T
he twisting of his head raised the cloth an inch at a time, and despite Sykes' efforts to hold the garment with his elbow, it slipped back time and again. McGuire straightened at intervals to draw a choking breath and ease the strain upon his tortured wrists; then back again in his desperate contortions to worry at the cloth and pull and hold—and try again to raise the heavy pocket where a battery made sagging folds.
He was faint and gasping when finally the cloth was brought where the scientist's straining fingers could grasp it to writhe and twist in clumsy efforts that would force the battery's terminals within reach.
"I'll try it on mine," said Sykes. "It may be hot—and you've had your share." He was holding the flat black thing to bring the copper tips against the metal about his wrists. McGuire saw the man's lips go white as a wisp of smoke brought to his nostrils the sickening odor of burned flesh.
The metal glowed, and the man was writhing in silent self-torture when at last he threw his weight upon the strands and fell backward to the floor. He lay for a moment, trembling and quivering—but free. And the knowledge of that freedom and of the greater torture they would both escape, gave him strength to rise and work with crippled hands at his companion's bonds, till McGuire, too, was free—free to forget his own swollen, bleeding wrists in compassionate regard for the other.
Like an injured animal, Professor Sykes had licked with his tongue at his wrists, where hot wire had burned deep and white, and he was trying for forgetfulness an hour later, in examination of the door to their room.
"What is the idea?" McGuire inquired, when he turned from his ceaseless contemplation of the fleet. "Not trying to get out, are you?"
"I am trying to stay in," said Sykes, and looked again at the object that interested him. "These long bolts," he explained: "top and bottom; operated from outside, but exposed in here. They come together when unlocked; five inches apart now. If I had something to hold them apart—
"You haven't a piece of steel about five inches long, have you?—or anything to substitute for it? If you have, I can lock this door so the devils won't come in and surprise us before we can make the jump."
"The battery?" suggested McGuire.
S
ykes shook his head. "I tried it. Too long, and besides it would crumble. They operate these with a lever; I saw it outside." He went on silently with his study of the door and the little gap between heavy bolts, which, if closed, would mean security from invasion.
"They're about through," McGuire spoke from his post at the window after some time. "The rush seems to be about over. I imagine they'll pull out in the morning."
He pointed as Sykes stood beside him. "Those big ones over beyond have not been touched all day; only some of the crew, I judge, working around them. And way over you see forty or fifty whaling big ones: they must have been ready before we came. They have finished on these nearer by. It looks like a big day for the brutes."
And Professor Sykes led him on to talk more of the preparations he had seen, and his deductions as to the morrow. It was all too evident what was really on the lieutenant's mind. It was not the thought of their own immediate death, but the terrible dread and horror of Althora's fate, that hammered and hammered in his brain. To speak of anything else meant a moment's relief.
Sykes pointed to a tall mast that was set in the plaza pavement, some hundred feet away. Wires swung from it to several points, one of them ending above their window and entering the building. "What is that?" he asked, "—some radio device? That ball of metal on the top might be an aerial." But McGuire had fallen silent again, and stared stonily at the deadly fighting ships he was powerless to combat.
O
n the morning that followed, there was no uncertainty. This was the day! And from a balconied window up high in the side of a tall stone building, two men stood wordless and waiting while they watched the preparations below.
The open space was a sea of motion like flowing blood, where thousands of figures in dull red marched in rank after rank to be swallowed in the mammoth ships that McGuire had noted in the distance. Then other colors, and swarms of what they took to be women-folk of this wild race—a medley of color that flowed on and on as if it would never cease, to fill one after another of the great ships.
"Transports, that's what they are," said McGuire. "I can see now why they have no steel beaks like the others. They don't need any rams, nor ports for firing that beastly gas. They are gray, too, while the fighting ships are striped with red, all except the scarlet one of Torg's. Those are colonists we are watching, and soldiers to conquer the Earth where the damned swarm settles."
He stopped to stare at a body of red-clad soldiers, drawn up at attention. They made a lane, and their arms were raised in the salute that seemed only for Torg. They stood rigid and motionless; then, from below the watching men, came one in the full splendor of his scarlet regalia. The air echoed with the din of his shouted name, but the bedlam of noise fell on deaf ears for McGuire. He could hear nothing, and in all the vast kaleidoscope of color he could see only one object—the white face of a girl who was half ledand half carried by a guard of the red ones, where their Emperor led the way.
I
t was a strangled cry that was torn from the flyer's throat—the name of this girl who was going to the doom she had failed to avoid. Her life, she had said, was hers to keep only if she willed, but her plans had failed, and she went faltering and stumbling after a scarlet man beast.
