Thus, the antitechnologists paid dearly for their victory. Perhaps a thousand of their machines had perished in the battle, but it seemed that their number increased as they were destroyed. The sky was covered by them, like an immense flock of crows, and only a tiny number of technologist helicopters still remained airborne, which, having exhausted their munitions and the energy reserves required by their fulgurant cannons, had no alternative but to beat a retreat and rally to the army of support that was in the process of being aggregated far to the west.
Then the city and its suburbs were metamorphosed into volcanoes, while everything began to vacillate and crumble in a deafening racket. The skyscrapers were split open and collapsed, filing the streets with their rubble.
The crowd had disappeared; the streets were empty. During the battle, the inhabitants had rushed into the houses, piling into the cellars and subterranean roads in search of shelter from the bombardment—shelter that, for many, could be nothing other than that of the tomb.
The aerial army that had devastated Calcutta circled above the city for hours. The aircraft came to land one after another, at the aerodrome, which the defeated technologists were unable to think of defending; each of them disembarked dozens of men.
An army of more than a hundred thousand men, with artillery, was thus transported in twelve hours and assembled, as many at the aerodrome as at propitious landing-grounds in the environs of the city. They immediately occupied all the strategic positions, moved into the country requisitioning supplies, hastening to take advantage of the aerial victory that the antitechnologists had just won, which had completely paralyzed resistance by annihilating the great center of the nation.
Calcutta, in ruins, was no longer anything but a place of horror. More than half of the inhabitants were dead, asphyxiated or buried under the rubble, Many others were so dangerously afflicted that it would not have been possible to save them even if their collection had been organized and treatment given to them.
As for those who had escaped the scourge, they were nothing more than a disorganized rabble, deprived of reason, trying desperately to flee, yielding to all the excesses of panic.
Above the formless mass of collapsed houses, immense sections of wall, fragments of skyscrapers cut through the middle in the vertical dimension, loomed up like rocks. Opened apartments, overlooking the void, evoked the prehistoric dwellings of cave-men hollowed out in the walls of cliffs.
At midday, when considerable forces had already taken possession of the outskirts of Calcutta, an aircraft whose wings bore a cluster of golden stars landed at the aerodrome. It was immediately surrounded by officers and guards, because it was transporting, with his escort, a very important person: none other than President Wang-Ti-Pou, the supreme leader of the Asian Republics and their armies.
He descended into the midst of his officers and asked a few brief questions. He inclined his head deeply on learning that the victory had been bought by the loss of a thousand aircraft.
A hundred thousand antitechnologists had perished in the cause of liberating humankind from materialist civilization. Such, at least, was the interpretation that Wang-Ti-Pou and his general staff attributed to the circumstance.
VII
The news of the Calcutta disaster had scarcely reached Scoresby and the Franz-Josef fjord when one of the cables of the Great Current ceased functioning.
The chiefs of the enterprise demanded explanations telegraphically from the Timbuktu center, communicating via Dakar, which was linked to Europe by a direct cable. But nothing more was known at Timbuktu than at the Franz-Josef base. The abrupt arrest of the current had simply been observed; it had to originate from damage to the line. It was feared that the cable had been cut by the North African insurgents, who held four hundred kilometers of the line.
That opinion was, unfortunately, confirmed shortly thereafter, by the rupture of a second cable, followed by a third. The managerial staff of the Great Current witnessed with horror, during the hours that followed, the systematic destruction of the great work that they had had so much difficulty in completing, and of which they were so proud.
On the sixth of August, at eight o’clock in the evening, the thousand cables were no more than inert masses, which were not transmitting any electrical energy.
What a crime against civilization!
If, as it was necessary to hope, the insurgents were suppressed, the repair of the cables represented a small effort by comparison with those it had been necessary to furnish in labor and in capital for the construction of the line with all its bases. But the engineers knew that the Franz-Josef base was now menaced with a great danger. The current having ceased to circulate, the great frontal gallery, where the cold electrodes were installed, would be subjected on the part of the ice of the fjord to a pressure that was no longer attenuated by the melting provoked by the passage of the current. The sliding and the renewal of the ice no longer being ensured by that phenomenon, on which they had relied too much, the gallery would be entirely blocked by a mass that, when it was eventually displaced by the effect of further pressure, might perhaps sweep away the entire installation, established with great difficulty and at great expense.
They held council and decided to free the vicinity of the gallery by blowing up the ice with explosives, in order to suppress and reduce the pressure.
Helicopters succeeded in depositing large explosive charges on the chaotic surface of the fjord, which dislocated the ice-field—but the latter was reconstituted almost immediately, and it was necessary to start again. They realized that that means could scarcely slow down the catastrophe, when it was a matter of applying it over an extent of sixty kilometers.
They sent down cables via the adduction tubes to the automatic borers they had used to excavate the rock, and attempted to clear the gallery by extracting the ice from it.
