New developments whereby science goes still farther in its assumption of human attributes were described and demonstrated recently by Sergius P. Grace, Assistant Vice-President of Bell Telephone Laboratories, where the developments were conceived and worked out.One development described, and soon to be put into service in New York, transforms a telephone number dialed by a subscriber into speech. Although the subscriber says not a word the number dialed is spoken aloud to the operator.The device is expected to simplify and speed the hooking together of automatic and voice-hand-operated telephone exchanges, and also to speed long-distance calls from automatic phones through rural exchanges.The numbers which can thus be spoken are recorded on talkie films and those which are to go into use here have already been made, all by an Irish girl said to have the best voice among the city's "number, please" girls.Mr. Grace demonstrated this device by carrying into the audience a telephone with a long cord connected with a loud speaker on the stand, which represented central. A member of the audience was requested to dial a number, and choose 5551-T, the letter T representing the exchange.This number the spectator dialed on the phone Mr. Grace carried. There was no sound but the clicking of the dial. Then, two seconds later, the loudspeaker spoke up clearly, in an almost human voice, "5551 T."As for the recording of the sound films,there is a film for each of the ten Arabic numerals from zero to nine, and these wound on revolving drums. The dial on the telephone automatically sets in action the drum corresponding to the numeral moved on the dial.Another development which sounds promising for bashful suitors and other timid souls, enables a person to store within himself electrically a message he desires to deliver and then to deliver it without speaking, simply by putting a finger to the ear of the person for whom the message is intended.This Mr. Grace demonstrated. He spoke into a telephone transmitter and his words were clearly heard by all in the audience, by means of amplifiers. At the same time a part of the electrical current from the amplifier, representing the sentence he voiced, was stored in a "delay circuit," another recent invention of the laboratories. After being stored four and a half seconds this current was transformed to a high voltage and passed into Mr. Grace's body. He then put his finger against the ear of a member of the audience, who heard in his brain the same sentence. The ear drum and surrounding tissues are made to act as one plate of a condenser-receiver, Mr. Grace explained, with the vibrations of the drum interpreted by the brain.A new magnetic metal, "perminvar," and a new insulating material, "para gutta," which make possible construction of a telephone cable across the Atlantic to supplement the radio systems, were also described. Actual construction of the cable is expected to be started in 1930, Mr. Grace said.
New developments whereby science goes still farther in its assumption of human attributes were described and demonstrated recently by Sergius P. Grace, Assistant Vice-President of Bell Telephone Laboratories, where the developments were conceived and worked out.
One development described, and soon to be put into service in New York, transforms a telephone number dialed by a subscriber into speech. Although the subscriber says not a word the number dialed is spoken aloud to the operator.
The device is expected to simplify and speed the hooking together of automatic and voice-hand-operated telephone exchanges, and also to speed long-distance calls from automatic phones through rural exchanges.
The numbers which can thus be spoken are recorded on talkie films and those which are to go into use here have already been made, all by an Irish girl said to have the best voice among the city's "number, please" girls.
Mr. Grace demonstrated this device by carrying into the audience a telephone with a long cord connected with a loud speaker on the stand, which represented central. A member of the audience was requested to dial a number, and choose 5551-T, the letter T representing the exchange.
This number the spectator dialed on the phone Mr. Grace carried. There was no sound but the clicking of the dial. Then, two seconds later, the loudspeaker spoke up clearly, in an almost human voice, "5551 T."
As for the recording of the sound films,there is a film for each of the ten Arabic numerals from zero to nine, and these wound on revolving drums. The dial on the telephone automatically sets in action the drum corresponding to the numeral moved on the dial.
Another development which sounds promising for bashful suitors and other timid souls, enables a person to store within himself electrically a message he desires to deliver and then to deliver it without speaking, simply by putting a finger to the ear of the person for whom the message is intended.
This Mr. Grace demonstrated. He spoke into a telephone transmitter and his words were clearly heard by all in the audience, by means of amplifiers. At the same time a part of the electrical current from the amplifier, representing the sentence he voiced, was stored in a "delay circuit," another recent invention of the laboratories. After being stored four and a half seconds this current was transformed to a high voltage and passed into Mr. Grace's body. He then put his finger against the ear of a member of the audience, who heard in his brain the same sentence. The ear drum and surrounding tissues are made to act as one plate of a condenser-receiver, Mr. Grace explained, with the vibrations of the drum interpreted by the brain.
A new magnetic metal, "perminvar," and a new insulating material, "para gutta," which make possible construction of a telephone cable across the Atlantic to supplement the radio systems, were also described. Actual construction of the cable is expected to be started in 1930, Mr. Grace said.
The flight was hovering above the first fire-ball.The flight was hovering above the first fire-ball.
Stranger, more thrilling even than had been the flight of the Earth after being forced out of its orbit, was the flight of those dozen aircars of the Moon, bearing the rebels of Dalis' Gens back to Earth.
Martian fire-balls and the terrific Moon-cubes wreak tremendous destruction on helpless Earth in the final death struggle of the warring worlds.
For the light which glowed from the bodies of the rebels, which had been given them by their passage through the white flames, was transmitted to the cars themselves, so that they glowed as with an inner radiance of their own—like comets flashing across the night.
Strange alchemy, which Sarka wondered about and, wondering, looked ahead to the time when he should be able, within his laboratory, to analyze the force it embodied, andthus gain new scientific knowledge of untold value to people of the Earth.
As the cars raced across outer darkness, moving at top speed, greater than ever attained before by man, greater than even these mighty cars had traveled, Sarka looked ahead, and wondered about the fearful report his father had just given him.
