The Collected Stories

by Earl

  But too late.

  In the split-second of his hesitation, Elda’s plane slewed upward. Gracefully, it made a figure eight and came at Perry’s tail. Perry gasped. It had been a sheerly artistic maneuver, product of skilled 30th century flying. Elda had been a supreme aviatrix, in her former life.

  Perry winced, waiting for the burst of flame from his rocket engine, as her bullets found their mark. But the burst of bullets only ripped into his fuselage tanks, emptying them rapidly. Perry turned for his own lines, expecting to be hounded, shot down. But Elda’s plane soared high, dipped in a little mocking gesture, and turned away.

  He could almost hear her say: “Finish defeating me. And winning me. You fight only for me!”

  Perry landed with the last of his leaking fuel. He trembled now, in reaction to what had been his, and the world’s, first dogfight in the air since a vanished time.

  But he trembled for another reason. He was suddenly aware, belatedly, that the burst of bullets from her plane had been a drumming rat-tat-tat.

  Like a machine-gun!

  ATTACK came the next day.

  Attack out of a nightmare. In stunning sequence, the ominous foreboding of the past week materialized. First came an air-raid. The planes roared up and down the first-line trenches, spraying metal death. Perry listened to the sound, and it was the same as from Elda’s plane.

  Machine-guns, they had those! Lar Tane was a step ahead. Perhaps for months back, even before the use of rifles, he had worked on the machine-gun, finally perfecting a useable one.

  Before Perry could send up his planes, the enemy flight withdrew, having done significant damage. There was a slight lull, then a throaty thump that brought a dazed look to Perry’s face.

  It could only be the voice of a weapon absent from Earth for 2,000 years—a cannon!

  Lar Tane was two steps ahead!

  The first few charges furrowed into the ground ahead. The following arced into the trench, in blasts of flying metal pieces. Each took five or ten men, and caved in yards of trench. The cannon were obviously loaded with sharp grape-shot, blown out by steam. Not the mighty exploding shells of scientific war, but frightful enough in 50th century terms.

  Perry saw decimation stalk his trenches. The men stuck to their posts bravely, inured now to long-range death, but replacements had to be rushed up constantly. And there was no enemy within range to shoot at, not even with the rifles. For hours the big guns bombarded, making a shambles of the front-line trench.

  At noon, the enemy advanced, waves of rifle and sword corps.

  Perry gasped again.

  An apparition led the way across no-man’s-land. A huge, shiny, rumbling machine, spitting machine-gun fire from its turret. A dozen of them were the spearheads of attack.

  Tanks!

  That was the word, from the dim past. They were steam-driven tanks, plucked from the annals of ancient war.

  Perry’s riflemen took what toll they could, and then the enemy swarmed into the trenches. More than swords flashed in the sunlight. Bayonets, too, at the ends of rifles. Perry’s forces were driven from the front-line trench, after a last stand of furious hand-to-hand struggle.

  Night brought its lull.

  Aran Deen spoke with shock behind his phlegmatic tones.

  “Machine-guns, cannon, bayonets, tanks! Lar Tane has truly introduced scientific war. History has been given a huge jolt. What can, we do now, Perry?”

  “I don’t know—I don’t know!” Perry was sunk in a toneless lethargy. “Fight, I guess, to the last.”

  IN THE following week, Perry was hurled back daily from trench line to trench line. He could not stem the tide. With merciless precision, Elda, high priestess of war, used her new tools. The raiding planes sprayed machine-gun hail. The cannon bombarded viciously, cutting his lines to pieces. The tanks, like roaring demons, cleared the way for attack-troops.

  Perry felt as though he had been switched to the past, to a raging war of the 20th century that his father had told of. His pitiful few guns and swords, arrows and spears were useless. He was a knight in armor before bullets—grim pun! Lar Tane was a science warlord raiding the helpless Stone Age world.

  The handwriting was on the wall.

  At the tenth day, unable to even dig trenches fast enough to keep up with those captured, Perry was driven into the open. His Mannerheim Line had been broken. He tried one desperate stand in the open. It was havoc, with the cannon, planes and tanks grinding forward inexorably.

