Lords of the Stratosphere Part 12

"You are right. Are you further interested? If you have no interest in our theories there is little need to pursue our plans further, where you are concerned."

"We are interested, of course," said Jeter. "We are interested in your theories, without committing ourselves to acceptance of them; and we are naturally interested in saving our lives. Let us say then, for the moment, that we do not refuse to join you."

CHAPTER X

_How It Came About_

"You will have twenty-four hours in which to decide whether to join us,"

was Sitsumi's ultimatum. "We would not allow you five minutes were it not that our cause would be benefited by the addition of your scientific knowledge."

Sitsumi did not repeat the alternative. Remembering Kress, Jeter and Eyer did not need to ask him. There was but one alternative--death--a particularly horrible one. That Sitsumi and the Three would not hesitate was amply proved. Already they were guilty of the death of thousands.

They were in deadly earnest with their scheme for a world government.

Jeter and Eyer were kept shackled together, and were, in addition, chained to the floor of the main room of the white globe with leg irons.

Their keys were in the hands of Naka, whose hatred of Jeter for hitting him on the jaw was so malevolent it fairly glowed from his eyes like sparks shot forth.

Food was brought them when asked for. It wasn't easy to partake of it, because their manacled hands had to be moved together, which made it extremely awkward.

Jeter and Eyer set themselves the task of trying to figure some way out in the twenty-four hours of life still left them if they failed. That Hadley, down in New York City, and all the best minds who were cooperating with Jeter and Eyer in their mad effort to avert world catastrophe, would make every effort to come to their a.s.sistance by sending up the planes which must even now be nearing completion, they hadn't the slightest doubt.

Would they arrive in time? Even if they did, was there anything they could possibly do to save themselves? Surely this s.p.a.ce ship must be vulnerable. Else why did it climb so high into the stratosphere? It was far beyond the reach of ordinary planes. High trajectory projectiles had slight chance of hitting it, even if it were visible. What then was its vulnerability, which this hiding seemed to indicate? They must know within twenty-four hours.

So they sat side by side, watching events unfold. The Three talked mandarin. Eyer, for all his levity, was a man of unusual attainments. He understood mandarin, for one thing--a fact which even Jeter did not know at first. The Chinese never seemed even to consider that either of them might know the tongue. Chinese seldom found foreigners who did comprehend them. In only so much were The Three in the least bit careless.

Eyer strained his ears to hear everything which pa.s.sed between Sitsumi and the Three. Both men listened to any chance words in English or French on the part of all hands within the globe which might give them a hint.

And in those twenty-four hours the sky-scientists learned much.

They conversed together, when they spoke of important matters which they wished hidden from their captors, out of the corners of their mouths after the method of criminals. They used it with elaborate unconcern.

They might have seemed to be simply staring into s.p.a.ce at such moments, dreading approaching death perhaps, and simply twiddling their fingers.

But by each other every word was clearly heard.

"That last outburst of Sitsumi's explains a lot of the reported activity in the Lake Baikal region, beyond the Gobi," swiftly dropped from Jeter's lips. "The materials which Sitsumi uses in the preparation of his light-ray-bending substance are found near there somehow. And that means that the j.a.panese guards--which may be Eurasian guards, after what Sitsumi told us--and employees of this unholy crowd, are easily engaged in the preparation of other s.p.a.ce ships."

"Does this thing seem to have any armament?" asked Eyer.

Jeter signified negation with a swift movement of his head.

"Their one weapon seems to be the apparatus which causes that ray. You know, the ray which lifts buildings, pulling them up by the roots."

"Have you any idea what it is?"

"Yes. That last stuff of the Three which you translated for me gives me a clue. At first I thought that they had perfected some substance, perhaps with unknown electrical properties, which nullified gravity. But that won't prove out. If the ray simply nullified gravity, the buildings down there, while weightless, would not rise as they did. They might sway if somebody breathed against them. A midget might lift one with his finger; but they wouldn't fly skyward as they did--and do!"

For a moment the partners ceased their whispering and talked together naturally to disarm suspicion. The fact that the s.p.a.ce ship and its ruthless denizens still engaged in the awful work of devastation was amply being proved. In the main room it was possible, through the use of telescopes and audiphones--set into the walls so that they were invisible, yet enabled any one in the room to see everything, and hear everything that transpired on the far earth below--to keep close watch on the work of the destroyers. Anything close enough could be seen with the naked eye through the walls of the globe.

Now the s.p.a.ce ship was systematically destroying buildings the length and breadth of Manhattan Island. The river-front buildings were destroyed in a single sweep, from north to south, of the ghastly ray.