That there was an alliance between Mars and the Moon seemed almost unbelievable. How had they managed the first contact, the first negotiations leading to the compact between two such alien peoples? Had there been any flights exchanged by the two worlds, surely the scientists of Earth would have known about it. But there had not, though there had been times and times when Sarka had peered closely enough at the surface of both the Moon and of Mars to see the activities, or the results of the activities, of the peoples of the two worlds.
Somehow, however, communication, if Sarka the Second had guessed correctly, had been managed between Mars and the Moon; and now that the Earth was a free flying orb the two were in alliance against it, perhaps for the same reason that the Earth had gone a-voyaging.
Sideby side sat Sarka and Jaska, their eager eyes peering through the forward end of the flashing aircar toward the Earth, growing minute by minute larger. They were able, after some hours, to make out the outlines of what had once been continents, to see the shadows in valleys which had once held the oceans of Earth....
And always, as they stared and literally willed the cubes which piloted and were the motive power of the aircars to speed and more speed, that marvelous display of interplanetary fireworks which had aroused the concern of Sarka the Second.
What were those lights? Whence did they emanate? Sarka the Second had said that they came from Mars, yet Mars was invisible to those in the speeding aircars, which argued that it was hidden behind the Earth. There was no way of knowing how close it was to the home of these rebels of Dalis' Gens.
And ever, as they flashed forward, Sarka was recalling that vague hint on the lips of Jaska, to the effect that Luar, for all her sovereignty of the Moon, might be, nonetheless, a native of the Earth. But....
How? Why? When? There were no answers to any of the questions yet. If she were a native of Earth, how had she reached the Moon? When had she been sent there? Who was she? Her name, Luar, was a strange one, and Sarka studied it for many minutes, rolling the odd syllables of it over his tongue, wondering where, on the Earth, he had heard names, or words, similar to it. This produced no result, until he tried substituting various letters; then, again, adding various letters. When he achieved a certain result at last, he gasped, and his brain was a-whirl.
Luar, by the addition of the lettern, between theuand thea, became Lunar, meaning "of the Moon!" Yet Lunar was unmistakably a word derived from the language of the Earth! It was possible, of course, that this was mere coincidence; but, taken in connection with the suspicions of Jaska, and the incontrovertible fact that Luar resembled people of the Earth, Sarka did not believe in this particular whim of coincidence.
Who was Luar?
His mind went back to the clucking sounds which, among the Gnomes of the Moon, passed for speech. He pondered anew. He shaped his lips, as nearly as possible, to make the clucking sounds he had heard, and discovered that it was very difficult to manage the lettern!
The conclusion was inescapable: This woman, Luar, had once beenLunar, then, down the centuries, being dropped because difficult for the Gnomes to pronounce.
"Yes, Jaska," he said suddenly, "somewhere on Earth, when we reach it, we may discover the secret of Luar—and know far more about Dalis than we have ever known before!"
Jaska merely smiled her inscrutable smile, and did not answer. By intuition, she already knew. Let Sarka arrive at her conclusion by scientific methods if he desired, and she would simply smile anew.
Sarka thought of the manner in which Jaska and he had been transported to the Moon; of how much Dalis seemed to know of the secrets of the laboratory of the Sarkas. Might he not have known, two centuries ago, of the Secret Exit Dome, and somehow managed to make use of it in some ghastly experiment? And still the one question remained unanswered: Who was Luar?
TheEarth was now so close that details were plainly seen. The Himalayas were out of sight, over the Earth, and by a mental command Sarka managed to change slightly the course of the dozen aircars. By passing over the curve of the Earth at a high altitude, he hoped also to see from above something of the result of the strange aerial bombardment of which his father had spoken.
In their flight, which had been, to them a flight through the glories of a super-heavenly Universe, they had lost all count of time. Neither Sarka nor Jaska, nor yet the people in those other aircars, could have told how long they had been flying, when, coming over the curve of the Earth, at an elevation of something like three miles, they were able at last to see into the area which had once housed the Gens of Dalis.
A gasp of horror escaped the lips of Sarka and of Jaska.
The Gens of Dalis had occupied all the territory northward to the Pole, from a line drawn east and west through the southernmost of what had once been the Hawaiian Islands. Upon this area had struck the strange blue light from the deep Cone of the Moon.
Here, however, the light was invisible, and Sarka flew on in fear that somehow his aircars would blunder into it, and be destroyed—for that the blue light was an agent of ghastly destruction became instantly apparent.
Thedwellings of the Gens of Dalis were broken and smashed into chaotic ruins. Over all the area, and even into the area of the Gens southward of that which had been Dalis, the blind gods of destruction had practically made a clean sweep. Sarka had opportunity to thank God that, at the time the blue column had struck the Earth, it had struck at the spot which had been almost emptied of people, and realized that blind chance had caused it. For, in order for the Gens of Dalis to be in position to launch their attack against the Moon, he had managed, by manipulating the speed of the Beryls, to bring that area into position directly opposite the Moon.
Had it been otherwise, the blue column might have struck anywhere, and wiped out millions of lives!
"God, Jaska," murmured Sarka. "Look!"
Think of a shoreline, once lined with mighty buildings, after the passage of a tidal wave greater than ever before known to man. The devastation would be indescribable. Multiply that shoreline by the vast area which had housed the Gens of Dalis, and the mental picture is almost too big to grasp. Chaos, catastrophe, approaching an infinity of destruction.
The materials of which the vast buildings, set close together, had been made, had been twisted into grotesque, nightmarish shapes, and the whole fused into a burned and gleaming mass—which covered half of what had once been a mighty ocean—as though a bomb larger and more devastating than ever imagined of man, a bomb large enough to rock the Earth, had landed in the midst of the area once occupied by the Gens of Dalis!
