The luncheon bell rang ere we were quite finished placing everything. Lois had returned to her own work after directing me to the offices, but I found her in the common lounge awaiting me. Heretofore she had lived and eaten her meals in the hospital quarters, but I discovered that she had had her place changed so that henceforth we should be together during the dining hours.
She was so sweet and unspoiled, so natural in what seemed to me such an unnatural position, that her very attitude made it easier for me. Still I did not have any appetite for the food put before me and I was glad when the meal ended and we would have an hour or so in which to become acquainted, for I realized that I knew very little about this young lady.
We took a settee in the lounge and we talked throughout the hour. Lois wanted to know more about the Outside, what was marriage, how were courtships conducted as well as a great many other things. She liked the thought of a couple setting up house-keeping together, but she had nothing to say against Mentorian methods. When the gong announced the end of the hour she shyly agreed to meet me after the working period.
Perhaps Patriarch Mentor was laughing at me knowing full well how difficult it was for a man to serve two masters at once, ambition and love! I surely accomplished very little in the hours that followed. I sat there at my desk contemplating the stack of paper—for first off I had planned to lay out the set-up for the front-sheet of my paper. But as far as I went was to write at the top the name that it was to be known by, the Aerial.
At the ringing of the gong I found Lois at the spot she had designated for our tryst and she confided that she had something to show me. I followed her along a path I had never been on before, and after walking rapidly we came to halt under a giant tree. She pointed out that I was to follow her up the rope that hung from the lowest branch. She went up quickly and easily, I more slowly.
Up we climbed the little ladders that were barely strong enough for my weight, but up which the girl went as lightly as a bit of thistle. Scarcely ten feet below the roof of the jungle we halted and she showed me a pretty little nook that had been constructed of interwoven branches. A cushion of feathers covered the rough floor. And, only a few slender branches overhead, hid the platform from above.
She blushed as she confessed, “When I was a child I built this little hide-out myself. Here, I now come often when I feel I wish to be alone. Could we not call this our . . . house . . . our own . . . Jim Kennedy?”
Ah, the sweetness of her and the pity, for though she was of a people who had lived a communal life for almost five centuries the desire for something of her own was still in her and had spoken to her. There for the first time I took her in my arms and kissed her. I can say no more of the love that welled in me for her, it is hard to write of it, but I loved her then as I shall always love her, I, the hard-boiled reporter fellow!
And Goes to Work
WE did not stay long in our little love nest as I thought of it thereafter, for our rest period was of but an hour’s duration before the drill—but we did come back again and again, and there were only the bright-plumed birds and the beady-eyed monkeys to tell of those hours. Often we took flights from there up into the blue of the skies or into the wonder of the silvery nights. The first strangeness of being carried in her arms wore off and I learned by proxy what it meant to fly . . . to really fly as the birds fly without the deadening roar of motors or the breath of burning oil.
So life in Mentor started for me with a bang, Never again did I think of escaping. Poor Sims can wait for his story. The next weeks overflowed and seemed all too short. I was peopling my office with printers, clerks and printer’s devils. I was training reporters and columnists. Lottie Walker, a captive woman, became my women’s correspondent. She had been a reporter on a Chicago paper and she became invaluable to me. Another American girl, Wanda Heath, became a reporter. Eugene Fargo agreed to write an article each week about art. I found a music critic and a sports writer!
I had an interview with the Patriarch and he outlined the policy of the Aerial, the name of which he approved. And two weeks after the arrival of the presses we came out with our first edition! I laughed when I thought of what the News would have said of it. It was crude; my printers were none too efficient and my staff needed much training, but at worst it was not so bad and gave promise of improvement. It had only one double sheet, all news, of course, for what had we of Mentor to advertise? The Patriarch was quite enthusiastic about it and laughed heartily over a caricature of himself that had been drawn by an art student. I realized that I must introduce one or two chaps to the art of comic-strips.
But wait . . . . I am not writing this narrative to tell of my own exploits and triumphs, there were other things that were taking place in Mentor.
From time to time planes had been sighted hovering around and about Mentor. Several planes fell to Mentor’s toils and the pilots, who survived the fall to the great sheet of metal that was reared up over the jungle to receive them, were added to the swelling population. They took their places as we all had done, and none seemed irked by their enforced incarceration. As time wore on some of the bolder spirits did make attempts to escape, but they never got far away, nor were they punished for their attempts unless they proved too persistent. What happened to them, when they disappeared from our ranks, none of us knew.
By means of our radio we knew that those of the Outside were anxious for revenge upon the men with wings. Several flying men had been captured when they became too daring in the matter of abductions. Of course they had been given the third degree and South Americans were not adverse to torturing them in an attempt to learn from whence they had come, their number and their ultimate intentions. But to date not a single captured Mentorite had divulged the secret of his race.
