SIXTY MINUTES
"Alan, will you be all right? Can you do it?"
"Yes, I must." He set his jaw grimly. "I must."
I touched his hand, where it rested on the projector; his fingers were
cold, but steady.
This forward gondola-cabin, hanging almost under the nose of the swift,
small ship, was silent, with only a low thrum audible from the rear
motors.
From where we sat, with Lea beside us at the projector, the wide
transparent windows gave us an unobstructed view forward and down. We
were rising now from the Hudson air-stage--a brief flight, and we would
be over the city roof. Sixty minutes! The world-power was off now; in
sixty minutes it would flash on again and our weapon would be useless.
Sixty minutes! A very little time! Yet, it can be an eternity.
The officials at the Hudson shops had said to Alan and me: "You know
this girl--and she knows the weapon--its operation. The Council ordered
that one of you operate it, with the girl beside you."
I looked at Alan. My heart was pounding. I wanted Alan to speak, and he
did not. It seemed that he never would. Then he said: "I'm older--I'll
do it, if--if they think I should."
No executioner at his switch in the little room behind an electric
chair of our day could ever have shuddered as Alan now must be
shuddering. But he held himself firm when once we were in the ship's
cabin. The controls, with a white-faced young pilot seated at them,
were near us. There were several other men in the cabin, with
observation instruments; and at a bank of mirrors, receivers and
audiphones three operators held us in close communication with the city
authorities. Our commander moved quietly about; seldom speaking; but
intent upon every detail.
Sixty minutes! Five of them were already gone when--with the
world-power dead at the Trinight Hour--we hastily stripped our
mechanism of its insulation and rose from the landing-stage. The
gigantic city loomed into the sky before us. The night was still
overcast.
We climbed steeply, then levelled, and presently we were over the city
roof; a thousand feet over it perhaps; and beneath us it spread in the
darkness like a great rolling expanse of soiled canvas.
We had not heard Nanette's voice again. Precautions were taken against
the eavesdropping. What Turber personally may have learned of our plans
we never knew. Nothing probably, until near the end. He had no warning
that the world-power was to be shut off. The battle everywhere in the
city was undiminished in its fury. It was raging down there now. Our
mirrors, here in the cabin, occasionally shadowed it, but there was no
other sign.
* * * * *
Turber had carried our tower Space. San was gone with the tower--with
orders from Lea to swing slowly past at intervals. The Turberites,
finding the tower was gone, left a guard there and swept on--fighting
our troops northward. The Hoboken power-house still was surrounded, but
holding out. The attack there seemed momentarily to have slackened as
Turber concentrated on his northern drive.
There was still no fighting on the roof. Our lines had withdrawn
northward as the Turber mobs swept north through the city. Most of this
roof area seemed deserted. We could make out occasionally the dark
forms of the Turberites patrolling this captured area. We crossed over
the Turber wall. The roof from this height was very little different
of aspect.
Our projector had not yet flashed. All our lights were carefully
hooded. But we thought that by now some Turber ship would have come up
to assail us. There had been occasional Turber patrol ships here all
day, but none were here now.
I thought that the harbor with its lacework of causeways and islands
must be beneath this area of the roof. It was difficult for me to
estimate. Far off, ahead to the right where the roof ended beyond
Staten Island, I could see the banks of lights that marked the great
Turber wall inclosing this end of his rural territory. There was no
ship in sight.
I murmured: "When do we turn it on, Alan?"
"Soon. When we get near where Turber houses the aero."
"Yes, but where is that? I don't know where we are."
We had no idea where the aero was either; but our orders were to attack
its usual housing place.
The pilot heard me. He said: "Approximately approaching Staten. We have
little information of the Turber city. But his aero is kept some two or
three miles farther ahead."
Our beam had an effective range of about fifteen hundred feet. From
this present altitude we would have to direct it almost vertically
downward.
* * * * *
Lea murmured something. We followed her gesture ahead through the
observation pane into the darkness of the sky. Our pilot saw it at
the same instant--a black shape looming--a Turber patrol ship rushing
at us! With all my air experience, my senses reeled as we dropped. I
gripped my bench. We made a forward loop--nose down.
I heard the rush of air as the Turber ship almost brushed us. We
righted. The pilot muttered an oath. Somebody said: "Where did it go?"
There was a flurry in the cabin.
We could see nothing in the darkness. We flew onward. Then we made out
the Turber ship, not following us, but flying north. As I turned to
gaze behind us, to the north on the roof-top fighting was beginning.
Torchlight gleamed--waving, moving lights there.
