The Air Trust Part 41

If that machine and his had met, good-bye forever! But after all, the danger of collision in mid-air, or of being struck by a projectile from some other machine, above, was no greater than his comrades on the ground were facing. Not so great, perhaps. Many a one would meet his death from the aerial attack. In a war like this, a thousand perils threatened. Gabriel only hoped that Hargreaves, down below there, could hold them back, away, till the walls should have been destroyed.

Circling, ever circling, now hearing some echoes of the earth-battle, some grenade-volleys and rapid-fire clattering, now deafened and all but blinded by the vast, up-belching explosions of the thanatos projectiles, Gabriel flew among the drifting mists and vapors. Still was he guided by one or two search-lights; but most of these were gone, now. Yet the glare of the conflagration, below, was luridly shuddering through the fog, painting it all a dull and awful red.

Red! Suddenly words came into Gabriel's mind--the words of his own poem:

... Red as blood, red as blood! The blood of the shattered miner, Blood of the boy in the rifle pits, blood of the coughing child-slave, Blood of the mangled trainman, blood that the Carpenter shed!

"For your sake! For the world's sake, this!" he cried, and hurled another thanatos. "If ever war of liberation was holy, this is that war!"

Suddenly, through all the turmoil of shattering explosions, tossing air-currents and drifting, acrid smoke, he became conscious of a sudden, swift-flying pursuer.

By the light of the burning Plant, down there somewhere in the vapors of the thunderous Falls, he saw a hawk-like 'plane that swooped toward him with incredible velocity, savage and lean and black.

Off to the right, a sudden spattering of shots in mid-air told him the battle in the sky was likewise being engaged. He saw vague, veiled explosions, there, then a swift, falling trail of flame. A pang shot through his heart. Had one of his companions fallen and been dashed to death? He could not tell--he had no time to wonder, even, for already the attacker was upon him, the swift Air Trust _epervier,_ one of the dreaded air-fleet of the world-monopoly!

Gabriel had just time to swerve from the attack, and swoop aloft--dropping his next to last projectile as he did so--when the whirling shape zoomed past, swung round and once more charged. He saw, vaguely, two men sat in it. One was the pilot, a "Gray" or Cosmos mercenary. The other--could it be? Yes, there was no mistaking! The other was Slade himself, commander of the hireling army of Plutocracy!

Out from the attacking 'plane jetted sadden spurts of fire. Gabriel heard the zip-zip-zip of bullets; heard a ripping tear, as one of his canvas wings was punctured--G.o.d help him, had that explosive bullet struck a wire or a stay!

Then, maddened to despair; and burning with fierce rage against this monster of the upper air that now was hurling death at him, he once more "banked," brought his machine sharp round, and charged, full drive, at the attacker!

This tactic for a second must have disconcerted the Air Trust mercenaries. Gabriel's speed was terrific. With stupefying suddenness, the _epervier_ loomed up ahead of him.

"Now!" he shouted. "Take this, from me!"

Half rising from his seat, he hurled his last remaining projectile full at Slade, then wrenched his own 'plane off sharply to the left.

A thunderous concussion and a dazzling burst of light told him his chance shot had been effective.

He got a second's vision of a shattered black ma.s.s, a tangle of girders, wires, collapsed planes, that seemed to hang a moment in midair--of whirling bodies--of wreckage indescribable. Then the broken debris plunged with awful speed and vanished through the red-glowing mist.

Even as he shuddered, sickened at the terrible, though necessary deed, the deed which alone could save him from swift death, an overwhelming air-wave from the terrible explosion struck his speeding machine, the machine captured in the Great Smokies from the Air Trust itself.

It heeled over like an unballasted yacht under the lash of a hurricane.

Vainly Gabriel jerked at wheel and levers; he could not right it.

As it seemed to come under control, a stay snapped. The 'plane swooped, yawned forward and stuck its nose into an air-hole, caused by the vast, uprising smoke and heat of the huge conflagration beneath.

Then, lost and beyond all guidance, it somersaulted, slid away down a long drop and, whirling wildly over and over, plunged with Gabriel into the glowing, smoking, detonating void!

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

TERROR AND RETREAT.

When, despite Flint's imperative orders, Slade failed to reopen the lines of communication for him, before nightfall, and when President Supple wired in code for a little more time in obeying Air Trust orders, the Billionaire recognized that something of terrible menace now had suddenly broken in upon his dream of universal power.

He summoned Waldron and Herzog for another conference and together they feverishly planned to put the works under defense, until such time as troops could be got through to them.

The plant regiment was mustered and the Cosmos mercenaries and scabs were made ready. The machine-guns were unlimbered for action and large quant.i.ties of ammunition were delivered to them and to the aerial-bomb guns, as nightfall lowered. Herzog set eight hundred men to work covering all the tanks possible, with wire netting of heavy steel. The search-lights were all ordered into use; steam and electrical connections were made, the air-fleet was manned, and everything was done that unlimited wealth and bitter hate of the Workers could suggest.