"Althora!" called the flyer, and the figure of the girl was struggling with her guards in a frenzy that tore their hands free. She turned to look toward the sound of the voice, and her face was like that of one dead as her eyes found the man she loved.
"Tommy," she called: "oh, Tommy, my dear! Good-by!" The words were ended by the clutch of the scarlet Emperor who turned to seize her.
A clatter came from the door behind them, but Lieutenant McGuire gave no heed. Only Professor Sykes sprang back from the balcony to seize and struggle with the moving bolts.
The man on the balcony was hardly less than a maniac as he glared wildly about, but he was not too unreasoning to see the folly of a wild leap into the throng below. He could never reach her—never. And then his eyes fell upon the wire that led from above him to the great pole in the open plaza. There was shouting from behind where the executioners were wrestling with the bolts.
"Hold them," the flyer shouted, "just for a minute! For God's sake, Sykes, keep them back! There's a chance!"
He sprang to the balustrade of the balcony, but he saw as he leaped where Professor Sykes had raised his leg to force the thickness of his knee between the bolts whose levers outside were bringing them closer together.
"Go to it," was the answer. "I can hold them"—a stifled groan—"for a—minute!" Professor Sykes had found his substitute for five inches of steel, and the living flesh yielded but slowly to the pressure of the bolts.
M
cGuire was working frantically at the wire, then held himself in check while he carefully unwound it from its fastening. There was a splice, and he worked with bleeding fingers to unfasten the tight coils. And then the end was free and in his hands. He dropped to the balcony to pull in the slack, and he wrapped the end about beneath his arms and twisted it tight, then leaped out into space. No thought of himself nor of Sykes in this one wild moment, only of Althora in the grip of those beastly hands.
He was struggling to turn himself in the air as the colored masses of people seemed sweeping toward him, and he shot as a living pendulum, feet first, into the waiting heads.
He was on his feet in an instant and tearing at the twisted wire that held him. About him was clamor and confusion, but beyond the nearer figures he saw the one who waited, and beside her a thing in scarlet that shrieked orders to his men.
He flung off one who leaped toward him, and ducked another to dash through and reach his man. And he neither saw nor felt the creature's ripping talons as he drove a succession of rights and lefts to the blood-red face.
The scarlet one went backward under the fusillade of blows; he was down, a huddle of color upon the pavement, and a horde of paralyzed soldiers had recovered from their stupefaction and were rushing upon the flyer. He turned to meet them, but their rush ended as quickly as it began: only a step or two they came, then stopped, to add their wild voices to the confusion of ear-splitting shrieks that rose from all sides.
M
cGuire crouched rigid, tense and waiting, nor did he sense for an instant that the assault was checked and that the faces of all about him were turned to the sky. It was the voice of Althora that aroused him:
"Tommy! Tommy!" she was calling,and now she was at his side, her arms about him. "What is it, Tommy? Look! Look!" And she too was gazing aloft. And then, above all other sounds McGuire heard the roar—
The clouds were golden above with the brilliance of midday—and against them, hard and sharp of outline, was a shining shape. A cloud of vapor streamed behind it as it shot down from the clouds, and the thunder of its coming was like the roar of many cannon.
A ship of the red ones was in the air—a fighting ship, whose stripes showed red—and it drove at the roaring menace with its steel beak and a swirling cloud of gas. It seemed that they must crash, when to McGuire's eyes came the stabbing flash of heavy guns from the shining shape. A crashing explosion came down to them as the great beak parted and fell, and the body of the red-striped monster opened in bursting smoke and flame, tore slowly into fragments and fell swiftly to the earth.
It struck with a shattering crash some distance away, but one pair of eyes failed to follow it in its fall. For in the clear air above, with the golden light of distant clouds upon it, a roaring monster of silvery sheen had rolled and swept upward to the heights. And it showed, as it turned, a painted emblem on its bow, a design of clear-cut color, unbelievably familiar—a circle of blue, and within it a white star and a bull's eye of red—the mark of the flying service of the United States!
M
cGuire never knew how he got Althora and himself back to the building whence he had come. Nor did he see the struggling figures on a balcony, or the leap and fall of a maimed body, where Professor Sykes, when the door had yielded, found surcease and oblivion on the pavement below.
He was to learn that later, but now he had eyes only for a sight that could be but a dream, an unreal vision of a disordered brain. He held the slim form of Althora to him in a crushing grip, while he stared, dry-eyed, above, and his own voice seemed to shout from afar off: "They're ours!" that voice was screaming in a frenzy of exultation. "They're our ships! They've come across!"
The fighting fleet of the red man-things of Venus was taking to the air! The ships rose in a swarm of speeding, darting shapes, and the great one of Torg was in the lead, climbing in fury toward the heights.