  In effect, Elda had a mechanized unit, deadly for blitzkrieg purposes. Her cannon were crude, her tanks small and undeveloped, her machine-guns quick to jam, but Perry had none. He could only retreat, almost at a run. Elda followed relentlessly.

  Hounded to the Mediterranean, in the next two weeks, Perry dispersed his army. Europe was lost! He fled on a sailing vessel to Gibraltar, with his seasoned officers and Aran Deen. Here, in the next few days, he sabotaged the Gibraltar plant. Lar Tane would not be able to use it. He left the radio station intact. No need to wreck that.

  Elda came with part of her army by sea, as Perry knew she would, rather than over the Pyrenees. She was determined to drive him off the continent. Perry sailed the day before her victorious troops reached Gibraltar, in the Dogstar II.

  A scouting plane saw the ship, swooped, and sprayed the deck with machine-gun fire. In anticipation, Perry had called all men below. The plane gone, he came up to find a note that had bounced to the deck.

  “To Perry, Lord of America, pro-tem. Eurasia is ours! You can’t stop us in Africa. Nartica to the side, you’re Lord now only of the Americas. I’ve taken more than half your world away. I’ll take the rest too. I’m afraid you won’t have an empire to win me with—unless you capitulate to my father before it’s too late. Elda.”

  Perry slowly tore the paper to shreds and let them swirl down to the water. He looked back. Gibraltar was sinking below the horizon. Europe, Asia and Africa lost, yes. But it hurt him most to see the ruins of the Gibraltar plant, at his own hand. It was an ominous omen of the greater destruction settling over the world like a smothering cloak.

  The ship plowed toward America, into a sunset that spread a blood-red glow over the bowl of sea and sky.

  Another omen.

  For now it was World War!

  CHAPTER XXI

  Threat of Science

  WHEN Perry docked at New York City, he found America seething—and divided.

  The American tribal-states, united behind Stirnye to bring a new social order, had remained a closely knit group, loyal to the idea of a democratic World-State—up till now.

  Now, half the tribes cried against Perry. He had lost the European campaign, ignominiously. Gone down in their estimation. He was nothing of the leader Stirnye, his father, had been.

  Perhaps Lar Tane, was the man to lead the world! The cry ran the length and breadth of the land.

  It was a dangerous moment. Perry pondered the dark situation. He was still on the defensive. If Lar Tane struck soon, an invasion of American might succeed overnight, for lack of opposition.

  On the third day of his return, a radio call came from the Gibraltar station. Lar Tane’s voice rolled from the loudspeaker.

  “We brought our own generator down from the Rhine plant, for power here at Gibraltar. Clever of you to sabotage the Gibraltar plant. But I’ve tripled the capacity of the Rhine plant. It will equip my army of conquest. I’m going to invade America!”

  “If you expect me to capitulate—” began Perry fiercely.

  “No, I suppose not.” Tane seemed to sigh falsely. “My daughter, Elda, rather strangely helped you escape, to prolong the war. Perhaps she is right—that it’s better to conquer all Earth by force of arms. A conquered people is easier to handle.”

  Perry writhed. So that had been her reasoning, behind all the fanciful talk of giving herself to a man who won her an empire. She had been coldly calculating all the while. Was she more of a monster than her father? Perry ground the image of her
out of his mind. He must learn to hate her—hate her for what she was. A scheming woman who pursued her own ends, first, last and always.

  “If you conquer them!” Perry shot back to Lar Tane.

  “Still skeptical?” drawled Tane’s voice. “You’ve had a taste of our 30th century methods. More will come.” His voice turned ugly. “I warn you, Perry. I will strike—soon!”

  HE DID. The next day, ten rocket planes swooped like striking eagles from the stratosphere, down over New York. They circled, dropping black objects. Hurtling down, these landed to explode with deafening reports.

  Aerial bombing of cities! Lar Tane was reviving that frightful war method from the archives of past holocaust.

  In the city, panic stalked the streets. Women and children screamed, running blindly about. Men shouted hoarsely, and shook their fists futilely in the sky. The bombers obviously had two objectives—the Capitol dome and the beehive of industry at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. But unskilled their lethal cargo dropped haphazardly.

