The Onslaught from Rigel/Chapter XVIII

Chapter XVIII: The End of the Light-Ray
“The Lassans?” said General Grierson, in a puzzled tone, looking at the sheet-clad apparition. “You mean these—mechanical monsters?”

Sherman winced. “Like myself? No, sir, those are their slaves. I thought you were familiar with them. They are elephant-men and quite different.”

“I meant those damned, long, shining objects that shoot that light-ray of theirs. Their guns shoot it out in packages, but we can understand that and deal with them; our artillery is just as good. But if we can't stop those shining things there will be no army left and that means no men left on this planet. This army is our last resource. If you know of anything, anything, that will stop them, for God's sake tell us! All we've found that does any good so far are the twelve-inch railroad guns and we have only four of them. One was knocked out by their shells this afternoon.”

“You mean their fighting-machines,” Sherman replied. “Why, I'm not absolutely certain. I only know what I picked up from them and what Marta Lami”—he swallowed hard at the mention of her name—“the bravest woman in the world, told me. But I think that a shell with a lead cap would go through those fighting machines like a knife through a piece of cheese.”

There was a tiny silence in the room at this momentous announcement. Then an artillery officer said, dreamily, “The armor-piercing shells the railroad guns use have lead caps.”

As though his words had released a spell there came a quick drumfire of questions:

“What are they armored with?”

“What kind of a power-plant do they use?”

“Can you stop the light-ray?”

“What makes you think so?”

Sherman smiled. “Just a moment. One question at a time. I'm not sure I can answer them all, anyway. As to what makes me think so and what they're armored with, they have a coating of steel armor, but it isn't very thick. It's plated on the outside with a coat of lead and outside that with the substance they call 'pure light.' I don't know what it is, but it's the same stuff they use in the light-ray and in their shells, and I know that lead sheeting will stop it, even when the lead is very thin.”

General Grierson swung round in his chair. “Hartnett! write out an order to General Hudson, Chief Quartermaster, at once. Tell him to remove every piece of lead he can find in Atlantic City and get it melted down. Also to set up a plant for tipping all shells with lead…”

Ben Ruby leaned forward. “Can we get into their city, their headquarters, or whatever they call it?”

“My God, I hope so!” cried Sherman. “Marta Lami's in there.”

“All right, young man, you'll have your chance for that,” said General Grierson. “Now suppose you tell us as much as you know about these—things. Every bit of information we can get will be valuable… Oh, by the way, Hartnett. Have an order made out to the infantry to cut the points of their bullets with their knives. That will make them dum-dum and bring the lead out. Also another one to evacuate as much infantry as possible. They aren't going to be a great deal of use…”

In the factory of the Atlantic City Packing Company men were toiling, stripped to the waist, in an inferno of heat. The huge row of vats that had once held clams, oysters and fish to grace a nation's palate, now simmered with green-phosphorescent kettles of molten lead; the hand trucks that once bore piles of canned goods to and fro now pushed by blue-faced men in khaki, held long stacks of pointed shells. In at one end of the building they came in ceaseless procession to pause before the lead tanks where the workmen took each shell and dipped its tip briefly in the lead, then returned it to the truck. Out the other end they wheeled to be loaded in trucks, buses, limousines, everything that had wheels and would move, to be rushed to the maw of the ceaselessly crying guns.

For the offensive was on—the advance of the Lassans had been turned to a retreat. Along the water's edge, with its back to the sea and the steamers ready to pick up the survivors of the defeat of the last army of man, the last army of man had rallied; rallied and stood as the new lead-tipped shells began to come in and the artillery spouted them at the Lassan fighting-machines, no longer invincible, invulnerable monsters, but hittable and smashable pieces of mechanism.

It was Ben Ruby in a tank shining dully with the new lead plating who led the charge against the Lassan fighting machines on the first day of the battle, and who, with his little division of American tanks, had encountered three of the huge Lassan monsters outside the city. For a moment, as though dazed by the audacity of this attack, they had done nothing at all. Then all three had turned the light-rays on him. Would it hold?

The deadly rays glanced off, danced to the zenith in a shower of coruscating sparks and the gun of the American tank spoke—once, twice. A round hole, with a radiating star-pattern running out from it, appeared in the nose of the nearest Lassan fighting-machine, and it sank to the earth like a tired animal, rolling over and over, helpless. The other two turned to flee, swinging their long bodies around. Surrounded by shell-bursts, riddled by the lead-tipped weapons they too, struggled and sank, to rise no more.

