Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 Part 3

Climbing into the sky, a mile off the starboard beam, was an airplane with a bulbous body and queerly slanted wings. It had neither wheels nor pontoons, and it traveled with unbelievable speed. It came on bullet-fast, headed directly for the side of the _Stellar_.

"Lower the boats!" yelled Kleig. "Lower the boats! For G.o.d's sake lower the boats!"

For Prester Kleig, in that casual turning, had seen what none aboard the _Stellar_, even the lookout above, had seen. The airplane, which had neither wheels nor pontoons, had risen, as Aphrodite is said to have risen, out of the waves! He had seen the wings come out of the bulbous body, snap backward into place, and the plane was in full flight the instant it appeared.

Prester Kleig had no hope that his warning would be in time, but he would always feel better for having given it. As the captain debated with himself as to whether this lunatic should be confined as dangerous, the strange airplane nosed over and dived down to the sea, a hundred yards from the side of the _Stellar_. Just before it struck the water, its wings snapped forward and became part of the bulbous body of the thing, the whole of which shot like a bullet into the sea.

Prester Kleig stood at the rail, peering out at the spot where the plane had plunged in with scarcely a splash, and his right hand was raised as though he gave a final, despairing signal.

Of all aboard the _Stellar_, he only saw that black streak which, ten feet under water, raced like a bolt of lightning from the nose of the submerged but visible plane, straight as a die for the side of the _Stellar_. Just a black streak, no bigger than a small man's arm, from the nose of the plane to the side of the _Stellar_.

From the crow's-nest came the startled, terrific voice of the lookout, in the beginning of a cry that must remain forever inarticulate.

The world, in that blinding moment, seemed to rock on its foundations; to shatter itself to bits in a chaotic jumble of sound and of movement, shot through and through with lurid flames. Kleig felt himself hurled upward and outward, turned over and over endlessly....

He felt the storm-tossed waters close over him, and knew he had struck.

In the moment he knew--oblivion, deep, ebon and impenetrable, blotted out knowledge.

CHAPTER II

_The Half-Dream_

A roaring, rus.h.i.+ng river of chaotic sound, first. Jumbled sound to which Prester Kleig could give no adequate name. But as he tried to a.n.a.lyze its meanings, he was able to differentiate between sounds, and to discover the ident.i.ty of some.

The river of sound he decided to be the sound of a vibrational explosion of some sort--vibrational because it had that quivery quality which causes a feeling of uneasiness and fret, that feeling which makes one turn and look around to find the eyes boring into one's back--yet multiplied in its intensity an uncounted number of times.

Other sounds which came through the chaotic river of sound were the terrified screaming of the men and women who were doomed. Lifeboats were never lowered, for the reason that with the disintegration of the _Stellar_, everything inanimate aboard her likewise disintegrated, dropping men and women, crew and pa.s.sengers, into the freezing waters of the Atlantic.

Prester Kleig dropped with them, only partially unconscious after the first icy plunge. He knew when he floated on the surface, for he felt himself lifted and hurled by the waves. In his half-dream he saw men and women being carried away into wave-shrouded darkness, clawing wildly at nothingness for support, clawing at one another, locking arms, and going down together.

The _Stellar_, in the merest matter of seconds, had become spoil of the sea, and her crew and pa.s.sengers had vanished forever from the sight of men. Yet Prester Kleig lived on, knew that he lived on, and that there was an element, too strong to be disbelieved, of reality in his dream.

There was a vibratory sense, too, as of the near activity of a noiseless motor. Noiseless motor! Where had he last thought of those two words?

With what recent catastrophe were they a.s.sociated? No, he could not recall, though he knew he should be able to do so.

Then the sense of motion to the front was apparent--an unnumbered sense, rather than concrete feeling. Motion to front, influenced by the rising and falling motion of mountainous waves.

So suddenly as to be a distinct shock, the wave motion ceased, though the forward motion--and _upward!_--not only continued but increased.

That airplane of the bulbous body, the queerly slanted wings....

But the glimmering of realization vanished as a sickishly sweet odor a.s.sailed his nostrils and sent its swift-moving tentacles upward to wrap themself soothingly about his brain. But the sense of flight, unbelievably swift, was present and recognizable, though all else eluded him. He had the impression, however, that it was intended that all save the most vagrant, most widely differentiated, impressions elude him--that he should acquire only half pictures, which would therefore be all the more terrible in retrospect.

