Reinforcements
The little group separated, going about their several tasks. From
whatever cause, Ben proved to be right about the Lassan green spheres.
After that one brief incursion, in which they had wrecked the greater
part of Newark and most of the artillery the Australians had established
to bear on the door of the Lassan city, they seemed to have returned to
their underground home, realizing that the earth-men still had weapons
the equal of anything the creatures of Rigel could produce.
For a whole week there was no sign of them. Meanwhile, the federated
army dug itself in and prepared for the attack that was now believed
certain. The success of the first _Monitor_ had been great enough, it
was decided to warrant the construction of more than one of the second
edition. General Grierson wished to turn the whole resource of the
Allied armies to building an enormous number, but under Ben's persuasion
he consented to concentrate on only five.
For, as Ben pointed out to the general, the training of flesh and blood
men for these craft would be labor lost.
"They couldn't stand the acceleration that will be necessary, for one
thing. With _Monitor II_ we expect to be able to work up swiftly to over
a thousand miles an hour, and the most acceleration a flesh and blood
man can stand won't give us that speed quickly enough. Of course, we
could make 'em so they worked up speed slowly, but then they wouldn't be
able to cut down fast enough to maneuver. And for another thing this
infra-sound ray the Lassans project would kill a flesh-and-blood man the
first time it hit him. What we need for this kind of war, is supermen in
the physical sense. I don't want to make any such snooty statement as
that Americans are better than other people, but we happen to be the
only ones who have undergone this mechanical operation and we're the
only people in the world who can stand the gaff. You'll just have to let
us make out the best we can. In fact, it might be better for you to
re-embark the army and leave us to fight it out all alone. The more
women we have here, the more we'll have to protect."
The general had been forced to agree to the first part of this
statement, but he gallantly refused to abandon the Americans, though he
did send away men, troops and guns which had become useless in this new
brand of warfare. But he insisted on retaining a force to run the
factories that supplied the Americans with their materials and on
personally remaining with it.
Even as it stood, there were only fourteen of the mechanical Americans
remaining--enough to man three of the Monitors.
But one day, as _Monitor II_, shining with newness, stood on her ramp
having the searchlights installed, Herbert Sherman came dashing across
the flying field, waving a sheet of paper.
"I've got it," he cried, "I've got it! I knew I got something from those
Lassans about electricity that I hadn't known before, and now I know
what it is. Look!"
"Radio?" queried Ben.
"No, read it," said Sherman. "Radio's out. But this is a thousand times
better."
He extended the sheet to Ben, who examined the maze of figures gravely
for a moment.
"Now suppose you interpret," he said. "I can't read Chinese."
"Sap. This is the formula for the electrical device I was talking
about."
"Yeh. Well, go on, spill it."
"Well, I suppose I'll have to explain so even your limited intelligence
will grasp the point.... In our black box, we've been breaking up the
atoms of lead into positive and negative charges. We've been using the
positive, and then just turning the negative loose. This thing will make
use of both, and give us a swell new weapon all at once.
"Look--the negative charges will do for our gravity beam just as well as
the positive. They will create an excess of negative electrons instead
of an excess of positive protons in the object we hit, and cause atomic
disintegration. It's a gravity process just the same, but a different
one. Now that gives us something else to do with the positives.
"You know what a Leyden jar is? One of those things you charge with
electricity, then you touch the tip, and bang, you get a shock. Well,
this arrangement will make a super-Leyden jar of the _Monitor_. Every
time she fires the gravity-beam, the positive charges will be put into
her hull, and she'll soon be able to load up with a charge that will
knock your eye out when it's let loose."
"How's that? I know the outside of the _Monitor_ is covered with lead
and so is the outside of a Leyden jar, but what's the connection?"
"Well, it's this way. When you load up a Leyden jar the charge is not
located in the plating, but in the glass. Now the _Monitor_ has a lot of
steel, which will take up the charge just as well as glass. As soon as
she fires the gravity-beam, these filaments will load her up with the
left-over positives till she grunts. See?"
"And since the earth is building up a lot of negative potential all the
time, all you have to do is get your bird between you and the earth and
then let go at him?"
"That's the idea. It'll make an enormous spark-gap, and whatever is
between us and the earth will get the spark. Sock them with a flash of
artificial lightning. We'll use the light-beam as a conductor just as
with the gravity-beam."
