The Onslaught from Rigel, Fletcher Pratt [smallest ebook reader .TXT] 📗

good thing for the old world at that. You never heard of all the governments of the world cooperating before as they are now did you? There are still people alive you know. Civilization hasn't been killed off by a long shot. And the lousy blue coloring that affected all the people who didn't get metallized isn't going to be permanent. The babies that are being born there now are normal, I hear. In a few generations the earth will be back to where it was, except for us. I don't know of any way to reverse this metal evolution."

"Neither do I," said Beeville, "unless we can get another dose of the 'substance of life' as the Lassans call it, and we won't get that unless they decide to leave the earth in a hurry."

"Look," said Sherman, "there's Chicago now. But what's that? No, there, along the lake front."

Following the direction of his pointing finger they saw something moving vaguely along Lake Shore Boulevard; something that might be a car—or a man!

"Let's go down and see," offered Ben.

"O. K. chief, but we've got to pick a good landing place for this tub. I don't want to get her marooned in Chicago."

The explosions were cut off, the wings extended, and Sherman spiralled carefully downward to the spot where they had seen the moving object. With the nicety of a magician, he brought the ship to a gliding stop along the park grass, and followed by the rest, Ben Ruby leaped out. The edge of the drive was a few yards away. As they emerged from the ship no one was visible, but as they walked across the grass, a figure, metallic like themselves, and with a gun in one hand, stepped from behind a tree.

"Stand back!" it warned suspiciously. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"Conversation with sweet-looking gentleman," said Yoshio politely, with a bow.

"Why, we're members of the American air force," said Ben, "cooperating with the federated armies against the Lassans, and we were on an exploring expedition to see if we could find any more Americans."

"Oh," said the figure, with evident relief. "All right, then. Come on out, boys."

From behind other trees in the little park, a group of metallic figures, all armed, rose into sight.

"My name's Ben Ruby," said Ben, extending his hand, "at present General commanding what there is of the American army."

"Mine's Salsinger. I suppose you could call me Mayor of Chicago since those birds got Lindstrom. So you're fighting the Lassans, eh? Good. We'd like to take a few pokes at them ourselves, but that light-ray they have is too much for us. All we can do is pot the birds."

"Oh," said Ben, "we've got that beat and a lot of other stuff, too. How many of you are there?"

"Eight, including Jones, who isn't here now. Where are you from, anyway? St. Louis?"

"No, New York. Is anybody alive in St. Louis or the other western cities?"

"There was. We had one man here from St. Paul, and Gresham was from St. Louis. The birds got him and carried him off to the joint the Lassans have in the Black Hills, but he got away."

"Have they a headquarters in the Black Hills, too? They have one in the Catskills. That's where we've been fighting them."

The explanations went on. It appeared that Chicago, St. Louis and other western cities had been overwhelmed as had New York—the same rush of light from the great comet, the same unconsciousness on every side, the same awakening and final gathering together of the few individuals who had been fortunate enough to attract the attentions of the Lassans' birds and so be sent to their cities for transformation into robots.

Since that time the birds had raided Chicago and the other western cities unceasingly, and had reduced the original company of some thirty-odd to the eight individuals whom Ben had encountered. Before the birds had attacked them, however, they had managed to get a telegraph wire in operation and learn that people were alive at Los Angeles—whether mechanized or not they were uncertain, but they thought not.

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 the Monitor II for 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 ..."

CHAPTER XXII The Great Conflict

It was Monitor 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 II in 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 VII was 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.

The Monitor II dived; 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 the Monitor into 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 the Monitor as she twisted and heaved at frantic speed.

Twenty miles away and high in the air they pulled up to recover themselves.

"And that," 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