by Earl
But Dora had a way of her own. She was not afraid to talk. The financier finally became slightly interested, enough to call in one of his research men. The latter stared in skeptical surprise at the envelope. Then he read. Before he had reached the end he was trembling like a leaf. He called the president to one side and they whispered excitedly.
Face flushed, the financier returned. “Ah, we do find something in your claims at that. Of course, it isn’t worth much—perhaps an outright price of ten thousand?”
“A million, cash unlimited,” said Dora.
To the lawyer’s utter confoundment, the president agreed with a slobbering eagerness. He promised to close the deal after the apparatus had been built and tested. But he would advance say a hundred thousand to make sure the envelope was not carried to some other company.
RENOLF permitted himself only a faint smile on being told that it had sold at his price. “And why not? The thing is worth a hundred times that price—right now. Later, that financier, who is even now probably rubbing his hands in great glee, will get the shock of his life. And not just that one financier. They are a breed I intend to stamp out as I would stamp out vermin!”
With the unlimited funds, their work went on. Renolf began Notebook Number Two—then Three, Four, a dozen. In the meantime he had arranged for his secret never to be discovered. The ten brains and their control panel, all inclosed in a huge aluminum box, were buried fifty feet below the house. The workmen who dug the hole never found out what went into it, for Renolf lowered the apparatus himself.
It was a miracle Dora alone witnessed. Renolf turned the face of a chromium reflector on the aluminium box. Nothing had happened—that she could see or hear. But the huge object, weighing a half ton, had gently risen from its place, floated over the pit, and drifted featherylike down, down. Renolf held the reflector over the pit for the final part.
“Nonferrous magnetism,” explained Renolf, more to himself than the girl. “Science has never suspected that ferrous magnetism might be produced in other metals than iron, cobalt, and nickel. It required only a research in molecular space arrangement. Then the secret reveals itself: molecules forced into a ferrous interlacement—full play of polarity—anything can be made magnetic—earth and gravity—manifestation of that principle——”
Then the aluminum box was down and the workmen were called in to fill the pit again, and left the place scratching their puzzled heads.
“No matter where I am,” explained Renolf to Dora when it was over, “there will be complete contact between me and the brain unit—through the ether. Not radio—better than that. Radiation without a diminution value measurable anywhere on this Earth. I am one with those ten brains. Yet I can travel as freely as the wind—as though all those brains were contained in my skull.”
Dora had shuddered at the bluntness of the new Renolf more than once. She was getting used to it. She was getting used to everything in her new life—though at first it had seemed like a strange and dreadful dream. She began to wonder when he would strike. When he would gird himself with his hyperhuman powers and defy a world.
BUT the weeks went into months. Renolf was careful. He knew it would not be wise to start his campaign only half prepared. Leaving the laboratory one day, he took Dora to the spacious garage, and here they began to assemble a large machine whose various parts they had been ordering for weeks. The necessary laborers were hired to help set up half-ton sections of curved pieces of duralumin. In another month it was completed—a long, slim, tapered cylinder of dull metal, with windows of pure, crystal quartz.
Then skilled mechanics were procured to set up intricate machinery. They worked from blue prints that brought perplexed frowns to their faces. Often Renolf had to explain for long minutes. Then they would work at it, with a sort of awe in their attitude, and a sort of sheepish skepticism. Renolf inspired them with involuntary respect, but his outlandish machinery was crazy, any way you looked at it.
“An airship?” grunted one mechanic to another, after they had made sure Renolf was not within earshot. “If this thing can fly, I’ll pick my teeth with the Empire State Building.”
But the final touch was done by Renolf and his assistant, Dora, after all the heavier work had been completed. Into the uncapped openings of the machinery, which was all in the rear of the ship, they installed the more delicate workings. Not spark plugs and distributors and magnetos, but phototubes, thermostats, electronic units, and tiny reflectors of polished tantalum. There was no timing or spring adjustment or greasing, but instead meter readifigs, gajvanometric testing, and the hissing of crackling sparks.
