The Onslaught from Rigel/Chapter XVII
Progress up the hillside was slow. It had become completely dark; they were without any means of making a light and would not have dared to make one if they could. The mud was tenacious, the constant contact with stumps and rocks both irritating and difficult. But at last in their fumbling way, they reached a spot where the denudation gave place to a line of trees, looming dark and friendly overhead against the skyline, and after that they went faster. Where they were or what route to take neither had any idea. That portion of the Catskills is still as wild as in the days of the Iroquois, save for the few thin roads along the line of the valleys and these they dared not seek.
They solved the difficulty by keeping to the hillcrest till it ran out in a valley, then rapidly climbing the next hill and proceeding along that in the shelter of the forest. Though they necessarily went slowly they did not halt; neither felt the need of rest or sleep, their metal limbs took no serious bruises, and the slip of the hill kept them from running in circles as people usually do when lost in the woods.
Just as the eastern sky began to hold some faint promise of dawn they came upon a farmhouse in a clearing at the top of a hill. It was an unprepossessing affair with a sagging roof, but they burst in the door and went through it in the hope of finding weapons and perhaps an electric battery, for both were used to the bountiful electric meals of the Lassans and were beginning to feel the lack.
The best the place afforded, however, was a rather ancient axe, of which Sherman possessed himself, and a large pot of vaseline with which they anointed themselves liberally, for the continued damp was making them feel rusty in the joints.
They pressed on, and did not halt to consider the situation till full day had come.
“Where do we go from here?” asked Marta, perching herself on a tree-bole.
“South, I guess,” offered Sherman. “They may be looking for us there, but we got to find a city and get some things.”
“There's Albany,” she suggested.
“Yes, and Schenectady and they have a lot of electric power there we could use. But I vote for New York. If we head in there I can pick up a plane at one of the airports and walk right away from them.”
“Well, it's a chance,” she said, “but anything is. Come on…” and as they forced their way through the underbrush, “You know, from what I understood of those Lassans' thoughts, they've got something hot cooking up. I'm almost sure there are other people in the world and they're getting ready to fight them.”
“Let 'em come,” said Sherman grimly. “That light-ray won't stand the chance of a whistle in a whirlwind when they get after them with heavy artillery and airplane observation.”
“That's just where you're all wet,” replied the dancer. “They've been figuring on that for a long time. They got a gun from somewhere, and they've had all their fighting machines out, shooting it at them, and then armoring up the fighting machines to stand it. And they're building guns of their own to shoot those light-bombs. I ought to know. I was on the job.”
Sherman cursed himself inwardly. So that had been the result of his exchange of information with the old Lassan who was so anxious to know about guns.
“How do they get away from it?” he asked.
“Well, I don't know quite,” she said. “I'm a sap about stuff like that. All I know is what the guy that was controlling me thought about and let me have without knowing it. But I got this much out of it—that the outside of these fighting machines is coated with this 'substance of life' they talk about some way, so it's a perfect mirror, and reflects everything that hits it, even shells. The coating reflects their light ray, too, but it has to have a lead backing for that. It's no good without the lead. Seems like lead will stop that light-ray every time.”
“I wonder how about big guns,” murmured Sherman.
“Don't know. I didn't get anything like that in what the boss was thinking. He seemed to imagine the gun he had was the biggest there was.”
They toiled on. As they progressed southward the thinning forest and the increasing walls of the cliffs drove them farther and farther toward the river, till they were forced to take to the main road willy-nilly. Along it they could walk faster, but there was more danger. They watched the heavens narrowly for any sign of the four-winged birds, but the skies seemed deserted.
At Kingston they found a filling station, and kicking in the door, located a couple of storage batteries that supplied them with a needed meal. “What do you say to a car?” asked Sherman.
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” said the dancer. “It's running a chance, isn't it? Still, we're getting nowhere awful fast this way. Let's try it.”
Finding a car in running order was a procedure of some difficulty, and Kingston seemed a weaponless town, though Marta finally did locate one little pearl-handled .25 calibre pop-gun. Sherman eyed it dubiously.
“That's a good thing to kill mosquitoes with,” he remarked, “but I don't think it will be much use for anything else.”
“Boloney,” she replied. “These Lassans are yellow from way back. If I stuck this under the nose of one of them he'd throw a fit. Come on. Let's go.”
Eventlessly, the road flowed past under their wheels—Newburgh, Haverstraw, Nyack—one, two, three hours. Then, just south of Chester the dancer suddenly gripped Sherman's arm.
“What's that?” she said. “No, over there. Isn't it—?”
But in one swift glance he had seen as clearly as she. Like a living thing, the car swerved from the road, dived across the ditch, and losing speed, rolled to a halt on the green lawn of a suburban bungalow. Sherman leaped out. “Come on, for God's sake,” he cried. “It's a fighting machine. If they've seen us they'll start shooting.”
Dragging her after him, he dived around the house, through a seedy flower-garden, down a path. As though to lend emphasis to his words there came the familiar buzzing roar, and as Sherman dropped, pulling the girl flat on her face after him, they saw the wall of the bungalow cave in, and the roof tilt slowly over and drop into the burning mass beneath. A vivid blue beam, brighter than the sunlight of the dark day, swept across the sky, winked once or twice, and disappeared.
Marta would have risen, but “Take it easy,” said Sherman. “If they see us they'll pop another of those tokens at us.”
He wriggled along on his stomach, picking up weeds in his body plates in the process, and making for the shelter of an overgrown hedge that ran behind the next bungalow.
“Look out,” called the dancer suddenly. “Here come the birds.”
