The Silver Menace

by Murray Leinster

  II.

  "But, Theodore, old pet," said Davis amiably. "The fact that a planewon't loop the loop or make nose dives at ninety degrees doesn't makeit hopeless as a battleplane."

  He was affectionately expounding the good points of a monster seaplanedrawn up in its hangar by the beach.

  Davis wore the insignia of a flight commander of the aviation corpsand the ribbons of half a dozen orders bestowed on him after thedestruction of the Black Flyer, destroyed by Teddy Gerrod and himselfsome six months before.

  Teddy Gerrod was in civilian clothes, but was earnestly, thoughcheerfully, disputing everything his friend said.

  "A two-seater like the one we used six months ago," he pointed out,"could fly rings around this bus of yours, and with a decent shot atthe machine gun could smash it in no time."

  "Fly rings around it? Not noticeably," said Davis confidently. "Sinceour idea of platinum plating the cylinders everybody's doing it. Usingpicro gasoline, as you and I did, we get a hundred and eighty miles anhour from this 'bus' you're trying to disparage. And, furthermore, ifyou try to damage this particular ship with machine-gun bullets you'regoing to be disappointed."

  "Armor?"

  "Precisely. I admit cheerfully that you may know a lot about physicsand cold bombs and liquid gases and such things, but when it comes toflying machines--my dear chap, you simply aren't there."

  Gerrod laughed.

  "Perhaps not. But I'd rather dance around in a more lively fashion in alittle two-seater."

  "And privately," admitted Davis, "so would I. The next war we have I'mgoing to arrange for you to be my machine gunner."

  "Delighted," said Gerrod. "But what would Evelyn say?"

  He was referring to his wife. Davis waved his hand.

  "Oh, she'd say there aren't going to be any more wars."

  "That reminds me," said Gerrod. "We want you down for the next weekend.No other guests."

  Davis nodded abstractedly. A messenger was coming over to the hangar atdouble time.

  "Thanks. I'll be glad to come. Wonder what this chap wants?"

  The messenger came up, saluted, and handed Davis a yellow slip. Davistore it open and read:

  Steam yacht _Marisposita_, Alexander Morrison of New York, owner, reports position 33?11'N 55?10'W, wants immediate assistance. Engines and hull perfect condition, not aground, no derelict or obstacle discoverable. Unable to move any direction. Sea calm. Only possible explanation has been seized by sea monster. Flt. Comm. Richard Davis ordered to make reconnaissance of situation in seaplane. Reported condition considered incredible, but no naval vessels in immediate vicinity. Flt. Comm. Richard Davis will make immediate investigation and report.

  Davis whistled.

  "Here's something pretty!" he remarked. "Take a look."

  He handed the order to Gerrod and went quickly to the door leading intothe workshop attached to the hangar.

  In a few crisp sentences he had ordered the big plane prepared for anextended flight, with provisions and as much fuel as it would carry. Hereturned to find Gerrod thinking busily.

  "May I come along on this trip?"

  "It's against regulations, of course," said Davis, "but no one willkick if _you_ go. You're privileged."

  He cried an order or so at the workmen, who were now swarming over themachine.

  Although the wireless message had been sent from the yacht afternightfall, the sun was barely setting on the coast, where the hangarwas placed.

  The vessel in distress was some thirty degrees east of the coast, andconsequently the sun set two hours before it sank on the coastal line.

  Gerrod phoned a hasty message to his wife and went to Davis' quarters,where he borrowed heavy flying clothes from Davis' wardrobe. Themechanics and helpers worked with desperate haste.

  The a?roplane would be flying all night long, but it was desirable thatit take off while there was yet some light. The long fuel tank wasfilled, and the motors run some ten or fifteen minutes, while criticalears listened for the faintest irregularity in their bellowing roar.

  Two engineers and a junior pilot were to go with Davis in the bigaircraft, and they were hastily summoned and told to prepare to leavein as short a time as possible.

