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Armageddon- 2419 A.D. (Version 3) - Philip Francis Nowlan · Captives of the Thieve-Star

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  Speaker 1: Forward and chapters one and two of Armageddon twenty four,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen a d. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit librevox dot org. Recording by phil
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  Speaker 1: shinever Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Armageddon twenty four, nineteen a d.
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  Speaker 1: By Philip Francis Nolan. This story was first published in
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  Speaker 1: Amazing Stories August nineteen twenty eight forward. Elsewhere I have
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  Speaker 1: set down, for whatever interest they have in this the
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  Speaker 1: twenty fifth century, my personal recollections of the twentieth century.
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  Speaker 1: Now it occurs to me that my memoirs of the
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  Speaker 1: twenty fifth century may have an equal interest five hundred
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  Speaker 1: years from now, particularly in view of that unique perspective
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  Speaker 1: from which I have seen the twenty fifth century, entering
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  Speaker 1: it as I did in one leap across a gap
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  Speaker 1: of four hundred ninety two years. This statement requires elucidation.
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  Speaker 1: There are still many in the world who are not
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  Speaker 1: familiar with my unique experience. Five centuries from now, there
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  Speaker 1: may be many more, especially if civilization is fated to
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  Speaker 1: endure any worse convolutions than those which have occurred between
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five AD and the present time. I should
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  Speaker 1: state therefore that I, Anthony Rogers, am, so far as
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  Speaker 1: I know, the only man alive whose normal span of
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  Speaker 1: eighty one years of life has been spread over a
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  Speaker 1: period of five hundred and seventy three years. To be precise,
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  Speaker 1: I live the first twenty nine years of my life
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  Speaker 1: between eighteen ninety eight and nineteen twenty seven, the other
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  Speaker 1: fifty two since twenty four nineteen, a gap between these two,
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  Speaker 1: a period of nearly five hundred years. I spent in
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  Speaker 1: a state of suspended animation, free from the ravages of
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  Speaker 1: catabolic processes, and without any apparent effect on my physical
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  Speaker 1: or mental faculties. When I began my long sleep, man
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  Speaker 1: had just begun his real conquest of the air in
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  Speaker 1: a sudden series of trans oceanic flights in aeroplanes driven
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  Speaker 1: by internal combustion motors. He had barely begun to speculate
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  Speaker 1: on the possibilities of harnessing sub atomic forces, and had
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  Speaker 1: made no further practical penetration into the field of ethereal
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  Speaker 1: pulsations than the primitive radio and television of that day.
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  Speaker 1: The United States of America was the most powerful nation
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  Speaker 1: in the world, its political, financial, industrial, and scientific influence
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  Speaker 1: being supreme, and in the arts also it was rapidly
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  Speaker 1: climbing into leadership. I awoke to find the America, I knew,
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  Speaker 1: a total wreck. To find Americans, a hunted race in
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  Speaker 1: their own land, hiding in the dense forests that covered
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  Speaker 1: the shattered and level ruins of their once magnificent cities,
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  Speaker 1: desperately preserving and struggling to develop in their secret retreats,
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  Speaker 1: the remnants of their culture and science, and the undying
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  Speaker 1: flame of their sturdy independence. World domination was in the
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  Speaker 1: hands of Mongolians, and the center of world power lay
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  Speaker 1: in Inland China, with Americans one of the few races
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  Speaker 1: of mankind unsubdued, and it must be admitted in fairness
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  Speaker 1: to truth, not worth the trouble of subduing in the
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  Speaker 1: eyes of the Han airlords who ruled North America as
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  Speaker 1: titular tributaries of the most magnificent, for they needed not
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  Speaker 1: the forests in which the Americans lived, nor the resources
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  Speaker 1: of the vast territories these forests covered with the perfection
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  Speaker 1: to which they had to reduce the synthetic production of
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  Speaker 1: necessities and luxuries. Their remarkable development of scientific processes and
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  Speaker 1: mechanical accomplishment of work. They had no economic need for
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  Speaker 1: the forests, and no economic desire for the enslaved labour
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  Speaker 1: of an unruly race. They had all they needed for
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  Speaker 1: their magnificently luxurious and degraded scheme of civilization within the
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  Speaker 1: walls of the fifteen cities of Sparkling Glass. They had
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  Speaker 1: flung skyward on the sites of ancient American centers, into
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  Speaker 1: the bowels of the earth underneath them, and with relatively
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  Speaker 1: small surrounding areas of agriculture. Complete domination of the air
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  Speaker 1: rendered communication between these centers a matter of ease and safety.
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  Speaker 1: Occasional destructive raids on the waste lands were considered all
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  Speaker 1: that was necessary to keep the wild Americans on the
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  Speaker 1: run within the shelter of their forests and prevent their
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  Speaker 1: becoming a menace to the Han civilization. But nearly three
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  Speaker 1: hundred years of easily maintained security, the last century of
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  Speaker 1: which had been nearly sterile in scientific, social and economic progress,
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  Speaker 1: had softened and devitalized the Hans. It had likewise developed
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  Speaker 1: beneath the protecting foliage of the forest. The growth of
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  Speaker 1: a vigorous new American civilization remarkable in the mobility and
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  Speaker 1: flexibility of its organization, in its conquest of almost insuperable obstacles,
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  Speaker 1: in the development and guarding of its industrial and scientific resources,
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  Speaker 1: all in anticipation of that day of hope to which
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  Speaker 1: it had been looking forward for generations, when it would
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  Speaker 1: be strong enough to burst from the green chrysalis of
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  Speaker 1: the forests, soar into the upper air lanes, and destroy
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  Speaker 1: the yellow incubus. At the time I awoke, the day
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  Speaker 1: of hope was almost at head hand. I shall not
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  Speaker 1: attempt to set forth a detailed history of the Second
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  Speaker 1: War of Independence, for that has been recorded already by
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  Speaker 1: better historians than I am. Indeed, I shall confine myself
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  Speaker 1: largely to the part I was fortunate enough to play
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  Speaker 1: in the struggle and in the events leading up to it.
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  Speaker 1: It all resulted from my interest in radioactive gases. During
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  Speaker 1: the latter part of nineteen twenty seven, my company, the
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  Speaker 1: American Radioactive Gas Corporation, had been keeping me busy investigating
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  Speaker 1: reports of unusual phenomena observed in certain abandoned coal mines
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  Speaker 1: near the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. With two assistants and
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  Speaker 1: a complete equipment of scientific instruments. I began the exploration
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  Speaker 1: of a deserted working in a mountainous district where several
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  Speaker 1: weeks before a number of mining engineers had reported traces
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  Speaker 1: of carnotite footnote, a hydrovanadate of uranium and other metals
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  Speaker 1: used as a source of radium compounds and what they
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  Speaker 1: believed to be radioactive gases. Their report was not without foundation,
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  Speaker 1: it was apparent from the outset, for in our examination
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  Speaker 1: of the upper levels of the mine, our instruments indicated
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  Speaker 1: a vigorous radioactivity. On the morning of December fifteenth, we
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  Speaker 1: descended to one of the lowest levels. To our surprise,
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  Speaker 1: we found no water there, obviously it had drained off
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  Speaker 1: through some break in the strata. We noticed, too that
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  Speaker 1: the rock in the side walls of the shaft was soft,
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  Speaker 1: evidently due to the radioactivity, and pieces crumbled under foot
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  Speaker 1: rather easily. We made our way cautiously down the shaft
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  Speaker 1: when suddenly the rotted timbers above us gave way. I
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  Speaker 1: jumped ahead, barely escaping the avalanche of coal and soft rock,
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  Speaker 1: but my companions, who were several paces behind me, were
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  Speaker 1: buried under it and underly met instant death. I was trapped.
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  Speaker 1: Return was impossible with my electric tarch. I explored the
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  Speaker 1: shaft to its end, but could find no other way out.
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  Speaker 1: The air became increasingly difficult to breathe, probably from the
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  Speaker 1: rapid accumulation of the radioactive gas. In a little while,
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  Speaker 1: my senses reeled and I lost consciousness. When I awoke,
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  Speaker 1: there was a cool and refreshing circulation of air in
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  Speaker 1: the shaft. I had no thought that I had been
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  Speaker 1: unconscious more than a few hours, although it seemed that
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  Speaker 1: the radioactive gas had kept me in a state of
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  Speaker 1: suspended animation for something like five hundred years. My awakening,
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  Speaker 1: I figured out later, had been due to some shifting
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  Speaker 1: of the strata, which reopened the shaft and cleared the
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  Speaker 1: atmosphere in the working. This must have been the case,
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  Speaker 1: for I was able to struggle back up the shaft
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  Speaker 1: over a pile of debris and stagger up the long
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  Speaker 1: incline to the mouth of the mine, where an entirely
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  Speaker 1: different world, overgrown with a vast forest and no visible
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  Speaker 1: sign of human habitation, met my eyes. I shall pass
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  Speaker 1: over the days of mental agony that followed in my
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  Speaker 1: attempt to grasp the meaning of it all there were
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  Speaker 1: times when I felt that I was on the verge
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  Speaker 1: of insanity. I roamed the unfamiliar forest like a lost soul.
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  Speaker 1: Had it not been for the necessity of improvising traps
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  Speaker 1: and crude clubs with which to slay my food, I
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  Speaker 1: believe I should have gone mad. Suffice it to say, however,
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  Speaker 1: that I survived this psychic crisis. I shall begin my
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  Speaker 1: narrative proper with my first contact with the Americans of
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  Speaker 1: the year twenty four, nineteen eighty end to forward Chapter one,
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  Speaker 1: Floating Men. My first glimpse of a human being of
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  Speaker 1: the twenty fifth century was obtained through a portion of
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  Speaker 1: woodland where the trees were thinly scattered, with a dense
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  Speaker 1: forest beyond. I had been wandering along aimlessly and hopelessly,
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  Speaker 1: musing over my strange fate when I noticed a figure
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  Speaker 1: that cautiously backed out of the dense growth across the glade.
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  Speaker 1: I was about to call out joyfully, but there was
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  Speaker 1: something furtive about the figure that prevented me. The boy's attention,
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  Speaker 1: for it seemed to be a lad of fifteen or sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: was centered tensely on the heavy growth of trees from
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  Speaker 1: which he had just emerged. He was clad in rather
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  Speaker 1: tight fitting garments entirely of green, and wore a helmet
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  Speaker 1: like cap of the same color high around his waist.
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  Speaker 1: He wore a broad, thick belt which bulked up in
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  Speaker 1: the back across the shoulders into something of the proportions
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  Speaker 1: of a knapsack. As I was taking in these details,
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  Speaker 1: there came a vivid flash and heavy detonation, like that
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  Speaker 1: of a hand grenade. Not far to the left of him.
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  Speaker 1: He threw up an arm and staggered a bit in
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  Speaker 1: a queer gliding way. Then he recovered himself and slipped
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  Speaker 1: cautiously away from the place of the explosion, crouching slightly
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  Speaker 1: and still facing the denser part of the forest. Every
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  Speaker 1: few steps he would raise his arm and point into
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  Speaker 1: the forest with something he held in his hand. Wherever
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  Speaker 1: he pointed, there was a terrific explosion deeper in among
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  Speaker 1: the trees. It came to me then that he was
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  Speaker 1: shooting with some form of pistol, though there was neither
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  Speaker 1: flash nor detonation from the muzzle of the weapon itself.
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  Speaker 1: After firing several times, he seemed to come to a
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  Speaker 1: sudden resolution, and, turning in my general direction, leaped to
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  Speaker 1: my amazement, sailing through the air between the sparsely scattered trees,
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  Speaker 1: and such a jump as I had never in mine
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  Speaker 1: my life seen before. That leap must have carried him
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  Speaker 1: a full fifty feet, although at the height of his
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  Speaker 1: arc he was not more than ten or twelve feet
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  Speaker 1: from the ground. When he alighted, his foot caught in
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  Speaker 1: a projecting root, and he sprawled gently forward. I say gently,
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  Speaker 1: for he did not crash down as I expected him
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  Speaker 1: to do. The only thing I could compare it with
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  Speaker 1: was a slow motion cinema, although I had never seen
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  Speaker 1: one in which horizontal motions were registered at normal speed
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  Speaker 1: and only the vertical movements were slowed down. To my surprise,
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  Speaker 1: I suppose my brain did not function with its normal quickness,
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  Speaker 1: for I gazed at the prone figure for several seconds
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  Speaker 1: before I saw the blood that oozed out from under
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  Speaker 1: the tight green cap. Regaining my power of action, I
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  Speaker 1: dragged him out of sight back of the big tree.
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  Speaker 1: For a few moments, I busied myself in an attempt
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  Speaker 1: to staunch the flow of blood. The wound was not
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  Speaker 1: a deep one. My companion was more dazed than hurt.
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  Speaker 1: But what of the pursuers? I took the weapon from
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  Speaker 1: his grasp and examined it hurriedly. It was not unlike
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  Speaker 1: the automatic pistol to which I was accustomed, except that
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  Speaker 1: it apparently fired with a button instead of a trigger.
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  Speaker 1: I inserted several fresh rounds of ammunition into its magazine
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  Speaker 1: from my companion, spelt as rapidly as I could, for
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  Speaker 1: I soon heard near us the suppressed conversation of his pursuers.
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  Speaker 1: There followed a series of explosions round about us, but
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  Speaker 1: none very close. They evidently had not spotted our hiding
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  Speaker 1: place and were firing at random. I waited tensely, balancing
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  Speaker 1: the gun in my hand to accustom myself to its
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  Speaker 1: weight and probable throw. Then I saw a movement in
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  Speaker 1: the green foliage of a tree not far away, and
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  Speaker 1: the head and face of a man appeared like my companion.
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  Speaker 1: He was clad entirely in green, which made his figure
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  Speaker 1: difficult to distinguish, but his face could be seen clearly.
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  Speaker 1: It was an evil face and had murder in it.
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  Speaker 1: That decided me. I raised the gun and fired. My
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  Speaker 1: aim was bad, for there was no kick in the
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  Speaker 1: gun as I had expected, and I hit the trunk
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  Speaker 1: of the tree several feet below him. It blew him
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  Speaker 1: from his perch like a crumpled bit of paper, and
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  Speaker 1: he floated down to the ground like some limp dead thing,
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  Speaker 1: gently lowered by an invisible hand. The tree, its trunk
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  Speaker 1: blown apart by the explosion, crashed down. There followed another
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  Speaker 1: series of explosions around us. These guns we were using
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  Speaker 1: made no sound in the firing, and my opponents were
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  Speaker 1: evidently as much at sea as to my position as
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  Speaker 1: I was to theirs. So I made no attempt to
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  Speaker 1: reply to their fire, contenting myself with keeping a sharp
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  Speaker 1: lookout in their general direction, and patience had its reward.
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  Speaker 1: Very soon I saw a cautious movement in the top
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  Speaker 1: of another tree. Exposing myself as little as possible, I
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  Speaker 1: aimed carefully at the tree trunk and fired again. A
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  Speaker 1: shriek followed the explosion. I heard the tree crash down,
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  Speaker 1: then a groan. There was silence for a while. Then
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  Speaker 1: I heard a faint noise of boughs swishing. I shot
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  Speaker 1: three times in its direction, pressing the button as rapidly
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  Speaker 1: as I could. Branches crashed down where my shells had exploded,
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  Speaker 1: but there was no body. Then I saw one of them.
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  Speaker 1: He was starting one of those amazing leaps from the
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  Speaker 1: bow of one tree to another about forty feet away.
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  Speaker 1: I threw up my gun impulsively and fired. By now
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  Speaker 1: I had gotten the feel of the weapon and my
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  Speaker 1: aim was good. I hit him. The bullet must have
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  Speaker 1: penetrated his body and exploded. For one moment I saw
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  Speaker 1: him flying through the air, then the explosion, and he
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  Speaker 1: had vanished. He never finished his leap. It was annihilation.
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  Speaker 1: How many more of them there were I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: but this must have been too much for them. They
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  Speaker 1: used a final round of shells on us, all of
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  Speaker 1: which exploded harmlessly, and shortly after I heard them swishing
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  Speaker 1: and crashing away from us through the tree tops. Not
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  Speaker 1: one of them descended to earth. Now I had time
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  Speaker 1: to give some attention to my companion. She was I
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  Speaker 1: found a girl, and not a boy. Despite her bulky appearance,
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  Speaker 1: due to the peculiar belt strapped around her body high
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  Speaker 1: up under her arms, she was very slender and very pretty.
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  Speaker 1: There was a stream not far away from which I
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  Speaker 1: brought water and bathed her face and wound. Apparently, the
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  Speaker 1: mystery of these long leaps, the monkey like ability to
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  Speaker 1: jumped from bow to bow, and the bodies that floated
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  Speaker 1: gently down instead of falling lay in the belt. The
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  Speaker 1: thing was some sort of anti gravity belt that almost
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  Speaker 1: balanced the weight of the wearer, thereby tremendously multiplying the
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  Speaker 1: propulsive power of the leg muscles and the lifting power
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  Speaker 1: of the arms. When the girl came to she regarded
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  Speaker 1: me as curiously as I did her, and promptly began
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  Speaker 1: to quizz me. Her accent and intonation puzzled me a lot,
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  Speaker 1: but nevertheless we were able to understand each other fairly well,
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  Speaker 1: except for certain words and phrases. I explained what had
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  Speaker 1: happened while she lay unconscious, and she thanked me simply
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  Speaker 1: for saving her life. You are a strange exchange, she said,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: eyeing my clothing quizzically. Evidently she found it mirth provoking
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  Speaker 1: by contrast with her own neatly efficient garb. Don't you
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  Speaker 1: understand what I mean by exchange? I mean, let me
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  Speaker 1: see a stranger, somebody from some other gang. What gang
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  Speaker 1: do you belong to? She pronounced it, gan with only
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  Speaker 1: a suspicion of a nasal sound. I laughed, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: a gangster, I said, But she evidently did not understand
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  Speaker 1: this word. I don't belong to any gang, I explained,
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  Speaker 1: and never did douse everybody belonged to a gang nowadays, naturally,
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  Speaker 1: she said, frowning. If you don't belong to a gang,
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  Speaker 1: where and how do you live? Why have you not
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  Speaker 1: found and joined a gang? How do you eat? Where
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: do you get your clothing? I've been eating wild game
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  Speaker 1: for the past two weeks, I explained, and this clothing
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  Speaker 1: I well, I paused, wondering how I could explain that
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: it must be many hundred years old. In the end,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I saw I would have to tell my story as
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  Speaker 1: well I could, piecing it together from my assumptions as
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  Speaker 1: to what had happened. She listened patiently, incredulous at first,
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  Speaker 1: but with more confidence as I went on. When I
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  Speaker 1: had finished, she sat thinking for a long time. That
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  Speaker 1: is hard to believe, she said, But I believe it.
