CHAPTER III
ONE MUST DARE
THE clayey ball of the earth had passed another milestone in its yearly course around the sun. Now spring was coming in the northern hemisphere, and under the benign influence of the warm yellow rays the grass and buds and all manner of living things were stirring to life again.
In the brown fields where snow had lain for many weeks the soil was fresh again with the spring, and farmers were preparing anew to plant their crops for another year’s food. In towns and cities where the gray mantle of winter had locked the smoky air in frosty embrace, the sky was clear and warm again. All life stretched out to greet the coming of the warm summer months.
It was as all the springs had been for countless years. except that now the chill of winter had been replaced by a chill more dreadful still in the hearts of men. The danger of destruction was still to be viewed from afar, to be sure; it was a remote and by no means certain doom. But the fact that an alien race, equipped with machines capable of withstanding artillery and flame and heat, had set about it to conquer the continents of the West was, at the least, disquieting. Millions of persons, who had heard how all the armies and resources of the Americans had crumpled before the savage onslaughts of this determined foe, were puzzled and terrified.
The news of fresh advances had come day by day, leaking through the absurd wall of silence which the military had tried to throw around the entire zone of the invasion. Now the Asians had captured the Trans-Andean railroad and following it to the western end had taken Valparaiso against the strongest defense force that had ever been mustered for battle on the Western Hemisphere. It was with their giant tanks that they still advanced; they had augmented by hundreds13 the original number released from the mouth of the causeway on the day they stormed Montevideo. Now, with the capture of the railroad and the cities at either end, they had cut off the southern part of the South American continent and were already assimilating it, running their huge pump of an earth-car through and through the globe to bring fresh armies of strange inhabitants for the new soil.
That their next move would be northward was evident. The Asians were sure of themselves: steady, deliberate. When they were ready their juggernaut tanks would bear down upon some city along the coast and would capture and destroy it as mercilessly and as completely as if there were no army in the whole Western World to make defenses or plan strategies. Fortunately, the cold months of the year were coming to the southern continent, and with them, it was assumed by many, the invasion would go more slowly, or perhaps cease entirely until spring should come again. They were deliberate, the Asians; no man could stand against them, and they need not hurry with their conquest if they chose otherwise.
If, by chance, news of the army’s reverses had not leaked out to spread dismay in the north, the good citizens of the continent had always the earth’s tremors to remind them of the ever-present activities of the Asians. Everybody, from the greatest statesman to the humblest worker in mines or fields, knew about those tremors now and often imagined he could feel or hear them as in the dead of night the heavy metal car of the Asians passed through the center of the earth, flying with express speed for the Western Hemisphere with new supplies and armies and weapons, perhaps of unknown design and newly horrible portent.
In the cities the situation was particularly bad, for the constant tremors had begun to have their effect on buildings; so at least persons in the cities had come to believe. Whenever a window shattered suddenly or a stone dropped from its lofty perch or a brick edifice cracked and began to crumble, they blamed it on the giant earth-car of the Asians. In vain builders pointed out that the tremors, strong enough to be measured by delicate instruments as they were, could hardly be responsible for these phenomena. There had been buildings collapsing before the Asians built their tube, statesmen pointed out. Falling stones were no new things, asserted the scientists. Cracks might more commonly be caused by poor workmanship than by tremors, it was said.
Nevertheless, the terror spread. All through the early spring those persons who could leave New York and Chicago, where the tallest buildings were, began to move. In New York financiers and brokers began to think of what might happen to the financial structure of the world if the Wall Street buildings should collapse, and gradually they built up a new financial center inland, in Pennsylvania, to which bankers commuted every day by airplane and where the height of buildings, made of reenforced concrete and heavy steel, was strictly limited.
Theaters and amusement centers depending upon great crowds for prosperity almost ceased to exist. The strong machinery of civilization, which a year before had hummed at its highest pitch, had now begun, to crumble before that steady tremor in the earth. Whether real or imaginary, it made no difference. Here, almost before the real struggle had begun, the northern continent was already demoralized and fearful, smitten by its own imagination to such an extent that the mere appearance of an armored enemy would have sufficed to frighten men into the open fields.
It was because of this situation that on the first of April, when the world should have been glowing with promise for the new year of productivity, that the extraordinary session of the Pan-American Congress was called at Washington by the President of the Pan-Americas. To his mind the demoralization of the country had grown intolerable. There was no intelligent support behind the Government in the fighting of the war. Some drastic measure must be taken to enable the Government to renew its grip. The age-old forms of democracy must, for a time, relinquish their claims in the interests of national safety and the continued union of the Western continents.
