When the Red Roof Fell
Abruptly a green light ran through the rosy haze beneath us, and
that dreadful twisting bar of radiance--that living, alien tongue of
fire--the serpent-like head of the Lord of Flame, was thrust up out of
the flickering violet! With its strange, writhing motion, it swept in a
wide arc, as though it saw us! It searched the sky, and then drew back
in alarm! The terrible, rhythmic throb of the emerald gleam in it grew
faster!
And quickly the crimson sky ahead of our flying army of green-winged
monsters was filled with fleets of the silver spheres! They rose
swiftly, by the hundred, in long, gleaming lines--floating, drifting,
darting, as though carried in swift, cyclonic winds. And then in
smoothly sailing squadrons they advanced to meet us, with the swirling
green mists of the disintegration force reaching out before them!
The aerial battle-lines met! The winged monsters joined in mad conflict
with the silver ships! It was a fierce struggle--a terrible scene! The
plant-things swept to the attack, scores in number for each great ship.
With desperate, incredible energy they wielded their gigantic clubs
and spears; or, wheeling high above the silver vessels, dropped their
missiles down upon them.
And the swift searching fingers of purple flame reached out of
the silver ships, to guide the thick, swirling vortexes of atomic
disintegration. Under that terrible force of flowing green, the plant
creatures turned red, battled on for a moment as they glowed with an
awful scarlet radiance, and fell in a rain of crimson sparks that fast
faded into nothingness!
And ever the throbbing emerald column rising above the sea of ruby mist
below us--the writhing serpentine bar of green that was the Lord of
Flame--moved and twisted, directing its armies!
The plants battled with desperate ferocity, with incredible strength!
In ones and twos and threes, the silver vessels fell, in twisted,
battered wreckage--fell among the showers of sparks from the vanished
creatures that had crushed them!
It was a battle of animal strength and courage, of desperate, savage
energy--against deliberate, inhuman science! It was the battle of the
mad, elemental beast--against silent, pitiless power!
And the plants won!
As the monsters that carried Sam and Xenora and myself swept along high
above the line of battle, we saw the silver ships give way, saw them
drop into the red mist, with the avenging, victorious plants following
close upon them!
And then my mine went off!
A vast white cloud of smoke and shattered rock rose deliberately above
the cliffs, spread into a Titanic mushroom shape, and fell in a great
rain of débris into the abyss and into the lake. After many seconds the
sound of it reached us--a crashing, deafening blast! The great wave of
air swept up the green-winged fleet like leaves on a stormy lake!
Below the cloud of smoke, where the black cliffs had been, I saw a vast
white sheet of waters--a rushing Niagara multiplied manifold--plunging
over the brink in a sheer and gleaming arc!
Even as I gazed at it, in dazed wonder at the thing I had wrought, Sam
was suddenly close beside me, shouting something with alarm and urgent
command in his voice.
"Mel--the roof! Where is the Omnimobile? For God's sake----"
"In a crater in the abyss, by the metal cylinder," I cried, wondering.
Then I looked up, and saw that the flat roof was cupping up, like a
vast inverted basin! The waters above were rising!
With no further word to me, Sam shouted a strange order to the monsters
we rode. Their vast green wings were folded! We dropped like plummets
into the crimson mist! The violet gleam appeared, and we made out the
crater-pitted floor. I shouted directions, and in a few minutes we
settled into the same little crater in which I had met disaster.
The Omnimobile was still lying there, just as I had left it!
The creatures that bore us dropped near the ground. Those great red
tentacles set us gently down on the rocks by the machine. Sam led the
way and I carried Xenora. Desperately we scrambled aboard and screwed
down the manhole. Sam's mount, Alexander, slumped into a curious
attitude of dejection.
Suddenly one of the silver vessels shot into view above the crater's
rim, drifting swiftly towards us! The machine was watched! It had been
left as a trap! The thing flashing beams of purple flame reached out
eagerly--found the Omnimobile. The whirling spirals of thick green mist
extended toward us!
