I rose again, high in the air, and urged my birds forward. Beneath me,
the scene of battle spread out like a map of three dimensions. Far down,
our boats showed as tiny blobs speeding through the west channel.
They were fast, but not so fast as the squadron of flying girls.
Sonya came leading them upward. They passed me, a giant flying wedge
heading over Talon’s rafts. There were four rafts, three close to the
shore, perhaps for protection of the land force. But one of the rafts
was farther out, separated from the others. It was still several miles
beyond the north tip of Virgins’ Island.
Sonya’s squadron was the first to make contact with the enemy. The girls
headed for this isolated raft. They were ten thousand feet or more above
it. My heart was heavy with apprehension. I could see the black rays
from the raft standing up into the air. Would they reach that high?
It seemed not. The girls went safely over them, wheeled, and came back.
They had dropped a bomb. I saw a glowing spot of light as it fell. It
struck the water, wide of the raft. A surge of water mounted upward,
with a spot of red light where the bomb had burst, then another, a score
of them. I began to hear their sharp reports.
The raft was lashed by the waves, but still unhit. But the brutemen
pulling it were disorganized, many of them killed, no doubt. The raft
stopped its forward progress. Its black beam wavered, then seemed to
connect into one narrow black ray.
It shot up through the girls, cut a wide swath through them. Some
wavered, came fluttering down, falling, recovering, limping slowly back
toward Kalima, struggling to keep above the water. Others fell like
plumets into the sea. Half our girls, undoubtedly, were killed or
wounded by that single black blast.
Our boats swept through the channel. Three stopped in midstream; seven
surged on. Lights flared, our lurid but penetrating red flare of light
went up in an arc from one of our halted boats, and burst over Talon’s
land force. It seemed that thousands of figures were there on the land.
They had spread out from the road; over by the bluff, just beyond the
north end of the channel, they were erecting a huge piece of apparatus.
The light flares died. But the gunners on our three boats which had
stopped in the channel had the range. I could see the streams of their
electronic needles, straight paths to the shore. Dim violet beams, with
white radiance where the great metallic needles were striking Talon’s
army.
There must have been a chaos on shore. Then from a projector there in
the darkness, a great hissing rose. A yellow glow, almost like the
moonlight, became visible. It waved, fanshaped from its source: a light
that lingered, persisted in the darkness, spread until all along that
section of the shore it hung like hovering yellow smoke, a barrage
against which our electronic needles launched harmlessly. I could see
them materialized into white solidity as they struck it, then flaring
red, and yellow as they fused and burned.
The gunners on our boats tried curving their beams. Some were effective,
curving in a great violet arc, up over the barrage, or sidewise around
its edges. I judged that some were finding their mark, though the
barrage was constantly shifted to check them.
The scene everywhere was now a chaos of flashing colored lights. The
girls who had escaped the black blast had wavered, gone higher. Their
bombs were falling wide; the sea everywhere here was lashed into foam
where the bombs were bursting. A chaos of light, sound and smell:
mingled electrical hums, the pungent, acrid electronic odors, the hiss
of the flares, the sharp crack of the exploding bombs.
The girls for a moment withdrew, off to one side, very high up. They
could not hit their marks; the black beams from the rafts, now spread
purely for defense, rose cone-shaped, a cone extending widely over them
to protect their swimmers. The bombs, those few that were accurately
aimed, exploded in mid-air, as they struck the cone.
A chaos of swift, simultaneous action was everywhere taking place. Our
great projectors on the flying platforms opened fire, downward at the
rafts. But now from shore a solid black beam suddenly came sweeping out.
It caught one of our platforms. The birds fell. The platform, its
insulation inadequate, shriveled on the colorless blast, and went down,
a tangled mass of birds and struggling human figures.
The beam swung. It caught another platform, and another. All six—the
only six we had—were surprised by it, caught there, low over the
channel, before they could escape. One by one they were crashing down
into the water. The last one tried to dive; it was struck just as it
neared the water level.
This black beam from Talon’s shore projector was raking the channel from
end to end. It seemed to have a range of several miles—a longer range
than any of our weapons. It destroyed our six platforms, and then swung
upward at our girls. But they were just beyond it. They wavered as they
felt its effect, and then went higher and farther away.
Talon’s white light flares were now continuous from shore. The scene was
a dazzling glare of white, with alternating periods of blackness. The
black beam, guided by the white flares, sought other victims. It swung
on our boats, three of which were bombarding the shore, the other seven
heading for Talon’s rafts.
The three closest ones caught the black blast full. It burned through
their insulating shields, as it had burned the platforms. One boat sank
like a stone. Another up-ended; the third tried to retreat.
But its animals evidently were caught at the water surface and
destroyed. It lay there, its needle-beam wavering. Then it, also, was
hit full by the black beam. It shriveled, disappeared. The water down
there was gruesome with black struggling figures.
The beam swung after our other seven boats. They were headed to attack
the rafts. They felt the beam but they were farther away, and their side
insulation withstood it. I roared orders at them, and by some miracle my
voice got through. Alice answered me.
“Head back!” I commanded. “Around the island. Into the east channel.”
It was all very swift. I had been fairly high and about a mile away when
the black beam began its deadly work. It flashed by me several times,
but my lone platform, with its six birds, was a small, inconspicuous
object. The beam missed me; its handlers were evidently after bigger
game.
In my ear Maxite’s voice sounded, “Keep the girls away, Leonard!
Retreat! Our land forces are too close!”
I gave the orders. Maxite’s pink blobs of fire were constantly arriving
from Kalima. He had seen our disaster. The black beam mounted on the
shore seemed impregnable, unless perhaps from the rear I could assault
its gunners with the Frazier thought-beam. I told Maxite my plan and he
approved.
I swept back toward the Virgins’ Island. I would go back and come up
over the west mainland, flying low. I could make such speed that in a
few minutes I would be behind Talon’s barrage. Talon’s rafts were all
well out from shore now, gathered in a group.
I swung within a mile of them. Their black, cone-shaped barrage was over
them. They had made no attack, except the one upward blast at the girls,
and no attack now was being made on them.
During those brief moments when we had bombed them, their swimming
brutemen must have suffered severe loss. Many dove, and climbed to the
rafts. But some were still swimming.
The rafts were heading slowly for the north tip of the in the other
channel.
My birds were flying with tremendous speed. Occasionally I passed
wounded birds, and wounded girl riders clinging desperately to them,
trying to get back to Kalima.
I sailed over the island, toward Kalima, and then turned and passed
inland above the road. Jim’s forces were drawn up in an arc, extending
from the sea, back inland some half mile.
The heavy insulating shields were erected at intervals. The projectors
were ready, and our wind projector was erected at the shore. It seemed a
safe condition. Five miles or more of open country was between this line
and Talon’s black beam. I could not see the beam from here.
But Talon’s yellow shore-barrage glowed clearly. Save for that radiance,
the scene up there was now dark. A lull had come to the battle. The
first engagement in which we had been so decisively worsted, was over. A
momentary lull it was, while Talon seemed waiting to see what we would
do next.
The scene was dark and silent. The night was darker now as well. Black
clouds obscured the moon and all the stars to the north. And in the
silence I heard a low muttering thunder.