  It was hardly more than half an hour from the time the telegraphedorder was received before Gerrod preceded Davis up the ladder and intothe inclosed cabin of the seaplane.

  The motors were cranked--two men tugging at the blade of each of thehuge propellers--and the plane slid slowly down the ways and into thewater.

  Davis maneuvered carefully until he was clear of all possibleentanglements. Then he gave the motors more gas and more. Their harshbellow rose to a deafening sound, and the long, boatlike body began tosurge through the waves with gradually increasing speed.

  For a few yards the spray blew upon and spattered the glass windows ofthe cabin. Then the planes began to exert their lifting power and theplane began to ride the waves instead of plowing through them.

  The speed increased again, and suddenly the shocks of the waves beatingon its under surface ceased. The plane rode upon air with a smooth andvelvety motion that was sure and firm.

  Davis rose gradually to five thousand feet and headed accurately to theeast. A southerly wind, reported by wireless from a ship at sea, wouldcarry him slightly to the south, and the sum of the two motions shouldbring him, by dawn, very close to the spot from which the yacht hadsent out her wireless call.

  Davis was not pushing the plane to its utmost. He would need light bywhich to descend, and had no intention of reaching the spot where the_Marisposita_ was in distress until dawn.

  From their altitude the ocean seemed only a dark, unfathomable massbelow them. The stars twinkled down from the arch of the sky in alltheir myriads of sizes and tints.

  There was no moon. Those in the closed car of the big seaplane couldonly see the star-strewn firmament above them and upon all sides, whichsank down, and abruptly was not.

  Save for the cessation of the star clusters, the horizon was invisible.The sea was obscure and mysterious, like some mighty chasm over whichthey flew precariously.

  The dark wings of the plane stretched out from the sides of the bodywith a mighty sweep. The plane was over a hundred feet across, and withthe powerful motors it possessed was capable of lifting an immenseweight. Even now more than two tons of fuel were contained in the hugetanks in the tail.

  Davis drove steadily on through the night for a long time. His facewas intent and keen. He made little or no attempt to look out of thewindows before him.

  His eyes were fixed almost continuously upon the instruments beforehim: the altometer, which was a barometer graduated to read in feet andwith means for correcting the indication by barometric readings fromsea level; the inclinometer, which showed the angle at which the planewas traveling with regard to the earth's surface, and the compass.

  The compass was one of the very latest developments of the gyroscopiccompass and showed the true north without regard for magneticdeviations.

  Davis felt out his machine thoroughly and then turned it over to hisjunior pilot. The younger man--and to be younger than Davis meant thathe was very young indeed--slipped into the driver's seat, quicklyascertained the course, speed, and altitude, and settled back tocontinue Davis' task, while Davis curled himself up in a chair and wentinstantly to sleep.

  It was chilly in the car, but Davis slept the sleep of the just,ignoring the roaring of the motors outside, which was only slightlymuffled by the windows of the car.

  Gerrod had gone to sleep some time before, and one of the two engineerswas similarly curled up on the floor of the roomy and comfortable car.

  Hours passed, while the big seaplane winged its way steadily throughthe night. It roared its way across the vast chasm of the dark oceanbelow, an incarnation of energy at which the placid stars looked downin mild surprise.

  The exhausts roared continuously, the stays hummed musically, and thegreat wings cut through the air wit
h resistless force.

  Within the dark body of the plane three men slept peacefully, onesat up sleepily, listening to the motors, and prepared to wake intoalertness at the slightest sign of irregularity in the action of anyof them, and one man sat quietly at the controls, his eyes fixed on theinstruments before him, lighted by tiny, hooded electric bulbs.

  Course, due east. Altitude, five thousand feet. Speed, one hundred andfifteen miles. Twice during the night Davis woke and made sure that allwas well.

  In leaving the navigation of the machine to his assistant, he was notthrowing the major part of the work on him. The work would come in themorning, when they found the yacht.

  If there were anything in the talk of a sea monster having seized theyacht, Davis would need to be fresh for the search and possible battlethat would follow.