He had taken counsel of military chiefs, financiers, statesmen, and scientists as to what might be done to save the Western Hemisphere from the invaders. The Secretary of War had admitted that his puny efforts had been vain and foolish and that his knowledge of war was nothing against the grave and measured advances of the new enemy. Financiers and scientists and lesser leaders in political affairs had promised to support the government in whatever measures it chose to further the military resistance offered the invaders. A crisis had come in the affairs of America; it was no longer a time for theories and speculation; the hour had come when a strong central power must act and act quickly. Such unification of control could be obtained in only one way: by the appointment of an extraordinary War Council of five, under the never before used provisions of Article 17 of the Pan-American Constitution.
It was for this reason that the President had summoned the Congress: to obtain from it the necessary permission to appoint the council, with unlimited and absolute power to plan, prosecute, and direct the defense, a power extending even to the life and death of military men and civilians. It would be a revolutionary request to make of a democratic body of representatives; the President expected a stiff fight, and for that reason called upon all his supporters to attend the session: Senor Ramon Garcia, the governor of South America, Hugh Frazer, the governor of North America, Exegon Pelal, the Secretary of the Treasury of the Pan-Americas, as well as bankers and manufacturers and merchant kings whose word, he felt, would have great weight with the congressmen.
“It is the curse of democracy,” he said on the eve of the convocation of the Congress, “that in an emergency such as this we cannot act, but must, instead, spend all our energy cutting the strings of legal tape which bind us down. While our devouring enemy comes northward with fire and steel, we must be wasting time here on the debating floor, begging permission to defend our country from its enemies with unfettered hands.
“The debate in Congress will be a long one, I’m afraid. Though the fists of foes are already beating on our doors, there will be backward representatives and senators who cannot see!”
In this prediction he was not disappointed. When the President, flanked by the influential men he had summoned to Lis aid, had presented his proposition, a debate broke out which promised to last for weeks. Senators and representatives, puzzled, suspicious, and jealous, began a great hubbub of questionings and denunciations. Led by the veteran Senator Hamblin, from the Pacific Northwest, the obstructionists cast aspersions and indulged in innuendo.
“Shall we,” asked their leader, “surrender thus lightly human rights which have come down to us from the Magna Carta? Should we not, gentlemen, rather strike back in resentment at those who, seeking perhaps to further their own ambitions,14 would become members of this autocratic board?”
While this debate went on, more than three million men were under arms, and an additional two million, mustered from the two Americas, were learning the absurd manual of arms in a hundred training camps and were marching and wheeling and stopping to commands as if the invaders could be repelled by automatons or scared by khaki uniforms and hand grenades.
From all over the continents men and boys, stirred by the events of the spring, had volunteered to fight, though what they hoped to do against an enemy which moved in armored tanks was not clear. The vast machinery of war, laid out in normal and peaceful times, went about the mobilization with its head in the ground and its ears stopped, accepting the patriotic sacrifice of millions of young Americans without a tremor and with the best of grace. Men were mustered in and taught to march. A tremendous financial burden was imposed upon the state; many officers received excellent positions; there was a great military clatter and bustle over all the land, but still the enemy, undaunted by display, came inexorably northward.
From the moment the Asian tanks struck the soil of the Western Hemisphere, the invasion had not really paused for an instant. With the capture of the land south of the Trans-Andean railroad the Asians had moved northwestward from Buenos Aires, falling upon helpless Rosario. Thereafter the influence of the invaders spread northward like a great cancer, moving out from Buenos Aires on the eastern coast and Valparaiso on the west. Along the railroad lines and streams they proceeded, sacking the country as they went.
Cordoba, the beautiful, was the next to fall, and three days later several huge tanks, moving out of Valparaiso, attacked Coquimbo, destroying it and taking captive thousands of helpless civilians.
At Coquimbo a new weapon was encountered, the product of the left-hand gun upon the revolving turrets of the huge metal monsters. It was a ray of light, bluish-green in color, which spread fan-wise toward the object at which it was aimed. In the first encounter whole companies of men were struck down by it as if by lightning. More horrible than the feathery jets of vapor earlier used and for which a protective mask had been worked out in the American laboratories, and more effective, it enabled the triumphant tanks to march into the city amid quivering ranks of the vanquished, which lay where they had fallen, writhing in the most horrible tortures of body and mind.15
The shock of this new attack and the loss of the coast city were still new upon the world when another followed. A large detachment of fighting tanks, accompanied by a fleet of small scouting machines and tenders, moved swiftly up the Parana and came without warning upon Asuncion. By nightfall the city was aflame, and only a handful of the citizens escaped to tell of the horrors they had seen.