Far above them the clouds of gold silhouetted a strange sight, and the air was shaking with the thunder from on high, where, straight and true, a line of silver ships in the sharp V of battle formation drove downward in a deadly, swift descent.
And even afar off, the straining eyes of a half-crazed man could see the markings on their bow—a circle and a star—and the colors of his own lost fighters of the air.
T
he Earth-fleet was a slanting line of swiftness that swept downward from the clouds. A swarm of craft was rising from below. The red-striped fighters met the attack first with a cloud of gas.
The scarlet monster—the flagship of Torg, the Emperor—was in the lead, and they shot with terrific speed across the bows of the oncoming fleet to leave a whirlwind of deadly vapor as they passed. McGuire held his breath in an agony of fear as the cloud enveloped the line of ships, but their bow guns roared staccato crashes in the thunder of their exhausts as they entered the cloud. And they were firing from the stern as they emerged, while two falling cylinders of red and white proved the effectiveness of their fire.
The formation held true as it swept upward and back where the swarming enemy was waiting. They were outnumbered three to one, McGuire saw,and his heart sang within him as he watched the sharp, speeding V that climbed upward to the enemy's level then swung to throw itself like a lance of light at the massed ships that awaited the attack.
Another cloud of gas!—and a shattered ship!—and again the line emerged to correct its broken formation and drive once more toward the circling swarm.
They came to meet them now, the clusters of red-striped fighting ships, and they tore in from all sides upon the American line, their hooked beaks gleaming in the sun.
A
nd now, at an unseen signal, the formation broke. Each ship fought for its life, and the stabbing flashes of their guns made ceaseless jets of light against the smoke and gas clouds that were darkening the sky.
"A dog-fight!" breathed Lieutenant McGuire; "and what a dog-fight!" His words were lost in the terrific thunder from above: the roar of the ships and the dull thuds of the guns engulfed them in a maelstrom of noise that battered like physical blows on the watchers below. He swore unconsciously and called down curses upon the enemy as he saw two fighters meet while the shining beak of a ship of the reds crashed through the body of an opposing craft.
The red ship dipped at the bow; it backed off with terrific force; and from the curved beak a ship with the insignia of the red, white and blue slid downward in a swift fall to the death that waited.
They had fought themselves clear, and the Americans, by what must have been arrangement or wireless order, went roaring to the heights. There were some who followed, but the guns of the speeding ships drove them off. Red-and-white shapes fell swiftly from the clouds where the fighting had been, and McGuire knew that his fellows had given an account of themselves in the fighting at close range.
Again the thundering line was sharp and true, and another unswerving attack was launching itself from above. And again the deadly formation, with ever-increasing speed, drove into the enemy with flashing guns, then parted to close with the ones that drove crushingly upon them, while the sharper clatter of rapid-firing guns came to shatter the air.
The fighting craft had been rising from their level field in a succession that seemed endless. They were all in the air now, and only the great transports remained on the paved field.
A
red-striped fighter swept downward in retreat, and, from the smoke clouds, a silvery shape followed in pursuit. It reached the red and white one with its shells, and the great mass crashed with terrific impact on the field. Its pursuer must have seen the monsters still on the ground, and it swung to rake them with a shower of small-caliber shells.
There were machine-guns rattling as it passed above the thronged reds—the troops who were huddled in terror in the open court. It tore on past them—past a figure in khaki who raced forward with the golden form of a girl within his arms, then released her to wave frantically as the silver ship shot by.
Unobserved, McGuire and Althora had been, where they stood beside the buildings: the eyes of their enemies, like their own, were on the monstrous battle above. But now they had called themselves to the attention of the reds, and there were some who rushed upon them with faces livid with rage.
McGuire reached for a weapon from a victim of the machine-gun fire and prepared to defend himself, but the weapon was never used. He saw the silvery shape reverse itself in the air; it turned sharply to throw itself back toward the solitary figure in uniform of their service and the golden-clad girl beside him.
The flyer raised his weapon, but thejostling swarm that rushed upon him melted: the ripping fire of machine guns was deafening in his ears. Their deadly tattoo continued while the great ship sank slowly to touch and rest its huge bulk upon the pavement. A door in the ship's curved side opened that the blocky figure of a man might leap forth.
He was grimy of face, and his uniform was streaked with the smoke and sweat of battle, but the face beneath the grime, and the hands that reached to embrace and pound the flyer upon the back, could be only those of one he had known as his captain—Captain Blake.
"You son-of-a-gun!" the shouting figure was repeating. "You damned Irish son-of-a-gun! A. W. O. L.—but you can't get away with it! Come on—get in here! I'm needed up above!"
