The Onslaught from Rigel

by Fletcher Pratt

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Dodos are Bombing

  The bare area seemed to run all down a long valley and spread out as itrounded the crest of a hill which hid what lay behind it from theirview. As they watched a grey speck that might have been an ant at thatheight and distance, lumbered slowly down the valley, and then Bennoticed a tiny flicker of red light, so bright as to be clearly visibleeven in the day, where the grey speck moved against the hillside. A doorseemed to open in the hillside; focusing the glasses the aviator handedhim, he could just make out a square, bulky object that trundled forth.And then one--two--three--four--five of the huge dodo-tetrapteryx birdsshot out, poised for a moment, and leaped into flight.

  "Hello, _Brisbane_," called Ben into the radiophone. "Five dodos havetaken off from the cutting in the hills. I think they are after us.Better turn back this way and get ready for trouble."

  The aviator, understanding without being warned, had turned the plane.Ben swung round to look over his shoulder. The dodos were already someyards in the air; behind them the bulky object was running slowly out ofthe opening in the hillside. It had the appearance of a very long,flexible cannon. As he held his glasses on it, it stopped, straightenedout and the muzzle was elevated in their direction.

  "Dive!" he shouted suddenly into the voice-tube, entirely on impulse.The airplane banked sharply and seemed to drop straight down, and at thesame instant right through the spot where they had just passed shot abeam of light so brilliant that it outshone the morning sun. There was aroar louder than that of the motor; the plane pitched and heaved in thedisturbed air, and the light-beam went off as suddenly as it had snappedon.

  "Didn't I tell you those babies were poison?" he remarked. "Boy, if thatever hit us!"

  "What was it?" asked the aviator's voice.

  "Don't know, but it was something terrible. Let's head for home andmamma. I don't care about this."

  The plane reeled as the pilot handled the controls. Rrrr! said somethingand the light-beam shot out again, just to one side this time. Out ofthe corner of his eye Ben could see one of the birds--gaining on them!

  "How do you work this machine-gun?" he asked.

  "Just squeeze the trigger. Look out! I'm going to dive her again."

  With a roar, the light-beam let go a third time. Ben saw the edge of itgraze their right wing-tip; the airplane swung wildly round and down,with the pilot fighting for control; the earth seemed to rush up to meetthem, tumbling, topsy-turvy. Ben noted a warped black spot where thebeam had touched the wing-tip, then surprisingly, they were flyingalong, level with the surface of the Hudson beneath them, and hardly ahundred feet up.

  "That was close," came the aviator's voice, shaky with relief. "Ithought they had us that time. Say, that's some ray they have."

  "It sure is one first-class heller," agreed Ben. "Are you far enoughdown to duck it now?"

  "I think so, unless they can put it through the hills or chase us withit. Do you suppose those dodos thought that up themselves?"

  "Can't tell. They're right on their toes, though. Look!" He pointed upand back. Silhouetted against the sky, they could see three of them,flying in formation like airplanes. "Can we make it?"

  "I'm giving the old bus all she'll stand. The _Brisbane_ will cometoward us though. Wait till those guys get going. They'll find we cantake a trick or two."

  Yonkers again. Ben looked anxiously over his shoulder. The threesilhouettes were a trifle nearer. Would they do it? 125th Street and thelong bridge swung into view, then Riverside Drive and the procession ofdocks with the rusting liners lying beside them. Ben waggled themachine-gun, tried to adjust its sights and squeezed the trigger. Alittle line of smoke-puffs leaped forth. Tracer bullets--but nowherenear the birds. On and on--lower New York--the Battery. Wham! The waterbeneath and behind them boiled. Ben looked up. The birds were abovethem, too high to be reached, dropping bombs.

  "All right, old soaks," he muttered, "keep that up. You'll never hit usthat way."

  Again something struck the water beneath them. The airplane pitched andswerved as the pilot changed course to disturb the aim of the bombers.In the distance the form of the cruiser could be seen now, headingtoward them. As he watched, there was a flash from her foredeck. Up inthe blue above them appeared the white burst of a shell, then anotherand another.

  One of the dodos suddenly dived out of the formation, sweeping down moreswiftly than Ben would have believed possible. He swung the gun this wayand that, sending out streams of tracers, but the bird did not appear toheed. Closer--closer--and then with a crash something burst right behindhim. The airplane gyrated; the water rushed upward. The end? he thought,and wondered inconsequentially whether his teeth would rust. The nextmoment the water struck them.

  * * * * *

  When Ben Ruby came to, he beheld a ceiling which moved jerkily to andfro and stared lazily at it, wondering what it was. Then memory returnedwith a snap; he sat up and looked about him. He was in one of thosecubby-holes which are called "cabins" on warships, and alone. Beneathhim he could hear the steady throb of the engines; at his side was asmall table with a wooden rack on it, in one compartment of which stooda glass, whose contents, on inspection, proved to be oil. He drank it,looked at and felt of himself, and finding nothing wrong, got out of thehammock and stepped to the door. A seaman was on guard in the corridor.