Yet, Sarka knew, remembering the murmuring of the blue column as it came out of the cone, all this devastation had been caused in almost absolute silence. People could have watched and seen these deserted buildings slowly fuse together, run together as molten metal runs together, like the lava from a volcano of long ago under the ponderous moving to and fro of some invisible, juggernautlike agency.
Sarkashuddered, trying to picture in his mind the massing of the minions of Mars, who thus saw a new country given into their hands—if they could take it. Had the Earth been taken by surprise? Had Sarka the Second been able to prepare for the approaching catastrophe?
"Father," he sent his thoughts racing on ahead of him, "are those lights which are striking the Earth causing any damage?"
"Only," came back the instant answer, "in that they destroy the courage of the people of the Earth! The people, however, now know that Sarka is returning, and their courage rises again! The flames are merely a hint of what faces us; but the people will rise and follow you wherever you lead!"
So, as they raced across the area of devastation, the face of Sarka became calm again. On a chance, he sent a single sentence of strange meaning to his father.
"The ruler of the Moon is a woman called Luar, which seems a contraction of Lunar!"
For many minutes Sarka the Second made no answer. When it came it startled Sarka to the depths of him, despite the fact that he had expected to be startled.
"There was a woman named Lunar!"
Ahead, through the storms which still hung tenaciously to the roof of the world, flashed those dozen aircars of the Moon. Now Sarka could plainly see the dome of his laboratory, and from the depths of him welled up that strange glow which Earthlings recognize as the joy of returning home, than which there is none, save the love for a woman, greater.
Now he could see the effect of those flares, or lights, from Mars, which impinged on the face of the Earth, though he could see no purpose in them, no reason for their being, since they seemed to do no damage at all, though the effect of them was weird in the extreme.
Outer darkness, rent with ripping, roaring storms, flurries of ice, snow and sleet, shot through and through by balls of lambent flames in unguessable numbers. Eery lights which struck the surface of the Earth, bounded away and, half a mile or so from the surface again, burst into flaming pin-wheels, like skyrockets of ancient times. Strange lights, causing weird effects, but producing no damage at all, save to lessen to some extent the courage of Earthlings, because they did not understand these things. And always, down the ages, man had stood most in fear of the Unknown.
Sarkapeered off across the heavens where a ball of flame now seemed to be rising over the horizon, and was amazed at the size of this planet. Mars was close to Earth, so close that, had they possessed aircars like those of the Moon-people—which remained to be seen—they could easily have attacked the Earth.
Across the face of the Earth flashed those fiery will-o'-the-wisps from Mars, without rhyme or reason; yet Sarka knew positively that they possessed some meaning, and that the Earth had been forced thus close to Mars for a purpose. What that purpose was must yet be discovered.
Then, under the aircars, the laboratory of Sarka.
Down dropped the aircars to a landing near the laboratory, and to thecubes in the forepeak of each Sarka sent the mental command:
"Assure yourselves that the aircars will remain where they are! Muster inside the laboratory, keeping well away from the Master Beryl!"
Then to the people who had returned, clothed in strange radiance, from the Moon with Sarka and with Jaska he spoke:
"Leave the cars and enter my laboratory, where further orders will be given you!"
With Jaska still by his side, Sarka entered the laboratory through the Exit Dome. Inside, clothing was swiftly brought for the rebels, for Sarka and for Jaska. But, even when they were clothed, these people who had come back seemed to glow with an inner radiance which transfigured them.
Sarka the Second, his face drawn and pale, came from the Observatory to meet his son, and the two were clasped in each other's arms for a moment. Sarka the Second, who had looked no older than his son, seemed to have aged a dozen centuries in the time Sarka had been gone.
But it was not of the threatened attack by Martians that Sarka the Second spoke. He made no statement. He merely asked a question:
"Was Lunar very beautiful, and just a bit unearthly in appearance?"
Sarkastarted.
"Yes. Beautiful! Wondrously, fearfully beautiful: but I had the feeling that she had no heart or soul, no conscience: that she was somehow—well, bestial!"
A moan of anguish escaped Sarka the Second.
"Dalis again!" he ejaculated. "But much of the fault was mine! Before you were born, we scientists of Earth had already several times realized the necessity of expansion for the children of Earth if they were to continue. Dalis' proposal to my father was discarded, because it involved the wholesale taking of life. But after the oceans had been obliterated, and the human family still outgrew its bounds, Dalis came to my father and me with still another proposal. It involved a strange, other-worldly young woman whom he called Lunar! Her family—well, nothing was known about her, for her family could not be traced. Wiped out, I presume, in some inter-family quarrel, leaving her alone. Dalis found her, took an interest in her, and the very strangeness of her gave him his idea, which he brought to my father and me.
"His proposal was somewhat like that which you made when we sent the Earth out of its orbit into outer space, save that Dalis' scheme involved no such program. His was simply a proposal to somehow communicate with the Moon by the use of an interplanetary rocket that should carry a human passenger.
"He put the idea up to this girl, Lunar, and she did not seem to care one way or another. Dalis was all wrapped up in his ideas, and gave the girl the name of Lunar, as being symbolical of his plans for her. He coached and trained her against the consummation of his plan. We knew something, theoretically at least, about the conditions on the Moon, and everything possible was done for her, to make it feasible for her to exist on the Moon. My error was in ever permitting the experiment to be made, since if I had negatived the idea. Dalis would have gone no further!
"But I, too, was curious, and Lunar did not care. Well, the rocket was constructed, and shot outward into space by a series of explosions. No word was ever received from Lunar, though it was known that she landed on the Moon!
"
I sayno word was ever received, yet what you have intimated proves that Dalis has either been in mental communication with her, hoping to induce her to send a force against the Earth, and assist him in masteringthe Earth, overthrowing we Sarkas—or has been biding his time against something of the thing we have now accomplished."