M
cGuire was struggling to speak from a throat that was suddenly tight and voiceless. Then—
"Althora," he gasped; "take Althora!" and he motioned toward the girl. And then he remembered the companion he had left in the room above. The battle that had flashed so suddenly had blasted from his mind all other thoughts.
"My God!" he said. "—Sykes! I—must get Sykes!"
He turned to run back to the building, only to stop in consternation where a huddle of clothing lay beneath the balcony of their prison room.
It was Sykes—Sykes who had sacrificed himself to make possible the escape of his friend—and McGuire dropped to his knees to touch the body that he knew was shattered beyond any hope of life. He raised the limp burden in his arms and staggered back where more khaki-clad figures had gathered. Two came quickly out to meet him, and he let them take the body of his friend.
"C'est fini!"—he repeated the words that Sykes had said; "the end of our little journey!" The arms of Althora were about him as Blake hurried them into the waiting ship, and the roar of enormous power marked the rising of this space ship to throw itself again into the fray.
A
small room with a dome of shatter-proof glass; a pilot who sat there to look in all directions, a control-board beneath his hands. Beside him on his elevated station was room for Captain Blake, and McGuire and Althora, too. The ship was climbing swiftly. McGuire saw where flashing shapes circled and roared in a swelling cloud of smoke and gas.
Blake spoke sharply to an aide: "General orders! All ships climb to resume formation!"
An enemy ship was before them: it flashed from nowhere to bear down with terrific speed. The floor beneath them shook with the jarring of heavy guns, and McGuire saw the advancing shape bursting with puffs of smoke, while their own ship shot upward with a sickening twist. A silver ship was falling!—and another!
"Two more of ours gone," said Captain Blake through set teeth. "How many of them are there, Mac? Tell me what you know: we've got a hell of a fight on our hands."
"They're all here," McGuire told him, in jerky, breathless speech. "These are transports on the ground. Their weapons are gas and speed, and the rams on their beaked ships. There are other weapons—deadlier ones!—but they haven't got them: they belong to another race. I'll tell you all that later!"
"Keep them at a distance, Blake," he said. "Make them come to you—then nail them as they come."
"Right!" was the answer; "that's good dope. We didn't know what they had; expected some devilish things that could down us before we got within effective range; had to mix it with them to find out what they could do, and get in a few solid cracks before they did it.
"How high are we?" He glanced quickly at an instrument. "Ten thousand. Order all ships to withdraw," he instructed his aide. "Rendezvous at fifty thousand feet for echelon formation."
A
nother brush with an enemy craft that slipped quickly to one side—then the smoke clouds were behind them, and a score, of silvery shapes were climbing in vertical flight for the level at fifty thousand.
They were fewer now than they had been, and the line that formed behind the flagship of Blake was shorter than the one that had made the V which shot down so bravely to engage with an unknown foe.
The enemy was below; an arrangement of mirrors showed this from the commander's station. They were emerging from the clouds of smoke to swarm in circling flight through the sky. And now the bow of their own craft was depressed at an order from Blake, and the others were behind them as they drove to renew the attack.
"They're ganging up on us again," said Blake. "We'll fool them this time; we'll just kid them a little."
The flagship swerved before reaching the enemy, and the others followed in what looked like frightened retreat. Again they were in the heights, and some few of the enemy were following. Blake led in another descent.
N
o waiting swarm to greet them now! Blake gave a quick order. The roaring column shifted position as it fell: the flagship was the apex of a great V whose arms flung out and backward on either side—a V formation that curved and twisted through space and thundered upon the smaller formations that scattered before the blasting guns.
"Our bow guns are the effective weapons," Blake observed; his casual tone was a sedative to McGuire's tense nerves. "We can use a broadside only of lighter weight; the kick of the big 'sights' has to be taken straight back. But we're working, back home, on recoil-absorbing guns: we'll make fighting ships of these things yet."
He spoke quietly to the pilot to direct their course toward a group that came sweeping upon them, and the massed fire of the squadron was squarely into the oncoming beaks that fell beneath them where the mirrors showed them crashing to the earth.
They were scattered now; the enemy was in wild disorder; and Blake spoke sharply to his aide.
"Break formation," he ordered; "every ship for itself. Engage the enemy where they find them; shoot down anything they see; prevent the enemy reforming!" He was taking quick advantage of the other's scattered forces, and he scattered his own that he knew could take care of themselves while they engaged the enemy only by ones or twos or threes.
"Clear the air of them!" he ordered. "Not one of them must escape!"
The skies were a maze of darting shapes that crossed and recrossed to make a spider's web of light. Ship drove at ship, to swerve off at the last, while the air quivered and beat upon them with the explosion of shells and guns.
"There's our meat!" Blake directed the pilot, and pointed ahead where a monster in scarlet was swelling into view.