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  Speaker 1: She looked me over with frank interest. Were you married
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  Speaker 1: when you slipped into unconsciousness down in that mine, she
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  Speaker 1: asked me. Suddenly, I assured her I had never married. Well,
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  Speaker 1: that simplifies matters, she continued. You see, if you were
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  Speaker 1: technically classed as a family man, I could take you
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  Speaker 1: back only as an invited exchange, and I, being unmarried
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  Speaker 1: and no relation of yours, couldn't do the inviting end
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: of chapter one, Chapter two, the Forest Gangs. She gave
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  Speaker 1: me a brief outline of the very peculiar your social
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and economic system under which your people lived. At least
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  Speaker 1: it seemed very peculiar from my twentieth century viewpoint. I
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: learned with amazement that exactly four hundred and ninety two
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  Speaker 1: years had passed over my head as highly unconscious in
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  Speaker 1: the mind. Wilma, for that was her name, did not
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  Speaker 1: profess to be a historian, and so could give me
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  Speaker 1: only a sketchy outline of the wars that had been
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  Speaker 1: fought and the manner in which such radical changes had
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  Speaker 1: come about. It seemed that another war had followed the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: First World War, in which nearly all the European nations
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  Speaker 1: had banded together to break the financial and industrial power
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  Speaker 1: of America. They succeeded in their purpose, though they were beaten,
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  Speaker 1: for the war was a terrific one and left America
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  Speaker 1: like themselves, gasping, bleeding, and disorganized, with only the hollow
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  Speaker 1: shell of a victory. This opportunity had been seized by
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  Speaker 1: the Russian Soviets, who had made a coalition with the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese to sweep over all Europe and reduce it to
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  Speaker 1: a state of chaos. America, industrially geared to world production
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  Speaker 1: and the world trade, collapsed economically and there ensued a
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  Speaker 1: long period of stagnation and desperate attempts at economic reconstruction,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: But it was impossible to stave off war with the Mongolians,
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  Speaker 1: whom I now had subjugated the Russians and were aiming
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  Speaker 1: at a world empire. In about twenty one oh nine,
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  Speaker 1: it seems the conflict was finally precipitated. The Mongolians, with
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  Speaker 1: overwhelming fleets of great airships and a science that far
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  Speaker 1: outstripped that of crippled America, swept in over the Pacific
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and Atlantic coasts and down from Canada, annihilating American aircraft
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: armies and cities with their terrific disintegrator rays. These rays
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: were projected from a machine not unlike its searchlight in appearance,
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  Speaker 1: the reflector of which, however, was not material substance, but
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a complicated balance of interacting electronic forces. This resulted in
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a terribly destructive beam. Under its influence, material substance melted
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: into nothingness, that is, into electronic vibrations. It destroyed all
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: then known substances, from air to the most dense metals
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and stone. They settled down to the establishment of what
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: became known as the Han dynasty in America as a
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: sort of province in their world empire. Those were terrible
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: days for the Americans. They were hunted like wild beasts.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Only those survived who finally found refuge in mountains, canyons,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and forests. Government was at an end among them. Anarchy
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: prevailed for several generations. Most would have been eager to
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: submit to the Hans, even if it meant slavery, But
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the Hans did not want them, for they themselves had
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: marvelous machinery and scientific process by which all difficult labor
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: was accomplished. Ultimately, they stopped their active search for and
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: denihilation of the widely scattered groups of now savage Americans,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: so long as they remained hidden in their forests and
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: did not venture near the great cities the Hans had built.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Little attention was paid to them. Then began the building
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of the new American civilization. Families and individuals gathered together
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in clans or gangs for mutual protection. For nearly a century.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: They lived a nomadic and primitive life, moving from place
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: to place in desperate fear of the casual and occasional
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Han air raids and the terrible disintegrator ray. As the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: frequency of these raids decreased, they began to stay permanently
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: in given locations, organizing upon lines which in many respect
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: x were similar to those of the military households of
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the Norman feudal barons, except that instead of gathering togathering castles,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: their defense tactics necessitated a certain scattering of living quarters
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: for families and individuals. They lived virtually in the open
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: air in the forests in green tents, resorting to camouflage
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: tactics that would conceal their presence from air observers. They
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: dug underground factories and laboratories that they might better be
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: hielded from the electrical detectors of the Hans. They tapped
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the radio communication lines of the Hands with crude instruments,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: at first, better ones later on. They bent every effort
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: toward the redevelopment of science. For many generations, they labored
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: as unseen, unknown scholars of the Hans, picking up their
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: knowledge piecemeal as fast as they were able to. During
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the early part of this period, there were many deadly
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: wars fought between the various gangs, occasional courageous but childishly
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: futile attacks upon the Hans, followed by terrible punitive raids.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: But as knowledge progressed, the sense of American brotherhood redeveloped.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Reciprocal arrangements were made among the gangs over constantly increasing areas.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Trey developed to a certain extent, as between one gang
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and another, but the interchange of knowledge became more important
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: than that of goods. As skill in the handling of
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: synthetic processes developed within the gang, an economy was developed
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that was a compromise between individual liberty and military socialism.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: The right of private property was limited practically to personal possessions,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: but private privileges were many and sacredly regarded. Stimulation to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: achievement lay chiefly in the winning of various kinds of
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: leadership and prerogatives, and only in a very limited degree,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the hope of owning anything that might be classified as
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: wealth and nothing that might be classified as resources. Resources
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: of every description for military safety and efficiency belonged as
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: a matter of public interest to the community as a whole.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, through these many generations, the Hans had
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: developed a luxury economy and with it the perfection of
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: gilded vice and degradation. The Americans were regarded as wild
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: men of the woods, and since they neither needed nor
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: wanted the woods or the wild men, they treated them
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: as beasts and were conscious of no human brotherhood with them.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: As time went on and synthetic processes of producing foods
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and materials were further developed, less and less ground was
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: needed by the Hans for the purpose of agriculture, and finally,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: even the working of minds was abandoned when it became
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: cheaper to build up metal from electronic vibrations than to
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: dig them out of the ground. The Han race, devitalized
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: by its vices and luxuries, with machinery and scientific processes
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: to satisfy its everyone with virtually known necessity of labor,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: began to assume a defensive attitude toward the Americans, and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: quite naturally, the Americans regarded the Hans with a deep
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: grim hatred, conscious of individual superiority as men, knowing that
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: latterly they were outstripping the Hans in science and civilization,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: they longed desperately for the day when they should be
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: powerful enough to rise and annihilate the Yellow blight that
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: lay over the continent. At the time of my awakening,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the Gangs were rather loosely organized, but were considering the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: establishment of a special military force whose special business it
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: would be to harry the Hans and bring down their
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: airships whenever possible without causing general alarm among the Mongolians.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: This force was destined to become the nucleus of the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: national force when the day of Retribution arrived, but that, however,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: did not happen for ten years and is another story.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Wilma told me she was a member of the Wyoming Gang,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: which claimed the entire Wyoming Valley as its territory under
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the leadership of Boss Hart. Her mother and father were
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: dead and she was unmarried, so she was not a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: family member. She lived in a little group of tents
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: known as Camp seventeen, under a woman, camp Boss, with
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: seven other girls. Her duties alternated between military or police scouting,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and factory work. For the two week period which would
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: end the next day, she had been on air patrol.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: This did not mean, as I first imagined, that she
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: was flying, but rather that she was on the lookout
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: for Han ships. Over this outlying section of the Wyoming territory,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: and had spent most of her time perched in the
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: tree tops scanning the skies. Had she seen one, she
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: would have fired a drop flare several miles off to
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: one side, which would ignite when it was floating vertically
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: toward the earth, so that the direction or point from
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: which it had been fired might not be guessed by
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the airship and bring a blasting blay of the disintegrator
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: ray in her vicinity. Other members of the air patrol
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: would send up rockets on seeing hers, until finally a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: scout equipped with an ultrophone, which unlike the ancient radio,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: operated on the electronic etherol vibrations, would pass the warning
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: simultaneously to the headquarters of the Wyoming Gang and other
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: communities within a radius of several hundred miles, not to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: mention the few American rocket ships that might be in
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the air and which instantly would duck to cover, either
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: through forest clearings or by flattening down to earth in
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: green fields where their coloring would probably protect them from observation.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: The favorite American method of propultion was known as rocketing.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: The rocket is what I would describe from my twentieth
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: century comprehension of the matter as an extremely powerful gas
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: blast atomically produced through the stimulation of chemical action scientists
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: of today regarded as a childishly simple reaction, but by
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that very virtue most economical and efficient. By tomorrow, she explained,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: she would go back to work in the cloth plant,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: where she would take charge of one of the synthetic
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: processes by which those wonderful substitutes for a woven fabric
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: of wool, cotton, and silk are produced. At the end
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: of another two weeks, he would be back on military
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: duty again, perhaps at the same work, or maybe as
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a contact guard, on duty where the territory of the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Wyomings merged with that of the Delawares, are of the Susquehannas,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: are one of the half dozen other gangs in that
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: section of the country which I knew as Pennsylvania and
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: New York States. Wilma cleared up for me the mystery
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of those flying leaps which she and her assailants had made,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and explained in the following manner how the inertron belt
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: balanced his weight. Jumpers were in common use at the
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: time I awoke, though they were costly for at time
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: inertron had not been produced in very great quantity. They
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: were very useful in the forest. They were belts strapped
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: high under the arms, containing an amount of inertron adjusted
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: to the wearer's weight and purposes. In fact, they made
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: a man weigh as little as he desired, two pounds
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: if he liked. Floaters are a later development of jumpers,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: rocket motors encased in innertron blocks and strapped to the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: back in such a way that the wearer floats when drifting,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: facing slightly downward. With his motor in operation, he moves
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: like a diver head foremost controlling his direction by twisting
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: his body and by the movements of his outstretched arms
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and hands. Ballanced weights locked in the front of the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: belt adjust weight and lift. Some men prefer a few
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: ounces of weight and floating, using a slight motor thrust
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: to overcome this. Others prefer a buoyancy balance of a
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: few ounces. The inadvertent dropping of weight is not a
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: serious matter. The motor thrust always can be used to descend,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: but as an extra precaution in case the motor should
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: fail for any reason. There are built into every belt
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: a number of detachable sections. One or more of which
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: can be discarded to balance off any loss in weight.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: But who were your assailants, I asked, and why were
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: you attacked? Her assailants, she told me, were members of
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: an outlaw gang referred to as bad Bloods, a group
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: which were several generations had been under the domination of
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: consciousness leaders who try to advance the interests of their
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: clan by tactics which their neighbors had come to regard
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: as un fair, and who in consequence had been virtually boycotted.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Their purpose had been to slay her near the Delaware frontier,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: making it appear that the crime had been committed by
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Delaware Scouts, and thus embroil the Delawares and wyaumings and
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: acts of reprisal against each other, or at least cause suspicions. Fortunately,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: they had not succeeded in surprising her, and she had
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: been successful in dodging them for some two hours before
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the shooting began at the moment when I arrived on
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the scene. But we must not stay here talking, Wilma concluded.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I have to take you in, and besides, I must
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: report this attack right away. I think we had better
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: slip over to the other side of the mountain, whoever
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: is on that post. We'll have a phone and I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: can make a direct report, but you'll have to have
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: a belt. Mine alone won't help much against doc combined weights,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and there's little to be gained by jumping heavy. It's
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: almost as bad as walking. After a little search, we
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: found one of the men I had killed, who had
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: floated down among the trees some distance away, and whose
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: belt was not badly damaged. In detaching it from his body.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: It nearly got away from me and shot up in
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the air. Wilma caught it, however, and though it reinforced
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the lift of her own belt so that she had
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: to hook her knee around a branch to hold herself down,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: she saved it. I climbed the tree, and with my
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: weight added to hers, we floated down easily. End of
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Chapter two, Chapters three and four of Armageddon twenty four
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: nineteen a d. By Philip Francis Nolan. This LibriVox recording
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Chapter three Life in the
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: twenty fifth century. We were delayed in starting for quite
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: a while, since I had to acquire a few crude
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: ideas about the technique of using these belts. I had
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: been sitting down, for instance, with the belts trapped about me,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: enjoying an ease similar to that of a comfortable arm chair.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: When I stood up, with a natural exertion of muscular effort,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I shot ten feet into the air with a wild,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: instinctive thrashing of arms and legs that amused Wilma greatly.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: But after some practice I began to get the trick
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: of gaging muscular effort to a minimum of vertical and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: maximum of horizontal. The correct form I found was then
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a measure comparable to that of skating. I found also
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: that in forest work, particularly the arms and hands could
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: be used to great advantage in swinging along from branch
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: to branch, so prolonging leaps almost indefinitely at times. In
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: going up the side of the mountain, I found that
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: my twentieth century muscles did have an advantage in spite
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: of lack of sels skill with the belt. And since
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the slopes were very sharp and most of our leaps
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: were upward, I could have distanced Wilma easily, But when
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: we crossed the ridge and descended, she outstripped me with
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: her superior technique, choosing the steepest slopes, she would crouch
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: in the top of a tree and propel herself outward,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: literally diving, until with the loss of horizontal momentum, she
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: would assume a more upright position and float downward. In
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: this manner, she would sometimes cover as much as a
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: quarter of a mile in a single leap, while I
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: leaped and scrambled clumsily behind, thoroughly enjoying the novel sensation.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Halfway down the mountain, we saw another green clad figure
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: leap out above the tree tops toward us. The three
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: of us perched on an outcropping of rock, from which
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: a view of many miles around could be had, while
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Wilma hastily explained her adventure and my presence to her
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: fellow guard, whose name was Allan. I learned later that
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: this was the modern form of Helen. You want to
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: report my phone, then, don't you. Allan took a compact
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: packet about six inches square from a holster attached to
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: her belt and handed it to Wilma. So far as
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I could see, it had no special receiver for the ear.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Wilma merely threw back a lid as though she were
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: opening a book, and began to talk. The voice that
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: came back from the machine was as audible as her own.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: She was queried closely as to the attack upon her,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and at considerable Anthis to myself, and I could tell
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: from the tone of that voice that its owner was
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: not prepared to take me at my face value as
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: readily as Wilma had. For that matter, neither was the
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: other girl. I could realize it from these suspicious glances
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: she threw my way when she thought my attention was elsewhere,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and the manner in which her hand hovered constantly near
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: her gun holster. Wilma was ordered to bring me in
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: at once, and informed that another scout would take her
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: place on the other side of the mountain. So she
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: closed down the lid of the phone and handed it
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: back to Allan, who seemed relieved to see us departing
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: over the tree tops in the direction of the camps.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: We had covered perhaps ten miles in what seemed to
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: me a surprisingly easy fashion. When Wilma explained that from
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: here on we would have to keep to the ground.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: We were nearing the camps, she said, and there was
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: always the possibility that some small Han scout ship, invisible
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: high in the sky, might catch sight of us through
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: a projectoscope and thus find the general location of the camps.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Wilma took me to the Scout office, which proved to
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: be a small building of irregular shape, conforming to the
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: trees around it, and substantially constructed of green sheet like material.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: I was received by the assistant Scout Boss, who reported
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: my arrival at once to the Historical office and to officials.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: He called the Psycho Boss and the History Boss, who
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: came in a few minutes later. The attitude of all
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: three men was at first polite but skeptical, and Wilma's
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: ardent advocacy seemed to amuse them secretly. For the next
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: two hours, I talked, explained, and answered questions. I had
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to explain in detail the manner of my life in
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century, and my understanding of customs, habits, business
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: science and the history of that period, and about developments
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: in the centuries that had elapsed. Had I been in
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the classroom, I would have come through the examination with
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a very poor mark, for I was unable to give
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: any answer to fully half of their questions. But before
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: long I realized that the majority of these questions were
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: designed as traps objects of whose purpose I knew nothing
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: were casually handed to me, and I was watched keenly
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: as I handled them. In the end, I could see
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: both amazement and belief begin to show in the faces
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: of my inquisitors. And at last the historical and psycho
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: bosses agreed openly that they could find no flaw in
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: my story or reactions, and that, unbelievable as it seemed,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: my story must be accepted as genuine. They took me
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: at once to Big Boss Heart. He was a portly
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: man with a poker face. He would probably have been
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the successful politician even in the twentieth century. They gave
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: him a brief outline of my story and a report
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: of their examination of me. He made no comment other
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: than to nod his acceptance of it. Then he turned
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to me. How does it feel, he asked? Do we
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: look funny to you? A bit strange? I admitted, but
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I'm beginning to lose that dazed feeling, though I can
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: see I have an awful lot to learn. Maybe we