After that there had been losses, of course. The Lassan shells occasionally burst in the back areas and claimed a toll. But the advance had gone on steadily for a whole day, unchecked; the Lassans were driven back.

And then, as suddenly as they had come, they disappeared. South African aerial scouts, far ahead of the army, reported there was no sign of the enemy in the whole of New Jersey. The dodos vanished from the skies, the fighting machines from the earth. The Lassans seemed to have abandoned the struggle and retired to their underground city to wait for the end.

“Frankly,” said Sherman, “I don't like it. Those johnnies are too smart to give up like that. I'll bet you a thousand dollars against a lead bullet that they've gone back there to figure out some surprise for us, and when it comes it's going to be a beaner. Those babies may be elephants to the eye, but there's nothing slow about their brains.”

“General Grierson doesn't think so,” said Ben Ruby. “He's all ready to hang out the flags and call it a day. He sent home two more divisions of infantry yesterday.”

“General Grierson hasn't got the finest girl in the world locked up in that hole under the Catskills, burning her fingers off,” said Sherman with a set face. “Say, those babies aren't licked by a million miles. Their guns are just as good as ours and that light stuff they put in them is worse than powder when it goes off. They just didn't have as many guns. I'm taking even money that when they come out again, they'll have something that will make our artillery look sick.”

They stood on a street-corner in Philadelphia, the new headquarters of the army of the federated governments.

“Yes, but what are we going to do about it?” asked Ben.

“A lot. For one thing we might go up there and try to bust in, but I don't think that would be very hot. They'll be expecting it. What we can do though, is get General Grierson to give us one of the laboratories here in town and some men to help us, and dope out a few little presents on our side of the fence. I learned plenty through those thought helmets of theirs while I was in that place, though I didn't realize I was getting a lot of it at the time. Those helmets work both ways, you know, and they couldn't keep me from picking up some of their stuff, especially as they were so anxious to find out what I knew they didn't watch themselves.”

“Nice idea,” said Ben. “I know a little about chemistry and between us we might put over something good. Let's Go.”

An hour later, they were installed in their own experimental laboratory, just off Market Street, with enough assistants to help them with routine work and Gloria Rutherford and Murray Lee to keep them amused.

“All right, chief,” said Ben, when they were installed. “What do we do first?”

“Figure out some kind of armor that will stand off whatever kind of ray they pop up with, I guess,” offered Sherman.

“May I stick my two cents in?” said Murray Lee. “I don't think that any kind of armor is going to do a lot of good. For one thing, you don't know what the Lassans are going to produce. Those tanks we had were armored against the best kind of shells, and the Lassans turned up with the light-ray that made them look like Swiss cheese. It's your show, but if I were fishing for something, it would be a way to sock those guys. In this kind of war, the man that gets in the first punch is going to beat.”

“That light-ray of theirs is pretty good,” said Ben. “From what you know about it already, you ought to be able to dope out a pretty good heat ray.”

“No soap,” said Sherman. “Too slow. They'll be all set for that, anyway. It's right along the line they think. No, what we've got to have is something along a new line, and I'm thinking it can't be anything like a gun, either. They're onto that now.” He closed the door to the inner office with a bang.

“By the way,” asked Gloria, “why don't the Australians send some airplanes up there to the Catskills and shoot up the Lassan headquarters?”

“Didn't you know?” asked Ben. “They tried it. They dumped about a hundred tons of explosives all over the joint, and it might have been so much mud for all the good it did. Then they ran a railroad gun up there and tried to shell the door, but that wasn't any good, either. They've got a signal station up there watching, waiting for them to come out, and we'll just have to wait for that. Sherman”—he indicated the door behind which the aviator had retired—“is nearly bughouse. They've got his girl a prisoner in there.”

“Tough break,” commented Gloria. “Wish I could do something for the lady.”

They talked about minor matters for a time, Ben speaking absently and cudgeling his brains for a line on which to work toward the new weapon. It is not easy to sit down and plan out a new invention without anything to start on beyond the desire to have it.

Suddenly, the inner door was flung open. In the aperture they saw Sherman, his face grinning, a small piece of metal in his hand.

“I've got it, folks!” he cried. “A gravity beam!”