Renolf surveyed the ship one night. There was pride in his eye. Dora stood by his side, meek and quiet. She had spoken very little to him in the past month. There had been nothing to say, really.
“There it is,” said Renolf matter-of-factly. “With my other work done as far as I need to carry it at present, and with this ship, we are ready for a start in my great scheme. This ship will run silently, and very speedily, by diamagnetism—magnetic repulsion to the Earth’s iron core. The power is to be from silicon-to-boron conversion, which is a form of controlled atomic energy—exothermic transmutation, in short. The bottom plates of duralumin are simply charged with diamagnetism—in a degree greater than the force of gravitation—and the ship floats. It will move forward when the rear plates are given a greater charge.
“Great, isn’t it?”
Dora looked up quickly at the new voice, for it was the voice of Vincent, her beloved. He had torn off his head-band.
The girl nodded with a brave little smile. She had learned how to do that in those toiling weeks. Now he would dash off to bed——
But he surprised her. For the first time in weeks he infolded her in his arms and kissed her. “Dear, brave girl,” he crooned tenderly as she clung to him eagerly. “I know this has been a trial to you. I have been dominated by my superself ever since I started my work. I have even slighted you to the extent that you should kick me and say good-by.”
He kissed away her protests and her professions of loyalty to him, then and forever. “I know, darling. You don’t have to say it. I knew you would stick, and some day——” He sighed. “But you understand. My duty. I am dedicated to humanity through your father’s great work, at least for a certain time.”
He pulled her toward the house. “As a reward—for me as well as you—for what has been accomplished in these five months, I will leave off the head-band—guess how long, darling! For a whole day!”
They skipped to the house in a mood of light-heartedness.
IT WAS the next night that Renolf first had proof that Dr. Hartwell had not imagined hearing a mysterious, inarticulate voice from an other than human source. He had just come back from a trial run of the new ship. It had worked marvelously—as smooth in flight as an arrow, as maneuverable as a bird, as silent as a ghost. His thoughts were far indeed from strange radiations; he was thinking of the great day when he would begin his task of world betterment.
Suddenly, just as Dora came up with eager questions about the ship, he felt a dizziness. It came to him with curious slowness that his brain was being hammered by strong radiations. He held up a hand to check the girl’s words. Then he concentrated on what seemed to be pouring into his mind. Yet it did no good to concentrate—the queer message was unintelligible, like the gibberish of an ape. But it had a quality far different from animal jargon. It gave Renolf the impression of deep thought—inarticulate but yet rational. And it seemed to throb with menace!
Like an intangible flood of nameless horror, the voiceless threat reverberated through his brain till he reeled from it. Renolf was vaguely aware that Dora’s eyes were wide—that she had put a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream. For his face was ashen-gray and his eyes tortured and hot.
Then it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun. Renolf staggered to a seat, to find himself panting. He ripped off the headband almost savagely. “That was it!” he cried hoarsely. “That w
as it, Dora—the menace your father told us of in his last letter. No figment of his imagination, as I had begun to consider it. It is unmistakably there—a threat, insidious and—and sneering. That’s it—sneering! As though the sender were a lofty being talking to ants. I must find out who or what it is. I must!”
He began to pace restlessly up and down. There was no sleep for him that night. Later he put on the headband again, fearfully. But the mysterious voice was not there. Then the super-Renolf struggled with the problem.
Dora found him in the morning, staring vacantly out of the window at the flower garden. He was not wearing the headband. “Vince, you should get some sleep. You are wearing yourself down needlessly.”
Renolf turned slowly, with the stiffness of a man who is highly fatigued. He gave a wan smile. “Yes, I think I’ll go to bed now. But I’ve made a decision; or rather, the super-Renolf has. There are two main purposes ahead of me: One, to better the world; and the second, to track down the menace that whispers from space, or somewhere.