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: can learn some things from you, too, he said. So
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: you fought in the First World War? Do you know
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: we have very little left in the way of records
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: of the details of that war, that is, the precise
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: conditions under which it was fought and the tactics employed.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: We forgot many things during the Han Terror. And well,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: I think you might have a lot of ideas worth
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: thinking over for our raidmasters. By the way, now that
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: you're here and can't go back to your own centuries,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: so to speak, what do you want to do? You're
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: welcome to become one of us, or perhaps you'd just
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: like to visit with us for a while and then
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: look around among the other gangs. Maybe you like some
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: of the others better, and don't make up your mind now.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: We'll put you down as an exchange for a while.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Let's see you and Bill Hearn ought to get along
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: well together. He's camp boss of number thirty four. When
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: he isn't acting as raid boss or scout boss, there
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: is a vacancy in his camp. Stay with him and
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: think things over as long as you want to. As
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: soon as you make up your mind to anything, let
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: me know. We all shook hands, for that was one
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: custom that had not died out in five hundred years,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: and I set out with Bill Hearn. Bill, like all
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: the others, was clad and green. He was a big man,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: that is, he was about my own height five feet eleven.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: This was considerably above the average now, for the race
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: had lost something in stature. It seemed through the vicissitudes
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: of five centuries. Most of the women were a bit
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: below five feet, and the men only a trifle above
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: this height. For a period of two weeks, Bill was
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: to confine himself to camp duties, so I had a
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: good chance to familiarize myself with the community life. It
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: was not easy, there were so many marvels to absorb.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: I never ceased to wonder at the strange combination of
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: rustics social life and feverish industrial activity. At least it
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: was strange to me, for in my experience, industrial development
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: meant crowded cities, tenements, paved streets, profusion of vehicles, noise,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: hurrying men and women with strained or dull faces, vast structures,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and ornate public works. Here, however, was rustic simplicity, apparently
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: isolated families and groups living in the heart of the forest,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: with a quarter of a mile or more between households,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: a total absence of crowds, no means of conveyance other
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: than the belts called jumpers, almost constantly worn by everybody,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: and an occasional rocket ship used only for longer journeys,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and underground plants or factories that were, to my mind
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: more like laboratories or engine rooms. Many of them were
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: excavations as deep as mines, with well finished, lighted, and
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: comfortable interiors. These people were a a camouflage against air observation.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Not only would their activity have been unsuspected by an
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: airship passing over the center of the community, but even
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: by an enemy who might happen to drop through the
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: screen of the upper branches to the floor of the forest.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: The camps or household structures were all irregular in shape
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: and of colors that blended with the great trees among
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: which they were hidden. There were seven hundred twenty four
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: dwellings or camps among the wyomings, located within an area
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: of about fifteen square miles. The total population was eight thousand,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: six eighty eight, every man, woman, and child, whether member
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: or exchange, being listed. The plants were widely scattered through
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the territory. Also, nowhere was anything like congestion permitted. So
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: far as possible, the families and individuals were assigned to
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: living quarters not too far from the plants or offices
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: in which their work lay. All able bodied men and
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: women alternated in two week periods between military and industrial service,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: except those who were needed for household work. Since working
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: conditions in the plants and offices were ideal, and everybody
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: thus had plenty of healthy outdoor activity. In addition, the
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: population was sturdy and active. Laziness was regarded as nearly
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the greatest of social offenses. Hard work and general merit
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: were variously rewarded with extra privileges, advancement to positions of authority,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: and with various items of personal equipment for convenience and luxury.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: In leisure moments, I got great enjoyment from sitting outside
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: the dwelling in which I was quartered with Bill Hearn
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and ten other men, watching the occasional passers by. As
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: with leisurely but swift movements, they swung up and down
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: the forest trail, rising from the ground in long, almost
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: horizontal leaps, occasionally swinging from one convenient branch overhead to
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: another before sliding back to the ground farther. On normal
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: traveling pace where these trails were straight enough, was about
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: twenty miles an hour. Such things as automobiles and railroad trains.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: The memory of them, not more than a month old,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: in my mind, seemed inexpressibly silly and futile compared with
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: such convenience as these belts or jumpers offered. Bill suggested
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that I wander around for several days, from plant to plant,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: to observe and study what I could. The entire community
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: had been apprized of my coming. My rating as an
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: exchange reached every building and post in the community by
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: means of ultronic broadcast. Everywhere I was welcomed in an
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: interested and helpful spirit. I visited the plants where ultronic
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: vibrations were isolated from the ether and through slow processes
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: built up into sub electronic, electronic and atomic forms into
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the two great synthetic elements ultron and inert tron. I
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: learned something superficially at least of the processes of combined
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: chemical and mechanical action through which were produced the various
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: forms of synthetic cloth. I watched the manufacture of the
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: machines which were used at locations of construction to produce
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the various forms of building materials. But I was particularly
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: interested in the munition's plants and the rocket ship shops
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: ultron is a solid of great molecular density and moderate elasticity,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: which has the property of being one hundred percent conductive
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: to those pulsations known as light, electricity and heat. Since
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: it is completely permeable to light vibrations, it is therefore
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: absolutely invisible and none reflective. Its magnetic response is almost
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: but not quite one hundred percent. Also, it is therefore
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: very heavy under normal conditions, but extremely respond to the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: repellor or anti gravity rays, such as the Hans use
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: as legs for their airships. Inert Tron is the second
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: great triumph of American research and experimentation with ultronic forces.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: It was developed just a few years before my awakening
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: in the Abandoned Mine. It is a synthetic element built
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: up through a complicated heterodyning of ultronic pulsations from infra
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: balanced sub ionic forms. It is completely inert to both
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: electric and magnetic forces in all the orders above the ultronic,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: that is to say, the sub electronic, the electronic, the atomic,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: and the molecular. In consequence, it has a number of
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: amazing and valuable properties. One of these is the total
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: lack of weight. Another is a total lack of heat.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: It has no molecular vibration whatever it reflects one hundred
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: percent of the heat and light impact changing upon it.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: It does not feel cold to the touch, of course,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: since it will not absorb the heat of the hand.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: It is a solid, very dense in molecular structure. Despite
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: its lack of weight, of great strength and considerable elasticity.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: It is a perfect shield against the disintegrator rays. Rocket
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: guns are very simple contrivances so far as the mechanism
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: of launching the bullet is concerned. They are simple light
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: tubes closed at the rear end with a trigger actuated
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: pin for piercing the thick skin at the base of
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the cartridge. This piercing of the skin starts the chemical
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and atomic reaction. The entire cartridge leaves the tube under
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: its own power at a very easy initial velocity, just
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: enough to ensure accuracy of aim, so the tube does
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: not have to be of heavy construction. The bullet increases
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: in velocity as it goes. It may be solid or explosive.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: It may explode on contact, or on time, or a
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: combination of these two. Bill and I talked mostly of weapons,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: military tactics, and strategy. Strangely enough, he had no idea whatever,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: of the possibilities of the barrage, though the tremendous effect
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: of a curtain of fire with such high explosive projectiles
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: as these modern rocket guns used was obvious to me.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: But the barrage idea, it seemed, had been lost to
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: track of completely in the air wars that followed the
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: First World War, and in the peculiar guerrilla tactics developed
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: by Americans in the later period of operations from the
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: ground against Han airships, and in the gang wars, which
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: until a few generations ago I learned had been almost continuous.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I wonder, said Bill one day, if we couldn't work
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: up some form of barrage to spring on the bad Bloods.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: The Big Boss told me today that he's been in
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: communication with the other gangs and all are agreed that
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the Bad Bloods it might as well be wiped out
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: for good. That attempt on Will Madiring's life, and their
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: evident desire to make trouble among the gangs has start
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: up every community east of the Alleghanies. The Boss says
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: that none of the others will object if we go
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: after them, So I imagine that before long we will now
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: show me again how you worked that business in the
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Argonne forest, the conditions ought to be pretty much the same.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I went over it with him in detail, and gradually
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: we worked out a modified plan that would be better
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: adapted to our more powerful weapons and the use of jumpers.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: It will be easy, Bill Exalted, I'll slide down and
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: talk it over with the boss tomorrow. During the first
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: two weeks of my stay with the Wyomings, Willma Deering
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and I saw a great deal of each other. I
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: naturally felt a little closer friendship with her in view
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: of the fact that she was the first human being
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: I saw after waking from my long sleep, her appreciation
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: of my saving her life though I could not have
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: done otherwise than I did in that manner, and most
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: of all, my own appreciation of the fact that she
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: had not found it as difficult as the others to
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: believe my story operated in the same direction. I could
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: easily imagine my story must have sounded incredible. It was
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: natural enough, too that she should feel an unusual interest
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: in me. In the first place, I was her personal discovery.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: In the second, she was a girl of studious and
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: reflective turn of mind. She never got tired of my
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: stories and descriptions of the twentieth century. The others of
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the community, however, seemed to find our friendship a bit amusing.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: It seemed that Wilma had a reputation for being cold
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: hearted toward the opposite sex, and so others, not being
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: able to appreciate some of her fine qualities as I did,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: misinterpreted her attitude, much to their own delight. Wilbill and I, however,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: ignored this as much as we could. End of chapter three,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Chapter four, a Han air raid. There was a girl
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: in Wilma's camp named Gerdy Man, with whom Bill Hearn
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: was desperately in love, and the four of us used
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: to go around a lot together. Gerdy was a distinct type.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Whereas Wilma had the usual dark brown hair and hazel
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: eyes that marked nearly every member of the community, Gerdy
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: had red hair, blue eyes, and very fair skin. She
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: has been dead many years now, but I remember her
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: vividly because she was a throwback in physical appearance to
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: a certain twentieth century type, which I have found very
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: rare among modern Americans. Also because the four of us
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: were engaged as now in a discussion on this very point.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: When I obtained my first experience of a Han air raid.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: We were sitting high on the side of a hill,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: overlooking the valley that teemed with human activity invisible beneath
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: its blankete of foliage. The other three who knew of
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: the Irish, but vaguely and indefinitely, as a race on
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: the other side of the globe, which, like ourselves, had
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: succeeded in maintaining a precarious and fugitive existence and rebellion
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: against the Mongolian domination of the earth. We're listening with
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: interest to my theory that Gerty's ancestors of several hundred
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: years ago must have been Irish. I explained that Gerty
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: was an Irish type, evidently a throwback, and that her
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: surname might well have been McMahon or McMahon, and still
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: more anciently Macmahonagam. They were interested too in my surmise
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: that Gerdy was the same name as that which had
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: been Gerty or Gertrude in the twentieth century. In the
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: middle of our discussions, we were startled by an alarm
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: rocket that burst high in the air far to the north,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: spreading a pall of red smoke that drifted like a cloud.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: He was followed by others at scattered points in the
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: northern sky a han raid. Bill exclaimed in amazement, the
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: first in seven years. Maybe it's just one of their ships.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Of course I ventured, no, said Wilma in some agitation.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: That would be green rockets. Red means only one thing, Tony.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: They're sweeping the countryside with their dis beams. Can you
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: see anything? Bill? We had better get under cover, Gerty
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: said nervously. The four of us are bunched here in
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: the open. For all we know. They may be twelve
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: miles up, out of sight, yet looking at us with
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: a PROJECTO. Bill had been sweeping the horizon hastily with
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: his glass, but apparently it saw nothing. We had better
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: scatter at that, he said. Finally, it's orders, you know.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: See He pointed to the valley here and there a
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: tiny human figure shot for a moment above the foliage
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: of the tree tops. That's bad, Wilma commented, as she
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: counted the jumpers. No less than fifteen people visible at all,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: clearly radiating from a central point. Do they want to
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: give away our location? The standard orders covering air raids
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: were that the population was to scatter individually. There should
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: be no grouping or even pairing, in view of the
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: destructiveness of the disintegrated raid. Experience of generations had proved
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: that if this were done and everybody remained hidden beneath
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: the tree screens, the Hans would have to sweep mile
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: after mile of territory foot by foot to catch more
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: than a small percentage of the community. Gerdi, however, refused
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: to leave. Bill and Wilma developed an equal obstinacy against
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: quitting my side. I was inexperienced at this sort of thing,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: she explained, quite ignoring the fact that she was too.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: She was only thirteen or fourteen years old at the
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: time of the last air raid. However, since I could
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: not argue her out of it, we leaped together about
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: a quarter of a mile to the right place, while
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: Bill and Gerdi disappeared down the hillside among the trees.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Wilma and I both wanted a point of vantage from
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: which we might overlook the valley and the sky to
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: the north, and we found it near the top of
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: the ridge, where protected from visibility by thick branches, we
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: could look out between the tree trunks and get a
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: good view of the valley. No more rockets went up.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Except for a few of those warning red clouds drifting
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: hazily in the blue sky, there was no visible indication
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: of man's past or present existence anywhere in the sky
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: or on the ground. Then Wilma gripped my arm and pointed.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: I saw it away off in the distance, looking like
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: a phantom dirigible airship in its coat of low visibility paint,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: a bare specter seven thousand feet up, Wilma whispered, Crouching
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: close to me watch The ship was about the same
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: shape as the great dirigibles of the twentieth century that
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I had seen, but without these suspended control car engines, propellers, rudders,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: or elevating planes. As it loomed rapidly nearer, I saw
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: that it was wider and somewhat flatter than I had supposed.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Now I could see the repeller rays that held the
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: ship aloft, like searchlight beams, faintly visible in the bright daylight,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: and still faintly visible to the human eye at night. Actually,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: I had been informed by my instructors that there were
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: two rays, the visible one generated by the ship's apparatus
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: and directed toward the ground as a beam of carrier
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: impulses and the true repellor ray, the complement of the other,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: in one sense, induced by the action of the carrier
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: and reacting in a concentrating upward direction from the mass
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: of the Earth, becoming successively electronic, atomic, and finally molecular
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: in its nature according to various ratios of distance between
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Earth mass and carrier source. Until in the last analysis
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: the ship its heelf actually is supported on an upward
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: thrusting column of air, much like a ball continuously supported
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: on a fountain jet. The raidar neared with incredible speed.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Its rays were both slanted astern at a sharp angle,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: so that it slid forward with tremendous momentum. The ship
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: was operating two disintegrator rays, though only in a casual
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: intermittent fashion, but whenever they flashed downward with blinding brilliancy,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: forest rocks and ground melted instantaneously into nothing where they
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: played upon them. When later I inspected these scars left
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: by these rays, I found them some five feet deep
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: and thirty feet wide, the exposed surfaces being lava like
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: in texture, but of a pale iridescent greenish hue. No
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: systematic use of the rays was made by the ship, however,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: until it reached a point over the center of the valley,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: the center of the communities' activities. There it came to
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: a sudden stop by shooting its repellor beams sharply forward
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: and easing them back gradually to a vertical, holding the
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: ship floating and motionless. Then the work of destruction began systematically.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Back and forth traveled the destroying rays, plowing parallel furrows
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: from hillside to hillside. We gasped in dismay, Wilba and I,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: as time after time we saw it plow through sections
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: where we knew camps or plants were located. This is awful,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: she moaned, a terrified question in her eyes. How could
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: they know the location so exactly, Tony, did you see?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: They were never in doubt. They stalled at a predetermined spot,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: and it was exactly the right spot. We did not
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: talk of what might happen if the rays were turned
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: in our direction. We both knew we would simply disintegrate
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: in a split second into mere scattered electronic vibrations. Strangely enough,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: it was this self reliant girl of the twenty fifth
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: century who clung to me, a relatively primitive man of
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: the twentieth less familiar than she. With the thought of
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: this terrifying possibility for moral support, we knew that many
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: of our companions must have been whisked into absolute non
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: existence before our eyes in these few moments. The whole
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: thing paralyzed us into mental and physical immobility. For I
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: do not know how long. It couldn't have been long, however,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: for the rays had not plowed more than thirty of
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: their twenty foot furrows or so across the valley. When
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: I regained control of myself and brought Wilma to herself
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: by shaking her roughly, How far will this rocket gun shoot, Wilma,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: I demanded, drawing my pistol. It depends on your rocket, Tony.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: It will take even the longest range rocket. But you
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: could shoot more accurately from a longer tube. But why
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: you couldn't penetrate the shell of that ship with rocket force,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: even if you could reach it. I fumbled clumsily with
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: my rocket pouch, for I was excited. I had an idea.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: I wanted to try a hunch. I called it forgetting
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: that Wilma could not understand my ancient slang. But finally,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: with her help, I selected the longest range explosive rocket
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: in my pouch and fitted it to my pistol. It
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: won't carry seven thousand feet Tony. Wilma objected, but I
