The Earth-Tube

by Gawain Edwards

  And in the air King had given the signal which unleashed the American battalions on the wing. Over ten miles of front they suddenly hurled themselves upon the Asian ships, which had drawn a little distance off as though hesitating between charging and retreat. When they saw the Americans coming they broke formation and fled, every man for himself in a long, running free-for-all above the battle ground. Some of them were chased as far as Houston and the Mexican border. Others sought escape across the Gulf and came down in flames to spread their wreckage on the heaving sea.

  Like magic the word went outward through Mexico and South America that the invincible vanguard of the Tal Majod, the indestructible monsters of gleaming undulal, had met defeat at the hands of the Americans. It was shocking, unbelievable news to the hundreds of thousands of Asians who were already engaged in the settlement of the South American continent. Everywhere the works of the invaders came to a sudden stop. Without the indestructibility of undulal, what protection had they from the winged creatures of American warfare?

  Frightened, unable to guard themselves, the mighty convoy tanks which had been forwarding the Asian penetration of Mexico fled southward toward the Isthmus. The Tal Majod had been too sure that his banner meant success; he had neglected to supply fighting men and battle tanks to guard his cities on the way. In South America, also, the followers of the Asian emperor were uneasy, stricken suddenly with a terrible fear at learning that their strength and their shield could be depended upon no more.

  Swiftly the order came from Tiplis to the leaders of all the tanks, the commanders of all the cities. Faith must be maintained in Tal Majod. For the moment let the American forces have the North and Mexico. The arms of Tal Majod would concentrate anew at the Isthmus, and, brave in numbers, try again to roll their way into the northern continent.

  The Tal Majod is crafty, came the order; the Tal Majod is wise. Let not his subjects leave this land or run in fear, for victory would once again march with the tanks.

  IV

  Somewhat rested and strongly reenforced, the American fleet arose from the Mississippi flats and headed southward through the night. It was a full week after the battle of New Orleans. For seven days the triumphant defenders had rested from the fight, awaiting the slow production of more liquid air and other munitions for the continuance of the war. Now observation planes and bands of refugees had given word that Asian tanks were concentrating strongly at Panama. The battle so decisively won at New Orleans might be lost again if the defenders were too slow to strike, for the resources of the new America were limited and her resistance low.

  As the planes circled slowly above New Orleans, before their final departure across the Gulf, they saw the lights of the saved and rejoicing city twinkling below. It had been a gala week throughout America. In the streets and along the waterfronts of New Orleans the torchlights and parades were still going on. Celebrating like children at their narrow escape, Americans everywhere were demonstrating their happiness.

  Diane, in the cabin, twirled the little knob which tuned in the radio from the United States. The throbbing, pleading, triumphant voice of the Secretary of War was on the air, expostulating, explaining, singing out panegyrics and patriotism.

  “America has risen in her might,” he said, his voice rolling through the amplifier like the distant beating of a mighty sea. “America has swept her enemies ahead of her, and before another night the world will know that neither rains of gold nor metal monsters from the deep, nor threats, nor pain, nor death itself can hold America. Where we’ve been bruised we will rebuild; where we’ve been injured we will repay our punishers ten thousand fold. There is no force that can defeat aroused America!”

  King smiled. He kissed Diane. “The war will be over by this time to-morrow,” he said tenderly. “And then, Diane. !”

  She looked up at him dreamily. Her lips met his again.

  “To-morrow. “ she said.

  All night the fleet moved out across the Gulf, and at dawn the planes came circling over the Isthmus, like aroused birds of prey, ready to pounce and strike. From little camps of scattered refugees in the hills came the thin wail of cheers. Friends were in sight at last and retribution for the Asians.

  But where were the Asians? King swept the entire terrain with powerful glasses. Here, where the narrow neck of the Isthmus joined the broader lands of South America a great depot of enemy tanks had lain not long before. Now .they were gone, and with them every trace and sign of the invaders, except the havoc and desolation they had left behind. Gone! In full retreat! The Asians had not dared to join in further battle with these new defenders and their liquid destruction. Like frightened cattle the metal tanks had turned their backs upon the North and were clattering for safety toward the earth-tube, intent alone upon escape!

  It was incredible that the victory had been won so easily. But it was true. Scout planes far in advance of the fleet had sighted the retreating tanks. The Asian fliers who had concentrated at the threshold of North America with the tanks had already disappeared in the direction of Tiplis, outspeeding their slower companions on the ground.

  King wired the news triumphantly to Washington, visioning for himself the pleasure of the President, the excitement of Dr. Scott and Anna.

  In a few minutes the President had wired an answer. In it there was a strange, ominous note which brought King up short to try to guess the meaning of this non-resisting departure of the enemy.

  “Congratulations to you and the fleet,” the President had radioed. “America has gone wild at the news. The seismograph reports indicate that the earth-tube has been working furiously all night. The Asians must contemplate complete abandonment of the invasion.”

  Complete abandonment!

  Then from all parts of the southern continent the invading forces were converging on the earth-tube. The evacuation of the hemisphere was taking place. ! Not an Asian would be left to oppose the reoccupation of the territory by the Americans.

