by Ed Earl Repp
Phil pointed down into the forest, and the pilot snapped on brilliant landing beams. Soon the light found the deep hole, and at the bottom of it, a campfire showed where Page and the rest of the Guardsmen waited. They landed in a nearby meadow and hurried toward the spot. Page was the first to greet them when they arrived. Aside, he whispered to Phil:
"Watch them! The girl showed us through the whole place. I don't like the way the others took it. They've got the notion it's some scheme of the reactionaries to get back in power."
"If we can just make Aubyn believe —" Phil grunted.
It was a stiff, awkward affair, that meeting between Avis and the dictator. The girl was gracious, General Aubyn glowering and suspicious.
"Let's see this fun house or whatever you call it," he snorted. "I warn you— I want proof, not parlor magic."
In the few hours since Phil had left the girl, she had gone a long way toward mastering their language. He did not wonder that she had been one of those chosen for the museums. Her answer to the general was only slightly halting.
"I accept your challenge, General Aubyn. Please come in."
The trip through the eight floors of the museum was an ordeal that left Phil shaking with repressed fury. The conceit of America's leader was so enormous that he blinded himself to everything he saw. That all the miracles could fail to impress him was impossible. Yet he buried his wonder beneath a hard shell of distrust. His attitude was a pattern for the rest. As she completed the demonstration of a weather-control model, she turned to Aubyn.
"Have I convinced—?" she began; and then she saw the guns in the hands of the leaders. Aubyn had not come here without a typical motive. Phil realized at the same instant what had happened. He groped for his own pistol and found it had been quietly removed.
Hot blood raced to his brain.
"You blind fools!" he raged. "After all you've seen—"
"I'll tell you what I've seen!" Aubyn barked. "A stupid attempt to hoodwink me. How long have you been working on this elaborate lie, you and your reactionist friends, Burke? Years, probably. Holding it against the time of need . . ."
Avis spoke softly, and Phil thrilled to the quiet courage she showed.
"What do you intend to do, General?"
"Execute the three of you as spies! What else can I do? The people have trusted me to protect them against all their enemies, and I number you among the most dangerous ones."
"Would you believe me, General, if I told you, you are standing on the very brink of hell at this instant?"
A look of dumb shock claimed Aubyn's features. Then he snarled:
"To hell with that! Take them, men . . ."
Avis' hand lay on the edge of a table. Her fingers stirred. Down from the ceiling writhed a column of blue flame that filled the room with a crackling hiss. Aubyn and his ministers stood enveloped in that sheet of fire!
The dictator's hysterical scream came from out of the midst of it.
"My God, she's killed us—!"
"Not yet, General!" Avis cried. "But unless you throw down your guns I'll put teeth in that harmless bolt of power. You'll burn like strips of bacon in a furnace. Are you ready to cooperate?"
Phil grinned and looked down at where Avis fingered a set of rheostats. It was not accident that they had finished the tour on this spot!
Sudermann's gun was the first to come skittering across the floor toward them. Phil captured it. He could see Aubyn's features, muscles working beneath the taut flesh. Then the dictator flung his gun down and Westfall, Henry, and the rest followed suit.
"Now you'll listen to somebody else for a change!" Phil flung at him. "Behave yourselves or I'll turn that dial myself!"
"What's your plan?" Aubyn panted. His fingers clung clawlike against his thighs. His face was like dough.
"You know the uselessness of ordinary weapons against the Borers," Avis declared. "Trying to hold them back is racial suicide. The only salvation for America is in impregnable fortresses."
"What's impregnable against the Borers?" Sudermann growled.
"Bronzite. The metal of which this repository is made. I can show you how to make it. In a few weeks' time we can manufacture enough to construct a walled city. Perhaps two or three cities. We will continue to build them as long as we are able. Into these cities we will gather the best of your civilization. Huge storehouses of food will guarantee that they do not starve. In the space of a year, the Borers are certain to have exhausted all the food on the globe. Then they will turn on themselves and start the job of self-destruction that we will finish."
