Collected Short Fiction, page 49
Without accident, we reached the little crater with the hidden city of Kurrukwarruk perched, all but invisible, upon the central peak that rose from a desert of crystalline brilliance, silent and still in the cold pale light of earth.
Warrington was there, having come with one of Jenkins’ fellow scouts, Mendoza the Spaniard. There was another agent who had paid a secret visit to the patriots in New Boston; and Vendome and Wong Kow were there, from Hall’s forces at Colon.
Most of them seemed glad to see me again—Warrington especially so. We had a great banquet, arranged by Meyers, by way of opening the conference; and afterward the General invited me to his apartments. He pushed maps and dispatches aside and we had a pleasant social evening, spent in talking over our old times together, and in viewing a comic “stereo” talking picture from earth, which had been on the last prize Doane had captured—our intrepid captain of space had brought no less than a dozen of Metals’ supply ships back as prizes during the war.
Next morning the conference began. As such things go, it dragged on slowly, with a lot of useless oratory. Warrington and Gardiner, with their years of experience at such things, had rare skill at letting the important delegates gain satisfaction by making dry and high-sounding speeches, and then getting them to do what was needed.
On the second day, the Director of Finance reported that his secretary, Benedict, had vanished mysteriously. He was a little alarmed; he said that certain important papers had been disturbed; he had found an empty film carton in the vault where they were kept, and feared that photographs had been made of them. But in spite of his implications, it was hard for me to upset my faith in the dashing, brilliant young soldier. It seemed incredible that the man who had risked his life so nobly in the storming of the space-port at New Boston could now be engaged in foul play.
But Greenville, the Director of Finance, insisted that Benedict’s room be searched at once. It was found in disorder, with all the young secretary’s personal belongings gone. It was evident that he had left permanently and hurriedly—and without much care for the traces of departure. A young officer, on going through the waste-paper basket, discovered a crumpled sheet of paper that bore a sketch map of this section of the moon, showing the location of Kurrukwarruk. The many alterations and notes showed that it had been merely a rough sketch for a more accurate map.
Was Benedict a traitor? Was he preparing to betray the location of the capitol?
As much as all was trusted him, it seemed that he was.
Investigation showed that someone had passed through one of the air-locks about twelve hours before. No one had seen him; but Jenkins put on his space suit and went out to interrogate his Selenites, which had been left at the foot of the hill upon which the city stood.
IN an hour the old scout was back. He reported that M’Ob, his favorite young male moon-calf, which, he often boasted, had more sense than a man, had seen a strange Selenite slip into the crater many hours before—the moon-calf’s sense of time is so different from that of a human that this point could not be definite. The strange beast, which, according to M’Ob’s account, as Jenkins gave it to us, was a huge red female of the tribe of Ossinae, and armed with a long D-ray tube, had entered the crater from the direction of New Boston, crept to within a mile of the city, and lay there hidden. M’Ob, who had been about the foot of the hill below the city’s wall, rambling about in search of bits of lime-stone to eat, had thought of going to accost her, had been deterred by fear of her weapon. He had been ordered to warn the city in case of danger, but the moon-calf psychology is a curious one, and a single creature did not seem a danger to the fortified city, in his eyes. The strange monster had been in hiding for several hours when a man in a space suit, carrying a dark object that M’Ob could not name, had slipped out of the city and reached her hiding place. He had mounted her at once and had been carried off in the direction of New Boston. Such was the story that Jenkins got from M’Ob, for which he rewarded the beast with a package of sugar cubes—upon his promise to take them slowly, and not get drunk.
A little figuring showed us that Benedict, if he had indeed been carried to New Boston, might have reached there three or four hours before our discovery of his absence. If he were really a traitor, and it now seemed that we must admit it, he was likely to send Van Thoren’s fleet upon us at once. An attack was likely at any moment.
Meyers set immediately about organizing the defense of his city. There were two thousand troops stationed there, in addition to the five thousand civilian population. Kurrukwarruk had been built like a fortress, armed with batteries of D-rays, atomic vortex projectors, and protecting fan-rays. These were manned by the troops; the citizens had been well trained in stopping leaks in the roof, to prevent the escape of the vital air during bombardment.
For my part, I hurried up to the roof. It was of heavy quartz, with a roof-garden below the most of it. Over streets and open spaces was a lattice of walks, for those who inspected or repaired the endless sheet of glass above.
The city had been darkened, and though the roof was frosted with a film of frozen air, it was still translucent. For perhaps an hour I stood there in the blackness, staring up at the bright greenish disk of the earth, swung in a mist of stars. Below I heard the clangor of machinery and the hum of voices as the city was mobilized. Men were coming up about me—I passed a few words with them in strained monosyllables.
Then the alarm sounded through all the city. The firing of signal guns and the ringing of bells! And a great cry, picked up and repeated until it rolled through the city.
“The war-fliers! Van Thoren is coming!”
I scanned the sky through my compact pocket binoculars. Here and there, against the nebulous stardust of space, I picked out a little circle of perfect blackness with a weird trail of flame below it—the circle was a Tellurian ship, and the flame the discharge of the atomic blast.
