The Black Star Passes Part 11

"A thunderstorm!" Wade began, but Arcot interrupted.

"Not so fast, Wade--Fuller's animal _is_ there--the only animal in all creation that can make a noise like that! Look through the telescope--see those dots wheeling about there above the flas.h.i.+ng lights? The only animal that can make that racket is man! There are men over there--and they aren't in a playful mood! Turn on the invisibility while we can, Morey--and let's get nearer!"

"Look out--here we go!" Morey began to close a tiny switch set in one side of the instrument panel--then, before the relay below could move, he had flipped it back.

"Here, you take it, Arcot--you always think about two steps ahead of me--you're quicker and know the machine better anyway."

Quickly the two men exchanged places.

"I don't know about that, Morey," said a voice from vacancy, for Arcot had at once thrown the s.h.i.+p into invisibility. "The longer we're here, the more mistakes I see we made in our calculations. I see what put me off so badly on my estimate of the intelligence of life found here! The sun gives it a double dose of heat--but also a double dose of other radiations--some of which evidently speed up evolution. Anyway, we may be able to find friends here more quickly if we aid one side or the other in the very lively battle going on there. Before we go any further, what's our decision?"

"I think it is a fine idea," said Fuller. "But which side are we to aid--and what are the sides? We haven't even seen them yet. Let's go nearer and take a good look."

"Yes--but are we going to join either side after looking?"

"Oh, that's unanimous!" said Wade, excitedly.

The invisible s.h.i.+p darted forward. They sped past the barrier of low hills, and were again high above a broad plain. With a startled gasp, Arcot cut their speed. There, floating high in the air, above a magnificent city, was a machine such as no man had ever before seen! It was a t.i.tanic airplane--monstrous, gargantuan, and every other word that denoted immensity. Fully three-quarters of a mile the huge metal wings stretched out in the dull light of the cloudy Venerian day; a machine that seemed to dwarf even the vast city beneath it. The roar of its mighty propellers was a rumbling thunder to the men in the _Solarite_.

From it came the flas.h.i.+ng bursts of flame.

On closer inspection, the watchers saw what seemed to be a swarm of tiny gnats flying about the mighty plane. They appeared to be attacking the giant as vainly as gnats might attack an eagle, for they could not damage the giant machine. The flas.h.i.+ng bombs burst in blasts of yellow flame as harmlessly as so many firecrackers.

All that mighty plane was covered with heavy metal plates, fully ten inches thick, and of metal so tough that when the powerful bombs. .h.i.t it they made no impression, though they blasted tremendous craters in the soil below. From it poured a steady stream of bombs that burst with a great flash of heat and light, and in an instant the tiny planes they struck streaked down as incandescent ma.s.ses of metal.

Yet the giant seemed unable to approach the city--or was it defending it? No, for it was from the city that the vainly courageous little s.h.i.+ps poured out. But certainly it was not these s.h.i.+ps that kept the t.i.tanic battles.h.i.+p of the air at bay!

Tensely the men watched the uneven conflict. The rain of bombs continued, though all fell short of the city. But slowly around the metropolis there appeared an area of flaring, molten lava, and steadily this moved toward the beautiful buildings. Suddenly the battles.h.i.+p turned toward the city and made a short dash inward on its circling path. As though awaiting this maneuver, a battery of hissing, flaming swords of white light flashed upward, a few hundred feet from the ring of molten rock. As the t.i.tanic plane rolled, side-slipped out of the way, they pa.s.sed, harmlessly, barely missing a monstrous wing.

"Which?" Arcot demanded. "I say the city. No one should destroy anything so magnificent."

Not a dissenting voice was raised, so Arcot sent the _Solarite_ nearer.

"But what in the world can we do to that huge thing?" Fuller's voice came eerily out of the emptiness. "It has perfect invulnerability through size alone."

There was sudden silence among the Terrestrials as one of the tiny planes darted forward and dove at full speed directly toward one of the giant's propellers. There were fifty of these strung along each great wing. If enough of them could be destroyed, the plane must crash. There came a terrific crash--a flare of light--and splintered fragments of flaming wreckage plummeted down. Yet the mighty blades continued whirling as smoothly as ever!

What could the _Solarite_ do against the giant monoplane? Evidently Arcot had a plan. Under his touch their machine darted high into the sky above the great plane. There was a full mile between them when he released the sustaining force of the _Solarite_ and let it drop, straight toward the source of the battle--falling freely, ever more and more rapidly. They were rus.h.i.+ng at the mighty plane below at a pace that made their hearts seem to pause--then suddenly Arcot cried out, "Hold on--here we stop!"

