Once, several weeks before, a Lassan fighting-machine had passed through the city, wrecked a few buildings with the light-ray, and disappeared westward as rapidly as it had come.
With some difficulty and a good deal of crowding the eight Chicagoans were gotten into theMonitor IIfor the return journey. They were a most welcome reinforcement and would furnish enough Americans to man all five of the extra rocket-cruisers.
"I hope," remarked Sherman, a couple of days later, "that those Lassans don't come out quite yet, now. We've got the ships to meet them now, but the personnel isn't as well trained as I should like. Salsinger nearly smashed up one of the ships yesterday making his landing and one of the wings on another cracked up this morning when Roberts tried to turn too short. These rocket-ships are so fast you need a whole state to handle them in."
"And I," replied Ben Ruby, "hope they come out damn soon. As you say, we've got the ships now, but they're not so slow themselves, and with the building methods they have, they can turn out ships faster than we can."
"All the same, I'd like a few days more," Sherman countered. "In this brand of war it isn't how much you've got, but what you've got that counts. Look at all the Australians—half a million men, and the only good they are is to work in factories."
"Can't blame them for not being made of metal like us," said Ben. "They're doing their best and we wouldn't be here but for them. Grierson is having the shops build us another ten rocket-cruisers, on the chance that we pick up some reinforcements somewhere in the west."
"Good," said Sherman, "and I have another idea. I think we ought to keep at least one monitor on patrol over the Lassan city all the time. They're apt to get out and sneak one over on us. She can stay high up, near the edge of the atmosphere. Of course, she can't radio, but she can fire a couple of shots if she sights them coming out, and we can make a static detector that will register the disturbance. Then we can catch them as fast as they come out, when they'll be easiest to attack."
"How about the other Lassan city out in the Black Hills?" asked Ben.
"Would be bad strategy to try to handle them both at once, wouldn't it," said Sherman, "Still, if you think so ..."
It wasMonitor VII, manned by the Chicagoans, which had the honor of sighting the enemy. Just as the twilight of a bright May day was closing down over the radio men at the Philadelphia airport, the static detector marked an unusual disturbance, then two quick shocks, which must have come from the patrol's bow beam. In quick succession, the other five, standing ready on their starting ramps, took in their crews, and roared up and away in a torrent of explosions at a thousand miles an hour.
Soaring to fifty thousand feet above the earth, the squadron of rocket-ships made its way north,Monitor IIin the lead.
"Well, here we go," called Gloria, gaily, from her seat behind the searchlight. "Hope they don't give us the run-around this time."
"They won't have the chance," said Ben. "That is, provided those Chicago boys have sense enough to remember their instructions and let them alone till we all get there. With six of these ships we ought to be able to rough 'em up a little bit."
At a speed of over a thousand miles an hour, thanks to the thinness of the atmosphere through which they were traveling, it was only a few minutes' hop from Philadelphia to the Catskill city of the elephant-men. Ben had hardly finished speaking before Sherman called from the control seat, "There they are!"
Far beneath, half revealed, half-hidden by the few tiny clouds of fleece that hung at the lower altitudes, they could see the naked scar in the hills that marked the Lassan headquarters. Around it floated half a dozen of the huge green balls they had encountered on the last occasion. As they swept by, another one, looking like a grape at the immense distance, trundled slowly out from the enormous door, swung to and fro for a second or two and then swam up to join those already in the sky.Monitor VIIwas to the north and above them—as she perceived the American fleet she swept down to join the formation, falling into her prearranged place.
"Do we go now?" asked Sherman.
"Not yet," said Ben. "Give them all a chance to get out. The more the merrier. I'd like to finish the job this time. We can't get in that door, and if we did the rocket-ships would be no use to us in those passages, and they're the best we've got. Besides they're playing snooty too, and aren't paying a bit of attention to us. I hope they intend to fight it out to a finish this time."
They turned north, giving the Lassans time to assemble their fleet. "What's the arrangement?" asked Gloria. "Do we all go for them at once?"
"No. We dive in first and the rest follow behind, pulling up before they get in range. If anything happens to us, they'll rescue us—if they can. You see we don't know what they've got any more than they know what we've got, and I thought it would be a good idea to try the first attack with only one ship. In a pinch the rest can get away—if the Lassans haven't developed a lot of speed on those green eggs of theirs."
"How many now?" asked Sherman, from the controls, as the squadron swung back southward and the scarred mountain swam over the horizon again.
"Two—five—nine—eleven—oh, I can't count them all," said Gloria, "they keep changing formation so. There's a lot of them and they're coming up toward us, but slowly. They haven't got that blue beam at the base any more, either—you know the one that globe we got after was riding on."
As they approached it was indeed evident that the green globes were rising slowly through the twilight in some kind of loose formation. It was too complex for the American observers to follow in the brief glimpses they were vouchsafed as they swept past at hurricane speed. There seemed to be dozens of the Lassan globes; as though they expected to overwhelm opposition by mere force of numbers. Nearer and nearer came the rocket-ships, nearer and nearer loomed the sinister Lassan globes, betraying no signs of life, silent and ominous.
