The Collected Stories

by Earl

  IT WAS just before the last tank of compressed hydrogen had been released into the huge gas bag that the news came. Professor Dumont and Milo Gibson were standing together, watching the great balloon fill out and strain at its tug ropes. They were thinking of the trip they were soon to make into the far stratosphere. They hoped to reach eighteen miles, higher than man had gone before.

  “It won’t be long now,” Dumont said excitedly, working his sweaty hands together. His sensitive, thin, intellectual features showed the effort he was making to appear calm. He turned to his young companion. “Are you nervous, Milo?”

  “Jimminy crickets!” exclaimed Milo, with boyish enthusiasm. “I Can hardly wait!”

  One of the ground officials hurried up. He appeared to be trying to strain ahead of his body, as though he had something important to say. He did. He said it in a voice whose inflections were all wrong, due to his agitation.

  “Gentlemen, it’s happened—war! War has been declared by the European Alliance on America. Heaven have mercy on us——”

  Milo gripped his shoulder and squeezed it. “What are you saying, man? Are you sure of it? War!”

  “Sure I’m sure of it,” screeched the official of the meteorological bureau. “Didn’t I just get it over the phone from our branch war office in the city? War, I tell you! Declared this morning at 4 A.M. over the American trading in African seaports, against the recent European Alliance’s embargo. A mere excuse, of course. It’s a plain war of aggression against America. But there’s no help for it, for us. The general order for mobilization of all war forces has gone through already. Gentlemen, you can’t go up, naturally. This is to be a war of science. All scientists, such as yourselves, must be subsidized for this national emergency.”

  Professor Dumont’s thin, gaunt figure jerked. His deep-set eyes, usually calm, flashed fire.

  “On the contrary,” he said firmly, “we are going up! This is a scientific expedition. Science cannot stop for even war. All the instruments are packed. Everything is ready. We’re going.”

  Young Milo looked at his superior admiringly. “Atta boy, chief,” he said, “I’m with you. Up we go.”

  “You can’t!” the official spluttered. “I—I forbid it!”

  Dumont tapped his inside coat pocket, smiling. “I have the official order to go up. You can’t stop me unless you have an official countermand from Washington. It would take you at least three hours to get it. By then we’ll be gone. Come on, Milo, I think we can get in the gondola.”

  He turned once more to the official’s baffled face. “I’ve waited five years for this chance to fly into the stratosphere. I had to fight that long to get sufficient funds from a niggardly treasury.” He smiled bitterly. “You don’t think I’m going to let patriotism or a so-called national emergency stop me now? I would then be more of a pig-headed fool than you are.”

  The two meteorologists strode to the gondola. The official tagged along, like a barking dog, roundly abusing them as everything from traitors to rebels. Finally, in exasperation, Dumont turned around and tweaked his nose violently. Milo chuckled.

  “All set!” Milo called to the ground crew. “Seal us in the gondola.”

  The two scientists crawled into the ten-foot ball of aluminum, the style set by Piccard, and made themselves as comfortable as they could on the hard metal floor. The men outside twisted the threaded door piece tight.

  FINALLY, some of the ropes dropped and the gondola rocked gently. The straining gas bag was then released entirely and it jerked the gondola off the ground with enough force to throw Dumont and Milo in a tangled heap in the bottom. They picked themselves apart and shook hands, grinning. They had looked forward to this for a long time.

  They were dressed in jumpers for warmth, but these could be taken off in a minute by the zipper runs at the sides and chest, in the event it became warm from the friction of air. Boxed and bolted to the walls and ceiling were their supplies and instruments. The oxygenated-air tanks were firmly anchored in a circle around the central floor space.

  “We’re probably swinging over the city now,” said Dumont, after he had seen that the barometer, thermometer and altimeter were working. These three instruments were attached to the outside hull, but their readings were mechanically rendered to their eyes inside. They were also equipped to make permanent records on charts, as were the other instruments, which would record ionization, magnetic strength, and the cosmic rays. Particularly the latter.