It came swiftly upon them, darting down from above, and McGuire clutched at the arm of the man beside him to shout: "It's the leader; the flagship! It's the Emperor—Torg, himself! Give him hell, Blake, but look out—he's fast!"
T
he ship was upon them like a flash of fire; no time for anything but dodging, and the pilot threw his craft wildly aside with a swerve that sent the men sprawling against a stanchion. Then up and back, where the other had turned to come up from below.
"Fast!" McGuire had said, but the word was inadequate to describe the speed of the fiery shape.
Another leap in the air, as their pilot swung his controls, and the red shape brushed past them in a cloud of gas, while the quick-firers ripped futilely into space where the great ship had been.
"Get your bow guns on him!" Blake roared. The ship beneath them strained and shuddered with the incredible thunder of the generator that threw them bodily in the air. The pilot had opened in full force the ports that blasted their bows aside.
No time to gather new speed; they were motionless as the scarlet monster came upon them, but they were in position to receive him. The eight-inch rifles of the forward turret thundered again and again, to be answered by flashes of flame from the scarlet ship.
McGuire crouched over the bent form of the pilot, whose steady fingers held the ship's bow straight upon the flashing death that bore down upon them. Another salvo!—and another!—hits all of them.... Smoke bursting from ripping plates, and flaming fire more vivid than the scarlet shape itself!—and the floor beneath McGuire's feet drove crushingly upward as their pilot pulled a lever to the full.
The great beak flashed beneath—and the mirrors, where McGuire's eyes were fastened, showed the terrific drive continue down and down, where a brilliant cylinder that marked the power of Venus tore shriekingly on to carry an Emperor to his crashing death.
T
he skies were clear of the red-striped ships: only the survivors of the attacking force showed their silvery shapes as they gathered near their flagship. There were two that pursued a small group of the enemy, but they were being outdistanced in the race.
"We have won," said Blake in a tone of wonder that showed how only now had come a realization of what the victory meant. "We have won, and the earth—is saved!"
And the voice of McGuire echoed his fervent "Thank God!" while he gripped the soft hand that clung tightly to his, as if Althora, this radiant creature of Venus, were timid and abashed among the joyful, shouting men-folk from another world.
"And now what, Captain?" asked McGuire of his command. "Will you land? There is an army of reds down there asking for punishment."
Blake had turned away; his hand made grimy smears across his face where he wiped away the tears that marked a brave man's utter thankfulness. He covered his emotion with an affectation of disapproval as he swung back toward McGuire.
"Captain?" he inquired. "Captain? Where do you get that captain stuff?"
He pointed to an emblem on his uniform, a design that was unfamiliar to the eyes of McGuire.
"You're talking to an admiral now!—the first admiral of the newest branch of your country's fighting service—commanding the first fleet of the Space ships of the United States of America!" He threw one arm about the other's shoulders. "We'll have to get busy, Mac," he added, "and think up a new rank for you.
"And, yes, we are going to land," he continued in his customary tones; "there may be survivors of our own crashes. But we'll have to count on you, Mac, to show us around this little new world of yours."
T
here was an army waiting, as McGuire had warned, but it was waiting to give punishment and not to take it. The vast expanse of the landing field was swarming with them, and the open country beyond showed columns of marching troops.
They had learned, too, to take shelter; barricades had been hastily erected, and the men had shields to protect them from the fire of small arms.
Their bodies were enclosed in their gas-tight uniforms whose ugly head-pieces served only to conceal the greater ugliness beneath. They met the ships as they landed with a showering rain of gas that was fired from huge projectors.
"Not so good!" Blake was speaking in the safety of his ship. "We have masks, but great heavens, Mac!—there must be a million of those brutes. We can spray them with machine-gun fire, but we haven't ammunition enough to make a dent in them. And we've got to get out and get to our crashed ships."
He waited for McGuire's suggestions, but it was Althora who replied.
"Wait!" she said imperatively. She seemed to be listening to some distant word. Then:
"Djorn is coming," she exclaimed, and her eyes were brilliantly alight. "He says to you"—she pointed to McGuire—"that you were right, that we must fight like hell sometimes to deserve our heaven—oh, I told him what you said—and now he is coming with all his men!"
"What the devil?" asked Blake in amazement. "How does she know?"
"Telepathy," McGuire explained: "she is talking with her brother, the leader of the real inhabitants of Venus."
He told the wondering man briefly of his experience and of the people themselves, the real owners of this world.
"But what can they do?" Blake demanded.
And McGuire assured him: "Plenty!"
H
e turned to Althora to ask, "How are they coming? How will they get here?"
"They are marching underground; they have been coming for two days. They knew of our being captured, but the people have been slow in deciding to fight. Djorn dared not tell me of their coming; he feared he might be too late.
