The Onslaught from Rigel/Chapter V
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.