The Dodos are Bombing
The bare area seemed to run all down a long valley and spread out as it
rounded the crest of a hill which hid what lay behind it from their
view. As they watched a grey speck that might have been an ant at that
height and distance, lumbered slowly down the valley, and then Ben
noticed a tiny flicker of red light, so bright as to be clearly visible
even in the day, where the grey speck moved against the hillside. A door
seemed to open in the hillside; focusing the glasses the aviator handed
him, he could just make out a square, bulky object that trundled forth.
And then one--two--three--four--five of the huge dodo-tetrapteryx birds
shot out, poised for a moment, and leaped into flight.
"Hello, _Brisbane_," called Ben into the radiophone. "Five dodos have
taken off from the cutting in the hills. I think they are after us.
Better turn back this way and get ready for trouble."
The aviator, understanding without being warned, had turned the plane.
Ben swung round to look over his shoulder. The dodos were already some
yards in the air; behind them the bulky object was running slowly out of
the opening in the hillside. It had the appearance of a very long,
flexible cannon. As he held his glasses on it, it stopped, straightened
out and the muzzle was elevated in their direction.
"Dive!" he shouted suddenly into the voice-tube, entirely on impulse.
The airplane banked sharply and seemed to drop straight down, and at the
same instant right through the spot where they had just passed shot a
beam of light so brilliant that it outshone the morning sun. There was a
roar louder than that of the motor; the plane pitched and heaved in the
disturbed air, and the light-beam went off as suddenly as it had snapped
on.
"Didn't I tell you those babies were poison?" he remarked. "Boy, if that
ever hit us!"
"What was it?" asked the aviator's voice.
"Don't know, but it was something terrible. Let's head for home and
mamma. I don't care about this."
The plane reeled as the pilot handled the controls. Rrrr! said something
and the light-beam shot out again, just to one side this time. Out of
the corner of his eye Ben could see one of the birds--gaining on them!
"How do you work this machine-gun?" he asked.
"Just squeeze the trigger. Look out! I'm going to dive her again."
With a roar, the light-beam let go a third time. Ben saw the edge of it
graze their right wing-tip; the airplane swung wildly round and down,
with the pilot fighting for control; the earth seemed to rush up to meet
them, tumbling, topsy-turvy. Ben noted a warped black spot where the
beam had touched the wing-tip, then surprisingly, they were flying
along, level with the surface of the Hudson beneath them, and hardly a
hundred feet up.
"That was close," came the aviator's voice, shaky with relief. "I
thought they had us that time. Say, that's some ray they have."
"It sure is one first-class heller," agreed Ben. "Are you far enough
down to duck it now?"
"I think so, unless they can put it through the hills or chase us with
it. Do you suppose those dodos thought that up themselves?"
"Can't tell. They're right on their toes, though. Look!" He pointed up
and back. Silhouetted against the sky, they could see three of them,
flying in formation like airplanes. "Can we make it?"
"I'm giving the old bus all she'll stand. The _Brisbane_ will come
toward us though. Wait till those guys get going. They'll find we can
take a trick or two."
Yonkers again. Ben looked anxiously over his shoulder. The three
silhouettes were a trifle nearer. Would they do it? 125th Street and the
long bridge swung into view, then Riverside Drive and the procession of
docks with the rusting liners lying beside them. Ben waggled the
machine-gun, tried to adjust its sights and squeezed the trigger. A
little line of smoke-puffs leaped forth. Tracer bullets--but nowhere
near the birds. On and on--lower New York--the Battery. Wham! The water
beneath and behind them boiled. Ben looked up. The birds were above
them, too high to be reached, dropping bombs.
"All right, old soaks," he muttered, "keep that up. You'll never hit us
that way."
Again something struck the water beneath them. The airplane pitched and
swerved as the pilot changed course to disturb the aim of the bombers.
In the distance the form of the cruiser could be seen now, heading
toward them. As he watched, there was a flash from her foredeck. Up in
the blue above them appeared the white burst of a shell, then another
and another.
One of the dodos suddenly dived out of the formation, sweeping down more
swiftly than Ben would have believed possible. He swung the gun this way
and that, sending out streams of tracers, but the bird did not appear to
heed. Closer--closer--and then with a crash something burst right behind
him. The airplane gyrated; the water rushed upward. The end? he thought,
and wondered inconsequentially whether his teeth would rust. The next
moment the water struck them.
* * * * *
When Ben Ruby came to, he beheld a ceiling which moved jerkily to and
fro and stared lazily at it, wondering what it was. Then memory returned
with a snap; he sat up and looked about him. He was in one of those
cubby-holes which are called "cabins" on warships, and alone. Beneath
him he could hear the steady throb of the engines; at his side was a
small table with a wooden rack on it, in one compartment of which stood
a glass, whose contents, on inspection, proved to be oil. He drank it,
looked at and felt of himself, and finding nothing wrong, got out of the
hammock and stepped to the door. A seaman was on guard in the corridor.
