The Walls of Hell
The traitors were, it seemed, a degenerate gang of Americans, located a
few miles north of Nu-yok on the wooded banks of the Hudson, the
Sinsings. They had exchanged scraps of information to the Hans in return
for several old repellor-ray machines, and the privilege of tuning in on
the Han electronic power broadcast for their operation, provided their
ships agreed to subject themselves to the orders of the Han traffic
office, while aloft.
The rest wanted to ultrophone their news at once, since there was always
danger that we might never get back to the gang with it.
I objected, however. The Sinsings would be likely to pick up our
message. Even if we used the directional projector, they might have
scouts out to the west and south in the big inter-gang stretches of
country. They would flee to Nu-yok and escape the punishment they
merited. It seemed to be vitally important that they should not, for the
sake of example to other weak groups among the American gangs, as well
as to prevent a crisis in which they might clear more vital information
to the enemy.
"Out to sea again," I ordered Gibbons. "They'll be less likely to look
for us in that direction."
"Easy, Boss, easy," he replied. "Wait until we get up a mile or two
more. They must have discovered evidences of our raid by now, and their
dis-ray wall may go in operation any moment."
Even as he spoke, the ship lurched downward and to one side.
"There it is!" he shouted. "Hang on, everybody. We're going to nose
straight up!" And he flipped the rocket-motor control wide open.
Looking through one of the rear ports, I could see a nebulous, luminous
ring, and on all sides the atmosphere took on a faint iridescence.
We were almost over the destructive range of the disintegrator-ray wall,
a hollow cylinder of annihilation shooting upward from a solid ring of
generators surrounding the city. It was the main defense system of the
Hans, which had never been used except in periodic tests. They may or
may not have suspected that an American rocket ship was within the
cylinder; probably they had turned on their generators more as a
precaution to prevent any reaching a position above the city.
But even at our present great height, we were in great danger. It was a
question how much we might have been harmed by the rays themselves, for
their effective range was not much more than seven or eight miles. The
greater danger lay in the terrific downward rush of air within the
cylinder to replace that which was being burned into nothingness by the
continual play of the disintegrators. The air fell into the cylinder
with the force of a gale. It would be rushing toward the wall from the
outside with terrific force also, but, naturally, the effect was
intensified on the interior.
Our ship vibrated and trembled. We had only one chance of escape--to
fight our way well above the current. To drift down with it meant
ultimately, and inevitably, to be sucked into the destruction wall at
some lower level.
But very gradually and jerkily our upward movement, as shown on the
indicators, began to increase, and after an hour of desperate struggle
we were free of the maelstrom and into the rarefied upper levels. The
terror beneath us was now invisible through several layers of cloud
formations.
Gibbons brought the ship back to an even keel, and drove her eastward
into one of the most brilliantly gorgeous sunrises I have ever seen.
We described a great circle to the south and west, in a long easy dive,
for he had cut out his rocket motors to save them as much as possible.
We had drawn terrifically on their fuel reserves in our battle with the
elements. For the moment, the atmosphere below cleared, and we could see
the Jersey coast far beneath, like a great map.
"We're not through yet," remarked Gibbons suddenly, pointing at his
periscope, and adjusting it to telescopic focus. "A Han ship, and a
'drop ship' at that--and he's seen us. If he whips that beam of his on
us, we're done."
I gazed, fascinated, at the viewplate. What I saw was a cigar-shaped
ship not dissimilar to our own in design, and from the proportional size
of its ports, of about the same size as our swoopers. We learned later
that they carried crews, for the most part of not more than three or
four men. They had streamline hulls and tails that embodied
universal-jointed double fish-tail rudders. In operation they rose to
great heights on their powerful repellor rays, then gathered speed
either by a straight nose dive, or an inclined dive in which they
sometimes used the repellor ray slanted at a sharp angle. He was already
above us, though several miles to the north. He could, of course, try to
get on our tail and "spear" us with his beam as he dropped at us from a
great height.
Suddenly his beam blazed forth in a blinding flash, whipping downward
slowly to our right. He went through a peculiar corkscrew-like
evolution, evidently maneuvering to bring his beam to bear on us with a
spiral motion.
Gibbons instantly sent our ship into a series of evolutions that must
have looked like those of a frightened hen. Alternately, he used the
forward and the reverse rocket blasts, and in varying degree. We
fluttered, we shot suddenly to right and left, and dropped like a
plummet in uncertain movements. But all the time the Han scout dropped
toward us, determinedly whipping the air around us with his beam. Once
it sliced across beneath us, not more than a hundred feet, and we
dropped with a jar into the pocket formed by the destruction of the air.
He had dropped to within a mile of us, and was coming with the speed of
a projectile, when the end came. Gibbons always swore it was sheer luck.
Maybe it was, but I like pilots who are lucky that way.
In the midst of a dizzy, fluttering maneuver of our own, with the Han
ship enlarging to our gaze with terrifying rapidity, and its beam slowly
slicing toward us in what looked like certain destruction within the
second, I saw Gibbons' fingers flick at the lever of his rocket gun and
a split second later the Han ship flew apart like a clay pigeon.
We staggered, and fluttered crazily for several moments while Gibbons
struggled to bring our ship into balance, and a section of about four
square feet in the side of the ship near the stern slowly crumbled like
rusted metal. His beam actually had touched us, but our explosive rocket
had got him a thousandth of a second sooner.
Part of our rudder had been annihilated, and our motor damaged. But we
were able to swoop gently back across Jersey, fortunately crossing the
ship lanes without sighting any more Han craft, and finally settling to
rest in the little glade beneath the trees, near Hart's camp.