The Coming of the Green Globes
"Where to, folks?" asked Sherman, during one of their periods of
soaring, as they floated high above the hilly country to the west of the
Delaware River.
"Oh, most anywhere," said Ben. "I would like to see you try out this
new-fangled gun of yours on something, though."
"What shall we try it on? A house?"
"No, that's too easy. We saw what it could do to things like that in the
laboratory. Find a nice rock."
"O. K. Here goes. Don't give her the gun for a minute, Murray."
With wings extended, the _Monitor_ spiralled down toward the crest of
the mountain. A projecting cliff stood just beneath them, sharply
outlined in the rays of the morning sun.
"Now this is going to be difficult," warned Sherman. "Throw that
connecting bar, Ben. It holds the power switch and the beam switch
together so they're both turned on at once. Otherwise the recoil we'd
get on this end of the beam would tumble us over backward. Hold it,
while I set the controls. We've got to take a jump as soon as we fire,
or we'll pop right into the mess we make.... Ready? All right, Gloria,
go ahead with your searchlight."
The beam of the searchlight shot out, pale in the daylight, wavered a
second, then outlined the crest of the cliff.
"Shoot!" cried Sherman.
There was a terrific report; a shock; the _Monitor_ leaped, quivering in
every part, and as they spiralled down to see what damage they had done,
they beheld no cliff at all, but a rounded cup at the tip of the
mountain in which a mass of molten rock boiled and simmered.
"Fair enough," said Ben. "I guess that will do for the Lassans, all
right. Home, James?"
"Right," answered Sherman. "We've found out all we want to know this
trip."
The homeward journey was accomplished even more swiftly than the trip
northward as Sherman gained in experience at the controls of the
machine. As it glided slowly to earth at the airport a little group of
officers was waiting to meet them.
"What in thunder have you been doing?" one of them greeted the
Americans. "Your static, or whatever it was you let loose, burned out
all the tubes in half the army radio sets in New Jersey."
"By the nine gods of Clusium!" said Sherman. "I never thought of that.
We're reducing matter pretty much to its lowest terms, and it's all a
good deal alike on that scale--vibrations that may be electricity,
magnetism, light or matter. Of course, when we let go that shot there
was enough radiation to be picked up on Mars. I'll have to figure out a
way to get around that. Those Lassans are no bums as electricians and
after we've been at them once or twice, they'll be able to pick up our
radiation whenever we're coming and duck us."
"There's another thing," said Ben. "I thought the _Monitor_ vibrated a
good deal when you let that shot go."
"It did. We'll have to get more rigidity or we'll be shaking ourselves
to pieces every time we shoot. But this, as I said, is an experimental
ship. What we've got to do now is turn in and build a real one, with
heavy armor and a lot of new tricks."
"How are you going to know what kind of armor to put on her?"
"That's easy. Steel will keep out any kind of material projectiles
they're likely to have, if it's thick enough. It won't keep out the
light-ray, but we'll put on a thin lead plating to take care of that,
just in case, though I don't think they're likely to try it after the
one failure.
"Then inside the steel armor, we'll put a vacuum chamber. That will stop
anything but light and maybe cosmic radiation, and I don't think they're
up to that, although we'll get a little of the effect through the struts
that support the outer wall of the chamber. What I would like though, is
a couple of these Lassan thought-helmets. Not that you people are slow
on the uptake, but we'd be a lot faster if we had them, and we're going
to need all the speed we can get."
They were crossing the flying field as they spoke, making for
headquarters, where Sherman presently laid out the design for the second
_Monitor_, embodying the improvements he had mentioned. The engineer who
looked it over smiled doubtfully.
"I don't think we can give this to you in less than three or four
weeks," he said. "It will take a lot of time to cast that armor you
want and to build the vacuum chamber. I assume your own workmen are
going to make the internal fixtures."
"Correct from the word go," Sherman told him. "But you better have it
before three or four weeks are up. Ben, what do you say we run over to
the lab and see if we can dig up something new."
* * * * *
It was two days later when they stood at headquarters on the flying
field again. The _Monitor_ had made three more trips, on one of them,
flying over the Lassan city without seeing anything more important than
the Australian signal station perched on a nearby hill. Meanwhile the
army of the federated governments had pushed out its tentacles,
searching the barren waste that had been the most fruitful country in
the world. East, west, south and north the report was the same; no sign
of the Lassans or any other living thing.
"I could wish," said Gloria, "that those lads would stick their noses
out. I'd like to try the _Monitor_ on them."
"You'll get all you want of that," said Ben a trifle grimly. "I'm glad
they're giving us this much of a break. It lets us get things organized.
Sherman is monkeying with a light-power motor now. If he catches it, our
troubles will be over."
"Wait a minute," called an officer at a desk, as a telegraph key
began tapping. "This looks like something." He translated the dots
and dashes for them. "Lassan--city--door--opening.... It's from the
signal station on that mountain right over it.... Big--ball--coming
out--will--will--what's this? The message seems to end." He depressed
the key vigorously and then waited. It remained silent.