"How many people can we save?" demanded Aubyn.
"Perhaps two million in each city."
"Two million! What's to become of the rest?"
"They must die, as you will all die unless you do as I say. Is it to be total destruction, or partial destruction and a chance to rebuild?"
"How do we go about starting?" Aubyn's manner was that of stalling for more time.
"Probably with a selective draft. It must not be given out that the persons called are the only ones who will be saved. There would be revolution overnight. Let them think they are to form a new army unit. Withdraw them to some point far from the present activity of the Borers."
There was silence for a few seconds, with only the crackling of the flame to offset it. Phil grated impatiently:
"Well, how about it?"
"Will I put the plan in motion?" Aubyn let his eyes go from Phil to Avis and back again. "No; I will not. In my opinion it's a scheme to save yourselves at the cost of millions of other lives. My methods may be primitive, but at least they aim at saving every soul we possibly can. Women and children ! Are you asking me to turn them over to the Borers to protect myself and you? The answer is—to hell with you!"
CHAPTER IV
Tunnels
Whether or not Aubyn was sincere, Phil Burke could not tell. The dictator stood with chin lifted and eyes blazing, a resolute, self-sacrificing figure. Ready to die for his country; a martyr to his principles. The whole thing didn't jibe with the rest of his character.
"You're asking us to put you to death, you know that?" the Guardsman breathed.
"I realize it," Aubyn said in a monotone. Then his eyes glinted, and his egotism boiled to the surface again. "Here's something else I realize. You don't stand a chance in a million of getting your message to the people without my help. You don't dare broadcast it to the whole nation. That would defeat your purpose. You can go to Science Congress, ami who will believe you? A couple of shavetail Guardsmen and a woman who claims to be a million years old!"
"You're nine-tenths right," Phil came back. "But you forget one factor. If we've already lost, we may as well kill you and have the satisfaction of doing it!"
"I didn't say you'd lost," the general argued. "But first I intend to put my own methods to the test. I'll make a bargain with you. If I haven't got the Borers on the run in ten days, I'll do whatever you ask."
"By that time it may be too late!" Phil objected. "The Borers already have control of all the cities west of the Mississippi. They've been fairly quiet in the South and East, but how do we know they aren't advancing underground?"
"Captain, we don't." Aubyn was once more expanding into his normal bluff manner, as he gained control of the situation. "But I'm gambling that they aren't and I think I'll win. You can play it my way and hope for the best. Or you can execute me and condemn millions of people with the same bolt that kills me. It's your choice, this time."
Rage shook Phil, and Russell seemed on the point of diving for the switch himself. But it was Avis who placed her hand over the rheostat and shook her head.
"He's right," she murmured. "We can only deal through him." She turned the power off and the tongue of fire withdrew into the ceiling.
Aubyn wiped sweat from his flat jaws.
"A wise decision, young woman. I believe you'll thank me, ten days from now, for preventing a tragic mistake." He signed to Sudermann and the rest to leave. Then
he caught Phil's gaze. "Coming along, Captain? And you, Sergeant? I wouldn't want to court-martial you for desertion."
"You won't have to," Phil snapped. "We'll be right there watching your progress those ten days."
Page frowned a warning at him, sensing Aubyn's purpose in inviting them out of the museum. Avis stilled his fears with a shake of her head.
"I'm sure you'll deal fairly with my friends, General Aubyn," she smiled. "There are a few things I neglected to show you in the galleries. One was a very unpleasant gas-bomb. It probably would not affect the Borers, but I'm sure it could destroy most of the population of New York. Including the dictators."
Aubyn's eyes went a little wide, and his jaw got a soft look. Then he brought a smile to his lips.
"You may consider them my guests," he said ironically. "Good night."
Avis accompanied them to the stairs. They had not ascended past the fourth level when the pilot of the bomber came down the steps at a dead run. He stopped when he saw Aubyn.
"General! The Borers!" he gasped. "I got it over the radio. They've taken Philadelphia and Albany. They're on the way to the capital now!"