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: took aim carefully. It was another thought that I had
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: in my mind. The supporting repellor ray, I had been told,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: became molecular in character at what was called a logarithmic
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: level of five. Below that it was a purely electronic
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: flow or pulsation between the source of the carrier and
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the average mass of the Earth. Below that level, if
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: I could project my ex fols of bullet into the
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: stream where it began to carry a material substance upward,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: might it not rise with the air column, gathering speed
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: and hitting the ship with enough impact to carry it
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: through the shell. It was worth trying, anyhow. Wilma became
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: greatly excited too when she grasped the nature of my inspiration. Feverishly,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: I looked around for some formation of branches against which
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I could rest the pistol, for I had to aim
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: most carefully. At last I found one. Patiently, I sighted
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: on the hulk of the ship far above us, aiming
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: at the far side of it, at such an angle
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: as wood as far as I could estimate bring my
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: bullet path through the forward repellor beam. At last, the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: sights wavered across the point I sought, and I pressed
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: the button gently. For a moment, we gazed breathlessly. Suddenly
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: the ship swung bow down as on a pivot, and
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: swayed like a pendulum. Wilma screamed in her excitement, Oh, Tony,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: you hit it, You hit it, Do it again, bring
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: it down. We had only one more rocket of extreme
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: range between us, and we dropped it three times in
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: our excitement, and inserting it in my gun, then forcing
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: myself to be calm by sheer willpower, while Wilma stuffed
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: her a little fist into her mouth to keep from shrieking.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I cited it carefully again and fired in a flash.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Wilma had grasped the hope that this discovery of mine
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: might lead to the end of the Han domination. The
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: elapsed time of the rocket's invisible flight seemed an age.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Then we saw the ship falling. It seemed to plunge lazily,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: but actually it fell with terrific acceleration, turning in and
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: over end It's disintegrated to raise out of control. Describing
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: vast wild arcs, and once cutting a gash through the
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: forest less than two hundred feet from where we stood.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: The crash with which the heavy craft hit the ground
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: reverberated from the hills the momentum of eighteen or twenty
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: thousand tons and a sheer drop of seven thousand feet
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: a mangled mass of metal, it buried itself in the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: ground with poetic justice, in the middle of the smoking,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: semi molten field of destruction. It had been so deliberately
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: plowing the silence. The vacuity of the landscape was oppressive
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: as the last echoes died away. Then far down the hillside,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: a single figure leaped exultantly above the foliage screen, and
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: in the distance another and another. In a moment, the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: sky was punctured by signal rockets, one after another. The
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: little red puffs became drifting clouds, scatter, scatter, Wilma exclaimed.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: In half an hour, there'll be an entire Han fleet
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: here from nu Yok, and another from Buffalo. They'll get
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: this instantly on their recordographs and location finders. They'll blast
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: the whole valley in the country for miles beyond. Come Tony.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: There's no time for the gang to rally see the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: signals we got to jump. Oh, I'm so proud of you.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: Over the ridge we went in long leaps toward the east,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: the country of the Delawares. From time to time signal
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: rockets puffed in the sky. Most of them were the
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: red warnings the scatter signals, but from certain of the others,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: which Wilma identified as wyoming rockets, she gathered that whoever
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: was in command we did not know whether the boss
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: was alive or not, was ordering an ultimate rally toward
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: the south, and so we changed our course. It was
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: a great pity. I thought that the Klan had not
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: been equipped throughout its membership with ultrophones, but Wilma explained
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: to me that not enough of these had been built
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: for distribution as yet, although general distribution had been contemplated
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: within a couple of months. We traveled far before nightfall
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: overtook us, trying only to put as much distance as
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: possible between ourselves and the valley. When gathering dusk made
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: jumping too dangerous, we sought a comfortable spot beneath the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: trees and consumed part of our emergency rations. It was
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: the first time I had tasted this stuff, A highly
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: nutritious synthetic substance called concentro, which was, however, a bit
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: bitter and unpalatable, but as only a mouthful or so
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: was needed, it did not matter. Neither of us had
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: a cloak, but we were both thoroughly tired and happy,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: so we curled up together for warmth. I remember Wilma
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: making some sleepy remark about our mating as she cuddled up,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: as though the matter were all settled, and my surprise
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: at my own instant acceptance of the idea, for I
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: had not consciously thought of her that way before. But
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: we both fell asleep at once in the morning, we
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: found the little time for love making. The practical problem
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: facing us was too great. Wilma felt that the Wyoming
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: plan must be to rally in the Susquehanna territory, but
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: she had her doubts about the wisdom of this plan.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: In my elation at my success in bringing down the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Han Ship and my newly found interest in my charming companion,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: who was, from my viewpoint of another century at once
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: more highly civilized and yet more primitive than myself, I
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: had forgotten the ominous fact that the Han ship I
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: had destroyed must have known the exact location of the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Wyoming works. This meant, to Wilma's logical mind, either that
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: the Han had perfected new instruments as yet unknown to us,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: or that somewhere among the Wyomings or some other nearby gang,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: there were traitors so degraded as to commit that unthinkable
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: act of trafficking and information with the Hans. In neither contingency,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: she argued, other Han raids would follow, and since the
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: Susquehannas had a highly developed organization and more than usually
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: productive plants, the next raid might be expected to strike them.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: But at any rate, it was clearly our business to
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: get in touch with the other fugitive as quickly as possible. So,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: in spite of muscles that were sore from the excessive
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: leaping of the day before, we continued on our way.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: We traveled for only a couple of hours when we
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: saw a multi colored rocket in the sky some ten
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: miles ahead of us. Bear to the left, Tony Wilma said,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: and listen for the whistle. Why, I asked, haven't they
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: given you the rocket code yet? She replied, that's what
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: the green followed by yellow and purple means to concentrate
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: five miles east of the rocket position. You know, the
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: rocket position itself might draw a play of disintegrator beams.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: It did not take us long to reach the neighborhood
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: of the indicated rallying, though we were now traveling beneath
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: the trees, with but an occasional leap to a top
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: branch to see if any more rocket smoke was floating above.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: And soon we heard a distant whistle. We found about
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: half the gang already there in a spot where the
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: trees met high above a little stream. The Big Boss
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: and raid bosses were busy reorganizing the remnants. We reported
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: the boss hart at once. He was silent but interested
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: when he heard our story. You two stick close to me,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: he said, adding grimly, I'm going back to the valley
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: at once with a hundred picked men, and I'll need you.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: End of chapter four, chapters five and six of Armageddon
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: twenty four nineteen AD by Philip Francis Noland. This LibriVox
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Chapter five, setting the trap.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: Inside of fifteen minutes we were on our way. A
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: certain amount of caution was sacrificed for the sake of speed,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and the men leaped away, either across the forest top
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: or over open spaces of ground, but concentration was forbidden.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: The Big Boss named the spot on the hillside as
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: the rallying point. We'll have to take a chance on
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: being seen, as long as we don't group, he declared,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: at least until within five miles of the rallying spot.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: From then on, I want every man to disappear from
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: sight into travel under cover, and keep your ultraphones open
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: and turned to ten four six seven. Wilma and I
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: had received our battle equipment from the gear Boss. It
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: consisted of a long gun, a handgun, and a special
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: case of ammunition constructed of inerttron, which made the load
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: weigh but a few ounces, and a short sword. This
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: gear we strapped over each other's shoulders on top of
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: our jumping belts. In addition, we each received an ultrophone
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: and a light inertron like it rolled into a cylinder
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: about six inches long by two or three in diameter.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: This fabric was exceedingly thin and light, but it had
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: considerable warmth because of the mixture of inertron in its composition.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: This looks like business, Wilma remarked to me. With sparkling eyes,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: and I might mention a curious thing here. The word
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: business had survived from the twentieth century American vocabulary, but
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: not with any meaning of industry or trade, for such
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: things being purely community activities were spoken of as work
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: and clearing. Business simply meant fighting, and that was all.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Did you bring all this equipment from the valley, I
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: asked the gear boss. No, he said, there was no
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: time to gather anything. All this stuff we cleared from
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: these Susquehannas a few hours ago. I was with the
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: boss on the way down and he had me jump
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: on ahead and arrange it. But you two had better
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: be moving. He's beckoning you now. Hart was about to
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: call us on our phones when we looked up. As
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: soon as we did so, he leaped away, waiving us
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: to follow closely. He was a powerful man, and he
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: darted ahead in long, swift, low leaps on the banks
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: of the stream, which followed a fairly straight course at
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: this point. By extending ourselves, however, Wilma and I were
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: able to catch up with him as we gradually synchronized
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: our leaps with his. He outlined to us between the
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: grunts that accompanied each leap his plan of action. We
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: have to start the big business, UGH, sooner or later,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: he said, And if the Hans have found any way
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: of locating our positions, UGH, it's time to start now.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: Although the Council of Bosses UGH had intended waiting a
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: few years until enough rocket ships had been built. But
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: no matter what the sacrifice, we can't afford to let
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: them get us on the run. We'll set a trap
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: for the yellow devils in the valley if they come
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: back for their wreckage, and if they don't, we'll go
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: rocketing for some of their liners on the New York
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Cleveland sicala course. We can use that idea of yours
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: of shooting up the repellor beams. Want you to give
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: us a demonstration. With further admonition to follow him closely,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: he increased his pace, and Wilma and I were taxed
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: to our utmost to keep up with him. It was
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: only in ascending the slopes that my tougher muscles overbalanced
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: his greater skill, and I was able to set the
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: pace for him as I had for Wilma. We slept
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: in greater comfort that night under our inertron blankets, and
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: were off with the dawn. Leaping cautiously to the top
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: of the ridge, overlooking the valley which Wilma and I
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: had left. The boss scanned the sky with his ultroscope, patiently,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: taking some fifteen minutes to the task, and then swung
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: his phone into use, calling the roll and giving them
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: in their instructions. His first order was for us all
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: to slip our ear and chest discs into permanent position.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: These ultrophones were quite different from the one used by
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: Wilma's companion's scout the day I saved her from the
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: vicious attack of the bandit gang. That one was contained
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: entirely in a small pocket case. These with which we
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: were now equipped consisted of a pair of ear discs,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: each a separate and self contained receiving set. They slipped
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: into little pockets over our ears in the fabric helmets
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: we wore and shut out virtually all extraneous sounds. The
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: chest discs were likewise self contained, sending sets strapped to
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: the chest a few inches below the neck and actuated
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: by the vibrations from the vocal cores through the body tissues.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: The total range of these sets was about eighteen miles.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: Reception was remarkably clear, quite free from the static that
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: so marked the twentieth century radios, and of a strength
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: in direct proportion to the distance of the speaker. The
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: boss's set was triple powered, so that his orders would
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: cut in on any local conversations which were indulged in, however,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: with great restraint, and only for the purpose of maintaining contacts.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: I marveled at the efficiency of this modern method of
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: battle communication, in contrast to the clumsy signaling devices of
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: more ancient times, and also at other military contrasts in
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: which the twentieth and twenty fifth century methods were the
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: reverse of each other in efficiency. These modern Americans, for instance,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: knew little of hand to hand fighting, and nothing thing
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: naturally of trench warfare of barrages. They were quite ignorant,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: although they possessed weapons of terrific power, and until my
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: recent flash of inspiration, no one among them apparently had
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: ever thought of the scheme of shooting a rocket into
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: a repellor beam and letting the beam itself hurl it
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: upward into the most vital part of the han ship.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: Hart patiently placed his men, first giving his instructions to
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: the camp masters, and then remaining silent while they placed
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: the individuals. In the end, the hundred men were ringed
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: about the valley on the hill sides and tops, each
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: in a position from which he had a good view
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: of the wreckage of the Han ship. But not a
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: man had come in view so far as I could see.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: In the whole process, the boss explained to me that
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: it was his idea that he, Wilma and I should
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: investigate the wreck. If Han ships should appear in the sky,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: we would leap for the hill sides. I suggested to
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: him to have the men set up their long range
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: guns trained on an imaginary circle surrounding the wreck. He
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: busied himself with this after the three of us leaped
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: down to the Han ship, serving as the target himself
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: while he called on the men individually to aim their
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: pieces and lock them in position. In the meantime, Wilma
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: and I climbed into the wreckage but did not find much.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Practically all the instruments and machinery had been twisted out
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: of all recognizable shape or utterly destroyed by the ship's
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: disintegrator rays, which apparently had continued to operate in the
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: midst of its warped remains for some moments after the crash.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: It was unpleasant work searching the mangled bodies of the crew,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: but it had to be done. The Han clothing, I observed,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: was quite different from that of the Americans, and in
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: many respects more like the garb to which I had
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: been accustomed in the earlier part of my life. It
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: was made of synthetic fibers, silks, loose and comfortable trousers
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: of knee length, and sleeveless shirts. No protection except that
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: against drafts, was needed. Will may explain to me, for
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: the Han cities were entirely enclosed with splendid arrangements for
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: ventilation and heating. These arrangements, of course, were equally adequate
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: in their airships. The Han indeed had quite a distaste
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: for unshaded daylight, since their lighting apparatus diffused a controlled
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: amount of violet rays, making the unmodified sunlight unnecessary for
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: health and undesirable for comfort. Since the Hans did not
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: have the secret of dinertron, none of them wore anti
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: gravity belts. Yet, in spite of the fact that they
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: had to bear their own full weights at all times,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: they were physically far inferior to the Americans, for they
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: lived lives of degenerate physical inertia, having machinery of every
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: description for the performance of all labor, and ca convenient
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: conveyances for any movement of more than a few steps.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: Even from the twisted wreckage of this ship, I could
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: see that seats, chairs, and couches played an extremely important
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: part in their scheme of existence. But none of the
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: bodies were overweight. They seemed to have been the bodies
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: of men in good health, but muscularly much underdeveloped. Wilma
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: explained to me that they had mastered the science of
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: gland control and of course dietetics, to the point where
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: men and women among them not uncommonly reached the age
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: of one hundred years with arteries and general health and
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: splendid condition. I did not have time to study the
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: ship and its contents as carefully as I would have liked. However,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: time pressed, and it was our business to discover some
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: clue to the deadly accuracy with which the ship had
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: spotted the wyoming works. The Boss had hardly finished his
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: arrangements for the Ring barrage when one of the scouts
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: on the imminent to the north out the approach of
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: seven Han ships spread out in a great semi circle.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: Hart leaped from the hillside, calling us to do likewise,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: but Wilma and I had raised the flaps on our
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: helmets and switched off our speakers for a conversation between ourselves,
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: and by the time we discovered what had happened, the
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: ships were clearly visible. So fast were they approaching jump
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: We heard the Boss order daring to the north, rogers
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: to the east. But Wilma looked at me meaningfully and
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: pointed to where the twisted plates of the ship projecting
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: from the ground offered a shelter. Too late, Boss, she said,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: they'd see us. Besides, I think there's something here we
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: ought to look at. It's probably their magnetic graph. You're
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: signing your death warrant, Heart warned, we'll risk it, said
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: Wilma and I together. Good for you, replied the Boss.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: Take command, then rogers for the present. Do you all
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: know his voice? Boy? A chorus of ascent rang in
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: our ears, and I began to do some fast thinking
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: as the girl and I duck into the twisted mass
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: of metal. Wilma hunt for that record, I said, knowing
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: that by the simple process of talking, I could keep
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: the entire command continuously informed of the situation on the hillsides.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: Keep your guns trained on the circles and stand by
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: on the hilltops. How many of you are there? Speak
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: in rotation from Balm Knob around to the east north west.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: In turn. The men call their names. There were twenty
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: of them. I assigned them by name to cover the
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: various Han ships, numbering the latter from left to right.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: Train your rockets on their repellor rays about three quarters
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: of the way up between the ships and ground. Aim
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: is more important than elevation. Follow those rays with your aim.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: Continuously shoot when I tell you not. Derry has the record.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: The Hans probably have not seen us, or at least
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: they think there are but two of us in the valley,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: since they're settling without opening up dicentegrators any opinions. My
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: ear discs remained silent, deering, and I remain here until
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: they land and debark. Stand by and keep alert. Rapidly
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: and easily. The largest of the Han ships settled to
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: the earth. Three scouted sharply to the south, rising to
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: a higher level. The others floated motionless about a thousand
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: feet above. Peeping through a small fissure between two plates,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: I saw the vast hulk of the ship come to
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: rest full on the line of our prospective ring barrage.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: A door clanged open a couple of feet from the ground,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: and one by one the crew emerged. End of Chapter five,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: Chapter six, The Wyoming Massacre. They're coming out of the ship,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: I spoke quietly, with my hand over my mouth, for
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: fear they might hear me. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: eight nine. That seems to be all. Who knows how
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: many men a ship like that is likely to carry?
