The Fire People Part 3

All these points were less than ten miles away from the Mercutian base.

Obviously, then, the danger was grossly exaggerated. The unknown invaders could safely and easily be sh.e.l.led by artillery from a much greater distance. Mercury had pa.s.sed inferior conjunction; no other Mercutian vehicles had been reported as landing anywhere on the earth. A few days, and the danger would be over. Thus the newspapers of the country settled the affair.

On March 14th it was announced that General Price would conduct the military operations against the Mercutians. Press dispatches simultaneously announced that troops, machine guns and artillery were being rushed to Billings. This provoked a caustic comment from the Preparedness League of America, to the effect that no military operations of any offensive value could be conducted by the United States against anybody or anything.

This statement was to some extent true. During the twenty years that had elapsed since the World War armament of all kinds had fallen into disuse.

Few improvements in offensive weapons had been made. The military organization and equipment of the United States, and, indeed, that of many of the other great powers, was admittedly inadequate to cope with any very powerful enemy.

Professor Newland telegraphed to the War Department at Was.h.i.+ngton on the 14th, stating that in his opinion new scientific measures would have to be devised to deal with this enemy, and that whatever scientific knowledge he had on the subject was at their disposal at their request. To this telegram the government never replied.

It was a day or two after that--on the morning of the 16th, to be exact--that the next most important development in this strange affair took place. Alan Newland rose that morning at dawn and took his launch for a trip up one of the neighboring bayous. He was alone, and intended to fish for an hour or so and return home in time for breakfast.

He went, perhaps, three miles up the winding little stream. Then, just after sunrise, he shut off the motor and drifted silently along. The bayou split into two streams here, coming together again a quarter of a mile farther on, and thus forming a little island. It was just past the point of this island that Alan shut off his motor.

He had been sitting quiet several minutes preparing his tackle, when his eye caught something moving behind the dark green of the magnolia trees hanging over the low banks of the island. It seemed to be a flicker of red and white some five feet above the ground. Instinctively he reached for the little rifle he had brought with him to shoot at it, thinking it might be a bird, although he had never seen one before of such a color.

A moment later, in the silence, he heard a rustling of the palmettos near the bank of the bayou. He waited, quiet, with the rifle across his knees.

His launch was still moving forward slowly from the impetus of the motor.

And then, quite suddenly, he came into sight of the figure of a girl standing motionless beside a tree on the island a few feet back from the water and evidently watching him.

Alan was startled. He knew there was no one living on the island. There were, in fact, few people at all in the vicinity--only an occasional negro shack or the similar shack of the "poor white trash," and a turpentine camp, several miles back in the pines.

But it was not the presence of the girl here on the island at daybreak that surprised him most, but the appearance of the girl herself. He sat staring at her dumbly, wondering if he were awake or dreaming. For the girl--who otherwise might have appeared nothing more than an extraordinarily beautiful young female of this earth, somewhat fantastically dressed--the girl had wings!

He rubbed his eyes and looked again. There was no doubt about it--they were huge, deep-red feathered wings, reaching from her shoulder blades nearly to the ground. She took a step away from the tree and flapped them once or twice idly. Alan could see they would measure nearly ten feet from tip to tip when outstretched. His launch had lost its forward motion now, and for the moment was lying motionless in the sluggish bayou. Hardly fifty feet separated him from the girl.

Her eyes stared into his for a time--a quiet, curious stare, with no hint of fear in it. Then she smiled. Her lips moved, but the soft words that reached him across the water were in a language he could not understand.

But he comprehended her gesture; it distinctly bade him come ash.o.r.e. Alan took a new grip on himself, gathered his scattered wits, and tried to think connectedly.

He laid his rifle in the bottom of the launch; then, just as he was reaching for an oar, he saw back among the tall cabbage palms on the island in an open s.p.a.ce, a glowing, silvery object, like a house painted silver and s.h.i.+ning under the rays of a brilliant sun.

Then the whole thing came to him. He remembered the press descriptions from Wyoming of the Mercutian vehicle. He saw this white rectangle on the little Florida island as a miniature of that which had brought the invaders of Wyoming from s.p.a.ce. And then this girl--

Fear for an instant supplanted amazement in Alan Newland's heart. He looked around. He could see back into the trees plainly, almost across the island. He stood up in the boat. There seemed no one else in sight.

Alan sat down and, taking up the oar, sculled the launch toward the spot where the girl was standing. His mind still refused to think clearly. The vague thought came to him that he might be struck dead by some unknown power the instant he landed. Then, as he again met the girl's eyes--a clear, direct, honest gaze with something of a compelling dignity in it--his fear suddenly left him.

A moment later the bow of the launch pushed its way through the wire gra.s.s and touched the bank. Alan laid aside his oar, tied the boat to a half-submerged log, and stepped ash.o.r.e.

CHAPTER V.

CAPTURED!

When I recovered consciousness I found myself lying in the sand with Mercer sitting beside me. It was still night. The tangled wreckage of our airplane lay near by; evidently Mercer had carried me out of it.

I sat up.

"I'm all right," I said. "What happened?"

He grinned at me with relief.

"The d.a.m.ned engine stopped. I don't know what was the matter. You had the light off. I couldn't see anything when we got down close."

He waved his hand toward the wrecked plane.

"It's done for," he added; "but I'm not hurt much. Are you?"

"No," I said. "I'm all right."

I climbed to my feet unsteadily; my head seemed about to split open.

"Garland's burning," he added.

Over the desert, some two or three miles away, the burning town could be seen plainly.

"What are we going to do?" Mercer asked after a moment.

I was pretty weak and badly bruised all over. Mercer seemed to have fared better than I. We talked over our situation at length. Finally we decided to rest where we were until daybreak. I would feel better then, and we could start back on foot for Mantua and Frannie.

I lay down again--my head was going round like a top--and Mercer sat beside me. It was pretty cold, but we were warmly dressed and not uncomfortable. The fact that we were so close to the Mercutians--not much over seven or eight miles--worried us a little. But we reasoned that we were in no great danger. We could still see their light-ray standing vertically in the air.

Occasionally it would swing slowly to one side or the other. Once it swung toward us, but as its base was in a hollow, it was cut off by the higher ground between as it swung down, and we knew it could not reach us from that position.

After a while I fell asleep. When Mercer woke me up it was dawn.

"Let's get started," he said. "I'm hungry as the devil."

I felt much better now. I was hungry myself, and stiff, and chilled.

"You'll feel better walking," he added. "Come on. It'll take us a deuce of a while over this sand."

We decided to strike for the railroad at its closest point to us. The State automobile road to Cody ran along near the railroad, and we planned to follow that up to Mantua.

After a last look at our plane, which was hopelessly demolished, we started off, heading north of Garland. We had been walking along a few minutes when Mercer suddenly gripped me by the arm. I followed the direction of his glance. Another rocket was rising from the Mercutian base. It was still dark enough for us to see its flare as it rose and curved in a long, graceful arc. We stopped stock still and stood watching.

The rocket arched over to the north. As it came down we lost sight of it.

"That went into Mantua," said Mercer in a horrified whisper.

A moment later we saw, in the direction of Mantua, that brief, silent, smokeless red and green flash. Then the sky lighted up a lurid red, and we knew Mantua was burning.

We stood looking at each other for a time, too frightened and horrified for words. The thing was not like modern warfare. It was uncanny in its silent deadliness, and there seemed a surety about it that was appalling.

"We're cut off," said Mercer finally.

His face was white and his voice trembled.