_A Scheme Is Described_
The hands of the two wayfarers into the stratosphere dropped to their
weapons as the men came through that door which masked the inner mystery
of the white globe.
One of the men grinned. There was a threat in his grin--and a promise.
"I wouldn't use my weapons if I were in your place, gentlemen," he said.
"Come this way, please. Sitsumi and The Three wish to see you at once."
Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances. Would it do any good to start a fight
with these people? They seemed to be unarmed, but there were many of
them. And probably there were many more beyond that door. Certainly this
strange globe was capable of holding a small army at least.
Jeter shrugged. Eyer answered it with an eloquent gesture--and the two
fell in with those who had come to meet them.
"How about our plane?" said Jeter.
"You need concern yourself with it no longer," replied one. "Its final
disposal is in the hands of Sitsumi and The Three."
A cold chill ran along Jeter's spine. There was something too final
about the guide's calm reply. Both adventurers remembered again, most
poignantly, the fate of Kress.
The leaders stepped through the door. A flight of steps led downward.
Several of the swarthy-skinned folk walked behind Jeter and Eyer. There
was no gainsaying the fact that they were prisoners.
Jeter and Eyer gasped a little as they looked into the interior of the
white globe. It was of unusual extent, Jeter estimated, a complete
globe; but this one was bisected by a floor at its center, of some
substance that might, for its apparent lightness, have been aluminum.
Plainly it was the dwelling place of these strange conquerors of the
stratosphere. It might have been a vast room designed as the dwelling
place of people accustomed to all sorts of personal comforts.
On the "floor" were several buildings, of the same material as the
floor. It remained to be seen what these buildings were for, but Jeter
could guess, he believed, with fair accuracy. The large building in the
center would be the central control room housing whatever apparatus of
any kind was needed in the working of this space ship. There were
smaller buildings, most of them conical, looking oddly like beehives,
which doubtless housed the denizens of the globe.
* * * * *
The atmosphere was much like that of New York in early autumn. It was of
equable temperature. There was no discomfort in walking, no difficulty
in breathing. Jeter surmised that at least one of those buildings,
perhaps the central one, housed some sort of oxygen renewer. Such a
device at this height was naturally essential.
The stairs ended. The prisoners and their guards stopped at floor level.
Jeter paused to look about him. His scientific eyes were studying the
construction of the globe. The idea of escape from the predicament into
which he and Eyer were plunged would never be out of his head for
moment.
"Come along, you!"
Jeter started, stung by the savagery which suddenly edged the voice of
the man who had first greeted him. There was contempt in it--and an
assumption of personal superiority which galled the independent Jeter.
He grinned a little, looked at Eyer.
"I wonder if we have to take it," he said softly.
"It seems we might expect a little respect, at least," Eyer grinned in
answer.
The guard suddenly caught Jeter by the shoulder.
"I said to come along!"
If the man had been intending to provoke a fight he couldn't have gone
about it in any better way. Jeter suddenly, without a change of
expression, sent a right fist crashing to the fellow's jaw.
"Don't use your gat, Eyer," he called to his partner. "We may kill a
key man who may be necessary to our well-being later on. But black eyes
and broken noses should be no bar to efficiency."
Without any fuss or hullabaloo, the dozen or so denizens of the globe
who had met the partners closed on them. They came on with a rush. Jeter
and Eyer stood back to back and slugged. They were young, with youthful
joy in battle. They were trained to the minute. As fliers they took
pride in their physical condition. They were out-numbered, but it was
also a matter of pride with them to demand respect wherever they went.
It was also a matter of pride to down as many of the attackers as
possible before they themselves were downed.
* * * * *
It became plain that, though the denizens of the globe were armed with
knives, they were not to be used. And it didn't seem they would be
needed. The fighters were all muscular, well-trained fighters. But for
the most part they fought in the manner of Chinese ta chaen, or Japanese
ju-jutsu men. They used holds that were bone-breaking and it taxed the
pair to the utmost to keep from being maimed by their killing strength.
