_The Weather Machine_
The two men flattened themselves against the wall so that they could
not be seen by a casual glance from the Mercutians inside the
laboratory.
"There are a lot of them," Grim whispered.
"Can't help it," Hilary answered grimly. "Have to take our chances."
"Of course," Grim said simply. There was no backing out.
Silently, with catlike tread, they inched their way forward flat
against the wall, keeping out of the blue flood of illumination. The
shapes, or rather segments of shapes within, moved about, engrossed in
the business at hand, unaware of the creeping death.
The Earthmen had reached their stations unobserved, one on either side
of the open slide. Very carefully Hilary protruded his head around the
vita-crystal, and ducked back almost instantly. But his quick eye had
taken in all the essential details in that momentary vision.
There were about a dozen Mercutians in the long laboratory, and each
had a sun-tube dangling from his belt, ready at hand. The laboratory
was crowded with apparatus, but what had drawn Hilary's attention was
a gigantic gleaming metallic sphere set up prominently in the center
of the room. Protruding from it at all angles were great quartz tubes,
through which a blue light pulsed and flamed. It was connected by huge
cables to a spark-bathed dynamo. Other cables writhed through the
translucent ceiling. The weather machine!
Hilary took a firmer grip on his automatic, nodded once to Grim. The
two Earthmen stepped simultaneously through the open door.
"Raise your paws high and keep them up." Hilary's voice cracked like a
whip through the busy confusion of the laboratory. The Mercutians,
scattered as they were, whirled around from their tasks to face two
deadly weapons held by two determined-looking men.
There was a chorus of strange guttural oaths, but every hand moved
skyward, reluctantly.
* * * * *
Hilary picked out the most blasphemous sounding of the cursers,
rightly deeming him the Cor in charge.
"You," he said, "what switches regulate the weather machine?"
The Mercutian Cor was a particularly ugly specimen. The gray warts
were gigantic, hiding whatever semblance of manlike features there
might have been beneath.
"I'll see you dogs burned to a cinder in the sun first," he growled.
"Keep them covered, Grim," Hilary said sharply. "I'll take care of
this fellow personally."
He walked straight across the room for the Cor, eyes blazing, index
finger on trigger. The Cor, fear staring out of his lidless eyes,
backed slowly away from the approaching death. There was a hushed
silence.
"I'll tell, I'll tell!" the Cor screamed, as the relentless weapon
almost touched his paunchy stomach.
"I thought you would," Hilary said grimly, not for an instant relaxing
the pressure against the trigger. "If you value your worthless hide,
you'd better talk, and talk fast. What switch reverses the machine, to
bring on rain? If you are wise, you won't try to fool me."
The wretch almost stumbled in his eagerness. "By the gray soil of
Mercury I'll tell you the truth." His arm flung up, pointing. "That
knob over there controls the--"
Hilary never heard the rest. There was a crash at the other end of the
laboratory. One of the Mercutians, tired of keeping his arms high
extended, had attempted to rest his huge bulk against a laboratory
table. It went over with a splintering crash of glassware.
* * * * *
Hilary whirled around to face the noise. As he did so, the Cor seized
his opportunity. His right arm dropped to his side, jerked up his
sun-tube. Hilary heard Grim's warning cry, tried to pivot back again.
But Grim beat him to it. The dynol pistol exploded sharply; the
flaming pellet caught the Cor square in his side. There was a dull
explosion and the Cor was torn violently into bits. He dropped, a mass
of shapeless blobs.
But now hell had broken loose. The Mercutians were not cowards. At the
moment of the diversion, every one of them had gone for his sun-tube.
A flame streaked close to Hilary's head, shivered the opposite wall
into molten fragments. He ducked behind a table and fired. A Mercutian
threw up his hands, staggered and pitched forward heavily. Grim's
dynol bullets whined in their passage, spattered the laboratory with
flying blobs of flesh. They did terrible execution. Hilary's automatic
spat its leaden hail.
But the Mercutians were entrenched now behind tables, machinery,
whatever cover they could find. The beams from half a dozen sun-tubes
slithered across the room, burning flaming paths through the
overheated air, bringing the very walls down about them. It could not
last long. Already Hilary had a nasty burn across one shoulder; there
was a streak of red across Grim's forehead as he hid behind the panel
of the entrance, whipping his pistol around to fire, and ducking back
again. There were too many of the enemy, and overwhelming
reinforcements could be expected any moment. The Earthmen's position
was desperate.
Through it all the great weather machine hummed and crackled; the
tubes were sheets of surging flame. Hilary cursed softly. If only the
Cor had completed his sentence before he died. Hilary would have
chanced a sudden rush forward to reverse it, to bring on a deluge of
rain and clouds, even though it meant certain death. The machine
seemed to gleam at him mockingly; the hum continued with tantalizing
smoothness.
"Look out," Grim's voice came to him sharply. He jerked his head back,
just in time. A ray streaked past his ear like a thunderbolt. The heat
from it scorched his face.
* * * * *
The Mercutians were stealthily crawling nearer, pushing heavy, tables
in front of them as shields. He was almost outflanked now. In another
minute he would be exposed.
Hilary thought rapidly. His position was untenable. He would have to
run for it. A sudden dash to the door might possibly win through. But
the machine! He set his teeth hard. If he could not change the
weather, at least he could destroy the infernal thing, stop its
grinding out perfect sunshine for the Mercutians.
