A month went by in days and weeks of activity throughout the island. To
the Scientists it was a time of unparalleled stress and anxiety. The
government was in their hands for the first time in history, and a
war--the first that anyone of that time-world had ever faced--was
impending.
With Toroh's return his attack would not be long postponed. Fahn knew
it. The radio proclaimed it to the Bas everywhere. An army must be
trained at once; the Bas, Arans and Scientists were appealed to for
volunteers.
It was Fahn's plan not to wait for the Noths to land on the island; but
to anticipate the attack and send an army to meet it. The nation
responded to the appeal. Conscription had been considered, but within a
day the Bas had offered themselves in such numbers that it was obvious
any form of conscription would be unnecessary.
The second day after the radio appeal for volunteers, the fact became
evident that the Arans were refusing to go to war. In every village
recruiting stations were listing the names of the young men of the Bas
who presented themselves, but no Arans came. By the audible broadcasting
Fahn called them severely to account; but still they remained in hiding.
They were sought out. Cowardice, sullenness, declaration that their
birthright made it unnecessary--they seemed to have a score of reasons,
but the fact remained they would not willingly serve.
Scenes of violence were reported the next day. A Bas father, giving two
sons to the coming war, had struck down an Aran youth whom he
encountered; a party of Bas, angered into unlawfulness, had entered an
Aran household in Orleen and beaten a group of Arans who were holding
festivities; an Aran woman had been killed.
"Serves them right," George exclaimed indignantly. "I'd kill them all."
Fahn was perturbed, but then he shrugged. "We have far more young men
from the Bas than we can use. I shall tell them to ignore the Arans. And
in warfare such as this, an unwilling fighter is worse than none."
"Damned cowards," George muttered. "We'll save their hides for 'em,
while they stay home and have parties."
The Scientist had caught the words. "Yes, George, because now that is
easiest for us. I want no trouble here on the island. But
afterward--when we have won--_then_ we can deal with the Arans."
"I wouldn't have 'em on the island," George declared. It would have been
an unfortunate Aran youth who encountered George during the days that
followed.
The recruiting, hand in hand with the manufacturing activities of the
cavern, went steadily on. In every principal village the Bas youths were
registered and drilled, as yet without weapons. Officered by older men
of the Bas, they waited for the equipment and orders to come to them
from Anglese City.
The information Fahn had regarding Toroh and his Noth army was vague,
unsatisfactory; its very meagerness seemed to forecast disaster.
Somewhere beyond the mountains the Noths were gathering along the
Atlantic Coast. Hordes of men and fighting dogs were coming southward.
But their scientific weapons were practically unknown. The thunderbolt
globes--of what power Fahn could not say--were all that he was positive
they possessed.
It was Toroh's trip back into time that seemed to hold the greatest
menace. He had secured some apparatus. What was it? Something
invincible, perhaps; something so completely different from anything
with which the Anglese were familiar that they could not hope to cope
with it.
There were no answers to these questions.
The flying lens--the only one the Anglese possessed--had been destroyed.
Others were now being hastily constructed, and with them Fahn intended
to reconnoiter extensively over the Noth territory. The information thus
attained would be immensely valuable.
The principle of this radio-controlled flying platform, as Fahn had
said, was newly invented. It was not yet wholly practical. The dais at
the Festival was the first crude model; the flying lens was the second.
It had been so successful a model for a beginning that Fahn was
encouraged to use it with a broader scope. Larger platforms were now
being built, and thunderbolt projectors were to be mounted on
them--projectors with an effective radius of a thousand feet. A number
of these flying platforms would constitute a mechanical army. Controlled
by radios whose operators stayed safely at home, it could be sent forth
to battle--with the human army to follow behind it.
The perfecting of the electric fabric repulsive to the earth--an
invention revived out of the past and brought to practicability only
within the last few months--was the basis of the equipment for the
Anglese army now being mobilized. It was kept secret until the last
moment.
Two weeks after George's return, the first flying organization was
equipped. Two hundred young men selected from the ranks of the
Scientists began drilling secretly at night in an open space near
Anglese City. Among them were George and Loto. For the men from our
time-world, the experience was the most extraordinary they had ever
undergone. The fabric was like thin black gauze. A loose suit of it
encased each man, bound tightly at his wrists, throat and ankles. About
his waist was strapped a broad, cloth belt with several pockets in which
to carry various weapons. There was some sort of a battery attached to
the belt, from which a current was turned into the gauze suit.
One of Fahns assistants came over to George and adjusted the current to
his normal weight, while George stood eyeing the man fearsomely. He
could feel the current as it was turned on. It was not unpleasant; it
made him tingle all over.