The same day word came that scout planes had sighted a company of tanks approaching Santos, along the coast. All South America was in an uproar. The defense forces, large as they were, stood by helplessly or were busy enough saving themselves from the fate which befell city after city as the inhabitants of the countryside deserted for the hills. Airplanes by the thousands bombed the northward moving monsters, with no effect. Unconquerable and undaunted, the tanks moved according to a wise and well-thought-out plan. Neither high explosive nor massed attack could turn them for a moment aside.
In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty the South American senators and representatives were for immediately adopting the suggestion of the President. But the north. there were many there who still felt reasonably safe. There is a thing about danger when it is far away. it loses its tearfulness. No man in the Pacific Northwest could argue, for instance, that the danger did not threaten him as surely as it threatened any in the south. But it was not so near; it was not so imminent. He was not ready yet to give up what he pleased to call his inalienable rights in such a cause.
Of a like mind were his Congressional representatives. They argued, pleaded, cajoled, and ridiculed. They made false appeals to national and state sentiment. They pretended a disbelief in the wisdom of the Constitution makers, who had allowed a provision such as Article 17 to remain in the document. When, on April 8, a week after they had convened, it was reported that Antofagasta had fallen, they began using methods which were frankly obstructionary. The South American representatives, many of them no longer having either homes or constituents, writhed under the knowledge that tanks were already approaching Sucre from the south, that Iquique was threatened. The President, worn by the strain of war and political obstruction, appeared before the Congress two days later, April 10, to make a last plea for action before it was too late. There was talk of revolution in the south. The Central Americas were flaming in revolt. The defense armies were scattered and in full retreat on all fronts. The whole machinery of war had broken down, and there was no power, no single dominant head, to halt the disorder and set the defense on a going basis again.
“I must have the power; I must have the money and the backing; I must have the advice I need, the information, the organization,” declared the President. “It is no longer a question of democracy and individual right here; it is a question of life or death. In a few more weeks your deliberations will be cut short by an Asian tank; your Magna Carta torn to shreds by a slave driver!”
The filibuster continued for another week. It came to an end when word reached the north that Santos, threatened for days by the invaders, had fallen and been burned. Overnight, fearing the movement of the hostile tanks upon Rio de Janeiro, the capital of South America had been hastily moved to Caracas, and thousands of refugees were pouring out of Rio in boats, afoot, and by every possible means of travel, abandoning the city to its fate.
The shock of this blow was decisive. For once numbed by the news, the obstructionists were silent, and the South American members took matters into their own hands. The following day, April 16, the President was notified that his request had been granted by an unanimous vote and that the country was officially in the hands of the five members of the War Council, who were endowed with unlimited power for the prosecution of the war.
II
The President lost no time in calling together his War Council. They met for the first time in the inner office of his suite in Washington: Dr. Scott, King, the Secretary of War, and Senor Garcia, small and quiet. a man of few words, but one who knew every phase of the South American temperament; a man upon whom the Council depended to quell the threatened revolts in the South and restore faith in the Federal Government.
“Dr. Angell,” the President asked, “have you succeeded in obtaining a sample of this Asian metal?”
“No,” admitted the Secretary. “A party equipped with chisels and hammers and electric drills landed close to the causeway mouth and tried to knock off a chip, but though they were not interfered with in any way, they could not break a portion loose. They reported that the stuff appeared to have been flowed together, or fused, like glass. There was neither joint nor crack; nothing to get a chisel or a drill into.”
“Then, after all these weeks, we are as helpless in defending ourselves from the invaders as we were at the beginning?”
“Well. yes,” reluctantly admitted the Secretary, “with the exception that we have devised an armor to-protect our troops from the Asian vapor, and we h^e recently perfected a shield which tends to counteract the effect of the Asian ray.”
“Your soldiers can thus save themselves from danger?”
“Yes.”
“But at the same time they cannot act in any way to defend the civilians or protect the cities from attack?”
“Well. no.”
The telephone at the President’s elbow rang suddenly, viciously. The room grew quiet as the Chief Executive lifted the receiver. Orders had been given that the council room was not to be disturbed except for the most urgent reasons. The ringing of the bell was therefore like a signal of disaster.
