Naturally, exploration of the familiar, yet unfamiliar world into which they had suddenly been thrown was the first preoccupation of the New York colonists. None of the group cared to wander far from the Institute during the first weeks, however, in view of the possible difficulty of obtaining electrical food for a long trip, and Beeville's researches on the potentialities of their new bodily form advanced so slowly that they hardly dared leave.
His discoveries in the first weeks were, in fact, purely negative. Farrelly, the publisher, smashed a finger in some machinery, but when O'Hara turned an exact duplicate out on his lathe and Beeville attached it, the new member altogether lacked sensation and could be moved only with conscious effort—an indication that some as yet unfamiliar reaction underlay the secret of motion in their metal form.
But the greatest difficulty in the way of any activity lay in the almost abysmal ignorance of the mechanical and technical arts on the part of the whole group. O'Hara was a fair mechanic; Dangerfield dabbled in radio, and Farrelly could run a printing press (he published a comical parody of a newspaper on one for several days; then abandoned the effort); but beyond that the utmost accomplishment was driving a car, and most of them realized how helpless the old civilization had been without its hewers of wood and drawers of water.
To remedy this condition, as much as to keep them busy, Ben assigned to each some branch of mechanical science to be learned, the supply of information, in the form of books, and of experimental material, in every form, being inexhaustible. Thus the first week found Tholfsen and Mrs. Roberts scouring the line of the New York Central for a locomotive in running order. After numerous failures, they succeeded in getting the thing going, only to discover that the line was blocked with wrecks and they would need a crane to clear the track for an exploring journey of even moderate length.
At the same time, Murray Lee, with Dangerfield and two or three others, made an effort to get the Park Central's broadcasting station in operation; a work of some difficulty, since it involved ventures into what were, for them, unknown fields. Daily they tap-tapped messages to each other on telegraph sets rescued from a Western Union office, in preparation for the time when they could get a sending set put together.
But the most ambitious effort and the one that was to have the largest share of ultimate consequences, was the expedition of Farrelly, Gloria and a clothing-store proprietor named Kevitz in quest of naval adventure. After a week's intensive study of marine engines from books the three appropriated a tug from the Battery and set off on a cruise of the harbor.
Half an hour later they were high and dry off Bedloe's Island, gloomily contemplating the prospect of spending their lives there, for an attempt to swim when weighted down with three hundred pounds of hardware could end only in failure. Fortunately the tide came to their rescue, and with more daring than judgment, they continued their voyage to Governor's Island, where they were lucky enough to find a solitary artilleryman, weak with hunger, but hilarious with delight at the discovery that his metallic form was not a delirium tremens delusion induced by the quart of gin he had absorbed on the night before the change.
The giant birds, which Beeville had professionally named "tetrapteryxes," seemed to have vacated the city with the appearance of the colonists. Even the nest Roberts had stumbled on proved deserted when an expedition cautiously revisited the place; and the memory of the birds had sunk to the level of a subject for idle remarks when a new event precipitated it into general attention.
Massey, the artist, with all the time in the world, and the art supplies of New York under his finger, had gone off on an artistic jag, painting day and night. One morning he took his canvas to the top of the Daily News building to paint the city at dawn from its weather-observation station. The fact that he had to climb stairs the whole way up and finally chisel through the door at the top was no bar to his enthusiasm. Kevitz, hurrying down Lexington Avenue in a car to join his fellow mariners in investigating the machinery of a freighter, saw him in the little steel cage, silhouetted against the reddening light of day.
There was an informal rule that everyone should gather at the Institute at ten in the evening, unless otherwise occupied, to report on the day's events, and when Massey did not appear two or three people made comments on the fact, but it was not treated as a matter of moment. When the artist had not shown up by dawn of the next day, however, Murray and Gloria went to look for him, fearing accident. As they approached the building Murray noticed that the edge of the weather observation platform was twisted awry. He speeded up his car, but when they arrived and climbed the mountainous flights of stairs he found no bent and damaged form, as he had expected.
The roof of the building held nothing but the painting on which he had been working—a half-completed color sketch of the city as seen from the tower.
"Where do you s'pose he went?" asked Gloria.
"Don't know, but he went in a hurry," replied Murray. "He doesn't care about those paintings much more than he does about his life."
"Maybe he took a tumble," she suggested. "Look, there's his easel, and it's busted."
"Yes, and that little chair he totes around, and look how it's all twisted out of shape."
"Let's look over the edge. Maybe he went bugs and jumped. I knew a guy that did that once."
"Nothing doing," said Murray, peering over the parapet of the building.
Mystery.
"Say—" it was Gloria who spoke. "Do you suppose those birds—the tetra-axes or whatever Beeville calls them—?"
They turned and scanned the sky. The calm blue vault, flecked by the fleecy clouds of summer, gave no hint of the doom that had descended on the artist.
"Nothing to do but go home, I guess," said Murray, "and report another robbery in Prospect Park."
The meeting of the colonists that evening was serious.
"It comes to this, then," said Ben, finally. "These birds are dangerous. I'm willing to grant that it might not have been they who copped Massey, but I can't think of anything else. I think it's a good idea for us to leave here only in pairs and armed, until we're certain the danger is over."
"Ain't that kind of a strong step, Mr. Ruby?" asked Kevitz. "It don't seem to me like all that business is necessary."
Ben shook his head decisively. "You haven't seen these things," he said. "In fact, I think it would be a good idea for us all to get some guns and ammunition and do target practice."
The meeting broke up on that note and the members of the colony filed into the room where the supply of arms was stored, and presently to form an automobile procession through the streets in search of a suitable shooting gallery.
When targets were finally set up in the street in automobile lights, the general mechanical efficiency of the colony revealed itself once more. Gloria Rutherford was a dead shot and the artilleryman from Governor's Island almost as good; Ben himself and Murray Lee, who had been to Plattsburg, knew at least the mechanism of rifles, but the rest could only shut their eyes and pull the trigger, with the vaguest of ideas as to where the bullet would go. And as Ben pointed out after the buildings along the street had been peppered with the major portion of Abercrombie and Fitch's stock of ammunition, the supply was not inexhaustible.
"And what shall we do for weapons then?" he asked.
Yoshio, the little Japanese, raised his hand for attention.
"I have slight suggestion, perhaps merely cat's meow and not worthy exalted attention," he offered. "Why not all people as gentlemen old time in my country, carry sword? It is better than without weapon."
"Why not, indeed?" said Ben above a hum of laughter. "Let's go." And an hour later the company re-emerged from an antique store, belted with the strangest collection of swords and knives and fishing gaffs ever borne by an earthly army.