  "Where is everybody?"

  "On deck, sir. I hope you are feeling all right now sir."

  "Top of the world, thanks. Is the aviator O.K.?"

  "Yes, sir. This way."

  He ascended to the bridge, to be greeted riotously by the assembledcompany. The _Brisbane_ was steaming steadily along in the open sea,with no speck of land in sight and no traces of the giant birds.

  "What happened?" Ben asked. "Did you get rid of 'em?"

  "I think so. We shot down two and the rest made off after trying to bombus. What did you two find out?"

  Ben briefly described their experiences. "I thought there was somethingwrong with one of your wingtips," said the captain, "but your plane sankso quickly after being hit that we didn't have time to examine it. Thatlight-ray cannon of theirs sounds serious. Do you suppose the dodosmanaged it?"

  "Can't tell," said Ben. "From what I could make out through the glasses,it didn't look like birds that were handling it."

  "But what could it be?"

  "Ask me! Delirium tremens, I guess. Nothing in this world is like whatit ought to be any more. Where did those birds come from; how did we getthis way, all of us; who is it up there in the Catskills that don't likeus? Answer me those and I'll tell you who was handling the gun."

  "Message, sir," said a sailor, touching his cap, and handing a foldedpaper. The captain read it, frowning.

  "There you are--" he extended the sheet to Ben. "My government isrecalling all ships. Our sister-ship, the _Melbourne_, has been attackedoff San Francisco and severely damaged by bomb-dropping dodos, and theyhave made a mass descent on Sumatra. Gentlemen, this has all thecharacteristics of a formal war." He strode off to give the necessaryorders to hurry the cruiser home, but Walter Beeville, who had joinedthe group at the bridge, said under his breath:

  "If those birds have enough intelligence to plan out anything like thatI'll eat my hat."

  * * * * *

  "If you were not before my eyes," said Sir George Graham Harris,president of the Australian Scientific Commission, "as living proof ofwhat you say, and if our biological and metallurgical experts did notreport that your physiology is utterly beyond their comprehension, I donot know but that I would believe you were some cleverly constructedmachines, actuated in some way by radio. However, that is not thepoint ... I have here a series of reports from different quarters onsuch explorations as have been made since the arrival of the comet andour recovery from its effects. We are, it appears, confronted with amenace of considerable seriousness in the form of these birds.

  "In the light of your closer acquain
tance with them and with conditionsgenerally in the devastated areas, they may be more suggestive to youthan to us." He stopped and ruffled over the papers piled beside him atthe big conference table. He was a kindly old gentleman, whose white VanDyke and pale blue lips contrasted oddly with the almost indigo tint ofhis visage (before the comet it had been a rich wine-red, the result ofa lifelong devotion to brandy and soda). Smiling round the table at hisscientific colleagues and at Ben, Murray, Gloria and Beeville, whooccupied the position of honor, he went on:

  "I give you mainly excerpts.... The first is from the South Africangovernment. They have ... hm, hm ... sent an aerial expeditionnorthward, all lines of communication appearing to be broken. AtNairobi, they report for the first time, finding a town entirelyunoccupied and its inhabitants turned into cast-metal statues ... AddisAbaba the same ... Wadi Hafa likewise. Twenty miles north of Wadi Hafathey noted the first sign of life--a bird of some kind at a considerabledistance to the west of them and flying parallel with them and veryrapidly."

  The scientist looked up. "It would appear beyond doubt that this birdbelonged to the species we call dodos and to which Dr. Beeville hasgiven the excellent scientific name, tetrapteryx.... As the expeditionproceeded northward, they encountered more of them; sometimes as many asfour being in sight at one time. At Alexandria, where they halted forsupplies, the dodos closed in. When the expedition took the air againwith the object of flying to Crete and thence to Europe, theseremarkable avians came very close, apparently trying to turn theexpedition back. They reached Crete that afternoon, in spite of theinterference of the birds, but that night were actively attacked on theground. The phenomena that accompanied all other attacks were observed;the birds used incendiary bombs of great intensity. One machine wasentirely destroyed with its aviators. The others, since their object wasexploration, at once took to the air and returned.

  "Any comments, gentlemen? No? Well the next is the report of the Dutchship _Corlaer_, which attempted to reach Japan. She was permitted toproceed to within a few miles of the islands, and then began to receivelight-warnings in the sky, such as Captain Entwhistle reports.Unfortunately they were in Japanese characters and there was no oneaboard who could read them. She put in at the port of Nagasaki and sentout a landing party. It never returned; as in the other cases the shipwas bombed at night and only made Sumatra with the greatest difficulty,one of the bombs having fallen on the quarter-deck, wrecking thesteering-gear and causing extensive internal damage....