“Hello,” the President said. Immediately his face grew serious. He listened to the message quietly, once or twice barking a question. At length he laid the receiver down.
“It was from South America,” he said slowly. “Rio has fallen.”
This announcement was greeted with silence except from Senor Garcia, who uttered a sharp exclamation of sorrow. Expected as the fall of Rio had been, he alone of the five persons in the room had felt it as a personal loss. It was his native city and the erstwhile seat of the government of which he was the head.
“The news was particularly unpleasant,” the President continued gravely. “The Asians for the first time at Rio used a new weapon, a kind of air vibrator which so rocked the atmosphere that the ear-drums of every one within range of the tanks were split. So powerful were the concussions, according to witnesses, that the effect was similar to that upon fish in a dynamited pool. Fortunately, the range was short, but buildings and bridges toppled under the beating of the vibration.16 The Asian tanks stalked like demons through the beauties of Rio. The city is a smoking ruin now.”
Dr. Scott was suddenly on his feet. So they have a third and deadlier weapon!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid of that! In the center of this old earth what may they not have found to burn and torture us with?”
“There is more to be feared from the weapons they have not yet demonstrated than from those we have had experience with,” the old scientist went on more calmly. “Fortunately their rays, vibrations, and vapor jets are of short range; they affect only persons in the immediate vicinity of their attack. But unless I am mistaken, these fellows have something up their sleeves more deadly and demoralizing than any of these relatively puny forces. It is against these other weapons that we must also prepare; weapons which at present we know nothing of!”
It was at that point that King Henderson arose and addressed the President. In the atmosphere of despair and frustration which had settled not only over the members of the War Council, but over the entire American continent, his courage was like a ray of light.
“In my opinion,” he began, “we are only wasting time talking and speculating about these things. There is only one way to beat these people, and that is to send a spy to learn their secrets. He might have to go as far as the mouth of the earth-tunnel itself. He might have to travel through to Asia before he found what he was looking for. But only when we have knowledge of this new metal, how it is made, and more important, how it is destroyed, will we be able to tackle the Asians man to man.”
A silence followed his remarks. The President and Dr. Scott agreed.
“Your suggestion is hardly a new one,” the President commented. “In the regular course of military affairs it is usual to send spies into the enemy camp, and this has already been done. More than a hundred men trained in military espionage have already gone; most of them never came back, and those who did return knew nothing more than when they departed.”
“Exactly,” said King, “but their failure in a case like this should most surely have been expected. A spy who would learn what we must know would not only have to be brave and clever; he would have to be a scientist as well. Otherwise, how could he recognize and understand the processes he bad been sent to investigate? A young man trained in science must be your spy.”
The President nodded. “It’s what I’ve been thinking,” he replied. “But who? Whom could we send?”
“How about some of my technical experts?” asked the Secretary of War. “There are some fine young men there who could do the job.”
The President appeared to be considering the proposal. “Perhaps they could,” he returned slowly, “and perhaps it would be only a useless sacrifice. Like your officers, Dr. Angell, your technicians are bitten with the military virus. Their minds retain, but their heads are thick.”
“But surely. “ began the Secretary with asperity, but he was cut off by the President’s upraised hand. He had observed that King had something more to say.
“Henderson,” he said, “I beg your pardon for taking up the conversation before you had finished. Did you have a suggestion along this line?”
King came properly to his feet again before he replied.
“I was only going to add,” he said, “that I made the suggestion about espionage because I’d like to try the job myself. if you can’t find a better man.”
The effect of this reply was electrical. Dr. Scott stiffened imperceptibly in his chair. The Secretary made an exclamation of surprise, and the President arose and took King kindly by the hand.
“We haven’t doubted your courage, Henderson,” he said evenly, “but. you are too valuable here. Let us try it first with others. and if they lose. then you may go.”
Dr. Scott also stood up, regarding his associate quietly. There were tears in the old man’s eyes. “It is almost certain death you are asking for,” he declared. “I am proud of you. but I am sure there is some better way.”
He turned abruptly to the others.
“In fact,” he said, “I may already be on the way to a solution of our problems. Since I first began to think of this Asian metal I’ve been working on a ray of disintegration which I believe will ultimately destroy it.
“The announcement, I’ll admit, is premature. I have only now got track of this ray; I haven’t yet discovered it. But if telling you will serve to prevent the wanton loss of any additional American lives. “
He paused uncertainly.