Sam fumbled with the dials and made a hopeless gesture. Then I saw
Alexander spring into the air and fly toward the terrible gleaming
thing! With mad, desperate speed, the plant creature dashed straight
into that fearful swirling mist! It charged on through it! Already
glowing red with the disintegration beam, it struck the white machine
with terrific force!
The argent globe paused, hung uncertainly, and then fell with swift
acceleration until it crashed upon the walls of the pit, with the
gleaming, wasting form of the heroic plant still clinging to it in the
agony of a fearful doom!
For a long moment Sam was still. Suddenly he aroused himself as if from
a daze of pain, and turned again to the instrument boards.
"The earth is not frozen!" he shouted. "The power in the ether is
dead!" I thought of the havoc my cannon fire had wrought with the
machines about the flaming brain.
In a moment he had the generators going, and the machine crawling to
an upright position. Then he turned on the rocket tubes. The crater
was filled with the roaring jets of steam, and we were hurled into the
crimson sky!
I had a fleeting glimpse of the metal brain--the vast cylinder of
violet--with the green beam still throbbing from it, and with the last
of the silver ships battling the victorious army of plants that swarmed
about it!
"The roof is lifting!" Sam cried. "The equilibrium was very
delicate--the gas that kept issuing from the earth was lifting the
waters to the danger point, and your explosion carried them past! The
attempt to freeze the earth was probably undertaken because a roof of
ice would have been more secure!"
His voice was drowned in a fresh rushing, whistling burst from the
rocket tubes. I carried the inert form of Xenora down to the cabin, and
did my best to care for her. In a few moments we were above the haze. I
took a last glimpse of the green and purple forests dropping away below
us, and turned again to the unconscious girl.
Soon the fierce red glare that poured in the ports told me that we had
reached the red roof. And suddenly the Omnimobile was pitching and
spinning madly, with wild waters thundering against her sides. A sound
reached my ears--a roar, dull, distant and slumberous at first, but
rising to a crashing, deafening storm of sound! It seemed an eternity
that I held the sleeping girl upon the tossing couch, while the very
heavens rocked with thunder!
Abruptly, the bloody glare grew lighter, and was streaked with shafts
of bright sunshine--white, precious sunlight of the upper earth! We had
followed the vast bubble of gas through the roof of waters! The red
mists cleared--drew up into the blue vault above--repelled into outer
space!
We were flying in the cold white light, above a mad blue sea!
In fifteen minutes Sam had brought the machine down upon an ocean that
was still heaving madly from the cataclysm that had drowned a world. He
came into the cabin, and under his skillful ministrations Xenora was
soon sleeping quietly, in a normal slumber from which she would wake
herself again.
Presently Sam questioned me about my adventures. I gave him the whole
account and concluded with the question that, for months, my troubled
mind had striven so vainly to answer.
"Sam, how could intelligence exist in metal?"
"Why not in metal, Mel?" the old scientist replied, smiling
thoughtfully. "Why not there as well as in lumps of impure carbon and
water, as one of the early savants called us? But do you remember the
radioactivity of the metal bar, and the little cells of helium gas in
it? I think the radium had somehow set up neuronic circuits between the
cells, like the circuits between the neurone cells in our brains. It is
not impossible. That was a helium brain--but it was formed as naturally
as yours or mine!"
On May 4, 2000 A.D., just a year after the beginning of my
story, our leisurely homeward cruise was ended. The green coast of
Florida rose out of the clear blue sea before us. Xenora and I stood on
the deck, happy in the cool salty air and the bright sunlight. The girl
was lost in vast delight at the new wonders of azure sea and sapphire
sky. At last the dream of my life was come true!
The wonderful girl of my fancy was by my side, to be mine forever!
But she was the Green Girl no longer! A week of the sun and wind of the
sea had erased the soft green tint of her clear skin, and replaced it
with a light, smooth tan!
THE END