"Go?" called Sherman from his seat at the controls.
"Go!" said Ben.
TheMonitor IIdived; and as she dived, Gloria Rutherford switched on the deadly beam of the searchlight which would carry the gravity-beam against their enemies. For a moment it sought the green globes; then caught one fairly. Ben Ruby threw the switch; and down the light beam leaped the terrible stream of the broken atoms like a wave of death. Leaped—and failed!
For as it struck the green globe, instead of the rending explosion and the succeeding collapse, there came only a bright handful of stars, a coruscating display of white fire that dashed itself around the Lassan ship like foam on some coast-rock. It reeled backward, driven from its position under the tremendous shock of the sundered atoms, but it remained intact.
"Well, I'm a son-of-a-gun!" declared Sherman, as he put theMonitorinto a spiral climb at nine hundred miles an hour to avoid any counter-attack. "If they haven't found a gravity screen! I didn't think it was possible. Goes to show you you never can tell, especially with Lassans. Look out folks, here comes the gaff, I'm going to loop!"
For as he spoke the formation of green globes had opened out—swiftly by ordinary standards, though slowly in comparison with the frantic speed of the American rocket-vessel. From half a dozen of them the racking yellow ray of infra-sound leaped forth to seek the audacious ship that had attacked them single-handed. All round her they stabbed the atmosphere, striking the few clouds and driving them apart in a fine spray of rain, but missing theMonitoras she twisted and heaved at frantic speed.
Twenty miles away and high in the air they pulled up to recover themselves.
"Andthat," Sherman went on with his interrupted observation, "explains why they aren't using those blue beams for support any more. Of course a gravity screen that would work against our beam would work against the gravity of the earth just as well. They must have some way of varying its effect, though. They aren't rising very fast and haven't got much speed."
"Probably the Lassans can't stand the acceleration," suggested Murray.
"Probably you're right. They can't have less than one Lassan in each globe.... Of course, they might control them by radio, with the thought-helmets and have the crews all robots, but that wouldn't be a Lassan way of doing things. And I doubt if they'd think radio safe, anyhow, even if they know about it, of which I'm not sure. We're shedding any amount of static around, and would play merry hell with most any radio. Wish I knew how they worked that gravity screen, though. I'll bet a boat-load of Monitors against a thought-helmet that it's magnetic."
"Wish we had some way to signal the rest of the fleet," said Ben, as they swung into their position at the head of the formation again. "I don't want them pushing in there with the gravity-beam if it isn't going to do any good."
Murray laughed. "They'll find it out soon enough. I think we've got plenty speed to beat those infra-sound rays, too. If that's as strong as they come, we've got 'em licked."
"Don't crow yet, boy friend," said Gloria. "You don't know what those babies have up their sleeves—excuse me, their trunks."
As the American fleet formed for a mass attack, the Lassan globes had been rising, and now they were a bare five thousand feet below the rocket-cruisers, swinging along at a height of 25,000 feet above the earth in the last rays of the setting sun. As the green globes rose they took their places in a formation like an enormous crescent, the ends of which were extended as each new globe came up to join it.
"Looks like they want to get us in the middle and pop us from all directions at once," observed Sherman. "Well, here goes. Pick the end of the line; that's our best chance. How's your potential, Gloria?"
"O. K., chief," she answered. "Lightning this time?"
He nodded. The rockets of theMonitor IIroared; its prow dipped forward, and at an incredible speed it swept down on the line of Lassan warships, followed by the rest of the American fleet. But it was no surprise this time. As the monitors plunged in, from every green globe that could bring them to bear, the long yellow rays shot forth. Right through them theMonitor IIplunged; the grate of it, even through their double coating of armor and the vacuum chambers, set their teeth on edge; then the rocket-ship was pointing directly down at one of the Lassans and Gloria snapped the key that released the artificial lightning.
A jagged beam of flame, intenser than the hottest furnace, leaped through the air, struck the green globe, and sought the earth in a thousand tiny rivulets of light. For just a second the globe seemed unharmed; then slowly, and almost majestically, it began to dissolve in mid-air, spouting flames at every pore. Fully ten miles down and beyond, theMonitorturned again, and not till then did the sound of the explosion reach them, a terrific, rending thunder-clap.
"See that?" cried Sherman. "That formation of theirs isn't so dumb. They've got it all ranged out; none of our ships can get at them without coming through at least one of those yellow rays, and if we stay in them too long—blooie!"
They peered through the windows at the formation. Off at one side, they could make out the forms of two more rocket-ships, outlined against the sky, while behind and above them pursued by the searching yellow beams, came the rest. As they turned, they saw the gravity-beam shoot from one of the American ships, crumple uselessly against a green globe. Then they plunged in, again, firing the gravity beam earthward to work up the potential for another lightning discharge.