The President came forward eagerly with a question.
“Can you say how soon you will be able to show results?” he demanded.
The old scientist slumped back into his chair, shaking his head a little wearily. “I’m tinkering at it almost day and night,” he replied. “It may be only a matter of days. also it may be that I’ll never find it.”
“In that case,” said the President, “allow us to give you every aid possible. But in the meantime we’d better send out the spies.”
He turned brusquely toward Dr. Angell, who was rather white and shaken, like the others, by the sudden serious turn of events.
“Detail two of your young men to make this attempt,” the President directed. “Use your own judgment. and theirs. as to how it should be done. But mind you pick your cleverest. We must have no bungling. They must return or send the necessary information as soon as possible. I’ll give them. two weeks!”
III
In the night a small airplane crossed over the ruins of what had been Buenos Aires and landed beyond the blackened battleground. Two men got out and shook hands gravely, without a word. One wore the clothing of a ragged old man. He walked with difficulty as if his joints were stiff with much hobbling. The other was pilot of the plane.
For a moment they stood there in the silence, listening. No sound was to be heard. The known enemy camps were miles away, and in the bruised and blackened site where they stood there was not even animal life to break the stillness.
“Be here in two weeks,” said the old man at length. “If you find me. well, you will find me. If not, report at once to Washington. That’s all.”
The two shook hands again, and the old one moved slowly away on his stick. When he had gone a short distance the engine of the airplane roared, and the ship rose easily into the darkness.
At nearly the same hour, a little over a hundred miles away, another man was creeping along the seashore north and east of what had once been Montevideo. Near by there was a long finger of land which reached out into the ocean until it was lost in the darkness and the faintly visible motion of the sea. At the land end of the causeway the great curved door was open a little crack, perhaps as wide or wider than a man, and through the opening came a yellow glimmer of light. The wayfarer turned his feet cautiously toward the illumination, and when he had reached the unguarded office he stood beside it and peeped around the edge. A little later he walked through the door and disappeared.
King and Anna, sitting in Dr. Scott’s library in New York, heard with mingled feelings that the two technicians had been successfully launched upon their dangerous visit to the camps of the enemy. Over the telephone the Secretary, who had just received reports from his base camps in South America, explained that he had every confidence in the two men he had selected for this mission, and they were bound to succeed.”
“Secretary Angell is always optimistic,” commented King.
“But surely he is right this time,” Anna returned. “It won’t be hard for those young men to get the information.” There was a note of dread and foreboding in her voice as she went on, exclaiming suddenly: “But King. if they should fail. !” She left the rest unsaid.
If King heard, he made no sign. He was busy with his own thoughts, revolving the Asian puzzle in his mind, trying to bring from it a clear plan of action and defense.
“The thing must be simple,” he said, half aloud. “It must be so simple that it has eluded us! It would mean something to me, Anna, if I were to be the one to find out that secret.”
His companion shuddered, but did not answer.
The hour was late, but in the laboratory adjoining the aged scientist was at his work. Through the open doors of the library there came strange noises and unreal lights and electrical crackings which echoed against the walls and flared grotesquely among the shadows cast by the yellow flickering of the soft wood fire.
King and Anna knew too well the nature of the task which was absorbing Dr. Scott’s time and energy in the other room. Almost feverishly he had been working in his long quest for rays that would destroy the atoms of the^Asian tanks or any other matter that should come within their range. It was his one hopeful contribution toward the winning of the war; if he could find the ray and harness it, the country might be saved.
As they were sitting in the library there came suddenly from the laboratory a new and louder sputter and a flare of most unearthly light. The entire building seemed to shudder with it, and a glass tube which had been resting on the table back of the silent pair seemed to sing out abruptly in unison with some distant vibration before it burst in many pieces with a loud pop. As quickly as it had come the ghastly light disappeared; the noises stopped. And Dr. Scott was shouting incoherently in the laboratory at the top of his voice.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” he screamed. He came hurrying out of the gloom toward Anna and King, who had leaped, startled, to their feet.
“I had the disintegrating ray,” he explained with great excitement. “I produced it, but the first thing to disintegrate was the apparatus itself. I’ve got to learn how to avoid that, and we’ll have a weapon for the world.”
Turning on the lights the three went back into Professor Scott’s alcove. It looked as if a bombshell had burst in there, and under the light it was seen that Dr. Scott himself had not escaped without serious burns. Parts of his clothing had entirely disappeared. The table upon which he had been working was more than half gone, together with all of the elaborate apparatus which had been sitting on it. A small heap of grayish dust, less than a tablespoonful, lay on the floor.
