The "Wyoming Massacre"
"They're coming out of the ship." I spoke quietly, with my hand over
my mouth, for fear they might hear me. "One--two--three--four,
five--six--seven--eight--nine. That seems to be all. Who knows how
many men a ship like that is likely to carry?"
"About ten, if there are no passengers," replied one of my men, probably
one of those on the hillside.
"How are they armed?" I asked.
"Just knives," came the reply. "They never permit hand-rays on the
ships. Afraid of accidents. Have a ruling against it."
"Leave them to us then," I said, for I had a hastily formed plan in my
mind. "You, on the hillsides, take the ships above. Abandon the ring
target. Divide up in training on those repellor rays. You, on the
hilltops, all train on the repellors of the ships to the south. Shoot at
the word, but not before.
"Wilma, crawl over to your left where you can make a straight leap for
the door in that ship. These men are all walking around the wreck in a
bunch. When they're on the far side, I'll give the word and you leap
through that door in one bound. I'll follow. Maybe we won't be seen.
We'll overpower the guard inside, but don't shoot. We may escape being
seen by both this crew and ships above. They can't see over this wreck."
It was so easy that it seemed too good to be true. The Hans who had
emerged from the ship walked round the wreckage lazily, talking in
guttural tones, keenly interested in the wreck, but quite unsuspicious.
At last they were on the far side. In a moment they would be picking
their way into the wreck.
"Wilma, leap!" I almost whispered the order.
The distance between Wilma's hiding place and the door in the side of
the Han ship was not more than fifteen feet. She was already crouched
with her feet braced against a metal beam. Taking the lift of that
wonderful inertron belt into her calculation, she dove headforemost,
like a green projectile, through the door. I followed in a split second,
more clumsily, but no less speedily, bruising my shoulder painfully, as
I ricocheted from the edge of the opening and brought up sliding against
the unconscious girl; for she evidently had hit her head against the
partition within the ship into which she had crashed.
We had made some noise within the ship. Shuffling footsteps were
approaching down a well lit gangway.
"Any signs we have been observed?" I asked my men on the hillsides.
"Not yet," I heard the Boss reply. "Ships overhead still standing. No
beams have been broken out. Men on ground absorbed in wreck. Most of
them have crawled into it out of sight."
"Good," I said quickly. "Deering hit her head. Knocked out. One or more
members of the crew approaching. We're not discovered yet. I'll take
care of them. Stand a bit longer, but be ready."
I think my last words must have been heard by the man who was
approaching, for he stopped suddenly.
I crouched at the far side of the compartment, motionless. I would not
draw my sword if there were only one of them. He would be a weakling, I
figured, and I should easily overcome him with my bare hands.
Apparently reassured at the absence of any further sound, a man came
around a sort of bulkhead--and I leaped.
I swung my legs up in front of me as I did so, catching him full in the
stomach and knocked him cold.
I ran forward along the keel gangway, searching for the control room. I
found it well up in the nose of the ship. And it was deserted. What
could I do to jam the controls of the ships that would not register on
the recording instruments of the other ships? I gazed at the mass of
controls. Levers and wheels galore. In the center of the compartment, on
a massively braced universal joint mounting, was what I took for the
repellor generator. A dial on it glowed and a faint hum came from within
its shielding metallic case. But I had no time to study it.
Above all else, I was afraid that some automatic telephone apparatus
existed in the room, through which I might be heard on the other ships.
The risk of trying to jam the controls was too great. I abandoned the
idea and withdrew softly. I would have to take a chance that there was
no other member of the crew aboard.
I ran back to the entrance compartment. Wilma still lay where she had
slumped down. I heard the voices of the Hans approaching. It was time to
act. The next few seconds would tell whether the ships in the air would
try or be able to melt us into nothingness. I spoke.
"Are you boys all ready?" I asked, creeping to a position opposite the
door and drawing my hand-gun.
Again there was a chorus of assent.
"Then on the count of three, shoot up those repellor rays--all of
them--and for God's sake, don't miss." And I counted.
I think my "three" was a bit weak. I know it took all the courage I had
to utter it.
For an agonizing instant nothing happened, except that the landing party
from the ship strolled into my range of vision.
Then startled, they turned their eyes upward. For an instant they stood
frozen with horror at whatever they saw.
