The Airlords of Han

by Philip Francis Nowlan

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Destruction of Lo-Tan

  "How did you know I had been taken to Lo-Tan as a prisoner?" I asked thelittle group of Wyoming Bosses who had assembled in Wilma's tent togreet me. "And how does it happen that our gang is away out here in theRocky Mountains? I had expected, after the fall of Nu-Yok, that youwould join the forest ring around Bah-Flo (Buffalo I called it in theTwentieth Century) or the forces beleaguering Bos-Tan."

  They explained that my encounter with the Han airship had been followedcarefully by several scopemen. They had seen my swooper shoot skywardout of control, and had followed it with their telultronoscopes until ithad been caught in a gale at a high level, and wafted swiftly westward.Ultronophone warnings had been broadcast, asking western Gangs to rescueme if possible. Few of the Gangs west of the Alleghanies, however, hadany swoopers, and though I was frequently reported, no attempts could bemade to rescue me. Scopemen had reported my capture by the Han groundpost, and my probable incarceration in Lo-Tan.

  The Rocky Mountain Gangs, in planning their campaign against Lo-Tan, hadappealed to the east for help, and Wilma had led the Wyoming veteranswestward, though the other eastern Gang had divided their aid betweenthe armies before Bah-Flo and Bos-Tan.

  The heavy bombardment which I had heard from Lo-Tan, they told me, wasmerely a test of the enemy's tactics and strength, but it accomplishedlittle other than to develop that the Hans had the mountains and peaksthickly planted with rocket gunners of their own. It was almostimpossible to locate these gun posts, for they were well camouflagedfrom air observation, and widely scattered; nor did they reveal theirpositions when they went into action as did their ray batteries.

  The Hans apparently were abandoning their rays except for air defense. Itold what I knew of the Han plans for abandoning the city, and theirescape tunnels. On the strength of this, a general council of GangBosses was called. This council agreed that immediate action wasnecessary, for my escape from the city probably would be suspected, andSan-Lan would be inclined to start an exodus at once.

  * * * * *

  As a matter of fact, the destruction of the city presented no realproblem to us at all. Explosive air balls could be sent against anytarget under a control that could not be better were their operatorsriding within them, and with no risk to the operators. When a ball wasexploded on its target by the operator, or destroyed by accident, hesimply reported the fact to the supply division, and a fresh one wasplaced on the jump-off, tuned to his controls.

  To my own Gang, the Wyomings, the Council delegated the destruction ofthe escape tunnels of the enemy. We had a comfortably located camp in awooded canyon, some hundred and thirty miles northeast of the city, withabout 500 men, most of whom were bayonet-gunners, 350 girls aslong-gunners and control-board operators, 91 control boards and about250 five-foot, inertron-protected air balls, of which 200 were of theexplosive variety.

  I ordered all control boards manned, taking Number One myself, andinstructed the others to follow my lead in single file, at the minimuminterval of safety, with their projectiles set for signal rather thancontact detonation.

  In my mind I paid humble tribute to the ingenuity of our engineers as Igently twisted the lever that shot my projectile vertically into the airfrom the jump-off clearing some half mile away.

  The control board before me was a compact contrivance about five feetsquare. The center of it contained a four-foot viewplate. Whatever viewwas picked up by the ultronoscope "eye" of the air ball wasautomatically broadcast on an accurate tuning channel to this viewplateby the automatic mechanism of the projectile. In turn my control boardbroadcast the signals which automatically controlled the movements ofthe ball.

  Above and below the viewplate were the pointers and the swinging needleswhich indicated the speed and angle of vertical movement, the altimeter,the directional compass, and the horizontal speed and distanceindicators.

  At my left hand was the lever by which I could set the "eye" forpenetrative, normal or varying degrees of telescopic vision, and at myright the universally jointed stick (much like the "joy stick" of theancient airplanes) with its speed control button on the top, with whichthe ball was directionally "pointed" and controlled.

  The manipulation of these levers I had found, with a very littlepractice, most instinctive and simple.

  So, as I have said, I pointed my projectile straight up and let it shootto the height of two miles. Then I levelled it off, and shot it at fullspeed (about 500 miles an hour with no allowance for air currents) in ageneral southwesterly direction, while I eased my controls until Ibrought in the telescopic view of Lo-Tan. I centered the picture of thecity on the crossed hairlines in the middle of my viewpoint, and watchedits image grow.

  * * * * *

  In about fifteen minutes the "string" of air balls was before the city,and speaking in my ultrophone I gave the order to halt, while I swungthe scope control to the penetrative setting and let my "eye" roveslowly back and forth through the walls of the city, hunting for a spotfrom which I might get my bearings. At last, after many penetrations, Imanaged to bring in a view of the head of the shaft at the bottom ofwhich I knew the tunnels were located, and saw that we were none toosoon, for all the corridors leading toward this shaft were packed withHans waiting their turn to descend.

  Slowly I let my "eye" retreat down one of these corridors until I"pulled it out" through the outer wall of the city. There I held thespot on the crossed hairlines and ordered Number Two Operator to mycontrol board, where I pointed out to her the exact spot where I desireda breach in the wall. Returning to her own board, she withdrew her ballfrom the "string," and focussing on this spot in the wall, eased herprojectile into contact with it and detonated.