"I wonder, though," said Gloria to Murray Lee, as they reached the Institute as dawn was streaking up the sky. "All this hooey doesn't seem to mean much. If those birds are as big as that they aren't going to be scared by these little toad-stabbers."
She was right. That night Ola Mae Roberts was missing.
The siege came a week later.
It was a week of strained tenseness; a certain electricity seemed at hand in the atmosphere, inhibiting speech. The colonists felt almost as though they were required to whisper....
A week during which Murray, with Dangerfield and Tholfsen, worked energetically at their radio, and progressed far enough so they could do a fairly competent job of sending and receiving in Morse code. A week during which the naval party got a freighter from the South Street docks and brought her round into the Hudson.
At dawn one morning, Gloria, with Farrelly, Kevitz and Yoshio, piled into a limousine with the idea of taking the freighter on a trip to Coney Island. Murray accompanied them to try communicating with the shore via the ship's wireless.
The day was dark, with lowering clouds, which explains why they missed seeing the tetrapteryxes. But for the General Sherman statue they never would have seen them until too late. The general's intervention was purely passive; Murray noticed and called Gloria's attention to the curious expression the misty light gave the bronze face and she looked up to see, to be recalled to her driving by a yell from Kevitz announcing the metallic carcass of a policeman squarely in their path.
Gloria twisted the wheel sharply to avoid it; the car skidded on the damp pavement, and reeling crazily, caromed into the iron fence around the statue with a crash. At the same moment an enormous mass of rock struck the place where they should have been and burst like a shell, sending a shower of fragments whistling about their ears.
Shaken and dazed by the shock, they rolled out of the car, for the moment mistaking the two impacts for one; and as they did so there came a rush of wild wings, an eldritch scream and Yoshio was snatched into the air before their very eyes. Kevitz fired first, wildly and at random. Murray steadied himself, dropping his gun across his left forearm, and shot cool and straight—but at too great a distance, and they saw nothing but a feather or two floating down from the great four-winged bird as it swung off over Central Park, carrying the little Jap. They saw him squirm in the thing's grip, trying to get his sword loose, and then with a rattle of dropped stones around them, more of the birds charged home.
Only Gloria had thought of this and withheld her fire. The others swung round as she shot and in an instant the whole group was a maze of whirling wings, clutching claws, shouts, shots and screams. In twenty seconds it was done: Gloria and Murray rose panting and breathless, and looked about. Beside them, two gigantic bird-forms were spilling their lives in convulsive agony. Dangerfield and Farrelly were gone—and a rending screech from behind the buildings told only too well where.
"What's the next step?" asked Murray with such owlish solemnity that Gloria gave a burst of half-hysterical laughter. She looked round.
"Beat it for that building," she said, and gathering her torn skirts about her, set the example.
They made it by the narrowest of margins, standing breathless in what had been the Peacock Alley of one of New York's finest hotels to see one of the great birds strut past the door like a clumsy caricature of an angel.
"And poo-poo for you," said Murray, thumbing his nose at the apparition. "But what we'll do now I don't know."
"Play pinochle till they come look us up," suggested Gloria. "Besides, my bullets are all gone."
... They waited all day, taking tentative glances from one or another of the windows. The birds remained invisible, apparently not caring for the prospect of a battle in the constricted space of the hotel rooms. But amid the rain and low-hung clouds they might be lurking just outside and both Murray and Gloria judged it too dangerous to venture a dash. As night came on, however, they made a try for the hotel's garage, achieved it without accident, and between them, rolled one of the cars to the door.
"Wait," said Murray, as Gloria got in, "what was that?"
"This dam' starter." She stirred her foot vigorously. "It won't work."
"No. Wait." He held out a restraining hand. A sudden gust of wind bore a dash of rain down against them and with it, from the northeast, a far-away scream, then a tapping and a heavy thud.
"Hot dog!" ejaculated Murray. "They're getting after the crowd. And at night, too."
The car jerked forward suddenly as the starter caught. "Hold it," cried Murray. "Douse those headlights." They dodged the wreck of a street car, swung round a corner and headed for First Avenue, gathering speed. Another corner, taken on two wheels in the darkness, the way to the Institute lay before them.
Suddenly a great flame of light sprang out in the sky, throwing the whole scene into sharpest relief. There was a crash of rifle-fire from window and door of the building and across the front of it one of the birds coasted past. Crash! In the street before them something like a bomb burst, vomiting pennons of fire. Gloria swung the wheel, swung it back; they had a mad glimpse of brilliantly burning flames inside one of the buildings across the street from the Institute, and then they were tumbling out of the car with rifle-fire beating all around them and the thud of dropping objects on either side.
Murray stumbled, but the door was flung open and they were jerked in, just as one of the huge bird forms flung itself down past them.
"Thank God, you're safe," said Ben Ruby's voice. "They got Dearborn and Harris and they're besieging us here." He pointed out of the window across the street, where the rapidly-gaining fire was engulfing the building.
"Did the birds do that little trick?" asked Gloria.
"I hope to tell you, sister. You ain't seen nothing yet, either. They're shedding incendiary bombs all over the shop. How about Kevitz and Farrelly?"
"Got them, too. At the Plaza—and the little Jap. Too bad; I liked that little sprout."
"I thank gracious lady for kindly expressed sentiment, but oversize avians have not yet removed me," said a voice and Gloria looked down to see Yoshio bowing at her side.
"Why, how did they come to let you off? Last I saw you were doing a headspin over Central Park."
"I was fortune," replied the little man. "Removing sword I operate on said bird to such extent that he drop me as hot customer, plosh in large tree. To get home is not so easy but I remember armored car provided by intelligent corporation for transport of bankroll, so here I am. Cat's Meow!"
"Bright boy," said Gloria. "Listen!" Above their heads came another crash, a tramp of feet and shouts. Roberts dashed into the room, rifle in hand. "They've got the place on fire," he said. "We'll have to clear out."
Ben Ruby fumbled at his waist, drew forth a whistle and blew a piercing blast, which was answered by shouts, as members of the colony began to pour into the room from various points.
Another bomb burst in a fluff of light, just outside the window, throwing weird shadows across the gathering and splitting a pane here and there by the force of its impact.
"Hot stuff," remarked Gloria. "What are they trying to do—take us all at one gulp?"
"Beeville says they never thought it up on their own," Ben assured her. "Not smart enough. He thinks somebody doesn't like us and is sending them around to tell us so. Listen, everybody!"
The room quieted down.
