Book Read Free

First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster

Page 65

by Murray Leinster


  Here and there a tree was left standing. Sometimes a house had escaped destruction, but was splintered and injured by missiles hurled through it by the storm. Once he saw three telegraph poles in a line, carrying their strands of wire, completely unharmed. Before the first and after the last, the wire frayed away into nothingness. Of the whole line of poles, not another trace was visible. He saw traces of railroad tracks—an engine and train of cars turned bottom upward and leering foolishly at the sky. Of life, and especially of human life, he saw no faintest trace. He passed over what had been a city. It was a heap of dust. At another place he saw a huddled heap of cattle, all dead. Once he heard a shrill crow and saw a rooster flutter to the top of an overturned hen coop. People—were vanished. It was as if humanity had never been, save for the traces of houses, and fragments of human possessions. Only once did he see a human form, and that was but a bundle of clothes, flung ruthlessly against a rocky hillside, twisted in an impossible attitude, and very, very still.

  He heard a faint, muttering roar. Far away, against the blue sky over the ocean, a black speck rose into view. It grew in size, and became a giant sea-plane that swayed slightly as it sped onward over the land. A flag fluttered behind it. Andrews’ heart was gladdened, and he rose high in the air, so he would not escape the attention of the aviators. His own aerostat could not move of itself, and he hoped to join the survivors on the submarines. He was convinced that few people indeed were left alive upon the land.

  The sea-plane swerved, and shot toward the aerostat. Andrews flung wide the windows of his car and leaned out to wave to the occupants of the flying machine. As it came nearer, he could see them. Uniformed men, wearing heavy aviator’s helmets and goggles. They stared at him dully, and the sea-plane banked sharply to circle about the aerostat. They waved no friendly hands. Instead, two of the heads bent close together in consultation, shouting above the roaring of the engines. The plane swept away, turned, and shot back toward the aerostat. A sharp crackle sounded above the deeper roar of the motors. A series of metallic “pings” came to Andrews’ ears. He felt the aerostat quiver. A machine-gun had opened on his metallic globule!

  Because of the foam-like construction of the aerostat, it lost but a tiny fraction of its buoyancy, and floated helplessly in mid-air, a target for the strange aviators. They fired again and again at the aerostat, and watched with their expressionless, masked faces, for it to fall. Andrews was too much dazed by the attack to make any attempt to escape. He stared incredulously at the others. The sea-plane suddenly turned tail. From its stern came a single puff of smoke and a light shell screamed past the aerostat. A second, a third, and Andrews was nearly flung out of the car. A shell had penetrated into and exploded inside the metallic volume of his balloon. A great piece of the aluminum-alloy foam was detached and floated off. The aerostat sank rapidly, with the sea-plane circling above it and pouring down a vengeful fire from a machine-gun.

  When the car struck the earth, Andrews leaped out and strove madly to find a hiding-place. He saw half a dozen broken timbers some twenty yards away, with a semi-cavern beneath them. He sprinted for the hiding-place, but just as he had nearly reached it, the machine-gun spat viciously…Andrews crumpled and fell to the earth, the universe gone black before his eyes.

  He was conscious of a dull aching, and heaviness. He moved, and groaned. He managed to turn himself over. Strangely reddened stars looked down from the sky. The sun had set long before and night descended upon the land. It was a strangely warm and humid night. Andrews put one hand to his head, and felt something warm and sticky. He exerted all his strength and sat up. A wound in his head was slowly oozing blood, but he was otherwise unharmed. He staggered to his feet and looked dully around. There was the shimmering bulk of his now useless aerostat, there was the bullet-riddled car. He saw a reddish glow some distance off and made his way toward it.

  It was a thickly smoking metallic arrow, glowing and blazing at its upper end. A scrap of paper was fastened in a clip along the shaft, and Andrews reached out his hand and took it. He saw that it had been printed upon, and bent over to read it by the glow from the blazing arrow. In the flickering light, the printing was not easy to make out, but Andrews managed to decipher it.