“Do you know what it means?” continued the scientist, almost hysterical. “Do you know what it means? It means that if I can reproduce and control that ray we will be able to annihilate the enemy! But God, I’m not even sure that I can perform the experiment again. It happened when I wasn’t looking, quite by accident. Fortunately I was standing a little distance away when I threw the current on, else I, too, would have been down there.” He indicated the pile of dust.
“Look here,” said King, taking a pencil and paper, “let’s draw it out, the way your apparatus was fixed. Maybe we can study it over and find a better way to set it up.”
Already he was beginning to sketch the portions of the machine which he remembered, but Anna, looking at her father, gave a little cry. He was leaning against the wall, weak and very faint.
“Quick,” she exclaimed. “Get a doctor and help me get him in bed. He’s hurt. Quick, help me, King!”
Together they carried the old man to his bedroom, and King took off his clothes while Anna summoned aid. He was unconscious before the doctor came, breathing heavily. The physician examined him carefully. Aside from a few minor scars, which appeared to be burns, the old scientist was, to all appearances, unhurt.
“It’s just shock, I think,” the doctor said when he had heard the details of the experiment which Dr. Scott had been performing. “He’s been working too hard. He should rest two or three weeks. That will bring him around.”
“Two or three weeks,” exclaimed King in consternation. “Doctor, do you know the safety of the world may depend on what Professor Scott does in the next two or three weeks?”
The physician shook his head firmly.
“Either he rests,” he said, feeling his patient’s pulse, “or the world will have to get along without him. permanently.”
Anna took hold of King’s arm impulsively.
“Then it is up to us,” she said.
“Yes,” replied King. “Let’s try to set the apparatus up.”
IV
The Secretary of War of the Pan-Americas kept in his office a private file of messages sent to his department which must by no means reach the newspapers or other public information agencies. Into this file on the week after Dr. Scott’s sudden illness went a brief message from an isolated military camp in South America, which read as follows:
Pilot A. . went to the prearranged meeting place south of Buenos Aires last night in response to a special radio message from S. . N. . , who was dropped there eight days ago for espionage directed by the War Council. S. . N. . was equipped with a small radio sending apparatus with which he was to signal for aid or call the plane when he was ready to leave the enemy terrain with his information. When A. . reached the spot, he circled over it several times and finally sighted S. . N. . . He wirelessed us that he was landing, but no further messages were received from either A. . or S. . N. . .
In the file, clipped to the message, was a carbon copy of the reply, sent the same day:
Send searching party at once. Make every effort to learn what happened to the pilot and S. . N. . . Wire immediately results and spare no expense in the search.
Angell.
The Secretary now had the reply to this second message in his hand, and he was pacing nervously back and forth in his inner office, deliberating whether to call the President about it at once or wait for further word from South America. The spies had now been gone two weeks, the time limit set by the War Council. The searching expedition, in which more than a hundred airplanes had taken part, had found neither the spy who had been landed south of Buenos Aires disguised as a crippled old man, or the airplane in which A. . , the pilot whose name had been so carefully deleted from the dispatches as they were filed, had flown to meet his confederate.
It was the loss of the airplane which particularly puzzled and alarmed the Secretary. Somehow the Asians had taken the spy and had used him as a decoy to bring the pilot to the spot. But why had they done that? It was clear. because they wanted an airplane of the latest design. Perhaps they would reproduce them in hundreds of thousands, and the air would be full of a new terror.
“I will tell the President at once,” the Secretary decided, picking up a telephone. But in a moment he laid it down again. The capture of an airplane was, he felt, due to his blundering directions. It was his idea that the spy should be landed back of the lines in a plane, equipped with a radio to call the plane again. By any other strategy the airplane could not have been caught. How could he tell the President and the War Council that he had been responsible for the loss not only of a spy and pilot, but of an airplane as well?
He crumpled the message in his hand and threw it to the floor. When he had taken the position of Secretary of War there had been no war in sight, and the likelihood of his ever having to mess around with military details, aside from parades and martial music, had been so remote as to seem negligible. But now he was faced suddenly with war. with war which was worse than anything any one had ever before imagined. A clever and ingenious enemy, threatening to engulf the continents, and here, in one of the moves intended to outwit them, he had played directly into their hands!
