Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  "McCready's right," replied the doctor. "Get straws, Lieutenant, and we'll draw."

  McCready picked up three bits of grass and held them out.

  "The shortest goes on watch," he said. Carnes and the doctor drew, McCready exhibited the remaining bit of grass. It was the shortest of the three. He waited until the next shell burst above them and then stepped out from the shelter.

  "I'll relieve you in fifteen minutes," said Carnes as he left.

  "Right."

  * * * * *

  When the lieutenant had left, Dr. Bird removed the gag from Feodrovna's mouth and tried to argue with her, but the Russian girl only glared her hatred and refused to talk other than to abuse him. With a sigh, the doctor gave over his efforts and talked to Carnes. The time passed slowly with a constant rain of shells on the knoll.

  "It's time for my relief," said Carnes at length. As he spoke the hail of shells on the knoll ceased.

  "What the dickens?" cried the doctor.

  He and Carnes jumped from their shelter and ran over the knoll. On the plain a few hundred yards from them, a straggling line of Russians were advancing with fixed bayonets. McCready was nowhere in sight.

  "Where the devil is McCready?" cried the doctor. "He must have been killed. Hello, one of the guns is gone, too. There's only a belt and a half of ammunition left. I'll try to break that attack up."

  He advanced to the gun and trained it carefully. When he pressed the trigger a dull click came from the gun.

  "Misfire!" he cried. He drew back the bolt and inserted a fresh cartridge. Again the gun clicked harmlessly. Dr. Bird ejected the shell and examined it. A deep indentation appeared on the primer. Hurriedly he tried a half dozen more cartridges but they refused to explode. He turned a keen gaze toward the trucks. On the ground was set a tube-like projector pointing toward them. Dr. Bird swore softly and jerked his pistol from its holster. The hammer clicked futilely on a cartridge.

  "Stymied!" he exclaimed. "They have that portable ray mechanism, with them, which disabled our bombs. It's hand to hand, Carnesy, old dear. I wonder where McCready is."

  * * * * *

  The Russians approached slowly, keeping their lines straight. They were within two hundred yards of the knoll. Suddenly from a point a hundred yards to the left of the end of the land came a rattle of fire. The attacking line dropped in a pile of grotesque heaps.

  "It's McCready!" shouted Carnes. A little ravine ran from the knoll toward the trucks. Sitting in the ravine was the lieutenant, playing a Browning machine gun on the line of attackers. When there were no more of them on their feet, he turned his gun on the trucks. Panic seized the Russians and they made a rush for their truck. Their leader leaped among them, yelling furiously. They paused and turned to the projector tube. Slowly they swung it around. The lieutenant's gun ceased firing.

  As the Russians rushed the now silent gun, Dr. Bird stepped to the gun on the knoll. He trained it and pressed the trigger. A rattle of fire came from it and two of the rushing figures fell. The attack paused for an instant. McCready had risen to his feet and was running up the ravine with his gun under his arm.

  "Good head!" cried Dr. Bird, "Clever work! Watch the fun now."

  He ceased firing his gun. The Russians wavered and then rushed the point from which McCready had fired. The lieutenant allowed them to get to within a short distance and then crumpled the attack with another burst of fire from the flank. With cries of alarm, the Russians turned and fled toward their trucks. McCready ran along the ravine until he was within fifty yards of the standing machines. As the Russians approached, one of them stepped to the truck crank. McCready's pistol spoke and he dropped. A second shared his fate. With cries of despair, the Russians climbed into the remaining truck whose motor was running. Rapidly it drove away across the plain. McCready rose from the ravine and ran toward the standing truck. He started the motor and headed for the knoll.

  "He's got a truck," cried Carnes. "We can get away in it."

  "Where to?" demanded Dr. Bird. "Archangel is between us and the Denver."

  The truck came up.

  "Come on, Doctor," cried McCready. "Hurry up. We'll take the battery out of this truck and get our plane going."

  "Oh, clever!" cried Dr. Bird admiringly. "Load that gun while I get Feodrovna, Carnesy. We'll get away safely yet."

