CHAPTER XII
The Mysterious "Air Balls"
The American barrage had been a long distance bombardment, designed,apparently, to draw the Han disintegrator ray batteries into operationand so reveal their positions on the mountain tops and slopes, for theHans, after the destruction of Nu-Yok, had learned quickly thatconcealment of their positions was a better protection than asurrounding wall of disintegrator rays shooting up into the sky.
The Hans, however, had failed to reply with disintegrator rays. Foralready this arm, which formerly they had believed invincible, was beingrestricted to a limited number of their military units, and theirfactories were busy turning out explosive rockets not dissimilar tothose of the Americans in their motive power and atomic detonation.They had replied with these, shooting them from unrevealed positions,and at the estimated positions of the Americans.
Since the Americans, not knowing the exact location of the Han outerline, had shot their barrage over it, and the Hans had fired at unknownAmerican positions, this first exchange of fire had done little morethan to churn up vast areas of mountain and valley.
The Hans appeared to be elated, to feel that they had driven off anAmerican attack. I knew better. The next American move, I felt, would bethe occupation of the air, from which they had driven the Hans, and fromswoopers to direct the rocket fire at the city itself. Then, when theyhad destroyed this, they would sweep in and hunt down the Hans, man toman, in the surrounding mountains. Command of the air was stillimportant in military strategy, but command of the air rested no longerin the air, but on the ground.
The Hans themselves attempted to scout the American positions from theair, under cover of a massed attack of ships in "cloud bank" or beamingformation, but with very little success. Most of their ships were shotdown, and the remainder slid back to the city on sharply inclinedrepeller rays, one of them which had its generators badly damaged whilestill fifty miles out, collapsed over the city, before it could reachits berth at the airport, and crashed down through the glass roof of thecity, doing great damage.
Then followed the "air balls," an unforeseen and ingenious resurrectionby the Americans of an old principle of air and submarine tactics,through a modern application of the principle of remote control.
The air balls took heavy toll of the morale of the Hans before they wereclearly understood by them, and even afterward for that matter.
* * * * *
Their first appearance was quite mysterious. One uneasy night, while thepulsating growl of the distant barrage kept the nerves of the city'sinhabitants on edge, there was an explosion near the top of a pinnaclenot far from the Imperial Tower. It occurred at the 732nd level, andcaused the structure above it to lean and sag, though it did not fall.
Repair men who shot up the shafts a few minutes later to bring newbroadcast lamps to replace those which had been shattered, reported whatseemed to be a sphere of metal, about three feet in diameter, with afour-inch lens in it, floating slowly down the shaft, as though it weresome living creature making a careful examination, pausing now and thenas its lens swung about like a great single eye. The moment this "eye"turned upon them, they said, the ball "rushed" down on them, crushingseveral to death in its vicious gyrations, and jamming the mechanism ofthe elevator, though failing to crash through it. Then, said the woundedsurvivors, it floated back up the shaft, watchfully "eyeing" them, andslipped off to the side at the wrecked level.
The next night several of these "air balls" were seen, followingexplosions in various towers and sections of the city roof and walls. Ineach case repair gangs were "rushed" by them, and suffered manycasualties. On the third night a few of the air balls were destroyed bythe repair men and guards, who now were equipped with disintegratorpistols.
This, however, was pretty costly business, for in each case the raybored into the corridor and shaft walls beyond its target, wrecking muchmachinery, injuring the structural members of that section, penetratingapartments and taking a number of lives. Moreover, the "air balls,"being destroyed, could not be subjected to scientific inspection.
After this the explosions ceased. But for many days the suddenappearances of those "air balls" in the corridors and shafts of the citycaused the greatest confusion, and many times they were the cause ofdeath and panic.
At times they released poison gases, and not infrequently themselvesburst, instead of withdrawing, in a veritable explosion of diseasegerms, requiring absolute quarantine by the Han medical department.
There was an utter heartlessness about the defense of the Hanauthorities, who considered nothing but the good of the community as awhole; for when they established these quarantines, they did nothesitate to seal up thousands of the city's inhabitants behind hermeticbarriers enclosing entire sections of different levels, where deprivedof food and ventilation, the wretched inhabitants died miserably, longbefore the disease germs developed in their systems.