Aubyn cursed. Then his thick legs were pumping him up the stairs. The rest of the group gained the dome just behind him and plunged into the night. A gang of Guardsmen crowded the door of the bomber. Aubyn knocked them aside and stood panting before the ship's radio. Phil stopped outside the plane and listened.
"This is Thomas Kerry, speaking from Buffalo," the commentator's voice came. "We are in an NBC news-plane flying low over the city. It is difficult to see anything below us, as the power lines have all been destroyed. Buffalo is in total darkness. But there is sufficient moonlight that we can see waves of Borers sweeping across the city. Most of the tall buildings have fallen. The streets are jammed with wreckage. The army is endeavoring to maintain an orderly exodus, but there is little hope of this, as most of the roads are blocked by hordes of Borers. The report is that they entered through the sewers.
"Word comes that Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Boston are also falling. As you can see on a map, this forms a wide arc about the city of New York. The Borers, moving with some sort of plan, are rapidly closing in on the new capital. Other swarms of them have broken from the earth in less populated sections of Pennsylvania and New York state. . . ."
Aubyn snapped the instrument off. He slammed the pilot into the seat.
"Get this damned thing off the ground!" he roared. To Phil and the rest of the Guardsmen, he shouted: "Inside. Every man able to fly a plane is going to meet those stinking brutes."
Avis clutched Phil's arm as he moved to enter the bomber.
“Come back for me!" she whispered. "I'm going along. Maybe the sight of them will suggest something."
Phil nodded.
"Stay with her," he told Page. Then he climbed into the plane and found a seat. Aubyn crouched over the transmitter the long fifteen minutes it took to return. Into every department of the army, his voice found its way. Just as they reached the edge of the city, the first swarm of planes rose into the stratosphere and roared west and north. Phil saw the knot of officers waiting on the landing dock as they dropped from the clouds above City Hall. They hurried to confer with Aubyn as the bomber made its landing.
Phil joined the group in the elevator hurrying to the nearest landing field. Trucks waiting in the street rushed them away. There were planes by the hundreds in the hangars. Aircraft preparedness was one of the late President's chief directives, and New York was blessing him for it now.
Phil was assigned a tiny scout-interceptor. The ship was fifty percent engine and forty-five percent machine guns and small cannon. The rest was abortive tail and wings. At the dispatcher's signal, he inched back the accelerator. The interceptor roared down the runway. A flip of the elevators and it was howling straight into the sky.
When he leveled off, the redness of dawn burned along the stubby wings. He had climbed to daylight, though New York lay yet in gray half-light. Biting savagely, the propeller hurled the scout along at four hundred miles an hour. Phil was circling for a landing in ten minutes. Pre-dawn illumination made landing risky but no snags found the rolling wheels as he set it down.
From the edge of the field, Avis and Page hurried. The girl had changed to light, almost filmy garments. Impulsively, she seized Phil's hand as he moved to help her. And this time there was no pretense of telepathy to lessen the Guardsman's returning squeeze.
They crowded into the tiny cabin. Page draped himself around the rear gun. Avis was just behind Phil's shoulder when the interceptor took the air. Phil's orders were to proceed in the general direction of Syracuse. That way they shot at full throttle.
The sun raised its scarlet rind above the Atlantic. Gray waters shifted to a moving tide of gold and crimson. Beneath the ship, trees and meadows seized the same wealth of color. Then, in the near distance, a dull line of gray-white loomed. Phil pointed.
"Put the glasses on that!"
Page unkinked his long legs and crawled forward. Through a pair of binoculars, he scanned the horizon. He was silent; then:
"My God! What a sight! The Borers—"
Phil took the glasses with one hand. What he saw bunched the muscles of his body into knots. Worms! Maggots! A crawling ocean of them!
He had seen enough. The glasses came down and the interceptor went into a long slope. Now, above the wriggling gray mass, other ships could be seen diving and turning. Here and there, geysers of torn protoplasm showed where bombs had landed.
