CRIMSON SOUND!
On the afternoon of March 3, Freddie and I, in Miami, were summoned
by the War Department, which was installed here in temporary quarters
after the flight from Washington. We were greeted by the secretary, who
introduced us to a dozen or more grave-faced officials who were seated
around a large table in a cold, badly illuminated room. They were under
the impression that I had recently been to Porto Rico with my father;
they wanted further details from me, as an eyewitness, to supplement
the information which had been furnished them concerning the captive
girl from Xenephrene.
I had not been to Porto Rico; I could tell them nothing, but I remained
at the conference with Freddie. Of him, they wanted a demonstration of
his invention. The War Secretary laughed, but it was a very hollow,
mirthless laugh.
"You see, young man, we are almost in the position of grasping at
straws."
By the general public, who reads of war conferences and grave official
decisions given with calm dignity in times of national crisis, the
inner workings of a government are never understood. The people
naturally picture men of great intellect, calmly, judicially weighing
problems of international law, and quietly giving their decisions,
as though the whole matter were controlled by some giant, insensate
machine of precision, incapable of error, undisturbed by human feeling.
It is not so. Or, at least, I can vouch for the fact that in the
darkness of this afternoon of March 3, 1953, in the United States War
Department at Miami, it most certainly was not so.
These gray-haired men were very human. Most were unshaved, with rumpled
hair and reddened eyes. Distraught, harassed; undecided; doubtful of
everything; striving to do the best they could, with the welfare of
millions of their people at stake. Conditions of unprecedented disaster
had for weeks assailed them. Under this culminating blow--invaders from
another world landing to attack what was once our greatest city--they
were all but broken.
Very human indeed! The Secretary of the Navy sat savagely chewing on
the stump of an old cigar, blowing on his hands, cursing the cold
intervals. The Air Secretary was pouring hot coffee at the end of the
table, shoving a litter of papers out of his way to make room for the
cups. The stooped, middle-aged, haggard gentleman pacing the floor was
our President.
"Grasping at a straw," said the War Secretary.
In a sudden silence, through an open doorway to the room adjoining, I
could hear the clatter of the southern telegraphs, telephone bells, the
hiss and splutter of the radio and television instruments.
"Close that door," the secretary added querulously. "You've brought
your model, Smith? Put it here on the table--tell us about it."
* * * * *
Freddie opened his apparatus and explained it briefly. His so-called
thermodyne principle. Though ultimately he had hoped to adapt it into
a motor of revolutionary design, his present model was merely a small
projector.
"Projector of what?" demanded the President irritably.
"Of heat, sir," Freddie answered. "I'll show you. This is a very small
model, of course, but it demonstrates the principle."
They did not want any technicalities from Freddie. He explained only
that his apparatus, in this present small form, took a tiny electric
spark and built it up into a new form of radiant heat.
"It is," said Freddie, "heat of totally different properties from
the kind with which we commonly deal. It travels--radiates, by the
diffusion of its electrons, more like light than heat. At a great
speed--I think possibly, at over a hundred thousand miles a second."
He opened his apparatus. It consisted of a small, flat, metallic box,
curved to fit a man's chest. A disk, like a small electrode, to be
pressed against the skin. Freddie bared his chest and strapped it on.
"I use," he said, "the tiny electrical impulse which the human body
itself furnishes. This, I amplify, build up and store in a battery."
Wires from the generator led to a small box which he opened to show
his audience--a box of coils, and a tiny row of amplifying tubes. He
put this in his pocket, with wires leading to the battery and the
projector. These were both in one piece--the projector a small metallic
funnel, with a trigger; a grid of wires was across its opened end; it
had a long metallic handle, in the hollow interior of which was the
battery where the charge was concentrated.
"Electrons of heat under pressure," said Freddie.
"Show us," said some one.
Freddie erected a screen across the room--an insulating screen to kill
the heat-beam so that it could not injure the wall. The men moved aside.
Freddie, after a moment to generate and concentrate the charge, raised
the muzzle.
The thing hissed slightly; a dull violet beam sprang like light from
the projector. It struck the screen some twenty feet away, in a large
circle of fluorescence; in the dimness of the room it seemed like
phosphorescent water, landing in a spray and dissipating as it struck,
like a dissolving mist.
Freddie cried, "Peter, hold something in it!"
I took a sheet of paper, held it carefully into the beam. It shriveled,
blackened and burst into flame. Then a lead pencil--it melted off
midway of its length as I held it up.
[Illustration: "I held a piece of paper in the beam. It shriveled
immediately, blackened and burst into flame."]