The hills below rocked and roared to the repeated shock. Trees fell in crashing ruin as lightning-bolt or infra-sound shivered them to bits; great cars of burned earth and molten rock marked the spots where the gravity-beam struck the ground. All round was a maze of yellow rays, lightning flashes, and green globes that reeled, rose, fell, sometimes blowing up, sometimes giving ground, but always fighting back sternly and vigorously and always rising through the clear spring evening.
Murray Lee, at the rear of the ship, was the only one to see an American rocket-ship, caught and held for a few fatal moments by two yellow rays, slowly divest itself of its outer armor, then of its inner, and go whirling to the earth, dissolved into its ultimate fragments by those irresistible pennons of sound.
Gloria Rutherford at the prow was the only one to see another caught bow-on in a yellow ray, reply by firing its gravity-beam right down the ray and into the green globe through the port from which the ray had issued. The ray went out—a spreading spot of flame appeared at the port and the great green globe crumpled into a little ball of flame before her eyes. But such events as these were the merest flashes in the close-locked combat. For the most part they had time to do nothing but handle the controls, throw switches to and fro, shoot forth gravity-beam and lightning-flash in endless alternation at the Lassan ships of which there always appeared to be one more right before them as Sherman twisted and turned theMonitorwith a skill that was almost uncanny.
Suddenly he pulled out; the four looked round. They were miles high; below half hidden in the dusk, were the red and brown roofs of a city. Far away on the horizon the battle still roared; a rolling cloud of smoke now, shot with the vivid fires of the American lightning flashes. The wings of their ship were spread; they were soaring gently earthward without the application of the rocket power.
"Had to get away for a minute," Sherman explained. "We were heating up from the speed. My God, but we're high up; at least 45,000 feet!"
"Yes, and getting higher," Ben pointed out. "Those green globes must be headed for the moon."
"Do you know, I wouldn't be a bit surprised but what you're right," replied Sherman, "I'll bet an oil-ball against the whole Lassan city that they think we can't navigate space and they're trying to get above us and then hang around and pop us when we have to land. Well, come on gang, let's get back."
He shot the wings in again, worked the controls, and they headed back toward the conflict.
It was less of a turmoil now, more of an ordered swing, charge, pass and charge again against the diminishing number of the Lassan globes. Of the American rocket-ships Gloria could now count but two beside their own. One she had seen break up; whether the others, badly damaged, had hauled out for repairs, or whether, riven by the deadly yellow ray, they had gone crashing to the earth, there was no way of knowing. But the Lassans were not escaping unharmed; there were hardly a third as many as at the beginning and even as they approached another one disappeared in the vivid flash of the rocket's lightnings. Still the rest rose steadily on, going straight up as though they indeed hoped to escape their tormentors by rising to the moon.
They dived in: Gloria pressed the lightning key and another Lassan globe blew up; then they were climbing again. Beneath them the night had come. The earth was a dark mass, far down, and from that enormous distance looked slightly dished out at the edges. But though the earth was dark, at that ultimate height of the atmosphere the sun had not yet set. Still the strange fight went on, higher and higher. The roar of the exhaust explosions died away behind them and Murray looked questioningly at Sherman.
"Out this far, there isn't much air," he said. "Takes air to conduct sound. Wonder what they're up to, anyway. All right, Gloria."
He dived at another Lassan and she pressed the lightning ray; but this time there was no flash, no flaming Lassan ship falling in ruins to the ground.
"Who'd have thought it!" said Sherman, as he swung theMonitorround after the charge. "Of course—we're up so high that we've made a spark gap that even lightning won't jump. But I don't get their idea; those sound rays won't be any good out here, either."
TheMonitorturned again, speeding back toward the remaining Lassan ships; with a startling shock of surprise, Gloria noticed that there were only two. Down below them one of the last three American rocket-cruisers had spread her wings and was gliding gently toward the earth. Like theMonitor's, her crew had evidently found the lightning flash worthless at the enormous altitude and was abandoning the battle till conditions became more favorable. The other rocket remained faithful; turned as they turned and charged up with them toward the last of the Lassans.
It was a weird scene. They had climbed so far that the earth was now perceptibly round beneath them; a vague line marked the westward progress of the sunset and beyond it the sun, an immense yellow ball, set with a crown of vividly red flames, hung in the inky-black heavens. On the opposite side, the stars, more brilliant and greater in number than any ever before viewed by the eye of man, made the sky a carpet of light across which the green globes moved like shadows, their undersides illumined by the sun.
As theMonitorapproached, the nearest globe seemed to be turning on its axis. Suddenly, out of the side that faced them, came the quick, stabbing beam of the light-ray, like the flicker of a sword. It struck theMonitorfull on the prow. There was a burning rain of sparks past the windows; the rocket-ship leaped and quivered, and those within felt, rather than saw, something give. Then, with a tremendous explosion, all the more horrible because utterly without sound, the great globe that had thrown the ray, burst into fragments.
