_Emergency Order_
The throat of the old volcano was a pit of blackness in the midst of
gray ash and the red-yellow of cinders. Beside it were other flecks of
color: red, moving bodies; metal, that twinkled brightly under the
desert sun--and in an instant they were gone. Nor did Smithy, throwing
the thundering plane close over that place, know how near he had
passed to sudden, invisible death. Rugged pinnacles of rock were
ahead. The plane under Smithy's hands vaulted over them and roared on
above the desert.
"Did you see them?" Smithy was shouting.
The man in the forward cockpit turned to face his pilot. "I am
apologizing, Smith, for all the things I have been thinking and
haven't said. We've got a job on our hands. Now let's find that fool
sheriff who thinks he's hunting for drunken Indians. We must warn
him."
Smithy wondered at the wisps of blue smoke still rising from the ruins
of Seven Palms as he drove in above it. It seemed years since he had
left the Basin, yet the wreckage of this little town, only five miles
outside, still smoldered.
Colonel Culver was shouting to him. "East," he said. "Swing east.
There's fighting over there." Then, in his usual cool tone: "I'll take
the ship, Smith. Give then a burst or two from up here--perhaps the
sheriff can use a little help."
Across the yellow sand ran a desert road. Ten miles away black smoke
clouds were lifting. Smithy knew there had been a little settlement
there. A dozen houses, perhaps, and a gasoline station. At half that
distance the clear sunlight showed moving objects on the sand:
automobiles, smaller dots that were running them. They came suddenly
to sharp visibility as the plane drew near. Tiny bursts of white meant
rifle fire.
They were a thousand feet up and close when Smithy saw the first car
vanish in flame. Others followed swiftly. Men were falling. A dozen of
them had made up the sheriff's posse, and now, like the cars, they,
too, burst into flame and either vanished utterly or, like living
torches, were cast down upon the sand.
Still no sign of the enemy, more than the ripping stab of green fire
from a sand dune at one side. They were over and past before Smithy,
looking back, saw the red ones leap out into view.
* * * * *
Culver must have seen them in the same instant. He throttled down to a
safe banking speed. Opened full, the DeGrosse would have whipped them
around in a turn that would have meant instant death. From five miles
distant they shot in on a long slant. Smithy's hands were off the
stick. It was Culver's ship now.
He saw the man peering through his sights, then the roar of the motor
held other, sharper sounds. Thin flames were stabbing through the
propeller disk, and he knew that the bow guns were sending messengers
on ahead where red figures waited on the sand.
Their trajectory flattened. Culver half rolled the ship as they sped
overhead. "He wants a look at them," Smithy was thinking. Then a blast
of heat struck him full in the face.
It was Smithy's hand on the stick that righted the ship; only the
instant response of the big DeGrosse motor tore them up and away from
the sands that were reaching for those wings.
His face was seared, but the pain of it was forgotten in the knowledge
that their drunken, twisting flight had whipped out the fire licking
back from the forward cockpit. He saw Culver's head, fallen awkwardly
to one side. The helmet in one part was charred to a crisp.
He leveled off. He was thinking: "Another man gone! Can't I ever fight
back? If I only had a gun!" Then he knew he was looking at the pistol
grip, where Colonel Culver's brown hand had brought an awkward weapon
to life. His lips twisted to a whimsical smile, though his eyes still
held the same cold fury, as he whispered: "And I don't even know that
the damn thing's loaded--but I'm going to find out!"
* * * * *
They were clustered on the sands below him as he roared overhead. He
was flying at two thousand, the throttle open full. Beside the ship a
gun swung its long barrel downward. It sputtered almost
soundlessly--but where it passed, the sand rose up in spouting
fountains.
But his wild speed made the gunfire almost useless. The shell-bursts
were spaced too far apart; they straddled the blot of figures.
He came back at five thousand feet, slowly--until the ship lurched,
and he saw the right wing tip vanish in a shower of molten metal. He
threw the ship over and away from the invisible beam; the plane
writhed and twisted across the last half mile of sky. He was over them
when he pulled into a tight spiral, then he swung the pistol grip that
controlled the gun until the dot in the crystal was merged with the
target of clustering red forms. The gun sputtered.
