“Oh, you mean the silver stuff,” said Nita casually. “Daddy has offered a huge reward to any one who can fight it successfully. He and half a dozen other steamship men put together and made up a purse. About two millions, I believe.”
Davis was looking at her, paying but little attention to what she was saying, simply absorbed in looking. Gerrod saw his expression.
“Don’t you ever use your head?” he demanded. “Here you are worrying about Nita’s father, and there you have a reward offered that would clear away all his objections at once.”
“Why—why, that’s an idea!” said Davis.
“Glad you think so,” said Gerrod acridly. “Suppose you two talk things over. You have a brain, Davis, even if you rarely use it.”
Davis laughed good-naturedly.
After dinner Evelyn and her husband retired to the laboratory again. Neither of them wanted to waste any time that might be useful in developing a means of fighting the Silver Menace. They were deep in their work when Davis and Nita rushed in upon them.
“We’ve got it!” said Davis dramatically.
Nita was clinging to his arm, and looked immensely proud of him.
“What have you?” asked Gerrod practically.
“A way to clear off the Silver Menace,” said Davis. “You know the animalcules have very fragile little shells. In the war we had to fight submarines with armored shells. We got the subs with depth bombs dropped near them. The concussion smashed them up. Now let’s take bombs and drop them in the silver sea. The concussion will wreck the little shells for miles around.”
Gerrod thought the idea, over carefully.
“It might turn the trick,” he said thoughtfully.
Davis beamed.
“We’ll try it at once,” he said enthusiastically. “Or, rather, we’ll start first thing in the morning. We must have light to experiment by. I’ll phone the aviation field at once to have the big plane ready.”
“I’m going, too,” said Nita determinedly.
“We’ll all go,” said Davis expansively.
The plane left the ground shortly after daybreak. It was a curious sight to see the absolutely cloudless sunrise. The sky paled to the east, then glowed fiercely red, lightened to orange and the sun rolled up above the horizon. The big airship circled grandly until it had reached a height of nearly ten thousand feet, then swung for the east and sped away.
Nita sat in the seat beside the pilot, her face flushed with excitement. Gerrod and Evelyn occupied seats farther back, and the single engineer leaned against the rear of the car, where he could keep both ears open to the roar of his engines. The twin bomb racks along the outside of the car were filled with long, pear-shaped, high-explosive missiles, and the electric releasing switches were close beside Davis’ hand. A case of hand grenades was carefully packed in the car, too.
The plane passed over green fields far below, with strangely still and shining streams and rivers winding in and out. From the banks of most of those streams glistening blankets of a silvery texture spread slowly and inexorably over the surrounding fields. Before them they saw what appeared to be the end of the world. Green fields and luxuriantly foliated forests gave place to a field of shining silver, which undulated and clumsily followed the conformation of the land and objects it had overwhelmed. Here one saw ungainly humps that seemed made of burnished metal. The rounded contours told that great trees had succumbed to the viscid mass of animalcules. There was a group of more angular forms with gaping black orifices in their glittering sides told of a village that had been abandoned to the creeping horror. The open windows of the houses yawned black and amazed, though now and then thick stalactites hung pendulously across their openings.
Above all these the big plane sped. It swept on toward the open sea—or what had been the open sea until the Silver Menace had appeared. Soon the shore was left behind, and the huge aëroplane was flying between the two skies—the real sky above and the reflected sky below. Only a thin line from far inland showed dark. All the rest seemed but a universe of air without a horizon or any sign of tangibility. Davis kept his eyes on his instruments, and presently announced:
“I think we’re far enough out. We’ll drop our first bomb here.”
He pressed the release switch as he spoke. The plane lifted a little as the heavy bomb dropped. For a few seconds there was no sound but the roaring of the motors, but then the reverberation of the explosion below reached them.
“Take a look below,” said Davis, banking the machine sharply and beginning to swing in a narrow circle.