From maggots, the Borers swelled to the size of giant anacondas. Phil had the ship rocketing along just over the wave of monstrous caterpillars. They could see trees and shrubs falling before them. Their hard green faces glistened as they crested low hummocks. North and west, as far as eye could reach, the Borers covered the ground. Climbing higher, Phil looked down on a ragged lump upon the earth's surface, miles wide. Broken concrete spires and steel skeletons lifted gaunt above the moving mass. Phil grunted: "Syracuse."
Page stifled a curse and crawled back to the gun.
"Put her about," he gritted. "Let's give them hell!"
Phil turned the ship and they flew back. As they won the front line again, he swung at right angles to the advance and they began a strafing attack up and down. Their explosive shells cut the crawling Borers to pieces. The second line piled into the dying first line; then they swarmed over and crawled ahead unimpeded. Phil flew still lower, kept both his guns chattering while Page rocked the other machine gun back and forth.
Other ships dived and strafed a mile away. Their success was no greater than Phil Burke's. They could slow the Borers, but they could not stop them. No power on Earth could do that.
Phil wanted desperately to believe the mines they had laid far to the south would stop them. But logic told him how vain that hope was. Earth's disease was in its terminal stages, beyond the help of any medicine. They were seeing the end of civilization. At his elbow, Avis breathed: "It's hopeless, Phil. Aubyn has condemned New York by his blindness. The rest of the world, as well. It may be too late now to manufacture sufficient bronzite for a small city, even if he would agree."
"But—there has to be another way! If we can't arrest them here, they'll go on to destroy everything, every shred of life in the country. Isn't there— some way. . . ?"
"There is one possibility, Phil," Avis said soberly. "I hadn't mentioned it before, because it's small comfort at the most. You've only seen a fraction of the building in which you found me. Beneath the eighth level are living quarters for perhaps five thousand persons. The swiftness of the ice plague kept us from ever filling those rooms. A small colony, indeed, to give civilization a new start! Still, a start—if only we could get in touch with the type of men and women we need."
Page had started up at her first words. Now he sank back.
"That's it," he muttered. "It's no use picking out five thousands individuals at random. We'd be giving mankind a dowry of disease, idiocy, an
d laziness. God knows how we can contact a better class."
Phil's fingers were white on the controls.
"There's just one man who could help us," he murmured. "The kingpin of them all—General Aubyn. And I've got a feeling he'll be glad to help us—"
"Aubyn—!" You aren't serious, Phil—?" Avis' blue eyes were big.
"Absolutely. He'll be practically unguarded, with even the Gold Troopers in the field. If we can get next to him, make him call the head of Science Congress and round up the foremost men of science in New York—"
"That's it!" Page yelled. "Give her the gun, mister. The big shot's going to talk turkey for once!"
CHAPTER V
Hegira--
From the council room on the seventieth floor of City Hall, it was Aubyn's custom to keep in touch with his leaders by radio, during crises. Phil Burke knew this, and he had banked heavily on it in heading there. The landing dock was empty, and they reached the elevator unseen. Under his arm Page carried one of the machine guns, dismounted and ready for work.
The elevator door slid back on the seventieth level. Down the corridor, a pair of Gold Troopers stood guard before the council room. At the sound of the door, they looked up.
Phil hissed:
"Ready with that gun! We'll try to act like it's official business or something—"
Avis went between them. The guards watched them narrowly, puzzled. When they were within twenty feet, the blue-jowled Trooper on the left barked:
"Hold it! What's the idea of the artillery?"
Page raised the heavy caliber gun on a line with the sentries.
"Don't get excited, boys. This is where you lie down and play dead dog. We don't want trouble, but—"
"Get him!" the Gold Trooper roared. His rifle swung up, blasted flame and lead down the hall.
Hot wind stung Phil's cheek. Then the corridor rocked with the hammering thunder of the machine gun. Page fired two short bursts. There were the added explosions of the shells detonating in the Trooper's bodies. The guards' rifles clattered on the floor and they went back against the wall, to slide loosely to the polished marble.
