him--and it will be like the hammer of Thor--"
The Infant's words ended in a crackling roar from above. DannyO'Rourke found his whole body tingling as if he were filled withstinging sparks; each single fiber of each muscle was twitching.
A blue light shone eerily overhead. He bent his stiffened, jerkingneck till he could look--till he could see, with eyes that were filledwith flashing fires of their own, other ripping blue flashes from theends of outstanding wires, and above him a thousand feet, the belly ofa white ship.
And through the brain-hammering clatter of the static discharge heheard the voice of the Infant, whose words came jerkily between theshudders that shook him:
"He doesn't dare, damn him! Can't let the wires touch us. Hasto--discharge--in air.... But he'll burn us--afterwards!"
* * * * *
"Stand still!" said Danny through stiffened lips. "Don't make a move!He hasn't seen us, it may be!"
The crackling discharge had ceased; the rain of miniature lightningbolts that had shot around them and through them had ended. The cablehad gone up before their eyes and hidden itself in the white ship. Thepilot's eyes clung to that white-bellied thing, so slender and roundand gleaming against the dark clouds overhead; he saw it hangmotionless for long minutes while it seemed that the breath in histhroat must choke him. Then he saw that white roundness enlarge as theship settled swiftly down.
It hung in another moment directly above their red ship. Danny sawthree round holes open in the white shell--the three outlets that theInfant had predicted. It had descended noiselessly, but now there camefrom within a high-pitched whining hum. The dreaded heat and ray! Theywere about to see their own ship destroyed! And, as for themselves--!Danny was still waiting for the first, devastating blast ofintolerable heat, when the ship settled softly down.
Green port-holes stared at him like eyes. A door was outlined with aline of black that spread to a round opening as a door swung wide. Ahuge door in the side of a huge ship, but it was none too large forthe giant figure that crept through.
And Danny O'Rourke stared wordlessly at the flat-nosed face above arobe of chilled steel blue.
"'Tis him!" he gasped out that the Infant might hear. "The sameone--the devil I saw in Stobolsk!" And if any other identificationwere needed it came in the slender rod, whose heavy metal butt wasgripped in the giant's hand. At sight of the wire looping back fromthe weapon; at remembrance of the Infant's shrewd guess; and with theconviction that now this same weapon was to annihilate the only twomen who knew how to combat this destroyer, Danny threw back his headand laughed--until his harsh laughter died away in a snarl of rage.
"Go on and do it," he heard, "you ugly devil. You killed those Reds;you've killed thousands of us since, you murderin' beast! Go on andkill us, too!"
* * * * *
The slender tube was aimed at him squarely. Danny waited to hear thefaint click that would mean his death as the invisible ray sawed intohis body. Instead the huge figure leaned down to stare at the pilot;then straightened while a crooked smile of recognition appeared on thedeformed face.... And the slender rod moved on--on--in a slow circletoward the other waiting man!
It clicked before it reached him. Danny heard it, and "No--no!" hescreamed in a horrible voice. "Run, Infant! Beat it, for God's sake!"
The enemy was twenty feet away; it seemed as many miles to Danny as hethrew himself at the foe. He did not see the ray strike. He heard onlythe Infant's steady voice calling: "Remember Danny--the Sorensonmachine--if you live."
Then a blast of reflected heat swept upon him, and he felt himselfstifling. There was a pool of molten rock, white and glaring with heat ...and a puff of smoke, grayish black, and ashes that whirled in the wind thatswept up from the pool....
Danny tried to raise himself from the hot stone where he had fallen,so near he was to the pool of death. He saw the grotesque figure ofthe giant move over toward the red ship, look at it, sneercontemptuously, and turn back to his own ship of doom. He saw theblack entrance swallow the huge foe and he saw the door close, whilethe great ship, so innocently white in its sleek slender roundness,rose again in the air where the clouds took it up.
And Danny, resting on scorched but unfeeling hands, stared after himuntil he got the enemy's direction of flight as he entered the clouds,then he turned towards a place of glowing rock where the air rose inquivering waves.