This seemed to clear up many things for Sarka, though it piled higher upon his shoulders the weight of his responsibilities. The other-worldliness of Lunar, called now Luar, explained her mastery of the Gnomes, and through them the cubes, and her knowledge of the omnipotent qualities of the white flames of the Moon's core, which might have been, it came to Sarka in a flash, the source of all life on the Moon in the beginning!
"But father," went on Sarka, "I don't see any sense in this aerial bombardment by Mars!"
"I believe," said Sarka the Second sadly, "that before another ten hours pass we shall know the worst there is to be known: but now, son, instead of going into attack against the Moon, we go into battle against the combined forces of Mars and of the Moon!"
Sarkanow took command of the forces of the Earth. Swiftly he turned to the people of the Gens of Dalis who had come back with him.
"You will be divided into eleven equal groups, as nearly as possible. Father, will you please arrange the division? Each group will be attached to the staff of one of the Spokesman of the Gens, so that each Spokesman will have the benefit of your knowledge with reference to conditions on the Moon. Each group will re-enter its particular aircar, retaining control of the cube in each case, of course, and will at once repair to his proper station. Telepathy is the mode of communication with the cubes, and you rule them by your will. Each group, when assembled by my father, will choose a leader before quitting this laboratory, and such leader will remain in command of his group, under the overlordship of the Spokesman to whom he reports with his group. You understand!
"Your loyalty is unquestioned. You will consecrate your lives to the welfare of the Gens to which you are going, since you no longer have a Gens of your own!"
Sarka turned to the cubes, which had formed in a line just inside the Exit Dome, and issued a mental command to the cube that had piloted his aircar from the Moon. The cube faded out instantly, appearing immediately afterward on the table of the vari-colored lights.
"Father," said Sarka, "while I am issuing orders to the Spokesmen, please see if you can discover the secret of these cubes: how they are actuated, the real extent of their intelligence! The rest of you, with your cubes, depart immediately and report to your new Gens!"
Withinten minutes the divisions had been made, and the Radiant People had entered the aircars and, outside the laboratory, risen free of the Earth, and turned, each in its proper direction, for the Gens of its assignment. The Sarkas and Jaska watched them go.
There remained but one aircar, standing outside on half a dozen of those grim tentacles, with two tentacles swinging free, undulating to and fro like serpents. Harnessed electricity actuating the tentacles—cars and tentacles subservient to the cubes.
The aircars safely on their way, Sarka stepped to the Master Beryl, tuned it down to normal speed, and signalled the Spokesmen of the Gens.
"The Moon and Mars are in alliance against us, and Dalis has allied himself and his Gens with the ruler of the Moon! I don't know yet what form the attack will take, but know this: that the safety of the world, of all its people, rests in your hands, and that the war into which we are going is potentially more vast than expected when this venture began, and more devastating than the fight with the aircars of the Moon! Coming to you, in aircarswhich we managed to take from the Moon-people, are such of the people of the Gens of Dalis as were able to return with me. Question them, gather all the information you can about them, and through them keep control of the cubes which pilot the aircars, for in the cubes, I believe, lies the secret of our possible victory in the fight to come!"
Sarkascarcely knew why he had spoken the last sentence. It was as though something deep within him had risen up, commanded him to speak, and deeper yet, far back in his consciousness, was a mental picture of the devastation he had witnessed on his flight above the area that had once housed the Gens of Dalis.
For in that ghastly area, he believed, was embodied an idea greater than mere wanton destruction, just as there was an idea back of the fiery lights from Mars greater than mere display. Somehow the two were allied, and Sarka believed that, between the blue column, and the fiery lights from Mars, the fate of the world rested.
He could, he believed, by manipulation of the Beryls that yet remained, maneuver the world away from that blue column—which on the Earth was invisible. But to have done so would have thwarted the very purpose for which this mad voyage had been begun. The world had been started on its mad journey into space for the purpose of attacking and colonizing the Moon and Mars.
The Moon had been colonized by the Gens of Dalis, already in potential revolt against the Earth. Mars was next, and by forcing the Earth into close proximity to Mars the people of the Moon had played into the hands of Earth-people—if the people of Earth were capable of carrying out the program of expansion originally proposed by Sarka!
If they were not ... well, Sarka thought somewhat grimly, the resultant cataclysmic war would at least solve the problem of over-population! Inasmuch as the Earth was already committed to whatever might transpire, Sarka believed he should take a philosophic view of the matter!
Sarkaturned to an examination of the Master Beryl, and even as he peered into the depths of it, he thought gratefully how nice it was to be home again, in his own laboratory, upon the world of his nativity. He even found it within his heart to feel somewhat sorry for Dalis, and to feel ashamed that he had, even in his heart, mistreated him.
Then he thought, with a tightening of his jaw muscles, of the casual way in which Dalis had destroyed Sarka the First, of his forcing his people to undergo the terrors of the lake of white flames without telling them the simple secret; of his betrayal of the Earth in his swift alliance with Luar; or Luar herself when, as Lunar, a strange waif of Earth, Dalis had sent her out as the first human passenger aboard a rocket to the Moon. All his pity vanished, though he still believed he had done right in sparing Dalis' life.
Suddenly there came an ominous humming in the Beryl, and simultaneously signals from the vari-colored lights on the table. Sarka whirled to the lights, noting their color, and mentally repeating the names of the Spokesmen who signalled him.
Even before he gave the signal that placed him in position to converse with them, he noted the strange coincidence. The Spokesmen who desired speech with him were tutelary heads of Gens whose borders touched the devasted area where Dalis had but recently been overlord!
An icy chill caressed his spine as he signalled the Spokesmen to speak.