"We've got to go at once. Our destination is the Times Square subway station. They can't get us there. Anybody who gets separated meet the rest there. We'll go in groups of three to a car; one to carry a gun, one a sword and one a light. Everybody got it?... Good.... Somebody give Gloria one of those express rifles.... Here's the list then. First party—Miss Rutherford, gun; Yoshio, sword; O'Hara, light. Go ahead."
A coil of smoke drifted across the room from somewhere above—the sough of the burning made the only background to his words. With a quick handshake the three made ready; a volley from the windows flashed out, and they dashed off. Those inside caught a glimpse of the dark form of their car as it rolled into the night. They were safe at all events. The second carload, in Yoshio's armored vehicle, also got free, but the third had trouble. They had hardly made half the distance to the parked cars before there was a whir of wings, a scream, and the quick burst of a bomb, luckily too far behind them to do damage. Those inside saw the light-man stop suddenly, flashing his beam aloft, saw an orange flame spring from the gun and then their view of the three was blotted out in a whirl of wings and action.
"Everybody out!" yelled Ben. "Now! While they're busy." In a concerted rush the colonists poured through the door.
Nobody could remember clearly what did happen. Someone was down—hurt somewhere—but was flung into a car. Through the turmoil the tossing form of one badly-wounded bird struggled on the ground, and with a roar of motors the cavalcade started.
It would be futile—and impossible—to chronicle all the events of that wild ride; to tell how the light-bombs dropped unceasingly from above; how the driver of one car, blinded by the glare, hurtled his vehicle through the plate-glass window of a store, and how McAllister, the artilleryman, fought off the birds with a huge shard of glass from the window; how the passengers in another car, wrecked by a bomb, got a fire-engine and cleared their way to Times Square with clanging bell and clouds of malodorous fire-extinguisher chemicals; or how Mrs. Roberts decapitated one of the monsters with a single blow of the cleaver she carried.
Dawn found them, a depressed group of fourteen, gathered in the protection of the underground passages.
"Well, what next?" asked Gloria, who seemed to have preserved more of her normal cheerfulness than anyone. "Do we stay here till they come for us, or do we go get 'em?"
"We get out," said Ben Ruby. "No good here. They know too much for us."
"Right," declared Beeville. "The usual methods of dealing with animals won't work this time. They are all based on the fact that animals are creatures of habit instead of intelligence, and unless I am much wrong, these birds are intelligent and have some bigger intelligence backing them."
"You mean they'll try to bomb us out of here?" asked Roberts.
McAllister looked up from the dice he was throwing. "You bet your sweet life they will. Those babies know their stuff. The one that was after me was onto the manual of the bayonet like he'd been raised on it."
"That's nice," said Gloria, "but what are we going to do about it?"
"Get an anti-aircraft gun from the Island and shell hell out of them when they come round again," suggested the artilleryman.
"Said gun would be considerable weight for individual to transport in pocket," said Yoshio doubtfully, as Ben raised his hand for silence amid the ensuing laughter.
"There's a good deal in that idea," he said, "but I don't think it will do as it stands. The birds would bomb our gun to blazes after they had a dose or two from it. They're not so slow themselves you know. How about some of the forts? Aren't there some big ones around New York?"
McAllister nodded. "There's Hancock. We could get a ship through."
"Say!" Gloria leaped suddenly to her feet. "While we're about it, can't we get a warship—a battleship or something? Those babies would have a hot time trying to bomb one of Uncle Sam's battleships apart and there's all kinds of anti-aircraft guns on them."
"There's a destroyer in the Hudson," said someone.
"How many men does it take to run her?"
"Hundred and fifty."
"But," put in Gloria, "that's a hundred and fifty of the old style men who had to have their three squares and eight hours' sleep every day, and they did a lot of things like cooking that we won't have to. What do you say, Dictator, old scout? Shall we give it a whirl?"
"O. K.—unless somebody has something better to offer," declared Ben, and in fifteen minutes more the colonists were cautiously poking their way out of the subway station en route to take command of U. S. S.Ward.
Cleaning up the ship before the start took the colonists a whole day. A sooty dust, like the product of a particularly obnoxious factory, had settled over everything, and dealing with the cast-iron bodies of the sailors, wedged in the queer corners where they had fallen at the moment of the change, was a job in itself.
As night shut down, the whole crew, with the exception of Beeville and Murray Lee, who had spent some time in small boats and had therefore been appointed navigators, was busy going over the engine-room, striving to learn the complex detail of handling a warship.
Murray and Beeville were poring over their navigating charts when a step sounded outside the chartroom and the wire-frizzled head of Gloria was thrust in.
"How goes it, children?" she asked. "Do we sail for the cannibal islands at dawn?"
"Not on your life," replied Murray. "This hooker is going to pull in at the nearest garage until we learn what it's all about. Talk about arithmetic! This is worse than figuring out a time-table."
Gloria laughed, then her face became serious. "Do you think they'll bomb us again, Mr. Beeville?"
"I don't see why not. They were clear winners in the last battle. But what gets me is where they come from. Why, they're a living refutation of the laws of evolution on the earth! Four wings and two legs! Although ..." the naturalist looked at the sliding parts of his own arm, "they are rather less incredible than the evolution that has overtaken mankind, unless we're all off our heads. Do you know any way to account for it?"
"Not me," said Murray, "that's supposed to be your job; all we do is believe you when—" Bang! The anti-aircraft gun had gone off just outside with an earsplitting report. With a common impulse the three made for the door and looked upward to see the shell burst in a puff of white smoke, outlined against the dark clouds of evening, while above and beyond it sailed a black dot with whirring wings.
"That settles it," said Murray. "Whether we like it or not, we're going away from here. I wish those nuts hadn't fired though. Now the birds know what we've got. Trot down and tell them to get up steam, that's a good girl, Gloria."
The lone tetrapteryx seemed no more than a scout, for the attack was not followed up. But it takes time to get steam up on long disused marine engines and all hands were below when the real attack was delivered.
It began with the explosion of a bomb somewhere outside and a dash of water against the vessel's side that threw all of them off their feet. There was a clang of metal and a rush for the deck—cut across by Ben's voice. "Take it easy! Everybody to the engines but McAllister, O'Hara and the navigators."
The four sprang for the ladder, Murray in the lead. Crash! A sound like the thunder of a thousand tons of scrap iron on a sidewalk and the destroyer pitched wildly.
Murray's head came level with the deck. Instead of the darkness he had expected it was flung into dazzling illumination by a flare burning on the water not fifty yards away, with a light so intense that it seemed to have physical body. There was a perceptible wave of heat from it and the water round it boiled like a cauldron.
