The Onslaught from Rigel

by Fletcher Pratt

  CHAPTER V

  The Menace

  Naturally, exploration of the familiar, yet unfamiliar world into whichthey had suddenly been thrown was the first preoccupation of the NewYork colonists. None of the group cared to wander far from the Instituteduring the first weeks, however, in view of the possible difficulty ofobtaining electrical food for a long trip, and Beeville's researches onthe potentialities of their new bodily form advanced so slowly that theyhardly dared leave.

  His discoveries in the first weeks were, in fact, purely negative.Farrelly, the publisher, smashed a finger in some machinery, but whenO'Hara turned an exact duplicate out on his lathe and Beeville attachedit, the new member altogether lacked sensation and could be moved onlywith conscious effort--an indication that some as yet unfamiliarreaction underlay the secret of motion in their metal form.

  But the greatest difficulty in the way of any activity lay in the almostabysmal ignorance of the mechanical and technical arts on the part ofthe whole group. O'Hara was a fair mechanic; Dangerfield dabbled inradio, and Farrelly could run a printing press (he published a comicalparody of a newspaper on one for several days; then abandoned theeffort); but beyond that the utmost accomplishment was driving a car,and most of them realized how helpless the old civilization had beenwithout its hewers of wood and drawers of water.

  To remedy this condition, as much as to keep them busy, Ben assigned toeach some branch of mechanical science to be learned, the supply ofinformation, in the form of books, and of experimental material, inevery form, being inexhaustible. Thus the first week found Tholfsen andMrs. Roberts scouring the line of the New York Central for a locomotivein running order. After numerous failures, they succeeded in getting thething going, only to discover that the line was blocked with wrecks andthey would need a crane to clear the track for an exploring journey ofeven moderate length.

  At the same time, Murray Lee, with Dangerfield and two or three others,made an effort to get the Park Central's broadcasting station inoperation; a work of some difficulty, since it involved ventures intowhat were, for them, unknown fields. Daily they tap-tapped messages toeach other on telegraph sets rescued from a Western Union office, inpreparation for the time when they could get a sending set put together.

  But the most ambitious effort and the one that was to have the largestshare of ultimate consequences, was the expedition of Farrelly, Gloriaand a clothing-store proprietor named Kevitz in quest of navaladventure. After a week's intensive study of marine engines from booksthe three appropriated a tug from the Battery and set off on a cruise ofthe harbor.

  Half an hour later they were high and dry off Bedloe's Island, gloomilycontemplating the prospect of spending their lives there, for an attemptto swim when weighted down with three hundred pounds of hardware couldend only in failure. Fortunately the tide came to their rescue, and withmore daring than judgment, they continued their voyage to Governor'sIsland, where they were lucky enough to find a solitary artilleryman,weak with hunger, but hilarious with delight at the discovery that hismetallic form was not a delirium tremens delusion induced by the quartof gin he had absorbed on the night before the change.

  The giant birds, which Beeville had professionally named"tetrapteryxes," seemed to have vacated the city with the appearance ofthe colonists. Even the nest Roberts had stumbled on proved desertedwhen an expedition cautiously revisited the place; and the memory of thebirds had sunk to the level of a subject for idle remarks when a newevent precipitated it into general attention.

  Massey, the artist, with all the time in the world, and the art suppliesof New York under his finger, had gone off on an artistic jag, paintingday and night. One morning he took his canvas to the top of the DailyNews building to paint the city at dawn from its weather-observationstation. The fact that he had to climb stairs the whole way up andfinally chisel through the door at the top was no bar to his enthusiasm.Kevitz, hurrying down Lexington Avenue in a car to join his fellowmariners in investigating the machinery of a freighter, saw him in thelittle steel cage, silhouetted against the reddening light of day.

  There was an informal rule that everyone should gather at the Instituteat ten in the evening, unless otherwise occupied, to report on the day'sevents, and when Massey did not appear two or three people made commentson the fact, but it was not treated as a matter of moment. When theartist had not shown up by dawn of the next day, however, Murray andGloria went to look for him, fearing accident. As they approached thebuilding Murray noticed that the edge of the weather observationplatform was twisted awry. He speeded up his car, but when they arrivedand climbed the mountainous flights of stairs he found no bent anddamaged form, as he had expected.

  * * * * *

  The roof of the building held nothing but the painting on which he hadbeen working--a half-completed color sketch of the city as seen from thetower.

  "Where do you s'pose he went?" asked Gloria.

  "Don't know, but he went in a hurry," replied Murray. "He doesn't careabout those paintings much more than he does about his life."

  "Maybe he took a tumble," she suggested. "Look, there's his easel, andit's busted."

  "Yes, and that little chair he totes around, and look how it's alltwisted out of shape."

  "Let's look over the edge. Maybe he went bugs and jumped. I knew a guythat did that once."

  "Nothing doing," said Murray, peering over the parapet of the building.

  Mystery.

  "Say--" it was Gloria who spoke. "Do you suppose those birds--thetetra-axes or whatever Beeville calls them--?"

