CHAPTER VII
An Exploration
There was a moment's silence as the Australian captain steadied himselfagainst the roll of the vessel, staring incredulously at the group thatgathered round him.
"Are you--human?" he finally managed to gasp.
"If we aren't somebody's been kidding us," said Gloria, irreverently."But are you? You're all blue!"
"Of course," said the captain. "It was the comet. We knew it struck inAmerica somewhere but didn't know where or what it did. What's thematter with your ship?" He indicated the wrecked and leaking bow. "Sheseems to be down by the head."
"Oh, that was a valentine from the birds," said Ben. "Can you give usquarters on your vessel? There aren't many of us."
Captain Entwhistle seemed to come out of a dream. "Of course, of course.Come on. We can discuss things better in my cabin."
As they mounted to the deck of the _Brisbane_, even the trained sailors,the light blue of their faces oddly at variance with the dark blue oftheir uniforms, could not refrain from staring at the colonists. Theycrowded into the captain's cabin past rows of eager blue faces.
"I suggest," said Captain Entwhistle, "that we begin by telling eachother how this happened. I can scarcely credit the fact that you arehuman and can walk and talk. Would any of you care for a whiskey andsoda?"
"No, thanks," said Murray, the spirit of fun stirring in him, "but I'llhave a drink of lubricating oil if you can find any."
The naval officer looked at him, and remarked, a trifle stiffly,"Certainly, if you wish. Williams--"
"Oh, don't mind him," Ben Ruby cut in. "Pardon me, Captain, he can drinklubricating oil perfectly well, but he's just joking with you. You weresaying about the comet--"
"Why, you knew that the big comet struck the earth as predicted, didn'tyou? It was on the morning of February sixteenth, last year--evening ofFebruary fifteenth by American time. Even in our country, which isaround on the other side of the earth, it caused a good deal of damage.The gases it set free put everybody to sleep and caused a lot ofwreckage. Our scientists say the gases of the comet in some unexplainedway altered the iron in the haemoglobin of our blood to cobalt. It seemsto work just as well, but that's why we're all blue. I don't quiteunderstand it myself, but you know how these medical Johnnies are. Nowwhat happened to you people?"
"May I ask something first?" said Beeville. "What day is this?"
"August eighteenth, 1946," said the captain as though slightly baffledby the question.
"Good God!" said the scientist. "Then we were there for over a year!"
"Yes," said Ben. "All of us you see here and several others returned toconsciousness about the same time, two months ago. We know nothing ofwhat the comet did to us or how this change occurred except that when wewoke up we were just what you see. Dr. Beeville has been experimentingwith a view to finding out what happened, but he hasn't made muchprogress so far. All we know is that we're composed of metal thatdoesn't rust easily, make our meals off electricity, and find the tasteof any kind of oil agreeable. And the birds--" he broke off with agesture.
"Oh, yes, the birds," said the captain. "Have they been annoying you,too? That's one of the reasons, aside from exploration, why we're here.I assume you mean the big four-winged birds that we call dodos downunder. We haven't seen much of them, but occasionally they come and flyaway with a sheep or even a man. One of our aviators chased one severalhundred miles out to sea recently and we had assumed they came from oneof the islands. Our scientists don't know what to make of them."
"Neither do ours, except that they're an unadulterated brand of hell,"put in Murray. "We were all living in New York, snug as bugs in a rug,when they began dropping incendiary bombs on us and carrying off anyonethey could get hold of."
"Including this insignificant person," said Yoshio, proudly.
"Incendiary bombs! Do you mean to tell me they have intelligence enoughfor that?"
"I'll tell the cockeyed world they have! Did you see the prow of ourship? That's where one of their little presents got home. If anyone hadbeen there, he wouldn't be anything but scrap iron now. If you reallywant to find out what it's all about come on up to New York, but getready for the fight of your life."
The captain leaned back, sipping his drink meditatively. "Do you know,"he said, "that's just what I was thinking of doing? Frankly your storyis all but incredible, but here you are as proof of it and you don'tseem to be robots, except in appearance."
"Oh, boy," whispered Murray to Gloria, "wait till these babies get afterthe birds with their eight-inch guns. They'll wish they'd never heard ofus. I'm glad I'm going to be on hand to see the fun."
"Yeh, but maybe the birds will have something up their feathers, too,"she replied. "I wouldn't like to place any bets. We thought we had themlicked when we got the destroyer and now look at us."