And at the same moment theMonitorbegan to fall. Down, down, down went the rocket-cruiser with the round ball of the earth rising to meet them at a speed incredible. The sun went out; they were swallowed in a purple twilight as they plunged. The earth changed from a ball to a dish, from a dish to a plane, from a plane to a dark mass without form, and in the mass vague lights and glimmerings of water came out, and still their course was unchecked, still Sherman fought frantically with the useless controls.
Desperately Murray pressed the firing keys of the stern-rockets; unchecked she drove on, almost straight down, plunging to certain destruction. The earth loomed nearer, nearer, the end seemed inevitable—.
Then Gloria saved them. In some moment of inspiration, she threw on the searchlight; and the automatic connection fired the gravity-beam. There was a shattering report; the course of theMonitorwas halted, and bruised and broken, she tumbled over and over to the ground, safe but ruined.
"Suffering Lassans!" said Ben Ruby, as they picked themselves out of the wreckage, "but that was a jar. What hit us, anyway?"
Sherman pointed to Gloria, breathlessly. "Give the little girl a hand," he ejaculated. "She sure pulled us out of the fire that time."
"I'll say she did," said Murray, "but what happened, anyway? I thought that light-ray of theirs wouldn't work on these ships."
"It won't—in air," said Sherman ruefully, surveying the wreck of theMonitor. "But the air blankets down the effect a lot. Out there we got the whole dose. Even then it shouldn't have hurt us so seriously, but I expect a lot of our lead sheathing got jarred loose when we went through those yellow rays and when they let that light-ray go, she leaked all over the place. Wonder what made that Lassan ship blow up like that, though? I thought she sure had us."
"Oh," said Ben, "I think maybe I did that. When the light-ray came on it occurred to me that the gravity-beam might go down their beam of light just as fast as it would down ours, and they must have a port-hole or something through their gravity-screen or they couldn't let the ray out. So I just let them have it."
"Boy, you sure saved the lives of four of Uncle Sam's flying men that time. About one second more of that stuff and we'd have cracked up right there. Look at the front of our bus. The outer plating is all caved in and the inner is starting to go."
"She is pretty well used up isn't she? What gets me though, is that there's one more of those things loose."
"Look!" cried Gloria suddenly, pointing upward.
Far in the zenith above them they saw a point of light; a point that grew and spread and became definite as a great star; then it became a shooting star, plunging earthward, and so great was its speed that even as they watched they could make out a green fragment, flame-wrapped in its midst.
"The last one!" said Sherman. "Thank God for that. Wonder how they got her?"
"Wonder what we do next," remarked Murray, practically.
They looked about them. They were on a hillside in a little clearing in a high, narrow valley. On every side were woods, dark and impenetrable. Just below they could hear the purl of a brook, and the trees about them were bare with the dark bareness of spring, a few fugitive buds being the only announcement that the season of growing was at hand. No landmarks, no roads were visible, and the sky was darkening fast.
"The question," said Gloria, "is not where do we go, but where are we going from."
"It might be most anywhere," remarked Murray. "Adirondacks, Catskills, or even Laurentians. I don't think we got far enough west for it to be the Blue Ridge or the Appalachians, but there's no way of telling."
"Well," Gloria offered, "I've been in a lot of mountains in my day, but I never saw any where following a stream didn't take you somewhere sooner or later. I vote we trail along with that brook there and see what happens."
"Bright thought," commented Ben. "Let's see what we can dig out of the wreck by way of weapons."
"What for? There aren't any animals, and they couldn't hurt you if there were. If we meet any of the Lassans any weapon you got out of that mess wouldn't be much use. Wish we had a flashlight though."
Treading carefully, but with a good deal of noise and confusion, they began to crash their way through the underbrush along the bank of the stream. At the foot of the valley it dived over a diminutive waterfall and then tumbled into another similar brook. Along the combined streams ran a road—a dirt road originally, now long untraveled, muddy and bad, but still a road.
An hour's walking brought them around the foot of another mountain and into a valley where the road divided before a projecting buttress of rock. A teetering sign-post stood at the fork. With some trouble, and after getting himself immersed to the knees in the ditch, Murray managed to reach it and straining his eyes in the starlight, made out what it said. "THIS WAY TO HAMILTON'S CHICKEN DINNERS. 1 MILE" it read. With a snort of disgust he hurled the deceitful guidepost into the ditch and joined the others.
"Toss a coin," someone suggested. No coins. A knife was flipped up instead. It fell heads and in accordance with its decision they took the road to the right. It led them along beside the stream for a while, then parted company with it and began to climb, and they soon found themselves at the crest of the hill. The night had become darker and darker, clouding over. But for the road they would have been completely lost. Finally, after skirting the hillcrest for a distance, the road dipped abruptly, and as it did so, they passed out of the forest into a region cleared but not cultivated, with numerous close-cut stumps coming right to the roadside.
"But for the fact that it's a long ways away," remarked Sherman, "I would say that this was the district around the Lassan headquarters."