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: About ten if there are no passengers, replied one of
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: my men, Probably one of those on the hillside. How
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: are they armed, I asked, just knives? Came the reply.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: They never permit hand rais on the ship, afraid of accidents,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: have a ruling against it. Leave them to us, then,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: I said, for I had a hastily formed plan in
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: my mind. You on the hillsides, take the ships above,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: abandon the ring target, divide up in training on those
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: repellor rays. You and the hilltops all train on the
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: repellers of the ships to the south. Shoot at the word,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: but not before Wilma, crawl over to your left, where
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: you can make a straight leap for the door. In
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: that ship. These men are all walking around the wreck
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: in a bunch. When they're on the far side, I'll
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: give the word, and you leap through that door in
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: one bound. I'll follow. Maybe we won't be seen. We'll
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: overpower the guard inside, but don't shoot. We may escape
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: being seen by both this crew and the ships above.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: They can't see over this wreck. It was so easy
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: that it seemed too good to be true. The Hans
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: who had emerged from the ship walked round the wreckage, lazily,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: talking in guttural tones, keenly interested in the wreck, but
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: quite unsuspicious. At last they were on the far side.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: In a moment, they would be picking their way into
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: the wreck. Wilma leap, I almost whispered the ardor. The
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: distance between Wilma's hiding place and the door in the
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: side of the Han ship was not more than fifteen feet.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: She was already crouched with her feet braced against a
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: metal beam. Taking the lift of that wonderful inner tron
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: belt into her calculation, she dove head foremost, like a
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: green projectile through the door. I followed in a split second,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: more clumsily, but no less speedily, bruising my shoulder painfully
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: as I recocheted from the edge of the opening and
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: brought up, sliding against the unconscious girl, for she evidently
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: had hit her head against the partition within the ship
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: into which she had crashed. We had made some noise
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: within the ship, shuffling footsteps were approaching down a well
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: lit gangway. Any signs we have been observed, I asked
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: my men on the hillsides. Not yet, I heard the
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: boss reply. Ships overhead still standing, No beams have been
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: broken out, Men on ground absorbed in wreck. Most of
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: them have crawled into it out of sight. Good, I said, quickly,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: deering hit her head knocked out. One or more members
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: of the crew approaching were not discovered yet. I'll take
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: care of them. Stand a bit longer, but be ready.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: I think my last words must have been heard by
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: the man who was approaching, for he stopped suddenly. I
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: crouched at the fore side of the apartment, motionless. I
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: would not draw my sword. If there were only one
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: of them, he would be a weakling, I figured, and
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: I should easily overcome him with my bare hands. Apparently
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: reassured at the absence of any further sound, a man
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: came round a sort of bulkhead, and I leaped. I
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: swung my legs up in front of me as I
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: did so, catching him full in the stomach and knocked
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: him cold. I ran forward along the keel gangway, searching
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: for the control room. I found it well up in
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: the nose of the ship, and it was deserted. What
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: could I do to jam the controls of the ships
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: that would not register on the recording instruments of the
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: other ships. I gazed at the mass of controls, levers,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: and wheels galore in the center of the compartment. On
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: a massively braced universal joint mounting was what I took
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: for the repellor generator. A dial on it glowed and
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: a faint hum came from within its shielding metallic case.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: But I had no time to study it. Above all else,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: I was afraid that some automatic telephone apparatus existed in
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: the room through which I might be heard on the
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: other ships. The risk of trying to jam the controls
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: was too great. I abandoned the idea and withdrew softly.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: I would have to take a chance that there was
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: no other member of the crew aboard. I ran back
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: to the entrance compartment Wilma still lay where she had
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: slumped down. I heard the voices of the Hans approaching.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: It was time to act. The next few seconds would
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: tell whether the ships in the air would try or
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: be able to melt us into nothingness. I spoke, Are
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: you boys already? I asked, creeping into a position opposite
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: the door and drawing my hand gun again. And there
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: was a chorus of ascent. Then on the count of three,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: shoot up those repellor rays, all of them, and for
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: God's sake, don't miss. And I counted. I think my
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: three was a bit weak. I know it took all
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: the courage I had to utter it. For an agonizing instant,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: nothing happened, except that the landing party from the ship
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: strolled into my range of vision, then startled. They turned
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: their eyes upward. For an instant they stood frozen with
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: horror at whatever they saw. One herald is knife at me.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: It grazed my cheek. Then a couple of them made
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: a break for the doorway. The rest followed, but I
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: fired point blank with my handgun, pressing the button as
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: fast as I could and aiming at their feet to
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: make sure my explosive rockets would make contact. And do
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: their work. The detonations of my rockets were deafening. The
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: spot on which the Hans stood flashed into a blinding glare.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: Then there was nothing there except there torn and mutilated corpses.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: They had been fairly bunched, and I got them all.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: I ran to the door, expecting any instant to be
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: hurled into infinity by the sweep of a DISCENTI great array.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: Some eighth of a mile away, I saw one of
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: the ships crash to earth. A descentigrator ray came into
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: my line of vision, wavered uncertainly for a moment, and
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: then began to sweep directly toward the ship in which
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: I stood, But it never reached it. Suddenly, like a
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: light switched off, it shot to one side, and a
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: moment later, another vast hulk crashed to earth. I looked out,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: then stepped out on the ground. The only Han ships
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: in the sky were two of the scouts to the south,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: which were hanging perpendicularly and sagging slowly down. The others
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: must have crashed down while I was deafened by the
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: sound of the explosions of my own rockets. Somebody hit
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: the other repellor ray of one of the two remaining ships,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: and it fell out of sight beyond the hilltop. The other,
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: farther away, drifted down diagonally, its disintegrator ray playing viciously
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: over the ground below it. I shouted with exultation and relief,
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: take back the command Boss, I yelled his commands, sending
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: out jumpers in pursuit of the descending ship. Rang in
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: my ears, but I paid no attention to them. I
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: leaped back into the compartment of the Han ship and
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: knelt beside my Wilma. Her padded helmet had absorbed much
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: of the blow. I thought, otherwise her skull might have
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: been fractured. Oh my head, she groaned, coming too, as
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: I lift ted her gently in my arms and strode
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: out in the open with her. We must have one, dearest,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: did we? We certainly did, I reassured her. All but
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: one crashed, and that one is drifting down toward the south.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: We've captured this one. We're in intact. There was only
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: one member of the crew aboard when we dove in.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: Less than an hour afterward, the Big Boss ordered the
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: outfit to tune in ultrophones on three twenty three to
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: pick up a translated broadcast of the HAN Intelligence Office
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: in Nu Yok from the Susquehanna station. It was in
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: the form of a public warning a news item and
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: read as follows. This is Public Intelligence Office, New Yak
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: broadcasting warning to navigators of private ships and news of
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: public interest. The squadron of seven ships which left New
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: Yak this morning to investigate the recent destruction of the
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: GK nine eighty four in the Wyoming Valley, has been
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: destroyed by a series of mysterious explosions similar to those
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: which wrecked the GK nine eighty four. The phones, viewplates,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: and all other signaling devices of five of the seven
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: ships ceased operating suddenly at a approximately the same moment
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: about seven four nine according to the HAN system of
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: reckoning time seven and forty nine one hundredths after midnight,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: after violent disturbances. The location finders went out of operation.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: Electroactivity registers applied to the territory of the Wyoming Valley
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: remain dead. The Intelligence Office has no indication of the
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: kind of disaster which overtook the squadron, except certain evidences
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: of explosive phenomena similar to those in the case of
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: the GK nine eight four, which recently went dead while
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: beaming the valley in a systematic effort to wipe out
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: the works and camps of the tribesmen. The Office considers
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: as obvious the deduction that the tribesmen have developed a
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: new and as yet undetermined technique of attack on airships,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: and has recommended to the heaven Born that immediate and
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: unlimited authority be given the Navigation Intelligence Division to make
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: an investigation of this technique and develop a defense against it.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, it urges that private navigators avoid this
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: territory in particular, and in general, hold as closely as
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: possible to the official intercity routes which now are being
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: patrolled by the entire force of the Military Office, which
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: is being the routes generously to a width of ten miles.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: The Military Office reports that it is at present considering
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: no retaliatory raids against the tribesmen with the Navigation Intelligence Division.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: It holds that unless further evidence of the nature of
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: the disaster is developed in the near future, the public
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: interest will be better served and at smaller cost of life,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: by a scientific research than by attempts at retaliation, which
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: may bring destruction on all ships engaged therein. So unless
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: further evidence actually is developed are the heaven born orders.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: To the contrary, the military will hold to a defensive
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: policy unofficial intimations from Low Tan or to the effect
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: that the Heaven Council has the matter under consideration. The
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: Navigation Intelligence Office permits the broadcasts of the following condensation
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: in its detailed observations. The squadron proceeded to a position
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: above the Wyoming Valley, where the wreck of the GK
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: nine eighty four was known to be from the record
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: of its location finder before it went dead recently. There
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: the bottom projectoscope relays of all ships registered the wreck
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: of the GK nine eight four. Teleprojectoscope views of the
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: wreck and the bowl of the valley showed no evidence
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: of the presence of tribesmen. Neither ship registers nor base
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: registers showed any indication of electroactivity, except from the squadron itself.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: On orders from the base squadron commander, the LD two
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: four eight seven four five and LG two five scouted
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: southward three thousand feet. The GK forty three, GK nine
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: eight one, and GK two two zero stood above at
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: twenty five hundred feet, and the GK one eight landed
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: to permit personal inspection of the wreck by the science committee.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: The party debarked, leaving one man on board in the
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: control cabin. He set all projectoscopes at universal focus except
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: RB three. This meant the third projectoscope from the bow
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: of the ship on the right hand side of the
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: lower deck, with which he followed the landing group as
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: it walked around the wreck. The first abnormal phenomenon recorded
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: by any of the instruments at Base was that relayed
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: automatically from projectoscope RB four of the GK one eight, which,
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: as the party disappeared from view in back of the wreck,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: recorded two green missiles of roughly cylindrical shape projected from
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: the wreckage into the landing compartment of the ship. At
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: such close range, these were not clearly defined owing to
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: the universal focus at which the projectoscope was set. The
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: base captain of g K one eight at once ordered
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: the man in the control room to investigate, and saw
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: him leave the control room in compliance with this order
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: and instant later, confused sounds reached the control room electrophone,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: such as might be made by a man falling heavily,
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: and footsteps reapproached the control room. A figure entering and
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: leaving the control room hurriedly. The base captain now believes,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: and the stills of the photo record support his belief
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: that this was not the crew member who had been
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: left in the control room. Before the base captain could
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: speak to him he left the room, nor was any
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: response given to the attention signal the captain flashed throughout
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: the ship at this point. Projectoscope RB three of the ship,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: now out of focused control, dimly showed the landing party
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: walking back toward the ship. RB four showed it more
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: clearly then. On both these instruments, a number of blinding
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: explosives in rapid succession were seen, and the electroscope relays
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: registered terrific concussions. The ship's electronic apparatus and protectoscopes apparatus
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: went dead. Reports of the other ship's base observers and executives,
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: backed by the photo records, showed the explosions as taking
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: place in the midst of the landing party as it returned,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: evidently unsuspicious to the ship. Then in rapid succession, they
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: indicated that terrific explosions occurred inside and outside the three
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: ships standing above close to their rep ray generators, and
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: all signals from these ships thereupon went dead. Of the
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: three ships scouting to the south, the ld TO two
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: U four eight suffered an identical fate at the same moment.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: Its records add little to the knowledge of the disaster,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: but with the l K seven four five and the
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: LG two five it was different. The relay instruments of
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: the LK seven four five indicated the destruction by an
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: explosion of the rear rep ray generator, and that the
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: ship hung stern down for a short space, swinging like
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: a pendulum. The forward viewplates and indicators did not cease functioning,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: but their records are chaotic, except for one projectoscope still
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: which shows the bowl of the valley and the GK
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: nine eight one falling, but no visible evidence of tribesmen.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: The control room viewplate is also a chaotic record of
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: the ship's crew tumbling and falling to the rear wall.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: Then the forward rep ray generator exploded and all signals
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: went down. The fate of the LG two five was
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: somewhat similar, except that this ship hung nose down and
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: drifted on the wind southward as it slowly descended out
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: of control. As its control room was shattered. Verbal report
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: from its action captain was precluded. The record of the
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: interior rear viewplate shows members of the crew climbing toward
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: the rear rep ray generator in an attempt to establish
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: manual control of it and increase the lift. The protectoscope
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: relays swinging in wide arcs, recorded little of value except
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: at the ends of their swings. One of these, from
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: a machine which happened to be set in telescopic focus,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: shows several views of great value in picturing the falls
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: of the other ships, and all the rear projectoscope records
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: enable the reconstruction in detail of the pendulum and tarsional
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: movements of the ship and its sag toward the earth,
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: but none of the view showing the forests below contain
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: any indication of tribesmen's presence. A final explosion put this
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: ship out of commission at a height of one thousand
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: defeet and at a point four miles s by e
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: of the center of the valley. The message ended with
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: a repetition of the warning to other airmen to avoid
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: the valley. End of chapter six, chapter seven and eight
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: of Armageddon twenty four, nineteen eighty by Philip Francis Nolan.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Chapter seven,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: Incredible Treason. After receiving this report and reassurances of support
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: from the big bosses of the neighboring gangs, Hart determined
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: to re establish the Wyoming Valley community. A careful survey
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: of the territory showed that it was only the northern
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: sections and slopes that had been beamed by the first
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: Han ship. The synthetic fabrics plant had been partially wiped out,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: though the lower levels underground had not been reached by
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: the dis ray. The forest screen above it, however, had
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: been annihilated, and it was determined to abandon it after
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: removing all usable machinery and evidences of the processes that
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: might be of interest to the Han scientists should they
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: return to the valley in the future. The ammunition plant
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: and the rocket ship plant, which had just been about
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: to start operation at the time of the raid, were intact,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: as were the other important plants. Han brought the camboss
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: up from the Susquanna works and laid out new camp locations,
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: scattering them farther to the south and avoiding ground which
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: had been seared by the Han beams, and the immediate
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: locations of the Han wrecks. During this period, a sharp
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: check was kept upon Han messages, for the phone plant
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: had been one of the first to be put in operation,
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: and when it became evident that the Hans did not
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: intend any immediate reprisals, the entire membership of the community
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: was summoned back and normal life was resumed. Wilma and
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: I had been married the day after the destruction of
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: the ships and spent this intervening period in a delightful
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: honeymoon camping high in the mountains. On our return we
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: had a camp of our own. Of course, we were
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: assigned to Location ten seventeen, and as might be expected,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: we had a great deal of banter over which one
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: of us was camp Boss. The title stood after my
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: name on the Big Boss records and those of the
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: Big Camp Boss, of course, but Wilma airily held that
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: this meant nothing at all, and generally succeeded in making
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: me admit it whenever she chose. I found myself a
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: full fledged member of the gang now, for I had
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: elected to search no farther for a permanent alliance, much
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: which as I would have liked to familiarize myself with
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: this twenty fifth century life. In other sections of the country,
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: the Wyomings had a high morale and had prospered under
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: the rule of Big Boss Heart for many years. But
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: many of the gangs I found were badly organized, lacked
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: strong hands in authority, and were rife with intrigue. On
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: the whole, I thought I would be wise to stay
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: with the group which had already proved its friendliness and
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: in which I seemed to have prospects of advancement. Under
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: these modern social and economic conditions, the kind of individual
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: freedom to which I had been accustomed to the twentieth
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: century was impossible. I would have been as much of
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: a non entity in every phase of human relationship by
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: attempting to avoid alliances as any man of the twentieth
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: century would have been politically who aligned himself with no
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: political party. This entire modern life, it appeared to me,
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: judging from my ancient viewpoint, was organized along what I
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: called political lines. And in this connection it amused me
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: to notice how universal had become the use of the
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: word boss. The leader, the person in charge or authority
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: over anything, was a boss. There was as little formality
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: in his relations with his followers as there was in
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: the case of the twentieth century political boss, and the
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: same high respect paid him by his followers, as well
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: as the same high consideration by him of their interests.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: He was just as much of an autocrat, and just
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: as much dependent upon the general popularity of his actions
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: for the ability to maintain his autocracy. The sub boss
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: who could not command the loyalty of his followers was
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: as quickly deposed either by them or by his superiors
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: as the ancient war leader of the twentieth century who
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: lost control of his votes. As society was organized in
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century, I do not believe the system would
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: have worked in anything but politics. I trembled to think
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: what would have happened had the attempt been made to
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: handle the A E F this way during the First
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: World War, instead of that rigid military discipline and complete
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: assumption of the individual as a mere standardized cog in
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: the machine. But owing to the centuries of desperate suffering
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: the people had endured at the hands of the Hans,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: there developed a spirit of self sacrifice and consideration for
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: the common good that made the scheme applicable and efficient
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: in all forms of human cooperation. I have a little
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: heresy about all this. However, my associates regard the thought
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: with as much horror as many worthy people of the
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: twentieth century felt in regard to any heretical suggestion that
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: the original outline of government as laid down in the
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: First Constitution did not apply as well to the twentieth
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: century conditions as to those of the early nineteen In
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: later years, I felt that there was a certain softening
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: of moral fiber among the people. Since the Hans had
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: been finally destroyed with all their works, and Americans have
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: developed a new luxury economy, I have seen signs of
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: the reawakening of greed, of selfishness. The eternal cycle seems
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: to be at work. I fear that slowly, though surely,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: private wealth is reappearing. Codes of inflexibility are developing. They
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: will be followed by corruption, degradation, and in the end,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: some cataclysmic event will end this era and usher in
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: a new one. All this, however, is wandering afar from
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: my story, which concerns our early battles against the Hans,
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: and not our more modern problems of self control. Our
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: victory over the seven Han Ships had set the country ablaze.
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: The secret had been carefully communicated to the other gangs,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: and the country was agog from one end to the other.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: There was feverish activity in the ammunition plants, and the
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: hunting of stray han ships became an enthusiastic sport. The
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: results were disastrous to our hereditary enemies. From the Pacific
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: coast came the report of a great trans Pacific liner
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: of seventy five thousand tons lift being brought to Earth.
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: From a position of invisibility above the clouds. A dozen
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: Sacramentos had caught the hazy outlines of its rays approaching
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: them head on in the twilight, like ghostly pillars reaching
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: into the sky. They had fired rockets into it with ease,
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: whereas they would have had difficulty in hitting it if
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: it had been moving at right angles to their position.
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: They got one rep ray, the other was not strong
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: enough to hold it up. It floated to earth nose down,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: and since it was unarmed and unarmored, they had no
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: difficulty in shooting it to pieces and massacring its crew
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: and passengers. It seemed barbarous to me, but then I
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: did not have centuries of bitter persecution in my blood.
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: From the Jersey Beaches we received news of the destruction
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: of a nu yok A Lana liner. The sandpipers, practically
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: invisible in their sand colored clothing and half buried along
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: the beaches, lay in wait for days, risking the play
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: of its dis beams along the route, and finally registering
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: four hits within a week. The Hans discontinued their service
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: along this route, and, as evidence that they were badly
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: shaken by our success, sent no raiders down the beaches.
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: It was a few weeks later that Big Boss Hart
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: sent for me Tony. He said, there are two things
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about. One of them
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: will become public property in a few days. I think
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: we aren't going to get any more Han ships by
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: shooting up their repellor rays unless we use much larger rockets.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: They are wise to us now. They're putting armor of
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: great thickness in the hulls of their ships. Below the
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: rep ray machines near Buffalo. This morning a party of
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: Eres shot one without success. The explosions staggered her, but
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: did not penetrate. As near as we can gather from
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: their reports, their laboratories have developed a new alloy of
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: great tensil strength and elasticity, which nevertheless, lets the rep
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: Rays through like a sieve. Our reports indicate that the
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: Eres rockets bounced off harmlessly. Most of the party was
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: wiped out as the dis Rays went into action on them.
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: This is going to mean real business for all of
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: the gangs. Before long. The big bosses have just held
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: a national Ultrophone Council. It was decided that America must
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: organize on a national basis. The first move is to
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: develop sectional organizations by zones. I have been made superboss
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: of the mid Atlantic zone. We're in for it now.
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: The Hans are sure to launch reprisal expeditions. If we're
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: to save the race, we must keep them away from
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: our camps and plants. I'm thinking of developing a permanent
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: field force along the lines of the regular armies of
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century you told me about. Its business will
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: be twofold to carry the warfare as much as possible
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: to the Hans and to serve as a decoy to
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: keep their attention from our plants. I'm going to need
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: your help in this. The other thing I wanted to
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: talk to you about is this amazing and impossible as
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: it seems. There is a group or perhaps an entire
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: gang somewhere among us that is betraying us to the Hans.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: It may be the Bad Bloods, or it may be
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: one of those gangs who live near one of the
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: Hans cities. You know, one hundred and fifteen or twenty
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: years ago, there were certain of these people's ancestor who
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: actually degraded themselves by mating with the Hans, sometimes even
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: serving them as slaves in the days before they brought
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: all their service machinery to perfection. There is such a
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: gang called the Nagras up near Buffalo, and another in
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: mid Jersey that men call the Pinees. But I hardly
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: suspect the Pineys. There was little intelligence among them. They
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have the information to give the Hans, nor would
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: they be capable of importing it their absolute savages. Just
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: what evidence is there that anybody has been clearing information
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: to the Hans, I asked, Well, he replied, First of all,
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: there was that raid upon us. That first Han ship
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: knew the location of our plants exactly. You remember, it
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: floated directly into position above the valley and began a
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: systematic beaming. Then the Hans quite obviously have learned that
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: we are picking up their l electrophone waves for they've
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: gone back to their old but extremely accurate system of
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: directional control. But we've been getting them for the past
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: week by installing automatic re broadcast units along the scar paths.
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: This is what the Americans call those strips of country
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: directly under the regular ship routes of the Hans, who,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: as a matter of precaution frequently blasted them with their
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: dis beams to prevent the growth of foliage which might
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: give shelter to the Americans. But they've been beaming those
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: paths so hard it looks as though they even had
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: information of this strategy. And in addition, they've been using code. Finally,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: we've picked up three of their messages in which they
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: discuss with some nervousness, the existence of our mysterious ultrophone.
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: But they still have no knowledge of the nature and
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: control of ultronic activity. I asked, no, said the Big
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: Boss thoughtfully. They don't seem to have a bit of
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: information about it. Then it's quite clear, I ventured that
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: whoever is clearing us to them as doing it piecemeal.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a bit of occasional barter rather than
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: an out and out alliance. They're holding back as much
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: information as possible for future bordering. Perhaps, yes, Hort said,
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: And it isn't information the Hans are giving in return,
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: but some form of goods or privilege. The trick would
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: be to locate the goods. I guess I'll have to
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: make a personal trip around among the big bosses. End
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: of Chapter seven, Chapter eight, the Han City. This conversation
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: set me thinking. All of the Han electrophone intercommunication had
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: been an open record to the Americans for a good
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: many years, and the Hans were just finding it out.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: For centuries, they had not regarded us as any sort
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: of a menace. Unquestionably, it had never occurred to them
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: to secrete their own records somewhere in nu Yak or
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: Buffalo are possibly in Lo Tan itself. The record of
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: this traitorous transaction would be more or less openly filed
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: if we could only get at it. I wondered if
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: a raid might not be possible. Bill Hearn and I
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: talked it over with our Han affairs boss and his experts.
