The Great Movement Starts
Stunned and stupefied, Hilliard and I gazed out in that moment from our
window, out through the dusk above the air-city to where the cruiser
of our two friends had plunged to death. I think now that for those
first few moments neither of us was able completely to comprehend what
had happened, to comprehend what malign fate it was that had sent our
friends down to death there as they seemed making their escape. Staring
forth blankly, we saw the cruisers that had been pursuing them, that
had been overtaking them, turning back now toward the air-city, heard a
cheer rolling across that city as the crowds in its streets witnessed
the destruction of the fleeing craft, the flare of the shells that had
destroyed it. That great roaring cheer from beneath penetrated at last
into my brain with realization of what had happened.
"Macklin--Connell--" I whispered. "Macklin and Connell--gone--and the
last chance to warn our Federation gone--"
Hilliard's eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Our last chance," he
said.
Looking back, I think now that it was not the passing of our one chance
for freedom, nor the passing even of our one chance to carry Connell's
great secret homeward, that weighed upon us most in the following time.
It was the swift passing of our two friends, of Macklin especially, who
for long had formed with Hilliard and myself the trio that commanded
my cruiser, that stabbed us most in those first following hours and
days. Prisoned there as before, but two of us now where there had been
four, we waited now in a certain heedlessness for the doom that we
knew awaited us and our Federation. The wild break for freedom that
two of us had made and that had ended in those two's destruction, had
apparently not changed the plans of the European First Air Chief in
regard to us, and we knew that at the end of the designated fortnight,
less than ten days hence now, we must either reveal all our knowledge
of the American forces, which we could not do, or suffer death.
We knew, too, that even as Connell had guessed, it was at the end
of that fortnight, ten days hence, that the European and Asiatic
Federations planned to launch their final gigantic attack of
air-cities, since it was evident that they wished to gain their
information from us only to use it immediately in their attack. For now
below, in the city's base-compartments, the great new tube-propellers
that were to whirl it through the air at such terrific speed were
being completed, we knew, as in all the two hundred air-cities of the
European and Asiatic Federations. The long months of experimentation
over, it needed but weeks or days to rush those new tube-propellers
into place. And had Connell escaped with his secret it might well have
been, I thought, that even in the ten days left the new-type tubes
could have been swiftly manufactured by thousands and placed in all our
own American air-cities.
If Connell had escaped! But Connell had not escaped, Connell had
plunged to death with Macklin, amid the flaring heat-shells. Prisoned
there in our little cell, Hilliard and I despite that ever-approaching
doom almost paid no attention whatever to all outside and about us,
brooding there in silence hour upon hour as night followed day and day
night. We had not, even, the slightest further thoughts of escape,
although such thoughts would have been hopeless, for now our door
was never opened save by the full score of armed guards outside. So,
losing all thought and all hope of freedom, we sat on in our little
prison high in the mighty tower, dead to all the unceasing rush of
preparations and gathering of cruisers in the city about us.
But at last, upon the eighth day after the break of Connell and
Macklin, and the second day before our approaching doom, there came
an event which roused us suddenly from that renewed apathy into which
we had fallen. For days we had noticed that the crowds in the streets
were proving fewer and fewer, the only people now remaining being
groups of green-uniformed officials unceasingly moving in and out of
the headquarters there. There was finally made clear to us the reason
of their activities. For, as we gazed forth from our window on the
afternoon of that day, we seemed to sense a certain air of anticipation
in the people that remained. They swarmed forth into the great
air-city's streets; we heard in a moment more a strange great hissing
from far below us, all around the city's base and edge; and then were
aware that with that hissing sound and with a great tremor of power
that beat through all its colossal metal mass, the great air-city was
moving! Was moving not slowly and majestically as air-cities commonly
move, but was leaping forward through the air with sudden tremendous
speed. We knew now that most of the city's population had been removed
to the ground and the movement toward the west had started.
Now came excited roars from the crowds beneath, as the giant mass that
was Berlin leapt forward, and now as Hilliard and I leaned from our
window with an excitement almost as great we caught our breaths. For we
could see now, from the cloud-masses that lay beneath in the distance,
that the great air-city was cleaving the air at a speed that was
rapidly mounting to over a hundred miles an hour. Terrific winds were
whirling all about our power-tower, as it shot through the atmosphere,
and those same winds sweeping with titanic force through the city's
streets and about its towers forced the crowds in those streets swiftly
within the shelter of the structures. And still at ever-mounting speed,
the hissing of power and the tremendous roar of winds increasing
still, the mighty air-city was whirling on, its soaring towers of
metal swaying back beneath the awful winds of their progress, whipping
through high cloud-banks and out into clear air again, giving us
flashing glimpses from our own wind-swept window of the ground far
outward and beneath flashing back at immense speed as we shot onward,
as all the colossal city sped on, at a velocity that I knew by then
must be over a hundred and fifty miles an hour!