"Yes, Vardee? Prull? Klaser? Cleric?"
Thereport of each of them was substantially the same, though couched in different words, wordsfreighted heavily with strange terror.
"The devasted area has suddenly broken into movement! Throughout that portion of it visible from my Gens area, the fused mass of debris is bubbling, fermenting, walking into life! An aura of unearthly menace seems to flow outward from this heaving mass, and the whole is assuming a most peculiar radiance—cold gleaming, like distant starshine!"
"Wait!" replied Sarka swiftly. "Wait until the people I have sent you have arrived! Report to me instantly if the movement of the mass is noticeably augmented, and especially so if it seems to be breaking up, or coagulating into any sort of form whatever!"
Then he dimmed the lights, indicating that for the moment there was nothing more to be said. Just then his father, face very gray and very old, entered the room of the Master Beryl from the laboratory.
"Son!" he said. "The crisis is almost upon us! The Martians are coming!"
Sarkaraced into the Observatory, wondering as he ran how the attack of the Martians would manifest itself; but scarcely prepared for the brilliant display which greeted his gaze. Compared to the oncoming flames from Mars, the preceding display of lights had been as nothing. The whole Heavens between the Earth and Mars seemed alight with an unearthly glare, as though the very heart of the sun had burst and hurled part of its flaming mass outward into space.
On it came with unbelievable speed.
But there was no telling, yet, the form of the things which were coming.
"What are they?" whispered Jaska, standing fearlessly at Sarka's side. "Interplanetary cars? Rockets? Balls of fire? Or beings of Mars?"
"I think," said Sarka, after studying the display for a few minutes, "that they are either rockets or fireballs, perhaps both together! But the Martians cannot consolidate any position on the Earth without coming to handgrips. Since they must know this, we can expect to see the people of Mars themselves when, or soon after, those balls of fire strike the Earth!"
Sarka raced back to the room of the Master Beryl as a strident humming came through to him.
TheSpokesmen of the Gens whose borders touched those of the devasted Dalis area, were reporting again, and their voices were high pitched with fear that threatened to break the bounds of sanity.
"The ferment in the devasted area," was the gist of their report, "is assuming myriads of shapes! The fused mass has broken up into isolated masses, and each mass of itself is assuming one of the many forms!"
"What forms?" snapped Sarka. "Quickly!"
"Cubes! Thousands and millions of cubes, and the cubes themselves are forming into larger cubes, some square, some rectangular! In the midst of these formations are others, mostly columnar, each column consisting of cubes which have coalesced into the larger form from the same small cubes! The columnar formations are topped by globes which emit an ethereal radiance!"
"Listen!" Sarka's voice was vibrant with excitement. "Spokesmen of the Gens, make sure that every individual member of your Gens is fully equipped with flying clothing including belts and ovoids—prepared for an indefinite stay outside on the roof of the world! Get your people out swiftly, keeping them in formation! Keep about you those people of Dalis whom I sent you, and understand before you break contact with your Beryls, that instructions received from these people come from me! In turn, after you have quitted the hives, anything you wish to say to me you can repeat to any one of the glowing people of Dalis!"
The contacts were broken. Sarka stared into the Beryl, glancing swiftly in all directions, to see whether his orders were obeyed.
Out of the myriads of hives were flying the people of all the Gens of Earth, their vast numbers already darkening the roof of the world. The advance fires from Mars seemed to have no effect on them, which Sarka had expected, since the fires seemed to consume nothing they had touched previously.
Bymillions the people came forth. People dressed in the clothing of this Gens or that, wearing each the insignia of the house of his Spokesman. A brave show. Sarka could see the faces of many, now in light, now in shadow, as the advance fires of Mars lighted them for a moment in passing, then left them in shadow as the bursting balls of fire faded and died.
Strange, too, that the fireballs made no noise. Noiseless flame which rebounded from the surface of the Earth broke in silence, deluging the heavens with shooting stars of great brilliance. Through its display flew the people of the Gens, mustering in flight above flight, each to his own level, under command of the Spokesmen of the Gens.
"How long, father," queried Sarka, "should it take to empty the Gens areas?"
"The people of Earth have been waiting for word to go into battle since we first sent the people of Dalis against the Moon-men. They still are ready! The dwellings of our people,allof them, can be emptied within an hour!"
"I wonder," mused Sarka, "if that is soon enough!"
Perhaps yes, perhaps no. It would be a race, in any case. Sarka divided his attention between the rapidly changing formations of the Moon-cubes in that devasted area and the onrushing charge of the fire-balls from Mars. All were visible to him through the Master Beryl, and from the Observatory, though the Martian fire-balls were now so close that the vanguard of them could even be seen in the Master Beryl, adjusted to view only activities on the surface of the Earth.
Even as the last flights of the Gens of Earth were slipping into the icy air from the roof of the world, the Moon-cubes began their terrifying, appalling attack, every detail of which could be seen by Sarka from the Master Beryl.
Thosecolumns, composed of cubes, seemed to be the leaders of a vast cube-army. The top of each of them was a gleaming globe whose eery light played over the country immediately surrounding each column, their weird light reflected in the squares, rectangles and globes that other cubes had formed.
Sarka sought swiftly among the columns for the one which might conceivably be in supreme command; but even as he sought the Moon-cubes moved to the attack. The globes on the tops of the columns dimmed their lights, and the squares, rectangles and globes got instantly into terrible motion.
Southward from the position in which they had formed they began to move, the squares and rectangles apparently sliding along the surface of the scarred and broken soil, the globes rolling.
Southward there was the vast wall of the Gens that bordered the devasted area in that direction, and the cube-army was instantly at full charge toward this, in what Sarka realized was, to be a war of demolition!