One ship dropped a little below the others, and a winking red light signalled:
“I demand the immediate surrender of Kurrukwarruk, with all rebels and traitors therein. Refusal will mean annihilation. Van Thoren.”
I could not see the historic reply that Warrington sent:
“We defy you.”
But I did see the winking point of red above reply:
“Traitors, your doom is on your own heads.”
The war-flier floated back up again, until it was with the others that floated in slow ominous circles far above, like the vultures of earth above their carron-prey. Then the bombardment began.
Bright, narrow piercing rays stabbed from the floating black sphere toward the city. Huge flaming globes of purple and scarlet, fearfully explosive atomic vortexes, dropped swiftly down. Rays of blinding yellow and flaming red and crystal green shone upon us from those menacing spheres.
And the flash and the splintering burst of shells upon the thick quartz above told that the enemy were using explosive projectiles, none the less terrible because they were invisible in their coming.
But the city was not without defense.
The fearful danger of night attack had been realized long before. The city’s roof was dotted with weapons, and every citizen was a part of the well-drilled organization that now rushed to position. In a few minutes a forest of vari-colored rays was rising toward the fleet from the white glass roof that spread far about me; and broad fan-rays, spreading out, intercepted the falling bombs and disintegrated them harmlessly before they struck.
There were a few of the vortex projectors, too. From two or three points about the city, high on the gleaming frost-silvered spires, great flaming globes of scarlet and purple flame, vast balloon-clouds of living light, rose up swiftly in unending succession. And when one of those glistening globes of colored flame struck a ship of space, the fearful blast of disintegrating atoms demolished it utterly.
I heard sounds below. Harsh orders, stern commands, mingling sharply with bursts of cheering and patriotic song, broken sometimes by the sharp crack of an old-fashioned pistol, or by a wild scream of terror.
All the vast vistas of the green garden, with the endless rows of white metal towers that supported the flat, silvered blackness of the roof above, were now brightly lit with the thousand soft silver globes of the atomic light. And all that vast roof was crowded with people, in hurrying little bands.
There were men and women, rich and poor, wearing jewels or clad in rags. All were together now, all equal in the time of terror. I saw fine society women in the motley groups, sometimes under the command of tattered grimy fellows who looked like beggars.
There were a hundred of those hastily organized groups of citizenry upon the roof, with step-ladders, and ray-welders, air-shields, beams and braces, and great lumps and sheets of metal and glass. The weapons were manned by regular troops; the part of the civilians was to detect and repair breaks in the quartz roof, for if the air leaked out faster than pumps and generators could replenish it, we were doomed.
I HAD no more than taken in the scene before me, when there was a sudden blinding flash against the roof fifty yards away. The concussion of the explosion was terrific. Stunned and deafened, I was flung to the floor of the roof-garden, into a tangled mass of vegetation, conscious of a shower of shattered quartz falling upon me.
I sat up uncertainly, rubbing my bruises, at first unable to understand what had happened. Then, in horror, I saw a vast yawning spot of blackness in the silver roof, with the stars shining through it cold and hard. In a moment there was a sighing sound from it, that quickly became a mighty rushing. A breath of cool air met my face, growing to a roaring tempest.
I struggled to my feet, dashed toward the spot, almost helpless in the grasp of that hurricane of escaping air. Already it was freezing, from expansion. A white flurry of snow-flakes was whipped along upon it, and a blue mist had hidden the stars outside. The roof-guards were rushing up from all about, carrying ladders and equipment.
I hardly recall the incidents of the next half minute. It was one of mad terror, of fearful effort, of blind, frenzied haste. I have a vague memory of setting up ladders against the wild force of outrushing air, of clambering up them, leashed and half-frozen by the hurricane, struggling with great sheets of metal and glass, toiling madly to get them in place against the prankish, fiendish force of the air.
Then suddenly the awful wind was stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I was standing on top of a ladder, plying the dazzling beam of a welding-ray that was fusing and joining the edges of the sheets we had set up to stop the hole. My hat and coat were gone, a great painful bruise was rising on the back of my head, a little stream of warm blood was running down my face—in fact I was rather cut and bruised all over.
But the damage of the bomb was repaired—all except for the loss of thousands of cubic feet of air. That, we could never replace.
Then there was a little pause, when we could look out through the frosted roof, to watch the terrible splendor of the battle—the war-fliers of the Tellurians, in the weirdly hued clouds of the atomic Blast, sometimes black, sometimes blindingly outlined in the glare of searchlights that played from the towers of the city—the rays, narrow and very bright, like fierce jets of dazzling liquid fire, scarlet and green and yellow, darting sharply and quickly like slender fiery swords of ruby and emerald and topaz, or like striking snakes—and the broad misty spread of the yellow fan-rays that shielded the city or the ships, pale clouds of saffron and orange, like great sheltering wings of a hovering bird—most splendid and terrible of all, the globular atomic vortexes, great balls of liquid flames, blue and purple, crimson and violet, floating up from our weapons like a stream of rising bubbles, or dropping in showers from the ships above, all exploding with fearfully destructive flashes of crashing flame. It was like a display of beautiful pyrotechnics. It was splendid, and terrible beyond expression.