"They will come out of that building," she said, and indicated the towering structure that had been their prison. "It has the old connection with the underground world."
"Well, they'd better be good!" said Blake incredulously.
He was still less optimistic when the building before them showed the coming of a file of men. They poured forth, in orderly fashion and ranged themselves in single file along the walls.
There must be a thousand, McGuire estimated, and he wondered if the women, too, were fighting for their own. Then, remembering Althora's brave insistence, he knew his surmise was correct.
Each one was masked against the gas; their faces were concealed; and each one held before him a tube of shining metal with a larger bulbous end that rested in their hands.
"Electronic projectors," the lieutenant whispered. "Keep your eye on the enemy, Blake; you are going to learn something about war."
The thin line was advancing now and the gas billowed about them as they came. There were some few who dropped, where masks were defective, but the line came on, and the slim tubes were before them in glittering menace.
A
t a distance of a hundred feet from the first of the entrenched enemy there was a movement along the line, as if the holders of the tubes had each set a mechanism in operation. And before the eyes of the Earth-men was a spectacle of horror like nothing in wars they had known.
The barricades were instantly a roaring furnace; the figures that leaped from behind them only added to the flames. From the steady rank of the attackers poured an invisible something before which the hosts of the enemy fell in huddles of flame. Those nearest were blasted from sight in a holocaust of horror, and where they had been was a scattering of embersthat smoked and glowed; even the figures of distant ones stumbled and fell.
The myriad fighters of the army of the red ones, when the attackers shut off their invisible rays, was a screaming mob that raced wildly over the open lands beyond.
Althora's hands were covering her eyes, but McGuire and Blake, and the crowding men about them, stared in awe and utter astonishment at the devastation that was sweeping this world. An army annihilated before their eyes! Scores of thousands, there must be, of the dead!
The voice of Blake was husky with horror. "What a choice little bit out of hell!" he exclaimed. "Mac, did you say they were our friends? God help us if they're not!"
"They are," said McGuire grimly. "Those are Althora's people who had forgotten how to fight; they are recapturing something that they lost some centuries ago. But can they ever destroy the rest of that swarm? I don't think they have the heart to do it."
"They do not need." It was Althora speaking. "My people are sickened with the slaughter. But the red ones will go back into the earth, and we will seal them in!—it is Djorn who tells me—and the world will be ours forevermore."
A
matter of two short days, crammed to the uttermost with the realization of the astounding turn of events—and McGuire and Althora stood with Blake and Djorn, the ruler, undisputed, of the beautiful world of Venus. A fleet of great ships was roaring high in air. One only, the flagship, was waiting where their little group stood.
The bodies of the fallen had been recovered; they were at rest now in the ships that waited above. McGuire looked about in final wonder at the sparkling city bathed in a flood of gold. A kindly city now—beautiful; the terrors it had held were fading from his mind. He turned to Althora.
"We are going home," he said softly, "you and I."
"Home?" Althora's voice was vibrant with dismay.
"We need you here, friend Mack Guire," the voice of Djorn broke in, in protest. "You have something that we lack—a force and vision—something we have lost."
"We will be back," the flyer assured him. "You befriended me: anything I can do in return—" The grip of his hand completed the sentence.
"But there is a grave to be made on the summit of Mount Lawson," he added quietly. "I think he would have preferred to lie there—at the end of his journey—and I must return to the service where I have not yet been mustered out."
"But you said—you were going home," faltered Althora. "Will that always be home to you, Tommy?"
"Home, my dear," he whispered in words that reached her only, "is just where you are." His arm went about her to draw her toward the waiting ship. "There or here—what matter? We will be content."
Her eyes were misty as they smiled an answer. Within the ship that was lifting them, they turned to watch a city of opal light grow faintly luminous in the distance ... an L-shaped continent shrunk to tiny size ... and the nebulous vapors of the cloudland that enclosed this world folded softly about.
"We will lead," the voice of Blake was saying to an aide: "same formation that we used coming over. Give the necessary orders. But," he added slowly to himself, "the line will be shorter; there are fewer of us now."
An astronomical officer laid a chart before the commander. "We are on the course, sir," he reported.
"Full speed," Blake gave the order, and the thundering generator answered from the stern. The Space Fleet of America was going home.
