells +that fell short of the island ricocheted and exploded in mid-air or +splashed into the sea again on the farther side. Some fell fearfully +near them. Some struck in the shallows near the shore, and those +explosions sent concussions through the water that made the hull of the +speeding cutter quiver and shake. They racked and twisted the little +cockleshell. The monstrous waves generated by the explosions flung it +crazily about, and the concussions wrenched its timbers, and the blasts +of the detonating shells half-dazed those in it. + +But the oarsmen pulled like madmen. The ensign shouted encouragement +and orders. And slowly--so slowly--the cutter drew away from the +inferno that was the island. + + * * * * * + +Hines was holding Kathryn fiercely tight when he realized that Schaaf +was shouting in his ear. They were a mile away from the island, but the +din was still deafening. + +"Hines!" bellowed Schaaf. "Hines! _Die Sterne!_ Der stars are shining!" + +The wind over the water was bitter cold, but as the cutter drew farther +and ever farther away from the low-lying place that had been Preston's +stronghold, all the world seemed to take on a nearly normal seeming. + +Stars twinkled and glittered in the sky overhead. Far to the east a +vast, partly round orb was coming up over the edge of the world. For +the world had an edge again! It was the moon. And there were dusky +little shadows against the stars, which would be clouds, and generally +the world seemed astoundingly normal. + +Later on, of course, the sun would rise, and there would be great winds +rushing to meet its warm rays, and men and women and children would go +mad with joy at sight of the orb they had missed for exactly one day. + +Schaaf, swearing joyful Teutonic profanity, would plunge into a new +task before him, of research and duplication of Preston's results, and +would come out of it bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, but with apparatus +which would perform every one of Preston's tricks to order. + +He would hale Hines back from his honeymoon to join with him in forming +the International Weather Control Corporation, whose typhoon patrol +vessels are to be found wherever bad weather threatens in the tropics, +using Preston's discoveries to create half a dozen small counter-storms +where a hurricane or typhoon threatens. Those same tiny storms, too, he +and Hines would use to lengthen the Alaskan summer by two months and +raise the winter temperature by nearly thirty degrees. + +All this was yet to happen, and the possibly greater benefit of +liberating an unlimited supply of power by Preston's freezing ray. +Liquid air drips from every iron surface on which those rays are +playing. Nowadays, that liquid air provides the power to run the +monster generating stations at Manhasset, and Panama, and at Algiers. +And since their success, others are being built as rapidly as the +structures can be completed. It seems probable that within a relatively +few years coal need no longer be mined for power, nor need nations +bicker or quarrel over petroleum. + +But on that morning when the ship's cutter rowed away from Metinic +Island the coast toward which it moved was flickering oddly as if heat +lightning were playing there. There were lurid spoutings of fire and +shattering explosions coming from the land they had left, and there +were dim bulks all around the horizon which emitted tongues of flame +and unbearable thunderings. Even overhead there was noise. It was a +constant, long-continued screaming of things soaring through the air +to fall upon and shatter further the already devastated earth of the +island. The battleships and cruisers were literally destroying that +small bit of Earth. Where the fourteen-inch shells exploded there was +only empty space left, into which the salt water seeped slowly. + +The cutter went on, snail-like, while destruction raged behind it. +Schaaf fingered his beard and made blissful explanations to the ensign, +to whom his blending of abstruse technicalities and incongruous slang +was nearly unintelligible. Hines relaxed slowly from his tension. He +knew that Preston was dead now. He was sure of it at last. Quite, quite +sure--he clenched his strong hands. + +Kathryn said uneasily: + +"I--I've a great story for the _Star_." + +"Forget it," said Hines briefly. "We were supposed to be married +yesterday, Kathryn." + +"Y-yes," she admitted. "We were." + +"So," said Hines, "we are going to be married to-day." + +He held her hand fast. + +"Y-yes," she said, after a long time. "We are... But oh, when I think +what might have happened, I wish I'd never heard of Preston. I wish he +never had existed." + +"Shush, my dear," said Schaaf paternally. "He got you a husband. Der +statement is banana oil." + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78979 *** diff --git a/78979-h/78979-h.htm b/78979-h/78979-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..903bf39 --- /dev/null +++ b/78979-h/78979-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2389 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Man Who Put Out the Sun | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } +hr.full {width: 95%; margin-left: 2.5%; margin-right: 2.5%;} +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +x-ebookmaker-drop {display: none;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap { font-variant:small-caps; } + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.caption p +{ + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + margin: 0.25em 0; + font-weight: bold; +} + +div.titlepage { + text-align: center; + page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; +} + +div.titlepage p { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; + margin-top: 3em; +} + +.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph1 { font-size: x-large; margin: .83em auto; } + +.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78979 ***</div> + + +<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop"> + <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="titlepage"> + +<h1>The Man Who Put Out the Sun</h1> + +<p class="ph1">By MURRAY LEINSTER</p> + +<p><i>Author of "The City of the Blind,"<br> +"The Storm That Had to Be Stopped," etc.</i></p> + +<p><i>Novelette—Complete</i></p> + +<p><i>"As surely as the sun will rise to-morrow" goes the<br> +saying—but that day the sun did not rise, and the blinded<br> +world was at the mercy of a merciless scientific madman.</i></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + + +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>THE MORNING THE SUN DIDN'T RISE.</h3> + + +<p>May the fifth was scheduled to be Police Inspector Hines's wedding day, +but it happened that on that morning the sun did not rise, and so the +wedding was postponed.</p> + +<p>Otherwise it was just like every other morning. There were no storms, +no earthquakes, no unusual phenomena of any kind. A great many people, +as a matter of fact, simply disbelieved their clocks when they got up +and therefore yawned and went back to bed again.</p> + +<p>Others, checking up with the telephone company's time, reasoned +sensibly that there was an eclipse or something of the sort, and +searched the morning newspapers for details while they breakfasted by +artificial light. But the morning newspapers, at least on the Atlantic +Coast, bore only their usual quotas of divorces, embezzlements, ax +murders and other diverting narratives. Having been printed during the +night, they were entirely silent about the sun's eccentric absence. So +it was quite a few hours before people became really alarmed.</p> + +<p>Probably the first man in the United States to notice any oddity in +the morning was a man wearing a green celluloid eyeshade, in the +operating office of New York's gigantic uptown power station. He has no +importance in the affair other than that priority.</p> + +<p>He sat in a very brilliantly lighted office with a huge instrument +board before him, on which were vast numbers of dials. A recording +ammeter ticked away at his left, tracing a graph of current-consumption +for one-half of the whole city. A master voltmeter and a visual master +ammeter were just before his eyes.</p> + +<p>There were windows on two sides of the room. Through them he could +look out over the sleeping city. Long rows of unwinking street lights +glittered in deserted avenues. The forms of the East River bridges +were outlined in lines of fire. The city was silent and still, +sleeping heavily. What few noises came from the empty streets seemed +extraordinarily loud.</p> + +<p>The man with the green eyeshade opened a window and took grateful +breaths of the cool morning air. He was in his shirt sleeves, with his +vest unbuttoned. It was hot in the office, with that peculiarly dry and +stuffy heat with which we Americans fill our office buildings.</p> + +<p>From far below, in the vast halls of the power station, there came a +constant subdued, contented humming. Turbine-driven dynamos purred +softly, making the electric current which supplied alike the street +lamps and the buildings of half the city.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>From the other windows he could see toward the east, over the sprawling +bulk of Brooklyn toward the sea. There was a faint, pale-grayish glow +in the sky. False dawn. Stars began to dim against its brightness. +Gradually, very gradually, the dark shapes of buildings began to +take form. There were no colors in the sky as yet, merely a subdued +gray radiance. But a paler reflection of that pale gray light made +rectangular shapes out of irregular bulks.</p> + +<p>From the windows of the operating office the city ceased to be a +pattern of glittering lights against the dark. It acquired a third +dimension. Perspectives developed, and it was possible to discover that +this dim, ungainly shape was nearer or farther away than that one.</p> + +<p>The man with the green eyeshade—his name does not matter—lowered +the window and went back to his seat. It was his task to forecast the +demand of the city for power, and to see to it that there were always +humming steel monster dynamos in readiness to supply that force.</p> + +<p>An easy task, ordinarily. Framed upon the wall at his left, a typical +graph of the city's consumption of electricity showed the normal use +of current. From six to eight at night, when people dined and electric +signs flared, and all dwellings were lighted up, the demand was at +its peak. Then more lights burned. More cooking devices functioned. +More current was consumed by all the contrivances of an electrified +civilization.</p> + +<p>The downtown power station had a lesser peak at this hour, but its +greatest load came when electrically-driven power devices of lofts and +factories were operating. Uptown, the peak load came from homes.</p> + +<p>The man in the operating office rested his hand conveniently near a +certain switch. It would signal for the cutting off of certain dynamos, +assigned to run the street lighting system. He waited for those lights +to be extinguished. He did not look out the window for his information, +but at his master ammeter. When that needle flickered back to the +normal indication for this hour, the dynamos below would cease to run +until needed again. Most of the monster machines were idle now, anyhow.</p> + +<p>Presently there would come a slow creeping upward, when a myriad early +risers turned on lights for their dressing. The master ammeter would +record that activity. And then ten thousand electric toasters would +perform their function, beginning with half an hour after sunrise, and +from then on would come the steady increase in the amount of current +used, until ten o'clock would see the last electric dish-washing device +turned off; and the normal load of elevators, curling irons, and other +trivia would require only two giant generators to run until the noon +hour approached.</p> + +<p>The man with the green eyeshade waited. The needle held steady. The +street lights had not been turned off. Presently there was a slow climb +upward. A myriad early risers, wakened by their alarm clocks, had +turned on their lights. Time passed slowly. The load increased again. +Electric toasters were functioning, and eggs were being boiled.</p> + +<p>The man in the operating office of the uptown power station could +follow the activities of a city by watching a single giant dial. But +he was frowning a little. The load was increasing. There was no drop. +His eyes sought a clock at hand. Just the time for sunrise. The load +continued to increase.</p> + +<p>Frowning, he shifted his hand and swung another switch. A hitherto +silent, idle monster below began to hum contentedly. Watching the dial, +presently he threw another switch. Still another began to purr, down in +the echoful open space where metal monsters lay quiescent.</p> + +<p>A telephone rang beside him. He spoke impatiently.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. That's what the load calls for." He lifted his eyes and +searched a row of circuit ammeters. "No. Everything's all right. If you +have to start up another boiler, better go ahead."</p> + +<p>A few minutes later, frowning more markedly than before, he lifted the +instrument and called himself.</p> + +<p>"Get three extra boilers ready. I'm going to need them unless the load +falls off."</p> + +<p>He watched his instruments in frowning, concentrated attention. He was +entirely too busy to glance out of the window. Twice he looked at a +clock and at the graph on the wall. Three times the normal demand for +power at this time. Now four times.</p> + +<p>He called for more boilers to supply steam. Discipline in the power +plant is as strict, of course, as in any naval vessel. Orders are +obeyed. More and more of the metal monsters whirred and whined and +purred themselves into a contented humming.</p> + +<p>Eight o'clock. The man with the green eyeshade bit at his nails. Then +he looked out of the window. Three seconds of incredulous gazing, and +he picked up the telephone instrument.</p> + +<p>"Prepare for peak loading," he said curtly. "There's an eclipse or +something. It's still dark outdoors."</p> + +<p>And from then on he glanced at the windows as often as at his +instruments. It was dark outside. At eight o'clock in the morning the +street lights of New York were glittering jewels set in rows. The East +River bridges were limned in lines of glowing lights. Puzzled people +began to appear upon the streets. Store fronts were lighted. Windows in +apartments and in private homes began to glow in vivid small rectangles.