The swarthy men were men of courage, no doubt about that. They fought
with silent ferocity. They blinked when struck, but came back to take
yet other blows with the tenacity of so many bulldogs. There was no
gainsaying them, it seemed. They were here for the purpose of subduing
their visitors and nothing short of death would stop them.
It wasn't courtesy, either, that failure to use knives, for Jeter saw
murder looking out of more than one pair of eyes as their two pairs of
fists landed on brown faces, smashed noses askew, and started eyes to
closing.
"Their leader has them under absolute control--and that's a point for
the enemy," Jeter panted to himself, as the strain of battle began to
tell on him. "They've been instructed, no matter what we do, to bring us
to their master or masters alive."
For a moment he toyed with the idea of drawing his weapon and firing
pointblank into the enemy. He knew they would be compelled to take lives
to escape--and that the lives of all these people were forfeit anyway
because of the havoc which had descended upon New York City.
But he didn't make a move for his weapon. It would be sure death if he
did, for the others were armed.
Brown men fell before the smashing of their fists. But the end of the
fight was a foregone conclusion. Jeter had a bruised jaw. Eyer's nose
was bleeding and one eye was closed when the reception committee finally
came to close quarters, smothered them by sheer weight of numbers, and
made them prisoners. Jeter's right wrist was manacled to Eyer's left
with a pair of ordinary steel handcuffs. Their weapons were taken away
from them now.
The leader of the committee, panting, but apparently unconcerned over
what had happened, motioned the two men to lead the way. He pointed to
the large building in the center of the "floor."
"That way," he said, "and I hope Sitsumi and The Three give us
permission to throw you out without parachutes or high altitude suits."
"Pleasant cuss, aren't you?" said Eyer. "I don't think you like us."
The man would have struck Eyer for his grinning levity; but at that
moment a door opened in the side of the large building and a man in
Oriental robes stood there.
"Bring then here at once, Naka!" he said.
* * * * *
The man called Naka, the leader whom Jeter had first struck, bowed low,
with deep respect, to the man in the doorway.
"Yes, O Sitsumi!" he said. As he spoke he sucked in his breath with that
snakelike hissing sound which is the acme of politeness, in Japan--"that
my humble breath may not blow upon you"--and spread wide his hands.
"They are extremely low persons and dared lay hands upon your
emissaries."
Eyer grinned again.
"I think," he called, "there transpired what might be called a general
laying on of hands by all hands."
"I deeply deplore your inclination to levity, Tema Eyer," said the man
in the doorway. "It is not seemly in one whose intelligence entitles him
to a place in our counsels."
Eyer looked at Jeter. What was the meaning of Sitsumi's cryptic
utterance?
"Bring them in," snapped Sitsumi.
Jeter studied the man with interest. He knew instantly who he was and
understood why Sitsumi had refused to answer his radio messages to
Japan. He couldn't very well have done so in the circumstances. Here,
under the broad dome of Sitsumi was probably the greatest scientific
brain of the century. Jeter saw cruelty in his eyes too; ruthlessness,
and determination.
The prisoners were marched into the room behind Sitsumi, who stepped
aside, looking curiously at Jeter and Eyer as they passed him. Inside
the door, pausing only a moment to glance over the big room's
appointments, Jeter turned on Sitsumi.
"Just what do you intend doing with us, Sitsumi?" he asked. "I suppose
it's useless to ask you, also, what the meaning of all this is?"
"I shall answer both your questions, Jeter," said Sitsumi. "Step this
way, please. The Three should hear our conference."
They were conducted into a smaller room. Its floors were covered with
skins. There were easy chairs and divans. It might have been their own
luxuriously appointed rooms at Mineola. At a long table three men--all
Orientals--were deeply immersed in some activity which bent their heads
absorbedly over the very center of the table. It might have been a
three-sided chess game, by their attitudes.
"Gentlemen!" said Sitsumi.
The three men turned.