"Sounds good, but I want to see the wheels go round. How much of a
potential do you think you can build up in the _Monitor_?"
"Well, let's see. We've got two thicknesses of nine-inch steel ... volts
to a cubic inch ... by cubic inches.... Holy smoke, look how this
figures out--over eleven million volts! That's theory, of course.
There'll be some leakage in practice and we won't have time to build up
that much negative potential every time we shoot, but if we only do half
that well, we'll have a pretty thorough-going charge of lightning ...
Peterson, come over here. I want you to make some changes on this
barge."
* * * * *
_Monitor II_ stood on the ramp that had once held her elder sister, her
outer coating of lead glimmering dully in the morning sun. Here and
there, along her shining sides, were placed the windows through which
her crew would watch the progress of the battle. Her prow was occupied
by the same type of searchlight the earlier _Monitor_ had borne. But
this time the searchlight was surrounded by a hedge of shining silver
points--the discharge mechanism for the lightning flash. At the stern,
instead of the opening running right through into the ship, was a tight
bulkhead, with the connections for the gravity-beam rocket-mechanism
leading through it. As Sherman had pointed out, "If this lightning is
going to do us any good, we've got to get above our opponent, and those
Lassans have built machines that made interplanetary voyages. We've got
to make this boat air-tight so that we can go right after them as far as
Rigel if necessary."
It had been decided, in view of the other monitors that were building,
to make the trial trip of the second rocket-cruiser also a training
voyage, with Beeville and Yoshio replacing Murray Lee and Gloria in her
crew. They climbed in; the spectators stood back, and with a thunderous
rush of explosions and a cloud of yellow gas, the second _Monitor_
plunged into the blue.
"Where shall we go?" asked Sherman, as the ship swooped over the plains
of New Jersey.
"How much speed is she making?" asked Ben Ruby.
"I don't know exactly. We didn't have time to invent and install a
reliable speed gauge. But--" he glanced at the map before him, then down
through the windows at the surrounding country. "I should say not far
short of eight hundred an hour. That improved box sure steps up the
speed. I'm not giving her all she'll stand, even yet."
"If you've got that much speed, why don't you visit Chicago?" asked
Beeville. "The Australians have only pushed out as far as Ohio and there
may be some people there."
"Bright thought," remarked Sherman, swinging the prow of the vessel
westward. "No telling what we'll find, but it's worth a look, anyway."
For some time there was silence in the cabin as the rocket-ship, with
alternate roar and swoop, pushed along. Yoshio was the first to speak:
"Ah, gentlemen," he remarked, "I observe beneath window trace of city of
beer, formerly Cincinnati."
"Sure enough," said Ben, peering down. "There doesn't seem to be much
beer there now, though."
The white city of the Ohio vanished beneath them, silent and deserted,
no sign of motion in its dead streets.
"You know," said Sherman, "sometimes when I see these cities and think
of all the Lassans have wrecked, it gives me an ache. I think I'd do
almost anything to knock them out. What right did they have to come to
this country or this earth, anyway? We were letting them alone."
"Same right wolf obtains when hungry," said Yoshio. "Wolf is larger than
rabbit--end of rabbit."
"Correct," agreed Beeville. "They were the strongest. It's a case of hit
or be hit in this universe. Our only out is to give them better than
they give us."
"Oh, I don't know," said Ben Ruby, "it may be a good thing for the old
world at that. You never heard of all the governments of the world
cooperating before as they are now did you? There are still people alive
you know. Civilization hasn't been killed off by a long shot. And the
lousy blue coloring that affected all the people who didn't get
metallized isn't going to be permanent. The babies that are being born
there now are normal, I hear. In a few generations the earth will be
back to where it was, except for us. I don't know of any way to reverse
this metal evolution."
"Neither do I," said Beeville, "unless we can get another dose of the
'substance of life' as the Lassans call it, and we won't get that
unless they decide to leave the earth in a hurry."
"Look," said Sherman, "there's Chicago now. But what's that? No, there,
along the lake front."
Following the direction of his pointing finger they saw something moving
vaguely along Lake Shore Boulevard; something that might be a car--or a
man!
"Let's go down and see," offered Ben.
"O. K. chief, but we've got to pick a good landing place for this tub. I
don't want to get her marooned in Chicago."
* * * * *
The explosions were cut off, the wings extended, and Sherman spiralled
carefully downward to the spot where they had seen the moving object.