  He was taking the most sensible precaution possible. And, in any event,he had driven for the first four hours, during which the younger manhad rested.

  The first gray light began to appear in the east. The pilot of theplane had not looked away from his instruments for an hour, and notuntil a faint light outside called his attention to the approach ofdawn did he think to glance through the windows.

  A dimly white glow was showing as an irregular splotch toward the east.The pilot saw it and noticed something odd about its appearance, butdid not stop to examine it closely.

  He called Davis, as he had been ordered to do. Davis sat up, rubbed hiseyes, and was thoroughly awake.

  "All right?" he asked.

  The pilot nodded.

  "Sunrise," he said. "You said to call you."

  "Right you are." Davis stood up and stretched his muscles. "Here,Teddy, wake up."

  Gerrod stirred, and in a moment was awake. Davis deftly prepared coffeeand sandwiches.

  "Rescuers like ourselves need to be fed," he observed with a smile. "Iwonder what is actually the matter with that person Morrison?"

  "Millionaires are timid folk," Gerrod agreed. "I'll bet we've had awild-goose chase."

  "Funny, though," said Davis ruminatively. "People don't usually sendout wild wireless messages like that. They probably ran into a bigbunch of seaweed."

  He bit into a sandwich. The two engineers, with complete democracy,were already eating. The man at the controls suddenly uttered anexclamation.

  "What's the matter?" asked Davis quickly.

  "Look out the window," said the pilot in a tone indicating that hecould not believe his eyes.

  Davis looked, and his month dropped partly open. Before them the whitepatch of light had turned golden and then yellow. A bank of clouds laybefore them, behind which the sun was evidently hidden.

  That had not caused Davis' exclamation, however. He was not amazedat anything he saw, but at the lack of something he did not see--theocean. The cloud bank was illuminated by the sun. It covered half ofthe sky before them, _and below them_!

  There was no ocean below them. There was no land below them. Above, therapidly graying sky could be seen. Below them was rapidly graving sky!There was no horizon, there was no land, there was no sea.

  There was only sky. They seemed to be alone in an illimitablefirmament, a derelict in open space, adrift in some unthinkableether in which there was no landing space or any solid thing exceptthemselves.

  Above them and below them, before them and behind them, on their rightside and their left side was sky, and nothing but sky. There was notone bit of solid matter visible on either side, ahead or behind, up ordown.

  It was as if they had gone aloft, and while they flew the earth hadbeen destroyed. Only the incredibility of such a catastrophe kept themfrom believing it instantly.

  "Teddy," said Davis in a moment or two, trying to jest, though hisvoice was shaking, "you're our tame scientist. What's happened to ourwell-beloved earth? Has it gone off and left us in the lurch? Have weflown off into space?"

  Gerrod was looking with all his eyes. He looked down into a blue bowlthat was the exact counterpart of the dome above.

  "Which way is down?" he asked quietly. "Is it that way, or that way?"He pointed over his head and at his feet. "Are we flying right side up,or upside down, or what?"

  The plane banked sharply and side-slipped for a moment before itrecovered.

  "Steady!" said Davis to the man at the controls. "Steady----"

  The machine banked again, then shot upward, stalled, and slipped onagain.

  "Straighten out!" said Davis sharply. "Up with the joy stick!"

  "I don't know what's what," said the white-faced pilot desperately,obeying as he spoke. "Great God! What's happening now?"

  The plane seemed to be standing on its tail, and the three men standingin the car slid toward the rear. Davis seized a seat and clamberedtoward the controls. As he made his way toward the instruments theplane seemed to go mad.

  It twisted, turned, stood upon its head and darted forward, and thenseemed to be wallowing in the air. Davis seized the controls, and withhis eye solely on the inclinometer worked madly for a moment. The planestopped its antics and drove on steadily.

  "It's like driving in a fog," he said over his shoulder. "All rightback there now?"

  "Yes." Gerrod was answering. "What happened?"