He tumbled onto the deck, running forward to trip the release of the anchor chain. At the break of the forecastle, he stumbled, and the stumble saved him, for at that moment another of the bombs fell, just in front of the fore-deck gun. The whole bow of the ship seemed to burst into intense, eye-searing flame. Deafened and blinded, Murray lay face down on the deck, trying to recover his senses; behind him the others, equally overwhelmed, tumbled on the iron surface, rolling over and over, blindly.
But the birds, apparently unaware of how heavy a blow they had struck, seemed wary of the gun. The four groveling on the deck heard scream and answering scream above them as the monsters discussed the question on the wing. If they reached a decision it was too late, for McAllister and O'Hara, blind, drunk and sick though they were, staggered to the gun and sent a shot shrieking at wild venture into the heavens. Beeville, nearer to the blinding blaze of light, recovered more slowly, but found his way to the bridge where he fumblingly pulled the engine-room telegraph over to "Full Speed Ahead."
Below, in the bowels of the vessel, there was a rumble of activity; a rapid whoosh of steam came from an exhaust pipe, a dash of sparks from the destroyer's funnels, and slowly and haltingly she began to move. Bang! went the anti-aircraft gun. Beeville heard Murray climbing the bridge behind him and then his cry, "The anchor!"
Too late—with a surge that changed to a rattle, the destroyer moved, tearing the anchor from its ground and swinging slowly half-way round as the weight dragged the damaged bow to one side. At that moment came another bomb which, but for their motion, would have struck fair and square amidships. Bang! Bang! went the anti-aircraft gun. Murray dragged at the wheel, then swung the engine-room telegraph back to "Stop." Just in time—the destroyer's bottom grated on something, her prow rent the side of a big speed-boat and she came to rest, pointing diagonally upstream.
Fortunately the attack broke off as rapidly as it had begun. A few screams, lost in the darkness of the night were the only answer to another shell from the gun. But there was no assurance that this was more than a temporary respite. Murray and Beeville strove desperately to bring the warped bridge mechanism into running order while O'Hara routed out a blow-torch from somewhere and attacked the anchor chain, now welded into a solid mass with the deck by the force of the light-bomb. Finally, weaving to and fro in the hands of the inexperienced mariners, she was gotten round and pointed downstream and out to sea. If the birds sought them again in the darkness there was no sign of it.
Day found them stumbling down the Jersey coast, the foredeck a mass of wreckage and the ship leaking badly.
"Well, where are we now?" called a cheerful voice, as Murray Lee stood at the wheel. "Australia in sight yet?"
He looked up to see Gloria's head emerging from the companion.
"Come on up," he said, "I'm just going to turn the wheel over to Beeville and get busy with this radio. Don't think the bomb knocked it out. It did everything else, though. Look at that."
He indicated the prow of the ship, where the big gun hung down like a tired candle and the whole fore part of the vessel had dissolved into tears of metal.
"Golly," said Gloria, "that was some egg those birds laid. What was it, anyway?"
"Don't know. Never saw anything like it before. Must be some kind of new-fangled high-power incendiary bomb to melt steel down like butter. Why, even thermit wouldn't do that."
"I hope our friends don't think of looking us up here, then, or we'll be finding out what it's like to walk under water."
"You said something, sister," declared Murray. "Wait! I think I got something."
He fumbled with the radio dials before him, swinging them this way and that: then clamped on the headset. "Oh, boy, there's something coming through ... we're not alone in the world then.... Yes, there she is.... Damn, I wish they wouldn't send so fast.... AAM2 calling.... Now who is AAM2?" His fingers pressed the key in reply as the others watched him with bated breath. "Position, seventy-three, fifty-three west longitude; forty, o-three, north latitude. Here ..." he wrote the figures down. "Take this, one of you and dope it out. Ssh, there's more coming. Oh, he wants to know who we are and where. Call Ben, will you Gloria?"
She dashed off to return with the dictator of the colonists just as Beeville, who had been fumbling over the charts with one hand, called suddenly, "Why, the position they give is right near here—hardly a hundred miles away. I don't know just what ours is, but it can't be far from this spot. Tell them that."
"Find out who they are first," Ben put in, practically. "After what they've done, I wouldn't put it past the tetrapteryxes to handle a radio set."
"... His Majesty's Australian shipBrisbane, they say," said Murray. "Wait a minute, since they're so near, I think I can switch them over to the radiophone." He ticked the key a moment, then twisted more dials and leaned back as a full and fruity voice, with a strong English accent, filled the room.
"Compliments of Captain Entwhistle of the Royal Australian Navy to the commander of the U. S. S.Ward, and can we arrange a meeting? The Comet appears to have done a good deal of damage in your part of the world and you are the first people we have encountered."
"Where's your microphone?" asked Ben. "Oh, there.... Compliments of Benjamin Franklin Ruby, temporarily in command of U. S. S.Wardto Captain Entwhistle of the Royal Australian Navy, and none of us are sailors. We just borrowed this ship, and if you want to see us you'll have to pick us up. We'll keep along the coast toward Cape May. Can you meet us?"
A chuckle was audible from the radiophone. "I think we can manage it. Are there any of the big birds about in your part of the world? They have been bothering us all summer."
"Yes," replied Ben, "that's what we're running away from now. They've got some bombs that are pure poison and they've been making regular war on us—or probably you know about it?"
"We haven't seen anything like that yet," declared the voice from the loud-speaker, "but we've had plenty of trouble with them. Hold on a moment. Our lookout reports sighting smoke from your funnels. Hold your course and speed. We'll pick you up."
The voice ceased with a snap, and the four in the control room of the destroyer looked at each other.
"I'm glad he came around," remarked Ben. "This destroyer is getting shopworn. Besides with a good warship on hand we'll be able to give those birds what they're looking for. I hope he's got some airplanes."
"And somebody to fly them," continued Murray. "What'll we do if he has—go back and give them hell?"
"If we can. Apparently he doesn't like the birds any too well himself. It was the first thing he mentioned."
They ceased speaking as the thin pennon of smoke, followed by two tall masts, became visible over the horizon. In a few minutes more theBrisbaneswept up, swung a circle and came to rest near them, while out from her side dropped a boat that began to move toward them with dipping oars.
A moment later she was alongside. Ben stepped out on the deck, and as he did so, there was a mutual exclamation of horrified amazement—for Captain Entwhistle of the Royal Australian Navy was as much flesh and blood as any man they had seen in the old days, but a pale blue in color, and all his sailors were of the same extraordinary hue.
There was a moment's silence as the Australian captain steadied himself against the roll of the vessel, staring incredulously at the group that gathered round him.
"Are you—human?" he finally managed to gasp.