  One bomb did explode near the Capitol dome. The ship that dropped it had zoomed daringly low. Perry knew he would see the flash of coppery hair. Elda again! Raging, Perry ran for the airfield. But before he was half there, the enemy squadron left, their bombs gone.

  It had been a quick, stunning blow, literally out of clear blue sky. Perry sniffed at the sulfurous fumes that wafted through the city. Simple potash and sulfur bombs. Not powerful, but easy to make, where guncotton or TNT would require elaborate chemical manipulation.

  Later, the results of the bombing were checked. Three buildings shattered. A factory plant slightly damaged. Five people killed, twenty wounded. That was all.

  “A significant result!” Aran Deen muttered.

  “Significant? Hardly anything.” Perry went on broodingly. “But worse will come. Bigger bombs, better aim. With New York smashed, the center of civilization today, Lar Tane will easily sweep through an America that’s divided against me.”

  Bitter despair clutched Perry.

  Strangely, Aran Deen’s old eyes glowed.

  “A significant result, I say! I think Lar Tane made a mistake, this time. Divided America? Watch, Perry, as news of this spreads.”

  Perry saw what he meant.

  The news of defenseless women and children bombed wailed across America. The wildfire of indignation swept back in a tidal wave. Overnight, almost, the atmosphere changed. Delegations began to come from all the inner tribes, from the Arctic to the Gulf, and from South America, pledging their continued fealty and aid to Perry, against the usurper Lar Tane. Against the cruel bomber of innocent women and children.

  “He did make a mistake,” Aran Deen chortled. “He should have remembered how many times in the past people solidified to bitter enmity when their cities were bombed.”

  PERRY took a deep breath, with vital support once more behind him. He pondered what was still a dark situation.

  World War!

  It was that now. With the manpower of Europe, Asia and Africa to draw from, Lar Tane had ballooned into a formidable power. The campaigns in Europe seemed almost like little skirmishes now, to Perry. Future battles would be stupendously greater, with much of the hell of scientific warfare unloosed.

  And who would be able to strike a heavy blow first—Lar Tane at Perry, or Perry at Lar Tane?

  Perry determined it must be himself. He must take the offensive again, invade Europe somehow.

  His call to arms in America brought enthusiastic response now. Men marched from their homes and fields in droves, reporting at a recruiting center set up north of New York. Within a month, a million men had congregated, with more arriving daily. The seasoned officers from the European campaign organized and began training them.

  Perry became a dynamo of activity, in his Manhattan laboratory.

  With Aran Deen, and utilizing certain data in preserved records, he quickly devised a machine-gun, cannon, and tank. It was to be a war of science now, and large-scale destruction. Lar Tane had asked for it.

  The completed model of the machine-gun was crude and clumsy, but fired twenty rounds a minute. Lar Tane’s could not be much better. The cannon, like Lar Tane’s, was really a mortar that shot forth heavy charges of grapeshot. The tank rattled and clanked as though ready to fall apart any moment, but its tough alloy parts held under any punishment of rough terrain. The steam-engine to drive it was modeled after the steam-turbine they already knew. Its “fuel,” as with the Dogstar IVs great engine, was simply a few lumps of the radioactive-wax releasing its stored atom-energies.

  Perry was not amazed at his ability to devise these engines of warfare so swiftly. They were comparatively simple. For many years, with his father, he had thought in terms of new invention. It had taken much more ingenuity to achieve radio transmission. But he was dismayed. With his father, he had devised useful, worthy things. Now his skill and mind fashioned these shuddery tools of Mars.

  What horrors lay ahead?

  IN THE meantime, Perry had gathered twenty-five planes for the defense of New York against the enemy sky raiders. But strangely, no second bombing raid came. Had the first been just a test, like the test of the first guns, in Europe? Was Lar Tane rapidly piling up a vast arsenal of bombs? Preparing for “another Der Tag?

  The suspense tore at Perry’s nerves. One surprise after another. What ominous things was Lar Tane scheming, while two continents girded themselves for war?

