The Onslaught from Rigel

by Fletcher Pratt

  CHAPTER IV

  Flight!

  But when Tholfsen and Murray returned with the coal, Vanderschoof wasmissing as well as Stevens, and that evening when the car in which MartaLami had accompanied Roberts on the exploration of the Brooklyn Heightsdistrict drew up at the Institute, it had only one occupant.

  "What happened to Miss Lami?" asked Ben.

  Roberts gazed at him, surprised. "Didn't you send them? While we were atthe St. George Hotel a car came along with Stevens and two of those newmen in it. One was the Greek. They spoke to her for a minute and shesaid they brought a message from you that she was to go with them."

  "M-hm," said Ben. "I see. Well, as long as they don't come back, it'sall right."

  * * * * *

  The car whirled out the Albany Post Road in a silence that wasindicative of the rivalry that had already sprung up between Stevens andVanderschoof. As for Pappagourdas he found himself demoted to theposition of a "yes man."

  They had provided themselves with a liberal supply of guns andammunition, and with the foolish conservatism of the very rich, refusingto believe that money was valueless, had raided store after store untilthey had acquired a considerable supply of currency.

  "This is the Bear Mountain Bridge, isn't it?" said the dancer. "Let'sstop at West Point and pick up a cadet. They're so ornamental."

  Stevens glanced at her sourly from the wheel. "We've got to hurry if wewant to get to Albany," he said.

  "Still," offered Vanderschoof protectingly, "why not stop at the Point?We might find some people there. I know Colonel Grayson. Played golfwith him there last summer. Ha, ha! When I holed out an eighteen-footerat the seventh, he was so mad, he wouldn't speak to me all the rest ofthe afternoon. It was the turning point of the battle. Ha, ha!"

  Stevens, with a grunt, swung the wheel round and began the ascent of thelong bridge ramp. He realized he had been outmaneuvered. To cover hisretreat, he remarked, "Isn't that a bird?"

  "The high muck-a-muck said something about birds last night," said thedancer, "but he's such a Holy Joe that I didn't pay any attention."

  "Aren't the birds all dead?" asked the Greek, respectfully. "I saw somein the gutter outside my window and they were turned to iron."

  * * * * *

  The car coughed to the rise, made it and slid across the bridge.

  "It is a bird," said the dancer, "and what a bird! Papa, look at theostrich."

  Pappagourdas and Vanderschoof followed her pointing finger. Along itsdirection they saw, a couple of hundred feet behind and above them, thewidespread wings and heavy body of the same type of four-winged birdRoberts had encountered. Vanderschoof tugged at his pocket. "Maybe it'llcome close enough to give us a shot," he said hopefully.

  The bird was certainly gaining on them, though the speedometer of thecar had risen beyond forty miles an hour. As it drew nearer, they couldmake out the high-domed, most un-birdlike head set with pop-eyes fixedin a permanent expression of astonishment, the short bill, slightlyhooked at the tip, and the huge expanse of the wings. It seemed to beinspecting them as a smaller avian might inspect a bug crawling across aroad.

  As it drew nearer, it swooped to within a couple dozen feet of the car;they noticed that its feet, folded back beneath the body, had a metallicluster. Then Vanderschoof fired, with a bang that almost deafened therest. The bird seemed surprised rather than frightened or resentful. Atthe sound of the gun it bounded upward a few feet and then swung again,moving along parallel with the car and twisting its neck to take a goodlook at the passengers. The chance was too good to be missed; bothPappagourdas and Vanderschoof fired this time, steadying themselvesagainst the motion of the car. One of the shots evidently went home, fora couple of feathers floated down, and the bird, with a series ofear-piercing squawks, spiralled down the side of the mountain toward theriver-bank, three or four hundred feet below.

  "Bull's eye!" yelled Pappagourdas. "Gimme the cigar! Let's stop the carand go get it."

  "What's the use," said Stevens, "you couldn't eat it, anyway. Listen tohim yell, would you?"

  Above the sound of the motor the screeching of the wounded bird stillreached them faintly from the bottom of the cliff.