“Perhaps the menace is the more important of the two. But since my work has progressed this far for the other program, I shall go ahead with it. If the menace is prepared to strike, it must give some forewarning. And my plans for world betterment will also include plans for world regimentation in case of emergency. Yes, that will be the best course. And your father would have wished it so.”
“My father!” cried Dora. “What he has brought to pass! At times, Vince, this all seems like a crazy dream—like the impossible events of a fantasy. It seems too unreal—so different from normal life.”
“It is, of course,” agreed Vincent. “But only in certain ways. I still find myself human. Right now I’m hungry. And after I eat, I shall want sleep. That’s normal life, isn’t it?”
III.
THE FIRST the world knew of the presence of an unsuspected power in its midst was when a voice rang forth thunderously from every radio set in use, on every wave length, in every far corner of Earth. Renolf smiled grimly as he pulled the lever which sent a million watts surging through the ether, blanketing every other radio station on Earth.
“People of Earth! Prepare yourselves for a coming change! No matter who I am, but in three days will come the beginning of a new order. Above all, do not let panic overcome you, though certain strange things happen in your traditional existence. Know that, whatever occurs, is for the benefit of every one, to the harm of none, unless by accident. I will call myself the Benefactor, and by that you may know me from now on.”
Renolf explained to Dora, in his emotionless voice, why he had sent such a startling message over the ether. “To institute any great reform, the masses must be put in a suitable frame of mind. True, they will be skeptical for a while, will call it a hoax, but that will change. Some millions in the world have heard and understood. The rest will know before three days are over. It will be on every tongue, in every newspaper. All will be thinking of it. Then will come the announcement of Step One and——”
Step One was disarmament—complete disarmament over all the Earth. That the unknown—who called himself the “Benefactor”—meant business was shown to a seething world. On the evening of the third day, a strange metallic craft hovered over the city of Washington, directly over the Capitol. It was a tapered cylinder and hung silently, magically, in thin air. The thunderous voice for the second time impinged on all open radio sets:
“People of Earth! The Benefactor speaks again, as I promised I would. My first step in making good my name will be to demand complete disarmament of every nation of this Earth. I am at present hovering over the capital of the United States in my airship. I am in a position to bomb the Capitol Building. But that I won’t do. I wish merely that suitable searchlights be turned till they light my ship and see that I am really here and not bluffing. If my request is disregarded, I will drop a bomb squarely on the dome of the Capitol. I am waiting!”
For an hour nothing happened. Renolf, seated at the complicated control board of his ship, peered downward, waiting. Then, apparently because the giant radio voice had sufficiently impressed them, searchlight beams swung crazily through the air. In a moment they had centered on the mysterious metal cylinder. At the same time there came the buzzing of aircraft.
“Ah, they have taken me seriously—too seriously,” said Renolf.
The aircraft approached, circling warily, part of Uncle Sam’s fighting fleet. They had come from Annapolis posthaste. Renolf manipulated his controls. Nothing happened except that an uncanny green glow appeared around his ship, like a benign halo.
Then there was the rat-a-tat of machine-gun bullets. Renolf smiled a grim smile. They not only took him seriously. They had already declared war on this weird craft which hung so threateningly over the heart of the government. When the weaving airplanes had drummed out hundreds of rounds of gunfire, without making any impression on the strange craft, they ceased such activity, by radio order. But they stayed around, watchful and belligerent. Their pilots and crews stared perplexedly at the white cylinder. Some of the men were perspiring.
Then Renolf broadcast again: “You have done as I asked, and more. The bullets of your machine guns cannot harm my ship, nor can large shells. I am surrounded by a field of force that turns aside material objects. In short, I am impregnable! Furthermore, though you cannot harm me, I can harm you. This I must prove, or you will not believe. Then listen. Evacuate within three hours the grounds around the Capitol Building. Make certain that not one soul is within its confines. At the end of that time I will bore a dozen holes in the ground with a weapon of mine, in that deserted area. Au revoir till that time!”