</p> + +<p>At half past eight the man in the green eyeshade raised the window +and stared shakenly upward. The sky was a dull, dead, velvety black. +No stars were visible. No trace of illumination; no faintest ray of +light came down from above. The city lived and moved and had its being +in what would have been an entirely normal fashion—for night-time. +Nothing at all had happened. Nothing whatever had occurred. The only +oddity that could be discovered anywhere was simply the fact that on +that morning the sun had not risen.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>A WORLD IN DARKNESS.</h3> + + +<p>Not everywhere did the phenomenon of darkness make its appearance +so quietly. In London a bright sunshiny morning had been in being. +The streets were filled with traffic. Children played in Kensington +Gardens. Small tugs puffed importantly up and down the rather +inadequate Thames.</p> + +<p>In the houses of Parliament an impassioned debate was going on upon +the subject of the manorial rights surviving in the village of Muttle +Deeping, West Harborough, Hants. At the palace, a popular member of the +royal family was in the act of entering a motor car to lay his fourth +cornerstone for the week. London was, it is clear, in the middle of a +normal, sunshiny morning.</p> + +<p>Then the sky flickered, and all at once it was night. The sky was a +dead, jet black. For a moment the city was stunned, before motor car +headlights flamed into being. Two minutes later electric light bulbs +began to glow in buildings. They dimmed, however, as the drain upon the +power houses grew far more swiftly than the dynamos could be prepared +to meet the load.</p> + +<p>It was half an hour before the street lamps began to glow dully, and +over an hour and a half before the city was illuminated as in a normal +night, by which time the first and natural explanation of an eclipse in +being was patently untrue. No eclipse ever lasted so long. And panic +swept over London and all England.</p> + +<p>In Budapest the darkness fell at high noon. In Madrid at eleven. At +Stamboul—Constantinople—the sky was blotted out while myriads of the +faithful bowed in prayer. In Calcutta the colors of the sunset were +wiped out by an instantaneous curtain of utter darkness.</p> + +<p>At Flagstaff, Arizona, an astronomer was peering patiently through a +giant telescope at the planet Mars when the planet and all the stars +beyond abruptly seemed to cease to be. He thought the telescope had +met with some accident. Even later, when from the outside of the +observatory the whole sky was seen to be blotted out, he still thought +the obscuration due to an extremely heavy bank of clouds. But he +puzzled bewilderedly over the suddenness of their forming.</p> + +<p>Professor Schaaf was probably the first man in the whole world to +evaluate the phenomenon at its true value. As May the fifth was the +wedding day of his bosom friend Hines, Schaaf had spent the previous +night at his flat, to listen patiently to the advantages of matrimony. +He had shooed Hines benevolently to bed at two in the morning, and had +slept peacefully himself. But at seven Schaaf was awake and found it +dark outside.</p> + +<p>The scientist looked at his watch and blinked, and listened to its +ticking. He got up and stared out over the city, illuminated as if at +midnight and already stirring. He saw the bright ribbon of an elevated +train, several blocks away. He could see that it was filled with people.</p> + +<p>He went to the telephone and called the apartment telephone operator. +The Negro's voice came up gladly:</p> + +<p>"Ya-as, suh, Professuh Schaaf! Seben o'clock. But, Professuh! Ah wish +yo'd tell me 'bout dishere eclipse. Hit's dark outside, suh. How long's +the eclipse goin' to last, suh? Sev'l of the tenants done asked me +a'ready, suh."</p> + +<p>Schaaf grunted, and turned around to squint out of the windows again.</p> + +<p>"Der defil! Hm... Giff me der Meteorological Bureau. Find der number +and call me back. I find out."</p> + +<p>He padded to a window in carpet slippers. He heard Hines breathing +evenly and regularly in the next room. Schaaf raised a window and +stared up at the sky. An even, velvety black. No variation anywhere. +As black as ink—blacker. Blacker than the darkness of an eclipse, +because even during the moments of totality the stars can be seen. And +starlight even upon a thick blanket of clouds would give more light +than this.</p> + +<p>Schaaf put down the window, blinking. He stood quite still, a +disreputable figure in dressing-gown and slippers, with his luxuriant +blond beard uncombed. And suddenly his eyes opened very wide, and he +began to swear softly to himself.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>He went back to the telephone.</p> + +<p>"Der Meteorological Bureau? Professor Albert Schaaf speaking. Will +you giff me der bolometer-reading of der moment?... Der <i>bolometer</i> +reading! Der amount of heat being radiated to der earth from der sky! +Yes!"</p> + +<p>He fumed and fretted while the telephone receiver was silent. Then he +became intent.</p> + +<p>"Yes... Hm... That is larger than a night reading, <i>hein</i>?... What +would be der reading during der moments of totality of an eclipse?..."</p> + +<p>He shook his head impatiently. "Nefer mind der corrections for +latitude. Abbroximate! Giff me der figures!"</p> + +<p>Again he fumed nervously.</p> + +<p>"Fery well. Thank you. Abbroximately one-fourth der normal amount of +heat is being radiated to der earth from der sky. Which is too much +for an eclipse, and fery much too much for night-time. I thank you. I +thought I was cuckoo in der head."</p> + +<p>He hung up the receiver and swore classic German profanity while he +jiggled the hook.</p> + +<p>"Der <i>verdammt</i> deffil!" he said bitterly; then, into the telephone: +"Get police headquarters at once. Hurry!"</p> + +<p>He scowled at the universe, represented by a section of Hines's library +wall, until a voice answered. "Hello!" he said savagely into the +transmitter. "This is der Herr Professor Albert Schaaf. You know me?"</p> + +<p>A prompt affirmative came over the wire. In those few circles where +Schaaf was unknown on his own account—few indeed after his notable +part in battling the scientific fiend Preston—he was known as a friend +of Police Inspector Hines, who had directed those fights.</p> + +<p>"Now listen carefully. I am in Hines's apartment. He is still asleep. +I haff not wakened him because he is going to need sleep before this +thing is finished. But I giff an order in his name. Send some police at +once to giff adequate protection to Miss Kathryn Bush, who is to marry +Inspector Hines to-day. I haff reason to think she is in danger. Send +them at once, and send plenty of them! You understand?"</p> + +<p>A grunt of astonishment at the other end of the wire. Then the incisive +voice of a man of action.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said Schaaf, nodding into the telephone transmitter. "Fery +good. And then if you haff more men to Spare, send them up to watch +ofer Hines and me. We need them. And speed is der essence of der +contract."'</p> + +<p>The incisive voice asked a question.</p> + +<p>"Think!" said Schaaf sardonically. "Look out of der window and think, +if you can, of one man who makes a specialty of raising hell with der +heafens, and who has no fondness for Hines and me. That is der answer. +Good-by!"</p> + +<p>He hung up decisively, drummed nervously on his knee, and called +Kathryn Bush. She was not only Hines's fiancée, she was a very capable +newspaper woman, and Schaaf alternately scolded and flattered her +outrageously. He liked Kathryn very much, and since Hines was going to +marry somebody, Schaaf approved his choice.</p> + +<p>Her voice came clearly, hurried and uneasy.</p> + +<p>"Hello! What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Bush," began Schaaf apologetically, "I am sorry that I am not +Hines, but—"</p> + +<p>"I'm leaving now," said Kathryn in a strained voice. "How is he, +Professor Schaaf? Is he conscious yet?"</p> + +<p>Sweat stood out suddenly on Schaaf's forehead.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gott in Himmel!</i>" he said unsteadily. "I am just in time! Miss +Bush! What kind of message haff you got? Hines is all right. There is +nothing wrong. What haff you heard?"</p> + +<p>Her voice—doubtful and desperately anxious—came over the wire, "Your +note said there'd been an explosion and you both were hurt—"</p> + +<p>"It is a forgery!" snapped Schaaf. "For der lofe of Gott, do not leafe +your apartment! Call to der police! Raise der deffil! But stay where +you are! Did you not look out of der window?"</p> + +<p>There was a little pause, and he heard her gasp of amazement.</p> + +<p>"I—I was awakened by the message," she said unsteadily, "and I didn't +think of anything.... It's Preston, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Der bolometer-reading has his name on it," said Schaaf grimly. "I haff +telephoned der police to go to your house at once. I haff not waked +up Hines, because I just found out what has happened. It must be der +Heaviside Layer gone cuckoo. Stay where you are!"</p> + +<p>"I will, I—I'm glad you telephoned."</p> + +<p>"And so am I," said Schaaf from his heart. "You will telephone, Miss +Bush, efery few minutes until der police come? They are on der way, but +it may be minutes yet before you are safe. I am going to wake up Hines +now."</p> + +<p>"A-all right," said Kathryn. "Don't be afraid for me."</p> + +<p>He heard the click of her receiver on its hook. And Schaaf wiped great +droplets of sweat from his face.</p> + +<p>"That deffil," he said unsteadily. "Oh, that damned deffil!"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>He went padding into Hines's bedroom and shook the sleeping man. +Outside, the world was dark save for a multitude of electric bulbs, +which pierced the darkness with the effect of magic. Elevated trains +were roaring all over the city, now. The people of the cities of the +Atlantic coastline took the sun's absence with a quite astounding +calmness. They classed the darkness as that of an eclipse, and +thousands of offices opened, and hundreds of factories began their +work with nearly full forces of workers on hand, though the telephone +switchboards were nearly swamped with vain demands on the newspaper +offices and weather bureau for information they did not have.</p> + +<p>In his bedroom, Hines sat up and blinked, and was wide awake. He +grinned at Schaaf.</p> + +<p>"Good morning! This is my wedding day, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I haff my doubts," said Schaaf soberly. "Hines, damned near der worst +has happened. Preston is on der job again."</p> + +<p>Hines was on his feet in seconds. "Kathryn—?"</p> + +<p>"Is all right," said Schaaf. "I telephoned her minutes ago. She is all +right and she is going to stay all right. Look out of der window and +then at der clock." Hines stared blankly. Brightly lighted streets. +Brilliantly illuminated stores. Elevated trains like streamers of fire, +moving along distant steel trestles. Eight o'clock in the morning, and +the sky was black with an utter, unrelieved blackness.</p> + +<p>"But—it's night!" said Hines blankly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Verdamm!</i>" said Schaaf impatiently. "Of course it is night! Night +in der morning." He dropped into one of the wholly incongruous 'slang +phrases that adorned his speech. "You are darned tooting it is night, +Hines! Der sun did not rise this morning."</p> + +<p>"The—sun—did—not—rise—this morning," said Hines slowly. "I—see."</p> + +<p>The telephone rang shrilly. Hines started, and moved to answer it, +while Schaaf stared out at the incredible darkness that lay upon the +world hours after daylight should have appeared.</p> + +<p>His identification of the darkness with a man named Preston was not +an accident, of course. There was just one man in the world who could +cause meteorological disturbances on a large scale, and the three +previous disturbances of Preston's creation had been somewhat like this.</p> + +<p>It was one of Schaaf's bitternesses that he had unwittingly helped in +the development of the apparatus which had done so much harm. More than +a year before, he had done some highly abstruse technical research +for an electrophysicist named Preston. Schaaf's share had been the +determination of the mass and dimensions of the ionized bodies in +atmospheric air.</p> + +<p>He had done that work, not guessing the devilish application to be made +of it, for his fare back to his native Germany, since there seemed to +be no room for a theoretic physicist in the United States. But before +he sailed, he had been drafted by his present friend Hines to combat +the danger his measurements had enabled Preston to create.</p> + +<p>Using Schaaf's figures in his basic calculations, Preston had developed +a way to make the air opaque, black, as horribly black as the ocean's +deepest abyss. And he had done it. To be sure, heretofore he had +confined his blackness to the surface of the earth, but that dull, +dead, velvety sky overhead was like nothing as much as the darkness +Preston produced.</p> + +<p>Schaaf did not know what Preston had done now, or how he had done it, +but that Preston was responsible he was sure.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>There was a sudden blaring of horns down in the street. Minutes later, +the clang of the elevator door outside the apartment. Then the doorbell.</p> + +<p>Schaaf opened the door cautiously, with Hines's service revolver in +the pocket of his dressing-gown pointed and ready. There were men in +uniform in the hall, with only two figures in civilian clothes, one +of whom carried a tripod and camera. Schaaf fixed those two with a +distinctly unpleasant expression.</p> + +<p>"Grab those two persons, please," he said shortly, "and bring them +inside here. Inspector Hines will talk in a fery few seconds."</p> + +<p>Hines hung up, smiling grimly, as they all crowded within. He nodded.</p> + +<p>"That was Kathryn," he said briefly. "Thanks, Schaaf!"</p> + +<p>The words said little. The tone said a great deal. Schaaf rumbled in +his beard and indicated the sputtering civilians. One of them was +snarling. Hines regarded them with a grim meditativeness.</p> + +<p>"Who are these two men?" he asked softly.</p> + +<p>"Lookin' for you, sir," said a sergeant of police, woodenly. "When +Professor Schaaf called up for a detail to come up at once, sir, he +said you were in danger. And these men were just asking for you at the +switchboard downstairs, sir, and they tried to bolt—"</p> + +<p>"I'm a reporter for the <i>Messenger</i>," snapped one of the two angrily, +"and this man is one of our staff photographers. There's some talk that +Preston's back of the sun not rising, and we came here to ask—"</p> + +<p>Hines nodded pleasantly.