Farther back from the Hudson, however, after the water-front buildings had been reduced to mere piles of rubble, the most beautiful, most modern buildings were left standing.

"Can't you just imagine those beautiful structures filled with the monsters created by the genius of Sitsumi and the Three--and their as yet unknown lieutenants back at Lake Baikal?"

Eyer gritted his teeth. His hands closed atop the table at which they were seated. The knuckles went white with the strain. The lips of both men were white. They realized to the full the dreadful responsibility which they had a.s.sumed. They knew how abysmally hopeless was their chance of accomplishing anything. And without some gigantic effort being made, the world as they knew it would be destroyed. In its place would be a race of strange beings, of vengeful hybrids endowed from birth with the will to conquer, or destroy utterly.

"You were speaking of the levitating ray," prompted Eyer with swift change to the sidewise whispering.

"From what you heard I'm sure it is something invented by Liao Wu, Yung Chan and w.a.n.g Li. In so much they have an advantage over Sitsumi. I doubt if there is any love lost among them, beyond the fact that they need one another. Sitsumi is master of the substance which bends light rays--and thus is rendered invisible, while the Three are masters of the ray which not only propels this s.p.a.ce ship, but is the agency by which buildings are torn up, dropped and destroyed. It's plain to me that this room is the control room of the s.p.a.ce ship. The ray is--well, it's as difficult to explain as electricity, and perhaps as simple in its operation. The ray does more than nullify gravity--can be made to reverse gravity! Let's call the ray the gravity inverter for want of a better name. It makes anything it touches literally _fall away from the Earth_, toward the point whence the ray emanates!"

"And if we were to obtain control of the apparatus which harnesses the ray?"

"We lack the knowledge of the Three for its operation. No, we've got to find some simpler solution in the brief time we have."

At this point the partners had been within the white globe about ten hours and they had learned much about it. The inner globe, for example, maintained an even keel, no matter how the s.p.a.ce ship as a whole moved on its rays that seemed like table legs. The gyroscopic principle was used. The inner globe was movable within the outer globe, or rind. If for any reason the s.p.a.ce ship listed in one direction or the other, the inner globe, while it rose and fell naturally, remained upright, its floor always level so that, the gyroscope controlling the whole, the central, levitating, ray would always, must always, as it proved, point downward.

Try as they might, the partners could not see how the Three manipulated the ray. They guessed that there were many b.u.t.tons on the table at which they sat. The table itself was not an ordinary table. What might have been called a fifth leg, squarely under the center of the table, was about three feet square. Through this, Jeter guessed, ran the wires by which they controlled all their activities, machinery to operate which had been installed under the floor in the unseen lower half of the inner globe.

They knew that must remain forever a secret from them.

There was a sudden stir among the Three. Jeter and Eyer turned aside for a moment to peer down upon New York City. They held their breath with horror as they saw the smoking devastation which must have buried thousands of people. The wrecking had been all but complete. Only the finest buildings still stood. Jeter wondered why the falling back of the shattered buildings had not shaken down those which the Sitsumi crowd had not wished to destroy. The repeated shocks must almost have shaken Manhattan Island on its foundations.

They saw what had caused the sudden stiffening of the Three. Sitsumi, busily engaged at something else nearby, quietly approached the Three.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Rescue planes," said w.a.n.g Li. "New York City sends six fliers to rescue Jeter and Eyer. New planes. They'll reach us, Sitsumi. We should have thought to destroy all dangerous air ports. A fatal oversight!"

Sitsumi's eyes were grave. He looked at each of the Three in turn.

"G.o.d!" said Jeter's whispering lips. "If we could read their minds! If only we could guess what it is they fear, we'd have the secret by which we might destroy them."

"They're vulnerable," said Eyer, "but how?"

"Watch!" said Jeter. "Listen! And here's to those six unknowns coming up to, maybe, get the same dose we're due for! We were closely watched. New York City knows exactly where we vanished in the sky. Those six planes are aiming at us--at a spot in the stratosphere they can't see. And yet, why should Sitsumi and the Three be so fearful? All they have to do is move a half mile in any direction and they'll never find them."

"But to move will interfere with their plans," said Eyer. "Lucian, look at the expressions on their faces! Something tells me they are vulnerable in ways we haven't guessed at. If we knew the secret maybe we could destroy them. We've got to discover their weak spot."

There was a long pause while Jeter and Eyer watched the rescue ships come climbing up the endless stairways of the sky. Then Jeter whispered again, guardedly as usual.