Gerrod looked down. He saw what seemed to be a ring of yellowish smoke, and a dark-blue spot in the middle of the silvery mass beneath them.
“It did something,” he reported, “There’s a dark spot on the surface. I can’t judge how large it is, though.”
Davis released a second bomb, and a third. Gerrod could watch them as they fell. They dwindled from winged, pear-shaped objects to dots. Then there was a flash far below and a spurting of water and spray. In a moment that had subsided, and he saw a second and larger dark-blue spot beside the first.
“I believe you’ve done it,” said Gerrod excitedly. “You’ve certainly destroyed the silvery appearance. Dare you go lower?”
“Surely,” said Davis cheerfully. The plane dived like an arrow, and flattened out barely five hundred feet above the surface.
Gerrod examined the dark spots through glasses. The disturbance had not completely abated, and he could see indubitable waves still radiating from the Spot where the bombs had fallen. Davis grinned like a boy when Gerrod told him.
“We’ll land in the open space and make sure,” he said suddenly, and the plane dived again.
Before Gerrod could protest they were just skimming the surface of the silver sea. The plane settled gently into the now liquid spot of ocean, and Davis shut off the motors. The occupants of the cabin looked eagerly out of the windows. All about them, in a space perhaps sixty or seventy yards across, the water was yellowed and oily, but was certainly water, and not the horrible, jellylike stuff the world had so much cause to fear. The concussion from the high-explosive bomb had shattered the fragile shells of the silver animalcules, and, with their protection gone, they had relapsed into liquid. At the edge of that space, however, the silver-sea began again, as placid and malignant as before.
The plane floated lightly on the surface while the little party congratulated itself.
“It works,” said Davis proudly. Nita squeezed his hand ecstatically.
“I knew he’d think of something,” she announced cheerfully.
Evelyn and Gerrod were estimating the area of cleared water with gradually lengthening faces.
“Let’s see how much space a hand grenade clears,” suggested Evelyn thoughtfully.
Davis opened the case and took out one of the wicked little bombs. He wriggled through a window and out on the massive lower plane of the flying boat. Balancing himself carefully, he flung the grenade some sixty yards into the untouched silver sea. It burst with a cracking detonation and amid a fountain of spume and spray. The four of them eyed the resultant area of clear water.
“How wide do you suppose that is?” asked Gerrod rather depressedly.
“Ten—no, fifteen yards by fifteen.”
So excited were they all that they did not notice a phenomenon that began almost instantly. The tiny animalcules that formed the silver sea reproduced rapidly when given merely moisture. Here they had that moisture, and, in addition, the bodies of all their dead comrades to feed upon. The conditions were ideal for nearly instantaneous reproduction. As a result the waves from the high-explosive bombs had hardly subsided when the open space began, almost imperceptibly, to be closed by fresh masses of the Silver Menace. The open space became covered with a thin film which became thicker—thicker—
“And how much explosive was in
that grenade?”
“Two ounces of TNT.” Davis began to catch the drift of the questions, and his happy expression was beginning to fade away.
“Two ounces of TNT cleared up roughly a hundred and fifty square yards of silver sea. That’s, say, seventy-five square yards to the ounce of high explosive.” Evelyn was working rapidly with her pencil. “That works out—five hundred pounds of TNT needed to clear a square mile of the Silver Menace. We have fifteen hundred miles of coast that has been invaded to an average depth of at least five miles.”
Gerrod took up the calculations with a dismal face. His pencil moved quickly for a moment or so.
“We’d need over eighteen hundred tons of TNT to clear our coasts,” he said dolefully. “That wouldn’t touch the silver sea itself or keep it from growing again. It grew inland those five miles in two weeks at most. That’s nine hundred tons a week needed to hold our own without attacking the silver sea at all. We’d have to have forty-six thousand tons a year to hold it, let alone go after the beasts out here, and in the meantime we’ll have no rain, consequently no crops. It’s a cheerful outlook.”