  Their ascent continued smoothly, impelled by the giant balloon, a hundred feet above. They began to feel detached from Earth, as though they were going to another planet. Yet one thing was uppermost in their minds.

  Finally Milo spoke of it. “War!” he said wonderingly.

  Dumont shrugged. “It was inevitable. When the European Alliance was formed two years ago, war had already been planted as a seed. In its bald-faced aspect, the European Alliance was formed for one purpose: to conquer America and England, the English-speaking world.

  “America, by which we include all of South and North America, is tremendously rich in resources. The British Empire is equally rich in lands. Thus land-and-resource-starved Europe saw how. in one bold stroke, it could have both these things. Instead of bickering among ourselves and taking land and resources from each other, they reasoned, why not unite our great war machines and attack the Western World, and at the same time disrupt the British Empire? It is deadly logic. The war now resulting will be a holocaust, a titanic struggle for world mastery. If the European Alliance wins, they will divide America and Britain like a pack of wolves tearing apart a deer.

  “The European group of nations is a formidable line-up of bandits armed to the teeth. Their war forces are tremendous, more than a match, I think, for the English-speaking world’s unaggressive forces. And South America is almost totally unprotected. They will conquer it first, and establish bases there from which to attack the northern strongholds.”

  Milo succeeded in establishing radio contact a little later.

  “Latest report,” came from below, “is that the Alliance has declared war on England. This was expected. But here’s something unexpected. Japan has joined the Alliance, and has already been promised the State of California! America will be attacked from both sides!”

  II.

  AT TEN THOUSAND FEET, the flying expedition and ground radio again exchanged reports. The former mentioned only that they had turned on their compressed-air tank slowly. The news from below was that an English fleet had already engaged with one of the Alliance, in the first skirmish of the new war of the colossi. Obviously, the Alliance had maneuvered its forces into strategic positions long before actual war had been declared.

  At twenty-six thousand feet, Milo said, “We are passing through thick veils of cirrus and cirrostratus clouds. Our observation ports are completely fogged. Temperature has dropped to forty-eight below. A strong lateral wind is carrying us westward, according to our compass.”

  The ground radio said, “Mobilization of defenses on all seacoasts of America is well on its way. Realizing the magnitude of the occasion, the President has ordered a general draft of all industry as well as man power in the United States. The English ambassador is already arranging for a meeting of English and American military authorities.”

  At seven miles, the voice from above said, “We are now leaving the troposphere and entering the stratosphere. Sky absolutely clear. Lateral wind has died down. Balloon still rising steadily.” The voice from below, “The English fleet is desperately defending the British coast. An armada of battle planes is reported to have been sighted on the way, to South America. Japan has calmly taken over the Philippine Islands.”

  At ten miles, Milo reported, “Sky getting very dark. Air is absolutely calm. Temperature uniform at sixty-five below. Our gauge outside shows an almost complete lack of water vapor. As with other expeditions, our gondola is very warm. We’ve taken off our jumpers. Everything fine.”

  From the surface worl
d, “Wish we could say the same down here. A Japanese fleet has been sighted steaming for the Hawaiian Islands. The entire naval forces of the European Alliance are being hurled against England in the attempt to invade her territory. Scattered reports from her colonies show that large bodies of troops secretly transported before war was declared are already invading India, Australia, and South Africa. No action yet on either of the American continents.”

  At fourteen miles, the voice from above the clouds said, “We are now passing the previous record of height reached by man. The cosmic rays show an increase of intensity, proportional to the decrease in the air density. Sky is black-violet. Temperature has climbed again to fifty-eight below. We’re rising much more slowly now.”

  The voice from the other side of the clouds said, “This war is progressing with the amazing rapidity of a bad dream. The Alliance fleet withdrew temporarily, unable to smash through the British line of capital ships. Shortly after, the first aerial engagement took place, over London. While the Alliance battle planes dueled the English air defense, bombers rained death and destruction on London. This is to be a war of civilian slaughter. Thousands are dead in London, and part of it is in flames. Daring reporters with microphones are describing the terrible scenes of carnage, for broadcast by low wave. All the world will live this war every minute of the day.”