Should he tell the President? Secretary Angell slowly unwadded the message from his military aide in South America and read it again:
Have searched all night. Sent five squadrons of planes to take photographs of every inch of the terrain and others to make minute search. No sign of the enemy or of either of the men lost. No sign of the plane, though found searings in the soft dirt where it had landed. Will make further search by daylight today, though considered very dangerous. No enemy sighted on the plain.
He smoothed the wrinkled paper on his knee and placed it carefully in the files with the other communications. He would not tell what had happened to the first spy and the plane; at least not just yet. There was still another man who ought to be sending word any time now that he had successfully completed his mission. If he came back there would be no need to mention the earlier accident at all.
He dismissed the matter of the lost airplane from his mind. Why would the Asians go to such trouble to get a model plane? What need had they of planes, when their tanks were so effective?
He slammed the door of the filing cabinet shut and locked it. Turning, he brushed his hair into place and adjusted his tie. His fingernails appeared soiled. He took a small tool from his pocket kit and began to polish them. It was important, he was thinking, for a public official to look the part.
The Secretary’s office was at one end of a long corridor. It was heavily carpeted and richly furnished, as were all of the offices of the governmental buildings. In the hallway could be heard the whisperings of many feet as they passed, the aides and messengers and other servants of an empire government.
But the Secretary was thinking, as he worked over his hands, of something other than the great work of the State.
The Pan-American War Mothers Patriotic Society was giving a formal luncheon that afternoon, with the Secretary of War of the Pan-Americas as honor guest. He would make a speech about the war which would be broadcast over most of the two continents. He hoped his voice would be good.
He finished his nails with a flourish and held them up to the light.
There was a uniformed attendant at the door with a, telegram.
“It’s a confidential message, sir,” he asserted. “I was told to deliver it to you personally.”
The telegram was from the army base near Asuncion. It read:
your technician w. . n. . detailed for espionage work behind the lines and dropped three days ago vicinity enemy causeway picked up along coast in friendly territory by airplane squadron early to-day stop was blinded in both eyes ears had been amputated and other mutilation stop was babbling incoherently stop sent to military hospital here for treatment stop physicians unable to get anything out of him except enemy had captured tortured him then turned loose north the lines with warning to other spies stop in mutterings kept saying quote it is made out of mud comma only mud unquote physicians say temporary insanity shock and exposure.
The Secretary’s hand trembled. He thrust the message hastily into his pocket and walked briskly down the hall. He stopped before he left the building for a drink of water.
He was not quite so nervous by the time he had reached the scene of the luncheon. He was thinking by that time of what he would have to say over the radio. It would never do to betray excitement or alarm; rather he must appear to have the whole situation well in hand.
“We turn now to a few moments consideration of those barbarians from the other side of the earth who have presumed to invade this free and quiet land of ours,” he would say. “Let us have no fear of the outcome of this contest. At last we have the situation in hand, and day by day our fighting men are pouring southward to meet the far-flung attack with steel and shells and flame that will wipe these enemies from the earth!”
The ladies of the Pan-American War Mothers Patriotic Society applauded his speech most heartily that afternoon.
V
King Henderson was talking quietly and gravely with two men. One of them was the President of the Pan-Americas, and the other was Alexander Jenson, a war pilot whose reputation as a dare-devil flier had gained him fame throughout the world. It was he who had opened the first trans-polar air line from the old United States to Europe. It was he also who had charted the higher air currents over the Pacific Ocean, and had demonstrated the practicability of the highflying rocket plane for heavy passenger and freight duty. In his less spectacular hours he had practiced stunt flying and had, in addition, worked out at least seven improvements to wing design which had been incorporated on virtually every modern plane in the civilized world.
He was listening carefully as Henderson talked, for he was about to engage, with the young scientist, in an adventure which might well be more dangerous and more important than any he had undertaken in his life. The President of the Pan-Americas was also deeply interested. The three of them were sitting in Dr. Scott’s library.
“I will not attempt disguise,” said King. “If there were time, disguise might be the wiser way. But we must learn these secrets quickly now. Already they have Lima and Callao, and Para will fall before the end of the week.”