That method gave better results than the first, but the work of the machines consumed a considerable amount of energy, which it was necessary to obtain from the power plant at Scoresby. That factory was fueled by hydrogen, which had to be shipped from Europe at considerable expense. Such an effort imposed further heavy expenses on the administration of the Great Current, which had not been anticipated.
In addition, in view of the troubled world situation, it was not certain that Europe, obliged to concentrate all its resources to defend itself against a criminal aggression, would be capable of satisfying the enormous demands of such an endeavor for very long.
Al the engineers were competing in zeal, multiplying observations, incessantly making and remaking calculations in order to try to answer the question of whether the framework of the ice-dividers could resist the pressure.
When the North African insurrection was announced, Hurtaut had thought at first of returning to Timbuktu, but he had changed his mind when the rupture of the cables had endangered the Franz-Josef base. It was there that all determination and competence had to collaborate in the attempt to save the part of the endeavor that had required the greatest effort and the most money.
On the eighth of August, while the alarming news from North Africa and India flowed incessantly, there was a further alarm.
The observation posts of Spitzbergen signaled that a suspect squadron, apparently coming from Siberia by an audacious flight through the polar mists, was heading toward the east coast of Greenland. Its strength and composition were difficult to evaluate. It comprised some twenty, or perhaps thirty aircraft, flying at a speed of between four and five hundred kilometers an hour.
Dr. Bormann and his colleagues were immediately convinced that it was a matter of a raid on Scoresby and the Franz-Josef base. They hastened to request help from Europe, which unfortunately risked arriving too late, and they got ready to defend themselves with the meager means at their disposal.
The military helicopter stationed at Scoresby received orders and took off. Chartrain was asked to check the telemechanical aircraft whose operation had been confided to him, in order to be rea
dy to intervene if the enemy appeared above the fjord.
The young engineer had not yet had time to train the colleague who had been delegated to assist him; there had been too many other things to do since the inauguration of the Great Current, and events had unfolded too rapidly—but Claire Nolleau, who had naturally remained with Hurtaut, had done a training course in telemechanical piloting. She offered to be his auxiliary and his comrade.
VIII
The military helicopter stationed at Scoresby had taken off a quarter of an hour after the alarm had been raised by the observatory at Spitzbergen and had flown in the presumed direction of the suspect squadron.
Leaning over the shoulder of the operator of the listening-post, the commandant of the flying machine followed the indications given to him by his subordinate attentively.
He was flying through dense mist.
The sun was low on the horizon. The clouds that were descending the slopes of the mountain were also extending in height, for the humidity that had been distributed in the atmosphere during the relatively mild hours of the day, rising from the ground or transported by the sea breeze, was now condensing in an almost instantaneous fashion.
In the early days of aviation, it had been extremely dangerous to fly blind in that manner. The pilot lost the sense of equilibrium, diving or banking without realizing it, risking catastrophe because of loss of speed. But in the twenty-third century, the apparatus of automatic direction and stabilization had made such progress that flying in mist no longer involved any other risk that that of colliding with some unexpected obstacle. In order to detect their approach, there were also emitters and receivers of sonic waves whose echo was collected. If, for example, the flying machine had a cliff a kilometer ahead of it, the sound wave would take about three seconds to come back after reflection, six seconds in all to travel both ways, an interval that the apparatus’ own speed reduced by one, two or even three seconds. The operator of the post was warned of the presence of the obstacle and its distance from the apparatus; even its direction was indicated by special goniometers.
The listening-post also permitted the detection of sounds too faint for the ear to perceive, or vibrations of too small or great a frequency to enter the scale of audibility, but propagated in accordance with the same laws.
The operator of the listening-post had detected the hum of the aircraft signaled by Spitzbergen, which would still have been imperceptible to the ear without the aid of the amplifiers.
Knowing that he was dealing with a force of several dozen aircraft, the commandant of the helicopter nevertheless did not think of fleeing from the battle. He was proud of the power of the armaments of his aerial vessel, which assured him, he thought, of a decisive superiority over his adversaries.
The apparatus consisted of a large hull, in the form of a ship, normally occupied by fifty crewmen: pilots, navigators, radio- and listening-post operators, gunners, bombardiers and operators of the fulgurant tubes, mechanics, helmsmen, a physician, a steward and various officers. It could land either on land or on water, the contact being made all the easier because its sustaining helices permitted it to land or alight on water by vertical descent without suffering any damage.
From Scoresby, the helicopter went along the coast as far as the entrance to the Franz-Josef fjord, because its principal mission was to protect the base of the Great Current. It circled above the fjord, on the lookout for the approach of the enemy.
The hum of the squadron soon became perceptible. For a few moments, the commandant of the helicopter, Captain Gefson, observed the dials of the various indicators that informed him of the operation of his flying vessel, and then tried to pierce the mist with his gaze through the windows of his post, which was forward of the main compartment.
The operator of the listening-post announced that the squadron was flying directly toward the Franz-Josef base, while gaining altitude.
“Climb!” Captain Gefson commanded. “Find clear air.”
