Page:Stirring Science Stories, March 1942.djvu/31

 "Airplane! Bomber!" she said, her voice becoming high pitched till it was almost a scream. "Then it's true what the books said! You've come here to kill all of us! You came here to destroy the factory! You came here to stop the machines! It's you who wanted the war!"

"No. No." Millet insisted, "we are not going to do anything. Nothing, you understand, nothing. There's no war going on. No war."

"No war!" she cried, "there's always war! Always! The Day will come, my father told me and his father told him. There's always war! ALWAYS! THE DAY HAS COME!"

She pressed herself against the wall, shrinking in terror, her knees weakening until she knelt in the corner. Two tears rolled down her cheeks and then sobs shock her body.

"Crazy as a loon," Johnson whispered. Millet bent down and tried to soothe her.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," he said softly. "We're not going to do anything. Everything's all right. Just stop crying."

She kept on sobbing and then, her confidence won, Millet put his arms around her until, her sobs died down.

"This beats everything," Weaver said, scratching his head.

FEW minutes later the three men and the girl sat around the desk. Her face was still wet with tears, but her fear was now gone.

"What's your name?" Millet asked.

"I have none," she said.

"You were born here?"

"Of course!"

"What do you do here?"

"Nothing. I'm the governor of the factory."

Millet repressed a smile and continued. "Why does the factory run?"

"Everybody knows that—to make airplanes."

"But all the airplanes are taken to the other factory where they are simply taken apart! What's the sense to that?"

She looked at him as if not understanding the question. He repeated it.

"Because," she said, "because we've always done so. That's all! Everybody knows that!"

"But why? Why?"

"I don't know," she said sharply and irritated, "I don't know!"

"Did it ever," he said quietly, "occur to you to stop the machines?"

She stood up, pale with fright and anger.

"Stop the machines?" she asked, trembling. "No! Nobody can do that! Nobody! The factory must go on! It must! It always went on even when the bombers came. Always! Always!"

She was almost hysterical. Millet soothed her and turned to his friends.

"Now try stopping the machines and see what happens!" he said. "This girl is almost normal; think of the others to whom the factory is their heart and soul by birth."

"You're not going to stop the factory! No! No!" she said, "you can't!"

"No," Millet said, "we're not going to stop the factory."

"I always knew," she said softly, "that The Day would come. And it has come! It has come!"

"What Day has come?" Millet asked her, "What Day?"

"The Day when our bombers fly!" she said exultantly. "That Day! I knew it was here when I saw you enter the city!"

"You saw us enter yesterday?" they asked, in great surprise.

"Yes!" she said, "I knew! Today is the Day! I told them, the workingmen, that they should let the bombers fly!"

"Fly?" Millet asked. "Holy Sun! But where? Those bombers fly blind. Their destination was set into the controls over two hundred years ago! Even the moment that they drop their bombs is all set!"

"To the enemy!" she said, "They'll bomb his cities! Smash his factories! Destroy his roads and communications! Destroy him!"

EAVING her alone the three men rushed to one of the windows and looked out upon the open field. The day before it was empty. Now, upon its white level, were three large black bombing planes.

"They mustn't fly!" Weaver said. "Heaven only knows upon what cities they'll drop their bombs! What a ghastly thing! Ghosts from the past destroying the cities of today!"

Weaver and Johnson, rushed to the door but Millet soon called after, them.

"It's too late!" he said, "they're leaving!"

It was true. From the window they could see the whirling blades of the propellers as each bomber slowly moved along the runway and up into the air.

The three bombers, like three strange birds, rose high and flew away over the mountain-tops.

In Millet's mind there was a strange thought. Three black bombing planes, relics of the past, were bombing a glorious new city founded upon peace. What a mockery!

But perhaps the planes would never reach the city. Two hundred years had passed. Perhaps the controls were worn. A wearing of a hundredth of an inch and the three bombers would miss their mark.

Perhaps—but the three planes were already lost in the mists of the clouds. Even the roar of their motors had died away.

After two hundred years the Day had come.