Within a minute, Sarka was conscious of a trembling of all the laboratory, and the eyes of Jaska were wide with fear. Swiftly the trembling grew, until sound now was added to the vast, awesome tremor—a vast, roaring crescendo of sound that mounted and mounted as the speed of the cube-army increased. The vanguard of the cube-army struck the dwelling of the Gens southward of that of Dalis, and amighty, rocketing roar sounded in the Master Beryl, was audible inside the laboratory, even without the aid of the Beryl, at whose surface Sarka stared as a man fascinated, hypnotized.
Thecube-army struck the dwellings, disappeared into them as though they had been composed of tissue paper, and continued on! Over the tops of the cube-army toppled the roofs of the dwellings, there, in the midst of the cubes, to be ground to powder, with a sound as of a million avalanches grinding together in some awesome, sun-size valley. Southward, in the wake of the chaotic charge, moved a mighty, gigantic crevasse, whose sides were the walls of the hives left standing. And still the cube-army moved in, grinding everything it touched to dust, trampling buildings into nothingness, destroying utterly along a front hundreds of miles wide, and as deep as the dwellings of men!
"God!" cried Sarka, his voice so tense that both his father and Jaska heard it above the roaring which shook and rocked the world. "Do you see? The Moon-cubes are destroying the dwelling of our people, and the Martians are to destroy the people who have fled!"
"There must be a way," said Sarka the Second quietly, "to circumvent the cubes! But what? Your will still rules the cubes which piloted you from the Moon?"
"Yes," replied Sarka tersely, "but there are only a dozen of the cubes. What can they do against countless millions of them? Cubes which are Moon-cubes, brought to the Earth in the heart of that blue column, here reformed to create an army which is invincible, because it cannot be slain! It means that the Moon-people themselves, thousands of miles out of our reach, have but to sit in comfort and watch their cube-slaves destroy us! When they have laid waste the Earth, the Martians have but to finish the fight!"
"
If, beloved," said Jaska, "your will commands those twelve cubes, it can also command all the others, for they must be essentially the same. Call on the rebels of Dalis to help you!"
"Then what of the Spokesmen of the Gens, who will be out of contact with me?"
"They must stand on their own feet, must fight their own battle! Call to you the people who have passed through the white flames, and fight with the distant will of Luar and of Dalis for control of the cube-army!"
Again that exaltation, which convinced him he could move mountains with his two hands, coursed through the being of Sarka.
Quietly be answered Jaska.
"I believe you are right," he said softly. "Those of us who have passed through the flames which bore these Moon-cubes will control the cubes, even bend them to our will. The Spokesmen must vanquish the Martians or perish!"
Then he sent his mental commands to the Spokesmen:
"Meet the Martians when they arrive and destroy or drive them back! You live only if you win! We speak no more until victory is ours! People of the Gens of Dalis, go to the areas being devasted by the cubes, taking your cubes and aircars with you, and I will join you there!And Jaska with me!"
Sarka had not himself mentally spoken the last four words. Jaska had thought-spoken them, before he could prevent. He turned upon her, lips shaping a command that she remain behind. But she forestalled him.
"I, too, have been through the white flames! You may have need of all of us!"
Thepeople of all the Gens of Earth were now between two fires. The cube-army, ruled by the mistressof the Moon, was laying waste the dwellings of the Gens, destroying them with a speed and surety of which no earthquake, whatever its proportions, would have been capable. The Gens were forced out upon the roof of the world—where, scarcely had they maneuvered into their prearranged formations, than the Martians struck.
Those huge balls of fire, larger even than the aircars of the Moon, landed in vast and awe-inspiring numbers on the roof of the world—landed easily, with no apparent effort or shock. The light of them made all the world a place of vast radiance, save only that portion which was being destroyed by the cube-army, and this area had a cold, chill radiance of its own.
By groups and organisations the fire-balls of Mars landed, and rested quiescent on the surface of the globe.
Sarka, pausing only long enough in his laboratory to study this strange attack and to discover how it would get under way, was at the same time preparing to go forth to take his own strange part in the defensive action of Earthlings. A vast confidence was in him....
"We will lose millions of people, father," he said softly. "But it will end in our victory, in the most glorious war ever fought on this Earth!"
"That is true, my son!" replied the older man sadly.
Forseveral minutes the vast fire-balls, which seemed to be monster glowing octagons, rested where they had landed, and even then the Gens of the people were closing on them, bringing their ray directors and atom-disintegrators into action.
Then, when the Earthlings would have destroyed the first of the vast fire-balls—and Sarka was noting that the flames which bathed the balls seemed to have no effect whatever on Earthlings, save to outline them in mantles of fire—the fire-balls wakened to new life.
They opened like the halves of peaches falling apart, and out upon the roof of the world poured the first Martians Earth had ever seen!
They were more than twice the size, on the average, of Earth people, and at first glance seemed to resemble them very much, save that their eyes, of which each Martian was possessed of two, were set on the ends of long tentacles which could stretch forth to a length of two feet or more from the eye-sockets and thus be turned in any direction. Each eye was independent of its neighbor, as one could look forward while the other looked backward, or one could look right while the other looked left.
Each Martian possessed two arms on each side of a huge, powerful torso, and legs that were like the bolls of trees, compared to the slender limbs of Earthlings. All the Martians seemed to be dressed in the skins of strange, vari-colored beasts. Each carried in his upper right hand a slender canelike thing some three feet in length, from whose tip there flashed those spurts of flame which had puzzled the Earth people before the actual launching of the attack.
Beyondthese weapons, the Martians seemed to possess no weapons of offense at all, nor of defense.
"With our ray directors and atom-disintegrators," said Sarka, moving into the Exit Dome with Jaska, "we can blast them from the face of the Earth!"