  The atomic force of the explosion shattered a vast section of the wall,and for the moment I feared I had balked my own game by not havingprovided a less powerful projectile.

  After some fumbling, however, I was able to maneuver my ball through agap in the debris and find the corridor I was seeking. Down thiscorridor I sent it at the speed of a Twentieth Century bullet, (this isto say, about half speed) to spare myself the sight of the slaughter asit cut a swath down the closely packed column of the enemy. If therewere any it did not kill, I knew they would be taken care of by theother balls in the string which would follow.

  I had to slow it up, however, near the head of the shaft to take mybearings; and a sea of evil faces, contorted with livid terror, lookedat me from my viewplate. But not even the terror could conceal the hatein those faces, and there arose in my mind the picture of their longcenturies of ruthless cruelty to my race, and the hopelessness ofchanging the tigerish nature of these Hans. So I steeled myself, anddrove the ball again and again into that sea of faces, until I hadcleared the station platform of any living enemy, and sent the survivorscrushing their way madly along the corridors away from it. There wasblinding flash or two on my viewplate as some Han officer tried his raypistol on my projectile, but that was all, except that he must havedisintegrated many of his fellows, for our balls were sheathed ininertron, and suffered no damage themselves.

  * * * * *

  Cautioning my unit to follow carefully, I pushed my control lever allthe way forward until my "eye" pointed down, and there appeared on myviewplate the smooth cylindrical interior of the shaft, fading downtoward the base of the mountain, and like a tiny speck, far, far down,was the car, descending with its last load.

  I dropped my ball on it, battering it down to the bottom of the shaft,and with hammer-like blows flattening the wreckage, that I might squeezethe ball out of the shaft at the lower station.

  It emerged into the great vaulted excavation, capable of holding athousand or more persons, from which the various escape tunnelsradiated. Down these tunnels the last remnants of a crowd of fugitiveswere disappearing, while red-coated soldiers guided the traffic andsuppressed disorder with the threat of their spears, and the occas
ionalflourish of a ray pistol.

  As I floated my ball out into the middle of the artificial cavern Icould see them stagger back in terror. Again the blinding flashes of afew ray pistols, and instantaneous borings of the rays into the walls.The red coats nearest the escape tunnels fled down them in panic. Thosewhose escape I blocked dropped their weapons and shrank back against thesmooth, iridescent green walls.

  I marshalled the rest of my string carefully into the cavern, andcounted the tunnel entrances, slowly swinging my "eye" around thesemicircle of them. There were 26 corridors diverging to the north andwest. I decided to send three balls down each, leave 12 in the cavern,then detonate them all at once.

  Assigning my operators to their corridors, I ordered intervals of fivemiles between them, and taking the lead down the first corridor, Iordered "go."

  Soon my ball overtook the stream of fugitives, smashing them downdespite ray pistols and even rockets that were shot against it. On andon I drove it, time and again battering it through detachments offleeing Hans, while the distance register on my board climbed to ten,twenty, fifty miles.

  Then I called a halt, and suspended my previous orders. I had had noidea that the Hans had bored these tunnels for such distances under thesurface of the ground as this. It would be necessary to trace them totheir ends and locate their new underground cities in which theyexpected to establish themselves, and in which many had establishedthemselves by now, no doubt.

  Fifty miles of air in these corridors, I thought, ought to prove apretty good cushion against the shock of detonation in the cavern. So Iordered detonation of the twelve balls we had left behind. As Iexpected, there was little effect from it so far out in the tunnels.

  But from our scopemen who were covering the city from the outside, Ilearned that the effects of the explosion on the mountain were terrific;far more than I had dared to hope for.

  * * * * *

  The mountain itself burst asunder in several spots, throwing outthousands of tons of earth and rock. One-half the city itself tore looseand slid downward, lost in the debris of the avalanche of which it was apart. The remainder, wrenched and convulsed like a living thing inagony, cracked, crumbled and split, towers tumbling down and greatfissures appearing in its walls. Its power plant and electro machinerywent out of commission. Fifteen of its scout ships hovering in the airdirectly above, robbed of the power broadcast and their repeller beamsdisappearing, crashed down into the ruins.

  But out in the escape tunnels, we continued our explorations, now surethat no warnings could be broadcast to the tunnel exits, and mowed downcontingent after contingent of the hated yellow men.

  My register showed seventy-five miles before I came to the end of thetunnel, and drove my ball out into a vast underground city of great,brilliantly illuminated corridors, some of them hundreds of feet highand wide. The architectural scheme was one of lace-like structures ofcurving lines and of indescribable beauty.

  Word had reached us now of the destruction of the city itself, so thatno necessity existed for destroying the escape tunnels. In consequence,I ordered the two operators, who were following me, to send their ballsout into this underground city, seeking the shaft which the Hans weresure to have as a secret exit to the surface of the earth above.

  But at this juncture events of transcending importance interrupted myplans for a thorough exploration of these new subterranean cities of theHans. I detonated my projectile at once and ordered all of the operatorsto do so, and to tune in instantly on new ones. That we wrecked most ofthese new cities I now know, but of course at the time we were in thedark as to how much damage we caused, since our viewplates naturallywent dead when we detonated our projectiles.