A colossal city, speeding through earth's atmosphere! Awed, despite
ourselves, Hilliard and I clung at our window there as with all else in
the city we sped on. A colossal city five full miles in its diameter,
with all its works and streets and giant batteries of heat-guns, and
rushing above earth at a velocity seeming almost unattainable! And even
as we watched, we felt the great city slanting upward with the same
terrific speed, climbing swiftly upward until the air about us was all
but freezing and then diving down toward earth once more on a long,
gliding swoop! Then it had turned in mid-air, was flashing back over
its course, was going through maneuver after maneuver until at last the
great hissing from its base ceased, and it hung at its former height
above the earth once more, the crowds in its towers surging forth now
to renew their excited shouts.
Last Preparations
Hilliard and I gazed for a long moment at each other. "The
tube-propellers they were putting in--finished--," he said slowly, "And
Berlin ready now for the great attack--"
"And all the other European Federation cities," I said, "and all those
of the Asiatic Federation--all must be nearly completed now, their new
tube-propellers installed also. And in two more days----"
In two more days! It was the thought that beat hammer-like in my brain
and in Hilliard's in those hours that followed, those hours that were
now closing down, one by one, upon the doom of ourselves and of all our
nation. Two more days! Two more days at the end of which would have
ended the fortnight of our imprisonment, when would come for us the
death that had loomed larger and larger during each of those passing
days. Two more days at the end of which the great air-cities of the
European and Asiatic Federations would rush like whirlwinds over the
oceans toward our own slow-moving and helpless cities, to beat them
down with all the thunder of their giant batteries. Two more days!--and
at the end of them for us and for all the great air-cities and all the
millions of the American Federation, doom!
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that in the following hours,
Hilliard and I felt close about us the intense despair that ever
since the ill-fated attempt of Connell and Macklin had surrounded us.
Through all that night following the first demonstration of the immense
speed of the air-city, we sat awake, listening to the great shouts of
triumph and exultation that came dimly up to us from the crowds that
remained in the streets far beneath. The European Federation, we knew,
already felt the glow of imminent victory that this new speed of their
great air-cities would give them, and were exultant at the chance to
annihilate completely the hated American Federation. And, to accomplish
that, the very last great preparations were going on now in every part
of the air-city.
Great loads of shining heat-shells were being transferred from the
stores that had been brought to Berlin, to the giant batteries of
heat-guns around the city's edge and its central plaza around the
electrostatic tower. The cruisers of the European battle-fleet, still
some two thousand in number, were resting on all the landing plazas,
and were being cared for and inspected by hordes of green-uniformed
attendants. All other air-craft were lowered into the great city's
base-hangars to be out of the way during the oncoming combat. By a
stroke of genius on the part of Berlin's commander, the power of the
great air-forts had been added to that of the city itself, by simply
placing the air-forts here and there on unused landing plazas, where
they formed in effect great armored gun-turrets on the city's surface.
And, finally, the mighty city's speed and power to maneuver had been
tested rigorously. With all its peoples inside its metal towers, it
was shot at terrific speed low and high above the earth; turning and
dipping and rising at that awful velocity like a flashing airplane
rather than a gigantic city of the magnitude it really had.
Through all the hours of that night, and the next day (the thirteenth
of our imprisonment) those great preparations, that unceasing rush
of excited activity, continued. Night came, and still the last
preparations were to be made; magazines were being filled, and
green-uniformed figures were swarming in countless numbers in the
streets; going about their maneuvers; battle-cruisers were moving
ceaselessly across the sky. During the hours of that night, as Hilliard
and I sat silent there, high above all the tremendous turmoil of the
streets and plazas below, we sometimes raised our eyes to watch also
the calm, slow march of the great constellations across the sky above;
glittering groups of stars that seemed to look down with cool and
contemptuous eyes upon all this mad flurry of human excitement and
human endeavor. Dozing a little now and then, we sat there until at
last dawn sent its rosy light across the world. It was the last dawn, I
knew, that Hilliard or I would look upon.
Now, it seemed, all the preparations in the giant air-city about us
were completed. The crowds that had moved in its streets during the
day and night before remained, but silent now with the thrill of
approaching combat. Tense and silent the city remained, as the sun
crept up toward the zenith through the morning hours of that fateful
day. And, high in our tower-cell, Hilliard and I found ourselves
gripped by the same tense feeling of anticipation. From our window as
we watched the city, we made out the west, a dark spot rushing through
the air toward Berlin, a spot that was growing steadily larger in size,
that was broadening out into a large dark disk; and then as it came
swiftly closer we saw with astonishment that it was a city, a giant
air-city almost as large as Berlin itself!
The Gathering of the Cities
We heard a stir of excitement in the streets below as that mighty
air-city came closer to us; then saw it slowing down until at last it
had come smoothly to rest out to the south of Berlin, hanging there
in mid-air a half-dozen miles away. It was London! Even as I had
recognized it, Hilliard had done so also. London! The great air-city
that held all southern England for the European Federation, could be
clearly recognized, not only by its size but by the somewhat different
architectural design of its metal towers and plazas. We could make
out clearly now the surface of the other city, its huge batteries of
heat-guns, and its great towers surmounted by a central pinnacle. And
now, as we scanned the horizon away to the north, we could see another
dark disk, another mighty air-city, rushing swiftly toward us!