"If we aren't somebody's been kidding us," said Gloria, irreverently. "But are you? You're all blue!"
"Of course," said the captain. "It was the comet. We knew it struck in America somewhere but didn't know where or what it did. What's the matter with your ship?" He indicated the wrecked and leaking bow. "She seems to be down by the head."
"Oh, that was a valentine from the birds," said Ben. "Can you give us quarters on your vessel? There aren't many of us."
Captain Entwhistle seemed to come out of a dream. "Of course, of course. Come on. We can discuss things better in my cabin."
As they mounted to the deck of theBrisbane, even the trained sailors, the light blue of their faces oddly at variance with the dark blue of their uniforms, could not refrain from staring at the colonists. They crowded into the captain's cabin past rows of eager blue faces.
"I suggest," said Captain Entwhistle, "that we begin by telling each other how this happened. I can scarcely credit the fact that you are human and can walk and talk. Would any of you care for a whiskey and soda?"
"No, thanks," said Murray, the spirit of fun stirring in him, "but I'll have a drink of lubricating oil if you can find any."
The naval officer looked at him, and remarked, a trifle stiffly, "Certainly, if you wish. Williams—"
"Oh, don't mind him," Ben Ruby cut in. "Pardon me, Captain, he can drink lubricating oil perfectly well, but he's just joking with you. You were saying about the comet—"
"Why, you knew that the big comet struck the earth as predicted, didn't you? It was on the morning of February sixteenth, last year—evening of February fifteenth by American time. Even in our country, which is around on the other side of the earth, it caused a good deal of damage. The gases it set free put everybody to sleep and caused a lot of wreckage. Our scientists say the gases of the comet in some unexplained way altered the iron in the hæmoglobin of our blood to cobalt. It seems to work just as well, but that's why we're all blue. I don't quite understand it myself, but you know how these medical Johnnies are. Now what happened to you people?"
"May I ask something first?" said Beeville. "What day is this?"
"August eighteenth, 1946," said the captain as though slightly baffled by the question.
"Good God!" said the scientist. "Then we were there for over a year!"
"Yes," said Ben. "All of us you see here and several others returned to consciousness about the same time, two months ago. We know nothing of what the comet did to us or how this change occurred except that when we woke up we were just what you see. Dr. Beeville has been experimenting with a view to finding out what happened, but he hasn't made much progress so far. All we know is that we're composed of metal that doesn't rust easily, make our meals off electricity, and find the taste of any kind of oil agreeable. And the birds—" he broke off with a gesture.
"Oh, yes, the birds," said the captain. "Have they been annoying you, too? That's one of the reasons, aside from exploration, why we're here. I assume you mean the big four-winged birds that we call dodos down under. We haven't seen much of them, but occasionally they come and fly away with a sheep or even a man. One of our aviators chased one several hundred miles out to sea recently and we had assumed they came from one of the islands. Our scientists don't know what to make of them."
"Neither do ours, except that they're an unadulterated brand of hell," put in Murray. "We were all living in New York, snug as bugs in a rug, when they began dropping incendiary bombs on us and carrying off anyone they could get hold of."
"Including this insignificant person," said Yoshio, proudly.
"Incendiary bombs! Do you mean to tell me they have intelligence enough for that?"
"I'll tell the cockeyed world they have! Did you see the prow of our ship? That's where one of their little presents got home. If anyone had been there, he wouldn't be anything but scrap iron now. If you really want to find out what it's all about come on up to New York, but get ready for the fight of your life."
The captain leaned back, sipping his drink meditatively. "Do you know," he said, "that's just what I was thinking of doing? Frankly your story is all but incredible, but here you are as proof of it and you don't seem to be robots, except in appearance."
"Oh, boy," whispered Murray to Gloria, "wait till these babies get after the birds with their eight-inch guns. They'll wish they'd never heard of us. I'm glad I'm going to be on hand to see the fun."
"Yeh, but maybe the birds will have something up their feathers, too," she replied. "I wouldn't like to place any bets. We thought we had them licked when we got the destroyer and now look at us."
"Well, I'm willing to try an attack, or at least a reconnaissance of them," said the captain. "Just now we're in the position of an armed exploring party. The Australian government has sent out several ships to see what it could find on the other continents. After the comet struck all the cables went dead. We got into radio communication with the Dutch colonial stations at Batavia and later with South Africa, but the rest of the world is just being re-explored and my commission authorizes me to resist unfriendly acts. I think you could call an incendiary bomb an unfriendly act."
His eyes twinkled over this mild witticism, and the party broke up with a scraping of chairs. A couple of hours later, the blue line of Sandy Hook was visible, and then the vague cliffs of the New York skyscrapers. The clouds had cleared away after the rain of the last few days; not even a speck of mist hung in the air and everything stood out bright and clear. The colonists felt a pang of emotion grip them as they watched the tall towers of the city rise over the horizon, straight and beautiful as they had always stood, but now without a sign of life or motion, all the busy clamor of the place hushed forever.
Of the tetrapteryxes or "dodos" as the Australian had called them, there was no sign. The sky bent high, unbrokenly blue, not a flicker of motion in it. Murray Lee felt someone stir at his side and looked round.
"Oh, damn," said Gloria Rutherford, "it's so beautiful that I want to cry. Did you ever feel like that?"
He nodded silently.... "And those birds—isn't it a shame somehow that they should have the most beautiful city in the world?"
The shrill of a whistle cut off his words. With marvelous, machine-like precision, the sailors moved about the decks. TheBrisbanelost way, came to a halt, and there was a rush of steel as the anchor ran out. Captain Entwhistle came down from the bridge.
"I don't see anything of your dodos yet," he said. "Do you think it would be wise to send out a landing party, Mr. Ruby?"
"Most certainly not," said Ben. "You don't know what you're up against yet. Wait till they come round. You'll have plenty to do."
The captain shrugged. Evidently he was not at all unwilling to match the Australian navy against anything the dodos might do. "Very well, I'll accept your advice for the present, Mr. Ruby. It is near evening in any case. But if there is no sign of them in the morning, I propose to land and look over the city."
But the landing was never accomplished.
For, in the middle of the night, as Ben, Murray and Gloria were seated in the chartroom of the ship, chatting with the young lieutenant on duty there, there came a quick patter of feet on the deck, and a shout of "Light, ho!"
"There are your friends now, I'll wager," said the lieutenant. "Now watch us go get 'em. If you want to see the fun, better go up on the bridge. All we do here is wrestle slide-rules."