"What makes you think it's a long ways away?" asked Gloria. "Do you know where we are? Neither do I."
"By the nine gods of Clusium, I believe that's it, at that!" said Sherman suddenly as the road turned past a place where a long scar of earth ran up the hillside, torn and blackened. "Look—that looks exactly like the result of one of our gravity-beam shots! And there—isn't that the door?"
They were on the hillside now, directly above the place he had indicated. From above and in the darkness it appeared as a cliff, breaking down rapidly to the valley, but Sherman led them to one side, straight down the hill and in another moment they were at its base. The great door through which the green balls had poured out that evening stood before them, a mighty arch reaching up into the dimness—and it was open.
"Looks like the boys haven't come home to supper yet," said Gloria in an awed whisper, contemplating the gigantic arch and the dark passage into which it led.
"Yes, and a lot of them aren't coming, either," replied Murray in a similar tone. "But what do we do—make a break for it or poke in and see if anybody's home?"
"Listen, you three," said Sherman. "You run along and build some more monitors and go get whatever comes out of here. Me, I'm going to have a whirl at this door. The swellest girl in the world is in there, or was, and I'm going to find her."
"Nothing doing, old scout," said Ben. "If you go in we go too—except Gloria."
"What's the matter with me?" she demanded. "I'm made of the same kind of machinery you are, aren't I? And I'm good enough to run your foolish fighting-machine. Don't be a goop." And she stepped forward.
The blue-domed hall that gave directly on the outer air had disappeared since Sherman and Marta Lami had raced out of it on that night that now seemed so long ago. In its place was an enormous tunnel, lined apparently with some metal, for its sides were smooth and shimmering. The portion they entered was lightless, but it curved as it ran down, and around the curve they could see the faint reflection of a light somewhere farther along the passage. Their feet echoed oddly in the enormous silence of the place. There seemed nothing alive or dead within.
"Boy," whispered Murray to Gloria, "if one of those green globes comes back now it will squash us flatter than a false prosperity bankroll. This is the craziest thing we ever did."
"Right," she said, "but what the hell? I just came for the ride. Look, what's that?"
Before them, around the bend of the passage, they could see another door from which the light which glittered along the tunnel was streaming. In the opening stood a man, or what seemed to be a man, facing, fortunately, inwards.
After a moment's cautious peering, Sherman pronounced him one of the ape-man slaves. He wore a thought-helmet, and had some kind of a weapon in his hand. The four held a cautiously whispered conference.
"Listen," said Sherman, "we've got to jump that baby before he does anything. I think he's got one of those small light-guns. Didn't know they trusted them to the slaves, but I suppose so many of the Lassans got shot up that they had to do it. Now, who's got a knife?"
A search of pockets revealed that Murray Lee had the only one in the company.
"Never mind," said Sherman, "one is enough. Now we three will sneak up on him. The main thing is not to let him see us; if he makes a move, jump him quick. Remember there's a Lassan at the other end of the line, and the Lassan is getting everything he thinks. He doesn't think very fast, but don't take chances. If he sees us, you hop in, Murray, and cut the wire that leads out of his helmet and short-circuit it. They may have it fixed so that it won't short-circuit by now but I don't think so. If he doesn't see us before we jump him, clap your hands over his eyes, Ben, and I'll try to get the helmet off him and pass out some information to the Lassan at the other end that will keep him quiet. But the main thing is to get that gun first. Everybody understand?"
Three heads nodded in unison.
"All right. Come on."
They crept up the passage together avoiding touching hands lest the ring of the metal should warn the sentry. As they approached they could see the room he looked out on was one of the familiar blue-domed halls; the passage ended sharply some six feet above its floor ("Taking no chances on more escapes" thought Sherman) and that the hall was of enormous size. There were machines in one corner of the floor. In another stood one of the green globes, half finished, with spidery trellises of red metal outlining what would be the surface of the sphere. Around it helmeted mechanical men came and went busily. The rest of the hall, for all its vast extent, was completely empty. At the far end was a row of doors; high on the far side an opening that looked like a door but had no obvious purpose.
This much they saw; then the sentry stirred as though to turn, and with a quick patter of feet, they were upon him. Before he had time to turn around Ben Ruby launched himself in a perfect football tackle for his legs, bringing the ape-man down with a crash. As he fell, Sherman snatched at the helmet, and Gloria the light-gun, which had dropped from his fingers, while Murray pinioned the struggling creature's arms. In a moment Sherman found the finger-holes in the helmet, pressed, and it came loose in his hands while the ape-man ceased to struggle.
"Let him up now, folks," said Sherman, "give him a swift kick and point him toward the door. He won't come back." And he rapidly adjusted the thought-helmet to his own head.
The Lassan at the other end was evidently disturbed. He had received the sound of the crash from the ape-man's brain and was asking querulously what it meant.