The pilot accelerated the suspension helices; the helicopter leapt upwards.
Gefson had had enough of flying blind. He wanted to get out of the fog in order to see his adversary.
The engine roared more loudly. As it rose up, the apparatus soon encountered a less opaque atmosphere.
When it was completely detached from the cloudy zone, the watchmen signaled the enemy flotilla about two miles ahead, still half-engaged in the ocean of mist, at an altitude slightly inferior to that of the helicopter.
Already, Captain Gefson, observing through the anti-mist windows of his post, had perceived the aircraft, which, flying at the level of the clouds, resembled ships besieged by the waves.
“Head straight for the enemy!” he commanded the pilot, via the acoustic apparatus. “Keep climbing in order to stay above them.”
The entire crew was on alert, at their combat stations. The gunners and the operators of the fulgurant tubes were in their turrets beside their weapons.
A flash of light was emitted by one of the airplanes. A shell burst a few meters below the helicopter, peppering its hull with shrapnel.
“Fulgurant tubes, fire! Burn the planes!” Gefson’s voice resonated via the telephone.
The order was immediately carried out.
A green-tinted ray, which contrasted with the ruddy reflections of the sun, floating on the horizon over the clouds, tinted crimson and russet-bronze, traversed space, oscillated momentarily, and fixed upon the airplane that had just fired.
The plane tried to dive in order to avoid the terrible burn, but it was too late; a great flame sprang from the hull and an explosion shattered the apparatus, whose debris spun as it fell, disappearing into the mist.
Already the ray was posing implacably on a second apparatus, which exploded like the first, not without having unleashed a cannon shot, too precipitate to be efficacious.
Then the squadron, warned by the destruction of the two machines, plunged as one into the sea of cloud, where it was not possible for the spotter to take aim with precision.
At an order from the commandant, powerful projectors of cold light began to search the mist in order to try to pinpoint the enemy craft, whose approximate position the listening-post operator continued to signal.
Captain Gefson was anxious, because, by carrying out their abrupt evasion, the enemy aircraft had succeeded in slipping underneath the helicopter and thus placing themselves between the latter and the Franz-Josef base.
“Descend at top speed!” the commandant ordered by telephone, which put him in simultaneous communication with all the chiefs of the different posts.
The suspension helices almost ceased to function. The cruiser fell like a stone—or, more precisely, like a raptor diving upon its prey.
Anxious but holding firm at their posts, the men waited.
When they arrived beneath the ceiling of clouds, the helicopter found itself almost confused with the enemy squadron, which was diving toward the grouped buildings of the Franz-Josef base, a veritable small village with steep roofs, designed to resist the pressure of the winter snows.
In five seconds, the helicopter’s fulgurant tubes annihilated ten enemy aircraft. But those that remained had set about bombarding their adversary with cannon-fire. Two shells hit the target. One exploded in the commandant’s post, killing him; the other exploded in the rear of the cruiser, killing several men, opening an enormous breach in the hull, and smashing the controls of the rudders.
In spite of the gravity of the damage, the helicopter was still flying, because its engines had not been hit.
The chief mechanic, taking account of the situation, gave the order to resume the descent, while the gunners and the operators of the fulgurant tubes, whose turrets had remained undamaged, hastened to riposte, causing further devastation in the enemy ranks.
The squadron did not try to finish off an adversary that remained so redoubtable. Satisfied to have disabled it, the enemy craft fled at top speed, in order not to be completely destroyed.
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br /> Incapable now of pursuing them, the helicopter completed its descent and landed.
The enemy flew directly toward the establishments of the Franz-Josef base.
IX
The control-panel of the telemechanical aircraft, the last hope of the defense, was sheltered in a bunker that seemed to be proof against torpedoes.
The aircraft itself was garaged under a concrete vault, from which it could emerge easily by rolling down an inclined plane.
It was relatively small, measuring no more than five meters in length, with a wingspan of six meters. It presented the appearance of a monoplane, like those constructed in the early days of aviation. It could not carry a passenger, but it possessed reaction engines, control mechanisms and television and teleaudition apparatus.
Mechanics had hastened to place cylinders of oxygen and hydrogen within the hull, which would furnish the engines with mechanical energy.
The machine carried three torpedoes, and was armed with a single cannon and a single fulgurant tube.
Chartrain and Claire Nolleau had taken their places at the control panel.
Slender beams of electric light illuminated the units of a keyboard and various instruments of which the conductor had at his service. But there was a series of screens, displays and dials that only lit up under the influence of waves emitted by the automaton when it took off. Aiming mechanisms, whose movements corresponded exactly with those of the aircraft’s cannons and the launch-tubes permitted the latter to be directed remotely at the target whose image was on the television screen. A loudspeaker transmitted the sounds that a passenger aboard the aircraft would have heard.
Because of the mist, the young people, who were observing the images furnished by a periscope on a screen had not been able to see the phases of the combat whose consequence had opened a way to the base for the enemy squadron, albeit reduced in number by more than half.
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