"Well, I'm willing to try an attack, or at least a reconnaissance ofthem," said the captain. "Just now we're in the position of an armedexploring party. The Australian government has sent out several ships tosee what it could find on the other continents. After the comet struckall the cables went dead. We got into radio communication with the Dutchcolonial stations at Batavia and later with South Africa, but the restof the world is just being re-explored and my commission authorizes meto resist unfriendly acts. I think you could call an incendiary bomb anunfriendly act."
* * * * *
His eyes twinkled over this mild witticism, and the party broke up witha scraping of chairs. A couple of hours later, the blue line of SandyHook was visible, and then the vague cliffs of the New York skyscrapers.The clouds had cleared away after the rain of the last few days; noteven a speck of mist hung in the air and everything stood out bright andclear. The colonists felt a pang of emotion grip them as they watchedthe tall towers of the city rise over the horizon, straight andbeautiful as they had always stood, but now without a sign of life ormotion, all the busy clamor of the place hushed forever.
Of the tetrapteryxes or "dodos" as the Australian had called them, therewas no sign. The sky bent high, unbrokenly blue, not a flicker of motionin it. Murray Lee felt someone stir at his side and looked round.
"Oh, damn," said Gloria Rutherford, "it's so beautiful that I want tocry. Did you ever feel like that?"
He nodded silently.... "And those birds--isn't it a shame somehow thatthey should have the most beautiful city in the world?"
The shrill of a whistle cut off his words. With marvelous, machine-likeprecision, the sailors moved about the decks. The _Brisbane_ lost way,came to a halt, and there was a rush of steel as the anchor ran out.Captain Entwhistle came down from the bridge.
"I don't see anything of your dodos yet," he said. "Do you think itwould be wise to send out a landing party, Mr. Ruby?"
"Most certainly not," said Ben. "You don't know what you're up againstyet. Wait till they come round. You'll have plenty to do."
The captain shrugged. Evidently he was not at all unwilling to match theAustralian navy against anything the dodos might do. "Very well, I'llaccept your advice for the present, Mr. Ruby. It is near evening in anycase. But if there is no sign of them in the morning, I propose to landand look over the city."
But the landing was never accomplished.
For, in the middle of the night, as Ben, Murray and Gloria were seatedin the chartroom of the ship, chatting with the young lieutenant on dutythere, there came a quick patter of feet on the deck, and a shout of"Light, ho!"
"There are your friends now, I'll wager," said the lieutenant. "Nowwatch us go get 'em. If you want to see the fun, better go up on thebridge. All we do here is wrestle slide-rules."
Hastily the three climbed the bridge, where a little group of officerswas clustered. Following the direction in which they were looking, theysaw, just above the buildings on the Jersey shore, what looked like atall electric sign, burning high in the air and some distance away, withno visible means of support.
"What do you make of it?" asked Ca
ptain Entwhistle, turning andthrusting a pair of glasses into Ben's hands. Through them he could readthe letters. Printed in capitals, though too small to be read from theship with the naked eye, he saw:
"SOFT MEN EXIT. HARD MEN ARE WORKERS BELONGING. MUST RETURN. THIS MEANSYOU."
"Looks like a dumb joke by someone who doesn't know English very well,"he opined, passing the glasses to Gloria. "I don't think those birdswould figure that out anyway."
"Wait a minute, though," said Gloria, as she read the letters. "Rememberthey caught Dangerfield and Farrelly and the rest. Maybe they taughtthem how to speak."
"Yes, but those two didn't know anything about 'soft men.' It's allcrazy, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. And what do they mean by'belonging'? None of our gang thought up that bright remark."
"Look, sir," said one of the younger officers, "it's changing."
Abruptly the lights were blotted out, to reappear, amid a swimming ofcolors, nearer and larger. "WARNING" they read this time, "FLY AWAYACCURSED PLACE."
"What beats me," said Ben, "is what makes that light. I'll bet a dollaragainst a dodo-feather it isn't electrical and fireworks wouldn't hangin the air like that. How do they do it?"
"Well, we'll soon find out," said the Captain, practically. "Mr.Sturgis, switch on searchlights three and four and turn them on thesource of that light."
A few quick orders and two long beams of light leaped out from the shiptoward the source of the mysterious sky-writing--leaped, but not fastenough, for even as the searchlights sought for their goal the lightswere extinguished and the long beams swung across nothing but the emptyheavens.