  He sent scouting planes to Europe. They reported vast activity at the Rhine plant, and at Vinna. Day and night shifts building, constructing. Wagon trains rattling back and forth across his territory. But nothing definite could be learned. It was all mysterious, sinister.

  “Lar Tane is building up armament,” Aran Deen summarized. “Preparing for a final showdown. When he attacks, it will be with the fury of seven hells.”

  “Yes, but I think we’ll beat him to it,” Perry allowed himself a calculated optimism. “We have two plants to his one, turning out armament. And we have Nartica. I haven’t touched Nartican resources yet. Now I will. I’m sending down duplicates of our weapons. In a few months Nartica will turn out ten times what Lar Tane can produce. This is World War! I’ll smash Lar Tane if it takes all the resources of America and Nartica!”

  The plane left that would start the industrial machines of Nartica whining to turn out armament.

  SOON after, the unexpected happened.

  A second air-raid.

  Perry promptly led his planes up. Twenty-five against the enemy’s ten. Machine-guns against machine-guns this time. He smiled grimly. If they refused to leave, he could lose two to their one and still bring them all down. They would leave. Lar Tane had no more replacements for his ten confiscated planes.

  But they didn’t leave. Instead they spread, inviting a dogfight.

  “Let ’em have it!” Perry shrieked, darting his ship forward.

  His partner ship followed. Perry had given previous instructions for his ships to work in pairs, singling out an enemy. He swerved. He spied Elda’s ship, with its large imperial emblem of golden swastikas.

  A hollow, implacable voice said, within him: “This time, if you have the chance, do not fail!”

  When Elda’s ship looped upward, for position, Perry’s partner ship looped with her. Perry barreled with a furious burst of his wing rockets and gained rearward vantage. Giving over to the co-pilot, he clutched the trigger of his machine-gun, ready to obey the demon voice whipping his mind.

  But he never shot.

  Something hellish happened.

  He heard nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing. But he knew that something had leaped from the nose of Elda’s ship. From a device with a strange flashing mirror. The mirror swung, as though focusing for Perry’s partner ship.

  Abruptly, with a soundless puff, the partner ship was a mass of fire. All its alcohol fuel sheeted out in one tremendous flame. A second later its liquid-air supply exploded, blowing the burning ship to blazing debris.

 
No bullet, or even explosive shell, could have achieved that monstrous annihilation. And there had been no bullet or shell. It had been a silent, invisible force, projected by the queer mirror.

  Perry knew the stunning answer.

  The heat-ray!

  Lar Tane had not been bluffing.

  WITH a savage snarl, Perry went after Elda’s plane. His bursts of machine-gun fire missed, as she maneuvered with swift, deadly grace. Suddenly she was after him, at his tail. Her mirror-device flashed.

  Perry’s scalp rose, as the air outside his cabin shimmered with heat-waves. He swerved, desperately. Three more times he poured bullets at her, always a split-second too late. And three more times she outmaneuvered him, and shot that diabolic heat-beam past him.

  He had the feeling that she was playing with him, taunting him, trying to make him die a thousand deaths.

  With swift glances around, Perry saw seven more of his planes burst into flaming fragments, raining below. All the enemy planes were equipped with the unbeatable heat-beam. The sky became a corner of hell. It was slaughter. Only one of Elda’s planes plummeted below, from a lucky bullet.

  Half sobbing in helpless rage, Perry dove, as the signal to leave. His squadron left the skies to the victors. Aran Deen hobbled up as Perry staggered from his cabin.

  “The heat-ray!” the old seer shrilled. “In the 30th century, Lar Tane often sent squadrons to burn cities to ashes.”

  They watched. The city watched, awed, paralyzed, as the weapon that seemed truly magic was wielded. Even to Perry it was almost magic. His father’s 20th century had known the heat-ray only as a wild dream.

  Elda’s planes spread in a line, slowing to their minimum cruising speed, underjets drumming steadily. Lowering to 500 feet, their mirrors flashed downward, sweeping the invisible infra-red rays along streets, buildings, people.

  Perry shuddered. Towers melting, steel running like water, humans falling as blackened corpses, a whole city in instant flame. Was that what would happen?