"What has happened?" the thought demanded insistently. "What is it that struck you? Have the fighting machines returned? Show a picture of what you see. Are the slaves escaping?"
"Everything's all right," Sherman sent back. "Something broke loose down below and I stumbled trying to look at it." He closed his eyes, forming a mental picture of the hall, with everything in order, then one of the passage, and reached up and detached the helmet, motioning to Murray for the knife. An instant's sawing and the device short-circuited with a fizzing of blue sparks.
"That will give that one a headache for a while," he remarked. "We'll have to hurry, though. When he comes to he'll investigate and then there'll be trouble."
"What's that?" asked Gloria, pointing across the hall at the aperture high up in the wall. A gleaming beak had been thrust out and the bright, intelligent eye of one of the dodo-birds was regarding them malevolently from the opening.
"Shoot, quick!" said Sherman, "For God's sake! They're telepathic. They'll have every Lassan in the place after us."
Gloria fumbled a second with the gun, located the finger hole, sent a spurt of light flying across the room. It missed the head, but found its mark somewhere in the body of the bird, for there was a squawk and the head disappeared. Sherman vaulted down the six-foot drop, landing with a bang. "Come on," he cried, "short-circuit every wire you can find; tear them loose if you can't cut them any other way—and make for the middle door at the back."
They ran across the hall toward the work benches. It seemed enormous; like a race in a dream, in which one seems to make no progress whatever. But the workers did not appear to notice them. Driven by the thoughts of the controlling Lassans, they were incapable of attending to anything else unless it was forced on their attention.
As they approached the benches, however, one flat-faced ape-man almost ran into them. His face took on an expression of puzzled inquiry and at the same moment a figure whose carriage plainly showed it human stepped down toward them from the half-completed green globe. Gloria paused, leveled her light-gun at the ape-man, and his face vanished in a spray of fire. The human advanced slowly as though struggling against some force that was too strong for him. Sherman reached him first, wrenched the helmet from his head and dropping it on the floor stamped on it till the fine mechanism was irretrievably ruined. The mechanical human fell to his knees.
"Who are you?" he asked, "God?"
"We're all right," said Murray, and Sherman, "which way to the living cages? Do you know Marta Lami?"
The man shook his head like one recovering from a dream. "I do' know," he said, "they had the helmets on me for twenty periods. I do' know nothing. We came through that door. In the little automobiles."
He indicated a door behind some of the machines.
Speed was urgent, but Sherman paused to instruct them briefly. "There'll be another sentry at the door. Pop him first, Gloria. Murray, take your knife, and Ben, get anything you can and cut all the wires on those birds around here. There are some more wires leading out of the machines. Be sure to get them, too. You might let loose something important. We'll try to get you another gun."
Impassively, oblivious of the invasion about them, the workers kept on at their machines like ants when their nest is broken open. Sherman and Gloria dodged around one of them, avoiding the direct line of sight of the robot who worked at it and walked rapidly toward the door giving on the car-tracks. The man on duty had no weapon, but paid them no attention, being occupied in watching a car just sliding in to the station. "It's a shame" began Gloria, but "Shoot!" insisted Sherman and the light-ray struck him in the back of the neck fusing head and neck to a single mass. As he sank to the floor he turned partly over.
"Good heavens, it's Stevens!" said Gloria, "the man who organized the rebellion against Ben Ruby in New York and brought the dodos down on us."
"Never mind. Hurry," her companion urged in a fever of activity. The doors of the car were opening and half a dozen mechanical men stepped out, mostly with the foolish visages and shambling steps of the ape-men, but two whose upright walk proclaimed them human.
"Listen, everybody," called Sherman, quickly. "We're from outside. We're trying to bust up this place. Get back in the car, quick, and come help us." Suiting the action to the word, he leaped for the first compartment, reached it just as it was closing and wedged himself inside.
The car had a considerable run to make. In the dimly-lighted compartment, Sherman was conscious of turns, right, left, right again, and of a steady descent. He wondered vaguely whether he had taken the right method; whether the cage rooms lay near one another or were widely separated. At all events the diversion in the hall of the green globes would hold the attention of the Lassans for some time, and the short-circuiting of so many lines would hamper their methods of dealing with the emergency....
The car came to a stop. Sherman heard a door or two open, but his own did not budge, and he had no needle to stir it. He must wait, hoping that Gloria had not been isolated from him. She had the ray-gun at all events, and would not be helpless. Then the door opened again.
He was released into a cage that seemed already occupied, and one look told him that his companion was an ape-man.
"Gloria!" he called.
"Right here," came the cheerful answer from two cages down. "This is a swell thing you got me into. How do we get out of here?"
"Have you got a pin or needle of any kind?" he asked.
"Why—yes. Turn your back." She did something mysterious among her feminine garments and held up an open safety-pin for him to see across the intervening cage.
"Stick your arm through the bars and see if you can toss it down the track. If I don't get it, you'll have to blast your way out with the light-gun, but I don't like to do that. Don't know how many shots it holds and we need them all."
