Now Pelton felt a hand upon his shoulder. Turning he saw that Jerry was
standing beside him. The man's face was pale with awe and when he spoke
his voice was husky: "Congratulations, Capt. Pelton--here, shake! When
it looks black as night, along you come and put those invaders in their
proper place. I can't see through this at all. What wonder is it that
you have created?"
The fulfillment of his ambition beyond the wildest dreams of his school
days had wrought the young scientist up to a pitch of excitement more
intense than ever before, "It is the thing that killed Calhoun, the
ace," he almost shrieked; "The crystal ray!"
"You mean that your weapon inflicts death with just a beam of light?
That sounds impossible."
"But it isn't! I'll tell you about it." Pelton's eyes were glittering
and his face was flushed: "Not more than a month and a half ago I was
in Ecuador with Calhoun on leave of absence. We explored an extinct
Andean volcano of particularly ghastly reputation. There I found a
peculiar crystal, which, on analysis proved to be a complex compound
of silicon, iron and the hitherto supposedly inert gas, krypton--I call
it _andite_.
"It was just by chance that I discovered what terrible things _andite_
could do. There was a big block of the material at the crater's western
edge. The sun had been obscured by a cloud and, when it came out, its
light struck the block, passed through it, and came out as a bluish
beam. It hit my old friend and sent him on the long journey west. Thank
God, it was not in vain!
"After a lot of effort I learned more about the wonderful properties of
the crystal. You know that light is the vibration of an all-pervading
medium sometimes called the ether, just as are radio waves. When a beam
of light passes through _andite_, its rate of vibration is enormously
increased; so that it exceeds by many thousands of times the vibratory
rate of even Hadley's Q-ray which is used as an anaesthetic. This
super-vibration is the crystal ray. It will penetrate four feet of
solid lead and a much greater thickness of any other metal. When it
strikes a man it produces within his blood a poison that is instantly
fatal. The process is comparable with that which goes on in the leaves
of a plant when starch is produced by the action of sunlight.
"The projectors of the crystal ray are merely specially constructed
radio lamps, equipped with a receiver of wireless power, and fitted
with a piece of _andite_ which modifies the light.
"After I had learned what my discovery was capable of, I staged a
demonstration before the best minds of America. They gave me the
cooperation of the whole country and this is the result."
"But what was the necessity of building this enormous power plant?"
inquired Jerry: "Couldn't the old stations supply the needed energy?"
"No," said Pelton; "The light produced in the ray projectors must be
many times as intense as that produced by ordinary lamps, in order to
be effective at any considerable range. Only this new power plant could
furnish sufficient energy. The filaments in the projectors would only
glow on the power supplied by the old outfits."
Momentarily the roar of _terrorium_ shells and the flashing of
magnesium flares waxed more intense in the air above. In the few
minutes that the big generator had been running, the Americans had
annihilated practically three-quarters of their foes. However, a few
were trying to escape into the night with their lights turned off. One
fifteen-hundred-foot monster was directly above at an altitude of not
more than half a mile. Its guns belching with the fury of despair at a
smaller but much more agile American ship that was rapidly approaching.
Suddenly the invaders scored a hit. The little vessel crumpled up and
fell. The big ship was continuing its retreat away from the scene
of battle when a bluish beam, originating from a projector in the
neighborhood of Whitley Park, leaped up from the earth and struck it.
The ray lingered over the whole expanse of its hull for a second and
then died out. The dreadnaught continued to hurtle blindly on its way,
its rocket-motors roaring full blast. It was headed straight for a
sky-scraper, and a moment later it struck. A third of the building's
height was sheared off; together with the twisted remnants of the ship
the mass of steel and masonry fell with a terrific crash into the cleft
of a dark street. There the airship still buzzed and hissed like a
wounded insect.
A wild impulse was surging up in the breast of Pelton--an intense
desire to take an active part in the victory he had done so much to
bring about.
He turned to his companion: "Keep the outfit running, Jerry, I've
simply got to be in this fight."
As rapidly as his legs would carry him, the young scientist raced to
the little shed nearby where he kept his flier. In his hand he carried
a small black tube fitted with a pistol grip and trigger. It was a ray
projector.
In a moment he had dragged the little craft out and climbed into the
cockpit. He turned a dial that operated the gravitational screen. There
was a sudden feeling of weightlessness--and then he shot upward amid
the gust of rising air.
Three thousand feet Pelton ascended before he started his _terrorium_
rocket-motors.
At a distance of perhaps half a mile, a "dog-fight" between countless
small craft, was in progress.
At first he thought there was no one in his immediate vicinity; and
then, above him and a little to the north, he saw a flier similar to
his own, but obviously Asiatic. A bar of opalescence leaped out from
the little weapon in Pelton's hand, and the enemy pilot was no more.
The discoverer of the crystal ray was in the act of turning around to
join the "dog-fight" when a dozen or more bullets directed with an
uncanny accuracy swept down upon him from above. He was unhurt, but a
lead pellet had struck his weapon, destroying it completely. When he
looked up, clammy fear seized him; for he saw a black flier painted
with orange suns and piloted with a fiendish skill, diving straight
toward him. Every inhabitant of the United States would have recognized
that craft. It belonged to Saku, the ace who had shot more than a
hundred opponents from the sky!
Impelled by the instinct of self-preservation, Pelton shut off the
power from his gravitational screen. It was all he could do. He thought
that perhaps by a rapid dive he could escape the yellow ace; but it was
a vain hope. Even as he began to fall plummet-like toward the earth, a
gust of poisoned bullets ripped through his body. Probably his sense
swam, and it was certain that he felt no pain; for death in those cases
is a matter of an instant. Nevertheless a faint smile crossed his lips.
Against the blackness of the eternity that poured into his brain, he
seemed to see his name written so that people of the future would read
with awe, and after his name the words: "_He won the war!_"