_The Magnetic Trap_
Upon those squares and oblongs of bare earth, incredible as it seemed,
rose the structures of the Invisible Empire, themselves both invisible
and transparent, so that one looked straight down through them and saw
only the ground beneath them.
Every interior floor and girder must have been treated with the gas.
They had been cunning. They must have discovered some permanent means
of charging paint with the shadow-breaking gas, so that the buildings
would remain invisible for months and years instead of hours.
But they had not been cunning enough. It had not occurred to them that
the foundations would still be visible underneath, for the simple
reason that grass does not grow without sunlight.
Dick saw old Luke Evans nodding and pointing downward. The old man
picked up his end of the speaking-tube, but Dick ignored the gesture.
He signaled to his flight to rise, and zoomed up, circling, and
studying the land beneath.
That oblong was evidently the central building. Those four squares
probably housed airplanes, and each would hold half a dozen. That
elliptical building might contain a dirigible. That round patch was
probably the gas factory.
Now Dick could see more patches of bare ground, extending in the
direction of the sea. He gunned his ship and followed the gap among
the trees to the ocean, a few miles distant. Yes, there were more
evidence of activity here. Beside the water, in what looked like a
deep natural harbor, was what seemed to be the foundations of a dock.
Perhaps even vessels of war floated on the phosphorescent Bahama sea.
* * * * *
He circled back, his flock wheeling like a flight of birds and
following him. He signaled to them to scatter. They had certainly been
observed; at any moment a hail of lead might assail them invisibly out
of the air. They must get to work quickly. But had they understood the
significance of those bare patches?
Dick saw Luke Evans still fidgeting impatiently with his end of the
speaking-tube, and picked it up.
"I'm thinking, Captain Rennell, we've got no time to lose if we want
to keep the upper hand of those devils," called the old man.
"Yes, you're right," Dick answered. "Lay a trail of gas bombs all
around those hangars and buildings, enough to hold them dark for some
time. And keep a bomb or two in reserve."
Luke Evans shouted back. The plane was again above the structures. The
old man dropped a bomb over the side, and Dick zoomed again, his
flight wheeling up behind him.
Higher and higher, banking and going round in a succession of tight
spirals, Dick flew. Every moment he expected the blow to fall. As he
rose, Luke Evans dropped bomb after bomb. A thousand feet beneath the
flight was taking up positions, hovering with the helicopters, looking
up to Dick for the signal, and waiting.
Then from beneath the cloud of black gas began to rise, as Luke Evans
dropped his bombs. It filled the lower spaces of the sky, blotting out
the land in impenetrable darkness. That darkness, above which Dick and
his flight were soaring, rose like a solid wall, built by some
prehistoric race that aimed to fling a tower into the heavens.
* * * * *
And then--the miracle! Dick gasped in sheer delight as he realized
that he had made no mistake.
At first all he could see was a number of criss-crossing
phosphorescent lines that appeared shimmering through the blackness
underneath. They ran luminously here and there, forming no particular
pattern, much like the figures on the radium dial of a watch when
first they come into wavering visibility at night.
Then the lines began to intersect one another, to assume geometric
patterns and curves. And bit by bit they took meaning and
significance.
And suddenly the whole invisible stronghold lay revealed upon the
ground beneath, a shining, dazzling play of weaving light.
Buildings and hangars stood out, clearly revealed; the rounded vault
of a dirigible hangar, and the shining ribbon of a road that ran
through a pitch-dark tarmac, and was evidently constructed from some
gas-impregnated materials. On this tarmac was a flight of shining
airplanes, ready to take off. There were the odd, ovoid figures of the
aviators in their silken overalls. More figures appeared, running out
from the buildings. It was clear that the sudden raid had taken them
all by surprise.
Luke Evans yelled and pointed. "We've got them now, sir!" Dick heard
above the whine of the helicopter engine. "We've--"
But of a sudden the old man's voice died away, though his mouth was
still moving.