"Absurd" to "Superb"
Dear Editor:Unfortunately, I missed the January number of your very excellent magazine, which I consider superior to any of its type. I brought seven copies—February to August—with me on my vacation, and have so far read the first three from cover to cover.The February and March numbers were almost above reproach, but the April number contained two stories so surprisingly poor that I can only conjecture the Editor was ill at that time. They were "The Man who was Dead," by Thomas H. Knight and "Monsters of Moyen," by Arthur J. Burks. For Mr. Knight there is no hope. To him I can only say "Stop trying to write and get a job." I am a rapid and omnivorous reader, but never have I read a story so utterly bad as his. He gets the booby prize.Arthur J. Burks, although a master artist in comparison to Knight, is pretty poor—terrible, in fact. His style is dull, repetitious, and stilted. His melodrama is exaggerated to the point of nauseating absurdity. His characters are lifeless and unnatural puppets. So much for the faults.Among the best Science Fiction stories I have read is "The Planet of Dread," by R. F. Starzl in the August number. I also very much enjoyed the "Dr. Bird" stories by Capt. Meek, and indeed all the others, barring the two I criticized in such a helpful, friendly spirit. Leinster and Cummings are old favorites of mine.I prefer your present cover but disagree with your attitude towards reprinting the older works of such authors as George Allen England, Serviss and Cummings, which are now unobtainable and would, I believe, be received with pleasure and applause.Congratulations—Joseph S. Stull, 291 Barrington St., Rochester, N. Y.P.S. Since I wrote I have read the May and June numbers—both perfect. C. D. Willard is a superb storyteller.
Dear Editor:
Unfortunately, I missed the January number of your very excellent magazine, which I consider superior to any of its type. I brought seven copies—February to August—with me on my vacation, and have so far read the first three from cover to cover.
The February and March numbers were almost above reproach, but the April number contained two stories so surprisingly poor that I can only conjecture the Editor was ill at that time. They were "The Man who was Dead," by Thomas H. Knight and "Monsters of Moyen," by Arthur J. Burks. For Mr. Knight there is no hope. To him I can only say "Stop trying to write and get a job." I am a rapid and omnivorous reader, but never have I read a story so utterly bad as his. He gets the booby prize.
Arthur J. Burks, although a master artist in comparison to Knight, is pretty poor—terrible, in fact. His style is dull, repetitious, and stilted. His melodrama is exaggerated to the point of nauseating absurdity. His characters are lifeless and unnatural puppets. So much for the faults.
Among the best Science Fiction stories I have read is "The Planet of Dread," by R. F. Starzl in the August number. I also very much enjoyed the "Dr. Bird" stories by Capt. Meek, and indeed all the others, barring the two I criticized in such a helpful, friendly spirit. Leinster and Cummings are old favorites of mine.
I prefer your present cover but disagree with your attitude towards reprinting the older works of such authors as George Allen England, Serviss and Cummings, which are now unobtainable and would, I believe, be received with pleasure and applause.
Congratulations—Joseph S. Stull, 291 Barrington St., Rochester, N. Y.
P.S. Since I wrote I have read the May and June numbers—both perfect. C. D. Willard is a superb storyteller.
Wrong Numbers Still!
Dear Editor:I agree with the rest of your readers in the good things they say about your magazine in "The Readers' Corner." There is one story, however, "The Planet of Dread," in your August issue, that gives me a rather sickening feeling of disgust. The trouble was in the climax. After the hero has wandered over quite a portion of the planet Inra, he arrives at some mountains where, lo and behold! an unexpected space ship drops from the clouds to an unfrequented ledge of rockand makes a rescue. After this sensational climax comes an equally thrilling anti-climax—the hero is offered three years' salary for his story. To accuse the future world of doing such a thing is an open insult to our posterity. Ten per cent of my high school freshmen took just such an ending to their first themes.As that story took up about one-seventh of your space and your magazine cost twenty cents. I figure you owe your readers three cents on that issue. But, due to the fineness of the rest of your stories, I am willing to forget your debt as far as I am concerned.I am happy to see that you are beginning to print articles. I read with interest the one about Mechanical Voices for Telephone Numbers in your September issue. But can't something be done about wrong numbers? The article states that a person dialed the number 8561T. Two seconds later the loud-speaker spoke up, clearly, in an almost human voice, 8651T. Wrong number! Must this evil be with us always!I am NOT in favor of reprints. You are printing stories every month just as good as any of those suggested to you. I have read most of those classic scientific stories referred to. The best stories along this line have not been written yet. Keep your space clear for them. Let us have young blood with new ideas. Let our authors eat. Good stories were never written on an empty stomach.I believe yours is the highest type of the few magazines that lay a greater stress on the brains of the hero than on his good looks. But, for the sake of one of your ardent readers, let that hero use his brains to get himself out of whatever he has gotten into. Don't let a space ship swoop down from above to rescue him. That type of story reminds me a lot of the one where Jonah was rescued from the deep by the timely arrival of the friendly whale. By the way, there's a suggestion for a reprint. I will admit that it would be just about as new to me as some of the others that have been suggested in this "Corner."—Richard Lewis, 448 Marion St., Knoxville, Iowa.