Freddie snapped off the apparatus. "That's all, gentlemen. With
a large model, I would use a high voltage current for my original
impulse, instead of the tiny impulse of the human body."
"How far will that beam carry?" the President demanded.
"This one?" Freddie asked. "Or a maximum, full-sized projector?"
"This one. Why talk about what you haven't got?"
"About thirty-five feet, sir. Further, perhaps, if I concentrate
it--keep it from spreading. Say fifty feet. But at that distance its
temperature would not be very great."
"How great?"
"Two hundred degrees Fahrenheit."
"How much is it at the muzzle?"
"About twelve hundred."
An effective range of thirty-five or fifty feet! They were all
disappointed. "We can't," said the War Secretary, "figure this thing in
the light of a large model we some time might be able to build. What
good is that?"
The man beside me said abruptly: "This thing is useless to help us now,
gentlemen. But, in the future--do you know, I wouldn't say but what
this young fellow has hit upon something not unlike what our enemies
seem to be using--"
The door from the adjoining room opened. A man said: "Davis has started
his flight. He's almost within sight of them now--shall I bring in the
screen?"
"Bring it in," said the President. "Get these lights down--put that
away, Mr. Smith--we'll discuss that some other time--it's been very
interesting."
Freddie hastily gathered up his apparatus. The lights in the conference
room were turned out; it was illumined only by the blue reflection
through the doorway. Men brought in a tel-vision screen some two feet
square; placed it upright on the table and we all gathered before it.
The instrument room door was closed. We were in the darkness save for
the vague silver radiance that came from the screen.
* * * * *
From the whispers around me I soon knew what was transpiring. The
invaders had landed on the east bank of the frozen Hudson, near the
suburb of Tarrytown. Xenephrene was at its closest point to the earth
now, which is what doubtless prompted the invasion. Xenephrene was
passing us; beginning to-day, the distance between the worlds would
grow greater.
Presumably the invaders had landed on the night of February 28. It had
been snowing around New York City steadily for a week; but that night
was clear. Reports said that a great silver ball had been seen floating
down from the sky; later, from the ground, strange beams of colored
light were seen, moving slowly southward. And strange sounds were heard.
But the information was confused and unauthentic. This last blizzard
had cut off all the New York area from the world. There was practically
no transportation; no wires remained standing; no radio-sending
stations were operating within all that region.
How many people remained on Manhattan Island, no one could say. Very
few, probably. A deserted, congealed city, snow-buried, with its huge
buildings nothing now but giant monuments to a greatness which once had
been. The cold was worse than scientists prognosticated. Nothing could
get to New York now, save possibly dog-sleds, and the new type Arctic
planes; and very few of those were available.
War against the invaders from Xenephrene!
Our government bulletins of the day had assured the public that these
invaders would be held in check, attacked, held from moving further
south, and very soon exterminated. What deaths to our people they
had already caused, was not known. But it was evident that they were
hostile; a plane carrying refugees had passed near their lights.
Confused stories were told of melting, vanishing snow under red light;
and stories of another refugee plane attacked and destroyed by red
light and strange sound! Meaningless news! Yet terrible!
The British Empire, from its capital in North Africa, offered us aid.
They were building the Arctic planes. The French government from its
headquarters in Tunis, preparing to move again south to the lower
Sahara, radioed its desire to help. Argentina and Chile, harassed with
their own problems in the new tropic heat, wanted to help if they could.
Magnificent gestures, but they all meant very little. So far, nothing
had been done. A few of our planes had ventured near New York; and none
had so far been heard of since. Now, a huge Arctic plane, commanded
by this Davis, equipped with modern aircraft artillery, with radio
and a tel-vision image-finder, was making an experimental flight. A
companion plane, flown by the famous Robinson, was with it. Robinson
had the longest-range airplane gun of modern times; and he carried
bombs. His purpose was to try and get above the enemy; and Davis, with
his tel-vision and radio would report conditions as best he could.
This attempt, then, was what now we were to witness. I have never been
present at so dramatic a scene as this one which took place on the
tel-vision mirror, and in the room around me.
In the darkness the silver light from the screen vaguely illumined the
tense crowding figures. The highest officials of our government! No
calm judicial conference here! Tired, cold, anxious men, watching and
listening with bated breaths and thumping hearts. There had been a buzz
of whispered comments; the shifting of chairs; shuffling of feet. But
now there was silence.
The screen image blurred for a moment as it was brought in from the
other room; but soon it cleared. I saw the cold, frosty stars in a
field of blue-black; far below, the dim vista of gray-white snow
shining in the starlight--a panorama of snow-laden country at night.