We caught some close details on our mirrors. Our troops had come
up and were assailing the Turber patrol lines. The Turberites were
falling back; but beneath us, in a moment, lines of re-enforcements
appeared. There were tracks here on the Turber-owned roof. We saw spots
of illumination where cars were loading with fighters to be rushed
north. Our image-finders showed the Turber ship. It had been rushing
north--like ourselves, without lights--to meet this roof attack. A rain
of missiles dropped from it.
Our commander said suddenly:
"Now, Tremont! Start here--ten degrees off the vertical, to the left
about another ten. Hold the course as you have it, Pierson."
Our orders to flash the beam! Alan and I set the range-dials. Lea with
nimble fingers made the last adjustments, wound the firing tensions,
and then crouched on the floor by the battery to handle the gauges of
its current-flow.
The projector-face swung downward through an opened aperture in the
window-shield. I focused it at the agreed-upon spreading of the beam.
From our instrument table some one sang out: "Eleven hundred feet
altitude here, Williams. Roof ahead averages nine to eleven hundred
under us--"
I made the adjustments; the beam would strike with a circle of light
about a hundred feet in diameter.
Alan's voice: "All ready, Ed?"
"Yes!"
He added: "Lea?"
In the dimness of our cabin interior I saw her white arm go up in
answer from where she crouched. She said: "Yes--ready."
Alan snapped on the current.
I sat back; I was limp and cold all over. There was nothing for me to
do. Nothing but watch--and listen.
The light-beam grew very slowly into being. A low whirring--a
trembling; it purred, this diabolic thing, like a smug cat licking its
lips. Purred, and then seemed to hiss as its anger grew. Whirring,
tiny vibrations of sound; they went up the scale in pitch; always
soft--higher until the thing was screaming with its microscopic voice.
Higher, faster until it faded away, too rapid for audibility.
But the low hiss and sputter of the current remained. And the
light-beam grew. Darkness at first; then a radiance of faint dull red,
streaming down from our projector; red and then up through the spectrum
to violet; then white. Cold white--nothing but the mingling of all
colors made too rapid for separate visibility.
A minute of this process. Our ship was hovering--horizontal propellers
holding us poised. Some one said:
"His vehicle ought to be about here."
Beneath us now was the same Space which in my Time held the Turber
Sanatorium! I gazed down our white, slightly spreading beam. It fell
on the roof here with a hundred foot circle of white illumination.
It showed a small metal house on the roof-surface, with a group of
Turberites on guard along a railed trestleway near it. They had
evidently been lounging about; they were on their feet now, surprised
by the light.
I stared, cold with fascination. I heard Alan murmur: "God!"
* * * * *
The men stood with upflung hands against the dazzling light. Stood
transfixed--and then tried to run. I saw one fall; another turn, waver
and crumple. Others, stronger, tried to stagger--weirdly swaying with
arms flinging wildly and legs bending, crumpling--they did not lie
mercifully still at once, but writhed gruesomely.
The figures were strewn in a moment. Some, near the edge of the circle,
got out of it and away. Confusion--horror down there. Other figures
came like frightened animals running into the light; stood stricken and
fell--or managed to get back.
Lea appeared beside me. She bent over Alan--showed him other
adjustments. The circle of light narrowed upon the small house.
I had been aware of a sound from below.
A throbbing--a rhythmic throb. The house and all this immediate section
of the roof was vibrating--trembling--shaking--
It grew louder. Like a pendulum, where at the end of each swing your
finger gives it an added push, the impulse of our beam was shaking this
little building--rocking this roof-segment.
A corner of the building split off and fell; a crack seemed to open in
the roof; the little house broke apart and slithered through the crack.
The human figures spilled down.
A jagged hole was here. The light bored down into it. A ragged broken
cross-section of the great city-structure. Our glimpse went down
through rending, clattering walls, falling ceilings, collapsing floors
and tiers. Human figures engulfed. A turmoil, a chaos of sound and
movement.
The destruction seemed to spread inward. One tier brought down another.
A widening jagged wound was here in the metallic city. It extended a
hundred or two hundred feet down from the roof level. But our range
from this altitude could go no deeper. Was the aero down there in some
fortified room underneath this tangled wreckage? Nanette, down there
perhaps, still alive--
"Move us along, Pierson. Tremont, spread the beam! We'll go down to
five hundred feet."
The roof broke in larger fragments as the light widened and intensified
with our descent. This whole section of the city must have been
quivering now; we could hear its ragged pulse, mingled with the rending
of metal, the crash and crack of trembling, collapsing interior walls.
With the first breaking of the roof insulation-barrage, our mirrors
began picking up interior images. I did not see them--I sat at the
projector with Alan, watching the widening break in the roof as our
beam bore down from this lower altitude. But I heard the comments of
the men behind me in the cabin. The panic of defeat was spreading
throughout the Turber-owned city. Mobs of Turberites, soon in a wild
rush to come this way; against all reason, rushing in a panic of terror
toward this quaking, falling area! Because the Time-aero was near here!