"They're gathering!" Hilliard's voice was agonized. "Gathering--all the
air-cities of the European Federation! It's the beginning of the end."
"Gathering for their great attack," I said.
"God, if Connell and Macklin could have escaped!" Hilliard's cry burst
from his tortured soul. "If our own air-cities had only the speed and
the power to resist this attack!"
"Steady, Hilliard," I told him, my hand on his shoulder. "It's the end,
I think--the end for our Federation as well as ourselves--but we must
face it."
Now the air-city from the north was rushing closer, was hanging
northward of Berlin, and we saw that it was Stockholm. And, even as it
came to rest out there beside us, two other air-cities were rushing
up from the south; looming larger swiftly and identifying themselves,
when they too shot up to hang near our central city, as Geneva and
Rome. And then from the west were coming others, Paris and Brussels
and Amsterdam; while down from the cold east were speeding Moscow
and Helsingfors and Leningrad. City after city was rushing from all
quarters of the compass, from every part of the European Federation,
until they filled the sky. Through the hours of that afternoon we
watched their numbers grow until they numbered over a hundred. They had
come from every part of the earth, over which the European Federation
held sway. From the bleak eastern steppes, from the jagged peaks and
green valleys of the Pyrenees, from the great ice-locked fiords of the
north and from the blue plains of southern Africa, they were rushing
at colossal speed to gather here in a great circle about their capital
city--Berlin! Great air-cities, each of which flashed through the
air at the same tremendous speed, each of which bore upon it great
batteries of those giant heat-guns that nothing else in the air could
sustain, each of which held upon it a soaring electrostatic tower and
thousands of other clustered pinnacles. As in Berlin, the crowding,
seething millions of its peoples had been left on the ground quarters
prepared for them. The gathering of the cities! At last, with the
coming of sunset, all but the last few of the Federation's mighty
air-cities had gathered around Berlin!
By then, gazing out from our window high in the electrostatic tower,
Hilliard and I seemed to be looking across a single gigantic city
that stretched in mid-air as far as the eye could reach, so closely
were the scores of great hovering air-cities hanging together! It was
as though we were looking forth across an endless plain of clustered
towers of metal, from which rose here and there the higher pinnacle of
a city's power-source; a titanic plain of towers and streets of metal,
crowded with millions of the European Federation's soldiery. And, as
the blood-red sunset flamed eastward upon all this huge assemblage, now
waiting only for the last of their number, something seemed to snap in
my brain, and all the stoicism which I had summoned to meet our fate
and our nation's fate abruptly vanished.
"We _can't_ stay here while doom rushes upon our nation!" I cried
madly. "Since they start out tonight--since our time is up and we die
ourselves tonight--we'll go to death fighting for our freedom!"
But, now, it was Hilliard who endeavored to calm me. "It's useless,
Brant," he said. "A few hours more; then all will be rushing west while
the Asiatic Federation is moving east upon our air-cities. And at any
moment now, before that attack starts, they will be coming here for us."
"But they'll not take us to a death like that!" I exclaimed, a cold,
long-repressed fury surging up within me. "If we're to die we'll do it,
striking a blow at our enemies!"
Like a caged tiger I paced the little cell's interior, growing shadowy
and dusky now; the sun had disappeared. From the corridor outside came
the voices of the guards, and at any moment I expected the door to
swing open and admit those who would take us to a last examination at
which our silence would bring immediate death. Already, far out over
the great mass of scores upon scores of giant air-cities that filled
the air about us, a great, complicated pattern of brilliant lights
was gleaming through the deepened twilight; and now, from south and
east and west, the last of the great European Federation's air-cities
were assembling about that tremendous gathered mass of cities. Then,
as I turned from the metal door which I had been examining in blind
and futile rage, my eyes fell upon our bunk-racks and the strong but
slender strips of metal that held them out from the metal wall, against
which they were set diagonally. And, as I looked at them an idea, a
last flame of hope, burned into my brain, and I turned swiftly to
Hilliard.
"Those strips of metal!" I exclaimed, pointing toward them. "Those
bunk-supports--it's a chance to escape! A chance that means death,
Hilliard, I think--but death is upon us now in any case--"
Swiftly, almost incoherently, I explained to him the idea that had
suggested itself to me. I heard his breath catch as he comprehended
its appalling nature. Then I saw his eyes gleam as he realized that,
inasmuch as almost certain death awaited us, death in escaping could
not deter us, for we were already doomed. So, we grasped one of the
metal strips and tried with all our force to tear its lower end loose
from the metal wall. That lower end, set directly in the wall, seemed
integral with its metal; and, as we pulled upon the metal strip,
gasping with our great effort, muscles tired, we still kept on. We
had to work quietly lest some sound betray us to the guards without.
It seemed that we could never tear it loose. Straightening from the
violent exertion, with dizzy heads, muscles aching, we paused for a
moment, then reached to grasp the strip again, braced ourselves against
the wall and exerted all our force upon it. It held for a terrible
moment, then seemed to give, to bend--and then, with a little grating
sound, we had pulled the strip loose from the wall into which it had
been set.