In another moment George was ready. Thin cloth slippers were on his
feet; by the pressure against the soles he felt as though he weighed not
more than five pounds. Involuntarily, he clutched at Loto, who stood
beside him. He felt that a breath of wind would blow him away.
"Let go," Loto grinned. "Make a leap, George."
Obediently George leaped gingerly into the air. He floated upward,
turned over, arms and legs flying, and floated downward, landing gently
on his face in the sand. But after a few trials he could hold his
balance; the air seemed fluid, like water. With wings fastened to his
arms and legs, he could have swum through it.
He suggested that to Loto. "Why, with practice, a man could swim through
the air, darting about like a fish through water."
Loto laughed. "You'd make a fine inventor, George. That probably was the
first crude way it was used. But later they developed a much better way
of propulsion, and we have revived it now."
The motive power consisted of a single metal cylinder to be held in the
left hand--an apparatus which in weight and shape was not unlike an
ordinary flashlight. As George understood its fundamental principle, the
thing altered the density of the air in whatever direction it was
pointed.
Loto tried to explain it with as few technical words as he could. A
spreading, invisible ray from the cylinder penetrated the air for a
distance of some ten feet. It separated the molecules of the air, drove
them apart. Its action was incredibly swift.
"Well?" demanded George.
"The atmosphere exerts a pressure here of some sixteen pounds to the
square inch," Loto said. "The air immediately in advance of this
cylinder mouth is almost instantly thinned out. The ray charges the
molecules of air and makes them slightly repellent. The result is,
George, that immediately in advance of your body the atmospheric
pressure is somewhat lessened. Thus, your body moves forward, pushed by
the air pressure from behind."
The cylinder had a sliding lever by which its ray was turned on or off.
George held it over his head and moved the lever. His body left the
ground and shot straight up at increasing speed. There was no rush of
wind toward him; instead the air from below seemed to be wafting him
upward.
The ground was dropping away. Fifty feet! A hundred feet! Panic struck
George; all he could think of to do was shut off the cylinder power. At
once he floated down, turning over helplessly. He landed quite gently,
several hundred feet from where he had started, with Loto running there
to meet him, laughing at his discomfiture.
You couldn't very well get hurt, that was the beauty of the thing.
George plunged enthusiastically into learning how to handle himself in
the air.
With a week this organization of two hundred Scientist young men were
fairly expert with the new flying apparatus. There were several thousand
Bas youths now registered in different parts of the island; but the
suits and air cylinders for them were not ready. Finally, another
hundred were released, and at Anglese City, Mogruud, the Bas leader, and
a hundred selected Bas young men began learning to use them.
In spite of the indignant protests of Loto and George, both Fahn's
daughters urged that they be allowed to try the apparatus, and Fahn gave
his permission.
"I have no sons to give," he said quietly. "And this warfare is of
skill, not strength or endurance. If my girls can help their country, it
is their duty--and mine--to make the sacrifice."
With this precedent, other Scientist girls--several at Orleen, and
twenty at Anglese City--enthusiastically volunteered. Without exception,
the girls proved superior to the men. The new art demanded a deft
agility, a quickness of thought and movement, which seemed to come to
the girls more naturally.
Within a few days, Azeela and Dee could dart through the air with
incredible dexterity. The cylinder held in the left hand could be
pointed quickly in any direction and the body would be drawn that way.
Dee, especially, became proficient. She could dart upward, turn, come
swooping down head-first or with slow somersaults, graceful as a dancer,
to right herself a few feet above the ground and land on tiptoe.
The result of the girls' proficiency was that they were organized into a
separate squad. There were twenty-eight girls in all; thirteen commanded
by Azeela, and thirteen by Dee.
During all this time, the Arans had remained in seclusion, keeping off
the streets as much as possible. The Bas, drilling without weapons, were
eager to be equipped. The king and his council confined themselves to
the palace at Anglese City.
There were no boats on the island except crude sailing canoes. A few of
the newly equipped flying corps went northward; but Fahn, anticipating
the completion of other flying lenses, ordered them not to cross the
channel. In the cavern, day and night, operators watched the mirrors,
flashing the viewpoints from every coast tower on the island, to guard
against a surprise attack.
A month had passed since George's return in the plane. He had suggested
several times that the plane might be used in the war. But Rogers
refused this. George had exhausted the proton current to the point where
there was barely enough left for a return to Roger's time-world. And the
plane in itself, as a means of flying through space, would have been of
little value in this warfare.