The image-finder was in the front of Davis's plane, pointing diagonally
downward. A swaying scene, diminished by the mirror, and by the two
thousand-foot altitude at which Davis was flying.
Some one said: "Where are we? I don't recognize that landscape."
"Long Island. He's heading for New York City. Hush! We'll throw in his
radio-sound." It was the voice of the War Secretary. "Grant, you said
you had connection."
A man was fumbling with the miniature audiphone beside the mirror. We
heard the drone of Davis's plane; and then heard his voice, with words
indistinguishable as he spoke to the gunner with him.
The President's voice said nervously: "Have you sending connection? If
we want to give him orders--where is the other plane? Isn't Robinson
around here?"
Grant said: "Yes. He was visible awhile ago. Davis is going to fly over
New York--the enemy, he thinks, is still up in the Yonkers district."
* * * * *
I sat staring at the screen. Half an hour? Or two hours? I could not
have said. Swaying stars; a dim white swaying landscape. Then the
horizon dropped; stars covered everything; Davis was mounting. He
leveled at last.
Dimly, far down, I could see the white configurations of Long Island
Sound, frozen into solid ice, white with piled snowdrifts, black where
the wind had swept it bare. A blurred, shifting scene, dizzying, but
sometimes steady and very clear. It tilted up--all land for a moment.
I saw, momentarily as the plane swooped down, the great bridges over
the river from Long Island to Manhattan. Small as a child's toys.
Broken toy bridges, with ice piled upon them; cables dangling--the
older Brooklyn Bridge lay askew. A jam of river ice had wrenched at one
of its piers.
It was a motionless world; the river of tangled, motionless ice-floes,
the frozen, motionless bay with hulks of vessels caught in it and
abandoned; and the great city--all congealed, stricken of motion in
every detail.
And then we were over lower New York. The parks were wan, white blobs;
the streets were black canyons; the great buildings with their archways
and pedestrian levels in the crowded lower district stood like frozen
headstones--Davis swooped--I saw a great office building in which, it
seemed, the water system must have burst and flooded it when still
there was warmth inside; its facade was a mass of ice. The plane zoomed
up and only the stars were visible.
[Illustration: Gaunt, ghostly in the moonlight, lay the frost-congealed
city of New York. Like frozen headstones the great buildings stood,
coated with glistening ice. Nowhere, on land or water, was there any
sign of life or motion.]
Above the motor drone from the audiphone, the President's voice said:
"Ask him about Robinson. Where is he?"
Then we saw Robinson's large quadru-plane with its helicopters folded,
its cabin hanging like a silver bullet beneath the lower wing. It
came swinging into our image from one side, and headed north into the
starlight.
Abruptly we heard Davis's voice: "Above Central Park. It's piled level
as an Arctic snow-field. In the lower city there seemed no lights--saw
no sign of any one remaining. The enemy is in the open country up
ahead--northeast of the Yonkers district--Look! There now, you see the
enemy light!"
At the distant northern horizon in the background of the image, a dull
radiance of red was visible. It seemed a crimson glow standing up into
the sky. Not the yellow of a reflected conflagration, but red--crimson
red.
"Blood!" murmured the man beside me. "Crimson stain--"
Davis's voice was saying: "I'll keep in sight of Robinson. He's
mounting. I'm cutting out my connection with you now--except the image
and the continuous one-way sound. You'll hear and see better. Hear and
see all that we do--I can begin to hear it now. Good-by to you all."
His voice broke with the snap that indicated his connection was off.
The War Secretary cried: "Grant! Stop him! We must be able to talk with
him--give him orders! That fool--dare-devil--he's likely to do anything
just so we may see and hear as much as possible!"
But the connection was broken. Davis, with that ominous, significant
"Good-by to you all," had cut out so that we might see and hear in full
volume. We could no longer communicate with him.
The mirror was brighter and clearer with its greater power; the drone
of the motors came louder; and then dimmed suddenly as Davis evidently
threw in his mufflers.
In the silence now, we heard another sound. The sound of the enemy! The
sound of that crimson radiance in the sky ahead! A low whine. It did
not seem electrical. A whine--more like a giant animal in distress.
I listened, with a shudder thrilling me; and I know that every man in
the room must have felt the same. A queer thrilling shudder, as though
the very sound itself were physically affecting me with its vibrations.
It was very soft, now at first; and I was only hearing the faint, radio
echo of it; yet upon my senses it laid a singularly weird, uncanny
feeling of the diabolical.
* * * * *
The minutes passed. As the plane flew northward, the crimson stain
in the sky seemed spreading. And the whine increased; grew louder,
resolved itself now into a myriad undertones. Cries, muffled, faint,
aerial, yet somehow clear; screams, checked and then begun again; a
low, tiny throbbing--a myriad unearthly sounds, weirdly abnormal, like
nothing I had ever heard before, all blended as undertones to the one
great whine.