  There was a catch in it somewhere. The Tal Majod would not give up without retaliation, at least.

  King had a premonition.

  The earth-tube!

  “Diane,” he said, showing her the President’s message, “have you had any word. from Tal Majod?”

  She shook her head.

  “No warning? Nothing?”

  “His power over me is broken,” she declared suddenly. “A week ago, when I saw the undulal melt down beneath that cold barrage, I knew that somehow I was free. I had an uncontrollable desire to demonstrate my freedom to myself, so I took off the fabric band and with it my little phone, and threw them overboard!”

  King stared at her.

  “He might have spoken to you again. and dropped some hint. “

  She shook her head.

  “I knew he would not,” she replied. “Though he could compel me to listen to him and believe him when he spoke to me before, he saw he could not make me kill you. and that was his desire. Failing, he would not try again.”

  King moved uncertainly. The American fleet, awaiting his order, was flying slowly southward over the mountains, the observers watching keenly to sight the first caravan of the departing Asians.

  “I’m uneasy, Diane,” he said. “When I was in Tiplis I saw the wonders of Asia. and I saw the horrors, too. What are the evils these men could visit on us still? Their science has created for them strange forces and unusual weapons. They might pour on us even now their stores of precious jewels, their rare metals. or more horrible still, the loathsome diseases

  Gun-Tar spoke to me about.

  “Perhaps they have still other weapons, which were never mentioned to me. Who knows the resources of the Tal Majod or his cunning and cruelty? It may be that, seeing he cannot capture America, he will destroy it. He still controls the center of the earth!”

  “King. King!”

  “I will feel better when we are masters of the earth-tube, and not the Tal Majod,” King went on, moving about in his cabin in great perturbation. “I hav
e a feeling that there is no time to lose. We will go straight to Tiplis. If we are quick enough, we may succeed.”

  “Perhaps,” exclaimed Diane, her eyes flashing with excitement, “we will even catch the Tal Majod before he gets away!”

  King shook his head. “Probably not,” he said. He gave the order. Under full power the command plane leaped ahead, followed by the great fleet. Toward Tiplis the airmen struck, the huge engines roaring defiance to the skies. Three hundred bombers, domed cover of the city seemed to melt away. There was a hideous explosion, and an earth-car, which had apparently been going down the tube toward Asia loaded to capacity with shuddering refugees, came suddenly backwards through the earth and shot into the air above the city like a projectile.

  Perhaps an Asian leader, in a moment of despair, had given the order for the earth-tube to be destroyed. Perhaps some unlucky slave, resolved to drag down with him to dissolution the whole race which had degraded him, had weakened the inner walls far down, and let the molten earth midway between America and Asia mingle with the now inrushing sea. Whatever happened, it was as if the earth had been a paper bag, suddenly blown too full of air and smartly whacked. It seemed to swell like a balloon and tremble.

  Of a sudden there was a sullen roar. Tiplis and its island disappeared from sight. The mighty waters looked down for a moment into a hollow basin, miles deep, and rushed in from all the corners of the world to fill the hole. Up and up rose the surface, gaining power as it rose. Where there had been a basin now there was a geyser, thrusting to enormous height among the clouds. A natural tower of water was made by the inward thrust of liquid as it came from all the seas.

  In a moment it had fallen again. Tidal waves of irresistible force, ocean-born, sped toward the land. A wall of water miles high rolled in upon South America. The screaming Asians on the shore were swept away, and their machines, and the cities they had built. Inward rushed the waters across the Argentinian plains, and northward toward Brazil, until the land was flooded far in from the shore.

  And still the waters were not content. Great earthquakes shook the world, and wave after wave swept in upon the land, while high above, striving vainly in all this disturbance to strike out northward for safety, the American fleet, its work done and more than done, struggled with the turbulent air.

  “Look. look,” shouted King, clutching Diane and holding her where she could see through the steaming window of the plane. “There’s the sea, sweeping out the last traces of the Asians! If there is any of America left when this cataclysm has subsided, it will be a new and changed land, and it will be free!”

  In Asia a similar phenomenon had taken place. Tan-lis, the mighty, was no more. The tall and graceful towers of San Adel toppled silently into the hungry sea, and sullen gray water washed the gardens where the gay birds had sung. Japan was like a floating island, trembling in the ocean, and in another moment it had disappeared utterly. Volcanic rumblings came from underneath the waves. The waters boiled over the hidden fires of the writhing earth.

  The waves swept in upon China. Earthquakes in India overthrew age-old temples of the gods, and tidal waves came rolling in upon her shores. The Malay Archipelago arose in stone and coral from the sea; the islands joined hands of earth to make a small and newborn continent, then settled down again. The whole world rumbled and shook, as millions of tons of earth and stone, displaced by the shifting of the earth-tube and the sea, left age-old beds to seek more comfort in the new.