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: There ensued several days of research in which the Han
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: records of the entire decade were scanned and analyzed. In
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: the end, they picked out a mass of detail and
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: fitted it together into a very definite picture of the
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: great central filing office of the Hans in nu Yok,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: where the entire massive official records were kept constantly available
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: for instant projectoscoping in any of the city's offices, and
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: of the system by which the information was filed. The
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: attempt began to look feasible, though, Hart instance that Lee
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: turned the idea down when I first presented it to him.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: It was unthinkable, he said, sheer suicide. But in the
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: end I persuaded him. I will need I said Blash,
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: who is thoroughly familiar with the Han library system. Bert Gaunt,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: who for years has specialized on their military offices, Bill Barker,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: the race specialist and the best swooper pilot we have.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: Swoopers are one man and two man ships developed by
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: the Americans, with skeleton backbones of inertron during the war,
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: painted green for invisibility against the green forest below, and
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: bellies of clear ultron. That will be Mark Gibbons, said Hart.
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: We only got three swoopers left, Tony, but I'll risk
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: one of them if you and the others will voluntarily
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: risk your existences. But mind I won't urge or order
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: one of you to go. I'll spread the word to
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: every plant boss at once to give you anything and
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: everything you need in the way of equipment. When I
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: told Wilma of the plan, I expected her to raise
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: violent and tearful objections, but she didn't. She was made
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: of far sterner stuff than the women of the twentieth century.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: Not that she wouldn't weep as copiously or be just
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: as whimsical on occasion, but she wouldn't weep for the
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: same reasons. She just gave me an unfathomable look in
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: which there seemed to be a bit of pride, and
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: asked eagerly for the details. I confess I was somewhat
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: disappointed that she could so courageously risk my loss, even
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: though I was amazed at her fortitude. But later I
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: was to learn how little I knew her. Then we
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: were ready to slide off at dawn the next morning.
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: I had kissed Wilma goodbye at our camp, and after
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: a final conference over our plans, we bordered our craft
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: and gently glided away over the tree tops on a
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: course switch after crossing three routes of the Han ships
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: would take us out over the Atlantic off the Jersey coast,
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: whence we would come up on New Yawk from the ocean.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: Twice we had to nose down and lie motionless on
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: the ground near a route where han ships passed. Those
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: were tense moments. Had the green back of our ship
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: been observed, we would have been disintegrated in a second,
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't. Once over the water, however, we climbed
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: in a great spiral ten miles in diameter until our
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: altimeter registered ten miles. Here, Gibbons shut off his rocket
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: motor and we floated far above the level of the
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: Atlantic liners, whose course was well to the north of
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: US anyhow, and waited for nightfall. Then Gibbons turned from
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: his control long enough to grint at me. I have
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: a surprise for you, Tony, he said, throwing back the
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: lid of what I had supposed was a big supply case,
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: and with a sigh of relief, Wilma stepped out of
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: the case. If you go into zero a common expression
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: of the day for being annihilated by the dysentegrator. Ray.
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: You don't think I'm going to let you go alone,
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: do you, Tony? I couldn't believe my ears last night
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: when you spoke of going without me, until I realized
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: that you are still five hundred years behind the times
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: in lots of ways. Don't you know, dear heart, that
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: you offered me the greatest insult a husband could give
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: a wife. You didn't. Of course, the others, it seemed,
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: had all been in on the secret, and now they
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: would have kidded me unmercifully, except that Wilma's eyes blazed dangerously.
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: At nightfall, we maneuvered to a position directly above the city.
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: This took some time and calculation on the part of
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: Bill Barker, who explained to me that he had to
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: determine our point by ultronic bearings. This resort to an
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: electronic instrument he feared might be detected by our enemies locators.
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: In fact, we do not dare bring our swooper any
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: lower than five miles for fear that its capacity might
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: be reflected in their instruments. Finally, however, he succeeded in
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: locating above the central tower of the city. If my
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: calculations are as much as ten feet off, he remarked
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: with confidence, I'll eat the tower. Now the rest is
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: up to you, mart see what you can do. To
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: hold her steady. No, here, watch this indicator, the red beam,
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: not the green one. See, if you keep it exactly
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: centered on the needle, you're okay. The width of the
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: beam represents seventeen feet. The tower platform is fifty feet square,
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: so you've got a good margin to work on. For
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: several moments, we watched as Gibbons bent over his levers,
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: constantly adjusting them with deft touches of his fingers. After
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: a bit of wavering, the beam remained centered on the needle. Now,
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: I said, let's drop. I opened the trap and looked down,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: but quickly shut it again when I felt the air
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: rushing out of the ship into the rarefied atmosphere in
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: a torrent. Gibbons literally yelled a protest from his instrument board.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: I forgot, I mumbled, silly of me, of course, we'll
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: have to drop out of comportment. The compartment to which
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: I referred was similar to those in some of the
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: twentieth century submarines. We all entered it. There was barely
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: room for us to stand shoulder to shoulder. With some struggles,
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: we got into our special air helmets and adjusted the pressure.
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: At the signal. Gibbons exhausted the air in the compartment,
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: pumping it into the body of the ship, and the
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: little signal light flashed. Wilma threw open the hatch, setting
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: the ultron wire reel. I climbed through and began to
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: slide down gently. We all had our belts on, of course,
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: to wait balance of but a few ounces, and the
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: five mile reel of ultron wire that was to be
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: our guide was of gossamer fineness, though anyway, I believe
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: it would have lifted the full weight of the five
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: of us, so strong and tough was this invisible metal.
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: As an extra precaution, since the wire was of the
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: purest metal and therefore totally invisible even in daylight, we
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: all had our belts hooked on small rings that slid
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: down the wire. I went down with the end of
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: the wire. Wilma followed a few feet above me. Then Barker,
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: Gaunt and Blash. Gibbons, of course stayed behind to hold
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: the ship in position and control the paying out of
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: the line. We all had our ultrophones in place inside
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: our air helmets, and so could converse with one another
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: and with Gibbons. But at Wilma's suggestion, although we would
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: have liked to let the Big Boss listen in. We
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: kept them adjusted to short range work, for fear that
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: those who had been clearing with the Hans and against
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: whom we were on a raid for evidence, might pick
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: up our conversation. We had no fear that the Hans
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: would hear us. In fact, we had the added advantage
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: that even after we landed, we could converse freely without
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: danger of their hearing our voices through our air helmets.
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: For a while I could see nothing below but utter darkness.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: Then I realized, from the feel of the air as
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: much as from anything, that we were sinking through a
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: cloud layer. We passed through two more cloud layers before
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: anything was visible to us. Then there came under my gaze,
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: about two miles below, one of the most beautiful sights
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: I have ever seen, the soft yet brilliant radiance of
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: the great Han city of nu Yok. Every foot of
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: its structural members seemed to glow with a wonderful incandescence.
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: Tower piled up on tower, and all built on the
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: vast base mass of the city, which so I had
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: been told, sheared upward from the surface of the rivers
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: to a height of seven hundred twenty eight levels. The city,
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: I noticed with some surprise, did not cover anything like
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: the same area as the New York of the twentieth century.
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: It occupied, as a matter of fact, only the lower
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: half of Manhattan Island, with one section straddling the East
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: River and spreading out sufficiently over what once had been
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn to provide berths for the Great Liners and other aircraft.
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: Straight beneath my feet was a tiny dark patch. It
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: seemed the only spot of the entire city that was
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: not aflame with radiance. This was the central Tower, in
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: the top floors of which were housed the vast library
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: of record files and the main projectoscope plant. You can
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: shoot the wire now, I ultrophoned gibbons and let go
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: the little weighted knob. It dropped like a plummet, and
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: we followed with considerable speed, but breaking our descent with
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: gloved hands sufficiently to see whether the knob, on which
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: a faint light glowed as a signal for ourselves, might
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: be observed by any han guard or night prowler. Apparently
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: it was not, and we again shot down with accelerated speed.
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: We landed on the roof of the tower without any mishap,
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: and fortunately for our plan in darkness, since there was
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: nothing above it on which it would have been worth
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: while to shed illumination, or from which there was any
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: need to observe it, the Hans had neglected to light
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: the tower roof, or indeed to occupy it at all.
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: This was the reason we had selected it as our
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: landing place. As soon as Givens had our word, he
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: extinguished the knob light, and the knob as well as
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: the wire, became totally invisible. At our ultrophoned word he
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: would light it again. No gun play now, I warned.
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: Swords only and then only absolutely necessary. Closely bunched and
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: treading as lightly as only inert tron belted people could.
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: We made our way cautiously through a door and down
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: an incline plane to the floor below, where Gaunt and
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: Blash assured us the military offices were located. Twice, Barker
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: cautioned us to stop, as we were about to pass
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: in front of mirror like windows in the passage wall,
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: and flattening ourselves to the floor, we crawled past them. Projectoscopes,
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: he said, probably on automatic record only at this time
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: of night. Still, we don't want to leave any records
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: for them to study after we're gone. Were you ever
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: here before, I asked, No, he replied, but I haven't
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: been studying their electrophone communications for seven years without being
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: able to recognize those machines when I run across them.
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eight, Chapters nine and ten of Armageddon
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: twenty four, nineteen eighty by Philip Francis Nolan. This liveryvox
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Chapter nine, The fight
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: in the Tower. So far we had not laid eyes
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: on a han. The tower seemed deserted. Blash and Gaunt, however,
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: assured me that there would be at least one man
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: on duty in the military offices, though he would probably
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: be asleep, and two or three in the library proper
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: and the projectoscope plant. We've got to put them out
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: of commission. I said, did you bring the dope cans, Wilma, Yes,
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: She said, two for each here, and she distributed them.
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: We were now two levels below the roof and at
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: the point where we were to separate. He did not
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: want to let Wilma out of my sight, but it
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: was necessary according to our plan. Barker was to make
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: his way to the projectoscope plant Blash and I to
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: the library, and Wilma and Gaunt to the Military office.
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: Blash and I traversed a long corridor and paused at
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: the great arched doorway of the library. Cautiously we peered in.
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: Seated at three great switchboards were library operatives. Occasionally one
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: of them would reach lazily for a lever or sleepily
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: push a button as little numbered lights winked on and off.
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: They were answering calls for electrograph and viewplate records on
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: all sorts of subjects from all sections of the city.
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: I praised my companions of the situation. Better wait a bit,
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: Blash added, The calls will lessen. Shortly, Wilma reported an
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: officer in the military office sound asleep. Give him the can, then,
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: I said. Barker was to do nothing more than keep
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: watch in the projectoscope plant, and a few moments later
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: he reported himself well concealed, with a splendid view of
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: the floor. I think we can take a chance now,
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: Blash said to me, and at my nod, he opened
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: the lid of his dope can. Of course, the fumes
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: did not affect us through our helmets. They were absolutely
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: without odor or visibility. And in a few seconds the
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: librarians were unconscious. We stepped into the room. There ensued
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: considerable cautious observation and experiment on the part of Gaunt,
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: working from the military office, and Blash in the library,
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: while Wilma and I, with drawn swords and sharply attuned microphones,
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: stood guard and occasionally patrolled nearby corridors. I hear something approaching,
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: Wilma said, after a bit, with excitement in her voice.
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: It's a soft gliding sound. That's it's an elevator somewhere.
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: Barker cut in from the projectoscope floor. Then you locate it.
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: I can't hear it. It's to the east of me,
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: she replied, and to my west, said I faintly catching it.
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: It's between us, Wilma, and nearer you than me. Be careful.
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: Have you got any information yet? Blash and Gaunt getting
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: you now, One of them replied, give us two minutes more.
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: Keep at it. Then I said, we'll guard. The soft
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: gliding sound ceased. I think it's very close to me,
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: Wilma almost whispered, Come closer, Tony. I have a feeling
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: something is going to happen. I've never known my nerves
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: to get taught like this without reason in some alarm,
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: I launched myself down the corridor in a great leap
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: toward the intersection. Whence I knew I could see her
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: in the middle of my leap, my ultrophone registered her
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: gasp of alarm. The next instant, I glided to a
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: stop at the intersection to see Wilma backing toward the
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: door of the military office. Were sword red with blood
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: and an inert form on the corridor floor. Two other
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: hans were circling to either side of her with wicked
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: looking knives, while a third, evidently a high officer, judging
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: by the resplendence of his garb, tugged desperately to get
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: an electrophone instrument out of a bulky pocket. If he
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: ever gave the alarm, there was no telling what might
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: happen to us. I was at least seventy feet away,
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: but I crouched low and sprang with every bit of
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: strength in my legs. It would be more correct to
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: say that I dived, for I reached the fellow head
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: on with no attempt to draw my legs beneath me.
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: Some instinct must have warned him, for he turned suddenly
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: as I hurtled close to him. But by this time
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: I had sunk close to the floor and had stiffened
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: myself rigidly. Lest a dragging knee or foot might just
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: prevent my reaching him, I brought my blade up and over.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: It was a vicious slash that laid him open, bisecting
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: him from groin to chin, and his dead body toppled
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: down on me. As I slid to a tangled stop.
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: The other two startled turned. Wilma leaped at one and
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: struck him down with a side slash. I looked up
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: at this instant, and the dazed fear on his face
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: at the length of her leap registered vividly. The Hans
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: knew nothing of our inert tron belts, it seemed, and
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: these leaps and dives of ours filled them with terror.
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: As I rose to my feet a gory mess, Wilma,
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: with a poise in speed which I found time to
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: admire even in this crisis, again leaped. This time she
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: dove headfirst as I had done, and with a beautifully
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: executed thrust, ran the last Han through the throat. Uncertainly,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: she scrambled to her feet, staggered queerly and then sank
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: gently prone on the corridor. She had faded. At this juncture,
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: Blash and Gaunt reported with elation that they had the record.
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: We wanted back to the roof, everybody, I ordered. As
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: I picked Wilma up in my arms with her entern belt.
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: She felt as light as a feather. Gaunt joined me
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: at once from the military office, and at the intersection
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: of the corridor we came upon Blash waiting for us. Barker, however,
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: was not in evidence. Where are you, Barker? I called,
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: go ahead, he replied, I'll be with you on the roof.
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: At once we came out in the open without any
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: further mishap, and I instructed Gibbons in the ship to
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: light the knob on the end of the Oaktron wire.
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: It flashed dully a few feet away from us. Just
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: how he had maneuvered the ship to keep our end
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: of the line in position without its swinging in a
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: tremendous arc I have never been able to understand. Had
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: not the night been an unusually still one, he could
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: not have checked the initial pendulum like movements. As it was,
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: there was considerable air current at certain of the levels
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: and in different directions too. But Gibbons was an expert
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: of rare ability and sensitivity in the handling of a
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: rocket ship, and he managed, with the aid of his
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: delicate instruments, to sense the drifts almost before they affected
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: the fine ultron wire, and to neutralize them with little
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: shifts in the position of the ship. Blash and Gaunt
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: fastened their rings to the wire, and I hooked my own,
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: and Will was on too, But on looking around I
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: found Barker was still missing. Barker, Come, I called, We're waiting, coming,
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: he replied, and indeed, at that instant his figure appeared
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: up the ramp. He chuckled as he fastened his ring
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: to the wire and said something about a little surprise
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: he had left for the Hans. Don't reel in the
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: wire more than a few hundred feet, I instructed Gibbons.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: It will take too long to wind it in. We'll
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: float up, and when we are board we can drop it.
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: In order to float up, we had to dispense with
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: a pound or two of weight apiece. We hurled our
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: swords from us and kicked off our shoes as Gibbons
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: reeled up the line a bit and then letting go
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: of the wire began to hum upward on our rings
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: with increasing velocity. The rush of air brought Wilmatwu, and
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: I hastily explained to her that we had been successful,
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: receding far below us. Now I could see our dully
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: shining knob swinging to and fro in an ever widening
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: arc as it crossed and recrossed the black square of
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: the tower roof. As an extra precaution, I ordered Gibbons
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: to shut off the light and to show one from
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: the belly of the ship. For so great was our
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: speed now that I began to fear we would have
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: difficulty in checking ourselves. We were literally falling upward and
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: with terrific acceleration. Fortunately, we had several minutes in which
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: to solve this difficulty, which none of us, strangely enough,
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: had foreseen. It was Gibbons who found the answer. You'll
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: be all right if you grab the wire tight when
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: I give the word, he said, First, I'll start reeling
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: it in at full speed. You won't get much of
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: a jar. And then I'll decrease his speed again gradually,
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: and its weight will hold you back. Are you ready? One? Two, three?
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: We all grabbed tightly with our gloved hands as he
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: gave the word. We must have been rising a good
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: bit faster than he figured, however, for it wrenched our
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: arms considerably, and the maneuver set up a sickening pendulum motion.
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: For a while, all we could do was swing there
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: in an arc that may have been a quarter of
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: a mile across, about three and a half miles above
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: the city, and still more than a mile from our ship.
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: Gibbons skillfully took up the slack as our momentum pulled
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: up the line. Then at last we had ourselves under
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: control again and continued our upward journey, checking our speed
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: somewhat with our gloves. There was not one of us
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: who did not breathe a big sigh of relief when
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: we scrambled through the hatch safely into the ship again,
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: cast off the ultron line, and slammed the trap shut.
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: Little realizing that we had a still more terrible experience
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: to go through, we discussed the information Blashed and Gaunt
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: had between them, extracted from the Han records, and the
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: advisability of ultrophoning heart at once end of chapter nine,
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: Chapter ten, the Walls of Hell the traitors were, it
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: seemed a degenerate gang of Americans located a few miles
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: north of nu Yok on the wooded banks of the Hudson.
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: These Sensings they had exchanged scraps of information to the
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: Hans in return for several old repellor ray machines and
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: the privilege of tuning in non Han electronic power broadcasts
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: for their operation, provided their ships agreed to subject themselves
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: to the order of the Han Traffic Office. While Aloft
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: the rest wanted to ultrophone their news at once, since
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: there was always danger that we might never get back
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 1: to the gang with it, I objected, However, the Sensings
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: would be likely to pick up our message even if
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: we used the directional projector they might have scouts out
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: to the west and south in the big inter gang
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: stretches of country. They would flee to nu Yok and
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: escape the punishment they merited. It seemed to be vitally
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: important that they should not, for the sake of example
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: to other weak groups among the American gangs, as well
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: as to prevent a crisis in which they might clear
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: more vital information to the enemy out to sea. Again,
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: I ordered Gibbons, they will be less likely to look
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: for us in that direction. Easy, Bass, Easy, he replied,
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: Wait until we get up a mile or two more.
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: They must have discovered evidences of our raid by now,
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: and their dis ray wall may go in operation any moment.
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: Even as he spoke, the ship lurched downward into one side.