  THE FLAGSHIP OF THE ESTHONIAN FLEET

  To the survivors of the earthquake;

  His Majesty the King of Esthonia, having foreseen and prepared for the present catastrophe, has now annexed to his kingdom of Esthonia the entire surface of the earth. All people surviving are his subjects and under his authority and power.

  Persons not inclined to accept his assumption of sovereignty over them are warned that His Majesty’s government is possessed of aeroplanes and artillery, arms of all sorts, war-vessels of great power, and a sufficient number of trained troops to put down ruthlessly any attempt at rebellion. His Majesty’s commands will be enforced to the letter. Those who obey will be unharmed, but all others will be hanged without mercy.

  All persons are warned to obey implicitly the uniformed officers of His Majesty’s troops. It is forbidden for anyone to retain arms, motor-cars, aeroplanes, or food beyond the quantity allotted them by the government. It is especially prohibited that anyone navigate the air without license from the government.

  Upon appearance of a government aeroplane or dirigible, survivors will build a fire making a great quantity of smoke, to inform the officers of His Majesty’s government where they may be found. Food and clothing will be supplied survivors where it is needed, and the implements of husbandry will be issued, but every person is warned that any act of hostility or disobedience to the government will be punished by the death of all the persons involved in any way in the act.

  von Ketlinghaus,

  For the Government.

  Beneath the proclamation was scribbled in pencil,

  “This man has been shot for navigating the air without permission.”

  Andrews looked up at the reddish stars and his lips set grimly. He forgot the wound in his head. He almost forgot the colossal loss of life in the Great Catastrophe just passed. He was filled with a cold fury in the realization that the Junkers of Esthonia must have known long in advance the whole of the damage that the planetoid would cause, and had deliberately suppressed the warning they could have given, solely that they as a class and a clique might profit by the disorganization the catastrophe would cause. He took oath then and there that he would do all one man could do to upset their plans and destroy their triumph.

  He went back to his aerostat. It was half-destroyed and utterly useless. He took from it what instruments he could use, slung over his shoulder the two rifles and ammunition he possessed, packed the remainder of his food into a sack that he could carry, and started off on foot, anxious to get away from the neighborhood of the fallen aerostat before dawn. The Esthonians would undoubtedly come to examine it and find out if more than one man had escaped the catastrophe by way of the air. The sea-plane could not alight on the land, but there were assuredly other aircraft at the disposal of the Esthonians which would investigate Andrews’ escape.

  He moved slowly, partly through weakness from his wound, partly from the roughness of the country over which he had to travel, and partly from the heavy weight he was carrying. Traveling on foot as he was, the devastation seemed even more complete than from aloft. There was hardly a shrub unharmed. Trees had been blown down and then torn from the ground, to be whirled along in the incredible windstorm. Here and there he came upon strange freaks of the wind. At one place he saw, dim in the darkness, a scarecrow intact in the middle of a huge field, making a threatening gesture at non-existent birds to frighten them from a crop of corn that had been utterly destroyed by the storm. At another time he heard a strange flapping and saw ghostly shapes in the night. He investigated and found a clothesline laden with clothes, all unharmed. But of the house that had been nearby, or the barns, or the cattle, or the people who had lived there, he could find no trace.

  He stumbled on wearily until he cou
ld barely stand. He knew he had not traveled far, but could go no farther. He found the remains of a great tree lying prostrate in his path. He put his sack of food under his head for a pillow, lay down, and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.

  The chirping of an insect aroused him. It struck him with sudden force that he had seen no birds save a solitary rooster, and no animals at all, but here was an insect chirping loudly as ever. He felt something tickling his face and brushed it off. An ant had been exploring his features with complete calm. Andrews sat up and looked around him. A cicada was chirping placidly from its position on one of the limbs of the fallen tree. The sun shone down fiercely from the sky. Andrews meditatively felt the wound in his head. He had tied a bit of cloth over it the night before, and it seemed to be getting along sufficiently well. He realized that it should be bathed, however, and was just crawling out from his hiding-place when a remote buzzing sound came to his ears. He peered cautiously around.