"Where is everybody?"
"On deck, sir. I hope you are feeling all right now sir."
"Top of the world, thanks. Is the aviator O.K.?"
"Yes, sir. This way."
He ascended to the bridge, to be greeted riotously by the assembled
company. The _Brisbane_ was steaming steadily along in the open sea,
with no speck of land in sight and no traces of the giant birds.
"What happened?" Ben asked. "Did you get rid of 'em?"
"I think so. We shot down two and the rest made off after trying to bomb
us. What did you two find out?"
Ben briefly described their experiences. "I thought there was something
wrong with one of your wingtips," said the captain, "but your plane sank
so quickly after being hit that we didn't have time to examine it. That
light-ray cannon of theirs sounds serious. Do you suppose the dodos
managed it?"
"Can't tell," said Ben. "From what I could make out through the glasses,
it didn't look like birds that were handling it."
"But what could it be?"
"Ask me! Delirium tremens, I guess. Nothing in this world is like what
it ought to be any more. Where did those birds come from; how did we get
this way, all of us; who is it up there in the Catskills that don't like
us? Answer me those and I'll tell you who was handling the gun."
"Message, sir," said a sailor, touching his cap, and handing a folded
paper. The captain read it, frowning.
"There you are--" he extended the sheet to Ben. "My government is
recalling all ships. Our sister-ship, the _Melbourne_, has been attacked
off San Francisco and severely damaged by bomb-dropping dodos, and they
have made a mass descent on Sumatra. Gentlemen, this has all the
characteristics of a formal war." He strode off to give the necessary
orders to hurry the cruiser home, but Walter Beeville, who had joined
the group at the bridge, said under his breath:
"If those birds have enough intelligence to plan out anything like that
I'll eat my hat."
* * * * *
"If you were not before my eyes," said Sir George Graham Harris,
president of the Australian Scientific Commission, "as living proof of
what you say, and if our biological and metallurgical experts did not
report that your physiology is utterly beyond their comprehension, I do
not know but that I would believe you were some cleverly constructed
machines, actuated in some way by radio. However, that is not the
point ... I have here a series of reports from different quarters on
such explorations as have been made since the arrival of the comet and
our recovery from its effects. We are, it appears, confronted with a
menace of considerable seriousness in the form of these birds.
"In the light of your closer acquaintance with them and with conditions
generally in the devastated areas, they may be more suggestive to you
than to us." He stopped and ruffled over the papers piled beside him at
the big conference table. He was a kindly old gentleman, whose white Van
Dyke and pale blue lips contrasted oddly with the almost indigo tint of
his visage (before the comet it had been a rich wine-red, the result of
a lifelong devotion to brandy and soda). Smiling round the table at his
scientific colleagues and at Ben, Murray, Gloria and Beeville, who
occupied the position of honor, he went on:
"I give you mainly excerpts.... The first is from the South African
government. They have ... hm, hm ... sent an aerial expedition
northward, all lines of communication appearing to be broken. At
Nairobi, they report for the first time, finding a town entirely
unoccupied and its inhabitants turned into cast-metal statues ... Addis
Ababa the same ... Wadi Hafa likewise. Twenty miles north of Wadi Hafa
they noted the first sign of life--a bird of some kind at a considerable
distance to the west of them and flying parallel with them and very
rapidly."
The scientist looked up. "It would appear beyond doubt that this bird
belonged to the species we call dodos and to which Dr. Beeville has
given the excellent scientific name, tetrapteryx.... As the expedition
proceeded northward, they encountered more of them; sometimes as many as
four being in sight at one time. At Alexandria, where they halted for
supplies, the dodos closed in. When the expedition took the air again
with the object of flying to Crete and thence to Europe, these
remarkable avians came very close, apparently trying to turn the
expedition back. They reached Crete that afternoon, in spite of the
interference of the birds, but that night were actively attacked on the
ground. The phenomena that accompanied all other attacks were observed;
the birds used incendiary bombs of great intensity. One machine was
entirely destroyed with its aviators. The others, since their object was
exploration, at once took to the air and returned.
"Any comments, gentlemen? No? Well the next is the report of the Dutch
ship _Corlaer_, which attempted to reach Japan. She was permitted to
proceed to within a few miles of the islands, and then began to receive
light-warnings in the sky, such as Captain Entwhistle reports.
Unfortunately they were in Japanese characters and there was no one
aboard who could read them. She put in at the port of Nagasaki and sent
out a landing party. It never returned; as in the other cases the ship
was bombed at night and only made Sumatra with the greatest difficulty,
one of the bombs having fallen on the quarter-deck, wrecking the
steering-gear and causing extensive internal damage....