  Nor did the Western Hemisphere escape unchanged. When, weeks later, the tidal waves had receded from the land, and harried men had sent out expeditions to learn what miracles had happened in those fevered hours when the earth shook like a shaggy dog, they learned that South America had narrowed toward the south; that Cuba, Haiti and Porto Rico had been raised and joined; that New York and many another eastern coast city had been all but drowned beneath disastrous waves, but had survived.

  Four days after they had set out to strike the Asians at the Isthmus, about half of the American fleet returned to Washington. The others, unable to weather the tempests which had joined their fury with that of the waters and the earth, had fallen by the way and disappeared.

  V

  It was on the evening of that most triumphant Fourth of July, a few days after the close of the war, when the Secretary of War of the Pan-Americas arose amid the thunderous applause of his admirers and delivered the brief address which will probably immortalize him for all time as one of the great speakers of history.

  “What did the war cost us?” asked the Secretary oratorically of the microphones. “That we can never say. Thousands of lives, years of time, endless sums in money and horror and suffering. But it has brought us many blessings, too. From it we have learned that life is more than greed; that friendship and mutual trust are greater than factories and abundant commerce with foreign nations. Like the Phoenix from the ashes, America has risen from the ruins of the war . a new and mighty America, both in the north and the south. a union of free peoples, under a government equaled nowhere, and under a new economic system which guarantees that never again shall any man be made a slave by any other man. And these are blessings, gentlemen!”

  When he had concluded, the assembled members of the Angell Society, which had been formed only the week before in his honor, arose and toasted in real wine the Secretary and his bride, the former Anna Scott.29 King and Diane and Dr. Scott and the President, sitting together at the official table, applauded vigorously the honors paid to so great and honest a man.

  The End.

  NOTES

  1 Weiss and Samarkand dropped a specially prepared electro-thermal unit 8,443 feet into a natural fissure in the lower Andes. Walpurgis buried a triple-wound coil and antenna near Miami and tuned it to the earth’s vibrations according to an adaptation of the Glittner scale. Neither experiment was successful.

  2 See Fischer’s The Earth Colloids, and others.

  3 Dr. Scott was among the earliest to discover the effect of earth-vibrations upon conductivity in various metals. The electro-metallic seismographic unit, which records with accuracy not only the lateral and vertical motions of the earth’s crust, but the twisting and spiral strains as well, was the direct outgrowth of his discovery. The small units upon his earth model were probably of this type, particularly adapted to the work at hand.

  4 This estimate was a little large, as it later appeared. The actual angle was about thirty-six degrees.

  5 Such a car would, of necessity, touch upon one side or the other of the earth-tube throughout its journey, with the exception of a brief interval at the center. This is due to the rotation of the earth.

  6 A distance of about 75 miles north and a little west. The ocean depth here is 1,000 feet and less.

  7 Some exaggeration may be forgiven in so excited an observer.

  8 The memorable night of February 16.

  9 Correspondents at the time persisted in calling this metal steel for want of a better term though it was well known that the Asian tanks were constructed of some other substance.

  10 The Asians, moving rapidly, went northwestward along the shore by Gualeguay, capturing many villages along the way and enslaving the inhabitants, who were sent back to the enemy fortifications at Montevideo. The tanks then crossed the Uraguay and Parana rivers, turned toward the head of the bay, and proceeded southeastward upon Buenos Aires, crumpling hamlets and villages in their path and taking additional thousands of prisoners. They lighted their way with tremendous fan-beam lights and made a uniform speed of about twenty-five miles an hour. It is to be noted that these events were taking place on the night of February 16, at the very time when the Secretary was boasting of the success of his defenses at Buenos Aires.

  11 Only eighteen of them. The others had apparently returned to Montevideo with prisoners.

  12 The same correspondent later sent word of the fall of La Plata, to which the Asians proceeded immediately after the destruction of Buenos Aires. The number of poor wretches who los
t their lives in these forays was never learned, but it is certain that thousands died, while hundreds of thousands, overcome by the Asian vapor which they wrongly thought was steam, were taken captive.

  13 To their number had also been added many large communication tanks, whose function it appeared to be to convey supplies and prisoners from the Asian strongholds to the various fronts and back. In addition, there had appeared swarms of smaller, very rapid machines, which tended and aided the more cumbersome but more effective fighting tanks. The small machines were able to surmount difficult obstacles, climbing and descending with ease, and were valuable particularly in the mountainous sections. They were useful also in surrounding towns or encampments and frequently served as scouts for the larger machines, moving on ahead and selecting a proper pathway for the advance.

  14 He was referring, of course, to the President, Dr. Scott, King Henderson, Dr. Angell, and Seiior Ramon Garcia, who, it had been publicly announced, would be appointed to the council in the event of a favorable vote by the Congress.

  15 The intensity of this ray appeared to be controlled by the operators, and though its range was necessarily short, its effectiveness was not to be doubted. The experience was first that of shock, then of numbness, followed by brief madness, loss of muscular control, hysteria, and finally temporary paralysis and complete coma. Victims were apparently gathered up later, taken to the Asian strongholds, and revived to find themselves slaves. It is to the very few who escaped this fate that we owe our knowledge of the ray’s effects.