With curses on the fog, which hid the upper air from view, the old man now stood at one of the west windows of his inner office--the office on the top floor of the main Administration Building, overlooking nearly the whole Plant.

"d.a.m.n the weather!" he snarled, his gold teeth glinting. "In addition to all this mist from the Falls, there's a regular cloud-bank settling down, tonight! Under cover of it, what may not happen? Nothing could have been worse, Waldron. Though we shall soon control the air, that won't be enough, so long as fogs and mists escape us. Our next problem--h.e.l.lo! Now what the devil's _that_?"

"What's what?" retorted Waldron, testily. He had been drinking rather more heavily than usual, that day, both because of the dull weather and because the Falls invariably got on his nerves, during his brief sojourns there. Away from New York and his favorite haunts, Waldron was lost. "What's what?" he repeated with an ugly look. "This roaring, glaring, trembling place gives me--"

"That! That light in the sky!" cried Flint, excitedly pointing. "See?

No--it's gone now! But it looked like--like a rocket! A signal, of some kind, thrown from an aeroplane! A--"

Waldron laughed harshly.

"Seeing things, eh?" he sneered, coming across to the window, himself, and peering out. "_I_ don't see anything! Nothing here to worry about, Flint. With all these walls and guns, and netting, and air-ships and a private army and all, what more do you want? Not getting nervous in your old age, are you, eh?" he gibed bitterly. "Or is your conscience beginning to wake up, as the graveyard becomes more a probability than--"

"Enough!" Flint snapped at him. "When you drink, Waldron, you're an idiot! Now, forget all this, and let's get down to work. I tell you, I just now saw a signal-light up there in the mist. There's trouble coming tonight, as sure as we own the earth. Trouble, maybe big trouble.

Merciful G.o.d, I--I rather think we oughtn't to be here, in person, eh?

We'd be much better off out of here. If there--there should be any fighting, you know--"

His voice broke in a falsetto pipe. Waldron laughed brutally.

"Bravo!" cried he, with flushed and mottled face. "You'll do, Flint! I see, right now, the firing-line is the life for you! Well, let the row come, and devil take it, say I. Better anything than--"

The sentence was never finished, For suddenly a shattering explosion hurled a vast section of the western encircling wall outward, out into the River, and, where but a moment before, the partners had been gazing at a high concrete-and-steel barrier, with electric lights on top, now only a huge gap appeared, through which the foam-tossed current could be seen leaping swiftly onward toward the Falls.

Hurled back from the window by the force of the explosion, both men were struck dumb with terror and amaze. Flint rallied first, and with a cry of rage, inarticulate as a beast's howl, sprang to the window again.

Outside, a scene of desolation and wild activity was visible. The great, paved courtyard, flanked by the turbine houses and the wall, on one hand, and on the other by the oxygen tanks' huge bulk that loomed vaguely through the electric-lighted mist, now had begun to swarm with men.

Flint saw a few forms lying p.r.o.ne under the hard glare of the arcs and vacuum lights. Others were crawling, writhing, making strange contortions. Here, there, men with rifles were running to take their posts. Hoa.r.s.e orders were shouted, and shrill replies rang back.

Then, all at once, a kind of sputtering series of small explosions began to rip along the edge of the south wall. And now, machine-guns began to talk, with a dry, hard metallic clatter. And--though whence these came, Flint could not see--grenades began flying over the wall and bursting in the court. Though unwounded, men fell everywhere these gas-projectiles exploded--fell, stone dead and stiffening at once--fell, in strange, monstrous, awful att.i.tudes of death.

Steam began billowing up; and crackling electrical discharges leaped along the naked wires of the outer barricades.

The whole Plant shook and rattled with the violent concussions of the aerial-bomb guns, already searching the upper air with shrapnel.

Somewhere, out of the range of vision, another terrible shock made the building tremble to its nethermost foundation; and wild yells and cries, as of a charge, a repulse, a savage and determined rush, echoed through the vast enclosure. Came a third detonation--and, blinding in its intensity, a globe of fire burst almost beneath the window, five stories below.

The partners, shaking and pale, retreated hastily. A swift, upward-rising shape swept over the courtyard and was gone--one of the air-fleet now launched to meet the attackers.

Far below a sudden crumbling shudder of masonry told the Billionaire not a moment was to be lost, for already one wing of the Administration Building was swaying to its fall.

"Quick, Waldron! Quick!" he shouted, in the shrill treble of senility, and ran into the corridor that led to the north wing. Waldron, suddenly sobered, followed; and from the offices, where the night-shift of clerks were laboring (or had been, till the first explosion), came crowding pale and frightened men. Not the fighting cast of Air Trust slaves, these, but the anaemic chemists and experimenters and clerical workers, scabs, to a man. Now, in the common sentiment of fear, they jostled Flint and Waldron, as though these plutocrats had been but common clay.

And in the corridor a babel rose, through which fresh volleys and ever more and more violent explosions ripped and thundered.