"Oh, boy," said Sherman, "there she goes! They got that signal station,
I'll bet a dollar to a ton of Lassan radiation."
The officer was hammering the key again. "We're sending out airplane
scouts now," he said. "Too bad about the signal station, but that's
war!"
"Come on, gang," said Ben. "Let's get out to the flying field. Looks
like we're going to be in demand."
In a car borrowed from the headquarters staff they raced out to the
field where the _Monitor_ stood, ready on its ramp for any emergency.
Just as they arrived an airplane became visible, approaching from the
north. It circled the field almost as though the pilot were afraid to
land, then dipped and came to a slow and hesitating stop. The onlookers
noticed that its guy wires were sagging, its wheels uneven; it looked
like a wreck of a machine which had not been flown for ten years, after
it had lain in some hangar where it received no attention at all.
As they ran across the field toward it, the pilot climbed slowly out.
They noticed that his face was pale and horror-struck, his limbs
shaking.
"All gone," he cried to the oncoming group.
"What? Who? What's the matter?"
"Everything. Guns. Tanks. Airplanes. The big ball's got 'em. Almost
got--" and he collapsed in Ben's arms in a dead faint.
"Here," said Ben, handing the unconscious aviator to one of the
Australian officers. "Come on. There's something doing up there. Big
balls, eh? Well, we'll make footballs of 'em. That chap looks as though
he'd been through a milling machine, though. The Lassans certainly must
have something good."
With a shattering crash as Murray Lee gave her all the acceleration she
would take, the _Monitor_ left the ramp, soared once or twice to gain
altitude, and headed north amid a chorus of explosions. In less than ten
minutes the thickly-settled districts of northern New Jersey were
flowing past beneath them.
"Wish we had some radio in this bus," remarked Ben Ruby. "We could keep
in touch with what's going on."
"It would be convenient," said Sherman, "but you can't have everything.
The Lassans aren't going to wait for us to work out all our problems....
Look--what's that over there?"
At nearly the same level as themselves and directly over the city of
Newark a huge globular object, not unlike an enormous green cantaloupe,
appeared to float in the air. From its under side the thin blue beam of
some kind of ray reached to the ground. From the face turned diagonally
away from them a paler, wider beam, yellowish in color, reached down
toward the buildings of the city. And where it fell on them, they
collapsed into shattering ruin; roof piled on walls, chimneys tumbled to
the ground. There was no flame, no smoke, no sound--just that sinister
monster moving slowly along, demolishing the city of Newark almost as
though it were by an effort of thought.
"Hold tight, everybody," cried Sherman. "Going up."
The _Monitor_ slanted skyward. Through the heavy quartz of her windows
they could see a battery of field guns, cleverly concealed behind some
trees in the outskirts of the city, open fire. At the first bursts the
monster globe swung slowly round, the pale yellow ray cutting a swath of
destruction as it moved. The shells of the second burst struck all
around and on it. "Oh, good shooting," said Gloria, but even as she
spoke the yellow ray bore down like a fate and the guns became silent.
"What have they got?" she shouted between the bursts of the _Monitor's_
rocket motor.
"Don't know," replied Sherman, "but it's good. Ready? Here goes. Cut
off, Murray."
From an altitude of 15,000 feet the _Monitor_ swept down in a long
curve. As she dived Gloria swung the searchlight beam toward the green
globe.
"Go!" shouted Sherman, and Ben threw the switch. There was a terrific
explosion, the _Monitor_ pitched wildly, then, under control swung round
and began to climb again. Through the thinning cloud of yellow smoke,
they could see a long black scar across the globe's top, with lines
running out from it, like the wrinkles on an old, old face.
"Damn!" said Sherman. "Only nicked him. They must have something good
in the line of armor on that thing. Look how it stood up. Watch it,
everybody, we're going to go again, Gloria!"
Again the searchlight beam swung out and down, sought the green monster.
But this time the Lassan globe acted more quickly. The yellow ray
lifted, probed for them, caught them in its beam. Instantly, the
occupants of the _Monitor_ felt a racking pain in every joint; the
camera-boxes of the gravity-beam trembled in their racks, the windows,
set in solid steel though they were, shook in their frames, the whole
body of the rocket-ship seemed about to fall apart.
* * * * *
Desperately Sherman strove with the controls; dived, dodged, then
finally, with a raised hand to warn the rest, side-slipped and tumbled
toward the earth, pulling out in a swinging curve with all power on--a
curve that carried them a good ten miles away before the yellow ray
could find them.
"Boy!" said Murray Lee, feeling of himself. "I feel as though every
joint in my body were loose. What was that, anyway?"
"Infra-sound," replied Sherman. "You can't hear it, but it gets you just
the same. Like a violinist and a glass. He can break it if he hits the
right note. I told you those babies would get something hot. They must
have found a way to turn that pure light of theirs into pure sound and
vibrate it on every note of the scale all at once, beside a lot the
scale never heard of. Well, now we know."
"And so do they," said Ben. "That bozo isn't going to hang around and
take another chance on getting mashed with our gravity beam. Even if we
did only tip him, I'll bet we hurt him plenty."