The President nodded. The position of the new capital of South America, at Caracas, was already precarious because of the recent advances of the Asians, and half the population of upper Brazil, Colombia, Guiana, and even Venezuela had fled before the slowly approaching machines of the enemy. They seemed now everywhere in the south, as invincible as ever. A body of them had moved from Sucre to La Paz, thence to Mollendo and Lima. Another group had followed around the Atlantic coast, taking Bahia and Pernambuco, and was now moving upon Para. A third and larger fleet, fully equipped and accompanied by hundreds of convoy tanks, had plunged boldly into the Matto Grosso, working through the almost impenetrable jungle northward. Already, instead of foundering in the marshes as had been predicted, this ghastly company was approaching the main stream of the Amazon and would undoubtedly cross. The high and rugged Andes had served as a barrier to their further progress on the west coast for the moment, but at the rate they were advancing elsewhere they would soon have the whole continent to themselves,
“We will start to-night,” said King quietly. “We will take the swiftest plane we can find, but one large enough for four or five passengers so that we may bring back some of this metal if it is possible. I will be ready to leave at dark.”
“But what is your plan?” the President asked. King hesitated. “The fact is,” he said, “I haven’t any. yet. We will fly directly to the head of the earth-tube, and there we will size up the situation. I think it is foolish to try spying tactics in the enemy military camps. I propose, if it is possible, to land directly on the island at the head of the earth-tube and proceed from there.”
The President started involuntarily. “My God,” he exclaimed, “you are going directly to their stronghold! It is extremely dangerous.”
“The time is short; we must risk anything for this information,” King answered.
The pilot extended his hand, gripping King’s warmly. “I’ll be at the flying field at dusk,” he said.
“The plane will be fully equipped with the things you mentioned.”
The President remained alone with King for a parting sentence. “My boy,” he said, “you must not fail. Good luck!” He took King’s hand and pressed it firmly. “We’ll do what we can for you, but you realize as well as any that your fate will be in your own hands. It is a sorry day when we must take a chance like this!”
Without another word he followed Jenson out of the room, and King was left alone. Quickly he turned and went into Professor Scott’s room, where the old man, attended by nurses and physicians, was recovering slowly. Anna was there, sitting beside her father. She stood up when King came in and ran over to him.
“I will go at dusk,” King announced. “It will mean everything or nothing.”
Anna did not reply. The aged scientist raised himself slowly among his pillows.
“In a few days I will be back in the laboratory,” he objected, “and then, if we have luck, we will reproduce and perfect the disintegrating ray. Maybe it would be better for you to wait. “
“No. not on such a slender hope. I have no doubt but that you will find the ray and harness it. But it may take weeks. months. Already they are swarming toward the isthmus, and engineers have begun to discuss the widening and deepening of the Panama and Nicaraguan canals to prevent their tanks from crossing.”
Dr. Scott nodded weakly. “Absurdities pile upon absurdities,” he replied, “and our people, led by a foolish military machine, delude themselves into feelings of security when it is as plain as day that nothing at present within our grasp will stop the march of the enemy.”
He reached out and took King’s hand impulsively. “But why,” he asked, “must it be you? For five years I have looked upon you as my son. “ He looked quickly away. “Now, of course. you may come through. But after what they’ve done to our other spies. “
“You must get strong as rapidly as you can,” replied King. “You must work on that ray, no matter what happens. And as for Anna here. she will be your helper in my place while I am gone.
“But. I won’t fail. I have a small sending apparatus which I will wear with me, and with which I can signal you from time to time. You will know whether I am well. But even if you do not hear, don’t give up hope. I will come through. I’m sure of it!”
Anna followed him out into the laboratory, linking her arm in his with sisterly affection. He glanced suddenly around the old familiar room, and was conscious of a keen nostalgia at the prospect of leaving all of the things which in a few years had become the whole of his life.
“Two weeks. or three at the most, I will be gone,” he was thinking. But perhaps it would be longer than that.
“This war has interrupted our happiness in this house,” he said softly after a while. “But it will not be for long, Anna. I will be back, and we will have peace.”
“Of course you’ll come back, King,” she replied. “Everything depends upon it.” Then, as if fearing that she had been too brusque, she went on, taking hold of his arm impulsively. “Of course you know what you mean to us here. You are like a member of the family. You are the only brother I’ve ever had. “
She turned back to practical matters after a moment.
“Now you must get yourself ready for the trip,” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “You must not forget the radio and your automatic pistol. Here. I will help you get your things together. I want to have a part in this adventure. I envy you.
“Think of it, King! You will be the first man of our race to see the earth-tube and these Asian wonders! While we are back here in the laboratory guessing about these things, you will be seeing and measuring them. You will be learning secrets which we have only been able to hint at!”
He caught her hand in a warm grip.
“You are fine!” he exclaimed. “You’ve got the right idea!”