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said softly. "But reporters don't talk like that. If you were +really a reporter you'd say, 'I'm from the <i>Messenger</i>' or maybe that +you were 'on the <i>Messenger</i>,' but never that you were a reporter 'for +the <i>Messenger</i>'. Never! Search 'em, sergeant!"</p> + +<p>A search of the suddenly blaspheming man disclosed a pair of heavy +automatics and no newspaper credentials whatever. The supposed +photographer yielded the same, with a pair of brass knuckles as +additional armament.</p> + +<p>Hines smiled.</p> + +<p>"It looks as if you two men came from Preston. You may be interested +to hear that the attempt to kidnap Miss Bush has failed, and the taxi +driver who waited below for her has been pinched. He's going to talk. +Are you two going to tell what you know?"</p> + +<p>The pseudo-reporter snarled and shut his lips tightly. He stared +meaningly at the other man. The other man shook his head. Hines watched +the by-play.</p> + +<p>"Sergeant, I seem to remember that you were on the bomb squad +once. That camera seems to be unusually heavy. Suppose you open it +up—carefully?"</p> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""> + <div class="caption"> + <p><i>With infinite care he removed the pear-shaped bomb.</i></p> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<p>The sergeant lifted the camera, turned it this way and that, and began +to use a penknife. He handled the thing gingerly after the first two or +three incisions. Minutes later, with a grunt of satisfaction, he laid +down a pear-shaped bomb upon the table. Dangling from it there was the +exposure device, which here evidently functioned as a means of setting +it off.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The two men in civilian clothes regarded the thing in gray-faced +stupefaction. Hines looked at them. One of them tried to speak, and +could not.</p> + +<p>"You see," said Hines shortly, "it's a bomb. If you'd pulled the +trigger, it would have blown us all to bits. But especially you. If I +know Preston, he told you it was some kind of gun. Eh?"</p> + +<p>The photographer croaked, abandoning all pose of innocence: "He tol' us +it was a trick machine gun, an' if we sprayed y' wit' it—"</p> + +<p>"At a guess," said Hines dryly, "it's combined high explosive and +poison gas. That would seem logical. If I wasn't killed by the +explosion, the gas would get me. You two men would be finished either +way. A much better bet than a machine gun.... How much were you to get +for standing behind this thing and setting it off?"</p> + +<p>The pseudo-reporter cursed horribly.</p> + +<p>"Ten grand, damn his soul!" he raged. "And him sending us to bump +ourselves off—"'</p> + +<p>"I'll give you ten grand," said Hines evenly, "for the dope on where to +find him. Ten grand, and immunity."</p> + +<p>"All I know," said the photographer hoarsely, "is he give us five grand +ahead o' time an' said we'd get the rest if we croaked yuh. We don't +know where he's at. We seen him yesterday in Brooklyn."</p> + +<p>"Right," said Hines. "Tell me where and when you saw him, and you go +clear."</p> + +<p>The two men gave an address, and, to a second question, the time of +their talk. Hines went to the telephone and asked for a number.</p> + +<p>"All right, sergeant," he said impatiently, while he waited. "Turn 'em +loose. And you two men remember there's ten grand in it for you if you +get him. There's that much for anybody that gets him. And you'll get +well taken care of if you tip off the man who gets him. Clear out!"</p> + +<p>The two men stumbled to the door, too much shaken by the knowledge that +they had been intended to blow themselves to bits, to be incredulous +about their release.</p> + +<p>Hines got his connection, in Brooklyn. He ordered a raid at once, with +a succinct statement that Preston—who was sufficiently well known by +name to the police and the nation at large—had been there the day +before. He stood up.</p> + +<p>"Why did you turn them loose?" demanded Schaaf irritably.</p> + +<p>The doorbell rang. Hires nodded to a policeman to open it, and said +dryly:</p> + +<p>"Those two men spreading that offer and news of Preston's double +crossing are a lot more useful out of jail than in.... What 've we got +here?"</p> + +<p>Three messenger boys had arrived simultaneously with sheafs of +telegrams, radios, and cables. The extraordinary nightfall had been +reasoned out in six nations as possibly an extension of certain +previous events in the United States. The cables were mostly addressed +to Schaaf, and were from every variety of scientific body and +government authority, reporting the sudden falling of darkness and +asking if he could explain its cause or possible duration.</p> + +<p>Schaaf opened the first of them and swore. He opened more, and +swore more luridly. He was sputtering German profanity in a steady +stream before he reached the end of them. He looked up, still in his +dressing-gown and slippers, and with his blond beard bristling in every +direction, to find the room empty of police and Hines hunched over the +telephone, talking quietly.</p> + +<p>"Better get some clothes on, Schaaf," said Hines. "Kathryn's coming +over here. We're going down to my office."</p> + +<p>Schaaf scowled at him.</p> + +<p>"Hines," he said hopelessly, "der <i>verdammt</i> scoundrel has cofered +der whole world with darkness! I know what it is, of course. Fife to +fifteen miles up in der air, all ofer der earth, there is a layer of +ionization. It is der Heaviside Layer, which raises der deffil with +wireless telegraphy. Breston has somehow managed to penetrate it, and +he has filled it with an electric field which makes der air <i>no longer +transparent</i>. Der whole world is in darkness, and there is no way +in which we can possibly locate der sending-station. Because he has +practically charged der entire roof of der world with darkness. What +are we going to do?"</p> + +<p>Hines grinned.</p> + +<p>"I've already got him located within a couple of hundred miles," he +said dryly. "Get busy finding out what he's got, and I'll find where he +is, and together we'll settle him."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> + + +<h3>TO STEAL A WORLD.</h3> + + +<p>The morning passed in unbroken darkness. Traffic thickened, grew dense, +and thinned out again. Two million people, balked of information from +the usual sources, were asking two other million people what they +thought about the darkness, and the second two million were telling the +first that they didn't know what to make of it, but so-and-so was going +down to the office and there was no use being docked for absence.</p> + +<p>Crowds filled the subway platforms and the elevated trains, and other +crowds swarmed up and down from the rapid-transit stations and split up +into infinitesimal fragments which coalesced at the entrances to office +buildings, and always the topic of conversation was the extraordinary, +inexplicable continuation of night.</p> + +<p>Modern civilized man, however, pays the very minimum of attention to +the natural part of his environment. There are literally hundreds of +thousands of people in New York who are outdoors less than one hour in +twenty-four. To those people the absence of daylight was an extremely +trivial matter. Something to be puzzled about and something to ask +questions about, but not especially anything to be worried about.</p> + +<p>In the lesser cities of the United States, of course, the darkness +loomed more largely. In the small towns it was a matter of immediate +and overwhelming importance. In the villages it produced apprehension +bordering on panic. On the farms it was stark tragedy. But on the whole +the matter was taken with a surprising calmness. If it was a precarious +sort of composure, likely to break into mob hysteria at any moment, it +was nevertheless composure.</p> + +<p>But the darkness held for hour after hour, unbroken and menacing. Ten +o'clock arrived. Half past ten. Eleven. The sky remained a jetty black. +The temperature of the air fell below the daunting chill which normally +fills the small hours before dawn.</p> + +<p>People in the offices and factories had worked almost gayly at first, +taking the use of artificial light in daytime as a sort of adventure. +But as time went on and the unwontedly protracted night continued, +little groups gathered at windows, staring out uneasily.</p> + +<p>The interchange of questions about the darkness ceased to be jocular. +The adventure became serious. Concern deepened to apprehension. More +and more offices were quietly closed for the day. More and more +factories announced a holiday. A stream of homeward-bound folk began to +crowd the elevated trains and subways.</p> + +<p>The newspaper extras were late in getting out, and Hines, cooperating +and conferring with the Washington authorities, was responsible. He had +put police on guard at the publishing offices, and would not let one +copy of the newspapers leave the publishing plants until he had made +provision for the public reaction.</p> + +<p>The subway and elevated lines needed to be prepared for a monster +homeward rush. Traffic squads needed to be reinforced. The reserves +of the police department posted themselves at strategic points, the +elevated and subway lines prepared for a jam, and the Newspapers were +unleashed. All over the city a chorus of voices was upraised, crying +extra editions. In ten thousand office buildings the elevators became +jammed with folk going down to buy them. And the subway tunnels roared +and rumbled with empty trains rushing down town to carry back the mob +that within minutes would be fighting for places.</p> + +<p>The newspapers were much alike, though Kathryn Bush's story in the +<i>Star</i> was naturally the one which gave the fullest account. All the +papers, however, had reasonably complete accounts of the phenomenon. +This was no time to play favorites. And nearly all of them printed +Schaaf's explanation in full. He had lectured for nearly half an hour +in Hines's office at police headquarters, and his explanation—though +given so promptly—still holds good.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"Last year," said Schaaf, "there was a sudden flood of darkness on +Fifth Avenue, and there were many robberies. Hines and myself, we +discovered that a deffil named Breston had done it. He had learned +that under der influence of certain fery short Hertzian wafes, der +air ceases to be transparent. Actually, it was der phenomenon of +der fluorescence of der ionized bodies in der atmosphere, when they +absorbed all der fisible colors of light and emitted infisible ones +instead.</p> + +<p>"Der essential thing is that der air is opaque, there is no light. Now, +three times, so far, those short short wafes haff been used. Once on +Fifth Afenue. Once der whole city was made dark. Some few months ago +Breston created a storm in der Catskill Mountains by means of der fact +that when der air is no longer transparent it absorbs der heat of der +sun, becomes hot, and rises in huge folumes." All this, of course, was +ancient history. Everybody knew it. The Storm That Had to be Stopped +was one of the most distressing catastrophes in the history of the +United States.</p> + +<p>"Now, at der time of der Storm," Schaaf went on bitterly, "when we +got to der sending-station which sent out der short short wafes, we +blew it to pieces and der storm stopped. But der apparatus for making +those short short wafes had had thermit and explosifes placed about +it so that it was destroyed. Breston did that. Also we found der body +of a man, burned with der explosifes and der thermit. Der newspapers +printed that it was the body of Breston. We hoped it was so. But later +infestigation profed that it was not. Breston is fife feet three inches +tall. Der dead body was fife feet nine inches tall.</p> + +<p>"For months past, Inspector Hines has been defoting all his time to a +search for Breston. And I haff worked on der problem of combating der +short wafes. <i>Himmel!</i> How I haff worked! But in both cases, Breston +has so far kept ahead of us. This morning's darkness is of Breston's +contrifance. But we haff licked him three times before, we will lick +him again, and anything that he says to der contrary is banana oil!"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>So far, Schaaf was quoted verbatim. But the rest of his lecture was +expanded in most of the papers, because Schaaf's mixture of technical +terms and slang was confusing. The essence of his explanation, though, +was very simple.</p> + +<p>To make the earth's whole atmosphere opaque would have required +millions of billions of horse-power. But far above the surface of the +earth the Heaviside Layer in the atmosphere seemed as if made for +Preston's purposes. From five to fifteen miles up there is an abrupt +change in the characteristics of the air. At that height there is a +layer of highly ionized air, markedly electrically conducting, which +spreads over the whole earth. Schaaf likened it to a roof of conducting +metal over the whole earth.</p> + +<p>It was clear that if the short short waves of Preston's discovery could +be introduced into that conducting layer of the atmosphere, they would +spread out over the whole earth with but little loss of power. Five +thousand horse-power would do it.</p> + +<p>"Der thing we do not yet understand," said Schaaf, "is how Breston +manages to introduce his short short wafes into der Heaviside Layer. We +will find it out, fery shortly. Breston cannot bring der darkness down +to der surface of der earth, because he can haff power enough to darken +only a small part of it, and der moment he does that we locate him, +and when we locate him we kill him. And sooner or later we locate him +anyhow!"</p> + +<p>His expressed optimism was not altogether unfeigned, of course. He +had the desperate certitude of a man who simply dares not admit +the possibility of failure. At the moment that the newspapers were +blazoning his announcement on their front pages, Schaaf was actually in +something close to despair.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Long, explorative fingers of light were poking upward toward the sky, +from warships anchored in the harbor. Half a dozen giant ships of +the Atlantic Fleet were in port. Army tanks had been loaned Hines to +destroy Preston's storm-making apparatus, and all the resources of +the government, of course, would be used to restore sunlight to the +world again. The harbor was smoothly rippling, almost oily on its +surface. Long lights glimmered on its waves. Then, suddenly, from the +flagship of the fleet there came three or four staccato detonations. +Seconds later there were thin crackling explosions high overhead. The +searchlights shot back and forth, searching the roof over the world.