Dick leaned out of his cockpit and fired a single red Very light, the
signal for the attack. And from each plane of his flight, beneath him,
a bomb slid from its rack and went hurtling down upon the gang below,
while the airplanes circled and hovered, each taking up its station.
* * * * *
Dick was too late. By a whole minute he had missed his chance. He
realized that immediately, for before the red light had flared from
his pistol, the hostile planes were in the air. He had flown too low,
and given the alarm.
It meant a fight now, instead of a mad dog destruction, and Dick did
not underestimate the power of the enemy. But he felt a thrill of
furious satisfaction at the prospect of battle. From every plane the
bombs were falling. Underneath, ruin and destruction, and leaping
flames--and yet darkness, save for the phosphorescent outlines of the
buildings.
And the lines of these were broken, converging into strange
criss-crosses of luminosity, as the beams fell in shapeless heaps.
Dark fire, sweeping through the headquarters of the Invisible Emperor,
a veritable hell for those below! A taste of the hell that they had
made for others!
Then a strange phenomenon obtruded itself upon Dick's notice. _Nothing
was audible!_ The bombs were falling, but they were falling silently.
No sound came up from beneath. And, except for the throbbing of his
engine, Dick would have thought it had stopped. He could no longer
hear it.
That terrific holocaust of death and destruction was inaudible.
Skimming the upper reach of the air, high above that wall of darkness,
Dick saw old Luke Evans pick up his end of the speaking-tube, and
mechanically followed suit. He could see the old man's lips moving.
But he heard nothing!
And now another phenomenon was borne in on his notice. His flight were
perhaps five hundred feet beneath him, hovering a little above the
barrage of black gas. But they were converging oddly. And there was no
sight of the airplanes that Dick had just seen taking off from the
invisible tarmac.
* * * * *
Dick fired two Very lights as a signal to his flight to scatter. What
were they doing, bunching together like a flock of sheep, when at any
moment the enemy planes might come swooping in, riddling them with
bullets? He thrust the stick forward--and then realized that his
controls had gone dead!
He thought for a moment that a wire had snapped. But the stick
responded perfectly to his hand, only it had no longer control over
his plane. He kicked right rudder, and the plane remained motionless.
He pushed home the soaring lever, to neutralize the helicopter and the
plane still soared.
Then he noticed that the needle of his earth-inductor
compass-indicator was oscillating madly, and realized that it was not
his plane that was at fault.
Underneath him, his flight seemed to be milling wildly as the ships
turned in every direction of the compass. But not for long. They were
nosing in, until the whole flight resembled an enormous airplane
engine, with twelve radial points, corresponding to their propellers,
and the noses pointing symmetrically inward, like a herd of game,
yarding in winter time.
And now the true significance came home to Dick. A vertical line of
magnetic force, an invisible mast, had been shot upward from the
ground. The airplanes were moored to it by their noses, as effectively
as if they had been fastened with steel wires.
And he, too, was struggling against that magnetic force that was
slowly drawing him, despite his utmost efforts, to a fixed position
five hundred feet above his flight.
* * * * *
For a few moments, by feeding his engine gas to the limit, Dick
thought he might have a chance of escaping. Her nose a fixed point,
Dick whirled round and round in a dizzy maze, attempting to break that
invisible mooring-chain. Then suddenly the engine went dead. He was
trapped helplessly.
He saw old Evans gesticulating wildly in the front cockpit. The old
man hoisted himself, leaned over the cowling gibbered in Dick's ear.
The silent engine had ceased to throb, and the old man's shouts were
simply not translated into sound.
Suddenly the flight beneath jerked downward, just as a flag jerks when
it is hauled down a pole. They vanished into the dark cloud beneath.
At the same time there came a jerk that dropped Dick's plane a hundred
feet, and flung him violently against the rim of the cockpit.