But in a moment he realized that he had spoken too hastily.
The nearest fire-ball was, of course, within the area of the Gens of Cleric, and Sarka could here see with his naked eyes all that transpired. The Martian passengers, who moved swiftly away from their fire-ball vehicles, then a flight of the Gens of Cleric descended upon the fireball and its fleeing passengers, with tiny ray directors and atom-disintegrators held to the fore, ready for action.
The Martians, at some distance fromtheir glowing vehicle, paused and formed a ragged line, facing the ball, staring at the descending people of the Gens of Cleric, their tentaclelike eyes waving to and fro, oddly like the tentacles of those aircars of the Moon.
The flight was hovering above the first fireball. In a second now, at the command of an underling, the ray directors would destroy fire-ball and Martians as thoroughly as though they had never existed at all.
Butthen a strange thing happened. At that exact moment, timing their actions to fractions of seconds, the Martians raised and pointed their canelike weapons of the spurting flames. They pointed them, however, not at the Earthlings, but at the fire-ball which had brought them to Earth!
Instantly the fire-ball exploded as with the roaring of a hundred mighty volcanoes—and the descending flight of the Gens of Cleric was blasted into countless fragments! Bits of them flew in all directions. Many dropped, the mangled, infinitesmal remains of them, down to the roof of Earth, while many were hurled skyward through formations above them—while those formations, to a height of a full two miles, were broken asunder. Many flights above that first flight were smashed and broken, their individual members hurled in all directions by that one single blast of a single fire-ball.
Individuals who escaped destruction were hurled end over end, upward through other flights higher above, and the whole aggregation of flights which had been concentrated on that first fire-ball was instantly demoralized, while full fifty per cent of its individuals were instantly torn to bits!
Sarka groaned to the depths of him.
"The leader of the Martians, or the master who sent them here, sent them here to win. For if they do not win, they cannot return to Mars, as they will have destroyed their vehicles! Their confidence is superhuman!"
"Have faith in the courage of Earthlings, son!" said Sarka.
It was much to ask, for if one single one of these fire-balls could wreak such havoc with the people of Earth, what would be the destruction by the countless other unexploded fireballs of the Martians?
Still, the Spokesmen themselves must discover a way to hold their own, to win against the Martians. For Sarka there was greater work to do. He must oppose the wills of Luar and of Dalis in a mighty mental conflict, which would decide whether the homes of men would be saved, or utterly destroyed by the Moon-cubes.
But as he left through the Exit Dome, with Jaska by his side, he shuddered, and was just a little sick inside as he saw the fearful result of that first explosion of a Martian fire-ball! Bits of human wreckage were scattered over the Earth for a great distance in all directions from where the fire-ball had exploded. And at that spot a gigantic crater had been torn in the roof of the world, going down to none knew what depths.
Even the Martians, here only to consolidate positions which had passed the demolition of the Moon-cubes, were capable of demolitions almost as ghastly and complete as those of the cubes!
The sound was incapable of being described, for outside the laboratory the sound of the advance of the Moon-cubes eating into the dwellings of men, tumbling them down, grinding them to powder, was cataclysmic in its mighty volume. A million express trains crashing head-on into walls of galvanized iron at top speed, simultaneously.
Ear-drum crashing blows as fireballs exploded. The screams and shrieks of maimed and dying Earthlings—of Earthlings unwounded but possessed of abysmal fear....
Then, resolutely, Sarka turned his back on the conflict between the Martians and the people of Earth, andhurtled across the devastated roof of the world toward that area which was feeling the destructive force of the vandal cube-army. As he flew, Jaska keeping pace with him in silence, his mind was busy.
Passage through the white flames of the Moon had given him the key. Those white flames—source of all life on the Moon—rendered almost godlike those whom it bathed ... gave them unbelievable access of mental brilliance ... were the source of that blue column which had forced the Earth outward toward Mars ... were the source, in some way, of the cubes themselves, as he and Jaska, after passing through them, owed their now near-divinity to the same white flames! Those flames had made Luar mistress of the Moon—therefore of the Gnomes and of the cubes! Therefore, Sarka, having been bathed in the flames, should make himself master of the cubes, if he could out-will the combined determinations of Luar and of Dalis!
His confidence was supreme as he fled through outer darkness toward the eery light which came from the area of demolitions. Looking ahead, he could see tiny glows in the sky, which he knew to be the rebels of Dalis' Gens, flying to keep their rendezvous with him.
Higher mounted his courage and his confidence as he approached the roaring crash, perpetual and always mounting, which showed him where the cube-army was busiest. The sound vibrated the very air, causing the bodies of Sarka to tingle with it, causing them to flutter and shake in their flight with its awesome power. But they did not hold back, flew onward through the gloom, leaving behind them the brightly lighted areas where Gens of Earth battled with the fireballs of the Martians, moving into the area of the eery glowing of the cubes.
Justas he approached the spot where mighty dwellings were tumbling before the march of the cube-army, he sent a single command toward the cube which had piloted him from the Moon.
"Come to me on the edge of the crevasse nearest the place of most destruction!"
Would the cube now be subservient to his will? He wondered. Everything depended upon that. If not, then he might as well try to stay the forces of a mighty avalanche with his breath, as halt the cube-army with his will.
But strangely enough, the closer he came to the vast area of tumbling dwellings the calmer he became, the more sure that he would win against the cubes.
For when he landed at the lip of the crevasse, across which he could look for a hundred miles, a single cube gleamed brightly almost at his feet, awaiting his orders!
One by one, by twos, threes, fours, dozens, came the glowing people who had been bathed in the white flames of the Moon's life-source, and as each dropped down beside him, Sarka gave a command.
