PART III
"... The Wabbly made no attempt to do purely military damage. The Enemy command realized that the destruction of civilian morale was even more important than the destruction of munitions factories. In this, the Enemy displayed the same acumen that makes the war a fruitful subject of study to the strategic student." (_Strategic Lessons of the War of 1941-43._--U. S. War College. Pp. 81-82.)
At nightfall the monster swerved suddenly and moved with greater speed.It showed no lights. It did not even make very much noise. Then thesecond flight of home-defense planes made their attack. Sergeant Walpoleheard them droning overhead. He lit a fire instantly. A littlehelicopter dropped from the blackness above him and he began to heapdirt desperately on the blaze.
"Who's there?" demanded a voice.
"Sergeant Walpole, Post Fourteen, Eastern Coast Observation," said theSergeant in a military manner. "Beg to report, sir, that the dinkus thatbrought down the other ships is housed in that big bulge on top of theWabbly."
"Get in," said the voice.
The Sergeant obeyed. With a purring noise the helicopter shot upward.Then something went off in mid-sky, miles ahead, where a faint hummingnoise had announced the flight of attack-planes. A lurid, cracklingdetonation lit up the sky. One of the ships of the night-flyingsquadron. From the helicopter they could see the rest of the flightlimned clearly in the flash of the explosion. Instantly thereafter therewas another such flash. Then another.
"Three," said the voice beside Sergeant Walpole. Another flash."Four...." The invisible operator of the screw-lifted ship was very calmabout it. "Five. Six." The explosions lit the sky. Presently he saidgrimly. "That's all of them. I'd better report it."
* * * * *
He was silent for a while. Sergeant Walpole saw his hand flicking a keyup and down in the faint light of radio bulbs.
"Now shoot the works," said the helicopter man evenly. "All the shipsthat attacked this afternoon went down. One of them started to report,but didn't get but two words through. What did that damned thing use onthem?"
"A dinkus on top, sir," said Sergeant Walpole formally. "I'd found amonocycle, sir, and was trailing the thing. I'd come to the top of ahill and seen it moving through a pine-wood, crashing down the trees infront of it like they wasn't there. Then a egg came down fromGawd-knows-where up aloft. I stopped up my ears, thinkin' it was aimin'for me. Then I seen the ships. Two of 'em were fallin'. They landed, an'I heard a coupla other explosions. Little ones, they sounded like."
The helicopter man's wrist was flicking up and down.
"Little ones!" he said sardonically. "Those ships were carryingfive-hundred-pound bombs! It was those you heard going off!"
"Maybe," conceded Sergeant Walpole. "There was twenty or thirty shipsflyin' in formation, goin' hell-for-leather for the Wabbly. They weretrailin' it from the air. They were comin', natural, for me, because Iwas between them an' it. Then my pants caught on fire--"
"What?"
"My pants caught on fire," said Sergeant Walpole, woodenly. "I wassittin' on the monocycle, tryin' to figure out which way to duck. An' mypants caught on fire. The bike was gettin' hot. I climbed off it an' itblew up. My rifle was hot, too, an' I chucked it away. Then I saw a shipgo down, on fire. The Wabbly'd stopped still an' it didn't fire a shot.I'll swear to that. Just my monocycle got hot an' caught on fire, an'then a ship busted out in flames an' went down. A couple more eggs comedown an' three ships dropped. Didn't hit 'em. The concussion blew thefabric off 'em. Another one caught fire an' crashed. Then another one. Ilooked, an' saw the next one catch. Then the next. It was like asearchlight beam hittin' 'em. They flamed up, blew up, an' that wasthat. The last two tried to get away, but they lit up an' crashed."
* * * * *
The pilot's hand flicked up and down, interminably. There was the steadyfierce down-beat of the slip-stream from the vertical propellers. Thehelicopter swept forward in a swooping dash.
"The whole east coast's gone crazy," said the 'copter man drily. "Crazyfools trying to run away. Roads jammed. Work stopped. It leaked outabout the planes being wiped out to-day, and everybody in three stateshas heard those eggs going off. You're the only living man who's seenthat crawling thing and lived to tell about it. I've sent your stuffback. What's that about the thing on top?"
