"IF I HAD BUT KNOWN!"
"Look here, young man," said the War Secretary, "can you operate a
plane of the Arctic A type?"
I could, and so could Freddie, I said. The War Secretary continued his
pacing of the room. It was about nine o'clock of the morning of March
15--black as midnight outdoors; cold, with clouds scudding low over the
Florida keys, clouds which promised snow. The War Secretary had sent
for us.
Conditions were worse everywhere, it seemed now by this morning's
news--as though each day brought its disasters worse than any which
had gone before. The invaders from Xenephrene were obviously almost
impregnable to our attack. The efforts of Robinson and Davis had proved
it, if nothing else. It was obvious also that the invaders at New York
City so far had made no offensive move. Their barrage--the crimson
howling sound, or light, whatever it might be--was merely their defense.
"Heaven knows," the secretary exclaimed, "what weapons they may have
to loose when they begin an attack!"
And now, another huge silver ball had landed in Venezuela--on the
coastal plain near La Guayra. In the deserted frozen wastes of New
York State the invaders were not an immediate, serious menace. But in
Venezuela it was a far different condition.
La Guayra was the main receiving port for all our refugee ships. A
twilight had fallen there, but the temperature still was mild. It was
colder up in Caracas, but the people thronged there, and with heroic
efforts the Government and the citizens were doing their best to
receive them.
It was not a wholly unselfish effort. With the new climate, Colombia,
Venezuela, the former jungles of the Amazon basin of Brazil; Ecuador,
Peru, even the mountain fastnesses of Bolivia, and the arid coast of
north Chile--this was the land of promise. It was the best, the only
tolerable all-year climate left to the Western World. Here the new
great cities would spring up--centers of industry and commerce; here
would be the new great fields of grain; the cattle ranges.
But here, in the midst of the confusion of arriving settlers, the enemy
from Xenephrene had landed! We had no details; we only knew that around
the silver ball a barrage of red howling sound was standing up into the
sky. Within that circular mile of the red barrage, all that had been
evidence of our human life--houses, trees, people--all was vanished!
The War Secretary stopped before me. "I've radioed your father this
morning, Peter. Told him to send that Xenephrene girl up here to us at
once! We've got to do something. We must learn if we can what these
unearthly enemies are like--do scientifically what we can to oppose
them."
He gestured at me vehemently. "You Hollanders are very stubborn, young
Peter. Your father told me he was very busy--he'd have full information
for me in a day or two! That's the scientist for you! Taking it
methodically, with that damn scientific routine, when a day or two is
an eternity just now!"
I regarded Freddie. We did not smile; in these terrible days there was
not a smile left in us. But Freddie nodded.
"That's father's way," I said. "But--"
"Well, I told him I was sending a special plane down there at once to
get him and the girl. The Venezuelan Government is demanding details of
us. Every thirty minutes Caracas calls me up. Makes a fool of us--a
girl of this unknown enemy race right in our hands and we don't produce
her! Your father said, 'Good! Send Peter and young Fred Smith--I want
to see them anyway.'"
There was nothing that could have pleased Freddie and myself better.
The secretary offered us a pilot, but we did not want one. We started
that morning, armed with legal papers, given us jocularly, but with
serious intent, nevertheless, and commanding father's presence with
Zetta in Miami the next day.
* * * * *
It was eleven o'clock when we got away in the big Arctic A plane. A
black morning with swift, low clouds, and a wind from the north. Flying
southeast, we had scarcely left the Bahamas behind us when the weather
cleared. Cold starlight shone on a dark, cold ocean. Icebergs had been
seen down this far, but we did not chance to pass any now. But we saw
many scurrying steamships.
In some four hours we raised the Morrow light of San Juan and I turned
southwest, to strike the coast beyond Arecibo. Flying low, we headed
in, over the line of breakers on the white beach. Columbus landed near
here, not so many lifetimes ago. Yet how different was the world then!