Hastily the three climbed the bridge, where a little group of officers was clustered. Following the direction in which they were looking, they saw, just above the buildings on the Jersey shore, what looked like a tall electric sign, burning high in the air and some distance away, with no visible means of support.
"What do you make of it?" asked Captain Entwhistle, turning and thrusting a pair of glasses into Ben's hands. Through them he could read the letters. Printed in capitals, though too small to be read from the ship with the naked eye, he saw:
"SOFT MEN EXIT. HARD MEN ARE WORKERS BELONGING. MUST RETURN. THIS MEANS YOU."
"Looks like a dumb joke by someone who doesn't know English very well," he opined, passing the glasses to Gloria. "I don't think those birds would figure that out anyway."
"Wait a minute, though," said Gloria, as she read the letters. "Remember they caught Dangerfield and Farrelly and the rest. Maybe they taught them how to speak."
"Yes, but those two didn't know anything about 'soft men.' It's all crazy, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. And what do they mean by 'belonging'? None of our gang thought up that bright remark."
"Look, sir," said one of the younger officers, "it's changing."
Abruptly the lights were blotted out, to reappear, amid a swimming of colors, nearer and larger. "WARNING" they read this time, "FLY AWAY ACCURSED PLACE."
"What beats me," said Ben, "is what makes that light. I'll bet a dollar against a dodo-feather it isn't electrical and fireworks wouldn't hang in the air like that. How do they do it?"
"Well, we'll soon find out," said the Captain, practically. "Mr. Sturgis, switch on searchlights three and four and turn them on the source of that light."
A few quick orders and two long beams of light leaped out from the ship toward the source of the mysterious sky-writing—leaped, but not fast enough, for even as the searchlights sought for their goal the lights were extinguished and the long beams swung across nothing but the empty heavens.
Gloria shivered. "I think I want to go away from this place," she said. "There's too much we don't know about around here. We'll be getting table-tappings next."
"Apparently someone wants us to clear out," said Captain Entwhistle cheerfully. "Mr. Sturgis, get steam on three boilers and send the men to reserve action stations. We may have something doing here before morning."
Orders were shouted, iron doors were slammed and feet pattered in the interior of the warship. From their station on the bridge Ben, Gloria and Murray could see the long shafts of the turret guns swing upward to their steepest angle, then turn toward the Jersey shore. TheBrisbanewas preparing for emergencies.
But there was to be no fight that night, though all night long the weary sailors stood or slept beside their guns. The dark skies remained inscrutable; the mysterious lights did not reappear.
At four o'clock, Captain Entwhistle had retired, reappearing at eight, fresh as though he had slept through the whole night. The colonists, of course, did not need sleep, but while the sailors stared at them, submitted themselves to an electric meal from one of the ship's dynamos. Morning found them gathering about the upper decks, eager for action, particularly McAllister, who had spent most of the night engaged in highly technical discussions of theBrisbane'sartillery with one of the turret-captains.
"What do you suggest?" asked the captain. "Shall we land a party?"
"I hate to go without taking a poke at those birds," said Ben, "but still I don't think it would be safe—"
"What's the matter with that airplane?" asked Gloria, pointing to the catapult between the funnels, where a couple of blue-visaged sailors had taken the covering from a seaplane and were giving it a morning bath.
The captain looked at Ben. "There may be something in that idea. What do you say to a scout around? I'll let you or one of your people go as an observer."
"Tickled to death," Ben replied. "We never got beyond the upper part of the city ourselves. The dodos were too dangerous. I'd like to find out what it's all about."
"How about me?" offered Gloria.
"Nothing doing, kid. You get left this time. If those birds get after us we may land in the bay with a bump and I don't want this party to lose its little sunshine."
"Up anchor!" came the command. "Revolutions for ten knots speed.... I'm going to head down the bay," he explained to the colonists. "If anything happens I want to have sea-room, particularly if they try bombing us."
Fifteen minutes later, with theBrisbanerunning into the morning land-breeze in an ocean smooth as glass, the catapult let go and Ben and the pilot—a lad whose cheeks would have been rosy before the comet, but were now a vivid blue—were shot into the air.
Beneath them the panorama of New York harbor lay spread; more silent than it had been at any day since Hendrick Hudson brought his high-pooped galleys into it. As they rose, Ben could make out the line of the river shining through the pearly haze like a silver ribbon; the towers of the city tilted, then swung toward them as the aviator swept down nearer for an examination. Everything seemed normal save at the north and east, where a faint smoky mist still lingered over the buildings they had occupied. Of birds, or of other human occupation than their own, there was no slightest sign.
A faint shout was borne to his ears above the roar of the motor and he saw the pilot motioning toward a set of earphones.
"What do you say, old chap?" asked the pilot when he had clamped them on. "What direction shall we explore?"
Ben glanced down and around. The cruiser seemed to hang in the water, a tiny droplet of foam at her bow the only sign she was still in motion. "Let's go up the Hudson," he suggested. "They seemed to come from that direction."
"Check," called the pilot, manipulating his controls. The airplane climbed, swung and went on. They were over Yonkers; Ben could see a river steamer at the dock, where she had made her last halt.
"Throw in that switch ahead of you," came through the earphones. "The one marked RF. That's the radiophone for communicating with the ship. We may need it."
"O.K.," said Ben.... "Hello.... Yes, this is Ruby, in the airplane. Nothing to report. Everything serene. We're going to explore farther up the river."
In the distance the Catskills loomed before them, blue and proud. Ben felt a touch on his back and looked round. The pilot evidently wished to say something else. He cut in and heard, "What's that off on the left—right in the mountains? No, there."
Following the indicated direction Ben saw something like a scar on the projecting hillside—not one of the ancient rocks, but a fresh cut on the earth, as though a wide spot had been denuded of vegetation.
"I don't know," he answered. "Never saw it before. Shall we go see?... Hello,Brisbane. Ruby reporting. There is a mysterious clearing in the Catskills. We are investigating."
The bare area seemed to run all down a long valley and spread out as it rounded the crest of a hill which hid what lay behind it from their view. As they watched a grey speck that might have been an ant at that height and distance, lumbered slowly down the valley, and then Ben noticed a tiny flicker of red light, so bright as to be clearly visible even in the day, where the grey speck moved against the hillside. A door seemed to open in the hillside; focusing the glasses the aviator handed him, he could just make out a square, bulky object that trundled forth. And then one—two—three—four—five of the huge dodo-tetrapteryx birds shot out, poised for a moment, and leaped into flight.
"Hello,Brisbane," called Ben into the radiophone. "Five dodos have taken off from the cutting in the hills. I think they are after us. Better turn back this way and get ready for trouble."