She waved her hand up and back, and by screwing up his eyes Sherman could just make out a black speck against the clouds, far north. They rolled under the shelter of the hedge and lay still, scarcely daring to whisper.
The Lassan in command of the fighting machine was evidently not satisfied that he had hit them with his hasty shot. Peering through the stems, they made out the shimmering form of the machine, sliding slowly past the burning house, its snout moving hither and thither questioningly. It passed through the garden, went on down the path. The bird swung to and fro overhead. Nearer. Evidently it had noticed the prints their feet left in the soft ground.
“Listen, partner,” said Marta Lami, “get through and find some people, then come and get me out of that hellhole up there. If they see me, they'll let you alone.”
“No!” cried Sherman, but she was already running out across the field. The snout of the machine lifted toward her as though to deliver a blast, then rose and discharged another beam of blue light. Sherman heard one of the birds scream in answer, saw it sweep down on soaring pinions, and in a single motion snap the dancer up and away. The shimmering fighting machine swung round and turned back toward the road.
He lay still until he was sure it had gone, then, moving carefully for fear of the terror from the skies, crawled to the next bungalow. It yielded treasure-trove in the shape of a flashlight and a serviceable revolver, and securing a sheet from one of the beds to wrap around him as a loin-cloth, he set out to trudge to New York.
After a time it occurred to him that the disaster had taken place not because they were in a car, but because it had been driven unreasonably fast, and without precaution. He looked for and ultimately found another one, and keeping to the back streets and driving slowly, worked his way toward the city again. Then another idea came to him—Newark had an airport as well as New York and it was far nearer. He changed the direction of his advance, swinging west to avoid the long bridges over the Passaic River. Bridges were focal points; the birds would surely watch them, as intelligent as they were.
Late in the afternoon he spied one of them, far ahead and flying southward, but took no chances. He drew his car up to the side of the road and remained motionless for long after it had disappeared. When evening came on, he had already reached the outskirts of the city and could proceed without headlights.
Newark was a dead city, the diminished purr of the motor ringing curiously loud in the silent streets. Their complication bothered him; he was unfamiliar with the town and his flashlight gave out long before he reached his destination. But he kept steadily on, certain that the airport was somewhere at the south and east of the city. Toward the later evening a fine, cold rain began to fall, congealing to ice on the streets and on his metallic body.
The airport was just as he had remembered it on the first day of his awakening—it now seemed uncountable ages in the past. The little sports plane still stood on the platform, its torn wing dangling. The hangars were all locked; he was an inefficient burglar and spent an hour or two breaking one open and when he did, found nothing but a tri-motored monster quite beyond his powers to get out, and a rocket-plane requiring special fuel that he did not have. The next hangar yielded an autogiro and a training machine. He had no watch, but was sure that the night was passing fast, and not wishing to be abroad by daylight with an airplane, decided to chance it on the autogiro. Luckily she was full of fuel, and everything seemed tight. With some labor he removed the chocks and managed to wheel the machine out.
Not till he had it in the air did the thought of what direction he was to take occur to him. Boston—New York—Philadelphia—Chicago, he canvassed the possibilities. What was it Marta Lami had said—something about one of the fighting machines heading south? And he remembered how the astronomers had predicted that the comet would fall, probably, somewhere in New York State. If there were a borderline along which Lassans were meeting humans in any kind of conflict it was most likely to lie southward. With this thought in mind, he turned his plane to the south, and keeping the white line of foam along the coast beneath him as a guide, began to let her out.
The ceiling was low; between clouds and fitful squalls of rain flying was difficult and the weight of Sherman's mechanical body seemed to make the machine move loggily. It must have been all of an hour and three quarters later that he saw beneath him the tossing whitecaps of Great Bay, with the ribbon of Wading River running back into the distance. Just beyond, he knew, lay Atlantic City. He was debating with himself whether to land on the beach there or hop across to the Philadelphia airport when, sharp and clear from somewhere ahead and below him, came the sound of gunfire. He tried for altitude, but only ran into clouds. Nevertheless the sound was unmistakable, and as he approached it became clearer and more pronounced, a long intermittent beat, heavy guns and light, mingled together, off to the right. There was fighting going on!
Exulting in his escape from the Lassans and in the fact that he could take their opponents information that would be of value, he swung the autogiro toward the sounds that became clearer every minute. He was getting right over them now, he thought; he could see red flashes along the horizon. Down there they were locked in battle—men and Lassans, his own people and the invaders from far-away Rigel.
Suddenly a beam of the light-ray leaped from the ground. Sherman thought it was directed at him; tried to loop the plane and cursed as he remembered autogiros wouldn't loop; then saw that the light was after all, not turned in his direction, but at some object on the ground. He banked the plane over and swung lower. Undoubtedly a Lassan fighting machine—and the beam was hitting things, things large and solid, for they collapsed under the stabbing ray. A red flame rose over the wreck; the roar of an explosion reached his ears. The battle-line!
He soared again. He must reach the headquarters of whatever men were down there. The information he could bring and that Marta Lami had given him might make all the difference between the loss of the world and its salvation “… perfect mirror—reflects everything that hits it, even shells, but they don't know about the big ones… The lead will reflect their light-rays, too … no good against lead. Their armor is made of the same stuff…”
In the darkness beneath him troops were moving. He could catch glimpses of dark masses on the roads. Somewhere down there he distinctly heard the call of one of the four-winged birds, quite near. Then with a rush, it was suddenly upon him. He set the automatic pilot, and drew his revolver, but the bird, unfamiliar with the machine it was attacking, had dashed recklessly in. There was a rending screech as it came into contact with the wings of the autogiro; Sherman got in one shot, and then bird, man and plane tumbled toward the earth.