</p> + +<p>A little later, three or four more explosions. After a longer interval, +brittle detonations high above. The searchlights moved restlessly over +the ebon ceiling of the earth. And still again came the sharp sound of +an anti-aircraft gun firing at an empty sky.</p> + +<p>The searchlights followed a thin thread of whitish vapor upward. It +stretched like a kite-string toward the sky. It was the trail of +tracer-smoke left by the anti-aircraft shell.</p> + +<p>Blinkers began to operate on the ships. A man on shore spoke crisply +into a telephone.</p> + +<p>Schaaf got the message, frowning bitterly in his despair.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I haff it. Thank you."</p> + +<p>He was in Hines's office, waiting for the information. An anti-aircraft +gun had fired time-fused shells to burst at progressively greater +heights. The shell which burst at an elevation of forty-two thousand +feet had been unseen, because its cloud of smoke had been formed inside +the now opaque Heaviside Layer of the atmosphere. The layer of darkness +which kept the whole world deep in night was eight miles above the +surface.</p> + +<p>"What can we do, Hines?" demanded Schaaf in despair. "Can we send an +afiator up eight miles to do intricate obserfations with delicate +apparatus? We cannot. Then how are we going to locate der point of +dissemination of der <i>verdammt</i> darkness-producing wafes?" Hines held +up his hand, spoke quietly into a telephone. He was deathly pale, but +Schaaf was too excited to notice it.</p> + +<p>"We're coming along pretty well," said Hines grimly, "except that +you've still got to find out more about Preston's weapons. I think I +know, roughly, where he is."</p> + +<p>Schaaf sat up and blinked.</p> + +<p>"It's been apparent from the first that when we do locate Preston we +have everything in our favor. We have an army we can fling against him, +on land. We have aircraft to attack him by air. We can send the shells +from fourteen-inch guns against him from the sea. He knows all that."</p> + +<p>Schaaf ran his fingers through his beard. "Shoot der works," he said +harassedly.</p> + +<p>"The President received a letter from him telling what his demands are +going to be. Other governments have got similar letters. He's fighting +the whole world, and he knows it. What weapons has he got?"</p> + +<p>"Darkness," said Schaaf bitterly, "and storms, and a total lack of +humanity."</p> + +<p>"And we have all the other weapons. Where can he defend himself, with +the weapons he has, if we do locate him?"</p> + +<p>Schaaf scratched his chin, underneath his beard.</p> + +<p>"Wherefer he is. Tell me, Hines."</p> + +<p>"If he's on an island," said Hines, "he can't be attacked by an army. +If he can blind any ship within twenty or thirty miles by making all +the atmosphere—not only the Heaviside Layer—opaque to light, no ship +can navigate to that island. And if he cuts the darkness on the rest +of the world, he can make a storm that will sink any ship or wreck any +aircraft in the world."</p> + +<p>"He is on an island!" said Schaaf instantly.</p> + +<p>"Of course he is on an island! But where?"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"He gave himself away," said Hines grimly. "He talked to his assassins, +in Brooklyn, just fourteen hours before the darkness went on. And he +wouldn't trust anybody else to work an affair the size of this, so he's +at his darkness plant. At most he's not more than twelve hours from New +York. More probably only ten. And the last eleven of those hours were +night hours, and there are no night-flying passenger air lines out of +the metropolitan district now. He traveled by train or boat or motor +car. Averaging, he's not more than four hundred miles from New York if +he made the longest part of his journey by train or car. He's probably +not less than two hundred, for reasons of discretion. Here's a map. +Draw the two circles—two hundred miles and four hundred miles away. +We can block off the land between the circles. He isn't there. We can +block off the area where there are no islands. If he needs to make a +storm, he'll want to be on an island, not a steamer."</p> + +<p>Schaaf looked at the area that was left.</p> + +<p>"Der Maine coast!"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Hines. "And now remember he wants an island well +out at sea so storms can sweep clear around it, and one that's +fairly isolated, so he could have built his plant without attracting +attention."</p> + +<p>Schaaf scrutinized the map with painstaking care.</p> + +<p>"Hm. This little speck looks promising, Hines."</p> + +<p>Hines said grimly, "The police of all New England have been questioning +fishermen. I mentioned that island especially. Only one man has been +near it recently. He was ordered off by guards who told him a rich man +had bought it and was making a summer home on it. And so I've checked +up, and it hasn't been sold, and the present owner knows nothing about +guards there. And also, it isn't a rum-runner's rendezvous. What does +that add up to?"</p> + +<p>"Plenty!" said Schaaf exuberantly. "I take off der hat. I make der +grand salaam! Now we go there and haff a <i>Schrecklichkeit</i> party; wait +until night, because we do not want to haff him start a storm. And we +line up der Nafy, and they take der sights, and there is a signal, and +<i>bam</i>, <i>pow</i>, <i>biff</i>, and he is blooey! Blown off der map!"</p> + +<p>Hines looked at Schaaf. And for the first time Schaaf saw how pale his +friend was. His face was like a mask. He reached over his desk and +tossed Schaaf a little envelope.</p> + +<p>"I was to be married to-day," said Hines steadily. "Preston's men tried +to kidnap Kathryn this morning, just as they tried to blow the two of +us to bits. We beat the assassins, and Kathryn, thanks to you, Schaaf, +escaped the trap that was set for her. We've been busy ever since. She +wrote the account for the extra edition of the Star. We postponed our +wedding as a matter of course."</p> + +<p>Schaaf said suddenly, "Gott! Hines, you look like der deffil!"</p> + +<p>"You blocked one attempt to kidnap Kathryn," repeated Hines evenly. +"She went to the office of the Star. And another attempt was made three +hours ago. The one thing she didn't expect was another attempt to +kidnap her, made in exactly the same fashion as the first. This time it +succeeded. Kathryn's disappeared. And I had a telegram from his man, +sent from here in New York, saying that he's taking her direct to his +headquarters. So she'll be killed if we kill Preston."</p> + +<p>Hines moistened his lips and said with difficulty, "The—thing—that +makes it bad is that we were to have been married to-day."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + + +<h3>THE LONGEST NIGHT IN HISTORY.</h3> + + +<p>The lights of the city glowed in long, long rows. The whiter arc-lights +on the Jersey side of the Hudson glittered more palely, but all lights +shone bright, in the longest night in history. The gigantic electric +signs flamed their advertising slogans for the world to admire at three +o'clock in the afternoon. The Hudson River day boat came downstream as +a glittering mass of lights. Her searchlight shot out and she docked by +its rays. There was a deep-toned roaring on the surface of the river. +Another. A third. A fourth motor added its roaring hum to the din. +Then the four roaring noises swept swiftly across the harbor waves and +lifted suddenly, and rose into the darkness that overlay the world. +Tiny navigation lights flashed on, and drifted across the empty black +sky where sun or moon or stars should have been. They headed out toward +Long Island Sound and vanished.</p> + +<p>The city, left behind, went valorously on about its business. At +three in the afternoon of the day that the sun did not rise, New York +was perhaps typical of the whole civilized world. The more savage +territories of the planet were sunk in panic, and pagan gods were +passionately besought to give back the sun to the world again. In China +the shrines were filled with the sounds of gongs and firecrackers. In +Soviet Siberia long-neglected chapels resounded to cries of "<i>Hospodi +pomilui!</i>" Everywhere that men had temples, those temples were swarming +masses of terror-stricken suppliants, pleading for the sun to come back +again.</p> + +<p>But New York was more typical of the more scientifically minded +Occident. In one sense the terror was more acute, because New York had +had bitter and-repeated experience of Preston and his works. But Hines +and Schaaf had said there was no more danger, that Preston had done his +worst.</p> + +<p>New York had learned, by now, that they knew what they were talking +about. Therefore, while there was not complete confidence in their +ability to beat Preston again, there was a definite knowledge of the +cause of the darkness and a definite idea that the source of the +darkness was being attacked. So that New York was frightened but +hopeful; terrified, but not panic-stricken because of its belief in +Hines and Schaaf.</p> + +<p>People in New York, too, had no clear idea of the magnitude of the +disaster that impended. As long as artificial light could be used, the +average New Yorker considered the matter a nuisance and a cause for +alarm, but no immediately dangerous matter.</p> + +<p>He read his newspapers avidly, and the statements issued by various +scientists consulted by the newspapers struck him as melodramatic in +the same way that his newspaper headlines were always melodramatic. But +he considered them quite as remote from his own life as his morning +torch-fiend narratives.</p> + +<p>The darkness was, however, a serious matter enough. Leaving aside the +matter of illumination from the sun, the earth was receiving only +one-fourth its normal daily supply of solar heat. The layer of darkness +intercepted the rest. True, the part of the earth that should have been +dark was losing less than its usual nightly amount of heat by radiation +into interstellar space, but matters were bad enough anyhow.</p> + +<p>The equator was receiving no more heat from the sun than southern +Greenland normally receives. New York was receiving less than is normal +at the north pole itself. Only the fact that the stored up warmth of +the earth's surface layers was being lost very slowly, prevented an +immediate drop to below zero temperatures.</p> + +<p>But by three o'clock in the afternoon, when the four seaplanes took +off for a search of the Maine coast, the official thermometer in the +Meteorological Bureau of New York City showed forty-four degrees +Fahrenheit—twelve degrees above freezing. The nearness of the ocean +with its vast supplies of stored heat had prevented a greater drop.</p> + +<p>Inland, the temperature fall was greater yet. A heavy snow was falling +in Cleveland. In Butte. Montana, zero had actually been reached. It was +not at all difficult to compute a progressive temperature loss which +would average twenty degrees a day after the first twenty-four hours, +and in one week would make the normally temperate zones uninhabitable +and permit of glacier formation in the Panama Canal Zone.</p> + +<p>In the face of such figures as this, estimates that two weeks' darkness +would destroy all planted crops and cause inescapable famine, seemed +hardly worth worrying about. Agricultural experts were pointing out +that unless Preston was defeated or his terms met, the world would +starve to death. Sunlight is essential to vegetable growth, on which +all life depends. But such fears, as a few physicists recognized +grimly, were quite needless. Long before that catastrophe came about, +mankind would not need to worry about planted crops. Long before the +world went hungry, it would have frozen to death.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Schaaf was sunk in a bitter gloom as the four planes roared northward. +Big planes, they were. Three Navy bombers, carrying flares and bombs +and radio, and the multi-passenger flying transport which carried Hines +and Schaaf and an impressive array of apparatus for measurements and +photography.</p> + +<p>The glow against the black sky, which was New York, faded away +against the horizon. Only, there was no horizon. Little pin-pricks of +light showed beneath the speeding ships. There were three men in the +transport beside Hines and Schaaf. The pilot and his relief, and a +radio operator who spoke from time to time to the pilot.</p> + +<p>Schaaf saw Hines looking at him and said gloomily, "We are doing radio +nafigation. I haff nefer been so helpless; I know more about Breston's +apparatus than anybody else in der world—and I do not know der +beginning of it! How does he get his wafes into der Heaviside Layer? +How does he do it?"</p> + +<p>Hines shrugged. His face was a mask, dead white and quite +expressionless.</p> + +<p>"They must have got Kathryn through," he said irrelevantly. "I had a +cordon out that I didn't think a fly could break through. Every road, +every bypath covered. There was a destroyer fleet out of Boston, too, +to pick up any launch. But they got her through. I don't know how."</p> + +<p>Schaaf said helplessly.</p> + +<p>"What are we going to do, Hines? Tell me!"</p> + +<p>Hines spoke tonelessly, without expression.</p> + +<p>"Preston found out his power by accident. At first, I suppose, he +merely thought of getting rich by helping out in robberies. But then he +found he could manipulate the stock market by turning on the dark. He +tried that, and found he could make storms. And now—you know his terms +for making the sun shine again?"</p> + +<p>"They haff not been made public," growled Schaaf, "and I haff been +busy."</p> + +<p>"He demands the submission of all the nations of the earth. He is +to be Emperor of Earth—or he'll let the earth freeze until the +survivors make him their emperor." Hines shrugged. "He has some +involved conditions. Every living man to swear allegiance. Some trick +arrangement by which he'll always have a corps of his gangsters about +a darkness-transmitter somewhere, to keep the world cowed... Of course +nobody is thinking of accepting his terms while there's a chance to +fight. But there isn't much time."</p> + +<p>"If he is on that Metinic Island," growled Schaaf, "we can mass +artillery and ships and blow der whole damned thing to bits."</p> + +<p>Hines fumbled for a cigar and smiled drearily. "Isn't it funny? Kathryn +and I were to have been married to-day, and I'm massing artillery to +blow Preston to bits—and she'll be blown to bits with him."</p> + +<p>Schaaf swallowed something.</p> + +<p>"Hines! <i>Gott</i>, Hines, I am sorry!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be," said Hines. "I'm going to be on that island when it's +destroyed by shell fire. So don't be sorry for me."