We knew, however, that the Americans were planning to descend upon the jungle in the area where it was conjectured the dated had their base, and to wipe it from the map. The tropical rains came and we had that interim in which to prepare—had their been any preparations to be made. But I learned Mentor was already prepared.
CHAPTER NINE
Ready For Battle
THE six weeks of rain that followed was not as unpleasant a time to us in the underground cities as it might be expected. However, the people were rather cooped up during those long hours when the heavens poured incessantly down upon the jungles. Still the cities were dry and many happy hours were spent in the lounges. Everyone did his best to entertain his fellow so that the hours did not seem long.
There were plays enacted in the big assembly rooms of the city, indoor games played. Musicians brought out their instruments to entertain the crowds and of course we had the radio.
On the days when the sun shone, there was a general exodus as everyone hurried into its warmth and wings were spread again.
In the meantime I was making great progress with my paper, discovering new talent, widening my range. I now had correspondents in each of the cities, and we had our own telephone switchboard to receive the incoming news. We had three comic strips, and we ran a column of jokes as well as a weekly story written by one of our coming authors. Patriarch Mentor complimented me on the work we were doing, for it could be seen that the newspaper was bringing the scattered settlements closer together than ever.
Wormley had since been discharged from the hospital and during those weeks while it rained he made great progress with the Mentorite women. He had gotten his wish and had been detailed to work at one of the Aero-electrovoid Bases of which there were six stationed at distant points around Mentor. These tremendous machines that brought down the planes worked on a very simple plan. By mean of great generators the dust was ionized and the air was sucked out of the locality above the cities. So powerful were they that any object in the way would immediately be swung around and around and finally sucked into the maw of the machine!
What Wormley had suggested that day in the hospital, then, was astonishingly correct. Over the machine was erected a great heavy plate of s
heet metal of large proportions. This could be raised in the time of need above the trees to catch the falling plane and to protect the machine beneath. The metal sheet was then lowered and tilted so that the wrecked plane would slide off into a pit dug below.
The whole machine itself was built in a pit below the ground and when not in action was completely covered and the area over and around it made to appear as if it had never been touched by human foot.
Wormley’s work was to do with the mechanics of the engine, repairing it keeping it in readiness for what was to come. I could not understand his desire to be part of such destruction, but human nature is a funny thing after all, and perhaps he saw humour in nursing the infernal thing. I knew, too, he was studying its construction possibly with the hope that some day he might escape and give it to the world.
From a word the Patriarch dropped one day I imagined that he understood Wormley’s intention, and he himself enjoyed the joke, at the same time keeping a heavy guard on the “captive”. Wormley did attempt to make an escape one day, months later, and he paid for it with his life. That caused me a good deal of pain.
At last the day did arrive when our friends on the Outside made an attempt to conquer the marauding winged men. That day the twenty-fifth of July will go down into history to be remembered many years hence. And it was the events of that day that forced the world to respect the power of Mentor!
We had already been appraised of the attack that was to be made and consequently waited anxiously for the outcome. How utterly were those fleets of two hundred and fifty planes beaten! How like toys they fell into the power of the Patriarch.
Although we were forewarned no precautions were taken by the Mentorites. Until the hour had almost struck, the business of living went about as ever before. Only when the gong struck eleven o’clock in the morning, did it appear as if anything was afoot. Orders were given for every able-bodied winged man and women to gather above the jungle without a moment’s delay. No one else was to leave the cities on pain of death! An Earthbound discovered above the ground would die on the spot.
For us all work was suspended and we were ordered to gather in the lounges and stay there. How inglorious I felt herded in a room while Lois, my wife, went to join the legions. I even envied Wormley then, in his work beside the Aero-electrovoid. I, as editor-in-chief of the Aerial should have at least been an eye-witness of that conflict. Instead I was forced to hear the results of the day by word of mouth. John, one of my reporters, who took his place in the ranks had the extreme pleasure of writing the dramatic story and all I could do was to edit it.
The Battle
WORD had come to us that the two hundred and fifty planes had set out from Cuzco and could be expected around noon. Half an hour before the hour we heard the roar of the motors as they drew near. Spread out in a giant circle the one hundred and eighty thousand or so winged warriors waiting quietly in the trees hidden from sight. Each officer of the companies was provided with a radio receiving set small enough to be carried on his belt. Orders came from headquarters in Mentor where the Patriarch waited, stationed in the trees. The six electrovoid machines were already warming up, but had not yet begun their work of sucking down the upper atmosphere over the area of Mentor. Let the enemy drop all the bombs he wished, but not one of them would ever strike their goal, their explosions would only wreck havoc in the wild unpopulated jungles becoming boomerangs to the very man who had tossed them!
Down in Number One city we knew when the planes arrived for they immediately took their station directly over our city. On arriving over the spot, the planes had gathered together about five thousand feet above the trees, then at a command from their commander began to spread into a wide circle. For a short time they stayed poised over the city, awaiting no doubt some sort of development from the jungle, but it lay quietly sleeping in the hot noon sun.