* * * * *
At the end of two weeks the entire population of the city was in a moodof panicky revolt. News service to the public had been suspended, andthe use of all viewplates and phones in the city were restricted toofficial communications. The city administration had issued orders thatall citizens not on duty should keep to their apartments, but the orderwas openly flouted, and small mobs were wandering through the corridors,ascending and descending from one level to another, seeking they knewnot what, fleeing the air balls, which might appear anywhere, and beingdriven back from the innermost and deepest sections of the city by themilitary guard.
I now made up my mind that the time was ripe for me to attempt myescape. In all this confusion I might have an even break, in spite ofthe danger I might myself run from the air balls, and the almostinsuperable difficulties of making my way to the outside of the city anddown the precipitous walls of the mountain to which the city clung likea cap. I would have given much for my inertron belt, that I might simplyhave leaped outward from the edge of the roof some dark night andfloated gently down. I longed for my ultrophone equipment, with which Imight have established communication with the beleaguering Americanforces.
My greatest difficulty, I knew, would be that of escaping my guard. Oncefree of them, I figured it would be the business of nobody inparticular, in that badly disorganized city, to recapture me. The knivesof the ordinary citizens I did not fear, and very few of the militaryguard were armed with disintegrator pistols.
I was sitting in my apartment busying my mind with various plans, whenthere occurred a commotion in the city corridor outside my door. Thecaptain of my guard jumped nervously from the couch on which he had beenreclining, and ordered the excited guards to open the door.
In the broad corridor, the remainder of the guard lay about, dead orgroaning, where they had been bowled over by one of these air balls, thefirst I had ever seen.
The metal sphere floated hesitantly above its victims, turning this wayand that to bring its "eye" on various objects around. It stopped deadon sighting the door the guard had thrown open, hesitated a moment, andthen shot suddenly into the apartment with a hissing sound, flinginginto a far corner one of the guards who had not been quick enough toduck. As the captain drew his disintegrator pistol, it launched itselfat him with a vicious hiss. He bounded back from the impact, his chestcrushed in, while his pistol, which fortunately had fallen with itsmuzzle pointed away from me, shot a continuous beam that melted its wayinstantly through the apartment wall.
* * * * *
The sphere then turned on the other guard, who had thrown himself into acorner where he crouched in fear. Deliberately it seemed to gauge thedistance and direction. Then it hurled itself at him with anothervicious hiss, which I now saw came from a little rocket motor, crushinghim to death where he lay.
It swung slowly around until the lens faced me again, and floated gentlyinto position level with my face, seeming to scan me with its blank,four-inch eye. Then it spoke, with a metallic voi
ce.
"If you are an American," it said, "answer with your name, gang andposition."
"I am Anthony Rogers," I replied, still half bewildered, "Boss of theWyomings. I was captured by the Hans after my swooper was disabled in afight with a Han airship and had drifted many hundred miles westward.These Hans you have killed were my guard."
"Good!" ejaculated the metal ball. "We have been hunting for you withthese remote control rockets for two weeks. We knew you had beencaptured. A Han message was picked up. Close the door of your room, andhide this ball somewhere. I have turned off the rocket power. Put it onyour couch. Throw some pillows over it. Get out of sight. We'll speaksoftly, so no Hans can hear, and we'll speak only when you speak to us."
The ball, I found, was floating freely in the air. So perfectly was itbalanced with ultron and inertron that it had about the weight of aspider web. Ultimately, I suppose, it would have settled to the floor.But I had no time for such an idle experiment. I quickly pushed it to mycouch, where I threw a couple of pillows and some of the bed clothesover it. Then I threw myself back on the couch with my head near it. Ifthe dead guards outside attracted attention, and the Han patrol entered,I could report the attack by the "air ball" and claim that I had beenknocked unconscious by it.
"One moment," said the ball, after I reported myself ready to talk."Here is someone who wants to speak to you." And I nearly leaped fromthe couch with joy when, despite the metallic tone of the instrument, Irecognized the eager, loving voice of my wife, almost hysterical in herown joy at talking to me again.