  From the sea, a big gas-bag was approaching, with a little car slung below. It grew larger, and swung about to face the wind when directly above the ruined aerostat Andrews had deserted. Andrews saw the Esthonian standard flapping in the wind at the rear of the car, and could distinctly see the crew of the dirigible moving about. The airship was of the type called a “blimp” in the last great war, and had undoubtedly been carried in one of the submarines at sea. A man slung himself over the side and was lowered at the end of a long rope. Andrews could not see what passed on the ground, but for an hour or more the big dirigible hung stationary above the ruined aerostat. At the end of that time the rope was lowered again and the man hauled up, bearing in his arms a great bundle of Andrews’ broken instruments and notes. The dirigible sailed away, and a few moments later an explosion from the aerostat told of a bomb left behind to complete the wrecking of the already useless balloon.

  Andrews crept from his hiding-place with a rueful smile. His only crime was that of existing, yet he had been wounded by the Esthonians for infringing upon the monopoly of the air they proposed to maintain for themselves. As he gazed in the direction in which the dirigible had disappeared, he reiterated his vow of the night before. Though he might be one man against twenty thousand, he would do all one man could do to hamper them, to nullify their efforts, and to rouse and organize against them what other survivors he could find. They might be armed, might be splendidly equipped, might possess the finest slaughtering-machines science could devise, he would yet defy them and injure them in every way he could devise.

  He moved slowly away. His immediate object was to find other survivors, if that were possible. It was obvious from the message on the metal arrow that the Esthonians expected others to escape. He, Andrews, would find them and band them together to fight or elude the Esthonians as might be necessary. In the meantime he picked his way slowly across the devastated country-side.

  He heard a whimper, and then a wild yelping of joy. A small and shaggy dog limped toward him on three legs, trying desperately to dance for joy at finding a human being again. Andrews took the little animal in his arms and hugged him close, then inspected the wounded leg and bandaged it carefully. He spent two hours searching about for the possible owner of the dog, but there was no trace of a human being, and the dog gave an unmistakable impression that Andrews was the first man he had seen in days. Andrews fed the dog, and the dog ate ravenously. That confirmed the idea that its master was dead. It would not have been hungry if there had been humans about.

  Andrews mounted a rise of land and looked back. There was the shattered wreck of his aerostat, destroyed by the Esthonians. He reached his hand to his head, where his wound still ached and throbbed. He drew out again the insolent proclamation which announced so baldly the utter heartlessness and maleficence of those Junkers who had planned to seize the whole earth for an empire.

  Grimly, Andrews ran his fingers over his cartridge-belts, and patted his two rifles affectionately. He might be one man, and they might be twenty thousand, but he would remain a free man for all of them. Far out at sea were the submarines of the Esthonians. Andrews stared out at the horizon with compressed lips.

  “The war is on,” he muttered to himself.

  He whistled to his dog and plunged down the other side of the little hill, one man alone in a world of desolation and ruin, of crumbled cities and blasted vegetation. At sea, the Esthonian court congratulated its king and its generals upon its preparedness for the great catastrophe. On the land, a solitary man stumbled onward, followed by a limping, shaggy dog, planning wild schemes to bring all the plannings of the Esthonian nobles to naught.

  VI.

  A little stream was running swiftly down the center of a small ravine, the walls of which were freshly-cut and steep. Obviously, the stream and its bed were newly made. Scattered here and there against the banks were broken tree-limbs, shattered timbers, bits of wreckage from a thousand sources, and above the water-level of the stream there reposed a sinister black line of volcanic ash. Evidences of the Great Catastrophe were everywhere. Broken trees, smashed houses, utterly destroyed fields and orchards, crumbled cities and collapsed bridges were everywhere, but in this small hollow all was peaceful and still.