  * * * * *

  The truck rolled up to the plane and stopped. While Carnes transferred the prisoner and the guns to the plane, the lieutenant and Dr. Bird ripped up the floor boards of the truck and exposed the battery. It was a matter of moments to detach it and carry it to the plane. It would not fit in place but they anchored it in place with wire.

  "You'd better hurry," cried Carnes. "Here come a couple more trucks over the plain."

  "That'll do, Doctor," said McCready. "Get on the prop and we'll see if the old puddle jumper will take off."

  Dr. Bird ran to the propeller.

  "Ready!" he cried.

  "Contact!" snapped McCready.

  The plane motor roared into life. The ship moved slowly forward as Dr. Bird climbed on board. Toward the oncoming trucks they rushed across the plain. A crash seemed imminent. In the nick of time McCready pulled back on his joystick and the plane rose gracefully into the air, clearing the leading truck by inches. The truck halted and hastily mounted a machine gun.

  "Too late!" laughed the lieutenant. "Now it's our turn for some fun."

  He tapped the key of his radio transmitter. In a few seconds he received an answer.

  "They have reduced Fort Novadwinskaja," he reported to the rear cockpit, "but they don't know what to fire at next. Their largest guns will reach the factory easily. Shall I start some fireworks?"

  "You may fire when ready, Gridly," chuckled Dr. Bird.

  Again the lieutenant depressed his key. From their altitude of four thousand feet, they could see the Denver. From its forward turret came a puff of smoke. There were a few moments of pause and then a cloud of black rose from the plain below them, half a mile from the factory. McCready reported the position of the burst to the ship. A second shell burst beyond the factory and the third just in front of it.

  "It's a clear bracket," said McCready. "Now watch the gun. I'll give them a salvo."

  * * * * *

  From the side of the Denver came a cloud of black smoke as all of her turret guns fired in unison. The aim was perfect. For a few moments all was quiet and then the factory disappeared in a smother of bursting high explosive shells.

  Hardly had the shells landed than a terrific sheet of lightning ripped across the sky. The thunderclap which seemed to come simultaneously, rocked the plane like a feather. Sheet after sheet of lightning illuminated the sky while the roar of thunder was continuous. Rain fell in solid sheets. Even as they watched, it began to turn into snow. The air grew bitterly cold.

  "The solar magnet is wrecked," shouted the doctor, "and these storms are the efforts of nature to return to normal."

  "If they get any worse, we're doomed."

  "But in a good cause."

  Through the storm the plane raced. Suddenly the motor died with sickening suddenness.

  "Our haywire battery connections are gone," shouted McCready. "Say your prayers."

  The wind tossed the plane about like a feather. Rapidly it lost altitude. A building loomed up before them. As a crash seemed imminent, a gust of wind caught the plane and tossed it up into the air again. For several minutes the ground could not be seen through the rain. Suddenly the plane hit an airpocket and dropped like a stone. With a splash it fell into the sea. A rift came for a moment in the curtain of rain.

  "Look!" cried Carnes.

  A hundred yards away, the Denver rode at anchor.

  "I'm only sorry about one thing," said Carnes ten minutes later as they changed to dry clothes aboard the battle cruiser, "and that is that Saranoff wasn't in the factory when that salvo fell on it."

  "I'm glad he was away," replied Dr. Bird. "With him absent, we succeeded in
destroying it. If he had been there, our task would have been more difficult and perhaps impossible. I am an enemy of Saranoff's, but I don't underrate his colossal genius."

  * * *

  Contents

  THE THIEF OF TIME

  By Captain S. P. Meek

  "That man never entered and stole that money as the picture shows, unless he managed to make himself invisible."

  Harvey Winston, paying teller of the First National Bank of Chicago, stripped the band from a bundle of twenty dollar bills, counted out seventeen of them and added them to the pile on the counter before him.

  The teller turned to the stacked pile of bills. They were gone! And no one had been near!