  "With nothing to tell which was up and which down, we lost our leveland couldn't find it again. I've flown upside down for five minutes,going through a cloud, and didn't know it until my barometer droppedupward. We're all right, but what's happened to the earth?"

  Gerrod cautiously made his way to a point beside Davis, who was drivingwith his eyes glued to the instruments. That incredible vastness intowhich the machine seemed to be boring was appalling. They seemed to bespeeding madly from nothingness into nothingness, with nothing belowthem and nothing above.

  They were alone in a universe of air. Gerrod stared ahead at the cloudbank behind which the sun seemed to be hiding.

  "There's the sun, all right. What's our barometer reading?"

  "Eight thousand feet."

  "Try dipping, by the inclinometer."

  Davis did so. Though there was not the slightest change in theappearance of the sky that compassed them all about, the barometerquivered from eight thousand feet to seven, and then to six. Gerrodsuddenly uttered an exclamation:

  "The sun's coming out!"

  The fiery disk of the sun peered slowly from behind the edge of thecloud bank.

  "There's _another_!"

  From the opposite side of the cloud bank a second sun could be seen,slowly appearing as had the first. The two suns swam away from thefringe of the cloud and glared at each other.

  "I've got it!" Gerrod struck his knee with his hand. "What fools weare!"

  "I'm glad we're only fools," said Davis mildly. "I've been afraid wehad gone mad. What's happened?"

  "Why, the water," Gerrod said excitedly, "the water is perfectly calmand reflects like a mirror. We don't see the sky below us. We seethe reflection of the sky. And that isn't a second sun," he pointed;"that's the reflection of the sun."

  "Only, the water doesn't reflect like that," said Davis. "At least, notfrom straight overhead. Open a side window and look directly downward."

  Gerrod did so, and exclaimed again:

  "I'm right, I tell you! Directly under us I can see the reflection ofour plane, flying upside down."

  Davis took a quick glance.

  "I guess you are right, after all," he admitted, "but the water doesn'treflect like that normally. Something queer must have happened." He wassilent a moment, while his eyes swept the distance before them keenly."Here's another proof you're right. There's the yacht we're lookingfor."

  Far away, its white hull turned to red gold by the first rays of thesun, they saw the yacht, motionless on the water. And in strikingcorroboration of Gerrod's hypothesis, they saw every line and everyspar reflected in the water below.

  Davis shifted his course to bear for the yacht and dipped down until hewas only five hundred feet above the strange, mirrorlike surface of thesea. Below them they cou
ld see the spreading wings of their seaplanereflected from the still water.

  They swept up to the yacht and circled above it. The junior pilotunshipped the tiny wireless set of the a?roplane, and it crackledbusily for a few moments.

  "All right to alight," he reported. "They say nothing has happened allnight, but they're still unable to move."

  The plane swept around the yacht in a wide circle, coming lower andlower. It was quite impossible to judge where the surface of the watermight be, but Davis kept his eye on the deck of the yacht, to get thelevel from that.

  At last he made his decision. Being quite unable to tell exactly wherethe surface was, he could not land in the usual fashion. He slowed inmid-air until the machine was moving at the lowest speed at which itwould keep aloft.

  Then, by a jerk of the joy stick, he headed it upward at an angle itwas unable to make at that speed. The result was that the machinestalled precisely like a motor car on an upgrade and, with next to noheadway, "pancaked," sank vertically--downward.

  "Sit tight!" he ordered as the plane sank.

  Next moment every one of them clutched wildly at the nearest objectto keep himself from falling. The plane had struck the surface, butinstead of skimming forward, as its slight remaining headway made ittry to do, it was brought to a sudden standstill as if by a mightybrake.

  Only a miracle kept it from overturning. Davis opened a window of thecabin and shouted:

  "Throw us a rope and haul us alongside!"

  The men on the deck of the yacht heard him, and a rope came hurtlingthrough the air, to fall across one of the wings. Davis scrambled outand made it fast. Those on the yacht hauled, but the plane did notmove. Half a dozen men grasped the slender line and threw their unitedweight upon it. The rope broke with a snap.

