Prelude to Battle
There are some grave disadvantages in being invisible. So, at least,
Gates concluded as he went groping through the woods in the effort to
find his bearings. It is disconcerting, to say the least, to ask a
passer-by the way, and to be greeted with a shriek, and watch the man
turn and dash away frantically, as from a ghost. It is aggravating to
reach an automobile road and find every car trying to drive full-tilt
through one. Gates felt like a man returning from the dead as he picked
his way out of the woods, and, reaching a village, began to make a few
civil inquiries.... Inevitably, he found, his hearers would flee the
vicinity of his voice; and the harder he tried to call them back the
faster they would run.
He passed the night in an open field under a haystack--which,
considering the heat, was not at all a hardship. In the morning, driven
by hunger, he strolled into a farmhouse; and while the family stampeded
like sheep from the sound of his footsteps, he calmly helped himself
to some ham and biscuits from the kitchen table. Having thus satisfied
his needs, he wandered away along a railroad track, and after about an
hour's walk reached a junction, where a sign on the station showed him
that he was two hundred miles from home. "God! How'm I ever going to
make the distance?" he wondered, reflecting that he had not a penny in
his pockets.
Twenty minutes later, while he still stood there baffled, a train
puffed into the station--one of the few still running in those
disorganized days. Several people stepped aboard; and, without
hesitation, he joined them, trusting to his invisibility to save him
from the demands of the ticket-taker.
As there was no unoccupied seat, he stood in the vestibule, which
caused not a little confusion, as people kept brushing against him as
they went by, greatly to their consternation. Long before they had
reached their destination, in fact, half the passengers were ready
to swear that the train was haunted. This view was furthered by Buck
Johnson, one of the colored waiters in the dining car, who testified
that while his back was turned the better part of the contents of
a tray disappeared--and that he turned about just in time to see a
sausage go floating down the passageway, although nobody was in sight!
It was fortunate, Gates thought, that the train was air-conditioned;
the cool, fresh atmosphere made it easier for him to think. And,
certainly, he needed to think as never before. What would he do upon
getting back home? Obviously, go as soon as possible to Dunbar's
apartment, to check that traitor's vile designs, if there were still
time! And to rescue Eleanor from his clutches! But was it not already
too late? Gates gravely feared so. Besides, how prevail against Dunbar,
protected as he was by the overweening power of the Saturnians?
"Well, at least," Gates reflected, "I can't be seen--that's one
strategic advantage." But it would take more than his invisibility to
win the battle. He must have weapons--weapons of unrivalled power. And
where could such be found?
* * * * *
At this thought he remembered a certain invention he had toyed with
months before. This was a knife which he called the Electric Blade:
a folding strip of metal, small and compact, and short enough to be
carried in a man's hip pocket, yet capable of being extended to the
length of one's forearm, when it would cut with the sharpness of a
sword. To it was attached a minute but powerful storage battery which
Gates had perfected: a battery that made it possible for the blade to
slash back and forth with such swiftness that the eye could hardly
follow its motions. The inventor had believed that the weapon might
prove valuable for close combat work in warfare; but had lost interest
in it temporarily while working on that still more important device,
the Infra-Red Eye.
It was, however, with the greatest of enthusiasm that he thought
now of the Electric Blade. Might this not be just what he needed in
the conflict with Dunbar? Knowing something of the prowess of the
Saturnians, he was far from sure; nevertheless, he swore a bitter oath,
"I'll have a try at it, even if they hack me to mincemeat!"--which, he
realized, they were only too likely to do.
The Electric Blade, he recalled, had been left in his locker at the
Merlin Research Institute. Accordingly, it was to this spot that he
must hasten immediately upon returning to the city.
It was night by the time he had reached the building; and the front
door was locked. But seeing a light inside, he rapped. As no answer
came, he rapped again, this time more loudly; and then rapped once
more, still more loudly. It was only after the fourth or fifth summons
that he heard shuffling footsteps warily approaching. "What the devil!"
he muttered to himself. "Do they think I want to steal the building?"
"Who's there?" a voice from within demanded, huskily.
"It's I! Ronald Gates! An employee of the Institute!"
There was a momentary hesitation. He heard two men conferring in
whispers; then the door opened a few inches, and he stared into the
muzzle of a revolver, behind which glowered the grim, determined face
of a uniformed man.
"Don't be scared, Officer," he began, slightly amused. "I can establish
my identity--"
Instantly there rang out a yell from the uniformed man. Savagely the
door banged to a close. "By God! It's one of them devils from Saturn!"
Almost simultaneously, he heard another voice taking up the cry. "Run,
Miss, run! Quick! Ain't no time to waste! One of them fiends is after
you again!"
From within, he heard a woman's scream. "Out this way! This way!" And
all other sounds were lost amid the scurrying of feet.
But had those tones not had a familiar ring? Could it be--or was his
heated imagination only playing tricks?
* * * * *
He lost no time, however, in useless questionings. Realizing that the
fugitives must leave by the rear exit, on another street, he raced
around the block, in such haste that he bowled over two pedestrians,
who were never to know what had hit them. As he approached the rear
door, he saw five figures hurriedly emerge, among them a young woman,
the sight of whom caused his heart to pound furiously.
"Eleanor!" he shouted. "Eleanor!"
The girl glanced toward him, and shrieked. Even if she recognized his
voice, she thought that it was merely one of the Saturnians imitating
him.
"Eleanor! Eleanor!" he repeated. "It's I, Ronald! It's I!"
But it was doubtful if she even heard. Preceding the four
policemen--pushed and shoved by them, for he had never seen men in more
frantic haste--she was lost to view inside a black sedan. A moment
later, the car had spurted from sight around the corner.
Greatly shaken, Gates returned to the Institute. It was much--very
much--to know that Eleanor was alive, and apparently not in Dunbar's
hands. But to have her flee him as though he were a plague-bearer;
to be mistaken by her for one of the Saturnians--that was a new and
totally unexpected experience. Now, as never before, he began to curse
his invisibility.
But there was work to be done--work from which he must not be deterred
even by the thought of Eleanor. And at this point, as if by way of
compensation, his invisibility served him to excellent purpose. How,
considering that the doors were all locked, could he get into the
Institute? Contemplatively he strolled around the building, and saw
that the one possible entry was by means of an open window facing the
fire escape on the third floor. To hoist himself up to the fire escape
was, to be sure, no great task for one of his agility; but as it gave
upon a main street, where many people were passing, it would have
been impossible for any ordinary man to accomplish the feat without
detection. As it was, however, he managed the entry with ease.
Once within, he felt his way down to the locker room, where he switched
on the lights, and turned to his own locker--the combination of which,
fortunately, had not been altered. A moment later, the door rattled
open. He saw that the interior had been disturbed, as though somebody
had entered during his absence and fumbled among the contents; but
his pulses leapt with excitement when, safely hidden in a corner, he
located a steel-sheathed apparatus of about the size of a large pistol.
"Thank heaven!" he muttered. "This little blade may hold the world's
destiny!"
He placed the instrument carefully beneath his garments, so that it
too became invisible; closed the locker; and started away, with the
knowledge that he hastened to a battle that could end only in victory
or death.