  "I think it's a damn shame to shoot up the poor thing," said Marta Lami.

  "Oh, he'll be all right," declared Vanderschoof. "Don't believe wetouched anything but one wing, and it'll just sit and eat ground-berriestill it gets well."

  It was perhaps half an hour later, and the distant hills were beginningto acquire a fine powder of dusk when they saw the second bird--arapidly moving speck, far behind them and to one side of the road.Vanderschoof saw it first and called the attention of the rest, but theyquickly lost interest.

  He continued to observe it. Were there two? He thought so, yet--. Amoment later he was sure there was more than one, as the car breasted arise and gave them a better view. They seemed to be following fast. Theridiculous idea that they meant to do something about their fallencomrade came to him, to be dismissed instantly. Yet the birds werecertainly following them and he thought he made out a third, behind theothers.

  The car coasted down a long slope, crossed a bridge and began to go up ahairpin rise. Vanderschoof looked back. The birds were invisible; helooked again, in the right direction this time and saw them, so muchlarger and nearer that he cried out. The others ceased their low-voicedconversation at the sound of his voice. "What's the matter, papa?" askedthe dancer.

  "Those birds. Look."

  "Why it looks almost as though they were following us."

  She sat upright in the seat and squinted at them under an upraised hand.The queer birds were close enough now so that the difference betweentheir fore-wings and the steadily beating hind wings could be made out.

  "You don't suppose they could be mad at us?" she asked.

  "Don't be foolish," said Stevens, without turning around. "Birds aren'tintelligent enough for that." A long straight stretch lay before him andhe let the car out. Vanderschoof, watching with a trace of anxiety, sawthe birds also put on more speed. "They are following us," he declaredwith conviction.

  "Look," said Marta Lami, "that one is carrying something, too."

  As she spoke, the bird, flying high, gained a position just above andahead of the car, dropped the object and instantly wheeled off and downto one side. There was a heavy thud on the road ahead, and a big rockbounded and rolled a score of feet before the car.

  Marta Lami screamed. Vanderschoof swore, with feeling. "Get out yourguns and drive them off," said Stevens. "You fools, why did you have toshoot at them in the first place?"

  Before he had finished speaking Vanderschoof had his revolver out andwas firing at the second of the birds, now swinging into position abovethem with another rock. He missed, but the bird, surprised, dropped itsburden too soon, and they had the satisfaction of seeing it bounce amongthe trees at the right of the road.

  "Keep after them, that's right," said Stevens. "We're not far from thePoint and we can get under cover there."

  * * * * *

  Both the men in the back were shooting now--Vanderschoof slowly and withdeliberate aim; Pappagourdas in a panic-stricken rafale at the thirdbird, which, higher than the others, paid not the slightest attention tothem but jockeyed for position. Stevens began to twist the steeringwheel--the car described a fantastic series of zigzags.

  "What are they?" he asked. "I never saw anything like them."

  "I don't know," replied Vanderschoof. (Bang!) "Like the condors (Bang!)I used to see in South America, only bigger."

  Crash! The third rock burst in a shower of fragments not ten feet away,one piece striking the windshield with a ping, and sending a longdiagonal crack across it. The first of the three birds was swinging upagain with another rock, screeching hoarse communications at the others.

  Marta Lami had fallen silent. As the bird began to circle above them,picking its position, Pappagourdas suddenly ce
ased firing, with a curse."Have you got any more bullets?" he asked. "Mine are all gone...." Hisvoice broke suddenly, half-hysterical, "It is the cranes of Ibicos," hecried.

  The stone struck behind them. Evidently the bird had a healthy respectfor Vanderschoof's aim, which had kept it at such a height that it couldnot aim accurately. But as the next stone missed they changed theirtactics, screaming to each other. The third bird, whose turn it was todrop a stone, merely flew along parallel with them, high enough to beout of range, waiting for the return of the others. When they arrived,all three strung out in a line and released their rocks simultaneously.There was a resounding crash, the car reeled perilously on the edge ofthe steep road, then righted and drove on with a clattering bang.Looking over the side Vanderschoof could see where the big rock hadstruck the right running board, tearing a foot or two of it loose totrail on the road.