Below the plane, the quiet desert heaved its smooth surface
convulsively into the air. Even above the roar of the motor Smithy
heard the terrific thunder of that one long explosion.
Above the rim of the forward cockpit Culver's head rolled uneasily;
his voice, thick and uncertain, came back through the phone; and
later--only a matter of minutes later, though fifty miles away--Smithy
set the plane down on a level expanse of sand and tore frantically at
his belt. Colonel Culver was weakly raising his head.
* * * * *
"What hit us?" he demanded when Smithy got to him. "Did I crash?" He
looked about him with dazed eyes from which he never would have seen
again, but for the protection of his goggles.
"Fire," said Smithy tersely. "They did it, the devils, and it wasn't a
flame-thrower, either. There wasn't a flash of their cursed green
light. It just flicked us for a second. You got the worst of it. Your
half roll saved us. That thing, whatever it was, would have ripped our
left wing off in a second."
He was looking at the forward cockpit where the metal fuselage was
melted. The leather cushioning around the edge was black and charred.
Culver's helmet had protected him, but half of his face was seared as
if it had been struck by a white flame.
"But we got some of them: they know we can hit back...." Smithy began,
but knew he was speaking to deaf ears. Again his passenger had lapsed
into unconsciousness.
Quickly he disconnected their own radio receiver and threw on the
emergency radio siren. Ahead of them for a hundred miles an invisible
beam was carrying the discordant blast. Then, with throttle open full,
regardless of levels and of air traffic that tore frenziedly from his
path, he drove straight for the home field.
* * * * *
In the office of the Governor, the radio newscaster was announcing
last-minute items of interest. The Governor switched off the
instrument as Smithy entered, supporting the tall figure of Colonel
Culver, whose face and head were swathed in bandages. Culver had
insisted upon accompanying him for the rendering of their report,
though Smithy had to do the talking for both of them.
He outlined their experience in brief sentences. "And now," he was
saying grimly, "you can go as far as you please, Governor. You've got
a man's sized fight on your hands. We don't know how many there are of
them. We don't know how fast they'll spread out, but--"
A shrill wail interrupted him. From the newscasting instrument came a
flash of red that filled the room. The crystal, the emergency call,
installed on all radios within the past year and never yet used, was
clamoring for the country's attention.
Governor Drake sprang to switch it on, and tried to explain to Smithy
as he did so. "It's out of my hands now," he said. "Washington has--"
Then the radio came on with a voice which shouted:
"Emergency order. All aircraft take notice. Mole-men"--Smithy started
at the sound of the word; it was the name he had given them
himself--"Mole-men are invading Western states. A new race. They have
come from within the earth. In Arizona, three ships of the
Transcontinental Day Line, Southern Division, have been destroyed with
the loss of all passengers and crew. Shattered in air.
"It is war, war with an unknown race. Goldfield, Nevada, is in ruins.
Heavy loss of life. Federal Government taking control. Air-Control
Board orders traffic to avoid following areas...."
There followed a list of locations, while still the red crystal blazed
its warning across the land and to all aircraft in the skies. Southern
California, Arizona, Nevada--Southern Transcontinental Routes closed;
all except military aircraft grounded in restricted areas.
* * * * *
Smithy's excitement had left him. In his mind he was looking far off,
deep under the surface of the world. "They've been there," he said
quietly, "thousands of years. A new race--and they've just now learned
of this other world outside. Three ships downed! They picked them off
in the air just as they tried to do with us. I knew we had a fight on
our hands."
His voice died to silence in the room where now the new announcer was
giving a list of the dead--a room where men were speechless before an
emergency no man could have foreseen. But Smithy's eyes, gazing far
off, saw nothing of that room. Again he was seated on an outthrust
point of rock, Dean Rawson beside him, and from the black depths
beneath a man's voice was rising clearly, mockingly it seemed, in
song:
"You're pokin' through the crust of hell
And braggin' too damn loud of it,
For, when you get to hell, you'll find
The devil there to pay!"
"The devil is there to pay," Smithy repeated softly. He leaned across
and placed one hand on Colonel Culver's knee. "With your assistance,
Colonel, I'd like to go down there and find him. You and I, we know
the way--we'll organize an expedition. Maybe we can settle that debt."