Gloria shivered. "I think I want to go away from this place," she said."There's too much we don't know about around here. We'll be gettingtable-tappings next."
"Apparently someone wants us to clear out," said Captain Entwhistlecheerfully. "Mr. Sturgis, get steam on three boilers and send the men toreserve action stations. We may have something doing here beforemorning."
Orders were shouted, iron doors were slammed and feet pattered in theinterior of the warship. From their station on the bridge Ben, Gloriaand Murray could see the long shafts of the turret guns swing upward totheir steepest angle, then turn toward the Jersey shore. The _Brisbane_was preparing for emergencies.
But there was to be no fight that night, though all night long the wearysailors stood or slept beside their guns. The dark skies remainedinscrutable; the mysterious lights did not reappear.
At four o'clock, Captain Entwhistle had retired, reappearing at eight,fresh as though he had slept through the whole night. The colonists, ofcourse, did not need sleep, but while the sailors stared at them,submitted themselves to an electric meal from one of the ship's dynamos.Morning found them gathering about the upper decks, eager for action,particularly McAllister, who had spent most of the night engaged inhighly technical discussions of the _Brisbane's_ artillery with one ofthe turret-captains.
"What do you suggest?" asked the captain. "Shall we land a party?"
"I hate to go without taking a poke at those birds," said Ben, "butstill I don't think it would be safe--"
"What's the matter with that airplane?" asked Gloria, pointing to thecatapult between the funnels, where a couple of blue-visaged sailors hadtaken the covering from a seaplane and were giving it a morning bath.
The captain looked at Ben. "There may be something in that idea. What doyou say to a scout around? I'll let you or one of your people go as anobserver."
"Tickled to death," Ben replied. "We never got beyond the upper part ofthe city ourselves. The dodos were too dangerous. I'd like to find outwhat it's all about."
"How about me?" offered Gloria.
"Nothing doing, kid. You get left this time. If those birds get after uswe may land in the bay with a bump and I don't want this party to loseits little sunshine."
"Up anchor!" came the command. "Revolutions for ten knots speed.... I'mgoing to head down the bay," he explained to the colonists. "If anythinghappens I want to have sea-room, particularly if they try bombing us."
Fifteen minutes later, with the _Brisbane_ running into the morningland-breeze in an ocean smooth as glass, the catapult let go and Ben andthe pilot--a lad whose cheeks would have been rosy before the comet, butwere now a vivid blue--were shot into the air.
Beneath them the panorama of New York harbor lay spread; more silentthan it had been at any day since Hendrick Hudson brought hishigh-pooped galleys into it. As they rose, Ben could make out the lineof the river shining through the pearly haze like a silver ribbon; thetowers of the city tilted, then swung toward them as the aviator sweptdown nearer for an examination. Everything seemed normal save at thenorth and east, where a faint smoky mist still lingered over thebuildings they had occupied. Of birds, or of other human occupation thantheir own, there was no slightest sign.
A faint shout was borne to his ears above the roar of the motor and hesaw the pilot motioning toward a set of earphones.
"What do you say, old chap?" asked the pilot when he had clamped themon. "What direction shall we explore?"
Ben glanced down and around. The cruiser seemed to hang in the water, atiny droplet of foam at her bow the only sign she was still in motion."Let's go up the Hudson," he suggested. "They seemed to come from thatdirection."
"Check," called the pilot, manipulating his controls. The airplaneclimbed, swung and went on. They were over Yonkers; Ben could see ariver steamer at the dock, where she had made her last halt.
"Throw in that switch ahead of you," came through the earphones. "Theone marked RF. That's the radiophone for communicating with the ship. Wemay need it."
"O.K.," said Ben.... "Hello.... Yes, this is Ruby, in the airplane.Nothing to report. Everything serene. We're going to explore farther upthe river."
In the distance the Catskills loomed before them, blue and proud. Benfelt a touch on his back and looked round. The pilot evidently wishedto say something else. He cut in and heard, "What's that off on theleft--right in the mountains? No, there."
Following the indicated direction Ben saw something like a scar on theprojecting hillside--not one of the ancient rocks, but a fresh cut onthe earth, as though a wide spot had been denuded of vegetation.
"I don't know," he answered. "Never saw it before. Shall we go see?...Hello, _Brisbane_. Ruby reporting. There is a mysterious clearing in theCatskills. We are investigating."