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The planes flew steadily on through the darkness. Snow swirled about +them for a while, and ceased. This was the afternoon of May the +fifth. On the earth below, people were gazing hopelessly up at the +sky of ebony. All over the world there was despair, as varied in its +expression as the people who expressed it.</p> + +<p>In Alabama, farmers moved along their cornfield rows with lanterns, +watching the young shoots turning black with frost. There was frost as +far south as Havana. In the western mountains, dry land farmers motored +to the edges of mountain streams that had begun to flow freely. Now +they were trickles again, flowing ever more slowly beneath a thickening +shell of ice.</p> + +<p>Men cursed the black sky that would not let the sun's warmth through. +There was beach ice on the Great Lakes. A borax prospector in Death +Valley saw by a thick miner's candle that there was a deposit of hoar +frost even in that unbelievable place.</p> + +<p>Everywhere human beings began to realize that darkness was not the +worst of the evils upon them. The world was growing colder and ever +colder beneath its sky of black. It was a dark world whose inky +obscurity was broken only by the tiny yellow flames where yet hoping or +desperately enduring people comforted themselves by the light it seemed +would never come down from the sky again.</p> + +<p>But the wild things had no comfort. Those creatures of the night which +prey on others, at first moved freely. Bats soared in their erratic +fashion until the increasing cold set them hunting their caves again. +Owls swept abroad on noiseless wings. And some—not many—of the +four-footed animals crawled or crept or slithered upon their private +businesses.</p> + +<p>But the other things lay hidden. Songbirds crouched in their nests +while the night hung on interminably and the air grew icy. Little +nestlings roused and chirped querulously from hunger. But night still +remained. The age-old instincts, bred of terror, held the old birds +still, though their young ones starved. And besides, to have left the +nests after the cold increased would be to let the featherless young +ones freeze.</p> + +<p>There were very many small, bewildered tragedies in woods and forests +and jungles while the darkness held.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Four planes roared on, ever northward, in their quest of the island +where Preston had his stronghold. Gradually, the three bombers dropped +down toward the earth. Gradually, the transport plane climbed. And then +a signal came by radio. Schaaf grew tense and watchful. Hines grew grim +and still, staring at the world of darkness all below. And then, quite +suddenly, there was a vast, blinding glare below. A bomber had dropped +a flare.</p> + +<p>The sky above remained like ebony. The sea remained like ink. But +there was a line of surf upon the sea, and an enormous glare beneath a +swaying parachute, and three huge bombing planes in silhouette against +a world all black and white.</p> + +<p>Hines stared downward through powerful binoculars, focusing them quite +calmly on the land beyond the surf.</p> + +<p>"I see a man—two men, running," he said steadily.</p> + +<p>The first ball of fire was dropping swiftly. A second bloomed suddenly, +farther on. An island was made clearly visible. An irregular, jagged +shape, outlined by surf, with here and there a streak of white sand. +Schaaf put his glasses to his eyes, and the earth seemed to leap toward +him. Low, squat structures of a curiously ungainly form. A bowl-shaped +apparatus ten feet or more across, made of wires which glittered in the +unbearable light. And one other, incredible thing...</p> + +<p>Schaaf blinked, and swore, and then shouted.</p> + +<p>"I haff it!"</p> + +<p>From the enter of the island a column of solid, jetty black reared +upward toward the sky. It was opaque, solid-seeming, and utterly black. +It looked like the drooping tentacle of some colossal waterspout, +anchored and moored. It looked like a throbbing hose through which +darkness was being pumped upward to discolor the sky.</p> + +<p>Schaaf babbled.</p> + +<p>"Four-centimeter wafes! He has got der four-centimeter wafes! Oh, der +clefer scoundrel! Der <i>verdammt</i> clefer scoundrel!"</p> + +<p>On the island three men were running toward the bowl-shaped apparatus +of wires. A third flare blazed vividly. In the big ship seven thousand +feet up the aircraft camera clicked steadily, exposing plates and +changing them and exposing more. The radio operator was working his key +feverishly.</p> + +<p>The three bombing planes circled and soared over the island. A fourth +flare filled the world with light. And suddenly one of the monster +flying things down below wheeled in its flight and dived savagely.</p> + +<p>"Difing for der blackness-beam!" panted Schaaf. "Difing—"</p> + +<p>Three men were working frantically about the bowl-shaped apparatus +on the ground. The giant bomber showed clearly for an instant, as if +poised before its suicidal dash against the apparently solid column of +blackness reaching upward to the sky. It shot into that blackness—</p> + +<p>The sky split open!</p> + +<p>From horizon to horizon lurid flames flashed into being. The sea and +the island and all the world was lit by an unbearable, a terrific +glare. It seemed as if all the world were being destroyed in one vast +explosion, the steam and fumes of which had already mounted colossally +toward the zenith.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>But there was no blast of sound. The sky closed once more. There was +utter silence save for the loud droning of the motors outside the cabin +of the big plane. Far below, three magnesium flares glittered brightly.</p> + +<p>"Gawd!" said the radio operator, awed, "What was that?"</p> + +<p>Hines said dryly: "That was daylight, my friend. The sunlight and +clouds. That was what we expect to see for twelve hours every day."</p> + +<p>Schaaf was muttering, while he rubbed his light-dazed eyes: "There was +four thousand kilowatts in that beam. What happened?"</p> + +<p>He peered down again. There was a sudden flaring upward of lurid yellow +flames. The bomber that had dived into the darkness-beam had crashed, +now, and was burning fiercely on a narrow beach.</p> + +<p>"Get der other ships away!" snapped Schaaf suddenly. "Recall them! And +we haff to go like der deffil! Quick!"</p> + +<p>But he was too late. The bowl-shaped contrivance of glittering wires +moved suddenly. A beam of blackness shot out from it. That blackness +swept upward and enveloped a burning flare. The flare went out. The +beam of darkness swept on, and the flare was a dripping, swiftly +falling mass of tiny yellow sparks. The beam swung sharply to one +of the two remaining bombers. The plane dived and dodged, but the +darkness caught it, enveloped it. The bomber dropped crazily out of the +blackness, spitting sparks and burning. It crashed into the sea.</p> + +<p>The third bomber was racing for safety. The beam shot toward it, and +when it careened wildly to escape, expanded widely. It became an +apparently solid object a hundred yards across. It closed over the +bomber, and there was a terrific explosion. When the beam died away +there was no falling, burning wreck. There was only a rain of small +particles of debris.</p> + +<p>"Go like der deffil!" snapped Schaaf. "Cut off der motors and glide! We +haff to carry der news back. And for der lofe of Gott, do not use der +radio! He will pick it up and we are geflooey!"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + + +<h3>FIGHTING BACK.</h3> + + +<p>Hines sat at a telephone in Portland, and things began to move. He +called Boston, and long, lean, greyhound-like ships with many funnels +slipped their moorings and slid smoothly out to sea. Three cruisers +raised steam and went after them. And there was vast activity in the +Navy yard, and presently an old harbor-defense monitor went staggering +gamely after the more modern ships.</p> + +<p>He called New York, and trains were shunted swiftly here and there, and +there were shouted orders and the rattling of accouterments and much +profanity; then flatcars with squat, ungainly-wheeled shapes upon them +rolled out of the city bound northward. They traveled at the speed of +the fastest express trains, and passenger flyers were sidetracked to +let them pass.</p> + +<p>Hines called here and there, and everywhere there were swift and +deadly preparations for action. At Newport, two battalions of Marines +entrained with an astounding celerity. At other scattered cities other +fighting men and fighting machines made ready. Three howitzer batteries +were bumping at top speed over the rails to Maine. Two twelve-inch guns +with railroad mountings formed a racing special train with cars of +shells and their gun crews.</p> + +<p>All the preparations were Hines's doing, and he explained his orders +as he gave them in the manner of a man who does not expect to survive +their carrying out. Metinic Island was no more than six miles from an +accessible part of the mainland. Artillery will range that distance +easily. Within two hours after Hines's return from the reconnaissance +flight in which three bombing planes were lost, artillery officers +had reached the future firing-point by plane and were marking out +gun-emplacements and swearing at the inadequacy of the local maps.</p> + +<p>Hines's plan was to mass artillery in such quantity and with such a +supply of ammunition that Preston's headquarters could be smothered +under a rain of explosives. One field gun to ten yards of target can +keep that target under an adequate barrage fire. No man can live in the +open under such a hail of death. But in addition there would be the +warships. Four super-dreadnaughts, three cruisers, and a monitor would +pound the island. Three hours before dawn there would be over twenty +guns of twelve and fourteen-inch caliber trained upon the island, and +upward of thirty eight-inch rifles to assist. Nothing should be able +to live on the surface or beneath it, however deep the dugouts Preston +might have prepared. Hines was grimly calculating that within three +minutes of the opening of fire every square foot of earth upon the +island should have been plowed up by explosives. And Kathryn was there. +She must be.</p> + +<p>It looked perfect, however, from the standpoint of destruction. The +resources of one regional department of the Army would be at hand +before dawn. The Navy would have its ships at hand with shotted +guns. The air would be alive with flying craft. A signal; a blast of +cannon-fire; a terrific, long-continued battering, and Metinic Island +should disappear forever.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It did look perfect. Too perfect, considering that Preston knew what +to expect now. Schaaf paced nervously back and forth as Hines gave his +orders.</p> + +<p>"He has something up his sleefe, Hines," he said irritably. "He has +taken plenty from der cuffs, but he has something more."</p> + +<p>Hines relaxed deliberately, with an effort.</p> + +<p>"What has he got?'</p> + +<p>"He has four-centimeter wafes," said Schaaf desperately. "They explain +nearly eferything. It was calculated a year and a half ago that der +death-ray of der imaginatif nofelists is theoretically impossible. +But if a man makes Hertzian wafes of four centimeters frequency, he +has der world by der tail. All der armies haff been trying to make +them, because it can be proofed by mathematics that in der path of a +beam of four-centimeter wafes der air will be a conductor der same as +metal. Breston has them. He has sent a beam of them straight up to der +Heaviside Layer. And his short wafes that make der air opaque, they +trafel along der four-centimeter beam until they hit der Layer. There +they spread out. So much is simple. Der bomber that was destroyed when +we went to look simply difed through a beam of four-centimeter wafes +that was carrying four thousand kilowatts of Breston's prifate short +short wafes up to der Heaviside Layer. It is no wonder it crashed!</p> + +<p>"Der thing that destroyed der other bombers is just as simple. A beam +of der same conducting wafes, with darkness in it so they could see to +aim it, and high-frequency current shot into it at der critical moment. +A plane in a beam of those four-centimeter wafes is just like a plane +touching a power-transmission line. If der frequency is high enough, +there is no need of a ground wire to electrocute efery man on board. +Der whole plane starts sparking, it bursts into flame and der bombs +explode. That is what he has used!"</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Hines drearily, "if he can use it on the artillery?"</p> + +<p>Schaaf shrugged. He resumed his impatient pacing up and down the room.</p> + +<p>"But he has something else up der sleefe. I know he has something else +up der sleefe. It is too easy! Much too easy!"</p> + +<p>The clocks announced seven o'clock. Eight. Nine o'clock. Reports began +to come in. Artillery units had arrived, were digging in. A battery of +field 'guns was ready to fire.</p> + +<p>Nine thirty: Two guns of a howitzer section were ready to fire. One +naval gun on a railroad mounting was in position.</p> + +<p>Ten: All the howitzers were ready to fire. The cruisers were in +position and the battleships were coming up. Destroyers had ventured +into the dense mass of darkness that hung about the island. The +darkness was nearly a circle, six miles across. One of the destroyers +came scuttling out with flames pouring from it. It reached the clear +air and was aflame from end to end. It floated, a lurid torch, while +its crew was taken off. It blew up and sank at eleven ten precisely.</p> + +<p>At eleven thirty the basket-mast of a battle cruiser glowed red, +halfway up its height, and its separate steel rods bent and buckled, +and then cooled off again, leaving the fighting-top careened crazily +over at right angles and far out over the ship's side.</p> + +<p>"Breston is trying to fight," said Schaaf shortly. "He is swinging der +beam of four-centimeter wafes around and shooting all der juice he +can supply into it. It happened to hit der fighting-mast. The beam is +infisible now. Since he cannot see what he is aiming at, he does not +want anybody else to see der beam. It is infisible death, that beam."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Hines smiled queerly. He picked up a telephone and spoke almost softly +into it.</p> + +<p>"All ready for me?... Very well. It's understood that zero hour is 3 +A.M. if the darkness is not cut before then. If it is cut, bolometer +readings are to be taken and action judged by their indications. +All ships and guns are to stand by in any event until the island is +occupied. Very well. Good luck!"