The flying discs, mounted with observing lenses and thunderbolt
projectors, were now ready. They were sent out one night, controlled
from the cavern.
It was the first aggressive act of the war; a mechanical army sweeping
northward to attack the enemy.
In the cavern room, Fahn and his friends sat watching the mirrors, which
showed the scene from the viewpoint of the flying mechanisms.
The discs swept northward, following the coastline. Beyond the
mountains, far ahead, loomed a great encampment close to the shore, dim
and vague in the moonlight. In a few minutes the mechanisms would be
there.
Suddenly, one of the mirrors in operation went black. In the others, the
scene showed that Toroh was sending up some opposing mechanisms. Dots of
silver were mounting from the encampment. They floated slowly upward,
but they seemed to seek out the Anglese flying platforms, pursuing them
as though with human intelligence.
One by one the mirrors were going black, as the flying lenses were being
destroyed. In a moment only one was left. It was almost over Toroh's
encampment--almost in range where it could have discharged its bolt.
In the mirrored scene, a white dot was growing as it came closer to the
lens. Its image grew; it resolved itself from a dot, so what Fahn saw
was a thin, gleaming disc. It looked as though it might be whirling. The
thing turned, pursued the lens, overtook it--the last mirror went dark.
The operators, greatly upset, left their instruments and gathered around
Fahn. Toroh had sent up some unknown mechanisms; the flying thunderbolt
platforms had crashed to the ground before any of them had come within
range of the enemy.
It was during this same night that Toroh first used his audible
broadcasting beams. Fahn's audible voices in the air had constantly been
encouraging his people. Now, abruptly, the air burst forth with other
voices. Somewhere in the mountains across the channel, Toroh had erected
a broadcasting station. He was sending threats through the air to the
Anglese!
It was a surprise, and it disturbed Fahn greatly. Everywhere on the
island aerial voices of the enemy were leering, threatening, boasting of
the coming triumph of the Noths. Would the Bas be intimidated? It might
be disastrous; with the defeat of the flying discs, Fahn was depending
more than ever now upon the Bas army.
All that night and next day, the sender from the cavern sent forth its
cheering messages.
By the following noon information began coming to Anglese City that the
Bas were apparently not alarmed. They were jeering back at Toroh's
aerial voices; but they were demanding vigorously that the Scientists
give them weapons.
"In a week we shall be ready," Fahn told Rogers. "Five thousand
air-pressure cylinders are now in the last process of manufacture. The
other weapons are ready. One week more is all we need."
Amid Toroh's aerial threats that day had come the reiterated, triumphant
statement that in two weeks more his attack would come. Two weeks still!
It was more than Fahn had hoped for.
The statement was Toroh's trickery. Eighteen hours later--the next
morning at dawn--a member of the aerial patrol over the channel returned
hurriedly to Anglese City with the news that Toroh's expedition had
started by water. Huge barges were coming down the coast, pulled by the
giant dogs swimming before them--_barges crowded with men and dogs and
apparatus_.
That morning was one of almost complete chaos. The invaders would enter
the channel near Anglese City. The thunderbolt projectors which had been
distributed thinly about the coast were rushed eastward and
concentrated at the channel-mouth. There was no time now to equip the
main Bas army. The attack would have to be repelled by the coast
defense, and by the small aerial army already formed: one hundred Bas
led by Mogruud; two hundred Scientists with whom Loto and George were to
serve, and the twenty-six Scientist girls, led by Azeela and Dee.
That morning the aerial voices ordered every able-bodied Bas man on the
island to come toward Anglese City with every dog that could be
procured. If the invaders landed, the dogs could best oppose them.
It was at this juncture that the king announced the change of his royal
capital to Orleen. The royal family, the councilors, their
retainers--all fled in their dog carriages from Anglese City. Orleen,
much further down the channel, would be safe. News of the king's action
spread over the island. Arans from everywhere fled after him, huddling
in Orleen.
In the confusion of those hours, the contempt for the Arans passed
almost without comment. Orleen was the safest place, and the Bas
there--men and women both--scornful of remaining among the cowards, came
eastward.
By noon the flying army was fully accoutered and waiting in a field near
Anglese City. Loto, equipped to remain in constant telephonic
communication with Fahn, was virtually the leader. George, with his
several weapons in his belt, stood beside Loto. Mogruud had his hundred
Bas around him. The girls were in two small groups apart.
At a signal from Fahn, the little army rose swiftly into the sunlit sky.
The watching throng was stricken silent with awe. The figures in the air
arranged themselves in a broad arc, with the officers in front, and then
swept forward, over the channel toward the mountains and the distant
sea.