"All I've got to say," replied Sherman, "is that I'm glad we're made of
metal instead of flesh and blood. If that infra-sound ray had hit us
before, we'd be mashed potatoes in that field down there. No wonder the
signal station went out so quick."
"Do we go back and take another whack at them?" asked Murray Lee.
"I don't like to do it with this ship," Sherman replied. "If we had the
_Monitor II_ it would be easy. With that extra vacuum chamber around
her, she'll take quite a lot of that infra-sound racket. Vacuum doesn't
conduct sound you know, though we'd get some of it through the struts.
But this one--. Still I suppose we'll have to show them we mean
business."
The _Monitor_ turned, pointed her lean prow back toward Newark, and bore
down. In their flight from the infra-sound ray the Americans had dived
behind a fluffy mass of low-hanging cloud; now they emerged from it,
they could see the huge green ball, far up the river, retreating at its
best speed.
"Aha," Sherman said. "He doesn't like gravity beams on the coco. Well,
come on, giddyap horsey. Give her the gun, Murray."
Under the tremendous urge of the gravity-beam explosions at her tail,
the _Monitor_ shot skyward, leaving a trail of orange puffs in her wake
as the beam decomposed the air where it struck it. Sherman lifted her
behind the clouds, held the course for a moment, called "Ready, Gloria?"
and then dropped.
Like a swooping hawk, the _Monitor_ plunged from her hiding place.
Sherman had guessed aright. The green ball was not five miles ahead of
them, swinging over the summits of the Catskills to reach its home. As
they plunged down the yellow ray came on, stabbed quickly, once, twice,
thrice--caught them for a brief second of agonizing vibration, then lost
them again as Sherman twisted the _Monitor_ round. Then Gloria's beam
struck the huge globule fair and square, Ben Ruby threw the switch, and
a terrific burst of orange flame swallowed the whole center of the
Lassan monster.
Prepared though they were for the shock, the force of the explosion
threw the ship out of control. It gyrated frantically, spinning up, down
and sidewise, as Sherman worked the stick. The Catskills reared up at
them; shot past in a whirl of greenery; then with a splash they struck
the surface of the Hudson.
Fortunately, the _Monitor's_ wings were extended, and took up most of
the shock at the cost of being shattered against her sides. Through the
beam-hole at the stern the water began to flow into the interior of the
ship. "Give her the gun!" called Sherman frantically, working his
useless controls. There was a report, a shock, a vivid cloud of steam,
and dripping and coughing like a child that has swallowed water in
haste, the _Monitor_ rose from the stream, her broken wings trailing
behind her.
"I don't know--whether--I can fly--this crate or not," said Sherman,
trying to make what was left of the controls work. "Shoot, Murray--if we
put on enough power--we won't have to soar." There was a renewed roar of
explosions from the _Monitor_. Desperately, swinging in a wide curve
that carried her miles out of her way, she turned her nose southwards.
"Make Philly," cried Sherman cryptically, above the sound of the
explosions that were driving their craft through the air at over six
hundred miles an hour. Almost as he said it, they saw the airport
beneath them. The _Monitor_ swerved erratically; the explosions ceased;
she dived, plunged and slithered to a racking stop across the foreshore
of the seaplane port, ending up with a crash against a float, and
pitched all four occupants from their seats onto the floor.
"Well, that's one for you and one for me," said Sherman as he surveyed
the wreckage ruefully. "We used up that green ball all right, but the
old _Monitor_ will never pop another one. Did anyone notice whether
there were any pieces left, by the way?"
"I did," said Gloria. "As we came up out of the water I could see a few
hunks lying around on the hill."
"Mmm," remarked Sherman, "they must be built pretty solid. Wish I knew
what was in them; that's one thing I never did get through that
thought-helmet. Probably something they just figured out. You gave her
all the power we had, didn't you?"
"There's something else I'd like to know," said Ben. "And that's whether
they had time to warn the rest of the Lassans what they were up against.
If they did, we stand a chance. The way I have these guys figured is
that they're good, but they have a yellow streak, or maybe they're just
lazy, and they don't like to fight unless they're sure of winning. If
I'm right we'll have time to get _Monitor II_ into commission and before
they come out again, we'll be ready for them. If I'm wrong we might as
well find a nice hole somewhere and pull it in after us."
"Yes, and on the other hand, if they did have time to warn them, they'll
sit down and dope out some new trick. Though I have a hunch they won't
find an answer to that gravity-beam so easily. There isn't any that I
know of."
"Well, anyway," said Murray Lee, "nothing to do till tomorrow. What are
you two rummies up to now?"
"Run up and push them along on _Monitor II_ if we can," replied Ben. "I
think I'll round up the rest of the mechanical Americans and put you all
to work on it. We can work day and night and get it done a lot
quicker."
"Me," said Sherman, "I'm going to figure out some way to install radio
on that new bus or bust a button. That's one thing we ought not to do
without. If we'd known the position of that green lemon before we saw
it, we could have dived out of the clouds on it and made it the first
shot before we got all racked up with that yellow ray."