The crimson radiance, screaming into the night! Light and sound
intermingled. Was this some strange weapon of a strange science which
the invaders from Xenephrene had brought to attack us? There was
something deadly in the aspect of that crimson radiance. And something
equally lethal in the gruesome sound which split the night around it.
My thoughts were whirling in this fashion when I heard the muttered
words of the man next to me--murmuring to the man on his other side,
"That's weird! Vanderstuyft says that the girl from Xenephrene can see
and hear below the human scale! This is it--the infra-red made visible,
and its sounds brought up to our human ears! Weird--"
Some one else was asking: "Is that light and that sound their weapon?
Where's the Robinson plane?"
And the War Secretary said: "Hush! He's there--ahead. We're mounting."
Nothing but sky again. A blood-red, night sky. The stars gleamed like
crimson jewels through the radiance. Then again, the Davis plane
leveled. We saw now that the invaders evidently were encamped in a
snowy stretch of what had been comparatively open country. The houses
which once were there, lay now under mounds of snow. A blank rolling
landscape; fences, roads, all gone beneath the billowing blanket of
white; the trees only were left, stark black sticks in patches.
In an oval, perhaps a mile across its greatest diameter, the red beam
stood up into the sky. A barrage of crimson--not light, but sound! It
throbbed and screamed and whined its defiance!
The two planes circled the radiance, some ten thousand feet up, and
several miles away. The Davis plane fired a shell; we heard the
dull muffled report, saw a yellow glare where it struck the red
beam and harmlessly exploded. But it struck low, where perhaps the
sound-vibrations were too intense.
The planes mounted higher. We could see Robinson's ahead and above us!
He was closer to the crimson barrage. Trying to climb over it--to drop
a bomb.
From this greater height, within the oval other lights showed, far down
on the snow. Tiny moving spots of vivid color. The enemy's encampment.
Davis was now at least at the twenty thousand foot level. Robinson was
still higher. In that deadly cold it seemed incredible; but still they
struggled up.
At this height the crimson barrage was thin; once, overhead, I seemed
to see where it ended. The whine of it was fainter, but every gruesome
undertone still sounded clear.
"He's trying it!" The man beside me blurted it aloud. Startled movement
sounded in the room; a chair pushed back with a rasp; tense murmurs;
shuffling feet. We stared. Robinson's plane darted in--
There was just an instant when I thought it was safely through. I could
see it clearly--the black outline of a bird stained crimson. It seemed
to hang motionless; then it fluttered; falling--and as it fell, like
a mist of black vapor it suddenly expanded; a black wraith of a plane
expanding, dissipating. It did not seem to reach the ground. It was
gone, dissolved into nothing visible, with only a howling, mouthing
sound from the crimson monster to mark its passing!
A shiver swept me; I was cold, trembling. I heard some one near me cry
in horror: "Davis, he's--" and check himself. The screen was a blur of
crimson, with lurid spots of light on the ground showing through it.
Davis was heading downward in a swoop through the red beam! It spread
until the whole image before us was a crimson stain.
The lights on the ground seemed coming up, leaping up, growing in size
as the plane dived at them. The room was a chaos of gruesome tiny
screams! We were in the crimson! It snapped with a myriad sparks. It
howled, squealed, screamed! An instant, but it seemed an eternity. Then
the red vanished. We were through it! By Heaven, through it! Safely
through! Diving at the ground!
I saw that one of the spots of light had broadened to a green ghastly
glare on the snow-surface. Figures of men in human form standing there,
fore-shortened by the overhead perspective to huge heads and dwindling
bodies. Human forms; men of almost naked bodies, standing in the snow,
bodies painted green by the glare. Apparatus of war erected in the
snow--a bare spot where the snow was gone, and rock and earth showed
clean--a shimmer that seemed a pool of water lying warm with ice around
it.
A glimpse--no more than a second or two undoubtedly. Then the scene,
rushing upward, was fading. The confusion of sounds and blurred lights
suddenly grew faint--faded--vanished into darkness and silence!
The tel-vision screen was dead--a blank silver surface staring at us
like a corpse. The audiphone was mute.
Davis's plane had vanished like its fellow into nothingness before it
reached the ground!
This was the afternoon of the 3rd of March. That night, while Freddie
and I were at our boarding place, the news reached us that a silver
ball of invaders from Xenephrene had landed in the twilight of the
Venezuelan coast--the heart of the region which in all our western
hemisphere we had come to prize most dearly!