For a little time I watched, as all about me were watching, save for a few who had turned from the fearful glory of the scene to crowd around a dying man—a poor fellow who had been struck down by a fragment of glass from the shattered roof.
Then other projectiles, that somehow had passed the protecting fan-rays, were bursting on the roof. I watched another desperate mob, a few hundred yards away, engaged in such a mad struggle as we had engaged in to repair the roof. Then suddenly a sharply focused D-ray cut a circular hole near us, and again that desperate battle with the angry freezing wind, until the break was repaired. But that time, because we knew how, it was easier.
Again and again, a great yawning opening was torn in the thick quartz roof. We ran from one to another, forgetful of time, person or place. I was cut with fragments of glass, numbed again and again with the fierce chill of expanding air, battered about by the wind, even blistered by an accidental beam from a welding-ray.
And steadily the roof grew colder, as each loss of air chilled it a bit more, and during the rare moments of rest we clustered about the atomic heaters to warm our trembling limbs. And presently I noticed, with a chill of horror, that I could feel the symptoms of the thinning of the air. I was panting as I stood there, and my heart was pounding wildly. And I felt the sticky, cold moisture of blood upon my lip—my nose was bleeding.
When the next breach was made in the roof, many of my fellows staggered and fell as we ran to make repairs. And when at last, after a fearful struggle that demanded the last ounces of our ebbing energy it was done, I saw that many others were suffering from nose-bleed, or lay gasping on the ground. Some, I saw, were already dead.
Again came that familiar glare of yellow flame, that thunderous, splintering crash, that shower of sharp-edged, shattered glass. And then the thin howling of escaping air. I staggered up with a few of the others; we tottered toward that yawning black space in the roof—with the splendor of the dancing, swordlike rays and the floating balls of many-colored flame beyond.
The thin chill air sucked up past us, seemed drawn from us with a pump. I gasped, choked. I felt as if a demon were drawing the air from my lungs. The intense cold gripped me. A thin frost formed over my bleeding limbs. I saw that others were falling about me. I tried to shout a plea for air—and a fearful hand crushed my throat! Blood spurted from my mouth, and I fell freezing on the platform.
Vainly I tried to get up to stop the tempest of air that was howling with a shrill mournful note through the black star-shot hole above. A great wave of cold surged over me, and seemed followed by a vague mist of golden fictitious warmth. My consciousness faded into a vague chaos of surging purple clouds. I floated, now freezing, now feeling a tantalizing hint of warmth, always with awful hands grasping at my throat.
IT seemed a long time before my mind rose out of that black abyss. Then I felt as if I were in a coffin, being carried along. There was something about me, so that my feeble efforts failed to move my limbs. Perhaps, I thought, they were frozen stiff. And I felt a regular swaying motion, as if I were being carried on the back of a man.
Presently I felt warm pads about my body, and heard the thin sizzling of escaping oxygen, and felt a metal valve in front of my mouth that worked as I breathed. With an agonizing effort, I moved. I sat up, and found myself on a sort of litter, easily borne between two grotesque giants of silver metal, with great round heads. And ahead of me were many more strange metallic figures, toiling about some huge machine, dragging it along.
Then my muddled brain cleared somewhat. These fantastic metal giants were men, in silvered air-pressure space suits. I had been put in one. And we were going down a tunnel, probably somewhere below the city, with the men dragging a huge machine ahead of us.
Then a voice rustled in the phones of my helmet. A queer metallic ring it had, yet I recognized it as Gardiner’s.
“Glad to see you coming around, Adams,” he said. “You missed the order to get in a space suit, eh? We had a hundred and fifty, enough for all members of the Assembly, and for nearly a hundred men. But how are you doing?”
“Why—well enough,” I articulated with an effort. “Good! Just take it easy. You were pretty badly off when we found you. I imagined you had gone up on the roof, and sent a couple of men up to look for you, when you didn’t come for the suit.”
“Where are we now?”
“About a thousand feet under Kurrukwarruk. Secret tunnel here. Comes out by the crater rim, about two miles north. Some atomobile there we can get away in. The men are hauling along a big D-ray mining machine. We may get in a shot in the rear.”
“Warrington, and Jenkins, are they all right?”
“Thanks, and we sure are,” came from just ahead of me in the rusty voice of the old scout. Then I recognized his stocky figure; he was one of those carrying me.
For a few minutes I lay quiescent on the litter, recovering my strength. After a little adjustment of the oxygen feed from the tanks and of one of the atomic heating pads, I felt comfortable enough, though rather weak. Presently the party halted, and I made Jenkins put me on my feet—though I could hardly stand.
We had reached the end of the tunnel. The silver-suited men were hoisting the great D-ray tube to the surface. It was a huge thing, almost unmanageable. The silvered quartz vacuum tube, which held the little disk of platinum which was the actual source of the ray, was twenty feet long and four feet in diameter. Surrounded with coils, secondary tubes, prisms and condensers, it was mounted in gymbals in a heavy metal frame, which also carried the atomotors for energizing and controlling it. It must have weighed twenty tons.
