"Not the mutants. You see General, we ourselves haven't trusted
Forgacs."
Hoshawk's grim face lighted up. "Do you mean you have secretly made
some fighting equipment?"
Wadsworth shook his head. "No. We could have. There's a loophole
in the Twenty-one Eighteen Agreement. But we have observed the
spirit--ah!"
Up on the ground-glass screen, purple lights had been flashing on at
intervals over the United States, until now there were nineteen, and
Wadsworth spoke: "Those represent transmitter stations equally spaced
over the country. They are all manned by mutants."
Hoshawk actually snorted. "Transmitter stations! You can't fight with
words! And, anyway, there won't be any power at all within a half hour."
"They each have their own power-plant," The President said quietly.
Hoshawk looked at the map again and groaned. The nation was almost
covered by a canopy of orange lights marked with black crosses. "There
must be at least a million bombers over us! They'll wipe out the whole
country within an hour. If there's anything you can do, _do it_!"
The President was pale, but he sat quietly. "Stalled," Hoshawk thought
sardonically. It took something besides smartness to win a war. It took
character, too.
Wadsworth pointed to the American shores. Long lines of green and
white and black and yellow dots coming from the sea, crawling in among
the orange lights that swarmed over America like a gigantic swarm of
hornets. "Submarines, amphibian battleships, flame-throwers, tanks," he
said.
Hoshawk stood erect. "If it were not against regulations, Sire, I would
be tempted to blow my head off. We shall be destroyed as a people and
as a continent."
The President's hands were clenched, but he answered slowly, "As
a continent, perhaps. But the buildings can be built again. As a
people--no, I don't think so. As a civilization, I hope we can be
saved."
Hoshawk's eyes narrowed. "How?" he demanded.
"Those purple lights represent sonic transmitters. In other words,
generating stations for sound frequencies above the narrow band which
can be heard by humans. They were developed, built, and financed by
graduate mutants. They broadcast on different frequencies that we have
determined most effective in upsetting the equilibrium of unstable
chemical compounds."
"Do you mean," asked Hoshawk, "that you are going to try to detonate
the explosives carried by Forgacs' planes?"
"His planes, and anything else that carries them. We have analyzed
samples of his explosives to determine the critical frequency of each.
These nineteen stations cover the country. Any known explosive in the
continental United States will be detonated when these stations go into
operation."
"What if Forgacs has some unknown explosive?"
Wadsworth was solemn. "We take that chance," he said. "But the range of
possible explosive combinations is well known, and something entirely
different is unlikely. At any rate--"
"They're starting to drop bombs!" Hoshawk said.
* * * * *
The President watched the red glow around Kansas City. His face was
taut. "There will be many cities destroyed," he said. "But we must wait
for all of Forgacs' equipment to be within our continental limits. It
must all be destroyed at once."
"But the bombers are in action," said Hoshawk. "Denver is getting it
now."
Wadsworth's eyes were on the coastlines. "It will be twenty minutes
at least before we can open the transmitters. We may lose most of our
cities by that time, but there is nothing we can do."
The red glows began to spread. Dallas and Fort Worth, New Orleans,
Atlanta, Miami, San Diego and Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland
and Seattle. The bombers were systematically destroying America's
population centers. And still Wadsworth waited. He sat tense before the
Map, watching the endless stream of lights come from the sea.
But they were beginning to end. Many were far inland, attacking the
smaller cities, cleaning up the big ones.
"The bombers won't be destroyed," said Hoshawk, "if they've already
dropped their bombs."
"I think they will, for all practical purposes," said the President.
"Their ammunition, their signal flares--everything explosive will be
detonated."
"How can you cover them all at once?"
"There are over nine hundred frequencies--but we don't know that they
will be enough," Jeffrey pointed out gravely. "We can only hope."
Hoshawk couldn't stand still any longer. He paced the floor before
the Map. "Every city in America of more than a hundred thousand is
gone--obliterated," he said tonelessly. "Can't we ever--"
"Wait!" The President was alert. "The last line of flame-throwers is
coming on land." He pointed to the black dots streaming up on the west
coast. He spoke into the audio transmitter. He didn't bother with the
scrambler now. "Sonic stations on. Emergency force. Sonic stations on.
Emergency force. Situation critical."
He pointed to the Map and sat back. Within a few seconds the purple
lights began to flash intermittently.
"They're on," said the President. "But it will take a few minutes
for them to reach full intensity. The sonic devices operate at high
speeds--some at two hundred thousand r.p.m."
Hoshawk watched, almost without breathing. For the first time he was
aware that the forty statesmen of the Western Hemisphere were watching
through the glass windows of the Chamber.
At that instant purple glows began to surround the green lights,
starting on the east coast of Florida and spreading upward.
"Amphibian submarines," whispered the President. "Their aerial
torpedoes are exploding!"
"And up around the Great Lakes," said Hoshawk. "There it's amphibian
tanks."
The President sat, and watched. The glows spread. They absorbed
flame-throwers, tractors, mine-heavers. The Map of America was a
clustered mass of lights, with the purple glow beginning to consume
everything in its reach.
"The planes," said Jeffrey. "They're still untouched. They anticipated
something like this." He barked into the microphone. "All stations,
ascending frequency!" he ordered, and turned to Hoshawk. "We don't know
how effective this will be. It isn't as powerful as the static ranges.
But--"
"It is! They've got the range!" cried Hoshawk.
Jeffrey looked. Near Albuquerque, New Mexico, a cluster of orange
lights was being consumed by the purple glow. Jeffrey shot a glance at
a dial. "All stations! All stations! Frequency seventy-two thousand,
nine eighty. Emergency. Frequency seventy-two thousand, nine eighty."
And the purple glow rolled and spread and consumed Forgacs' bombers by
the thousands.
At last Wadsworth looked at the Map, with nothing left but the dead
embers of a mighty army.
Hoshawk shook hands with him and then looked for a place to sit down
for a moment. "Sire," he said at last, licking his lips with the tip of
his tongue, "if it isn't presumptuous, I'd stand the check for a dish
of that new ice cream."