  "There are minor reports with which I will not bother you. But thereport of H. M. A. S. _Melbourne_ appears highly significant. Shetouched at several South American ports. In the cities she reportsfinding all life at a standstill, although at Iquique, the landing partyencountered some hill-Indians who had suffered a bluing of the bloodsimilar to ours, and who proved distinctly unfriendly. They are reportedas engaged in looting the city and getting drunk on the contents of thebodegas.

  "North of Callao she found no signs of life until she reached San PedroBay. There a man was observed to be waving from the beach. The_Melbourne_ put in and launched a boat, but before it reached shore, oneof the birds made its appearance overhead and the man disappeared intothe trees and was not seen again. From the ship he appeared to be amechanical man, such as you. Shortly afterward, the _Melbourne_ began tosee the dodos constantly, and at the region of San Francisco, she sawone of the light signals. The wording of it was: 'DEPART AWAY FAREWELLFOREVER.'"

  Gloria stirred and Sir George looked at her with mild eyes. "Nothing,sir. I was just thinking that these dodos are uncommonly poetical. Theytold us to fly from the accursed place."

  "Yes, yes.... Naturally the _Melbourne_, not anticipating any trouble asthe result of a refusal to obey this absurd command, did not heed thewarning, and steamed into the bay. Like the other ships she was attackedat night. One of the bombs fell on the fire-control station and wreckedit, bringing down the tripod mast and fusing the top of the conningtower. She got under way immediately and replied with all guns, butbefore escaping number three turret was struck by another bomb and allthe men in the turret were killed. The roof of the turret was driven inand even the breeches of the guns melted.... That, I think, summarizesthe reports we have. We have seen a little of the birds, mostly at adistance, and they appear to have carried off several individuals,especially in Sumatra. I am afraid that is all we can offer."

  There was a moment's silence.

  "Well, what the material in the bombs is I can't say," said Ben, "butthey know all about projecting it from guns in the form of a beam. Itold you about my experience in company with the aviator from the_Brisbane_?"

  "The eggs Roberts found, too," said Gloria.

  "Oh, yes, Dr. Beeville can tell you about that."

  "Why, there's nothing much to it," said the scientist. "One of ourpeople found what appeared to be a nest of these birds in a building.The nest was built of soft cloths and contained large eggs, but when theplace was revisited the eggs had been removed.... I may say that I haveexamined the remains of one rather badly mangled specimen. Thebrain-case is extraordinarily large--larger than I have ever seen in anyanimal, and they appear to be of a high order of intelligence.

  "On the other hand I should certainly put the use and control of such amaterial as these bombs contain beyond their powers. And the fact thatthe nest was found in a building would indicate that the headquarters inthe Catskills were used by some other and higher intelligence which wasseparate from and perhaps in control of these birds. Moreover, they donot appear to wish to destroy us mechanical men, but to carry us off,and the messages seen by the ships seem to indicate that theintelligence behind these birds is capable of reading and understandingEnglish. I cannot conceive that the birds themselves would be able to dothis.

  "Further, there is the very strong evidence of the gun which fired onMr. Ruby. In every case where these birds have attacked man, they haveused bombs of this material put up in portable form, although the gunwould have been much more effective. It would have gone right throughthe _Melbourne_ or the _Brisbane_ like a red-hot poker through a board.From this I argue that the birds are directed rather than directing, andthat the directing intelligence is either too indolent or toocontemptuous of us to attack man except through their agency. Finally, Ideduce that we are dealing with some powerful and as yet unknown form oflife. What it is or how it reached the earth, I am not prepared to say."

  "Wunnerful," said Gloria irreverently, and a smile passed across thefaces of the conferees.

  "But what are the bombs made of and what makes them tick?" asked MurrayLee.

  "That is a question to which I would very much like to know the answer,"said Sir George, stroking his white beard. "Perhaps Mr. Nasmith, ourchemical member, will be good enough to give us something on the point."

  "Not much," said Nasmith, a lantern-jawed man with black hair. "We madea chemical analysis of the portions of the _Melbourne_ which had beenstruck by the bombs, and all we can say is that it gave a mostextraordinary result. These portions were originally made of Krupp armorsteel, as you know. Our analysis showed the presence of a long series ofchemical elements, including even gold and thorium, most of them inminute quantities. Titanium appeared to be the leading constituent afteriron."

  "Then," said Sir George, "the situation appears to be this. We don'tknow what the dodos are or what is behind them, but they have possessionof a large part of the world to which they are disposed to forbid usany access. They have powerful weapons and the intelligence to use them,and they appear to be unfriendly. I suggest that the sense of thismeeting is that the government should take immediate measures ofinvestigation and if necessary, of hostility."

  "Swell," said Gloria, "only you didn't go half far enough. We've beenthere and you haven't. You want to get the best guns you've got and gofor them right away."

  There was a murmur of approval. As Sir George rose to put the questionto a vote there came a knock at the door. Heads were turned to greet ayoung man who hurried to the president a
nd whispered something. SirGeorge turned to the meeting with a startled face.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "the dodos are bombing Canberra, thecapital of Australia, and are being engaged by the Australian airforce."