He lifted his weapon. Off to one side a Mercutian arm advanced
cautiously, bringing up a sun-tube. He swung on it and fired. The
sun-tube clattered to the floor and the arm jerked back, accompanied
by a howl of anguish. Hilary smiled grimly, took careful aim at the
metal sphere of the machine. The bullet leaped true for its mark. A
little round hole showed--but nothing happened. The infernal machine
hummed softly as ever.
He cursed, fired again. Another round hole, and that was all. With
increasing viciousness he turned his aim on the quartz tubes, pierced
them through and through. Before his very eyes, the quartz seemed to
run and melt around the holes, to seal them tight as if he had never
shot. The blue flames leaped and surged mockingly. The Mercutians were
jeering now; raucous calls went up.
* * * * *
Hilary felt a sinking despair. He had failed; would have to run for it
now. Small chance to make it, too. Then he heard Grim's deep bass.
"Hold it a moment," he said as if he had read his thoughts.
Fascinated, Hilary saw the giant's pistol slowly thrust its long
barrel around the edge of the crystal slide. A half dozen rays leaped
viciously, for it. But a flaming pellet streaked out of its orifice
before it was jerked back.
Hilary could see its red path as it struck the sphere of the machine.
The next instant there was a dull explosion and the whole machine
disintegrated into a smother of flying fragments. The expanding dynol
had done the trick where lead had failed. There would be no more
weather control.
But Hilary did not pause to see the finish. Even as the machine burst,
he was running across the room, bending low. Fragments whizzed by him
at a fearful clip; rays crisscrossed all about him.
But somehow he was through. Grim's finger was on the slide button. It
closed with a snap behind him, cutting off the pursuing howls of rage.
Silently the two men darted up the ramp to the pent-apartment, dashed
into the master bedroom. The Mercutian guard whom they had left
securely bound, was gone. The Earthmen looked at each other, a great
fear in their eyes. In one bound Hilary was at the door slide,
thrusting it open. He tore out upon the open terrace, Grim right
behind him.
* * * * *
They looked wildly about. The terrace was empty. There was no sign of
the _Vagabond_, or of Joan and Wat. High overhead hovered a great
burnished diskoid. Long streamlined Mercutian fliers darted through
the air, but nowhere was there a sign of the familiar sphere.
Hilary gripped his companion's arm. "They've been captured, Grim," he
choked.
"Nonsense," the giant said gruffly, to hide his own misgivings. "They
just took alarm at something and winged off."
"But where is the guard then?"
Grim shook his head. He could not answer that. Despair overwhelmed
Hilary. After all he had gone through, to have Joan snatched away from
him at the moment of success. It was terrible. Wat too, that
freckled-faced bantam.
"I should never have left them alone," he accused himself
remorsefully.
"Here," said Grim sharply, "none of that. You did exactly the proper
thing. We'll find them yet."
It was a confidence that he did not feel. There was the noise of
padding feet up the ramp. The Mercutians were coming, in force.
Grim gripped Hilary by the shoulder, shook him vigorously. "They're
coming. We're trapped."
Grendon snapped out of the lethargy into which he had sunk, face drawn
and gray.
"No. There is a way. Follow me."
The first of the Mercutians pounded heavily into the room when Hilary
had thrust Grim into the secret lift. He whirled and fired. The
Mercutian coughed and fell forward. Other gray warty faces, furious,
thrust from behind their dying comrade. But Hilary was in the lift,
pressing the button for full speed down. A darting ray showered them
with rounded smoking bits of vita-crystal, but they were dropping
headlong through the building.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later they emerged cautiously from the entrance to the
Pullman Building. It was deserted, deathly still. The two Earthmen
stopped short, horror-struck at what they saw.
The streets were shambles. Hundreds of bodies lay sprawled in tumbling
twisted heaps. Earthmen all, with here and there the grotesque huge
bulk of a Mercutian who had failed to hear the warning signal. The
bodies were scorched, blackened. Raw agony appeared on contorted
desperate faces. It was not good to look upon.
"Wh--what has happened?" Grim gasped, his breath coming heavily.
"Just a little pleasantry of the Mercutians," Hilary said bitterly. He
looked upward. High overhead hovered a gigantic shape, motionless.
Its great disk, burnished and dazzling in the cloudless sky, seemed to
cast a sinister shadow over the city it had destroyed a second time.
"There's the toy that did it," said Hilary. "I felt the heat while I
was a captive up in the Robbins Building. You must have flown over
after, and missed it."
Grim shook a great brawny fist aloft. His deceptively mild eyes were
hard flames now. His face was set in great strong ridges. Hilary had
never seen him this way before.
"I'll rip every Mercutian to pieces with my bare hands--shred him into
little bits." He meant it too. Hilary shuddered.
Far off down the wide thoroughfare came the glint of weapons, the
sight of massed ranks. A Mercutian patrol was shambling along,
heavy-gaited.
"Come on, Grim, let's get out of here," said Hilary.
They flattened like shadows against the wall, slunk stealthily through
radiating streets. As much as possible they kept their eyes away from
the sickening sights, the poor burned bodies of their fellow men.
Steadily they headed for the branch local conveyors as being less
likely to be under surveillance.
The Ramapos was their destination. Hilary went dully, listlessly. Joan
was gone again; this time he could not possibly know where. Every step
he took though, seemed to lead him farther away from her. His glazed
eye searched the shining skies as he stumbled along. Not a sign
anywhere of the _Vagabond_. Only the hateful swift-moving Mercutian
fliers.
It was only Grim's insistence that kept him going. The secret gorge
was the headquarters of the revolt, he argued. If the fools he had
left in charge hadn't thrown their men recklessly on New York against
his instructions to join that last foolhardy heroic attack, there was
still a chance of salvaging the revolution.