The only impressions which were real were those of motion to the front, and upward, and the sense of noiseless machinery, vibrating the whole, nearby.

Then a distinct realization of the cessation of the sense of flying, and a return, though in lesser degree, of the rising and falling of waves.

This latter sensation became less and less, though the feeling of traveling downward continued. Prester Kleig knew that he was going down into the sea again, down into it deeply.... Then that odor once more, and the elusive memory.

Forward motion at last, in the depths, swift, forward motion, though Prester Kleig could not even guess at the direction. Just swift motion, and the mutter of voices, the giving of orders....

Prester Kleig regained consciousness fully on the sands of the sh.o.r.e. He sat up stiffly, staring out to sea. A storm was raging, and the sea was an angry waste. No s.h.i.+p showed on the waters; the mad, tumbled sky above it was either empty of planes or they had climbed to invisibility above the clouds that raced and churned with the storm.

Out of the storm, almost at Prester Kleig's feet, dropped a small airplane. Through the window a familiar face peered at Kleig. A helmeted, begoggled figure opened the door and stepped out.

"Kleig, old man," said the flyer, "you gave me the right dope all right, but I'll swear there isn't a wireless tower within a hundred miles of this place! How did you manage it?"

"Kane, you're crazy, or I am, or...." But Prester Kleig could not go on with the thought which had rushed through his brain with the numbing impact of a blow. He grasped the hand of Carlos Kane, of the Domestic Service, and the yellow flimsy Kane held out to him. It read simply:

"s.h.i.+pwrecked. Am ash.o.r.e at--" There followed grid coordinate map readings. "Come at once, prepared to fly me to Was.h.i.+ngton." It was signed "Kleig."

"Kane," said Kleig, "I did not send this message!"

What more was there to be said? Horror looked out of the eyes of Prester Kleig, and was reflected in those of Carlos Kane. Both men turned, peering out across the tumbled welter of waters.

Somewhere out there, tight-locked in the gloomy archives of the Atlantic, was the secret of the message which had brought Carlos Kane to Prester Kleig--and the agency which had sent it.

CHAPTER III

_Wings of To-morrow_

As Prester Kleig climbed into the enclosed pa.s.senger pit of the monoplane--a Mayther--his ears seemed literally to be ringing with the drumming, mighty voice of Moyen. But now that voice, instead of merely speaking, rang with sardonic laughter. He had never heard the laughter of Moyen, but he could guess how it would sound.

That airplane of the slanted wings, the bulbous, almost bulletlike fuselage, what of it? It was simple, as Kleig looked back at his memoried glimpse of it. The submarine was a metal fish made with human hands; the airplane aped the birds. The strange s.h.i.+p which had caused the destruction of the _Stellar_, was a combination fish and bird--which merely aped nature a bit further, as anyone who had ever traversed tropical waters would have instantly recognized.

But what did it portend? What ghastly terrors of Moyen roamed the deeps of the Atlantic, of the Pacific, the oceans of the world? How close were some of these to the United States?

The pale eyes of Moyen, he was sure, were already turned toward the West.

Prester Kleig sighed as he seated himself beside Carlos Kane. Then Kane pressed one of the myriad of b.u.t.tons on the dash, and Kleig lifted his eyes to peer through the skylight, to where that single press of a b.u.t.ton had set in motion the intricate machinery of the helicopter.

A four-bladed fan lifted on a slender pedestal, sufficiently high above the surface of the wing for the vanes to be free of the central propeller. Then, automatically, the vanes became invisible, and the Mayther lifted from the sandy beach as lightly, and far more straightly, than any bird.

As the s.h.i.+p climbed away for the skies, and through the transparent floor the beach and the Atlantic fell away below the s.h.i.+p, a sigh of relief escaped Kleig. This was living! Up here one was free, if only for a moment, and the swift wind of flight brushed all cobwebs from the tired human brain. He watched the slender needle of the altimeter, as it moved around the face of the dial as steadily as the hands of a clock, around to thirty thousand, thirty-five, forty.