* * * * *
We realized it. But no Turber mob ever reached the vehicle. We found
later that it was fortified with metallic barriers. They shut off the
mob which tried for safety--barred those few who got past or around the
falling area.
The panic spread up north to the battle lines. The tide of the fighting
abruptly turned. The Turberite wolves, suddenly stricken with rumors
of defeat, began trying to withdraw. Our troops pursued them. Soon it
was a rout. I heard no orders--no talk of the taking of prisoners. Like
wolves trying to run, the Turberites were hunted down.
Lea plucked at me. I turned again to look back toward Manhattan. There
were torches everywhere on the roof to the north--our police troops,
suddenly heartened, were surging up triumphant and sweeping the enemy
back. In the glare of the lights the black Turber ship up there showed
as it winged away. Escaping--and in a moment one of our ships rose up
and took after it.
Some one said: "Look! The Turber Jersey landing-stage!"
Far ahead, where the city ended beyond the Staten Island section, a
group of Turber ships came up. Coming to attack us! The thought flashed
to me. But it was not so. Turber ships--escaping. They sped off to the
south, over the Turberite rural district.
I prayed that one of them might be carrying Nanette.
* * * * *
Someone said: "Forty minutes; twenty left!"
Had this all been only forty minutes?
"Pierson! Lower! There it is!"
We dropped nearly down to the roof level. The roof-structure was gone
now over a segment of fully a mile. The beam, with Alan oscillating it,
bathed the whole shattered area in white light. Indescribable scene of
ruin! A vast honeycomb of metal city, shaken into ruins as though by
some persistent earthquake; girders of metal piled in a tangled mass
like jackstraws. Stone and mortar; plaster; wood--all the innumerable
shattered substances strewn in a wreck inconceivable. Fires were
starting in a dozen places; lurid glare of red-yellow flames; black
smoke rolling up.
And sounds inconceivable--a torrent of crashes--explosions--and, I
think, an undertone built with the myriad screams of the dead and dying.
As we descended almost to the level of the hole where a huge slice of
the roof was dangling, our light struck into an open area of the city.
There was less wreckage here; we could see down to the ground level. It
was not very far down--a rise of ground was here; a hill--and it seemed
an open parklike space of metal pavement surrounded by high metallic
barriers.
They crumbled, these barriers, within a moment as the white beam caught
them. There had been a low roof over the park, but it was fallen.
The aero stood exposed, but still unharmed. It rested motionless on
the pavement. Our beam touched it. Horror surged at me. I gasped:
"Alan--" He swung the beam away. What he said I do not know. But he
had seen it--as I saw it; the white light always showed everything
with intense clear detail; the figure of Nanette standing in the aero
doorway! We could even see her now, dim but distinguishable--standing
there--wavering from the shock of the light as it had so briefly struck
her.
"Alan--don't!" An anguished cry that sounded like my voice; and our
commander's voice: "On the vehicle, Tremont! God, don't let it get
away!" The walls around the park were falling. There was a mingled
glare of our beam and the yellow light of the burning ruins near by. It
showed a man's figure appearing in the aero doorway; he jerked Nanette
backward into the interior. He stood for a moment in the doorway;
Bluntnose, the Indian! He flung up his arm like a signal. And other
figures showed, running forward. Turber; and Josefa. Trapped somewhere
in the city and just now arriving at the waiting Time-vehicle. Turber,
with his knowledge of the city labyrinth just now able to get here. His
figure, and the woman who clung to him, avoided our circle of light;
Alan in his confused horror had swung it farther away.
Instant impressions. A second or two while we sat cold and stricken.
Our commander's voice: "Tremont! Good God, man! Is that Turber?"
The commander bent over Alan and seized the projector. The light swung
to Turber and the woman. They staggered, but kept on. Then the woman
fell. She lay twitching. Turber left her. He stumbled, fell; but got
up. Gruesomely contorted--staggering with twitching steps. Almost
at the aero's entrance he fell again. Relief surged over me. The
aero, bathed in the white and yellow glare, went thin as a ghost. An
apparition--with the solid broken figure of Turber lying huddled. A
wraith of the vehicle. It was gone!
But only for a moment! Why, what was this? The horror surged back to
me. Unimaginable horror! The aero had gone. But had gone only a moment
into our future, and then had stopped. And in that moment we had caught
up with it.
As we stared at the empty space, with that passing moment the Time-aero
materialized again. It lay in a tangled, disintegrating heap of metal
with lurid green tongues of gas-flame licking at it!