That was no time to take a chance, the people below knew. The President himself, having made it a point to listen to the second of that night’s broadcasts from the Benefactor, ordered the grounds around the Capitol evacuated.
Those with him, men pale and perspiring, advised that the President leave the vicinity altogether, in case the unknown go berserk and destroy the Capitol. That is, in the slight event he could do all he claimed. But the President, stroking a thoughtful chin, refused, saying such a power, whoever it was, could be only honest in his promises.
ABOARD THE SHIP, Dora bit her lip nervously, gazing on the obscure scene below. She could not be as unperturbed about the whole thing as was Renolf. After all, it was an unprecedented thing in the history of the world. It was simply stupendous, breath-taking—at bay against a nation. Against the world! But Renolf, idly watching the aircraft buzzing around his impregnable stronghold, seemed entirely at ease. He was all confidence that he was laying his cards down in the right order.
The three hours finally dragged by. The white cylinder lazily left its position above the Capitol dome, and drifted till it was over the now-barren grounds before the building. Then a pale violet ray shot downward. Its end struck the ground with a loud hiss.
There was a thunderous noise of ten thousand boiling cauldrons of molten lava—and then a hole! The beam flicked out. The white cylinder drifted, indolently it seemed, a dozen yards farther, and again the violet beam hissed down. Another hole. Again the ship moved. Another hole. Another. Another. A dozen in all, just as had been promised!
“Now you have seen one of my offensive weapons. It has demonstrated that I, the Benefactor, have terrific power—invincible power. The power of intra-atomic energy. Think this over, people of Earth. In three more days I will carry on my campaign for world betterment. Till then, adios!”
In those three days, before completing Step One, Renolf did not use the laboratory. He excused Dora also from their previous steady research, and bade her do what she pleased. Only he, Renolf, must be left in peace. Then he set himself to work—work that consisted mainly of deep, trancelike thought. Now and then he made lucid notes in a big notebook.
It was a knotty problem—knottier by far than anything he had had to sweat out in the laboratory. In his laboratory work he had guided himself along the handrail of theory, fact, and deduction. In
this reform of a world, he must deal with that nebulous, often perverse, thing called human nature. Sometimes human beings resist something that will be to their benefit, unable to bear a radical change in their age-worn, rutted existence, maladjusted though it may be.
Step One was simple in its aspect, far-reaching in its effect. The world—and every radio set was open at the time—heard again the stentorian voice of the Benefactor:
“People of Earth! Again, I, the Benefactor, speak to you. War has been a tradition in our lives. We cannot conceive of a world without it. Yet it should not be. Think once, each one of you, what war means. It is conceived in false patriotism, grows to maturity in a bath of innocent blood, and at its finish leaves behind misery and famine. The beating of drums, the waving of flags—how they stir us to militant loyalty. But when the shouting and the smoke clears away, what has been accomplished? Nothing, except that some countries grow fat and others grow lean.
“Therefore I, the Benefactor—having at my command weapons to which capital battleships are target toys—condemn war and declare it outlaw! And to prevent any recurrence of that greatest of human follies, I command that the battle fleets of the powerful maritime nations leave their present bases. Those of the Atlantic powers—Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia—to meet at Iceland’s largest port, Reykjavik. Those of the Pacific powers—the United States and Japan—to meet at Manila, in the Philippine Islands.
“Through your spy agencies, each of the nations can be assured of no trickery to one another. As for trying to trick me, be warned that I will use the violet beam, with which the ground before the Capitol of the United States was riddled, on any fleet which fails to appear at one of the two rendezvous!
“The time limit is twelve days. A small time limit? You may groan that to one another now, but if war were declared, each of you would get your fleets that distance eagerly and easily. If any nation wishes to be an object lesson, let it refuse to follow my command. In my ship, which can attain unbelievable speeds, I am omnipresent. I shall ferret out any fleet that hangs back.”