"There are minor reports with which I will not bother you. But the
report of H. M. A. S. _Melbourne_ appears highly significant. She
touched at several South American ports. In the cities she reports
finding all life at a standstill, although at Iquique, the landing party
encountered some hill-Indians who had suffered a bluing of the blood
similar to ours, and who proved distinctly unfriendly. They are reported
as engaged in looting the city and getting drunk on the contents of the
bodegas.
"North of Callao she found no signs of life until she reached San Pedro
Bay. There a man was observed to be waving from the beach. The
_Melbourne_ put in and launched a boat, but before it reached shore, one
of the birds made its appearance overhead and the man disappeared into
the trees and was not seen again. From the ship he appeared to be a
mechanical man, such as you. Shortly afterward, the _Melbourne_ began to
see the dodos constantly, and at the region of San Francisco, she saw
one of the light signals. The wording of it was: 'DEPART AWAY FAREWELL
FOREVER.'"
Gloria stirred and Sir George looked at her with mild eyes. "Nothing,
sir. I was just thinking that these dodos are uncommonly poetical. They
told us to fly from the accursed place."
"Yes, yes.... Naturally the _Melbourne_, not anticipating any trouble as
the result of a refusal to obey this absurd command, did not heed the
warning, and steamed into the bay. Like the other ships she was attacked
at night. One of the bombs fell on the fire-control station and wrecked
it, bringing down the tripod mast and fusing the top of the conning
tower. She got under way immediately and replied with all guns, but
before escaping number three turret was struck by another bomb and all
the men in the turret were killed. The roof of the turret was driven in
and even the breeches of the guns melted.... That, I think, summarizes
the reports we have. We have seen a little of the birds, mostly at a
distance, and they appear to have carried off several individuals,
especially in Sumatra. I am afraid that is all we can offer."
There was a moment's silence.
"Well, what the material in the bombs is I can't say," said Ben, "but
they know all about projecting it from guns in the form of a beam. I
told you about my experience in company with the aviator from the
_Brisbane_?"
"The eggs Roberts found, too," said Gloria.
"Oh, yes, Dr. Beeville can tell you about that."
"Why, there's nothing much to it," said the scientist. "One of our
people found what appeared to be a nest of these birds in a building.
The nest was built of soft cloths and contained large eggs, but when the
place was revisited the eggs had been removed.... I may say that I have
examined the remains of one rather badly mangled specimen. The
brain-case is extraordinarily large--larger than I have ever seen in any
animal, and they appear to be of a high order of intelligence.
"On the other hand I should certainly put the use and control of such a
material as these bombs contain beyond their powers. And the fact that
the nest was found in a building would indicate that the headquarters in
the Catskills were used by some other and higher intelligence which was
separate from and perhaps in control of these birds. Moreover, they do
not appear to wish to destroy us mechanical men, but to carry us off,
and the messages seen by the ships seem to indicate that the
intelligence behind these birds is capable of reading and understanding
English. I cannot conceive that the birds themselves would be able to do
this.
"Further, there is the very strong evidence of the gun which fired on
Mr. Ruby. In every case where these birds have attacked man, they have
used bombs of this material put up in portable form, although the gun
would have been much more effective. It would have gone right through
the _Melbourne_ or the _Brisbane_ like a red-hot poker through a board.
From this I argue that the birds are directed rather than directing, and
that the directing intelligence is either too indolent or too
contemptuous of us to attack man except through their agency. Finally, I
deduce that we are dealing with some powerful and as yet unknown form of
life. What it is or how it reached the earth, I am not prepared to say."
"Wunnerful," said Gloria irreverently, and a smile passed across the
faces of the conferees.
"But what are the bombs made of and what makes them tick?" asked Murray
Lee.
"That is a question to which I would very much like to know the answer,"
said Sir George, stroking his white beard. "Perhaps Mr. Nasmith, our
chemical member, will be good enough to give us something on the point."
"Not much," said Nasmith, a lantern-jawed man with black hair. "We made
a chemical analysis of the portions of the _Melbourne_ which had been
struck by the bombs, and all we can say is that it gave a most
extraordinary result. These portions were originally made of Krupp armor
steel, as you know. Our analysis showed the presence of a long series of
chemical elements, including even gold and thorium, most of them in
minute quantities. Titanium appeared to be the leading constituent after
iron."
"Then," said Sir George, "the situation appears to be this. We don't
know what the dodos are or what is behind them, but they have possession
of a large part of the world to which they are disposed to forbid us
any access. They have powerful weapons and the intelligence to use them,
and they appear to be unfriendly. I suggest that the sense of this
meeting is that the government should take immediate measures of
investigation and if necessary, of hostility."
"Swell," said Gloria, "only you didn't go half far enough. We've been
there and you haven't. You want to get the best guns you've got and go
for them right away."
There was a murmur of approval. As Sir George rose to put the question
to a vote there came a knock at the door. Heads were turned to greet a
young man who hurried to the president and whispered something. Sir
George turned to the meeting with a startled face.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "the dodos are bombing Canberra, the
capital of Australia, and are being engaged by the Australian air
force."