With the nicety of a magician, he brought the ship to a gliding stop
along the park grass, and followed by the rest, Ben Ruby leaped out. The
edge of the drive was a few yards away. As they emerged from the ship no
one was visible, but as they walked across the grass, a figure, metallic
like themselves, and with a gun in one hand, stepped from behind a tree.
"Stand back!" it warned suspiciously. "Who are you and what do you
want?"
"Conversation with sweet-looking gentleman," said Yoshio politely, with
a bow.
"Why, we're members of the American air force," said Ben, "cooperating
with the federated armies against the Lassans, and we were on an
exploring expedition to see if we could find any more Americans."
"Oh," said the figure, with evident relief. "All right, then. Come on
out, boys."
From behind other trees in the little park, a group of metallic figures,
all armed, rose into sight.
"My name's Ben Ruby," said Ben, extending his hand, "at present General
commanding what there is of the American army."
"Mine's Salsinger. I suppose you could call me Mayor of Chicago since
those birds got Lindstrom. So you're fighting the Lassans, eh? Good.
We'd like to take a few pokes at them ourselves, but that light-ray they
have is too much for us. All we can do is pot the birds."
"Oh," said Ben, "we've got that beat and a lot of other stuff, too. How
many of you are there?"
"Eight, including Jones, who isn't here now. Where are you from, anyway?
St. Louis?"
"No, New York. Is anybody alive in St. Louis or the other western
cities?"
"There was. We had one man here from St. Paul, and Gresham was from St.
Louis. The birds got him and carried him off to the joint the Lassans
have in the Black Hills, but he got away."
"Have they a headquarters in the Black Hills, too? They have one in the
Catskills. That's where we've been fighting them."
The explanations went on. It appeared that Chicago, St. Louis and other
western cities had been overwhelmed as had New York--the same rush of
light from the great comet, the same unconsciousness on every side, the
same awakening and final gathering together of the few individuals who
had been fortunate enough to attract the attentions of the Lassans'
birds and so be sent to their cities for transformation into robots.
Since that time the birds had raided Chicago and the other western
cities unceasingly, and had reduced the original company of some
thirty-odd to the eight individuals whom Ben had encountered. Before the
birds had attacked them, however, they had managed to get a telegraph
wire in operation and learn that people were alive at Los
Angeles--whether mechanized or not they were uncertain, but they thought
not.
Once, several weeks before, a Lassan fighting-machine had passed through
the city, wrecked a few buildings with the light-ray, and disappeared
westward as rapidly as it had come.
With some difficulty and a good deal of crowding the eight Chicagoans
were gotten into the _Monitor II_ for the return journey. They were a
most welcome reinforcement and would furnish enough Americans to man all
five of the extra rocket-cruisers.
"I hope," remarked Sherman, a couple of days later, "that those Lassans
don't come out quite yet, now. We've got the ships to meet them now, but
the personnel isn't as well trained as I should like. Salsinger nearly
smashed up one of the ships yesterday making his landing and one of the
wings on another cracked up this morning when Roberts tried to turn too
short. These rocket-ships are so fast you need a whole state to handle
them in."
"And I," replied Ben Ruby, "hope they come out damn soon. As you say,
we've got the ships now, but they're not so slow themselves, and with
the building methods they have, they can turn out ships faster than we
can."
"All the same, I'd like a few days more," Sherman countered. "In this
brand of war it isn't how much you've got, but what you've got that
counts. Look at all the Australians--half a million men, and the only
good they are is to work in factories."
"Can't blame them for not being made of metal like us," said Ben.
"They're doing their best and we wouldn't be here but for them. Grierson
is having the shops build us another ten rocket-cruisers, on the chance
that we pick up some reinforcements somewhere in the west."
"Good," said Sherman, "and I have another idea. I think we ought to keep
at least one monitor on patrol over the Lassan city all the time.
They're apt to get out and sneak one over on us. She can stay high up,
near the edge of the atmosphere. Of course, she can't radio, but she can
fire a couple of shots if she sights them coming out, and we can make a
static detector that will register the disturbance. Then we can catch
them as fast as they come out, when they'll be easiest to attack."
"How about the other Lassan city out in the Black Hills?" asked Ben.
"Would be bad strategy to try to handle them both at once, wouldn't it,"
said Sherman, "Still, if you think so ..."