The Onslaught from Rigel Part 15

"Mmm," said the staff man. "Let's add up the information we have secured so far and see where it leads. Now first they have a gun which shoots a ray which is effective either all along its length or when put up in packages like a sh.e.l.l, and is rather like a bolt of lightning in its effect. Any deductions from that?"

"Might be electrical," said someone.

"Also might not," countered Walter Beeville. "Remember the _Melbourne's_ turret. No electrical discharge would produce chemical changes like that in Krupp steel."

"Second," said the officer, "they appear to have three main types of fighting machines or individuals. First, there are the dodos themselves.

We know all about them, and our airplanes can beat them. Good....

Second, there is their artillery--a large type that throws a beam of this emanation and a smaller type which throws it in the form of sh.e.l.ls.

Thirdly, there are these--tanks, which may themselves be the individuals we are fighting. They are capable of projecting these discharges to a short distance--something over four thousand yards, and apparently do not have the power of projecting it in a prolonged beam, like their artillery. They are about fifty feet long, fish-shaped, heavily armored and have some unknown method of propulsion. Check me if I'm wrong at any point."

"The projection of these lightning-rays would seem to indicate they are machines," offered General Grierson hopefully.

"Not on your life," said Beeville, "think of the electric eel."

"As I was saying," said the staff man, "our chief defect seems a lack of information, and--"

General Grierson brought his fist down on the table. "Gentlemen!" he said. "This discussion is leading us nowhere. It's all very well to argue about the possibilities of man or machine in time of peace and at home, but we are facing one of the greatest dangers the earth has ever experienced, and must take immediate measures. Unless someone has something more fruitful to develop than this conference has provided thus far, I shall be forced to order the re-embarkation of what remains of the army and sail for home. My duty is to the citizens of the federated governments, and I cannot uselessly sacrifice more lives. Our supply of railroad artillery is utterly inadequate to withstand the numbers of our adversaries. Has anyone anything to offer?"

There was a silence around the conference table, a silence pregnant with a heavy sense of defeat, for no one of them but could see the General was right.

But at that moment there came a tap at the door. "Come," called General Grierson. An apologetic under-officer entered. "I beg your pardon, sir, but one of the iron Americans is here and insists that he has something of vital importance for the General. He will not go away without seeing you."

"All right. Bring him in."

There stepped into the room another of the mechanical Americans, but a man neither Ben Ruby nor Beeville had ever seen before. A stiff wire brush of moustache stood out over his mouth; he wore no clothes but a kind of loin-cloth made, apparently, of a sheet. The metal plates of his powerful body glittered in the lamp-light as he stepped forward.

"General Grierson?" he inquired, looking from one face to another.

"I am General Grierson."

"I'm Lieutenant Herbert Sherman of the U. S. Army Air Service. I have just escaped from the La.s.sans and came to offer you my services. I imagine your technical men might wish to know how they operate their machines and what would be effective against them, and I think I can tell you."

CHAPTER XI

Capture

Herbert Sherman had wakened with a vague sense of something wrong and lay back in his seat for a moment, trying to remember. Everything seemed going quietly, the machine running with subdued efficiency.... It came to him with a jerk--he could not hear the motor. With that subconscious concentration of the flying man on his ship, he glanced at the instrument board first, and taking in the astonishing information that both the altimeter and the air-speed meter registered zero, he looked over the side. His vision met the familiar dentilated line of the buildings surrounding the Jackson Heights airport, with a tree plastered greenly against one of them. Queer.

His sense of memory began to return. There was the night-mail flight from Cleveland; the spot of light ahead that grew larger and larger like the most enormous of shooting stars, the sensation of sleepiness.... He remembered setting the controls to ride out the short remainder of the journey with the automatic pilot on the Jackson Heights' radio beam, since he was clearly not going to make Montauk. But what came after that?

Then another oddity struck his attention. He recalled very clearly that he had been flying over the white landscape of winter--but now there was a tree in full leaf. Something was wrong. He clambered hastily from the c.o.c.kpit.

As he swung himself over the side, his eye caught the glint of an unfamiliar high-light on the back of his hand and with the same stupefaction that Murray Lee was contemplating the same phenomenon several miles away, he perceived that instead of a flesh-and-blood member he had somehow acquired an iron hand. The other one was the same--and the arm--and the section of stomach which presently appeared when he tore loose his shirt to look at it.

The various possibilities that might account for it raced through his mind, each foundering on some fundamental difficulty. Practical joke--imagination--insanity--what else? Obviously some time had elapsed.

But how about the ground staff of the airport? He shouted. No answer.

Muttering a few swears to himself he trudged across the flying field, noting that it was grown up with daisies and far from newly rolled, to the hangars. He shouted again. No answer. No one visible. He pounded at the door, then tried it. It was unlocked. Inside someone sat tilted back in a chair against the wall, a cap pulled over his face. Sherman walked over to the sleeper, favoring him with a vigorous shake and the word, "Hey!"

To his surprise the stranger tilted sharply over to one side and went to the floor with a bang, remaining in the position he had a.s.sumed.

Sherman, the thought of murder jumping in his head, bent over, tugging at the cap. The man was as metallic as himself, but of a different kind--a solid statue cast in what seemed to be bronze.