One hurled his knife at me. It grazed my cheek. Then a couple of them
made a break for the doorway. The rest followed. But I fired pointblank
with my hand-gun, pressing the button as fast as I could and aiming at
their feet to make sure my explosive rockets would make contact and do
their work.
The detonations of my rockets were deafening. The spot on which the Hans
stood flashed into a blinding glare. Then there was nothing there except
their torn and mutilated corpses. They had been fairly bunched, and I
got them all.
I ran to the door, expecting any instant to be hurled into infinity by
the sweep of a disintegrator ray.
Some eighth of a mile away I saw one of the ships crash to earth. A
disintegrator ray came into my line of vision, wavered uncertainly for a
moment and then began to sweep directly toward the ship in which I
stood. But it never reached it. Suddenly, like a light switched off, it
shot to one side, and a moment later another vast hulk crashed to earth.
I looked out, then stepped out on the ground.
The only Han ships in the sky were two of the scouts to the south which
were hanging perpendicularly, and sagging slowly down. The others must
have crashed down while I was deafened by the sound of the explosion of
my own rockets.
Somebody hit the other repellor ray of one of the two remaining ships
and it fell out of sight beyond a hilltop. The other, farther away,
drifted down diagonally, its disintegrator ray playing viciously over
the ground below it.
I shouted with exultation and relief.
"Take back the command, Boss!" I yelled.
His commands, sending out jumpers in pursuit of the descending ship,
rang in my ears, but I paid no attention to them. I leaped back into the
compartment of the Han ship and knelt beside my Wilma. Her padded helmet
had absorbed much of the blow, I thought; otherwise, her skull might
have been fractured.
"Oh, my head!" she groaned, coming to as I lifted her gently in my arms
and strode out in the open with her. "We must have won, dearest, did
we?"
"We most certainly did," I reassured her. "All but one crashed and that
one is drifting down toward the south; we've captured this one we're in
intact. There was only one member of the crew aboard when we dove in."
[Illustration: As the American leaped, he swung his legs up in front of
him, catching the Han full in the stomach.]
Less than an hour afterward the Big Boss ordered the outfit to tune in
ultrophones on three-twenty-three to pick up a translated broadcast of
the Han intelligence office in Nu-yok from the Susquanna station. It
was in the form of a public warning and news item, and read as follows:
"This is Public Intelligence Office, Nu-yok, broadcasting warning to
navigators of private ships, and news of public interest. The squadron
of seven ships, which left Nu-yok this morning to investigate the recent
destruction of the GK-984 in the Wyoming Valley, has been destroyed by a
series of mysterious explosions similar to those which wrecked the
GK-984.
"The phones, viewplates, and all other signaling devices of five of the
seven ships ceased operating suddenly at approximately the same moment,
about seven-four-nine." (According to the Han system of reckoning time,
seven and forty-nine one hundredths after midnight.) "After violent
disturbances the location finders went out of operation. Electroactivity
registers applied to the territory of the Wyoming Valley remain dead.
"The Intelligence Office has no indication of the kind of disaster which
overtook the squadron except certain evidences of explosive phenomena
similar to those in the case of the GK-984, which recently went dead
while beaming the valley in a systematic effort to wipe out the works
and camps of the tribesmen. The Office considers, as obvious, the
deduction that the tribesmen have developed a new, and as yet
undetermined, technique of attack on airships, and has recommended to
the Heaven-Born that immediate and unlimited authority be given the
Navigation Intelligence Division to make an investigation of this
technique and develop a defense against it.
"In the meantime it urges that private navigators avoid this territory
in particular, and in general hold as closely as possible to the
official inter-city routes, which now are being patrolled by the entire
force of the Military Office, which is beaming the routes generously to
a width of ten miles. The Military Office reports that it is at present
considering no retaliatory raids against the tribesmen. With the
Navigation Intelligence Division, it holds that unless further evidence
of the nature of the disaster is developed in the near future, the
public interest will be better served, and at smaller cost of life, by a
scientific research than by attempts at retaliation, which may bring
destruction on all ships engaging therein. So unless further evidence
actually is developed, or the Heaven-Born orders to the contrary, the
Military will hold to a defensive policy.
"Unofficial intimations from Lo-Tan are to the effect that the
Heaven-Council has the matter under consideration.