Dear Editor:
I agree with the rest of your readers in the good things they say about your magazine in "The Readers' Corner." There is one story, however, "The Planet of Dread," in your August issue, that gives me a rather sickening feeling of disgust. The trouble was in the climax. After the hero has wandered over quite a portion of the planet Inra, he arrives at some mountains where, lo and behold! an unexpected space ship drops from the clouds to an unfrequented ledge of rockand makes a rescue. After this sensational climax comes an equally thrilling anti-climax—the hero is offered three years' salary for his story. To accuse the future world of doing such a thing is an open insult to our posterity. Ten per cent of my high school freshmen took just such an ending to their first themes.
As that story took up about one-seventh of your space and your magazine cost twenty cents. I figure you owe your readers three cents on that issue. But, due to the fineness of the rest of your stories, I am willing to forget your debt as far as I am concerned.
I am happy to see that you are beginning to print articles. I read with interest the one about Mechanical Voices for Telephone Numbers in your September issue. But can't something be done about wrong numbers? The article states that a person dialed the number 8561T. Two seconds later the loud-speaker spoke up, clearly, in an almost human voice, 8651T. Wrong number! Must this evil be with us always!
I am NOT in favor of reprints. You are printing stories every month just as good as any of those suggested to you. I have read most of those classic scientific stories referred to. The best stories along this line have not been written yet. Keep your space clear for them. Let us have young blood with new ideas. Let our authors eat. Good stories were never written on an empty stomach.
I believe yours is the highest type of the few magazines that lay a greater stress on the brains of the hero than on his good looks. But, for the sake of one of your ardent readers, let that hero use his brains to get himself out of whatever he has gotten into. Don't let a space ship swoop down from above to rescue him. That type of story reminds me a lot of the one where Jonah was rescued from the deep by the timely arrival of the friendly whale. By the way, there's a suggestion for a reprint. I will admit that it would be just about as new to me as some of the others that have been suggested in this "Corner."—Richard Lewis, 448 Marion St., Knoxville, Iowa.
Not So "Green" in Ireland
Dear Editor:I suppose it's not often you get a letter from an Irish "Paddy," but here's one now. Here in Cork we don't get magazines like Astounding Stories regularly, but I got the May issue to-day and could not stop until I had devoured it from cover to cover. "The Atom Smasher" is a story which I have been hunting for for years. When I had finished it, I had to sit back and leave out all the breath which I was holding in in a prolonged "whew!" If ever I get the luck to find another Astounding Stories I'll burn up the pages looking for the name Victor Rousseau. Next in order I liked "Brigands of the Moon" and "The Jovian Jest." Thought the story "Into the Ocean's Depths" an awful fairy tale, but otherwise good reading. The painter of the cover design is a real artist and I wish to express my appreciation of his wonderful rendering of a difficult subject.—Fitz-Gerald Grattan, 11 Frankfield Terrace, Summerhill South, Cork, Irish Free State.
Dear Editor:
I suppose it's not often you get a letter from an Irish "Paddy," but here's one now. Here in Cork we don't get magazines like Astounding Stories regularly, but I got the May issue to-day and could not stop until I had devoured it from cover to cover. "The Atom Smasher" is a story which I have been hunting for for years. When I had finished it, I had to sit back and leave out all the breath which I was holding in in a prolonged "whew!" If ever I get the luck to find another Astounding Stories I'll burn up the pages looking for the name Victor Rousseau. Next in order I liked "Brigands of the Moon" and "The Jovian Jest." Thought the story "Into the Ocean's Depths" an awful fairy tale, but otherwise good reading. The painter of the cover design is a real artist and I wish to express my appreciation of his wonderful rendering of a difficult subject.—Fitz-Gerald Grattan, 11 Frankfield Terrace, Summerhill South, Cork, Irish Free State.
Worthy His Evening and Pipe
Dear Editor:I have read my first copy of Astounding Stories, the September.The first paragraph in the first part of "A Problem in Communication" assured me that I had found a book worthy of my evening and pipe.Read that paragraph and you will find Dr. Miles Breuer is most brilliant in his philosophy and clever in the application of that philosophy in his masterpiece of the science of communication.—Don L. Schweitzer, 1402 Bancroft St., Omaha, Nebr.
Dear Editor:
I have read my first copy of Astounding Stories, the September.
The first paragraph in the first part of "A Problem in Communication" assured me that I had found a book worthy of my evening and pipe.
Read that paragraph and you will find Dr. Miles Breuer is most brilliant in his philosophy and clever in the application of that philosophy in his masterpiece of the science of communication.—Don L. Schweitzer, 1402 Bancroft St., Omaha, Nebr.
"Taking a Claw Hold"