  They turned and scanned the sky. The calm blue vault, flecked by thefleecy clouds of summer, gave no hint of the doom that had descended onthe artist.

  "Nothing to do but go home, I guess," said Murray, "and report anotherrobbery in Prospect Park."

  The meeting of the colonists that evening was serious.

  "It comes to this, then," said Ben, finally. "These birds are dangerous.I'm willing to grant that it might not have been they who copped Massey,but I can't think of anything else. I think it's a good idea for us toleave here only in pairs and armed, until we're certain the danger isover."

  "Ain't that kind of a strong step, Mr. Ruby?" asked Kevitz. "It don'tseem to me like all that business is necessary."

  Ben shook his head decisively. "You haven't seen these things," he said."In fact, I think it would be a good idea for us all to get some gunsand ammunition and do target practice."

  The meeting broke up on that note and the members of the colony filedinto the room where the supply of arms was stored, and presently to forman automobile procession through the streets in search of a suitableshooting gallery.

  When targets were finally set up in the street in automobile lights, thegeneral mechanical efficiency of the colony revealed itself once more.Gloria Rutherford was a dead shot and the artilleryman from Governor'sIsland almost as good; Ben himself and Murray Lee, who had been toPlattsburg, knew at least the mechanism of rifles, but the rest couldonly shut their eyes and pull the trigger, with the vaguest of ideas asto where the bullet would go. And as Ben pointed out after the buildingsalong the street had been peppered with the major portion of Abercrombieand Fitch's stock of ammunition, the supply was not inexhaustible.

  "And what shall we do for weapons then?" he asked.

  Yoshio, the little Japanese, raised his hand for attention.

  "I have slight suggestion, perhaps merely cat's meow and not worthyexalted attention," he offered. "Why not all people as gentlemen oldtime in my country, carry sword? It is better than without weapon."

  "Why not, indeed?" said Ben above a hum of laughter. "Let's go." And anhour later the company re-emerged from an antique store, belted with thestrangest collection of swords and knives and fishing gaffs ever borneby an earthly army.

  "I wonder, though," said Gloria to Murray Lee, as they reached theInstitute as dawn was streaking up the sky. "All this hooey doesn't seemto mean much. If those birds are as big as that they aren
't going to bescared by these little toad-stabbers."

  She was right. That night Ola Mae Roberts was missing.

  * * * * *

  The siege came a week later.

  It was a week of strained tenseness; a certain electricity seemed athand in the atmosphere, inhibiting speech. The colonists felt almost asthough they were required to whisper....

  A week during which Murray, with Dangerfield and Tholfsen, workedenergetically at their radio, and progressed far enough so they could doa fairly competent job of sending and receiving in Morse code. A weekduring which the naval party got a freighter from the South Street docksand brought her round into the Hudson.

  At dawn one morning, Gloria, with Farrelly, Kevitz and Yoshio, piledinto a limousine with the idea of taking the freighter on a trip toConey Island. Murray accompanied them to try communicating with theshore via the ship's wireless.

  The day was dark, with lowering clouds, which explains why they missedseeing the tetrapteryxes. But for the General Sherman statue they neverwould have seen them until too late. The general's intervention waspurely passive; Murray noticed and called Gloria's attention to thecurious expression the misty light gave the bronze face and she lookedup to see, to be recalled to her driving by a yell from Kevitzannouncing the metallic carcass of a policeman squarely in their path.

  Gloria twisted the wheel sharply to avoid it; the car skidded on thedamp pavement, and reeling crazily, caromed into the iron fence aroundthe statue with a crash. At the same moment an enormous mass of rockstruck the place where they should have been and burst like a shell,sending a shower of fragments whistling about their ears.

  Shaken and dazed by the shock, they rolled out of the car, for themoment mistaking the two impacts for one; and as they did so there camea rush of wild wings, an eldritch scream and Yoshio was snatched intothe air before their very eyes. Kevitz fired first, wildly and atrandom. Murray steadied himself, dropping his gun across his leftforearm, and shot cool and straight--but at too great a distance, andthey saw nothing but a feather or two floating down from the greatfour-winged bird as it swung off over Central Park, carrying the littleJap. They saw him squirm in the thing's grip, trying to get his swordloose, and then with a rattle of dropped stones around them, more of thebirds charged home.

  Only Gloria had thought of this and withheld her fire. The others swunground as she shot and in an instant the whole group was a maze ofwhirling wings, clutching claws, shouts, shots and screams. In twentyseconds it was done: Gloria and Murray rose panting and breathless, andlooked about. Beside them, two gigantic bird-forms were spilling theirlives in convulsive agony. Dangerfield and Farrelly were gone--and arending screech from behind the buildings told only too well where.

  "What's the next step?" asked Murray with such owlish solemnity thatGloria gave a burst of half-hysterical laughter. She looked round.

  "Beat it for that building," she said, and gathering her torn skirtsabout her, set the example.

  They made it by the narrowest of margins, standing breathless in whathad been the Peacock Alley of one of New York's finest hotels to see oneof the great birds strut past the door like a clumsy caricature of anangel.

