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A Thousand Degrees Below Zero
By Murray Leinster
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from The Thrill Book, July 15, 1919.]
CHAPTER I.
From some point far overhead a musical humming became audible. Itwas not the rasping roar of an a?roplane motor, but a deep, trulymelodious note that seemed to grow rapidly in volume. The soft-voicedconversations on the upper deck were hushed. Every one listened tothe strange sound from above. It grew and became clear and distinct.The source seemed to come nearer. At last the sound came from a spotdirectly overhead, then passed over and toward the Narrows.
A cold breeze beat down suddenly. It was not a cool sea breeze, buta current of air coming down from directly above the Coney Islandsteamer. It was actively, actually cold. A chorus of exclamationsarose, full of the wit of the American a-holidaying.
"Br-r-r-r! I feel a draft!"
"Say, Min, are you givin' me the cold shoulder?"
"Sadie, d'you want to borrow all of my coat or only the sleeve?"
And one young man caused a ripple of laughter by remarking:
"Feels like my mother-in-law was around somewhere."
People hastened to put on such wraps as they had with them. On thelower decks there arose a sound of tired voices, saying with variationsonly in the names called:
"Johnnie, button up your coat. It's getting cold."
The cold wave lasted only for a few moments, however. As the steamerforged ahead the strata of cold air seemed to be left behind, and thehumming sound grew fainter. If the passengers on the boat had listened,they might have heard a faint splash in the water behind them, butas it was the sound went unnoticed. The humming died away. The boatwent on and docked, and the passengers dispersed to their homes. Everyone of them woke the next morning to find himself or herself locallycelebrated.
Half an hour after the Coney Island boat had docked a tramp steamer wasnosing her way out of the Narrows. She was traveling at half speed,the air was clear, the channel was well buoyed, and there seemed nopossibility of any harm or danger befalling her. The lookout leanedover the bow negligently, watching and listening to the indignantinterchange of whistle signals between two small tugs in a disputeover the right of way. He dropped his eyes and stiffened, then turnedtoward the pilot house and shouted frantically, but too late. The shouthad hardly left his lips before there was a shock and grinding sound,mingled with the raucous shriek of rent and tormented iron plates.The tramp steamer shuddered and stopped, and began to sink a trifleby the head. At the first intimation of danger the man on the bridgehad ordered the water-tight doors, closed, and now he rang for fullspeed astern. The tramp swung free of the unknown obstruction, but thetwo bow compartments were flooded and the steamer's stern was lifteduntil the propeller thrashed helplessly in a useless mixture of airand water. Her whistle bellowed an appeal for help. "_Want immediateassistance!_"
Half a dozen tugs, including the two that had been quarreling bywhistle, responded to the stricken steamer's call. Their small sirenssent cheery messages promising instant aid, and they began to tearacross the water toward her. One tug reached the helpless vessel'sside. A second rushed up and began to pull the unwieldy tramp awayfrom the unknown obstacle. The lights of a third could be seen verynear, when there was a crash and a frantic bellow from the tug. It alsohad struck the obstruction against which the tramp had run. The trampbellowed anew.
A destroyer shot down the river with a searchlight unshipped, her crewstanding by to rescue any persons who could be reached by lifeboats.She swung up and saw the tramp being hauled and pulled at by busy,puffing tugs. The long pencil of light danced over the surface of thewater to find the derelict or wreck that had caused the trouble. Backand forth it swept, and then stopped with a jerk as if the operatorcould not believe his eyes.
Floating soggily in the water of New York harbor, in late August--thehottest time of the year--a wide cake of ice lay glistening under thesearchlight rays! The harbor waves ran up to the edge of the ice cakeand stopped. Beyond their stopping point the surface was still andglassy. The cake floated heavily in the water and showed no sign ofcracks or fissures. It was evidently of considerable thickness.
A second searchlight re?nforced the first. The two white beams movedback and forth, incredulously examining the expanse of ice. It washundreds of yards across. At last one of the beams passed somethingat the center of the cake and hastily returned to the thing it hadseen. Rising calmly and quietly from what seemed to be a small craterat the center of the ice cake, a plume of steam floated placidly intothe air. It was a huge plume, precisely like the flowing of a whiteostrich feather, rising from a small orifice in the center of the massof frozen sea water.