</p> + +<p>He stood up and held out his hand to Schaaf.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to the island, Schaaf. Good-by."</p> + +<p>Schaaf scowled at him.</p> + +<p>"Of all der double-barreled, triple-distilled idiots I efer saw," he +said bitterly, "you are der worst! Hines, you are a <i>verdammt</i> fool! +You are going to der island—"</p> + +<p>Hines shrugged.</p> + +<p>"It's a form of suicide," he said evenly. "I know it. But that devil +has got Kathryn there. I've arranged for him to be blown off the earth. +She'll be blown up with him. We were to have been married this morning. +So I—well, I'm going to be there, too."</p> + +<p>Schaaf swore explosively in guttural German.</p> + +<p>"That is not what I am talking about!" he snapped. "That is lunacy, +yes! But der magnificent imbecility is that you think I am going to let +Breston's short-wafe outfit be blown to bits without getting a look at +it! There is a place reserfed for me in der boat that is going to der +island. Try and keep me out of it!"</p> + +<p>Hines looked steadily at Schaaf for nearly half a minute. Then he +smiled.</p> + +<p>"You're a damned liar, Schaaf. You're going because—"</p> + +<p>"Shut up!" snapped Schaaf again. He drew himself up to his full six +feet and something of whiskered blondness. "Hines, I am a damned liar, +yes! And you are a damned fool! So that makes two of us going out to be +fery unpleasantly bumped off, and if you try to talk silly sentiment I +will poke you in der eye. Come on!"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + + +<h3>THE ISLAND OF DARKNESS.</h3> + + +<p>A destroyer took the pair northward, flinging itself madly over the +dark, dark sea. After the lights of Portland vanished behind them there +was a period when the solid deck beneath seemed the only object in +existence. There was no sky, no sun, no horizon. There was no land. +There was only an invisible bulk beneath them which quivered insanely, +and a wind blowing from the oblivion before them to the oblivion +behind. There was no up, no down. One grew giddy from the sheer absence +of anything by which to orient oneself. The utter loneliness of the +dark was terrifying, because not even the sea could be seen. Even in +some imagined spaceship, isolated in empty space, there would be stars +for comfort. Here there was only nothingness.</p> + +<p>When a yellow light glowed far away and seemed like a star, it was +actually a lamp in a farmhouse window overlooking the sea. And in that +farmhouse the sense of isolation was so great as to induce hysteria. +The folk in the farmhouse were experiencing exactly the sensations +of people on a tiny fragment of earth set floating free in a cosmos +containing nothing else—nothing! Not even other worlds unthinkably +remote.</p> + +<p>It was a loneliness, a desolation, that clutched at the throat. All +through the world that same despair was descending. In the cities it +was less appalling, but on ships that steamed over invisible seas, and +in lighthouses that were always isolated and now became small hells, +and in tiny mountain cabins, and small hamlets and places innumerable, +the dread of the dark grew and grew.</p> + +<p>Some people went insane, and many grew hysterical. It is a matter of +record that folk went solemnly out of their villages and set the woods +about them on fire so that the flames and firelit smoke would give them +something to look at other than the awful blackness which lay over +the world. It was a curious aftermath of the darkness that the use of +illuminants at night was multiplied many times. But on the destroyer +these things were unknown. It swept on northward, horribly alone, +until presently lights appeared to the left, and searchlights stabbed +futilely upward, and there was a confused droning tumult over the land. +The whole air force of the Army and Navy was being massed for action, +together with the ships of a naval division and the artillery of an +army corps.</p> + +<p>Then the destroyer slackened speed, and went on into a bay where +bonfires burned brightly, and its engines stopped and its anchor-chain +clanged thunderously as it ran out. A thirty-foot cutter came +alongside, moving by oars, and made fast to the landing-ladder of the +destroyer. It waited.</p> + +<p>"Efficiency," said Hines dryly. "No time lost, Schaaf. These men are +volunteers for our forlorn hope. You know why I want to be on the +island, but I'm able to have the zero hour held off only because the +government wants to get hold of Preston's apparatus if it can. As a +military weapon. We're going to try to take the island by storm."</p> + +<p>"Der idea," observed Schaaf grimly, "is a lot of hooey."</p> + +<p>Hines said nothing. He led the way down to the boat.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Oars dipped. The cutter pulled away. A navy launch swarmed up +officiously and flung a line. Half a minute later the launch was +speeding for the blackness of the open sea and the cutter went tearing +through the water after it, squatted down astern until it seemed the +waves should come in over the gunwale.</p> + +<p>They could see little as the two boats moved, of course, but Hines +stared up at the dark shore line. Guns were massed and massing there. +Waiting and ready along a four-mile front. At one single word a storm +of steel would spring from the hungry muzzles. A hurtling, screaming +hail of death would leap upward and forward through the darkness. Six +miles away it would descend.</p> + +<p>Four miles of guns, packed as closely together as they could be brought +up by straining locomotives and racing, swearing men. Four miles of +guns concentrating on a little more than one mile of target, with the +heaviest guns of the fleet to blast away what little of the island the +shore artillery left.</p> + +<p>There was no wind save that made by the movement of the towing launch, +but that was bitter. The men on the seats of the cutter huddled down +into their greatcoats, taking it easy. A flash light signaled off to +seaward.</p> + +<p>"We're passing between some islands," said Hines evenly. "They'll cast +off when we're well on our way. The oars are muffled. If we can land on +the damned island secretly, so much the better."</p> + +<p>Five minutes, and the launch on ahead was slowing up. The men in the +cutter bestirred themselves. A man in the bow tossed the towline +overboard. The oars stretched out again. The launch swept around and +went purring softly back into the darkness.</p> + +<p>The cutter, without a word of command, began to move with the rhythmic +pulsatory effect of a rowed boat toward the utter blackness of the open +sea.</p> + +<p>"Who's in command here?" demanded Hines.</p> + +<p>"I am," said a voice. A flash light glowed through cupped fingers. A +clean-shaved and rather anxious young ensign's face could be made out.</p> + +<p>"Shoot der works," said Schaaf amiably. "What haff you done?"</p> + +<p>"I've a pair of microphones overboard," explained the young officer +nervously, "of the sort used for listening for submarines. They'll give +us the line on two launches that are working submerged sounders for us. +I can get the angles from both of them to make a course for the island +even if we are blinded. And besides, we'll be able to hear the waves on +the beach when we get near."</p> + +<p>"Clefer," said Schaaf. "Fery good."</p> + +<p>"And my men are all in linemen's boots and rubber. They're armed +with—er—the regular mopping-up equipment."</p> + +<p>"Which is?" said Schaaf encouragingly.</p> + +<p>"Why—er—grenades, automatic pistols, and automatic shotguns throwing +nine extra-sized buckshots to a shell. Also we've a couple of Lewis +guns with us. We have twenty men."</p> + +<p>"I can think of nothing you haff left out for a fine party but der +beer," said Schaaf. "You haff done excellently, sir."</p> + +<p>Oars rose and fell in a ghostlike silence. There was no splashing. +Hines had ordered a boat propelled by oars because any motor-driven +craft would be heard approaching the island. Hines had no hope of +leaving that spot of land, but he did want to land on it alive. He +fumbled for a cigar and lit it. The light of his match was the only +glow of illumination in all the world.</p> + +<p>They were far enough from shore and low enough in the water to make +any possible light invisible. The sky was wholly black. The water was +wholly black. Ahead and behind and to the right hand and the left there +was no relief from the abysmal blackness anywhere. Hines's cigar small +as was its gleam, provided a literal illumination by which the farthest +man in the bow of the boat saw the face of his seat-mate faintly +pinkened.</p> + +<p>"If that darkness—" began the ensign.</p> + +<p>He stopped. He was watching Hines's cigar fascinatedly. It had been a +dull-red coal, brightening to what seemed a vivid incandescence when +Hines puffed on it. Now it seemed to have gone out, and revived very, +very faintly at each puffing. A moment later it seemed no longer to +exist.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"We're in the darkness now," said Hines dryly.</p> + +<p>His tone was entirely matter-of-fact, which was wise; for the men at +the oars had been watching the glow of his cigar. It was the only spot +of light in the universe. And when it went out, the effect was horrible.</p> + +<p>"How do der microphones work?" asked Schaaf interestedly.</p> + +<p>"I have the line," said the ensign unsteadily. "We're a shade under +three miles from the island."</p> + +<p>The boat went on silently. About the island Preston had brought +darkness down to earth over a circular space some six miles across.</p> + +<p>The cutter rose and fell, and rose and fell, and the three men in the +stern felt the rhythmic pulling of the oars. Every man felt the opacity +of the air weighing upon him, pressing upon him.</p> + +<p>All the world had been dark enough anyhow, but to feel that by no +possible device could a light be made to shine was queerly horrible. +A man felt as if he were buried alive. He had an almost hysterical +impulse to beat at the darkness with his hands, to thrust it away from +him.</p> + +<p>"I hear the surf on the beach in the headphones," said the ensign, a +long time later.</p> + +<p>"You should," said Schaaf placidly.</p> + +<p>Hines then spoke shortly.</p> + +<p>"We land and form a line. By the way, we want to land at the +southern-most tip of the island. I know the lay of the land, roughly. +We are to be entirely silent, passing signals by touching each other in +the blackness. There are probably charged wires about the island. If +we run into lines of wire, we will short-circuit them with gun-barrels +to the earth, and then cut them. When Preston's instruments show a +short-circuit, he will probably cut the darkness to see about it. We +go ahead then. Mop up the island. There is one woman here. Be careful +not to hurt her. But this is one time to fight hard! If we don't kill +Preston, he'll kill us!"</p> + +<p>The ensign said—steadily this time—"You men heard that. Those are +your orders."</p> + +<p>There was a little gurgling noise ahead, a washing, splashing sound. +It ran a long distance in a straight line across the bow of the boat. +The rudder squeaked, and the boat's course shifted until the sound was +abeam. The oars worked monotonously. Presently the washing sound seemed +to come to an end and to go away in the distance. The rudder squeaked +again. They went on their former course once more.</p> + +<p>"If you put your ear to the gunwale," said the ensign in a voice that +was barely a whisper, "you'll hear a queer humming, sir. The hull picks +up the sound from the water. I've been hearing it in the microphones +for some time. It sounds like engines, sir."</p> + +<p>"Dynamos," said Schaaf in as low a tone. "Der dynamos and der Diesel +engines that make der juice."</p> + +<p>"I'm heading in for the beach," whispered the ensign. "Easy, men! Get +ready to beach her, up forward."</p> + +<p>The word passed to the bow in murmurs. The washing of waves became +louder and louder. The booming of small breakers on sand grew more +distinct. Hines visualized the southern end of the island as he had +seen it from the air and tried to guess at the spot from the fact that +they were headed for a sandy beach. He nodded to himself.</p> + +<p>The boat checked with a grating sound. There was the little lifting +feel of men leaping out to ease it ashore.</p> + +<p>"And now," said Schaaf grimly, "<i>Gott strafe</i> Breston!"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>They disembarked as blind men, feeling the foaming small breakers +beating utterly unseen about their rubber-booted legs. They fumbled at +each other to form a skirmish-line. At a low word from Hines they moved +on.</p> + +<p>It was a slow, a stumbling, an infinitely cautious party of the blind. +Every man's eyes were wide and staring, through sheer instinctive +effort to catch some glimmer of the light that in nature is nowhere +quite absent. But here, the very air was opaque.</p> + +<p>The blackness was oppressive past conception. A man felt as if he were +buried alive, as if the darkness pressed upon him, as if a shifting +stuff pressed upon his breast and would presently stop his breathing.</p> + +<p>A tiny clatter, off in the darkness. The line halted. A message passed +along its length in a murmur.</p> + +<p>"A wire about a foot off the ground. It isn't charged."</p> + +<p>"Step over it and go on," ordered Hines. "At any alarm, fling +yourselves flat on the ground and wait." The line moved on again. Hines +had cracked the crystal from a watch-compass and by the feel of its +needle led the way. He, also, came upon that uncharged wire, stretched +upon stakes no more than a foot above ground. It gave a little as he +touched it. He passed over it.</p> + +<p>Then, quite suddenly, a man screamed, down at the end of the line. A +weapon went off thunderously in the blackness. One of the two Lewis +guns roared itself empty. There was the clatter of men flinging +themselves to the earth. Then silence.</p> + +<p>Hines pressed his jaws tightly together. Instinctively he peered about, +though his eyes could convey no possible sensation to his brain. There +was only blackness and stillness.</p> + +<p>Presently he became aware of the surf drumming away behind him. Then +he heard the faintest possible humming noise overheard. At the same +time a pungent odor stung his nostrils. He heard Schaaf exclaim softly, +swearing under his breath.</p> + +<p>Some one came writhing along the ground, counting the prone figures he +passed.</p> + +<p>"Inspector Hines!"</p> + +<p>The faint humming noise passed toward the right. It died away.</p> + +<p>"Here," said Hines quietly.</p> + +<p>The ensign's voice panted.