She swung with that underarm motion which is the nearest any woman can achieve to a throw. The pin struck the gleaming car-rail, skidded, turned and came to rest before Sherman's cage. He reached for it, but the ape-man in the cage, who had been watching with interested eyes, was quicker. Fending Sherman off with one huge paw, he reached one of his feet through the bars for the object and held it up before his eyes admiringly.
Sherman grabbed, but this only fixed the ape-man in his evident opinion that the object he held was of value. He gripped it all the tighter, turned an amiable face toward Sherman and gibbered. Losing patience at this unfortunate contretemps when time was so precious, the aviator lifted an iron foot and kicked him, vigorously and with purpose, in the place where kicks do the most good. The ape-man pitched forward, dropping the fascinating pin, then rose and came toward Sherman, his expression clearly indicating his intention of tearing the American limb from limb. The cage was narrow: the ape-man the bigger of the two. Sherman thought hard and fast. The oil-ball!
He leaped for the lectern, snatched it open, seized the ape-man's oil-ball and held it aloft as though to throw it out into the corridor. With a wail of anguish the simian clutched at the precious object. Sherman squeezed it enough to let a little stream run forth, holding it just out of his reach, and as he stabbed for it again, tossed it back into a corner of the cell. The ape-man leaped upon it covetously, and Sherman bent over the bars, fumbling in his nervous haste to unlock them.
Luckily the safety-pin fitted. With a subdued click the bars swung inward and he was out in the corridor. Another moment and Gloria was free also.
"Any more people in here?" Sherman called. Three voices answered and he hurried from cage to cage, setting them free as the warning blue lights that prohibited shouting began to flicker around the roof.
"Come on," he called, "we must get out of here, quick!"
They hesitated a moment between the two doors, chose that at the upper end. As they raced through it, they heard a panel clash somewhere. The Lassans were investigating.
They were in one of the passages through which the cars ran, with alternate bars of light and dark across it marking the termination of side-passages. "Look!" said Gloria. Into the cage-room they had just quitted a car was coming, its featureless front gliding noiselessly along the track. "In here," said Sherman, pulling the others after him down the nearest lighted passage.
Followed by the other four Sherman followed it steadily along to the right, where it ended at a door.
"What now?" said someone.
"In," decided Gloria. "Likely to be a cage-room as not."
Sherman searched for the inevitable finger-holes, found them and pressed. The door swung back on—
A Lassan reclining at ease on one of the curious twisted benches beside which stood a tall jar of the same yellow-flecked green material they had seen the others devouring. The room was blue-domed but very small, and its walls were covered with soft green hangings in pendulous drops. A thought-helmet was on the elephant-man's head; its other end was worn by one of the mechanical people whose back was to the door as they entered, and who appeared to be working some kind of machine that punched little holes of varying shape in a strip of bright metal.
As the five Americans pressed into the room, the Lassan rose, reached for his ray-gun, but Gloria pushed the one she held into his face and he relaxed with a little squeal of terror, while Sherman reached into his pouch and secured the weapon.
As he did so the Lassan reached up and snapped loose the thought-helmet; the metal figure turned round and gazed at them.
"Marta!"
"The boy friend!"
The Lassan was very old. His skin was almost white and seamed with sets of diminutive wrinkles, and as he regarded the two mechanical people, locked in each other's embrace an expression of puzzlement and distaste came over his features, giving place to one of cool and lofty dignity as he perceived that Gloria did not mean to kill him on the spot. Lifting his trunk, he motioned imperiously toward the thought-helmet which Marta had cast aside, then set the other end of it on his own head.
To the invading Americans, crowded into the little room, it seemed for a moment as though they had somehow burst into a temple. Sherman's face became grave, and following the Lassan's direction, he picked up the helmet and fitted it on his head. The thought that came through it gave a feeling of dignity and power such as he had never experienced before; almost as though it were some god talking.
"By what right," it demanded, "do you invade the room of scientific composition? Why are you not in your cages? You know you will receive the punishment of the yellow lights in the greater degree for this unauthorized invasion. Save yourself further punishment now by retiring quietly. You can take my life, it is true, but I am old and my life is of no value. Think not that I am the only Lassan in the universe."
"Sorry," Sherman gave him back, "but this is a rebellion. You are not familiar with the history of this planet, or you would know that Americans can't be anybody's slaves. Let us go in peace and we will let you return to your own planet."
"Let us go!" came the Lassan's answer. "Your obstinate presumption surprises me. Do you think that the Lassans of Rigel, the highest race in the universe will let go where they have once grasped?"
"You will or we'll jolly well make you," replied the American. "Do you think your silly green globes are going to do you any good? The last one fell beside us tonight."
Sherman could sense the sudden wave of panic in the Lassan's thought at this unexpected answer. He had evidently assumed that they were from the underground labor battalions and were not familiar with events outside. But he rallied nobly.