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: There it is, He shouted, hang on, everybody, we're going
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: to know straight up, and he flipped the rocket motor
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: control wide open. Looking through one of the reports, I
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: could see a nebulous luminous ring, and on all sides
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere took on a faint iridescence. We were almost
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: over the destructive range of the descentricuat ray wall, a
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: hollow cylinder of annihilation shooting upward from a solid ring
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: of generators surrounding the city. It was the main defense
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: system of the Hans, which had never been used except
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: in periodic tests. They may or may not have suspected
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: that an American rocket ship was within the cylinder. Probably
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: they had turned on their generators more as a precaution
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: to prevent any reachion a position above the city. But
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: even at our present great height we were in great danger.
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: It was a question how much we might have been
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: harmed by the rays themselves, for their effective range was
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: not much less than seven or eight miles. The greater
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: danger lay in the terrific downward rush of air within
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: the cylinder to replace that which had been burned into
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: nothingness by the continual play of the descentigrators. The air
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: fell into the cylinder with the force of a gale,
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: it would be rushing toward the wall from the outside
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: with terrific force also, but naturally the effect was intensified
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: on the interior. Our ship vibrated and trembled. We had
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: only one chance of escape. To fight our way well
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: above the current. To drift down with it meant ultimately
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: and inevitably to be sucked into the destruction wall at
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: some lower level. But very gradually and jerkily, our upward movement,
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: as shown on the indicators, began to increase, and after
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: an hour of desperate struggle, we were free of the
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: milstrom and into the rarefied upper levels. The terror beneath
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: us was now invisible through several layers of cloud formations.
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: Gibbons brought the ship back to an even keel and
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: drove her eastward into one of the most brilliantly gorgeous
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: sunrises I have ever seen. We described a great circle
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: to the south and west in a long, easy dive,
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 1: For he had cut out his rocket boats to save
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: them as much as possible. We had drawn terrifically on
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: their fuel reserves in our battle with the Elements. For
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: the moment, the atmosphere below cleared and we could see
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: the Jersey coast far beneath, like a great map. We're
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 1: not through yet, remarked Gibbons, suddenly pointing at his periscope
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: and adjusting it to telescopic focus. A Han ship and
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: a drop ship at that, and he's seen us. If
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 1: he whipped that beam of his on us, we're done, guessed,
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: fascinated at the viewplate. What I saw was a cigar
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: shaped ship, not dissimilar to our own in design, and
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: from the proportional size of its ports, of about the
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: same size as our soupers. We learned later that they
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: carried crews for the most part of not more than
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: three or four men. They had streamlined hulls and tails
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: that embodied universal jointed double fishtail rudders. In operation, they
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: rose to great heights on their powerful repellor rays, then
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 1: gathered speed either by a straight nosedive or an inclined dive,
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: to which they sometimes used the repeller rays slanted at
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: a sharp angle. He was already above us, though several
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: miles to the north. He could of course try to
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: get on our tail and spear us with his beam.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: As he dropped at us from a great height. Suddenly
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: his beam blazed forth in a blinding flash, whipping downwards
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: slowly to our right. He went through a peculiar corkscrew
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: line evolution, evidently maneuvering to bring his beam to bear
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: on us with a spiral motion. Gibbons instantly sent our
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: ship into a series of evolutions that must have looked
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: like those of a frightened hin. Alternately he used the
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: forward and reverse rocket blasts, and in varying degree, we fluttered.
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: We shot suddenly to right and left, and dropped like
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: a plummet in uncertain movements. But all the time the
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: Han scout dropped toward us, determinedly whipping the air around
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: us with his beam. Once it sliced the cross beneath
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: us not more than one hundred feet, and we dropped
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: with a jar into the pocket formed by the destruction
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: of the air. He had dropped to within a mile
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: of us, and was coming with the speed of a projectile.
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: When the end came, Gibbons always swore it was sheer luck.
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was, but I like pilots who are lucky
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: that way. In the midst of a dizzying, fluttering maneuver
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: of our own, with the Han ship enlarging to our
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: our gaze with terrifying rapidity, and its beams slowly slicing
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: toward us in what looked like certain destruction. Within the second,
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: I saw Gibbon's fingers flick at the lever of his
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: rocket gun, and a split second later the Han ship
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: flew apart like a clay pigeon. We staggered and fluttered
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: crazily for several moments while Gibbons struggled to bring our
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 1: ship into balance, and a section of about four square
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: feet in the side of the ship near the stern
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: slowly crumbled like rusted metal. His beam actually had touched us,
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: but our explosive rocket had got him a thousands of
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: a second sooner. Part of our rudder had been annihilated
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: and our motor damaged, but we were able to swoop
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: gently back across Jersey, fortunately crossing the ship lanes without
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: signing any more hand craft, and finally settling to rest
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: in the little glade beneath the trees near Hartz Camp
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 1: into chapter ten chapters eleven and twelve of Armageddon twenty
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: four nineteen a d. By Philip Francis Nolan. This LibriVox
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Chapter eleven the new
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: Boss we had ultrophoned our arrival, and the Big Boss himself,
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: surrounded by the council, was on hand to welcome us
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: and learn our news. In turn, we were informed that
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: during the night a band of raiding Bad Bloods disguised
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: under the insignia of the Altoonas, again some distance to
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 1: the west of us, had destroyed several of our camps
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: before our people had rallied and driven them off. Their
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: purpose evidently had been to embroil us with the Altoonas,
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: But fortunately one of our exchanges recognized the bad blood
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: leader who had been slain. The Big Boss had mobilized
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: the full rating force of the gang and was on
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: the point of heading an expedition for extermination of the
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: Bad Bloods. I looked around the grim circle of the
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: sub bosses and realized that the fate of America at
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: this moment lay in their hands. Their temper demanded the
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: immediate expenditure of our full effort in revenging ourselves for
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: this raid. But the strategic exigencies, to my mind, quite
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: clearly demanded the instant and absolute extermination of the Sensings.
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: It might be only a matter of hours, for all
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: we knew before these degraded people would barter clues to
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: the American ultronic secrets to the Hans. How large a
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: force have we, I asked Hart, every man and maid
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: who can be spared. He replied that gives us seven
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: hundred married and unmarried men and three hundred girls, more
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: than the entire Bad Blood gang. Every One is equipped
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: with belts, ultrophones, rocket guns and swords, and all fighting
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: mad I meditated how I might put the matter to
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: these determine men, and was vaguely conscious that they were
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: awaiting my words. Finally I began to speak. I do
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: not remember to this day just what I said. I
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: talked calmly, with due regard for their passion, but with
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: deep conviction. I went over the information we had collected,
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: point by point, building my case logically and painting a
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: lurid picture of the danger impending in that half alliance
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: between the Sinsings and the Hans of nu Yok. I
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 1: became impassioned, culminating, I believe, with a vow to proceed
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: single handed against the hereditary enemies of our race. If
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: the Wyomings were blindly set on placing a gang feud
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: a head of honor and duty in the hopes of
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: all America. As I concluded, a great calm came over me,
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: as of one detached. I had felt much the same
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: way during several criseses in the First World War. I
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: gazed from face to face, striving to read their expressions,
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: and in a mood to make good my threat without
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: any further heroics if the decision was against me. But
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: it was Hart who sensed the temper of the council
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: more quickly than I did, and looked beyond it into
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: the future. He arose from the tree trunk on which
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: he had been sitting. That settles it, he said, looking
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: around the ring, I have felt this thing coming on
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: for some time now. I'm sure the council agrees with
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: me that there is among us a man more capable
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: than I to boss the Wyoming gang. Despite his handicap
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: of having had all too short a time in which
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: to familiarize himself with our modern ways and facilities. Whatever
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: I can do to support his effective leadership at any cost,
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: I pledge myself to do as he concluded. He advanced
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: to where I stood, and taking from his head the
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: green crusted helmet that constituted his badge of office. To
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: my surprise, he placed it in my mechanically extended hand.
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: The roar of approval that went up from the council
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: members left me dazed. Somebody ultrophoned the news to the
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: rest of the gang, and even though the ear flaps
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: of my helbot were turned up, I could hear the
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: cheers with which my invisible followers greeted me from near
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: and distant hillsides, camps, and plants. My first move was
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: to make sure that the phone boss, in communicating this
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: news to the members of the gang, had not re
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: broadcast my talk nor mentioned my plan of shifting the
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: attack from the bad Bloods to the Sensings. I was
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: relieved by his assurance that he had not, for it
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: would have wrecked the whole plan. Everything depended upon our
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: ability to surprise the Sensings, so I pledged the Council
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: and my companions to secrecy and allowed it to be
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: believed that we were about to take to the air
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 1: and the trees against the Bad Bloods. That outfit must
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: have been badly scared the way they were burning the
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: ether with ultrophone alibis and propaganda for the benefit of
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: the more distant gangs. It was their old game and
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: the only method by which they had avoided extermination long
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: ago from their immediate neighbors. These appeals to the spirit
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: of American brotherhood addressed to gangs too far away to
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: have had the sort of experience with them that had
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 1: fallen to our lot. I chuckled. Here was another good
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: reason for the shift in my plans. Were we actually
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: to undertake the extermination of the Bad Bloods at once,
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: it would have been a hard job to convince some
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: of the gangs that we had not been precipitate and
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: unjustified jealousies and prejudices existed. There were gangs which would
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: give the benefit of the doubt to the Bad Bloods
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 1: rather than to ourselves, and the issue was now hopelessly
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: beclouded with the clever eyes that were being broadcast in
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: an unceasing stream. But the extermination of the Sensings would
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: be another thing. In the first place, there would be
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: no warning of our action until it was all over,
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: I hoped. In the second place, we would have indisputable
• 2:31:27
  Speaker 1: proof in the form of their rep ray ships and
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: other paraphernalias, of their traffic with the Hans, and the
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: state of American prejudice at the time of which I
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: write held trafficking with the Hans a far more heinous
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: thing than even a vicious gang feud. I called an
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: executive session of the Council at once. I wanted to
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: inventory our military resources. I created a new office on
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: the spot, that of Control Boss, and appointed ned Garland
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: to the post, turning over his former responsibility as plant's
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: boss to his assistant. I needed someone, i felt, to
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: tie in the records of the various functional activities of
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: the campaign and take over from me the task of
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 1: keeping the records of them up to the minute. I
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: received reports from the bosses of the ultrophones unit and
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: those of food transportation, fighting gear, chemistry, electronic activity and
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: electrophone intelligence, ultroscopes, air patrol, and contact Guard. My ideas
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: for the campaign, of course, were somewhat tinged with my
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: twentieth century experience, and I found myself faced with the
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: task of working out a staff organization that was a
• 2:32:43
  Speaker 1: composite of the best and most easily applied principles of
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: business and military efficiency as I knew them. From the
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: viewpoint of immediate practicality. What I wanted was an organization
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: that would be specialized functionally, not as that indicated above,
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: but from the angles of intelligence as to the sin
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: Seeings activities intelligence to the Hahn activities, perfection of communication
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: with my own units, co operation of fuel command, and
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: perfect mobilization of emergency supplies and resources. It took several
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: hours of hard work with the Council to map out
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: the plan. First, we assigned functional experts and equipment to
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: each division in accordance with its needs. Then these, in
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 1: turn were reassigned by the new division bosses to the
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: field commands as needed, or as independent or headquarters units.
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: The two intelligence divisions were named the White and the Yellow,
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: indicating that one specialized on the American enemy and the
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: other on the Mongolians. The division in charge of our
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: own communications, the assignment of ultrophone frequencies and strengths, and
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: the maintenance of operations and equipment I called Communications. I
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: named Bill Hearn to the post of field boss, in
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: charge of the main or undetached fighting units, and to
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: the Resources division. I assigned all responsibility for what few
• 2:34:10
  Speaker 1: aircraft we had, and all transportation and supply problems I
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: assigned to Resources. The functional bosses stayed with this division.
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: We finally completed our organization with the assignment of lays
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 1: on representatives among the various divisions as needed. Thus I
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: had a headquarters staff composed of the division bosses, who
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: reported directly to ned Garland as Control Boss or to
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: Wilma as my personal assistant, and each of the division
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: bosses had a small staff of his own. In the
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: final summing up of our personnel and resources, I found
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: we had roughly a thousand troops, of whom some three
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty were in what I call the service divisions,
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: the rest being in Bill Hearn's Field division. This latter number, however,
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: was cut down somewhat by the assignment of numerous small
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: units to detached service. Altogether, the actual available fighting force
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: I figured would number about five hundred. By the time
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: we actually went into action, we had only six small swoopers,
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: but I had an ingenious plan in my mind as
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: a result of our little raid on Nu Yok that
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: would make this sufficient. Since the reserves of inertron blocks
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: were larger than I expected to find them, the Resources Division,
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 1: by packing its supply cases a bit tight or by
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: slipping in extra blocks of inertron, was able to reduce
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: each to a weight of a few ounces. These easily
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: could be floated and towed by the swoopers, and any
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: quantity hitched to ultron lines, it would be a virtual
• 2:35:51
  Speaker 1: impossibility for them to break loose. The entire personnel, of course,
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: was supplied with jumpers, and if each man and girl
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: was careful to just balances properly, the entire number could
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: also be towed along through the air, grasping wires of
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: ultron swinging below the swoopers or stringing out behind them.
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: There would be nothing tiring about this, because the strain
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: would be no greater than that of carrying a one
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: or two pound weight in the hand, except for air
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: friction at high speeds. But to make doubly sure that
• 2:36:25
  Speaker 1: we should lose none of our personnel, I gave strict
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 1: orders that the belts and tow lines should be equipped
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: with rings and hooks. So great was the efficiency of
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: the fundamental organization and discipline of the gang that we
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: got under Wagh at nightfall. One by one, the swoopers
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: eased into the air, each followed by its long train
• 2:36:49
  Speaker 1: or kite detail of humanity and supply cases, hanging lightly
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: from its toe line for convenience. The toe lines were
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: made of an alloy of ultron, which, unlike the metal itself,
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: is visible. At first, these tails hung downward, but as
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: the ship swung into formation and headed eastward toward the
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: bad Blood Territory, gathering speed, they began to string out
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: behind and swinging low from each ship on heavily weighted lines. Ultroscope, ultrophone,
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: and straight vision observers keenly scanned the countryside, while intelligence
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: men in the swoopers above bent over their instrument boards
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: and viewplates, leaving Control Boss Ned Garland temporarily in charge
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: of affairs. Wilma and I dropped a weighted line from
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: our ship and slid down about half way to the
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: under lookouts, that is to say, about a thousand feet.
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: The sensation of floating swiftly through the air like this
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: in the absolute security of one's confidence in the inner
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: tron belt was one of never ending the light to me.
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: We reascended into the swooper as the expedition approached the
• 2:38:02
  Speaker 1: territory of the Band Bloods and directed the preparations for
• 2:38:06
  Speaker 1: the bombardment. It was part of my plan to appear
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: to carry out the attack as organized originally planned. About
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: fifteen miles from their camps, our ships came to a
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: halt and maintained their positions for a while with the
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: idling blasts of their rocket motors, to give the ultroscope
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: operators a chance to make a thorough examination of the
• 2:38:27
  Speaker 1: territory below us, for it was very important that this
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 1: next step in our program should be carried out with
• 2:38:34
  Speaker 1: all secrecy. At length, they reported the ground below us
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 1: entirely clear of any appearance of human occupation, and a
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: gun unit of long range specialists was lowered with a
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: dozen rocket guns equipped with special automatic devices that the
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: Resource Division had developed at my request a few hours
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: before our departure. These were aiming and timing devices. After
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: calculating the range, elevation and rocket charges carefully, the guns
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: were left concealed in a ravine and the men were
• 2:39:06
  Speaker 1: hauled up into the ship again at the predetermined hour,
• 2:39:11
  Speaker 1: those unmanned rocket guns would begin automatically to bombard the
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 1: bad Blood's hillsides, shifting their aim and elevations slightly with
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: each shot, as did many of our artillery pieces in
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: the First World War. In the meantime, we turned south
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: about twenty miles and grounded, waiting for the bombardment to begin.
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: Before we attempted to sneak across the Han ship lane.
• 2:39:34
  Speaker 1: I was relying for security on the distraction that the
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: bombardment might furnish the Han observers. It was tense work waiting,
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: but the affair went through his planned. Our squadron drifting
• 2:39:45
  Speaker 1: across the route high enough to enable the ship's tails
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 1: of troops and supply cases to clear the ground. In
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: crossing the second ship route out along the beaches of Jersey,
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: we were not so successful in escaping opser face. A
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: Han ship came speeding along at a very low elevation.
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: We caught it on our electronic location and direction finders,
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: and also located it with our ultroscopes, but it came
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: so fast and so low that I thought it best
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: to remain where we had grounded the second time and
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: lie quiet, rather than get underway and crossed in front
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: of it. The point was this, while the Hans had
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: no such devices as our ultroscopes, with which we could
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: see in the dark within certain limitations, of course, and
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: their electronic instruments would be virtually useless in uncovering our presence,
• 2:40:39
  Speaker 1: since all but natural electronic activities were carefully eliminated from
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: our apparatus, except electrophone receivers, which are not easily spotted.
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: The Hans did have some very highly sensitive sound devices,
• 2:40:52
  Speaker 1: which operated with great efficiency in calm weather so far
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: as sounds emanating from the air were concerned, but the
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: ground greatly confused their use of these instruments in the
• 2:41:03
  Speaker 1: location of specific sounds floating up from the surface of
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 1: the Earth. This ship must have caught some slight noise
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: of ours, however, in its sensitive instruments, for we heard
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: its electronic devices go into play and picked up the
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: routine report of the noise to its base ship commander.
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 1: But from the nature of the conversation I judged they
• 2:41:24
  Speaker 1: had not identified it, and were in fact more curious
• 2:41:28
  Speaker 1: about the detonations they were picking up. Now from the
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 1: bad blood Lands, some sixty miles or so to the west,
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: Immediately after this ship had shot by, we took the
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: air again, and, following much the same route that I
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 1: had taken the previous night, climbed in a long semicircle
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: out over the ocean, swung toward the north, and finally
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: the west. We set our course, however, for the Sinsing's
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 1: Land north of New York, instead of for the city itself.
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven, Chapter twelve, The Finger of Doom.
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: As we crossed the Hudson River a few miles north
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: of the city, we dropped several units of the Yellow
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: Intelligence Division with full instrumental equipment. Their apparatus cases were
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: nicely balanced at only a few ounces wait each, and
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: the men used their shoote tapes to ease their drops.