They had been oblivious of what was happening immediately about the seaplane.
Nita first saw the danger.
“Look!” she gasped.
They had been too much absorbed in gloomy thoughts to notice their predicament. The open space in which they had landed was now a shining, glittering mass of the Silver Menace. But what Nita pointed to was of more imminent danger. The sticky, horrible mass was creeping up the float on which the seaplane rode and up the smaller floats at the ends of the wings. Tons of the silver horror had already accumulated upon the under surface of the great planes and weighted down the aëroplane until it was impossible for it to rise in the air. And it continued to creep up and over the body. In a little while the seaplane would be overwhelmed by the viscid, evil-smelling, deadly little animalcules.
CHAPTER VII.
Shining slime crawled up the small floats at the ends of the lower wing. It crept along the under surface, and then dripped in thick ropes down to the surface below. When contact was established the ropes grew fat and wider, until they were like shining columns from the silver sea to the now heavily weighted plane. The disgusting stuff crept over the edges of the lower plane, and began to spread over its upper surface. Other masses began to creep up the struts that separated the lower plane from the top.
The three men began to work like mad. They tore strips from the roof of the cabin and began feverishly to scrape off and thrust away the insistently advancing enemy. The plane was a large one, however, and no sooner had they scraped clear one portion of the plane than another portion was covered even more thickly than the first. The cabin itself began to be attacked. Its lower portion already glistened like metal, and in a little while the silvery film began to cover the glass of the windows. Nita began to be frightened. Parts of the roof had been torn away to provide the three men—Davis, Gerrod, and the engineer—with the means of fighting the creeping horror. When the slime reached the roof and began, to pour down the opening there, the whole cabin would become a terrible, suffocating tank of the horrible stuff. Evelyn spoke quietly, though with a white face.
“If you start the motors the wind from the propellers may blow the jelly away from the cabin.”
The engineer leaped to one of the propellers and swung his weight upon it. The engine turned sluggishly, and then coughed. A second desperate heave. The motor began to run with a roar. The surface of the slime on which the blast of wind beat shivered, and then reluctantly began to retreat. The second motor burst into bellowing activity. The whole plane began to shiver and tremble from the efforts of the powerful engines to draw it forward, but the jelly in which it was gripped still held it fast. The three men redoubled their efforts, and now some faint result began to show. Hampered by the vibrations which strove to shake it off, the Silver Menace advanced less rapidly. In half an hour the upper surface of the plane was nearly free. There was nearly a solid wall of silver horror connecting its under portion with the jellied ocean below.
Davis came to the cabin window, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“There’s only one chance,” he shouted above the roar of the engines. “I’ve got to fling hand grenades into the sea just ahead of us. They may clear a way for us to rise.”
Nita silently began to pass him up the small but deadly missiles. Her face was set and utterly pale, but she was rising to the emergency with spirit.
An explosion sounded fifty yards away. Another thirty yards away. A third but twenty yards away, and the plane heaved and leaped from the concussion. The blast of air nearly blew the three men from the wings into the waiting mass of animalcules. A huge volume of ill-smelling spume was cast upon the plane, and by its velocity washed away a great portion of the Silver Menace that still clung to it. The propellers dragged at the plane, and it suddenly darted forward down the narrow lane of open water cleared by the three explosions. All three of the men were clinging to struts out on the plane and there was no one at the controls, but Nita bravely grasped the joy stick, and as the end of the open water drew rapidly near she jerked it backward with an inward prayer. The plane lifted sluggishly, scraped the top of the silver sea, and rose. With an inexperienced pilot at the wheel, with the three men precariously balanced on the wings, it headed straight for the broadest part of the Atlantic.