The aviator, understanding without being warned, had turned the plane. Ben swung round to look over his shoulder. The dodos were already some yards in the air; behind them the bulky object was running slowly out of the opening in the hillside. It had the appearance of a very long, flexible cannon. As he held his glasses on it, it stopped, straightened out and the muzzle was elevated in their direction.
"Dive!" he shouted suddenly into the voice-tube, entirely on impulse. The airplane banked sharply and seemed to drop straight down, and at the same instant right through the spot where they had just passed shot a beam of light so brilliant that it outshone the morning sun. There was a roar louder than that of the motor; the plane pitched and heaved in the disturbed air, and the light-beam went off as suddenly as it had snapped on.
"Didn't I tell you those babies were poison?" he remarked. "Boy, if that ever hit us!"
"What was it?" asked the aviator's voice.
"Don't know, but it was something terrible. Let's head for home and mamma. I don't care about this."
The plane reeled as the pilot handled the controls. Rrrr! said something and the light-beam shot out again, just to one side this time. Out of the corner of his eye Ben could see one of the birds—gaining on them!
"How do you work this machine-gun?" he asked.
"Just squeeze the trigger. Look out! I'm going to dive her again."
With a roar, the light-beam let go a third time. Ben saw the edge of it graze their right wing-tip; the airplane swung wildly round and down, with the pilot fighting for control; the earth seemed to rush up to meet them, tumbling, topsy-turvy. Ben noted a warped black spot where the beam had touched the wing-tip, then surprisingly, they were flying along, level with the surface of the Hudson beneath them, and hardly a hundred feet up.
"That was close," came the aviator's voice, shaky with relief. "I thought they had us that time. Say, that's some ray they have."
"It sure is one first-class heller," agreed Ben. "Are you far enough down to duck it now?"
"I think so, unless they can put it through the hills or chase us with it. Do you suppose those dodos thought that up themselves?"
"Can't tell. They're right on their toes, though. Look!" He pointed up and back. Silhouetted against the sky, they could see three of them, flying in formation like airplanes. "Can we make it?"
"I'm giving the old bus all she'll stand. TheBrisbanewill come toward us though. Wait till those guys get going. They'll find we can take a trick or two."
Yonkers again. Ben looked anxiously over his shoulder. The three silhouettes were a trifle nearer. Would they do it? 125th Street and the long bridge swung into view, then Riverside Drive and the procession of docks with the rusting liners lying beside them. Ben waggled the machine-gun, tried to adjust its sights and squeezed the trigger. A little line of smoke-puffs leaped forth. Tracer bullets—but nowhere near the birds. On and on—lower New York—the Battery. Wham! The water beneath and behind them boiled. Ben looked up. The birds were above them, too high to be reached, dropping bombs.
"All right, old soaks," he muttered, "keep that up. You'll never hit us that way."
Again something struck the water beneath them. The airplane pitched and swerved as the pilot changed course to disturb the aim of the bombers. In the distance the form of the cruiser could be seen now, heading toward them. As he watched, there was a flash from her foredeck. Up in the blue above them appeared the white burst of a shell, then another and another.
One of the dodos suddenly dived out of the formation, sweeping down more swiftly than Ben would have believed possible. He swung the gun this way and that, sending out streams of tracers, but the bird did not appear to heed. Closer—closer—and then with a crash something burst right behind him. The airplane gyrated; the water rushed upward. The end? he thought, and wondered inconsequentially whether his teeth would rust. The next moment the water struck them.
When Ben Ruby came to, he beheld a ceiling which moved jerkily to and fro and stared lazily at it, wondering what it was. Then memory returned with a snap; he sat up and looked about him. He was in one of those cubby-holes which are called "cabins" on warships, and alone. Beneath him he could hear the steady throb of the engines; at his side was a small table with a wooden rack on it, in one compartment of which stood a glass, whose contents, on inspection, proved to be oil. He drank it, looked at and felt of himself, and finding nothing wrong, got out of the hammock and stepped to the door. A seaman was on guard in the corridor.
"Where is everybody?"
"On deck, sir. I hope you are feeling all right now sir."
"Top of the world, thanks. Is the aviator O.K.?"
"Yes, sir. This way."
He ascended to the bridge, to be greeted riotously by the assembled company. TheBrisbanewas steaming steadily along in the open sea, with no speck of land in sight and no traces of the giant birds.
"What happened?" Ben asked. "Did you get rid of 'em?"
"I think so. We shot down two and the rest made off after trying to bomb us. What did you two find out?"
Ben briefly described their experiences. "I thought there was something wrong with one of your wingtips," said the captain, "but your plane sank so quickly after being hit that we didn't have time to examine it. That light-ray cannon of theirs sounds serious. Do you suppose the dodos managed it?"
"Can't tell," said Ben. "From what I could make out through the glasses, it didn't look like birds that were handling it."
"But what could it be?"
"Ask me! Delirium tremens, I guess. Nothing in this world is like what it ought to be any more. Where did those birds come from; how did we get this way, all of us; who is it up there in the Catskills that don't like us? Answer me those and I'll tell you who was handling the gun."
"Message, sir," said a sailor, touching his cap, and handing a folded paper. The captain read it, frowning.
"There you are—" he extended the sheet to Ben. "My government is recalling all ships. Our sister-ship, theMelbourne, has been attacked off San Francisco and severely damaged by bomb-dropping dodos, and they have made a mass descent on Sumatra. Gentlemen, this has all the characteristics of a formal war." He strode off to give the necessary orders to hurry the cruiser home, but Walter Beeville, who had joined the group at the bridge, said under his breath:
"If those birds have enough intelligence to plan out anything like that I'll eat my hat."
"If you were not before my eyes," said Sir George Graham Harris, president of the Australian Scientific Commission, "as living proof of what you say, and if our biological and metallurgical experts did not report that your physiology is utterly beyond their comprehension, I do not know but that I would believe you were some cleverly constructed machines, actuated in some way by radio. However, that is not the point ... I have here a series of reports from different quarters on such explorations as have been made since the arrival of the comet and our recovery from its effects. We are, it appears, confronted with a menace of considerable seriousness in the form of these birds.
"In the light of your closer acquaintance with them and with conditions generally in the devastated areas, they may be more suggestive to you than to us." He stopped and ruffled over the papers piled beside him at the big conference table. He was a kindly old gentleman, whose white Van Dyke and pale blue lips contrasted oddly with the almost indigo tint of his visage (before the comet it had been a rich wine-red, the result of a lifelong devotion to brandy and soda). Smiling round the table at his scientific colleagues and at Ben, Murray, Gloria and Beeville, who occupied the position of honor, he went on:
"I give you mainly excerpts.... The first is from the South African government. They have ... hm, hm ... sent an aerial expedition northward, all lines of communication appearing to be broken. At Nairobi, they report for the first time, finding a town entirely unoccupied and its inhabitants turned into cast-metal statues ... Addis Ababa the same ... Wadi Hafa likewise. Twenty miles north of Wadi Hafa they noted the first sign of life—a bird of some kind at a considerable distance to the west of them and flying parallel with them and very rapidly."