  Up in the gondola, high above this Martian turmoil, Dumont and Milo looked sadly at one another, shaking their heads.

  DUMONT became busy with his instruments. “From here on,” he said, “all our data will be first hand. So far it has merely been confirmation of what Piccard and others found, up to the height of thirteen and seven-tenths miles. But now, Milo, we are pioneers. It’s stuffy in here. Open the release cock a bit and then step up our fresh-air supply.”

  Milo gingerly crawled on hands and knees around two tanks and reached for the release cock of the gondola. He twisted the valve cautiously. With a sharp hiss the warm, overcompressed air escaped out into the rarefied stratosphere. He carefully sealed the valve again, and set the air tank’s stream of gas at an increased rate.

  They breathed deeply of the revivifying gas. It startled them suddenly to hear a dull roar and see a blinding object rush by their one window port.

  “What was that?” asked Milo. He wondered if it were possible for an accidental shell to have been aimed up this way, from the war below.

  “That was close!” exclaimed Dumont, wiping his forehead. “We nearly tangled up with a meteor. You know, up here where the air is thin, meteors are constantly flashing down at something like thirty miles a second, before they burn up completely. This one may have been no bigger than a peanut, but it could easily shear right through both sides of our hull.”

  “Let’s give them the right o’ way,” said Milo, with an attempt at humor. He crawled to the professor’s side and helped him set the octagonal beam aerial in its universal mounting. After hooking in another battery, they sent radio beams upward, in short signals, varying the wave length.

  Bits of music and voices clipped short were heard, as Dumont spun the dial to get past the broadcast range of short waves, His hand hesitated as one voice rose compellingly, “—a shambles. So is Piccadilly Square, which is in my line of vision from this tower. Proverbially, not one stone is left on another. Smoke overhangs everything. It does not quite hide those silent, huddled shapes, though. Piccadilly Square was milling with afternoon crowds when the bombing began without warning. Women, children, babies, all were——”

  Dumont wrenched the dial over savagely. “We’re on a scientific expedition,” he reminded himself.

  At a little over eighteen and a half miles, Milo reported, “Sky now almost dense black with several of the brighter stars visible. Sirius is conspicuous. Temperature still constant. We’ve made tests of the radio wave mirrors of ionized gases. Layer D, reflecting long waves, seems to be no more than twenty-five miles up. Layer E, Kennelly-Heaviside, is at present fifty miles high. Layer F, Appleton, reflecting short waves, is one hundred and fifty miles. We are barely rising now, about ten feet a minute.”

  The ground radio blared, “England is being ringed in a formidable wall of armed forces. A French fleet is bombarding Liverpool. The German fleet is steaming down the coast of Scotland. The mixed Alliance air fleet is continuing the bombardment of London, but is meeting unexpected resistance from antiaircraft defenses. So far over there it is a deadlock. In the Western Hemisphere, South America awaits attack. Brazil has mustered its aerial fleet. The United States naval fleet is patrolling both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Plans are being made for the government’s evacuation from Washington.”

  The gondola rose steadily but slowly. Dumont strained anxious eyes upward. The balloon was distended to giant size. When the altimeter indicated exactly nineteen miles, the upward motion ceased. Very gradually the balloon began to descend, drifting slightly to the west, though there was no wind. It was an effect of their own inertia against rotation, since at nineteen miles the arc of rotation was wider than at lower levels, coincident with the falling off of Earth’s gravitational grip.

  They took a last look at the world of nineteen miles’ height. They might never see it again. It was a dark, somber region they saw through their ports, lighted by a few stars, almost airless and completely windless and cloudless. It had the eerie quality of a dream. Then, as though a curtain had been raised, all the stars winked into being, in a background of jet black. The sun had set. It was true night. Milo sighed, as though in relief. It didn’t seem so weird now.