"And do you imagine, foolish creature of a lower race, that the green globes are our last resource? Even now I have perfected a device that will wipe your miserable people from the planet. But if it did not, rather would we Lassans perish in the flames of a ruined world than abandon a task once undertaken; we who can mold the plastic flesh to enduring metal and produce machines that have brains; we who can control the great substance that underlies all life and matter."
"Well, here's one task you're going to abandon," Sherman thought back. "We, who can call lightning from the skies, are going to give you a terrible sock on the—trunk, if you don't. If you doubt it try and find how many Lassans live after today's battle. Go on back where you came from. You're not wanted in this world."
"You know, or should know, the law of evolution," replied the Lassan. "The weaker and less intelligent must ever give way before the stronger. By the divine right of—" his flow of thought stopped suddenly, changed to a wild tumult of panic. Sherman looked up. Round the rim of the blue dome, where it stood above the hangings, a string of lights was winking oddly, in a strange, uneven rhythm. "God of the Lassans, deliver us!" the thought that reached his own was saying. "The tanks are broken—the light is loose!" Then suddenly his mind was closed and when it opened again it had taken on a new calmness and dignity and a certain god-like strength.
"I do not know how or where," it told Sherman, "but an accident has happened. Perhaps an accident produced by your strange and active race. The connections have broken; the tanks of the substance of life in the bowels of this mountain have broken and the whole is set free. It is hard to see the labor of centuries thus destroyed; to see you, creatures of a lower race, inherit a world so divinely adapted to the rule of intelligence.
"For in this accident the whole of our race must perish if you have told the truth about the destruction of our green globes. We called in all the Lassans from your world for the work of the destruction of your armies. Yes, you told the truth. Your mind is open, I can see it. We are lost.... There is no hope remaining; it means destruction or the metal metamorphosis for every living Lassan, and there will be none to endow them with the life in metal we have given you.
"Perhaps it was our own fault. Your curious race, for all its defects, has certain qualities of intelligence, and above all that strange quality of activity and what you call courage. If we could have summoned up the same activity; if we had possessed the same courage to attack against odds, this would not have happened. It is our failure that we have depended too much on naked intellect; learned to do too many things through the hands of our servants. Had Lassans been at the controls of our fighting ships, instead of the automatons we used, you would never have conquered them so easily.
"Be that as it may. We have lost and you have won. I can show myself more generous than you would have been, and thus can gain a victory over you. If you would escape, follow the car-track straight on to where it forks; then take the left-hand turning. If you would be restored to your former and imperfect and repulsive form (though I cannot conceive why you should, being permanently fixed in beautiful and immortal metal), do not run away, but await the coming of the substance of life in the outer hall or passage, being careful not to approach it too closely or to touch it, so that you may receive the emanation only. It is this emanation, surrounding our space ship that produced your present form, which we changed to machinery by our surgery; and it so acts on the metal of which you are composed that it will reverse the case. As for me I am old and tired; already the walls of this place tremble to the coming of my doom. Leave me, before I regret what I have told you."
He reached his trunk up and disconnected the thought-helmet, and standing up, with a certain high dignity, pointed to the door.
Relieved of the helmet Sherman could hear a confused roaring like that on the day when Marta Lami and he had short-circuited the mining machine. "Come on," he called to the rest, dropping the helmet. "Hell's let loose. We've got to hurry."
Outside the roaring was perceptibly louder and seemed to be approaching. As they leaped down to the track a faint glow was borne to them redly along the rail. The ape-men in the cage-room they had escaped from were howling and beating the bars of their cages, with no blue lights to forbid them.
The track was slippery—Marta Lami and the three they had released from the cage room, unshod. Sherman gripped her by the hand. "Hurry, oh, hurry," he panted, pulling her along.
They passed another passage, down which a door stood open. The soft light that normally illuminated the place was flickering wildly, they caught a glimpse of three or four Lassans within, stirring wildly, rushing from place to place, trying this connection and that. The dull sound behind them increased; the track grew steeper.
"What about the rest?" gasped Gloria, running by his side.
"Don't know," he answered. "They did something. The whole place is coming down."
As they rounded a corner the track forked before them. Remembering the Lassan's parting instructions, Sherman led them to the left, passed another passage mouth, and they found themselves in a small blue-domed hall, empty save for a single car that stood on the track. There was just room to squeeze past it where the passage began again at the other end. And as they made it the roaring sound changed to a series of explosions, sharp and clear. The ground trembled, seemed to tilt; the car slid backward into the passage they had just vacated.
Ten feet, twenty-five feet more—and they were on the platform leading to the hall of the green globes. Sherman swung himself up, offered a hand to Marta. In a moment the others were beside them and they were darting for the door. The ground was trembling again, shock after shock. Something fell with a crash as they raced across the platform and into the hall.
Within, all was confused darkness and a babble of sound. A dodo screamed somewhere. An ape-man ran past them, gibbering, mad with fright, and dived to the track. Sherman ran across the hall, followed by Marta and the three he had released. Gloria halted.