A wail from the siren of the tug that had run against the ice cakecaused the searchlights to turn in its direction. The engine had ceasedto run and a cloud of escaping steam was pouring from the tug's funnel.Men on the deck gesticulated frantically. The destroyer ran as closeas the commander dared, and he shouted through a mega-phone. It wasimpossible to distinguish words in the confused shouts that came backfrom half a dozen throats at once, but the searchlights soon showed thecause of the excitement. The men on the tug pointed over the side. Thesmall harbor waves rolled unconcernedly up to a point some twenty feetfrom the stern of the tug, but there they stopped abruptly. The tug hadbecome inclosed in the ice floe. As those on the destroyer watched,the twenty feet became thirty and the thirty forty. The ice cake wasincreasing in size with amazing rapidity.
A boat put off from the destroyer, and the commander shouted to thecrew of the tug to take to the ice. There was a moment's hesitation,and then they jumped over the side and ran to the edge of the floe.The lifeboat touched the edge and was instantly frozen fast, butthe sailors managed to break it free again by herculean efforts. Itwent back to the destroyer, whose wireless almost instantly began tocrackle. Two other destroyers dashed down from the Brooklyn Navy Yardand turned their searchlights on the strange visitor in the harbor.The semaphore of the first destroyer on the scene began to flash, andthe three lean naval craft began to circle around the huge ice cake,warning away all other craft and constantly measuring and re-measuringthe size of the mass of ice. One of the destroyers at last slippedoutside the Narrows and stayed there, patrolling back and forth to keepother vessels from running foul of the strange and as yet inexplicablephenomenon.
By daybreak the Battery was a black mass of people. They looked eagerlytoward the Narrows, but could see nothing but a wall of mist, fromwhich the gray shape of a destroyer now and then emerged. High in theair, however, the plume of steam was visible. It was now more than athousand feet high and was dense and white. The first rays of the sunhad gilded the top, while the ground below was still dim and dark,but now it rose in calm and quietness to an unprecedented height,mystifying the people who looked at it and causing a sudden silenceto fall upon them all. A warm, moist sea breeze had blown in from theocean during the night and had been changed to fog as it passed overthe expanse of ice, so that the ice itself was hidden from view, butthe tall plume of steam told of some mysterious menace to humanity thatthe crowd assembled at the Battery feared without understanding.
As the mass of people watched the supremely calm column of steam risinghigh in the air of that August morning, newsboys began to circulateamong them, their strident cries sounding strangely among the silentmultitude. The Narrows were frozen solidly from shore to shore, and allentrance to and egress from New York harbor was blocked. Small craftcould go out behind Staten Island through the Kil
l van Kull, and somevessels could use the other channel which goes from the East River intothe Sound, but the great Ambrose Channel---one-third the size of thePanama Canal--and the broad opening that made New York the greatestport on the Atlantic coast was closed. The growth of the ice cake hadgreatly lessened, so that it could be predicted that it would notexpand far beyond its present size, but its origin and the means bywhich it resisted the disintegrating effect of the August warmth wereutterly unknown. The cause of the plume of steam from the center of theice cake was an unfathomable mystery.
Suddenly, from the empty sky, there came a deep, musical humming.Instinctively people looked up. The humming grew louder and moredistinct, while curious eyes swept the sky.
Then a black speck appeared below one of the fleecy white clouds anddropped toward the earth. A thousand feet, two thousand feet it fell,then checked and hung steadily in the air. Those who looked with thenaked eye could only discern that it seemed like a wingless blacksplinter suspended above the earth, but those who had glasses saw thewhir of dark disks above a black, stream-lined body. A small cabinwas placed amidships, and a misshapen globe hung from chains below.It was still for several minutes. The passenger or passengers seemedto be inspecting the earth below, and particularly the ice cake, withdeliberation and care. Then it began to rise with the same deliberationand certainty, swung around, and sped off with incredible speed towardthe northeast. The humming sound grew fainter and died away, but thecrowd standing on the Battery began to murmur with a nameless sense offear.
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