"Drop down in the midst of the cubes! Make your own cube the rallying point for this vast army of cubes, force the cubes to desist in their mighty destruction, be subservient to your will—and do you, each of you, be subservient tomywill!"
Awaydropped the rebels, glowing points of white flame, dropping down the sides of the crevasse, a mighty, awesome canyon, into the very heart of the activity of the cubes, and from the brain of Sarka, aided by the will of Jaska, went forth a simple command:
"Cease your march of destruction, O Moon-cubes, and harken to the will of Sarka, your master! Draw back from your labors, and muster, not as squares, rectangles and columns, but as individual cubes, in the area already devastated by you! Rally about the glowing people who have passed through the flames which were your Moon-mother,and wait for orders! Take no further heed of commands from Dalis and Luar!"
Instantly it seemed to Sarka that he had drawn into some invisible vortex which tore at his brain, at his body, at his soul. Inside him a cold voice seemed to say:
"Fool, Sarka! My will is greater than yours!"
But though the force of the will of Luar, whose thought he recognized, tore at him, almost shriveled the soul and brain of him with its might, he continued to send his thought-command out to the Moon-cubes, forcing it through the wall of Luar's will, hurling it like invisible projectiles at the cube-army below.
Exultation possessed him, buoyed him up, gave him greater courage and confidence as the moments passed for even as all his being concentrated on the will-command to the cubes, his senses told him that the mighty sound of destruction was dying away, fading out.
Slowernow the dwellings fell, slower moved the Moon-cubes; and as they slowed in their mighty march through the dwellings of men, so increased the confidence, the power of will, of Sarka and his people—the rebels of the Gens of Dalis.
Then, after an hour, whose mighty mental conflict had bathed Sarka in the perspiration of superhuman effort, the sound of destruction ceased all together, and the dwellings ceased to fall.
A silent shout, like an inborn paean of rejoicing, surged through Sarka as he noted the retreat from the dwellings of men, of the Moon-cubes! Back and back retreated the squares and the rectangles, the columns and the globes, breaking apart as they retreated.
Within fifteen minutes after the destruction had ceased, millions of gleaming cubes winked upward from the bottom of the crevasse—motionless, quiescent!
Sarka sent forth another thought.
"I am your master, O cubes of the Moon!"
No sound, no movement, answered him.
"Luar and Dalis are no longer able to command you!"
Still no sound or movement of the cubes.
Then, taking a deep breath, as of a swimmer preparing to dive into icy water, Sarka gave a new command.
"Dissolve! Reform on the roof of the world in globes! Roll over the face of the Earth, destroy the fire-balls of Mars—and take prisoners, inside the globes, the attackers from Mars!"
Instantly the gleaming cubes vanished, and darkness as of a mighty pit possessed the crevasse of destruction. Then, at the lip of the great crevasse, the cubes swept into form—myriads of globes which gleamed with the cold blue brilliance of the Moon!
They had no sooner formed as globes than they were in action again, rolling over the roof of the world as with a rising crescendo of thunder tumbling down the night-black sky. So mighty was their rush that the roof of the world trembled and shook.
Above their charge raced Sarka and Jaska, and with them the rebels of the Gens of Dalis.
All were present when the cubes crashed into the fire-balls from Mars, swept the Martians within themselves as prisoners, held them securely—and continued on, destroying the fire-balls in myriads. Here and there fire-balls exploded on contact, destroying the globes, which immediately reformed again, as though the explosions had not been felt at all.
Sarkahad won the allegiance of the Moon-cubes, which had defeated and taken prisoners the Martians, destroying the vehicles in which they might have returned to Mars. And as realization came, darkness settled over the roof of the world; the last flare of Mars faded and died.
This done, the cubes formed in mighty rows, facing the laboratory of Sarka. His heart beating madly with exultation, Sarka studied them. Then he stepped into the Observatory, gazed away across the space which separated the Earth from the Moon, sent a mental message winging outward.
"Luar! Dalis!"
Faintly, fearfully, came the answer.
"We hear, O Sarka!"
"Shift the blue column away from the Earth! Do not interfere as we return to our orbit about the sun! Obey, or I combine the total knowledge of Mars, the Earth, and the Moon in an attack against you and your Martian ally! Inform your ally that their people will not return, that the Earth has need of them—but that two Gens of Earth will be received by Martians in perfect amity, and these Gens allowed biding places on Mars! Unless your ally obeys, the Martians in my hands will be destroyed!"
In an hour the answer came, the snarling thought-answer of Dalis.
"We hear! We obey! But Dalis is never beaten while he lives! His day will come!"
Sarkafound himself feeling even a little sorry for sorely beaten Dalis; but his face was grim as he sent another command to the people of Dalis who had passed through the life-source of the Moon.
"Take command of the cubes, and force them to repair the damage which has been done to the dwellings of men—to repair them completely, over all the face of the Earth!"
As the glowing people hurried to obey, Sarka softly asked his father:
"But what shall we do with the Martians?"
Sarka the Second smiled.
"Release them and send them to the lowest level where, guarded by the cubes, they will be set to constructing fireballs like those in which they arrived for the use of Earth if Dalis, or the Martians, ever attack again! And, son...."
"Yes, O my father?" said Sarka softly.
"I have another suggestion for the employment of the cubes! Let them build aircars to be used by the Gens of Prull and of Klaser, as transportation to Mars whenever you are ready for them to go!"
Sarka smiled boyishly, happily.
"Yes, O my father; and is there anything else?"
"Yes! Take Jaska as your mate! Do you not see that she is waiting for you to speak?"
Sarka turned to Jaska, whose face was glorious in her surrender, and whose lips were parted in a loving smile—which faded only when Sarka's lips caressed it away.
(The end.)