"I hid," said Sergeant Walpole, woodenly. "The Wabbly sent overgas-shells where the ships landed. Then it went on. Headin' west. It'sgot a crazy-lookin' dinkus on top like a searchlight. That moved, whilethe ships were catchin' fire an' crashin'. Just like a searchlight, itmoved an' the ships went down. But the Wabbly didn't fire a shot."
The helicopter man's wrist flexed swiftly....
"Gawd!" said Sergeant Walpole in sudden agony. "Drop! Quick!"
The helicopter went down like a stone. A propeller shrieked away intospace. Metalwork up aloft glowed dully red. Then there were whipping,lashing branches closing swiftly all around the helicopter. A jerk. Acrash. Stillness. The smell of growing things all about.
"Well?" said the 'copter pilot.
"They turned it on us--whatever it is," said Sergeant Walpole. "Theynear got us, too."
* * * * *
A match scratched. A cigarette glowed. The Sergeant fumbled for a smokefor himself.
"I'm waiting for that metal to cool off," said the helicopter pilot."Maybe we can take off again. They located us with a loop while I wassending your stuff. Damn! I see what they've got!"
"What?"
"A way of transmitting real power in a radio beam," said the 'copterman. "You've seen eddy-current stoves. Everybody cooks with 'emnowadays. A coil with a high-frequency current. You can stick your handin it and nothing happens. But you stick an iron pan down in the coiland it gets hot and cooks things. Hysteresis. The same thing that usedto make transformer-cores get hot. The same thing happens near any beamtransmitter, only you have to measure the heating effect with athermo-couple. The iron absorbs the radio waves and gets hot. The chapsin the Wabbly can probably put ten thousand horsepower in a damned beam.We can't. But any iron in the way will get hot. It blows up a ship atonce. Your monocycle and your rifle too. Damn!"
He knocked the ash off his cigarette.
"Scientific, those chaps. I'll see if that metal's cool."
Something whined overhead, rising swiftly to a shriek as it descended.Sergeant Walpole cowered, with his hands to his ears. But it was not anearth-shaking concussion. It was an explosion, yes, but subtly differentfrom the rending snap of hexynitrate.
"Gas," said the Sergeant dully, and fumbled for his mask.
"No good," said the 'copter man briefly. "Vesicatory. Smell it? I guessthey've got us. No sag-suits. Not even sag-paste."
The Sergeant lit a match. The flame bent a little from the vertical.
"There's a wind. We got a chance."
"Get going, then," said the 'copter man. "Run upwind."
* * * * *
Sergeant Walpole slid over the side and ran. A hundred yards. Twohundred. Pine-woods have little undergrowth. He heard the helicopter'sengines start. The ship tried to lift. He redoubled his speed. Presentlyhe broke out into open ploughed land.
In the starlight he saw a barn, and he raced toward that. Someone elseplunged out of the woods toward him. The helicopter-engine was stillroaring faintly in the distance. Then a thin whine came down fromaloft....
When the echoes of the explosion died away the pilot was grinningqueerly. The helicopter's engine was still.
"I said it could be done! Pack of fat-heads at Headquarters!"
"Huh?"
"Picking up a ship by its spark-plugs, with a loop. They're doing thatup aloft. There's a ship up there, forty thousand feet or so. Maybe halfa dozen ships. Refueling in air, I guess, and working with the thing youcall a Wabbly. When I started the 'copter's engine they got thespark-impulses and sighted on them. We'd better get away from here
."
"Horses in here," said Sergeant Walpole. "The Wabbly came by. No peopleleft."
They brought the animals out. The horses reared and plunged as therewere other infinitely sharp, deadly explosions of the eggs coming downeight miles through darkness.
"Let's go. After the Wabbly?" said the 'copter man.
"O' course," said Sergeant Walpole. "Somebody's got to find out how tolick it."
They went clattering through darkness. It was extraordinary whatdesolation, what utter lack of human life they moved through. They cameto a town, and there was a taint of gas in the air. No lights burned inthat town. It was dead. The Wabbly had killed it.