"For Heaven's sake!" said Herbert Sherman to himself and the world at large.

There seemed to be nothing in particular he could do about it; the man, if he had ever been a man, and was not part of some elaborate scheme of flummery fixed up for his benefit, was beyond human aid. However there was one way in which all difficulties could be solved. The sun was high and the town lay outside the door.

... He spent a good deal of the day wandering about Jackson Heights, contemplating such specimens of humanity as remained in the streets, fixed in the various ungraceful and unattractive att.i.tudes of life. He had always been a solitary and philosophical soul, and he felt neither loneliness nor overwhelming curiosity as to the nature of the catastrophe which had stopped the wheels of civilization. He preferred to meditate on the vanity of human affairs and to enjoy a sense of triumph over the ordinary run of bustling mortals who had always somewhat irritated him.

In justice to Herbert Sherman it should be remarked that he felt no trepidation as to the outcome of this celestial joke on the inhabitants of the world. Beside being an aviator he was a competent mechanic, and he proved the ease with which he could control his new physique by sitting down in a restaurant next to the bronze model of a sleepy cat, removing one shoe and sock and proceeding to take out and then replace the cunningly concealed finger-nut which held his ankle in position, marvelling at how any chemical or other change could have produced a threaded bolt as an integral part of the human anatomy.

Toward evening, he returned to the flying field and examined his machine. One wing showed the effect of weathering, but it was an all-metal Roamer of the latest model and it had withstood the ordeal well. The gasoline gauge showed an empty tank, but it was no great task to get more from the big underground tanks at the field. Oil lines and radiators seemed all tight and when he swung the propeller, the motor purred for him like a cat.

With a kind of secret satisfaction gurgling within him Herbert Sherman taxied across the field, put the machine into a climb, and went forth to have a look at New York.

He thought he could see smoke over central Manhattan and swung the Roamer in that direction. The disturbance seemed to be located at the old Metropolitan Opera House which, as he approached it, seemed to have been burning, but had now sunk to a pile of glowing embers. The fire argued human presence of some kind. He took more height and looked down.

Times Square held a good many diminutive dots, but they didn't seem to be moving.

He swung over to examine the downtown section. All quiet. When he returned he saw a car dodging across Forty-Second Street and realizing that he could find human companionship whenever he needed it, which he did not at present, he returned to the flying field.

At this point It occurred to him to be hungry. Reasoning the matter out in the light of his mechanical experience, he drank a pint or more of lubricating oil and searched for a place to spend the night. Not being sleepy he raided a drug store where books were sold, for as much of its stock as he could use, and arranging one of the flares at the field in a position convenient for reading, he settled down for the night. In the course of it he twice tried smoking and found that his new make-up had ruined his taste for tobacco.

With the first streaks of day he was afoot again, going over the Roamer with a fine-toothed comb, since he had no mechanic to do it for him, tuning her up for a long flight. He had no definite purpose in mind beyond a look round the country. Was it all like this, or only New York?

Newark attracted his attention first. He noted there were ships at most of the piers in the river and that none of them bore signs of life.

Neither had the streets on the Jersey side of the river any occupants other than those who were obviously still forever.

As he flew along toward the Newark airport, a shadow fell athwart the wing and he looked up.

A big bird was soaring past, flying above and fully as fast as the plane. In his quick glance Sherman caught something unfamiliar about its flight, and leaned over to snap on the mechanical pilot while he had another look. The bird, if bird it was, was certainly a queer specimen; it seemed to have two sets of wings and was using them as though it were an airplane, with the fore pair outstretched and rigid, the hind wings vibrating rapidly. As he gazed at the bird it drew ahead of the plane, gave a few quick flips to its fore-wings and banked around to pick him up again.

It was coming closer and regarding him with an uncommonly intelligent and by no means friendly eye. Sherman swung his arm at it and gave a shout--to which the bird paid not the slightest attention. Newark was running away under him. Reluctantly, he resumed control of the stick, put the plane into a glide and made for the airport. It occurred to him that this would be an awkward customer if it chose to attack him and he meditated on the possibility of finding a gun in Newark.

The field was b.u.mpy, but he taxied to a stop and climbed out to look over the silent hangars before one of which a little sports plane stood dejectedly, with a piece of torn wing flapping in the breeze. As the Roamer came to rest he looked back at the bird. It was soaring away up in a close spiral, emitting a series of screams. Sherman determined to find a gun without delay.

Newark was like Jackson Heights; same stony immobility of inhabitants, same sense of life stopped at full tide in the streets. He prowled around till he found a hardware store and possessed himself of a fine .50-.50 express rifle with an adequate supply of cartridges as well as a revolver, added to it a collection of small tools, and stopped in at a library to get a supply of reading matter more to his taste than the drug store could provide.

As he took off again two specks in the sky far to the north represented, he decided, additional specimens of the peculiar bird life that had spread abroad since the change. How long it could have been, he had no idea.

He decided on a flight northwest, following the line of the mail route.

There was a chance that the whole country might not be engulfed by this metal plague, though the absence of life in New York was not encouraging.

Port Jervis was his first control point, but Sherman was fond enough of the green wooded slopes of the Catskills to run a little north of his course, b.u.mpy though the air was over the mountains. He set the automatic pilot and leaned back in his seat to enjoy the view.