</p> + +<p>"We've lost three men. Stone dead. Electrocuted."</p> + +<p>Schaaf's voice came from astonishingly near by.</p> + +<p>"Der four-centimeter beam," he said grimly. "They heard us. Perhaps +der low wires were burglar-alarms. Breston passed der beam of +four-centimeter wafes all about, with der high-tension current in it. +Those three men were struck by it. It was like being struck by a life +wire with ten thousand volts in it. I smelled ozone just now. My nose +stings yet with it. Der beam passed humming ofer our heads."</p> + +<p>The ensign asked nervously: "What do we do now, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Lie still," said Hines coldly. "They'll get curious presently."</p> + +<p>The ensign crawled away. Darkness. Blackness. The sound of the surf +behind them. Time seemed endless, waiting. One had a ghastly feeling +that it had been an hour or more, two hours—that it was time for the +massed guns, six miles away, to open fire. One's ears strained for the +whistling sound of that first flight of projectiles from four miles of +guns.</p> + +<p>Gradually an infinitely faint rumbling noise made itself felt. It was +felt as much as heard. The sound came through the earth. The dynamos +and the monstrous generators in Preston's underground dugouts, making +the power that had darkened the world.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Without a trace of flickering, the darkness broke. With startling +clarity the line of prone men could see. An unbearable glare smote upon +their eyes, but despite it they saw.</p> + +<p>The darkness had vanished from before their eyes. They seemed to be +in a monstrous cavern whose walls were angular masses of jetty black. +A great magnesium flare was burning on the ground. It lighted up +three clumsy concrete structures three-quarters sunk in the ground. +There were men standing near those structures. Three of them stood +by a bow!-shaped thing of wires. They were looking—all the men were +looking—at the line of prone riflemen. The darkness seemed to have +been lifted for the precise purpose of permitting Preston's aids to +look. From half a dozen tripods some six feet or so across darkness +poured out in wide, fanlike beams. Those beams united overhead to form +a roof of darkness, seemingly supported by the inverted pyramids of +black. They united to shut off the rest of the world. They blended +almost at the edge of the surf to cut off all vision upon the water. +Hines and Schaaf and the volunteers gazed for exactly three seconds the +length of a colossal cavern in which lights could glow, but which was +roofed and walled with opacity.</p> + +<p>Three seconds; while a man could breathe in and out and in again. Then +from all along the line of prone men gunfire flashed at the exact +instant that darkness fell upon them again. The remaining Lewis gum +blared into nothingness, emptying its drum of cartridges. The automatic +shotguns bellowed their magazines empty.</p> + +<p>Somewhere off in the darkness a man shrieked, and there were shoutings, +and then a deadly, snarling voice cried out. Something was roaring +horribly, off there in the new-fallen blackness. A spark was leaping a +colossal gap with the tearing thunderous rasp that only a current up in +the thousands of volts will make.</p> + +<p>"Scatter!" snapped Hines. "They've sighted that beam on us!"</p> + +<p>He leaped to his feet and bolted—ahead. Some one pounded along beside +him, though the presence of the other man was felt rather than heard, +and of course nothing at all could be seen. Up ahead the sparking sound +cut off sharply, leaving Hines's ears ringing with the sudden silence.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if some wire—perhaps the high-tension wire to the +four-centimeter beam—had been cut by a bullet, and now a switch +was thrown. Through the ringing in his ears Hines heard the snarling +voice ahead of him shout an order. He blundered on and tripped over +something. The smell of scorched rubber rose from his boots.</p> + +<p>He struck savagely at the thing with his gun-barrel, and somehow +the darkness about him seemed to change. It was probably a beam +darkness-transmitter, which he had smashed. But in an intangible cavern +whose walls were opacity there was no great difference.</p> + +<p>He went racing on, straining his yet-ringing ears for sounds, and +crashed headlong into concrete. He gave a cry of satisfaction and began +to fumble his way feverishly along its length. The man who had run +beside him, panting, grunted with satisfaction as he in turn felt the +concrete.</p> + +<p>It was Schaaf. He mumbled to himself and Hines caught, "<i>verdammt</i>," +and "<i>Schrecklichkeit</i>" and other much less repeatable words.</p> + +<p>A door! Hines fumbled at his belt and found one single grenade.</p> + +<p>"A steel door, Schaaf!" he panted. "I'm setting off a grenade before +it. Get back around the corner!"</p> + +<p>He deposited the little globe of iron, jerked out the pin, and fled.</p> + +<p>The earth shook and a blast of sound which was like a blow on the chest +smote them—for all that they were around the corner of the concrete. +Then Hines flung himself forward again, rasping his fingers on the +rough concrete and choking on the fumes of the explosive.</p> + +<p>The door was blown away, blasted from its frame. No glimmer of +illumination came through the awful darkness that was everywhere, but +Hines stepped boldly through the opening with his automatic shotgun +held ready for the instant light should reach him.</p> + +<p>The curious feeling of a metal floor under his foot. Then emptiness! +He went hurtling downward, falling into bright and blinding light. +He struck something with his shoulder in the act of falling, and it +wrenched his muscles cruelly but partly broke the drop. He wound up +with a crash on concrete, all of fifteen feet down, and lay still for +an instant, dazed.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>He had a vague impression of a room that was sunk deep in the ground. +There were masses of glittering glass, and many lights, and a humming +noise filled all the air with a monotonous drone. Hines realized +indistinctly that the curious squat structures on the island were +merely the roofs of dugouts, dug down to safety below the surface of +the earth. Then he heard a peculiar tearing, spitting sound near by.</p> + +<p>His eyes focused dazedly on his shotgun, lying on the floor a little +distance off. It was smoking strangely. Sparks were darting from it +into the stone floor. It began abruptly to glow a dull red. Suddenly +it exploded luridly. Every shell in its magazine went off in a single +blast which was not disastrous solely because the red hot metal offered +so little resistance to the expanding gases. They tore it apart almost +like so much dough.</p> + +<p>Somebody or other was racing down the steel steps Hines had tumbled +from. Huge hands swept Hines from the floor. He smelled burning rubber. +He knew that it was Schaaf who tore his automatic pistol out of his +belt and flung it away. He knew, also, that it was Schaaf who leaped +with him to one side of the room. He had a dizzy impression of glowing +tubes of glass ail about him.</p> + +<p>Then a snarling, arrogant voice said in insolent satisfaction:</p> + +<p>"Police Inspector Hines, I believe, and my former assistant, Professor +Schaaf. Very well met! I've wanted to have you two men killed for a +long time."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + + +<h3>THE MAN WHO MURDERED LIGHT.</h3> + + +<p>Hines's automatic pistol tore itself to pieces as the shells in its +butt went off all at once. Its fragments on the concrete floor glowed +dully red, then slowly cooled off when they ceased to emit sparks.</p> + +<p>Hines staggered to his feet and found himself penned in behind a +monster bank of vacuum tubes which glowed redly. The glass of the tubes +was inordinately thick. These tubes would not break by concussion, nor +by however determined a blow of a man's fist—Preston had learned, from +his debacle in the Storm.</p> + +<p>Hines was conscious of them, and of things below them which might have +been gigantic transformers of the type used in radio. But as his brain +cleared from the crack on the concrete floor, his whole attention was +taken up by the facts which it was immediately necessary for him to +face.</p> + +<p>Schaaf was beside him, crouching a little to have his whole body behind +the banks of vacuum tubes. Schaaf was snarling a little, and his blue +eyes were glinting fire. He seemed to be unarmed as well as Hines, +and he was gazing across the deep-sunk room with an expression of +concentrated malevolence.</p> + +<p>Preston was there, the man Hines had seen exactly once, and for half a +minute only, but whom he had been hunting for months. He was standing +by a small platform which itself was next to a wide door through which +the humming noise came. Preston's hand was on a small thing which +looked rather like a searchlight, except that instead of a mirror for +a reflector it had a sort of grid of glistening wires. There were two +switches on its top.</p> + +<p>Preston was small and dapper, and wore a neat Vandyke beard trimmed +to an accurate point. He looked like a highly civilized man, even +alongside the nattily attired pair of followers who lounged always +within feet of him.</p> + +<p>They were gangsters, those two, from impeccably tailored clothing to +impossibly expensive haberdashery in vivid color.</p> + +<p>Preston seemed precisely the pattern of the professional man—until one +noticed his eyes. They were blank and hard and triumphant, precisely +the eyes of a madman with paranoiac delusions of grandeur. They were +insolent and scornful and very, very arrogant eyes. They were the eyes +of a man who has persuaded himself that he is invested with supreme +authority, and who derides and despises the mere worms of humans within +his gaze. Unfortunately, Preston's ideas of his own powers were not +delusions. They were facts.</p> + +<p>He smiled at them, and his smile was filled with the same +vanity-inspired scorn.</p> + +<p>"I assure you, Schaaf," he said in a metallic voice that made one long +to kick him, "I assure you that your being alive now is due to my +forbearance."</p> + +<p>Schaaf spoke, his voice purring with rage. He spoke in German, and the +words crackled. At the end he added wrathfully:</p> + +<p>"And if you don't understand der names I called you, you are a lot of +banana oil!"</p> + +<p>He turned to Hines, growling, and Hines knew somehow that Schaaf was +inspecting the contrivances, the elaborate hook-ups, the involved +array of apparatus with a desperately concentrated attention, working +frantically to understand their operation.</p> + +<p>Hines's head was clearing swiftly, and he looked about, and went sick +with a helpless rage at the same time that his pulses pumped with fury. +He looked at Preston with eyes like flames. Preston had had Kathryn +kidnaped. Preston had—</p> + +<p>"You saw what happened to your weapons," said Preston, smiling +unpleasantly. "I'm letting you live because it amuses me to watch you. +I have—" he looked at a wrist watch—"I have more than half an hour +before Inspector Hines's artillery blows this island out of the water. +And I am inclined to let you two beg your lives. I won't give them to +you, but I'll listen."</p> + +<p>"Beg, der deffil!" snapped Schaaf. "Breston, you are der most complete +idiot in der history of der human race! With der brains I reluctantly +admit you possess, you could haff been a benefactor of mankind! And now +we haff to kill you!—Where is Miss Bush?"</p> + +<p>Preston threw back his head to laugh. His two guards regarded the two +men behind the vacuum tubes with a wary, indifferent alertness. They +were killers, hired to do murder to order. They regarded Schaaf and +Hines as the professional killer always does regard his prospective +victims.</p> + +<p>"She's here," said Preston sardonically. "She's here! Quite a pretty +girl, too. And safe—so far!"</p> + +<p>Hines's teeth ground together. Face to face with Preston, a +consummation for which he had hoped and worked for months. And +helpless. Preston had destroyed his weapons with that little +searchlight-like thing. "It is lucky for you that she is safe," snapped +Schaaf. "Breston, you <i>verdamumt</i> fool, do you realize that you are +licked before you start?"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Sweat was standing out on Schaaf's face. He stood tense in every +muscle, and Hines had a queer impression that Schaaf was all brain, +that every particle of him was racing madly to absorb the meaning of +the wires, the tubes, the switches, the connections in this diabolical +control room. He seemed to feel Schaaf working desperately to piece +together the meaning of every appliance and how it worked.</p> + +<p>"Licked?" Preston laughed, the mirthless, scornful laugh of the +paranoiac. "You are living by my pleasure, because it amuses me to +watch—"</p> + +<p>"That is true to a certain extent only," said Schaaf. He spoke with +a measured calmness in which only Hines could detect the false note. +"I tell you why. I haff solfed your apparatus! Before I left der +mainland to come here, I had explained to my assistants der entire +method of all your defices. I tell you you are licked, and I proof +it. Der darkness wafes I have made myself. And moreotfer, I haff made +der four-centimeter wafes that make der air conducting and enable you +to throw a beam of radiation that is like a life wire charged with +electricity, wherefer you will. And der people on der mainland haff der +apparatus too!"</p> + +<p>Hines's eyes flickered. Schaaf was bluffing. It was a monumental sort +of bluff, and the one thing that might work—if Schaaf could carry it +out. Schaaf was bluffing for both their lives, now, and Kathryn's to +boot.</p> + +<p>"I tell you how you and I make der four-centimeter wafes," said Schaaf, +grimly. "Der vacuum tube as at present designed cannot possibly go +below a quarter of a meter, and then der wate is not a pure sine +wafe. I know! But you haff four-centimeter wafes, and smaller. Yes! +And der word of how you do them is going all ofer der cifilized world +right now. Because you can take six tubes, each one emitting wafes of +one-fourth meter length, and so adjust them that der separate wafes of +der separate tubes come four centimeters after each other, gifing you a +beam of der death rays. Hein?"</p> + +<p>He grinned savagely at Preston, though sweat stood out on his forehead. +And Preston snarled.</p> + +<p>"You can carry der process farther," said Schaaf in a judicial tone. +Hines, listening, marveled at the assurance with which Schaaf was +stating, as definite facts, his hurried deductions from the apparatus +about them. "By der use of a sufficient number of tubes, you can make +wafes of any length you choose, merely by der superimposition of one +wafe-outline upon another. Der United States Gofernment is now turning +out this apparatus in quantity!"