The tumbled mountains rising behind the sea which Columbus had
described to Isabella rose before us now. The same shape; every tiny
peak undoubtedly the same. But they were not the vivid warm green which
had so enchanted the mariner. These were cold and blue gray, and the
tops of them were white with snow.
It was mid-afternoon when, in the darkness, we dropped with a roar upon
Dan's landing stage at the foot of the knoll. We leaped from the plane
and hurried up the hill, to see Dan and father, and Hulda and the Cains
waving at us from the veranda, and a small, strange white figure of a
girl standing among them.
If one could only glimpse the future, even for a brief moment! It makes
me shudder sometimes to think how blindly we are forced to tread our
way through life, raising each foot without the knowledge of what will
happen before it reaches the ground! That afternoon, for instance, I
was very happy to burst in upon father and Dan. If Freddie and I had
known what was impending, we would have done anything rather than
arrive at that moment. If we had delayed our arrival even an hour!
Yet, even in a seeming tragedy, there is evidence of some all-guiding
purpose. We may not see it, we may deny it, but I think that always it
is there.
We came upon the plantation house within a moment after Zetta had begun
her narration. She had told it to father; she was beginning it for Dan
and the others, when the sound of our arriving plane checked her.
The few remaining hours of that afternoon and evening were crowded
with the confusion of our arrival, our exchange of news and ideas, and
listening to the world news from the radio. Zetta did not tell her
story that afternoon or that evening. Father, with a quizzical smile,
looked over the legal papers with which we served him.
"Good enough, boys! I'll obey. We'll take Zetta and go up to Miami
to-morrow morning." He turned to Dan. "You come with us. Zetta will
tell her story to the authorities in Miami, just as she's told it to
me. And I'll have some interesting scientific data for them, I promise
you."
He gestured with a voluminous sheaf of papers--his scientific notes
on Zetta's narrative and on the girl's mental and physical being. He
gestured with the papers and then stuck them back in his pocket. Fate!
Providence! Call it what you will. He did not hand them to Dan or to
Freddie or to me--he stuck them back in his pocket!
The news of Hulda's and Dan's engagement brought me pleasure. I shook
Dan's hand warmly and kissed my sister as she flung herself into my
arms. Little Hulda was radiant. Dan's handsome, tanned face was flushed
as he received our congratulations; and when they were over, he stood
towering over Hulda, with his arms around her as she clung to him.
Happy lovers, snatching at their happiness even in the midst of the
world's turmoil! Happy that afternoon and evening.
* * * * *
I shall never forget my meeting with Zetta as they introduced me to
her that afternoon. She stood in the center of the room, and something
momentarily diverted the rest of them from us; for an instant we were
alone. I stared at her.
What futile words of greeting I may have uttered I do not know, and I
think that she said nothing. I saw a quaintly beautiful young girl,
curiously different in a way not to be defined from any girl I had ever
before beheld. A strange, weird beauty. I took her hand as she held it
out in the gesture they had taught her.
I have mentioned Dan's feelings under similar circumstances. Dan was in
love with Hulda; the instinct of all that was upright and true within
him rose to cast out this surge of alien emotion. Not so with me--I was
wholly fancy free.
I took Zetta's hand. It seemed then as though the contact might
suddenly become beyond my power to break. Her gaze held mine. I saw
a sudden startled look in her eyes, and then saw something else--the
mirrored play of emotions like my own.
Her body seemed to sway toward me; I could see and feel her
withstanding its sway. An attraction between us. Do I mean that
literally? Scientifically? I do not know. There is, perhaps, between
the sexes on earth such an attraction. Or it may perchance be
psychological, emotional, nothing more.
I felt it with Zetta, and I could see that she felt it and was
startled. But in her eyes there was more than surprise--a swift melting
look of tenderness.
Mrs. Cain bustled up to us. "Isn't she a darling little thing, Peter?
We all love her. Oh, dear me, these terrible, strange times!"
Our hands broke apart. Was it love we had felt in that instant? Could
love be possible, could it be right between a man and a woman so
different? Does the Creator intend the worlds thus to be joined, or is
the isolation He has imposed upon each of them an evidence that such
cannot be?