Then several scout ships dropped low and came zooming over the trees. They could see nothing that was of interest, and we in the lounge rooms heard their reports as they radioed to their commandant. Evidently the Outside was unaware of the fact that we had radio. Our battalions of course used a code.
More planes began dropping lower and it could be seen that they were getting into a formation so that they might throw bombs down upon the sea of trees. Now for the first time Mentor acted. The machines began their work, and the enemy were not aware until two of the scout planes commenced acting strangely and their pilots broadcast wildly what was happening.
Immediately the battalions above began to draw aside, but no matter in what direction they turned the danger was upon them, and one after another of the planes began to fall out of control! The six machines had complete control of the air for sixty miles around and there was no telling how high their power could be felt, for naturally as they drew the upper air in from one area there was still more to fill its place.
The air overhead was losing its light as the electrically-charged ionized-dust atmosphere could not conduct the light of the sun as directly as heretofore. And plane after plane was beginning to crash on the metal plates. Some of the planes were trying to discharge their supply of bombs, but they went the same way as the planes and consequently many of the planes went up into flames ere they struck the barrier.
In less than ten minutes after the beginning of the fight almost a hundred planes had succumbed, and those who had warily risen higher and higher hovered above the earth uncertain where to turn. They could be seen turning and moving out in all directions as they attempted to find an area that was free from menace. A number did reach the outskirts of that great “hole” only to be caught in the whirlpools formed in the outer spaces by the terrific suction that was exerted. And they too fell.
Seeing what had happened to their fellows the hundred or so planes that were left, now took to circling about within the sixty mile circle fearful of going lower and fearful of being caught by the whirlpools. It was then that Patriarch Mentor gave command to the waiting companies outside the circle.
In one concerted rush fifty thousand flying men and women took to the air rising straight up to the heavens wherein the remaining “enemy” were circling, still uncertain. The planes saw them coming. Here at last was a tangible enemy to fight. They gathered into formation and awaited the oncoming flying men.
I have mentioned earlier that I knew of no other destructive weapon possessed by the Mentorites outside of the Machines, but I discovered they were not unprepared to do battle. They knew electricity perhaps better than the world. We have had scientists who have made for themselves thunderbolts, but as yet no use had ever been discovered for them. The Mentorites did have a use for them.
Each man and woman carried a small stick, harmless enough looking, but harmless it was not; for each “stick” had within its barrel six discharges, discharges of electricity that could travel a thousand feet, and with each discharge of a thunderbolt a plane fell. That had been the reason for the practice battles with red marked wands!
Ten planes went down under the spitting of the thunderbolts before the two parties drew together, but now the aeroplanes were in the midst of the flyers, and the machine guns were being turned upon the flying men. A few of them fell, but their ranks were scarcely touched, for the pilots busily trying to keep out of the way of the flashes from the “thunder sticks” were not giving their gunners a very good chance to direct their fire and those who fell were shot down only by stray bullets.
They were always right on the tail of the machines and on that day they proved how much more efficient were living wings to those of cloth and steel. Less than fifty planes now remained as they fell one after another in smoke and fire, but they had learned their lesson and were climbing higher and higher so that the flying creatures were below them. Thunderbolts continued to flash and several more planes went into tail spins.
A number of the flying men fell because by this time the gunners could take more careful aim upon the whirling twisting bodies, and by holding their position hi
gh above the earth in the full glare of the sun they were able to shoot the winged creatures down one by one as they darted hither and thither attempting to shoot their bolts into the vital parts of the machines.
Yet as each man fell there was another to take his place. The airplane force had no reinforcements, they had shot their bow and by now their fuel must have been very low. And they were being driven back beyond the range of Mentor. More of the flying creatures arose from the trees. The enemy was forced to acknowledge defeat. Below were freshet troops taking formation in readiness for a new attack.
Dropping a few remaining bombs; and with as much dignity as they could muster, in close formation the thirty-odd air planes moved west. We learned later that several dozens were forced down in the jungles because of the lack of fuel.
So ended the First Battle of Mentor!
Now the work of the hospital corps began. A little less than a hundred of our people had fallen, and only thirty-five of them were fatally wounded, the others having suffered only from flesh wounds. A few had been killed outright as they fell atop the metal sheets above the machines.
Most of the enemy pilots and gunners had died, but some still lived and these were brought in to be cared for. The dead were gathered together and cremated. The pits around the machines were piled high with the wreckage of the two hundred planes. Much of the jungle round about had been completely demolished, but the cities of Mentor had not been touched.
We scarcely slept that night. There was moaning and sobbing over the deaths of our people. I and my staff worked the night through to bring out an extra, and with early morning the couriers flew with the papers to the other settlements. There was a great deal of rejoicing in the settlements, for it had been proven that Mentor could overcome her enemies.
Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks) Page 8