Another followed. By drops of a hundred feet at a time, Dick was being
hauled down into the darkness underneath him.
It rushed up at him. One moment he was suspended upon the rim of it,
seeing the moon and stars above him; the next he had been plunged into
utter blackness. Blackness more intense than anything that could be
conceived--soundless blackness, that was the added horror of it.
Blackness of Luke Evans's contriving, but none the less fearful on
that account!
And yet, as Dick was jerked slowly downward, slowly a pale visibility
began to diffuse itself underneath. The black cloud was beginning to
roll away. The luminous lines began to fade, and in place of them
appeared little leaping tongues of fire. In front of him Dick saw Luke
Evans's form begin to pattern itself upon the darkness. He saw the
form move sidewise, and caught at Luke's arm as he was about to hurl
another gas bomb. "No!" he shouted--and heard no sound come from his
lips.
* * * * *
Luke understood. He seemed to be replacing the bomb in the rack.
Beneath them now, as they were jerked downward, were fantastic swirls
of black mist, and, at the bottom, a pit of fire that was slowly
coming into visibility.
Dick uttered a cry of horror! Five hundred feet below his plane he saw
the dim forms of his flight, still bunched together, noses almost
touching. And they were dropping straight into that flaming furnace
of ruin underneath, which was growing clearer every instant.
Down, jerk by jerk. Down! The black cloud was fast dispersing from the
ground. The flight were hardly a thousand feet above the fire. Down--a
long jerk that one! Once more! The flames leaped up hungrily about the
doomed airships. Cries of mad horror broke from Dick's lips as he
witnessed the destruction of ships and men.
He could see almost clearly now. The twelve ships, still retaining
their nose-to-nose formation, were in the very heart of the fire.
Spurts of exploding gasoline thrust their white tongues upward. There
was only one consolation: for the doomed men, death must have come
practically instantaneously.
From where he hung, Dick could feel the fierce heat of the flames
below. In front of him, old Luke Evans sat in his cockpit like one
petrified. He was feebly fumbling at his camera-box, as if he had some
idea of using it, and had forgotten that it was fixed to the plane,
but the old man seemed temporarily to have lost his wits.
Rushing flames surrounded the burning airships, reducing them to a
solid, welded mass of incandescent metal. Dick looked down, waiting
for the next jerk that would summon him to join his men. At the moment
he was not conscious of either fear or horror, only intense rage
against the murderers and regret that he could never bring back the
news of victory.
* * * * *
The cloud had almost dissipated. In place of the phosphorescence,
electric lights had appeared, making the ground beneath perfectly
visible. Dick could see a number of men grouped together at the
entrance to a large building, part of which had been wrecked by a
bomb, though there were no evidences of fire. Other structures had
been dismantled and knocked about, but what remained of them had not
been charred by fire. Evidently they had been fireproofed. Perhaps the
gas itself was incombustible. Only in the middle of the tarmac, where
the remnants of the airplanes blazed, was there any sign of fire.
There were three machines resembling dynamos, placed one at each
corner of the tarmac, equidistant from the central holocaust. A
half-dozen men were grouped about each of them, and by the light from
the huge reflector over each Dick saw that they were whirring busily.
At the time it did not occur to him that these were the machines that
were sending out the electrical force that had held the airplanes
powerless.
But as he looked, his mind still a turmoil of hate and hopeless anger,
he saw one of the three machines cease whirring. The group about it
dispersed, the light above went out. And now his plane, as if drawn by
the power of the two remaining machines, began to move jerkily again,
not down toward the burning wreckage, but sidewise, away from it.
Straight out toward the side of the tarmac it moved jerked downward
diagonally, until it rested only a few feet above the ground.
Then suddenly Dick felt the plane quiver, as if released from the
power of the force that had held it. It nosed down and crashed, rolled
over amid the wreckage of a shattered wing. The concussion shot Dick
from the cockpit clear of the smashed machine.
He landed upon his head, and went out instantly.