  "What the----" exclaimed Davis in astonishment.

  A second rope was thrown. The captain of the yacht called from thebridge:

  "Haul a heavy line to you and make that fast!"

  Wondering, those on the seaplane obeyed. The sailors on the yacht madethe other end of the stouter line fast to a capstan and manned it.Slowly and reluctantly the seaplane was drawn toward the white vessel.

  It was Gerrod who looked behind them. Where the float of the seaplanehad been he saw a deep depression in the surface of the water, which,as he watched, slowly filled.

  "The sea is turned to jelly!" he exclaimed, and he was right.

  They found the truth of the matter when they clambered on board theyacht. With the morning, the members of the crew were able to make amore thorough investigation of what had happened.

  They lowered boats, and the boats stuck fast. When oars were dippedinto the strangely whitened or silvered water the oars were drawn outcoated with a sticky, silvery mass of a jellylike substance.

  From the deck of the yacht the altered appearance of the sea was asremarkable as from the air. All of the ocean seemed to have beenchanged to a semisolid mass of silver.

  The horizon had vanished or ended into the sky imperceptibly so itcould not be distinguished. The captain discussed the matter with them.

  "I've never seen anything like this before," he said perplexedly. "I'vebeen on a ship that traveled two hundred miles on a milk sea, but neveranything like this."

  "What do you think it is?" asked Davis. "Something on the order of amilk sea?"

  The captain nodded.

  "You know a milk sea is caused by a multitude of little animals thatcolor the water milky white. They're phosphorescent at night. This mustbe something on that order, only these cluster together until the wateris made into a jelly. And they have a queer, slimy smell."

  "They aren't phosphorescent," said Davis.

  "No, of course not."

  Nita Morrison had joined the little group. Her father was beside her,looking rather worried.

  "Well," said Nita anxiously, "what's to be done? How are we going toget the yacht free?"

  "I'm afraid we aren't," said Davis, smiling. "The telegraphed ordersthat brought me here told me simply to make an examination and make areport. My plane can't do anything for the yacht, of course."

  "Then what----"

  "I'll go back and report," Davis explained, "and they'll send boats totry to get in to you people. There doesn't seem to be any immediatedanger, and at worst you can all be taken off by a?roplane, if we canrise again from that jelly mess."

  Nita wrinkled her small nose.

  "I know we aren't in danger," she said, "or at least I know it now, butare we going to have to stay here and smell that horrid smell until thegovernment gets ready to rescue us?"

  The odor of the jellylike animalcules was far from pleasant. It was anunclean scent, as of slime dredged from the bottom of the sea.

  "Well-l," said Davis thoughtfully, "I dare say we can accommodate twomore people. It isn't quite regular, but that's a detail."

  "But the crew?" Morrison looked inquiringly at the captain of the yacht.

  "Milk seas always break up, sir," said the captain. "I have no doubtthis silver sea will break up as well. We can wait and see, and atworst we have our wireless."

  "Then it's settled," said Nita joyfully. From sheer gratitude shesmiled at Davis.

  "Always providing we can get aloft again," said Davis.

  "The propellers of the ship, sir," suggested the captain, "though theycan't move the yacht, yet manage to thrash a fair-sized patch of thisjelly into liquid."

  "A good idea," said Davis heartily. "We'll haul the plane around to thestern, and you'll set your engines running."

  In a very little time this was done. The great propellers of the yachtthrashed mightily, and a narrow patch of open water opened in thesilver sea. The seaplane was laboriously hauled around to the stern ofthe yacht, and the party was lowered on board.

  With some difficulty the motors were cranked again and the planescuttled madly down the lane of water. With a quick jerk of the joystick Davis lifted the plane from the water just as the open waterended and the silver sea began.

  The big plane circled in the air, rising steadily as it circled, andat last headed for the west again, still flying in that incredibleappearance of sky above and sky below, with the reflected sun glaringupward just as fiercely as the real sun beat down.