  "Wait," he cried, but Stevens shook his head.

  They had a bit of luck at this point. The hunt for more stones orsomething of the kind delayed their enemies, and when they next saw thebirds winging up behind them, the white classical lines of the WestPoint administration building already loomed ahead, clear in thegathering gloom.

  Stevens turned in, swung the car around at the door, and halted it withscreaming brakes, just as the first of the birds overhead overshot themark and turned to come back. In an instant the banker was out of thecar, dragging at Marta Lami's hand. Vanderschoof climbed numbly out theother side, and ran around the car toward the door of the building, butthe Greek missed his footing where the running board should have beenand fell prone, just as one of the birds dived down with a yell oftriumph and dropped his stone accurately onto the struggling man.

  "Run!" shouted Stevens.

  "But--the Greek," panted Vanderschoof as they climbed the steps.

  "Hell with him. Or here--wait." Stevens turned and thrust his fistthrough the glass upper portion of the door. Out in the dusk the threebird-forms were settling round their fallen foe. The flash of thebanker's gun stabbed the night and was answered by a scream. Before hecould take aim again, with a quick beat of wings, they were gone andwhen, daring greatly, he ran out a few moments later, he found thatPappagourdas was gone also.

  * * * * *

  He found the others on one of the benches in the outer office of thebuilding, the girl with her face buried in her hands in an agony offright and reaction. Vanderschoof, too old and cool a hand to give wayin this fashion, looked up.

  "What are they, Stevens?" he asked.

  The Wall Street man shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I don't know,"he said. "Some new kind of high-power bird that developed while we wereall being made into machines by that comet, I suppose. It's terrible....They've got the Greek."

  "Can't we get after them? There ought to be airplanes here."

  "In this light? Can you fly one? I can't and I don't imagine the littlegirl here can."

  The "little girl" lifted her head. She had recovered. "What did we cometo this joint for, anyhow?" she asked. "To hang crepe on thechandeliers?"

  The words had the effect of an electric shock.

  "Why, of course," said Stevens, "we did come here to see if we couldfind someone, didn't we?" and turning round he pushed open the door intothe next room. Nothing.

  "Wait," he said. "Not much use trying to do anything tonight. We haven'tany flashlights."

  "Aw, boloney," said the dancer, "what do you want us to do? Sit here andcount our fingers? Go on, big boy, find a garage, you can get a lightfrom one of the cars."

  "Won't those birds see it?"

  "You got a yellow streak a mile wide, haven't you? Birds sleep atnight."

  Stevens took a half-unwilling step toward the door. "Let me come withyou," said Vanderschoof, rising.

  "What's the matter, papa? You got a little yellow in you, too?"

  He was dignified. "Not at all. Here I'll leave my gun with you, MissLami."

  "We'll be seeing you," said Stevens, over his shoulder. "Don't worry."And they were gone.

  To the dancer their absence was endless. She would have given anythingfor the velvet kick of a good drink of gin--"but I suppose it would burnout my bearings," she mused ruefully. Heavens, she must spend the restof her days as a robot. In the fading light she ruefully contemplatedthe legs that had delighted the audiences of two continents, now becomeingenious mechanical devices beyond the power of delighting anyone buttheir owner.

  More clearly than the rest, she realized that very little was left ofthe old relation between the sexes. What would happen when the forcefulStevens made the discovery also? Probably he would make a thinking robotof her to serve his ambition. Well, she had chosen to go with them--theyseemed to offer more amusement than the stuffy prigs of the colony....

  What was that?

  She listened intently. A subdued rattling, slightly metallic incharacter. It might be a rat--no, too mechanical. The men--probably itwas them, or one of them, returning. She glanced out of the window. Notthere. The sound again--not from outdoors, but behind her--within theroom? She gripped the gun Vanderschoof had given her. Rattle, rattle.She wished furiously for a light.