  They put on their jumpers again, for the interior temperature had dropped considerably. Milo sat down with his back against a tank, hands folded over his knees. Dumont turned to see the altimeter reading.

  AT THIS MOMENT the gondola jerked violently. Dumont turned ashen gray and attempted to rise, but a sudden downward plunge of the gondola threw him off his feet. Milo steadied himself with a grip on an instrument box bolted to the wall, and looked upward out of the port.

  “Look!” he gasped. “Our balloon burst! Of all the rotten luck——”

  Dumont had now succeeded in scrambling to his feet and looked out himself. The dark shape of the gas bag above, outlined by the lake of shimmering stars, was distorted into an ellipsoid, with one side rapidly collapsing inward. Even as they watched, they could see it shrinking from loss of its precious contents.

  Dumont’s hand on Milo’s shoulder squeezed so hard that Milo winced. “All this work gone for nothing,” groaned Dumont hollowly. “We’re facing death! My wife—my children—— Lord!”

  “Take it easy, chief.” admonished Milo, with a calmness he did not feel. He could not help thinking of his mother, patiently waiting his return.

  “Eighteen miles, Milo!” cried the elderly scientist. “Good Lord, we’ll fall for eighteen miles! Think of the terrific velocity we’ll have by the time we reach ground. The gondola will split open like a ripe pod. We’ll be crushed to pulp!”

  “Maybe all the gas won’t leak out,” argued Milo unhopefully. “Enough may remain to ease the gondola to Earth.”

  But their speed of descent kept increasing. He turned to the radio and switched it on with trembling fingers. “Hello, hello down there,” whispered Milo. “We’re falling. Balloon burst. Only miracle can save us.”

  And then the miracle happened.

  There was a jarring crash that flung them to the floor like sacks of wet flour. Milo felt as though his spine had been driven up through his brain. Just before he lost consciousness, he reflected that it could not be the ground they had struck, for that was eighteen miles below. What, then, could it be?

  When Milo Gibson recovered his errant senses, he found himself sick but otherwise unharmed. He tested his arms and legs, fingers and ribs, half fearfully, but the rude crash had not broken any bones.

  He pulled himself erect and staggered to the nearest port. He gasped as he looked out. He saw nothing but abysmal emptiness, with the stars overhead. Yet their ship was
resting solidly on something. Was it invisible, or merely cloaked by the darkness? Peering out of the other port, his eyes widened and threatened to pop out of their sockets.

  “Holy smoke!” His surprised exclamation rang like a pistol shot in the confined space.

  Then he turned his attention to his companion. Professor Dumont lay crumpled against a tank, with one arm bent under him. A small trickle of blood ran from under his head to the center of the floor space. Yet not exactly in the center, for the gondola was tilted considerably.

  Milo unlatched the supply box, took out a thermos bottle of cold water and splashed some in Dumont’s face. The scientist groaned, turned over and opened his eyes wearily. He said nothing as the younger man bathed the cut at the side of his head and dressed it with salve, surgical gauze and tape from the first-aid kit. Milo helped him to his feet.

  “Where are we, Milo?” asked Dumont. “Have you any idea?”

  Milo did not answer till his companion had peered out of the port and seen the same incredible sight he’d seen. Then he said, “We’re eighteen miles above ground; the altimeter still says so.”

  “But that—that city out there!” demanded Dumont, as though Milo must know. “What is a city doing eighteen miles in the air?”

  Milo shrugged wearily. His eyes had a sort of dazed quality to them. The brain behind had been shocked to a state of lethargy. “I don’t know, chief,” he replied. “All I know is that we’ve been saved from death—that I’m very tired. Since we can’t do anything about this, at least till daylight, let’s have some sleep. Whatever that pipe dream is outside, it’ll wait.”

  They both yawned. “You’re right,” agreed Dumont. They curled themselves up as comfortably as possible on the harsh metal and went quickly to sleep, tired in mind as well as body. When Milo awoke again, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he saw Professor Dumont standing at the forward port.

  “Good morning, chief,” greeted Milo, feeling in good spirits.