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: We recrossed the river a little distance above and began
• 2:42:27
  Speaker 1: dropping White intelligence units and a few long and short
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 1: range gun units. Then we held our position until we
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: began to get reports. Gradually we rained the territory of
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: the Sinsings, our observation units working busily and patiently at
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 1: their locations and scopes, both aloft and a ground, until
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: Garland finally turned to me with a remark, the map
• 2:42:51
  Speaker 1: circle is complete now, Boss, We've got clear locations all
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 1: the way around them. Let me see it, I replied,
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: The illuminated viewplate map with its little overlapping circles of
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 1: light that indicated its spots proved clear of the enemy
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: by ultroscope observation. I nodded to Bill Hern. Go ahead, now, Hearn,
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: I said, you place your barrage. Men. He spoke into
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: his ultrophone, and three of the ships began to glide
• 2:43:20
  Speaker 1: in a wide ring around the enemy territory. Every few seconds,
• 2:43:24
  Speaker 1: at the word from his unit boss, a gunner would
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 1: drop off the wire, and, slipping the clasp of his
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: shoe tape, dripped down into the darkness. Below. Bill formed
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: two lines parallel to and facing the river and enclosing
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: the entire territory of the enemy between them. Above and below,
• 2:43:44
  Speaker 1: straddling the river, were two defensive lines. These latterers were
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: merely to hold their positions. The others were to close
• 2:43:52
  Speaker 1: in toward each other, pushing a high explosive barrage five
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: miles ahead of them. When the two barrages met, both
• 2:43:59
  Speaker 1: lines ends were to switch to short vision range barrage
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: and continued to close in on any of the enemy
• 2:44:05
  Speaker 1: who might have drifted through the previous curtain the fire.
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, Bill kept his reserves, a picked core
• 2:44:12
  Speaker 1: of a hundred men, the same that had accompanied Hard
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: and myself in our fight with the Han squadron in
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: the air, divided about equally among the kite tails of
• 2:44:21
  Speaker 1: four ships. A final roll call by units, companies, divisions,
• 2:44:26
  Speaker 1: and functions established the fact that all our forces were
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: in position. No Han activity was reported, and no Han
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: broadcasts indicated any suspicion of our expedition, Nor was there
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: any indication that the sing Singhs had any knowledge of
• 2:44:41
  Speaker 1: the fate in store for them. The idling of rep
• 2:44:45
  Speaker 1: ray generators was reported from the center of their camp,
• 2:44:49
  Speaker 1: obviously those of the ships the Hans had given them
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 1: the price of their treason to their race. Again, I
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: gave the word, and hearn passed on the order to
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: his subordinates. Far below us, and several miles to the
• 2:45:04
  Speaker 1: right and left, the two barrage lines made their appearance
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: from the great height to which we had risen. They
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: appeared like lines of brilliant winking lights, and the detonations
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: were muffled by the distances into a sort of rumbling,
• 2:45:19
  Speaker 1: distant thunder. Hearne and his assistants were very busy measuring, calculating,
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: and snapping out ultrophone orders to unit commanders that resulted
• 2:45:29
  Speaker 1: in the straightening of lines and the closing of gaps
• 2:45:32
  Speaker 1: in the barrage. The White Division boss reported the utmost
• 2:45:37
  Speaker 1: confusion in the saying organization. They were, as might be expected,
• 2:45:42
  Speaker 1: and inefficient, loosely disciplined gang and repeated broadcasts for help
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: to neighboring gang. Ignoring the fact that the Mongolians had
• 2:45:50
  Speaker 1: not used explosives for many generations, they nevertheless jumped at
• 2:45:55
  Speaker 1: the conclusion that they were being raided by the Hans.
• 2:45:58
  Speaker 1: Their frantic brought gay casts persisted in this thought despite
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 1: the nervous electrophonic inquiries of the Hans themselves, to whom
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 1: the sound of the battle was evidently audible, and who
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 1: were trying to locate the trouble. At this point, the
• 2:46:13
  Speaker 1: swooper I had sent south toward the city went into
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 1: action as a diversion to keep the Hans at home.
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: Its kite tail loaded with long range gutters, using the
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: most highly explosive rockets we had hung invisible in the
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: darkness of the sky, and bombarded the city from a
• 2:46:30
  Speaker 1: distance of about five miles. With an entire city to
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: shoot at and the object of creating as much commotion
• 2:46:38
  Speaker 1: therein as possible, regardless of actual damage, the gunners had
• 2:46:41
  Speaker 1: no difficulty in hitting the mark. I could see the
• 2:46:45
  Speaker 1: glow of the city and the stabbing flashes of exploding rockets.
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: In the end, the Hans, uncertain as to what was
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: going on, fell back on a defensive policy and shot
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: their hell cylinder or a wall of upturned disintegrator rays
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: into operation. That of course, ended our bombardment of them.
• 2:47:05
  Speaker 1: The rays were a perfect defense, disintegrating our rockets as
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: they were reached. If they had not sent out ships
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: before turning on the rays, and if they had none
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: within sufficient radius already in the air, all would be well.
• 2:47:20
  Speaker 1: I queried Garlin on this, and he assured me Yellow
• 2:47:22
  Speaker 1: intelligence reported no indications of Han ships nearer than eight
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 1: hundred miles. This would probably give us a free hand
• 2:47:30
  Speaker 1: for a while, since most of their instruments recorded only
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: imperfectly or not at all through the death wall. Requisitioning
• 2:47:39
  Speaker 1: one of the viewplates of the headquartership and the services
• 2:47:41
  Speaker 1: of an expert operator, I instructed him to focus on
• 2:47:45
  Speaker 1: our lines below. I wanted a close up of the
• 2:47:48
  Speaker 1: minute action. He began to manipulate his controls, and chaotic
• 2:47:53
  Speaker 1: shadows moved rapidly across the plate, fading in and out
• 2:47:56
  Speaker 1: of focus, until he reached an adjustment that gave me
• 2:48:00
  Speaker 1: a picture of the forest floor, apparently one hundred feet wide,
• 2:48:03
  Speaker 1: with the intervening branches and folias of the trees appearing
• 2:48:07
  Speaker 1: like shadows that melted into reality. A few feet above
• 2:48:10
  Speaker 1: the ground. I watched one man setting up his long
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 1: gun with skillful speed. His lips pursed slightly as though
• 2:48:18
  Speaker 1: he were whistling as he adjusted the tall tripod on
• 2:48:21
  Speaker 1: which the long tube was balanced. Swiftly, he twirled the
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: knobs controlling the aim and elevation of his piece. Then,
• 2:48:28
  Speaker 1: lifting a belt of ammunition from the big box, which
• 2:48:32
  Speaker 1: itself looked heavy enough to break down the spindly tripod,
• 2:48:36
  Speaker 1: he inserted the end of it in the lock of
• 2:48:38
  Speaker 1: his tube and touched the proper combination of buttons. Then
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 1: he stepped aside and occupied himself with peering carefully through
• 2:48:46
  Speaker 1: the trees ahead. Not even a trimmer shook the tube,
• 2:48:50
  Speaker 1: but I knew that at intervals of something less than
• 2:48:53
  Speaker 1: a second, it was discharging small projectiles, which, traveling under
• 2:48:58
  Speaker 1: their own continuously reduced power, were arcing into the air
• 2:49:02
  Speaker 1: to fall precisely five miles ahead and explode with the
• 2:49:06
  Speaker 1: force of eight inch shells, such as we used in
• 2:49:09
  Speaker 1: the First World War. Another gunner fifty feet to the
• 2:49:13
  Speaker 1: right of him, waved a hand and called out something
• 2:49:15
  Speaker 1: to him. Then, picking up his own tube and tripod,
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: he gaged the distance between the trees ahead of him
• 2:49:23
  Speaker 1: and the height of the lowest branches, and, bending forward
• 2:49:26
  Speaker 1: a bit, flexed his muscles and leaped lightly some twenty
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 1: five feet. Another leap took him another twenty feet or so,
• 2:49:34
  Speaker 1: where he began to set up his piece. I ordered
• 2:49:37
  Speaker 1: my observer then to switch to the barrage itself. He
• 2:49:41
  Speaker 1: got a close focus on it, but this showed little
• 2:49:44
  Speaker 1: except a continuous series of blinding flashes, which from the
• 2:49:48
  Speaker 1: viewplate lit up the entire interior of the ship. An
• 2:49:51
  Speaker 1: eight hundred foot focus proved better. I had thought that
• 2:49:55
  Speaker 1: some of our French and American artillery of the twentieth
• 2:49:58
  Speaker 1: century had achieved the the ultimate in mathematical precision of fire,
• 2:50:03
  Speaker 1: But I had never seen anything to equal the accuracy
• 2:50:06
  Speaker 1: of that line of terrific explosions as it moved steadily forward,
• 2:50:11
  Speaker 1: mowing down trees as a scythe cuts grass or used
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 1: to five hundred years ago, literally churning up the earth
• 2:50:18
  Speaker 1: and the splintered, blasted remains of the forest giants to
• 2:50:22
  Speaker 1: a depth of some ten to twenty feet. By now,
• 2:50:25
  Speaker 1: the two curtains of fire were nearing each other, lines
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 1: of vibrant, shimmering, continuous, brilliant destruction, inevitably squeezing the panic
• 2:50:35
  Speaker 1: stricken sensings between them. Even as I watched, a group
• 2:50:40
  Speaker 1: of him who had been making a futile effort to
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: get their three rep ray machines into the air, abandoned
• 2:50:46
  Speaker 1: their effort, then rushed forth into the milling mob. I
• 2:50:50
  Speaker 1: queried the control bar, sharply of the futility of this
• 2:50:53
  Speaker 1: attempt of theirs, and learned that the Hans, apparently endowed
• 2:50:57
  Speaker 1: as to what was going on, had continued to play
• 2:51:00
  Speaker 1: safe and broken off their power broadcast. After ordering all
• 2:51:04
  Speaker 1: their own ships east of the alligateies to the ground,
• 2:51:06
  Speaker 1: for fear of these ships they had traded to the
• 2:51:09
  Speaker 1: same things might be used against them again. I turned
• 2:51:13
  Speaker 1: to my viewplate, which was still focused on the central
• 2:51:16
  Speaker 1: section of the sinsing works. The confusion of the traitors
• 2:51:21
  Speaker 1: was entirely that of fear, for our barrage had not
• 2:51:24
  Speaker 1: yet reached them. Some of them set up their long
• 2:51:27
  Speaker 1: guns and fired at random over the barrage line, then
• 2:51:30
  Speaker 1: gave it up. They realized that they had no target
• 2:51:33
  Speaker 1: to shoot at, no way of knowing whether our gunners
• 2:51:36
  Speaker 1: were a few hundred feet or several miles beyond it.
• 2:51:40
  Speaker 1: Their ultrophone men, of whom they did not have, many,
• 2:51:43
  Speaker 1: stood around in tense attitudes, their helmet phones strapped around
• 2:51:47
  Speaker 1: their ears, nervously fingering the tuning controls at their belts. Unquestionably,
• 2:51:53
  Speaker 1: they must have located some of our frequencies and overheard
• 2:51:56
  Speaker 1: many of our reports and orders, but they were confused
• 2:52:00
  Speaker 1: and disorganized. If they had an ultrophone boss, they evidently
• 2:52:04
  Speaker 1: were not reporting to him in an organized way. They
• 2:52:07
  Speaker 1: were beginning to draw back now before our advancing fire.
• 2:52:11
  Speaker 1: With intermittent desperation. They began to shoot over our barrage again,
• 2:52:16
  Speaker 1: and the explosions of their rockets flashed at widely scattered
• 2:52:19
  Speaker 1: points beyond a few took distance pot shots. Oddly enough,
• 2:52:25
  Speaker 1: it was our own forces that suffered the first casualties.
• 2:52:28
  Speaker 1: In the battle. Some of these distant shots, by chance
• 2:52:32
  Speaker 1: registered hits, while our men were under strict orders not
• 2:52:36
  Speaker 1: to exceed their barrage distances. Seen upon the ultroscope viewplate,
• 2:52:41
  Speaker 1: the battle looked as though it were being fought in daylight,
• 2:52:44
  Speaker 1: perhaps on a cloudy day, while the explosions of the
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: rockets appeared as flashes of extra brilliance. The two barrage
• 2:52:52
  Speaker 1: lines were not more than five hundred feet apart. When
• 2:52:56
  Speaker 1: the sin things resorted to tactics we had not foreseen.
• 2:53:00
  Speaker 1: We noticed first that they began to lighten themselves by
• 2:53:03
  Speaker 1: throwing away extra equipment. A few of them, in their excitement,
• 2:53:07
  Speaker 1: threw away too much and shot suddenly into the air.
• 2:53:10
  Speaker 1: Then a scattering few floated up gently, followed by increasing numbers,
• 2:53:15
  Speaker 1: while still others, preserving a weight balance, jumped toward the
• 2:53:19
  Speaker 1: closing barrages and leaped high, hoping to clear them. Some succeeded.
• 2:53:24
  Speaker 1: We saw others blown about, like leaves in a windstorm,
• 2:53:28
  Speaker 1: to crumple and drift slowly down, or else fall into
• 2:53:31
  Speaker 1: the barrage, their belts blown from their bodies. However, it
• 2:53:36
  Speaker 1: was not part of our plan to allow a single
• 2:53:38
  Speaker 1: one of them to escape, and find his way to
• 2:53:40
  Speaker 1: the Hans. I quickly passed the word to Bill Hearn
• 2:53:44
  Speaker 1: to have the alternate men in his line raise their barrages,
• 2:53:47
  Speaker 1: and heard him bark out a mathematical formula to the
• 2:53:50
  Speaker 1: unit bosses. We backed off our ships as the explosions
• 2:53:54
  Speaker 1: climbed into the air in staggered formation until they reached
• 2:53:58
  Speaker 1: a height of three miles. I don't believe any of
• 2:54:02
  Speaker 1: the sin Sayings who tried to float away to freedom succeeded,
• 2:54:06
  Speaker 1: but we did know later that a few who leaped
• 2:54:08
  Speaker 1: the barrage got away and ultimately reached Nu Yok. It
• 2:54:13
  Speaker 1: was those who managed to jump the barrage who gave
• 2:54:15
  Speaker 1: us the most trouble. With half of our long guns
• 2:54:18
  Speaker 1: turned aloft, I foresaw we would not have enough to
• 2:54:21
  Speaker 1: establish successive ground barrages, and so ordered the barrage back
• 2:54:25
  Speaker 1: two miles, from which positions our curtains began to close
• 2:54:29
  Speaker 1: in again. This time, however, gaged to explode not on contact,
• 2:54:34
  Speaker 1: but thirty feet in the air. This left little chance
• 2:54:38
  Speaker 1: for the sen Sayings to leap either over or under it.
• 2:54:42
  Speaker 1: Gradually the two barrages approached each other until they finally
• 2:54:46
  Speaker 1: met and in the Great dawn the battle ended. Our
• 2:54:50
  Speaker 1: own casualties mounted to forty seven men in the ground forces,
• 2:54:54
  Speaker 1: eighteen of whom had been slain in hand to hand
• 2:54:57
  Speaker 1: fighting with the few of the enemy who managed to
• 2:54:59
  Speaker 1: reach our lines, and sixty two in the crew and
• 2:55:02
  Speaker 1: kite tail force of Swooper number four, which had been
• 2:55:05
  Speaker 1: located by one of the enemy's ultroscopes and brought down
• 2:55:08
  Speaker 1: with long gun fire. Since nearly every member of the
• 2:55:13
  Speaker 1: Sinsane Gang had so far as we know, been killed,
• 2:55:16
  Speaker 1: we considered the raid a great success. It had, however,
• 2:55:21
  Speaker 1: a far greater significance than this, to all of us
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: who took part in the expedition. The effectiveness of our
• 2:55:28
  Speaker 1: barrage tactics definitely established a confidence in our ability to
• 2:55:32
  Speaker 1: overcome the Hans. As I pointed out to Wilma, it
• 2:55:36
  Speaker 1: has been my belief all along, Dear that the American
• 2:55:39
  Speaker 1: explosive rocket is a far more effective weapon than the
• 2:55:43
  Speaker 1: disintegrated ray of the Hans. Once we can train all
• 2:55:46
  Speaker 1: our gangs to use this systematically and in coordinated fashion.
• 2:55:51
  Speaker 1: As a weapon in the hands of a single individual
• 2:55:54
  Speaker 1: shooting at a mark and direct line of vision, the
• 2:55:57
  Speaker 1: rocket gun is inferior in destruction power to the dis ray,
• 2:56:01
  Speaker 1: except as its range may be a little greater. The
• 2:56:05
  Speaker 1: trouble is that to date it has been used only
• 2:56:07
  Speaker 1: as we used our rifles and shotguns in the twentieth century.
• 2:56:11
  Speaker 1: The possibility of its use as artillery in laying barrages
• 2:56:15
  Speaker 1: that advance along the ground or climb into the air
• 2:56:18
  Speaker 1: are tremendous. The disarray inevitably reveals its source of emanation.
• 2:56:25
  Speaker 1: The rocket gun does not. The dis ray can reach
• 2:56:29
  Speaker 1: its target only in a straight line. The rocket may
• 2:56:33
  Speaker 1: be made to travel in an arc over intervening obstacles
• 2:56:36
  Speaker 1: to an unseen target. Nor must we forget that our
• 2:56:40
  Speaker 1: ultronists now are promising us a perfect shield against the
• 2:56:44
  Speaker 1: disarray and inertron I tremble, though, Tony Dear, when I
• 2:56:49
  Speaker 1: think of the horrors that are ahead of us. The
• 2:56:52
  Speaker 1: hands are clever. They will develop defenses against our new tactics,
• 2:56:57
  Speaker 1: and they are sure to mass against us, not only
• 2:57:00
  Speaker 1: the full force of their power in America, but the
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 1: united forces of the world Empire. They are a cowardly
• 2:57:07
  Speaker 1: race in one sense, but clever as the very devils
• 2:57:11
  Speaker 1: in Hell and inheritors of a calm, ruthless, vicious persistency. Nevertheless,
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: I prophesied the finger of doom points squarely at them today,
• 2:57:24
  Speaker 1: and unless you and I are killed in this struggle,
• 2:57:26
  Speaker 1: we shall live to see America blast the yellow blight
• 2:57:30
  Speaker 1: from the face of the Earth. End of Armageddon twenty
• 2:57:36
  Speaker 1: four to nineteen a d. By Philip Francis Nolan. This
• 2:57:40
  Speaker 1: book was performed by Philip Schinever December two, Thoy eighteen
• 2:57:45
  Speaker 1: in Baton, Rouge, Louisiana.