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

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 ship Brisbane, 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. Ward to 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 the Brisbane swept 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.

CHAPTER VII An Exploration

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 the Brisbane, 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 h�moglobin 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. The Brisbane lost 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