"My colleagues, Wang Li, Liao Wu and Yung Chan," Sitsumi introduced
them. "Without them our great work would have been impossible."
* * * * *
Here were the three missing Chinese scientists. Jeter and Eyer had seen
many pictures of them. Jeter wondered whether their adherence to Sitsumi
were voluntary or forced. But it was voluntary, of course. The three
brains of these brilliant men could easily have outwitted Sitsumi had
they been unwilling to associate themselves with him. The three
Orientals bowed.
Jeter and Eyer were bidden to take chairs side by side. The guards drew
back a little but never took their eyes off the two. Sitsumi ranged
himself beside his colleagues at the table.
"I'll answer your questions now, gentlemen, in the presence of my
colleagues so that you shall know that we are together in what we
propose. We wish you to join us. The only alternative is ... well, you
recall what happened to your countryman, Kress? The same, or a similar
fate, will be yours if you don't ally yourselves with us."
Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances.
"Just what _are_ you doing?" asked Jeter. "I've seen some of the results
of your activities, but I can see no reason for them. I would pronounce
everything you have done so far to be the acts of madmen."
"We are not mad," said Sitsumi. "We are simply a group of people of
mixed blood who deplore the barriers of racial prejudice, for one thing.
We are advocates of a deliberately contrived super-race, produced by the
amalgamation of the best minds and the best bodies of all races. We
ourselves are what the world calls Eurasians. In our youth people
patronised us. In Asia we were shunned. We were shunned everywhere by
both races from which we trace our ancestry. We are not trying to be
avenged upon the world because we have been pariahs. We are not so
petty. But by striving until we have become the world's four greatest
scientists we have proved to our own satisfaction that a mixture of
blood is a wholesome thing. This expedition of ours, and its effect so
far on New York City, is the result of our years of planning."
"I see no need for wholesale murder. Lecture platforms are open to all
creeds, all races...."
Something suggestive of a sneer creased Sitsumi's lips. The Three did
not change expression in the least.
* * * * *
"People do not listen to reason. They listen to force. We will use force
to make them listen, in the end, to reason--backed in turn by force, if
you like. We have settled on New York from which to begin our conquest
of the world because it is the world's largest, richest, most
representative city. If we control New York we control the wealth of the
North American continent, and therefore the continent itself. Our
destruction of buildings in New York City serves a twofold purpose. It
prepares the inhabitants to listen to us later because, seeing what we
are capable of doing, they will be afraid not to. Our efficiency is
further shown in our destruction of the old out-of-date buildings,
chosen for destruction simply because they are obsolete. The New York
City of our schemes will be a magic city...."
"But what is your purpose, in a few words?" insisted Jeter.
"The foundation of a world government; the destruction of the mentally
deficient; the scientific production of a mixed race of intellectuals,
comparable to, but greater than, that of ancient Greece, which was great
because it was a human melting pot."
"How are you going to do it--after you've finished your grandstand
plays?" said Eyer.
Sitsumi stared at Eyer, his eyes narrowing. Eyer was making his dislike
entirely too plain. Jeter nudged him, but the question had been asked.
"With this space ship--and others which are building," replied Sitsumi.
"Haven't you guessed at any of our methods?"
"Yes," said Jeter, "I know you are the rumored inventor of a substance
which is invisible because light rays are bent around it instead of
passing through, yet the result is as though they actually passed
through. I judge that the shell, or skin, of this stratosphere ship is
composed of this substance, whose formula of construction is your
secret. Light rays passing around it would render it invisible, yet
would make the beholding eye seem to see in a straight line as usual,
disregarding refraction."
Sitsumi nodded. The Three nodded with him, like puppets. But their eyes
were glowingly alive.
"You are right. Are you further interested? If you have no interest in
our theories there is little need to pursue our plans further, where you
are concerned."
"We are interested, of course," said Jeter. "We are interested in your
theories, without committing ourselves to acceptance of them; and we are
naturally interested in saving our lives. Let us say then, for the
moment, that we do not refuse to join you."