  The birds? No--birds sleep at night. Rattle, rattle. Persistently. Shestood up, trying to pierce the gathering dimness. No, the birds wouldmake more noise. They moved surely, with hoarse screams, as though theythought themselves the lords of the world. This sound was small, likethe chatter of a mechanical rat. What new horror in this strange worldmight it not conceal? On slenderest tiptoes she backed cautiously acrossthe rug toward the outer door. Better the chance of the birds than thisunknown terror of the darkness.

  Holding the gun before her firmly, she stepped back, back, feeling withone hand for the door. Her hand met its smooth surface, then clicked asthe metallic joints came in contact with the doorknob. She paused,breathless. Rattle, rattle, went the small sound, undiscouraged.

  With a sudden jerk she flung the door open and tumbled down the steps,half-falling, and as she fell, as though in answer to the metallic clangof her body on the stone, a long pencil of violet light sprang silentlyout from somewhere back in the hills, moved thrice across the sky andthen faded as swiftly as it had come.

  She felt the beam of a flashlight in her eyes, and got up, hearing hervoice with a sort of inward surprise as it babbled something slightlyincoherent about "things--in there."

  Stevens' voice, rough with irritation. "What is it you're saying?" Heshook her arm. "Come on, little woman, pull yourself together."

  "There must be someone else around here," remarked Vanderschoof,irrelevantly. "Did you see that searchlight?"

  Marta Lami pulled herself up short, shaking loose the hand with a touchof the arrogance that had made her the queen of the night life of NewYork.

  "Something in there gives me the heeby-jeebies," she said, pointing."Sounds like some guy shooting craps with himself."

  * * * * *

  Stevens laughed, somewhat forcedly. "Well, it's nothing to be scared of,unless it's one of those damn birds, and if it was that he'd be takingus apart now. Come on!"

  He flung the door open and plunged in, the flashlight flickering beforehim. Empty.

  There was a door at the further end, next to the one they hadinvestigated before. Toward this he strode, clump, clump on the carpet,and flung it open likewise. Empty again. No, there was something. Thequesting beam came to rest on a brown army tunic behind the desk,followed it up quickly to the face and there held. For, staring at themwith mechanical fixity was another of those simulations of the humanface in metal with which they were by now, so familiar. But this one wasdifferent.

  For it held the balance between the walking cartoons of men in metal,such as they themselves were, and the ugly and solid statues they hadseen strewn about the streets of New York. It had the metal bands acrossthe forehead that they possessed, above which issued the same wiry hair,but in this case curiously interwoven as though subjected to some greatheat and mel
ted into a single mass. And the nose was all of solid metal,and the eyes--the eyes ... were the eyes of a statue, giving back nolustrous reflexion of glass.

  A moment they paused breathless, then stepped forward, and as the beamof light shifted when Stevens moved, rattle, rattle, came the soundMarta Lami had heard, and when the light went back those unseeing eyeshad moved.

  For a few seconds no one spoke. Then:

  "Good God, it's alive!" said Vanderschoof in a hushed voice and a thrillof horror went through the others as they recognized the truth of hiswords.

  Stevens broke the spell, stepping swiftly to the desk. "Can we doanything for you?" he asked. No movement from the metal figure--onlythat ghastly rustle of the eyes as they turned here and there in thefixed head, searching for the light they would never find again. TheWall Street man lifted one of the hands, tried to flex the arm that heldit. It dropped back to the deck with a crash. Yet the metal of whichthey were composed seemed in itself to be as pliant as that of their ownarms.

  A feeling of wonderment mingled with the horror of the spectators.

  "What happened to him?" asked Marta Lami in a whisper as though shefeared awakening a sleeper.

  Stevens shrugged. "What's happened to all of us? He's alive, I tell you.Let's ... get out of here. I don't like it."

  "But where to?" asked Vanderschoof.

  "Follow the Albany road," said Stevens. "We ought to move on. If thosebirds come back in the morning--" he left the sentence unfinished.

  "But what about this poor egg?" asked Marta Lami.

  "Leave him," said Stevens, then suddenly giving way, "there's too muchmystery about this whole business around here. I'm going, I tell you,going. You can stay here till you rot if you like. I'm clearing out."