  On a fallen log that jutted out over the stream, a girl was sitting. A jagged pole with a patched-together string was in her hand and she was anxiously looking down into the water, where a reluctant worm wriggled slowly on a hook improvised out of a hair-pin. She was a pretty girl, for all that her clothes were faded and wrinkled, and her hair hung in tumbled masses about her shoulders. Three or four tiny fishes flopped feebly on the log beside her, where a small boy of perhaps four or five years sat in subdued patience. He watched the fishing-line wistfully.

  “We only need two more,” said the girl encouragingly, “and then we’ll have enough for dinner.”

  The small boy nodded gravely, never taking his eyes from the line.

  “Air’s one!” he exclaimed suddenly, all excitement.

  The girl jerked quickly on the line and a little silvery fish darted through the air to land on the bank with a resounding “plop.” He jerked himself about desperately, struggling to get back to the water, but the small boy was upon him. The fish joined the others of the morning’s catch.

  Only two weeks had passed since the Great Catastrophe, but these two had long since become accustomed to the life they were forced to live. They were quite at home in this little ravine now. The girl had dragged a dozen or more timbers against the cliff-like sides and formed a rude lean-to, within which a pile of leafy branches formed a more or less comfortable bed. The ashes of a tiny fire smoked faintly before the clumsy shack, and there was a pile of acorns and a few potatoes inside.

  The quick-growing weeds on the further bank of the ravine were stirred, and a dog looked suspiciously down upon the two by the stream. He barked loudly, and crashed away.

  “A dog!” said the girl quickly, and drew in her breath sharply. A dog might mean deliverance, but it might also mean more danger. The girl scrambled back from the log and looked apprehensively at the spot where the dog had appeared. She heard a further crashing, and a man’s voice.

  “Steady, boy, steady! Where’s this thing you’re barking at?”

  A man’s head appeared, looking about eagerly. He caught sight of the girl below him and his face lighted up.

  “Hello! Great guns! You’re alive too!” Andrews’ face parted in a boyish grin and he swung himself lightly down into the ravine and waded across the stream. He reached out his hand enthusiastically. “Do you mind if I stay to dinner? I’ve been looking for someone to talk to for two weeks.”

  Andrews wore a two-weeks’ beard, had two rifles slung over his shoulder and a revolver in his belt, and there was a stained bandage about his head, but the girl was instinctively reassured by his manner. She laughed at him.

  “Why—why, yes, if you’ll wait until I catch some more fish.”

  Andrews unceremoniously dumped his rifles and pack on the ground and began to
rummage in the bag.

  “Don’t bother. I’ve quite a lot of stuff here,” he said promptly. “How about canned beans and pineapples?”

  He produced two somewhat battered tin cans and extended them. The girl took them after a moment’s hesitation.

  “I found them in a cellar last week,” Andrews explained cheerfully, “and saved them for a celebration. I think now’s the time.”

  The small boy approached slowly and distrustfully. Andrews grinned at him and shook hands, then fished in his pocket and produced a biscuit. The small boy bit into it eagerly and became Andrews’ friend on the instant. Andrews went over to the small fire, coaxed it into a larger flame, and buried the can of beans in the middle of the coals. He had made himself quite at home. He took the small fishes the girl had caught and began to clean them with a pocket-knife.

  “We’ll talk sense after we’ve had something to eat,” he said, smiling. “Right now I’m so glad to see another human being that I don’t know what to do. Have you seen any Esthonians, and are there any more people about?”

  “Esthonians?” asked the girl curiously.

  “You haven’t seen them, then,” Andrews said decidedly. “Do you know of any other survivors?”

  The girl shook her head slowly.

  “You’re the first live person I’ve seen since the earthquake.” Her expression saddened.

  Andrews nodded sympathetically.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “But there’s no good in talking about that. We’ve got to work first, and then perhaps do a little fighting. I don’t think you’ll want to join the Esthonians.”

  He began to broil the fishes on small sticks above the fire and became absorbed in his task. The three people and the dog ate hungrily, and afterwards made mutual explanations.

 

‹ Prev