"You said it, Infant," he whispered; "you knew I was just a fightin'fool that wouldn't think the way you would. You told me to get theSorenson machine--" He brushed at his suddenly blinded eyes with oneseared hand, then turned to stare grimly and appraisingly where thewhite ship had gone.
"And I'm thinkin'," he told the beastly occupant of that carrier ofdeath, "that you didn't shoot your damned ray quite quick enough. TheInfant beat you to it! He got his message to me first!"
* * * * *
How he got to the flat-roofed landing zone of the ConsolidatedElectric, Danny, doubtless, could never have told. Nor was he aware ofthe hand that set in the forward cabin of his ship a strange machine.But he growled his instructions:
"Set it goin'! 'Tis the Infant's orders--I mean Mr. Morgan's. What thedevil it is I don't know, but 'Turn it on!' he told me--'Have them putit on full!'" And, though a man whom Danny knew only as Gimlet-eyesstared at him curiously, he reached down to the apparatus, set a dial,closed a switch here and there, then stepped back.
But Gimlet-eyes ventured one protest. "You're not grounding it!" heexclaimed, in a voice that was tinged with horror. "You'll get anaccumulation on your ship that will shoot off like lightning--millionsof volts!"
"How long would that be takin'?" Danny inquired gruffly.
And Gimlet-eyes replied, as one who washes his hands of allresponsibility in a rather horrible affair: "An hour--not more than anhour!"
"Then I'll just be drivin' around for an hour," said Danny, andslammed shut the door-port of the red ship.
* * * * *
The red rocket drove in slow circles that were a hundred miles acrosswhile that hour passed and the numbness of mind that had held Danny ina stupor slipped away. For the first time he realized the emptiness ofthe world that the Infant had left; he knew with a sharp stab ofself-reproach how much had gone from his life in that instant when hesprang vainly toward the giant enemy.
He called himself wild names for his fancied sluggishness. Then that,too, passed, and at thought of the weapon the Infant had given him andof the work that lay ahead, his haggard face forgot the lines thathorror had drawn and relaxed into a tired smile that told of a mindcontent.
Gradually his looping whirls had carried him toward the east. Anothercity was being devastated by the enemy; that Danny got from thenewscast. Only that and one other message broke the tedious eternityof that long hour.
Danny's number flashed on the screen beside his controls.Unconsciously he answered, but he sat up alertly at sound of hisChief's voice.
"I can't get anyone," the voice said. "Headquarters is gone; I justcalled you on a chance. And I believe you now, Danny. That devil wipedout a whole fleet of our planes; melted the cruisers with one shot,and the scouts couldn't go fast enough to escape. Only one gotaway....
"But where are you? What's to be done? I've just got here. My God!What can we do?"
"Wait," said Danny O'Rourke calmly, and glanced at his watch; "waitfor another ten minutes! He's over Boston now. And he's waitin' therefor me--though he doesn't know it yet. But I'll be droppin' in onhim."
"Don't be an utter fool, Danny," urged the voice of the Chief; "thereisn't a thing you can do. You try to come down on him, and he'll do ashe did with the cruisers--just slip aside like lightning and nail youwith his damned heat ray when you're below! I'm near Boston now. Youkeep away. Where can I meet you? We've got to think--got to dosomething!"
* * * * *
And Danny, before he opened the switch that
ended their talk, saidmeditatively: "Like lightnin' he moves ... but he'll have to move_faster_ than lightnin' to dodge me. And if you're near Boston, stickaround; I'm comin' now, but not to meet you, Chief; I've got anotherimportant engagement. I'm keepin' it for--for the Infant. And give theInfant the credit, Chief; give it all to him, he's earned it: he'spaid for it in full." Then the snap of a switch cut off the sound ofDanny's voice before it showed a tell-tale quaver.
It was steady some minutes later, when Danny swept in above themounting clouds that he had learned to know. Beneath them
The Hammer of Thor Page 6