THE STRICKEN CITY
The little glowing bricks had been spread in scores of places. The
acres of tumbled masonry which once reared aloft in proud splendor--the
Woolworth Building--lay still smoking. Other buildings were down. Lower
Manhattan--its pile of monuments to the engineering skill of man--was
interspersed with areas of ruin. A smoke pall hung over everything.
Through it as we arrived I saw another giant building come down....
A warship lay in the upper harbor. Small boats were clustered around
it. Over its decks and within its structure, men were frantically
rushing. It stood there, a shadow on the shadowy water, the embodiment
of impregnable power; the small anxious boats around it like milling
pygmies trying futilely to help its distress.
Then men began pouring from it. The little boats took them and made
off. Alone it lay there. Motionless. Then there came a surge of its
giant bulk upward--a torrent waterspout as of a great mine exploding
beside it. Bow down, it began to sink.
The Statue of Liberty fell. Head down, with torch plunging like a
falling symbol....
The great Fort Wadsworth guarding the Narrows, as though an earthquake
had torn it apart, rose and shook itself and fell into a shapeless
mass. A small police boat was scurrying by in a panic. The tumbling
white waves engulfed it....
The Brooklyn Bridge lay broken and fallen. Its dangling cables hung
like rent cobwebs ripped apart by a giant, ruthless hand.... Figures of
men were clinging to parts of it.
Death, destruction everywhere. But there were soldiers grimly standing
in Battery Park. Machine guns idly standing. Another warship,
unattacked, belching belligerent smoke, moving majestically around the
Battery from one river to another.
A harried lion. Undaunted. But helpless to fight.
* * * * *
Beneath the shadows of the lower Hudson we came upon Brutar and his
clustered cohorts. The devastation was slackening; the bricks had done
their work. Brutar was doubtless thinking of rejoining his people up
there under the little Westchester town. He saw our shapes, and started
north. We followed. Urging him on, but not attacking.
Thone began, "Once we get them all together up there--all of them
together--" But he did not finish.
Our lines let them through. It was a crescent battle line now, open to
the south. But when Brutar swept in we closed it as before.
The scene here had changed somewhat since we left it. The lurid red of
the opposing thought-streams still held balanced between the lines of
the fighters. But in one place it was indented now far into Brutar's
territory--a red gash like a wound gaping amid his huddled throng. And
I noticed, too, that the dim purple haze hung now like an aura close
above the heads of our enemies.
I asked Thone about it. He said, "Those who are not fighters in there
are beginning to feel our thoughts. Perhaps even they begin to suspect
what awaits them. Soon the fighters also will know."
He spoke quietly, but on a note of calm certainty that in the end we
would triumph. From that same height we watched the scene. Almost
immovable, struggling ghosts--grey translucent shapes to my vision as
now I regarded them. Yet--I wondered--were not those shapes of Brutar's
people more solid than our own? A vague shudder mingled with triumph
unholy, swept over me. Was it fancy, or was there indeed a change?
I could see Brutar, or at least a shape I assumed to be his, raised
upon a height in the center of his forces; his arms waving; his
soundless voice doubtless exhorting his fighters to greater effort. The
fog of purple haze swirled about him, tinting, but not obscuring, for
it seemed utterly transparent. Was it my fancy that Brutar's shape was
of changing aspect?
And then I was aware of an uneasiness growing in the mob huddled
there in the midst of the fighting. A stirring. A ripple of movement.
Spreading like the ripples of a pebble thrown into a pond; spreading
until abruptly the mob was surging, struggling to break the bonds of
its own protecting ring of fighters.
The fighters felt the press of the throng behind them. Their efforts
wavered. With diverted minds their thought-stream weakened. At once the
red tumult moved in upon them.
But Thone called his orders and a score of shapes relayed them
throughout our circular investing ring. I could not understand it. We
were not to press our advantage. Our fighters lessened visibly the
strength of their attack. And our antagonists in a moment recovered.
Thone said quietly, "No, Rob--if we were to force in there now and
overwhelm them, there would be many minds unhinged, but not driven
irrevocably away. They might return. It is my aim to destroy them
completely--mind and body--annihilation!"
Savage purpose, savagely expressed! But he added, "It is best--and I
think, more merciful."