The scientist looked up. "It would appear beyond doubt that this bird belonged to the species we call dodos and to which Dr. Beeville has given the excellent scientific name, tetrapteryx.... As the expedition proceeded northward, they encountered more of them; sometimes as many as four being in sight at one time. At Alexandria, where they halted for supplies, the dodos closed in. When the expedition took the air again with the object of flying to Crete and thence to Europe, these remarkable avians came very close, apparently trying to turn the expedition back. They reached Crete that afternoon, in spite of the interference of the birds, but that night were actively attacked on the ground. The phenomena that accompanied all other attacks were observed; the birds used incendiary bombs of great intensity. One machine was entirely destroyed with its aviators. The others, since their object was exploration, at once took to the air and returned.
"Any comments, gentlemen? No? Well the next is the report of the Dutch shipCorlaer, which attempted to reach Japan. She was permitted to proceed to within a few miles of the islands, and then began to receive light-warnings in the sky, such as Captain Entwhistle reports. Unfortunately they were in Japanese characters and there was no one aboard who could read them. She put in at the port of Nagasaki and sent out a landing party. It never returned; as in the other cases the ship was bombed at night and only made Sumatra with the greatest difficulty, one of the bombs having fallen on the quarter-deck, wrecking the steering-gear and causing extensive internal damage....
"There are minor reports with which I will not bother you. But the report of H. M. A. S.Melbourneappears highly significant. She touched at several South American ports. In the cities she reports finding all life at a standstill, although at Iquique, the landing party encountered some hill-Indians who had suffered a bluing of the blood similar to ours, and who proved distinctly unfriendly. They are reported as engaged in looting the city and getting drunk on the contents of the bodegas.
"North of Callao she found no signs of life until she reached San Pedro Bay. There a man was observed to be waving from the beach. TheMelbourneput in and launched a boat, but before it reached shore, one of the birds made its appearance overhead and the man disappeared into the trees and was not seen again. From the ship he appeared to be a mechanical man, such as you. Shortly afterward, theMelbournebegan to see the dodos constantly, and at the region of San Francisco, she saw one of the light signals. The wording of it was: 'DEPART AWAY FAREWELL FOREVER.'"
Gloria stirred and Sir George looked at her with mild eyes. "Nothing, sir. I was just thinking that these dodos are uncommonly poetical. They told us to fly from the accursed place."
"Yes, yes.... Naturally theMelbourne, not anticipating any trouble as the result of a refusal to obey this absurd command, did not heed the warning, and steamed into the bay. Like the other ships she was attacked at night. One of the bombs fell on the fire-control station and wrecked it, bringing down the tripod mast and fusing the top of the conning tower. She got under way immediately and replied with all guns, but before escaping number three turret was struck by another bomb and all the men in the turret were killed. The roof of the turret was driven in and even the breeches of the guns melted.... That, I think, summarizes the reports we have. We have seen a little of the birds, mostly at a distance, and they appear to have carried off several individuals, especially in Sumatra. I am afraid that is all we can offer."
There was a moment's silence.
"Well, what the material in the bombs is I can't say," said Ben, "but they know all about projecting it from guns in the form of a beam. I told you about my experience in company with the aviator from theBrisbane?"
"The eggs Roberts found, too," said Gloria.
"Oh, yes, Dr. Beeville can tell you about that."
"Why, there's nothing much to it," said the scientist. "One of our people found what appeared to be a nest of these birds in a building. The nest was built of soft cloths and contained large eggs, but when the place was revisited the eggs had been removed.... I may say that I have examined the remains of one rather badly mangled specimen. The brain-case is extraordinarily large—larger than I have ever seen in any animal, and they appear to be of a high order of intelligence.
"On the other hand I should certainly put the use and control of such a material as these bombs contain beyond their powers. And the fact that the nest was found in a building would indicate that the headquarters in the Catskills were used by some other and higher intelligence which was separate from and perhaps in control of these birds. Moreover, they do not appear to wish to destroy us mechanical men, but to carry us off, and the messages seen by the ships seem to indicate that the intelligence behind these birds is capable of reading and understanding English. I cannot conceive that the birds themselves would be able to do this.
"Further, there is the very strong evidence of the gun which fired on Mr. Ruby. In every case where these birds have attacked man, they have used bombs of this material put up in portable form, although the gun would have been much more effective. It would have gone right through theMelbourneor theBrisbanelike a red-hot poker through a board. From this I argue that the birds are directed rather than directing, and that the directing intelligence is either too indolent or too contemptuous of us to attack man except through their agency. Finally, I deduce that we are dealing with some powerful and as yet unknown form of life. What it is or how it reached the earth, I am not prepared to say."
"Wunnerful," said Gloria irreverently, and a smile passed across the faces of the conferees.
"But what are the bombs made of and what makes them tick?" asked Murray Lee.
"That is a question to which I would very much like to know the answer," said Sir George, stroking his white beard. "Perhaps Mr. Nasmith, our chemical member, will be good enough to give us something on the point."
"Not much," said Nasmith, a lantern-jawed man with black hair. "We made a chemical analysis of the portions of theMelbournewhich had been struck by the bombs, and all we can say is that it gave a most extraordinary result. These portions were originally made of Krupp armor steel, as you know. Our analysis showed the presence of a long series of chemical elements, including even gold and thorium, most of them in minute quantities. Titanium appeared to be the leading constituent after iron."
"Then," said Sir George, "the situation appears to be this. We don't know what the dodos are or what is behind them, but they have possession of a large part of the world to which they are disposed to forbid us any access. They have powerful weapons and the intelligence to use them, and they appear to be unfriendly. I suggest that the sense of this meeting is that the government should take immediate measures of investigation and if necessary, of hostility."
"Swell," said Gloria, "only you didn't go half far enough. We've been there and you haven't. You want to get the best guns you've got and go for them right away."
There was a murmur of approval. As Sir George rose to put the question to a vote there came a knock at the door. Heads were turned to greet a young man who hurried to the president and whispered something. Sir George turned to the meeting with a startled face.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "the dodos are bombing Canberra, the capital of Australia, and are being engaged by the Australian air force."