The motors roared as the plane continued to rise. Nita was white-faced and frightened, but Davis’ life was depending upon her. With an amazing coolness, despite the lump in her throat that threatened to choke her, she swung the steering wheel as she had seen Davis do. The plane turned in a wide half circle and headed for the shore again, still rising. Davis, out on the wing, took a desperate chance. He motioned wildly to Evelyn, who flung wide the side window. Then, diving as in a football game, Davis flung himself for the opening. His hands caught in the frame and he drew himself inside. As he laid his hands on the controls Nita incontinently fainted, but Evelyn was there to attend to her, and Davis sped for home at the topmost speed of which the plane was capable, the other two men still clinging to the struts far out on the wings.
* * * *
Alexander Morrison, steamship magnate and many times a millionaire, looked helplessly from the window of his library. His daughter, Nita, was visiting Evelyn Gerrod, a college classmate, and there was no one to sympathise with him in his misfortune. He faced absolute ruin. The whole world faced death, but that did not impress Morrison as much as the absolute financial disaster that had come upon him. His ships, at their docks, were useless and already incrusted with the silvery slime that threatened the whole earth. His whole fortune was invested in those vessels. When the government had thrown up its hands over the problem of checking the invasion of the Silver Menace, far less of clearing the seas again, Morrison had gone hopelessly to his little country home on one of the infrequent islands of the Hudson. It was a high and rocky little island, and his house was built upon the top of its single peak. He could look out upon the now solid Hudson and see miles and miles of the silver, evil-smelling jelly.
A little bridge connected the island with the mainland, to which a well-made, winding road led down. Morrison stared through his closed library window—closed to keep out the slimy, disgusting odor of the Silver Menace—and cursed the microscopic animals that had ruined all commerce and now threatened to destroy humanity. Of all his great fleet but two of the smallest vessels remained afloat. They were high up in northern seas, still unvisited by the jellylike animalcules. Where his tramp steamers and passenger lines had visited nearly every port upon the globe, now two small ships plied between Greenland and the most northern part of the American continent.
The silvery jelly was clambering up the rocky shores of his little island, but beyond cursing it Morrison paid no attention. He was absorbed in his misfortune, utterly preoccupied with the calamity that had overwhelmed
him. For two days he moved restlessly about his house, smoking innumerable cigars, eating hardly anything, thinking of nothing but the extent of the disaster to his fortune. He had offered half a million dollars to whoever developed a successful means of combating the Silver Menace. Other men whose wealth, like his own, was solely invested in ocean transportation had joined him in offering rewards, until now a purse of two and a half millions awaited the successful inventor. Multitudes of freak proposals had been made, the majority of them suggesting that sea gulls be trained to eat the silver animalcules, or that fish be bred in large numbers to consume them. In practice, of course, neither fish or birds would touch the disgusting jelly. The arctic seas were teeming with practically all the fish from the Atlantic Ocean. For once the Eskimos had no difficulty in securing enough to eat. The inhabitants of the seas in which the Silver Menace had appeared, without exception, fled from its sticky masses.
Morrison remained shut up in his house, sunk in despondency and gloom, while the silvery jelly crept up the shores of his little island slowly but surely, higher and higher day by day. His butler came to him with a white face.
“Mr. Morrison, sir,” said the butler hesitatingly, “the gardener says, sir, that that there silver stuff is creepin’ up higher, sir.”
“All right, let it creep!” snapped Morrison angrily.
“But, sir,” ventured the butler once more, “it’s creepin’ up on the bridge.”
“Have it shoveled down again,” said Morrison irritably. “Don’t bother me.”
The butler went out of the room, and ten minutes later the two gardeners went down to the bridge with shovels. They scraped and shoveled industriously, and when darkness fell the bridge was clear. But next morning showed the bridge a mass of shining silver, and not only the bridge, but fifty or a hundred yards of the roadway and turf leading up to it. The animalcules had come upon the green grass and it had been used for food, so that they were multiplying rapidly. The creeping movement of the silvery tide could be distinctly seen. The butler came to Morrison in a panic.
The Third Murray Leinster Page 17