  "And poo-poo for you," said Murray, thumbing his nose at the apparition."But what we'll do now I don't know."

  "Play pinochle till they come look us up," suggested Gloria. "Besides,my bullets are all gone."

  ... They waited all day, taking tentative glances from one or another ofthe windows. The birds remained invisible, apparently not caring for theprospect of a battle in the constricted space of the hotel rooms. Butamid the rain and low-hung clouds they might be lurking just outside andboth Murray and Gloria judged it too dangerous to venture a dash. Asnight came on, however, they made a try for the hotel's garage, achievedit without accident, and between them, rolled one of the cars to thedoor.

  "Wait," said Murray, as Gloria got in, "what was that?"

  "This dam' starter." She stirred her foot vigorously. "It won't work."

  "No. Wait." He held out a restraining hand. A sudden gust of wind bore adash of rain down against them and with it, from the northeast, afar-away scream, then a tapping and a heavy thud.

  "Hot dog!" ejaculated Murray. "They're getting after the crowd. And atnight, too."

  The car jerked forward suddenly as the starter caught. "Hold it," criedMurray. "Douse those headlights." They dodged the wreck of a street car,swung round a corner and headed for First Avenue, gathering speed.Another corner, taken on two wheels in the darkness, the way to theInstitute lay before them.

  Suddenly a great flame of light sprang out in the sky, throwing thewhole scene into sharpest relief. There was a crash of rifle-fire fromwindow and door of the building and across the front of it one of thebirds coasted past. Crash! In the street before them something like abomb burst, vomiting pennons of fire. Gloria swung the wheel, swung itback; they had a mad glimpse of brilliantly burning flames inside one ofthe buildings across the street from the Institute, and then they weretumbling out of the car with rifle-fire beating all around them and thethud of dropping objects on either side.

  * * * * *

  Murray stumbled, but the door was flung open and they were jerked in,just as one of the huge bird forms flung itself down past them.

  "Thank God, you're safe," said Ben Ruby's voice. "They got Dearborn andHarris and they're besieging us here." He pointed out of the windowacross the street, where the rapidly-gaining fire was engulfing thebuilding.

  "Did the birds do that little trick?" asked Gloria.

  "I hope to tell you, sister. You ain't seen nothing yet, either. They'reshedding incendiary bombs all over the shop. How about Kevitz andFarrelly?"

  "Got them, too. At the Plaza--and the little Jap. Too bad; I liked thatlittle sprout."

  "I thank gracious lady for kindly expressed sentiment, but oversizeavians have not yet removed me," said a voice and Gloria looked down tosee Yoshio bowing at her side.

  "Why, how did they come to let you off? Last I saw you were doing aheadspin over Central Park."

  "I was fortune," replied the little man. "Removing sword I operate onsaid bird to such extent that he drop me as hot customer, plosh in largetree. To get home is not so easy but I remember armored car provided byintelligent corporation for transport of bankroll, so here I am. Cat'sMeow!"

  "Bright boy," said Gloria. "Listen!" Above their heads came anothercrash, a tramp of feet and shouts. Roberts dashed into the room, riflein hand. "They've got the place on fire," he said. "We'll have to clearout."

  Ben Ruby fumbled at his waist, drew forth a whistle and blew a piercingblast, which was answered by shouts, as members of the colony began topour into the room from various points.

  Another bomb burst in a fluff of light, just outside the window,throwing weird shadows across the gathering and splitting a pane hereand there by the force of its impact.

  "Hot stuff," remarked Gloria. "What are they trying to do--take us allat one gulp?"

  "Beeville says they never thought it up on their own," Ben assured her."Not smart enough. He thinks somebody doesn't like us and is sendingthem around to tell us so. Listen, everybody!"

  The room quieted down.

  "We've got to go at once. Our destination is the Times Square subwaystation. They can't get us there. Anybody who gets separated meet therest there. We'll go in groups of three to a car; one to carry a gun,one a sword and one a light. Everybody got it?... Good.... Somebody giveGloria one of those express rifles.... Here's the list then. Firstparty--Miss Rutherford, gun; Yoshio, sword; O'Hara, light. Go ahead."

  A coil of smoke drifted across the room from somewhere above--the soughof the burning made the only background to his words. With a quickhandshake the three made ready; a volley from the windows flashed out,and they dashed off. Those inside caught a glimpse of the dark form oftheir car as it rolled into the night. They were safe at all events. Thesecond carload, in Yoshio's armored vehicle, also go
t free, but thethird had trouble. They had hardly made half the distance to the parkedcars before there was a whir of wings, a scream, and the quick burst ofa bomb, luckily too far behind them to do damage. Those inside saw thelight-man stop suddenly, flashing his beam aloft, saw an orange flamespring from the gun and then their view of the three was blotted out ina whirl of wings and action.

  "Everybody out!" yelled Ben. "Now! While they're busy." In a concertedrush the colonists poured through the door.

  Nobody could remember clearly what did happen. Someone was down--hurtsomewhere--but was flung into a car. Through the turmoil the tossingform of one badly-wounded bird struggled on the ground, and with a roarof motors the cavalcade started.