  "Twelve hundred and thirty-one tens," he read from the payroll change slip before him. The paymaster of the Cramer Packing Company nodded an assent and Winston turned to the stacked bills in his rear currency rack. He picked up a handful of bundles and turned back to the grill. His gaze swept the counter where, a moment before, he had stacked the twenties, and his jaw dropped.

  "You got those twenties, Mr. Trier?" he asked.

  "Got them? Of course not, how could I?" replied the paymaster. "There they are...."

  His voice trailed off into nothingness as he looked at the empty counter.

  "I must have dropped them," said Winston as he turned. He glanced back at the rear rack where his main stock of currency was piled. He stood paralyzed for a moment and then reached under the counter and pushed a button.

  The bank resounded instantly to the clangor of gongs and huge steel grills shot into place with a clang, sealing all doors and preventing anyone from entering or leaving the bank. The guards sprang to their stations with drawn weapons and from the inner offices the bank officials came swarming out. The cashier, followed by two men, hurried to the paying teller's cage.

  "What is it, Mr. Winston?" he cried.

  "I've been robbed!" gasped the teller.

  "Who by? How?" demanded the cashier.

  "I—I don't know, sir," stammered the teller. "I was counting out Mr. Trier's payroll, and after I had stacked the twenties I turned to get the tens. When I turned back the twenties were gone."

  "Where had they gone?" asked the cashier.

  "I don't know, sir. Mr. Trier was as surprised as I was, and then I turned back, thinking that I had knocked them off the counter, and I saw at a glance that there was a big hole in my back racks. You can see yourself, sir."

  The cashier turned to the paymaster.

  "Is this a practical joke, Mr. Trier?" he demanded sharply.

  "Of course not," replied the paymaster. "Winston's grill was closed. It still is. Granted that I might have reached the twenties he had piled up, how could I have gone through a grill and taken the rest of the missing money without his seeing me? The money disappeared almost instantly. It was there a moment before, for I noticed when Winston took the twenties from his rack that it was full."

  "But someone must have taken it," said the bewildered cashier. "Money doesn't walk off of its own accord or vanish into thin air—"

  A bell interrupted his speech.

  "There are the police," he said with an air of relief. "I'll let them in."

  The smaller of the two men who had followed the cashier from his office when the alarm had sounded stepped forward and spoke quietly. His voice was low and well pitched yet it carried a note of authority and power that held his auditors' attention while he spoke. The voice harmonized with the man. The most noticeable point about him was the inconspicuousness of his voice and manner, yet there was a glint of steel in his gray eyes that told of enormous force in him.

  "I don't believe that I would let them in for a few moments, Mr. Rogers," he said. "I think that we are up against something a little different from the usual bank robbery."

  "But, Mr. Carnes," protested the cashier, "we must call in the police in a case like this, and the sooner they take charge the better chance there will be of apprehending the thief."

  "Suit yourself," replied the little man with a shrug of his shoulders. "I merely offered my advice."

  "Will you take charge, Mr. Carnes?" asked the cashier.

  "I can't supersede the local authorities in a case like this," replied Carnes. "The secret service is primarily interested in the suppression of counterfeiting and the enforcement of certain federal statutes, but I will be glad to assist the local authorities to the best of my ability, provided they desire my help. My advice to you would be to keep out the patrolmen who are demanding admittance and get in touch with the chief of police. I would ask that his best detective together with an expert finger-print photographer be sent here before anyone else is admitted. If the patrolmen are allowed to wipe their hands over Mr. Winston's counter they may destroy valuable evidence."

  "You are right, Mr. Carnes," exclaimed the cashier. "Mr. Jervis, will you tell the police that there is no violence threatening and ask them to wait for a few minutes? I'll telephone the chief of police at once."