"The Navigation Intelligence Office permits the broadcast of the
following condensation of its detailed observations:
"The squadron proceeded to a position above the Wyoming Valley where
the wreck of the GK-984 was known to be, from the record of its location
finder before it went dead recently. There the bottom projectoscope
relays of all ships registered the wreck of the GK-984. Teleprojectoscope
views of the wreck and the bowl of the valley showed no evidence of the
presence of tribesmen. Neither ship registers nor base registers showed
any indication of electroactivity except from the squadron itself. On
orders from the Base Squadron Commander, the LD-248, LK-745 and LG-25
scouted southward at 3,000 feet. The GK-43, GK-981 and GK-220 stood
above at 2,500 feet, and the GK-18 landed to permit personal inspection
of the wreck by the science committee. The party debarked, leaving one
man on board in the control cabin. He set all projectoscopes at
universal focus except RB-3," (this meant the third projectoscope from
the bow of the ship, on the right-hand side of the lower deck) "with
which he followed the landing group as it walked around the wreck.
"The first abnormal phenomenon recorded by any of the instruments at
Base was that relayed automatically from projectoscope RB-4 of the
GK-18, which as the party disappeared from view in back of the wreck,
recorded two green missiles of roughly cylindrical shape, projected from
the wreckage into the landing compartment of the ship. At such close
range these were not clearly defined, owing to the universal focus at
which the projectoscope was set. The Base Captain of GK-18 at once
ordered the man in the control room to investigate, and saw him leave
the control room in compliance with this order. An instant later
confused sounds reached the control-room electrophone, such as might be
made by a man falling heavily, and footsteps reapproached the control
room, a figure entering and leaving the control room hurriedly. The Base
Captain now believes, and the stills of the photorecord support his
belief, that this was not the crew member who had been left in the
control room. Before the Base Captain could speak to him he left the
room, nor was any response given to the attention signal the Captain
flashed throughout the ship.
"At this point projectoscope RB-3 of the ship now out of focus control,
dimly showed the landing party walking back toward the ship. RB-4 showed
it more clearly. Then on both these instruments, a number of blinding
explosives in rapid succession were seen and the electrophone relays
registered terrific concussions; the ship's electronic apparatus and
projectoscopes apparatus went dead.
"Reports of the other ships' Base Observers and Executives, backed by
the photorecords, show the explosions as taking place in the midst of
the landing party as it returned, evidently unsuspicious, to the ship.
Then in rapid succession they indicate that terrific explosions occurred
inside and outside the three ships standing above close to their rep-ray
generators, and all signals from these ships thereupon went dead.
"Of the three ships scouting to the south, the LD-248 suffered an
identical fate, at the same moment. Its records add little to the
knowledge of the disaster. But with the LK-745 and the LG-25 it was
different.
"The relay instruments of the LK-745 indicated the destruction by an
explosion of the rear rep-ray generator, and that the ship hung stern
down for a short space, swinging like a pendulum. The forward viewplates
and indicators did not cease functioning, but their records are chaotic,
except for one projectoscope still, which shows the bowl of the valley,
and the GK-981 falling, but no visible evidence of tribesmen. The
control-room viewplate is also a chaotic record of the ship's crew
tumbling and falling to the rear wall. Then the forward rep-ray
generator exploded, and all signals went dead.
"The fate of the LG-25 was somewhat similar, except that this ship hung
nose down, and drifted on the wind southward as it slowly descended out
of control.
"As its control room was shattered, verbal report from its Action
Captain was precluded. The record of the interior rear viewplate shows
members of the crew climbing toward the rear rep-ray generator in an
attempt to establish manual control of it, and increase the lift. The
projectoscope relays, swinging in wide arcs, recorded little of value
except at the ends of their swings. One of these, from a machine which
happened to be set in telescopic focus, shows several views of great
value in picturing the falls of the other ships, and all of the rear
projectoscope records enable the reconstruction in detail of the
pendulum and torsional movements of the ship, and its sag toward the
earth. But none of the views showing the forest below contain any
indication of tribesmen's presence. A final explosion put this ship out
of commission at a height of 1,000 feet, and at a point four miles S. by
E. of the center of the valley."
The message ended with a repetition of the warning to other airmen to
avoid the valley.