Love between Zetta and me? I do not know. But all that afternoon and
evening, I found my eyes turning to her, and found her somber gaze upon
me.
We chanced to approach each other several times, and always I was
conscious of the attraction of her nearness. Not so strong as at
first. All my instinct, my reason, was prepared for it now; a thousand
barriers of conventionality and time and place and circumstance
contributed subconsciously to resist it. But it was there, invisibly,
intangibly holding us.
* * * * *
The evening's radio news brought a measure of relief to the world.
From New York came the report that the invaders had vanished. Moved
somewhere else, perhaps--but where it was not known.
Father made one comment; his words, which proved to be true
enough, linger clear in my memory. "They left New York yesterday
afternoon, after the attack by Robinson and Davis. There are not
two vehicles--only one! It left New York and landed last night in
Venezuela! It may leave there presently." His glance turned to Zetta.
"I have reason to think that the invaders will voluntarily withdraw
from the earth. Very soon, I imagine--while Xenephrene is still
comparatively near us."
True enough! At midnight that night the radio told us that the
Xenephrene vehicle, with all its people, had left Venezuela. The night
was heavily overcast, with a rain and wind storm all up through Central
America and the lower Caribbean; and north of sixteen degrees there was
snow. Where the invaders had gone, no one knew. The world was anxiously
awaiting news of their next landing place.
We sat up for perhaps an hour. It was snowing outside, with a howling
wind that swirled the snow about the eaves of the little plantation
house. At about one o'clock we all bade each other good night and went
to bed.
Ah, if we had but known!
I awoke to find Freddie shaking me. He and I had slept together. It was
four in the morning, and the house was noisy with the storm outside.
Freddie was alarmed--he did not know why. Something had awakened
him--we decided it was a thumping which we now heard in the living
room, a door banging in the wind, with a queer, broken rattle to it.
There is a sense of evil which comes to any one awakened unexpectedly
in the night. I felt it very strongly now. And Freddie's face was very
white and solemn in the glow of the night light which he had switched
on.
"The door to the porch," I said. "It's blown open--it's banging."
We went out to close it. The living room was very cold; snow was
blowing in through the outer doorway. We turned on the light. The
door was not only open, it was hanging askew, half torn from its
hinges. More than that, part of its wooden framework was gone. Not
broken--vanished--as if melted off. A leprous wreck of a door, hanging
there, banging with a thump and rattle in the wind!
No need to tell us what had happened--I think we both knew then. The
door to father's bedroom stood open. He was not there. The bed had
been occupied; there was no sign of a struggle, no abnormal disorder
anywhere about the house, except for that dismembered front door, which
had been locked.
Our light and our voices awakened Dan and his parents. They came out
from their rooms. But Hulda did not come, nor Zetta! Their bedroom
doors, like father's stood open; but the occupants were gone.
Horrified moments followed, during which we searched the house and the
buildings near it. There was no evidence of any kind of how, in the
noisy night, while the rest of us slept, father, Hulda and Zetta had
been spirited away.
The terrified elder Cains remained in the house. Hastily dressing, Dan,
Freddie and I rushed to the corral. The chilled little ponies welcomed
us. We saddled, and in single file, slowly against the wind and driving
snow, we rode out into the night.
There was no surprise left for us when we reached the "Eden tract" in
the valley by the caves where once the Cains' treasured fruit trees had
grown so luxuriantly. It was all a dim gray expanse of snow, with the
naked tree branches showing in black, forlorn rows.
The trunks of the coconut trees stood like huge black sticks in a
patch of white. But among them there was no small silver vehicle. The
guards had been withdrawn a week before. There was no evidence here of
anything.
The heavy falling snowflakes would have covered up even recent
footprints; there was only the depression in the sand and snow to mark
where the vehicle had been.
The last communication was broken. The last remaining evidence of
Xenephrene upon our earth was gone!