</p> + +<p>He waved his hands about the room. "Der darkness wafes are made in that +way. Der conducting beam is made in that way. Eferything you haff is +made in that way. And we haff eferything you haff efer thought of, with +ten times der power you haff, and a hundred times der brains! You are +licked, Breston! Hines and I, we came to this island because you are +der damnedest scoundrel in forty nations. You haff Miss Bush here. Giff +her back and we giff you half an hour's start. No more! You are licked! +We make der bargain! Turn ofer Miss Bush, unharmed. Turn off der +darkness. We giff you half an hour to escape in. That is efery damned +thing we will giff you. And then we come after you, and I, personally, +choke you by der neck until I kill you!"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Preston was livid. Hines's pulse leaped in savage satisfaction. Schaaf +had worked out the whole thing from sight of Preston's outfit. His +bluff was working. Preston did believe the whole world was equipped to +fight him with his own weapons.</p> + +<p>But his madman's eyes flamed with the crazy rage of shattered vanity.</p> + +<p>"Everything I've got?" he snarled. "This too? Tell me how this is done!"</p> + +<p>He flung a switch on the top of the tiny projector. There was a sudden +vivid glow at a table against the wall some fifteen feet from Hines. A +long, serried ray of tubes leaped into light. Utter silence fell.</p> + +<p>"Look at that metal!" raged Preston. "Look at it!"</p> + +<p>He pointed a shaking hand at the fragments of Hines's two weapons +on the concrete floor. And they turned suddenly white—snow white. +Then they became wet. A liquid trickled from them and dripped to the +concrete, where it bubbled furiously and formed a thick white mist +that spread out over the floor. Preston flung back his switch and as +the bank of tubes went out, he laughed in shrill, insolent, vanity mad +triumph—because Schaaf's cheeks had become drained of every particle +of blood.</p> + +<p>"That's what I'm going to use on Hines's artillery?" boasted Preston +hysterically. "This little projector is all I need! All!"</p> + +<p>Schaaf clenched his hands more tightly still.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gott!</i>" he muttered thickly. "<i>Gott!</i>"</p> + +<p>"You didn't work out that one, eh?" demanded Preston arrogantly. "Now +I'll tell you: that's the same thing as all the rest! Fluorescence! +Causing one type of energy to be changed to another! Under my +four-centimeter waves, the air becomes fluorescent. But these waves +work on iron!</p> + +<p>"Where these waves strike, the surface of the iron becomes fluorescent. +It absorbs heat from the air and from its own interior! It turns heat +to short radio waves, and every particle of iron in the beam of these +waves, no matter how far away it is, radiates away every particle of +energy it possesses! It sinks to absolute zero! Four, hundred and +sixty-two degrees below zero Fahrenheit!</p> + +<p>"You saw air liquefy in contact with the iron that was red hot a +moment ago. What's going to happen to the men on your battleships +when every particle of iron or steel drops to the temperature of +liquid air? What's going to happen to your guns when they're down to +the temperature of liquid helium and the gun crews try to fire them? +They'll fly to bits like brittle ice! Licked, am I? I'll wipe out your +damned artillery with half a kilowatt in this projector! Ill sink your +battleships with their crews frozen solid.</p> + +<p>"I'll play that beam on New York and every particle of steel in the +city will be brittle as ashes! I'll bring down every damned skyscraper +in the town. I'll teach them a lesson they won't forget. Make my +apparatus and try to work it against me? I'll—"</p> + +<p>He was working himself into frothing rage. He was shouting. He was +bellowing. His voice was a strident scream of rage, the rage of the man +who has convinced himself that he is the most intelligent of all living +men and then finds the distinction threatened.</p> + +<p>"You fools?" Preston gasped. "Trying to fight me! Like savages with +clubs going against a battleship! I'll show you! I'll show—"</p> + +<p>Schaaf had bluffed, working out what Preston had done, after a swift +survey of the apparatus about him. He'd seen Preston's transmitters +and had raced his brain to the manner of their operation. He'd tried +to bluff that all the world knew now how Preston had kept it sunk in +night. But he hadn't known this one last trick, which was the most +deadly of all. And Schaaf muttered thickly to himself with his eyes +sunken in and dull. Because this last weapon was invincible.</p> + +<p>Then Hines looked sharply upward and snapped, "All right, men! +Everybody in here!"</p> + +<p>He gained two seconds only; two seconds in which Preston was looking +upward, and his guards with him, toward the door into which Hines +himself had stumbled. But that two seconds was enough. Before they +could look down, Hines had leaped, dragging from their sockets two of +the thick tubes to use as missiles.</p> + +<p>The first one struck Preston and flung him against the projector. Hines +was within a yard of Preston when he heard Schaaf cry out. But it was +too late to stop then. He sank his fingers in Preston's throat as one +of the guards screamed.</p> + +<p>The projector of the freezing beam had been whirled around. A guard +had felt his arm frozen to the elbow as he tried to raise his weapon. +He screamed, and screamed, and Schaaf went into action frantically, +flinging the huge vacuum tubes about and crashing them until the second +guard was helpless and the freezing beam was off.</p> + +<p>But Hines paid no attention. He forgot that he should be getting a +bullet in the back of his head at any instant. Preston was squirming +under him, getting at something in his pocket. There was a sickeningly +muffled explosion in the middle of the battling pair of men. Another.</p> + +<p>Preston seemed literally to go mad. Frothing at the mouth, he tried to +sink his teeth in Hines. He fought crazily, insanely, with maniacal +strength. Hines forgot that there was anything in the world but this +one single man he hated. He forgot everything—</p> + +<p>And then Schaaf was pulling him to his feet, crying:</p> + +<p>"We haff fife minutes, Hines! Fife minutes only! Find Miss Bush!"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>ZERO HOUR.</h3> + + +<p>The two of them came above ground with Kathryn, and only two minutes +to spare. The ensign and ten men were about to assail a squat concrete +structure after the orthodox fashion of warfare when Hines gasped, "Get +your men! Get 'em to the boat! We killed Preston but not his men! Zero +hour's two minutes off!"</p> + +<p>The air upon the island itself was no longer opaque. Schaaf's berserk +rage among the vacuum tubes had cut that off. But the column of +darkness leading to an utterly black sky still held steady. Somewhere +in the extraordinarily clear air a rocket shot up, very far away.</p> + +<p>The ensign's whistle shrilled madly. Hines, Schaaf, Kathryn, and a +dozen men raced for the boat. Other men loomed up, panting, and flung +themselves through the night. Once a man tripped over a low wire and +four men fell on top of him. There was a long drawn out, deliberate +whining sound in the air. It was growing louder. It rose to a shriek +and passed overhead and went off deafeningly a quarter of a mile away. +The four fallen men were up in the fractional part of a split second at +that sound.</p> + +<p>Into the boat in desperate, panting haste. Shoving off.</p> + +<p>They had been rowing a pitifully short time when little licking flames +became visible on the skyline toward shore. Somewhere in the upper +darkness there was a hail of steel and high explosive hurtling toward +the island.</p> + +<p>Something shrieked and splashed overboard not a dozen yards away. The +drumming noise of a barrage began and held for nearly a second, and +then the sound of exploding shells was not like a barrage at all. It +was like one long, continuous explosion, punctuated with monstrous +blasts of sound which could be nothing less than twelve-inch shells +exploding.</p> + +<p>The men at the oars pulled like madmen. The air was full of the +shrieking of steel missiles, and the island behind them was lost in a +mass of darting flames like marsh fire. Things fell into the sea on +all sides with monstrous splashings, and the cutter pitched crazily, +and more shells screamed and whistled and howled, and lambent flames +of death and destruction played over the island, with ever and again a +blinding flash and an overpowering concussion where a big projectile +had hit.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Hines, holding fast to Kathryn, that they would be +battered to pieces by sheer waves of sound if stray shells did not +do the work. For that was a more immediate danger still. Many shells +that fell short of the island ricocheted and exploded in mid-air or +splashed into the sea again on the farther side. Some fell fearfully +near them. Some struck in the shallows near the shore, and those +explosions sent concussions through the water that made the hull of the +speeding cutter quiver and shake. They racked and twisted the little +cockleshell. The monstrous waves generated by the explosions flung it +crazily about, and the concussions wrenched its timbers, and the blasts +of the detonating shells half-dazed those in it.</p> + +<p>But the oarsmen pulled like madmen. The ensign shouted encouragement +and orders. And slowly—so slowly—the cutter drew away from the +inferno that was the island.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Hines was holding Kathryn fiercely tight when he realized that Schaaf +was shouting in his ear. They were a mile away from the island, but the +din was still deafening.</p> + +<p>"Hines!" bellowed Schaaf. "Hines! <i>Die Sterne!</i> Der stars are shining!"</p> + +<p>The wind over the water was bitter cold, but as the cutter drew farther +and ever farther away from the low-lying place that had been Preston's +stronghold, all the world seemed to take on a nearly normal seeming.</p> + +<p>Stars twinkled and glittered in the sky overhead. Far to the east a +vast, partly round orb was coming up over the edge of the world. For +the world had an edge again! It was the moon. And there were dusky +little shadows against the stars, which would be clouds, and generally +the world seemed astoundingly normal.</p> + +<p>Later on, of course, the sun would rise, and there would be great winds +rushing to meet its warm rays, and men and women and children would go +mad with joy at sight of the orb they had missed for exactly one day.</p> + +<p>Schaaf, swearing joyful Teutonic profanity, would plunge into a new +task before him, of research and duplication of Preston's results, and +would come out of it bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, but with apparatus +which would perform every one of Preston's tricks to order.</p> + +<p>He would hale Hines back from his honeymoon to join with him in forming +the International Weather Control Corporation, whose typhoon patrol +vessels are to be found wherever bad weather threatens in the tropics, +using Preston's discoveries to create half a dozen small counter-storms +where a hurricane or typhoon threatens. Those same tiny storms, too, he +and Hines would use to lengthen the Alaskan summer by two months and +raise the winter temperature by nearly thirty degrees.</p> + +<p>All this was yet to happen, and the possibly greater benefit of +liberating an unlimited supply of power by Preston's freezing ray. +Liquid air drips from every iron surface on which those rays are +playing. Nowadays, that liquid air provides the power to run the +monster generating stations at Manhasset, and Panama, and at Algiers. +And since their success, others are being built as rapidly as the +structures can be completed. It seems probable that within a relatively +few years coal need no longer be mined for power, nor need nations +bicker or quarrel over petroleum.</p> + +<p>But on that morning when the ship's cutter rowed away from Metinic +Island the coast toward which it moved was flickering oddly as if heat +lightning were playing there. There were lurid spoutings of fire and +shattering explosions coming from the land they had left, and there +were dim bulks all around the horizon which emitted tongues of flame +and unbearable thunderings. Even overhead there was noise. It was a +constant, long-continued screaming of things soaring through the air +to fall upon and shatter further the already devastated earth of the +island. The battleships and cruisers were literally destroying that +small bit of Earth. Where the fourteen-inch shells exploded there was +only empty space left, into which the salt water seeped slowly.</p> + +<p>The cutter went on, snail-like, while destruction raged behind it. +Schaaf fingered his beard and made blissful explanations to the ensign, +to whom his blending of abstruse technicalities and incongruous slang +was nearly unintelligible. Hines relaxed slowly from his tension. He +knew that Preston was dead now. He was sure of it at last. Quite, quite +sure—he clenched his strong hands.</p> + +<p>Kathryn said uneasily:</p> + +<p>"I—I've a great story for the <i>Star</i>."</p> + +<p>"Forget it," said Hines briefly. "We were supposed to be married +yesterday, Kathryn."</p> + +<p>"Y-yes," she admitted. "We were."</p> + +<p>"So," said Hines, "we are going to be married to-day."</p> + +<p>He held her hand fast.</p> + +<p>"Y-yes," she said, after a long time. "We are... But oh, when I think +what might have happened, I wish I'd never heard of Preston. I wish he +never had existed."</p> + +<p>"Shush, my dear," said Schaaf paternally. "He got you a husband. Der +statement is banana oil." +</p> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78979 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78979-h/images/cover.jpg b/78979-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e5a40e --- /dev/null +++ b/78979-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78979-h/images/illus.jpg b/78979-h/images/illus.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b63fc8f --- /dev/null +++ b/78979-h/images/illus.jpg diff --git a/78979-h/images/illusc.jpg b/78979-h/images/illusc.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee265d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/78979-h/images/illusc.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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