  As the cashier hurried away to his telephone Carnes turned to his companion who had stood an interested, although silent spectator of the scene. His companion was a marked contrast to the secret service operator. He stood well over six feet in height, and his protruding jaw and shock of unruly black hair combined with his massive shoulders and chest to give him the appearance of a man who labored with his hands—until one looked at them. His hands were in strange contrast to the rest of him. Long, slim, mobile hands they were, with tapering nervous fingers—the hands of a thinker or of a musician. Telltale splotches of acid told of hours spent in a laboratory, a tale that was confirmed by the almost imperceptible stoop of his shoulders.

  "Do you agree with my advice, Dr. Bird?" asked Carnes deferentially.

  The noted scientist, who from his laboratory in the Bureau of Standards had sent forth many new things in the realms of chemistry and physics, and who, incidentally, had been instrumental in solving some of the most baffling mysteries which the secret service had been called upon to face, grunted.

  "It didn't do any harm," he said, "but it is rather a waste of time. The thief wore gloves."

  "How in thunder do you know that?" demanded Carnes.

  "It's merely common sense. A man who can do what he did had at least some rudiments of intelligence, and even the feeblest-minded crooks know enough to wear gloves nowadays."

  Carnes stepped a little closer to the doctor.

  "Another reason why I didn't want patrolmen tramping around," he said in an undertone, "is this. If Winston gave the alarm quickly enough, the thief is probably still in the building."

  "He's a good many miles away by now," replied Dr. Bird with a shrug of his shoulders.

  Carnes' eyes opened widely. "Why?—how?—who?" he stammered. "Have you any idea of who did it, or how it was done?"

  "Possibly I have an idea," replied Dr. Bird with a cryptic smile. "My advice to you, Carnes, is to keep away from the local authorities as much as possible. I want to be present when Winston and Trier are questioned and I may possibly wish to ask a few questions myself. Use your authority that far, but no farther. Don't volunteer any information and especially don't let my name get out. We'll drop the counterfeiting case we were summoned here on for the present and look into this a little on our own hook. I will want your aid, so don't get tied up with the police."

  "At that, we don't want the police crossing our trail at every turn," protested Carnes.

  "They won't," promised the doctor. "They will never get any evidence on this case, if I am right, and neither will we—for the present. Our stunt is to lie low and wait for the next attempt of this nature and thus accumulate some evidence and some idea of where to look."

  "Will there be another attempt?" asked Carnes.

  "Surely. You don't expect a man who got away with a crime like this to quit operations just because a few flatfeet run around and make a hullabaloo about it, do you? I may be wrong in my assumption, but if I am right, the most important thing is to ke
ep all reference to my name or position out of the press reports."

  The cashier hastened up to them.

  "Detective-Captain Sturtevant will be here in a few minutes with a photographer and some other men," he said. "Is there anything that we can do in the meantime, Mr. Carnes?"

  "I would suggest that Mr. Trier and his guard and Mr. Winston go into your office," replied Carnes. "My assistant and I would like to be present during the questioning, if there are no objections."

  "I didn't know that you had an assistant with you," answered the cashier.

  Carnes indicated Dr. Bird.

  "This gentleman is Mr. Berger, my assistant," he said. "Do you understand?"

  "Certainly. I am sure there will be no objection to your presence, Mr. Carnes," replied the cashier as he led the way to his office.

  A few minutes later Detective-Captain Sturtevant of the Chicago police was announced. He acknowledged the introductions gruffly and got down to business at once.

  "What were the circumstances of the robbery?" he asked.

  Winston told his story, Trier and the guard confirming it.

  "Pretty thin!" snorted the detective when they had finished. He whirled suddenly on Winston.

  "Where did you hide the loot?" he thundered.

  "Why—uh—er—what do you mean?" gulped the teller.

  "Just what I said," replied the detective. "Where did you hide the loot?"

  "I didn't hide it anywhere," said the teller. "It was stolen."

  "You had better think up a better one," sneered Sturtevant. "If you think that you can make me believe that that money was stolen from you in broad daylight with two men in plain sight of you who didn't see it, you might just as well get over it. I know that you have some hiding place where you have slipped the stuff and the quicker you come clean and spill it, the better it will be for you. Where did you hide it?"