They seemed a scant hundred feet from the broad metal wings of the unsuspecting plane, when suddenly there was a tremendous jerk, and each man felt himself pressed to the floor beneath a terrific weight that made their backs crack with the load. Doggedly they fought to retain their senses; the blackness receded.

Below them they saw only a mighty sea of roaring red flames--a h.e.l.l of blazing gas that roared like a score of bombs set off at once. The _Solarite_ was sitting down on her rocket jets! All six of the rocket tubes in the base of the s.h.i.+p had been opened wide, and streaming from them in a furious blast of incandescent gas, the atomic hydrogen shot out in a mighty column of gas at 3500 degrees centigrade. Where the gas touched it, the great plane flared to incandescence; and in an immeasurable interval the fall of the _Solarite_ ended, and it rebounded high into the air. Arcot, struggling against the weight of six gravities, pulled shut the little control that had sent those mighty torches blasting out. An instant later they sped away lest the plane shoot toward the gas columns.

From a safe distance they looked back at their work. No longer was the mighty plane unscathed, invulnerable, for now in its top gaped six great craters of incandescent metal that almost touched and coalesced. The great plane itself reeled, staggering, plunging downward; but long before it reached the hard soil below, it was brought into level flight, and despite many dead engines, it circled and fled toward the south. The horde of small planes followed, dropping a rain of bombs into the glowing pits in the s.h.i.+p, releasing their fury in its interior. In moments the beings manning the marauder had to a large extent recovered from the shock of the attack and were fighting back. In a moment--just before the s.h.i.+p pa.s.sed over the horizon and out of sight--the Terrestrians saw the great props that had been idle, suddenly leap into motion, and in an instant the giant had left its attackers behind--fleeing from its invisible foe.

Under Arcot's guidance the s.h.i.+p from Earth, still invisible, returned to the approximate spot where they had destroyed the invulnerability of the Giant. Then suddenly, out of nothing, the _Solarite_ appeared. In an instant a dozen of the tiny two-man planes darted toward it. Just that they might recognize it, Arcot shot it up a bit higher with the aid of the keel rockets at one-third power. The typical reddish flame of atomic hydrogen, he knew, would be instantaneously recognizable.

Little these planes were, but shaped like darts, and swifter than any plane of Earth. They shot along at 1000 miles an hour readily, as Arcot soon found out. It was not a minute before they had formed a long line that circled the _Solarite_ at minimum speed, then started off in the direction of the city. On impulse Arcot followed after them, and instantly the planes increased their velocity, swiftly reaching 1000 miles per hour.

The city they were approaching was an inspiring sight. Mighty towers swept graceful lines a half mile in the air, their brightly colored walls gleaming in rainbow hues, giving the entire city the aspect of a gigantic jewel--a single architectural unit. Here was symmetry and order, with every unit in the city built around the gigantic central edifice that rose, a tremendous tower of black and gold, a full half mile in the air.

The outer parts of the city were evidently the residential districts, the low buildings and the wide streets with the little green lawns showing the care of the individual owner. Then came the apartment houses and the small stores; these rose in gentle slopes, higher and higher, merging at last with the mighty central pinnacle of beauty. The city was designed as a whole, not in a mult.i.tude of individually beautiful, but inharmonious units, like some wild mixture of melodies, each in itself beautiful, but mutually discordant.

V

The Terrestrians followed their escort high above these great buildings, heading toward the great central tower. In a moment they were above it, and in perfect order the s.h.i.+ps of the Venerians shot down to land smoothly, but at high speed. On the roof of the building they slowed with startling rapidity, held back by electromagnets under the top dressing of the roof landing, as Arcot learned later.

"We can't land on that--this thing weighs too much--we'd probably sink right through it! The street looks wide enough for us to land there."

Arcot maneuvered the _Solarite_ over the edge of the roof, and dropped it swiftly down the half mile to the ground below. Just above the street, he leveled off, and descended slowly, giving the hurrying crowds plenty of time to get from beneath it.

Landing finally, he looked curiously at the ma.s.s of Venerians who had gathered in the busy street, coming out of buildings where they evidently had sought shelter during the raid. The crowd grew rapidly as the Terrestrians watched them--people of a new world.

"Why," exclaimed Fuller in startled surprise, "they look almost like us!"

"Why not?" laughed Arcot. "Is there any particular reason why they shouldn't look like us? Venus and Earth are very nearly the same size, and are planets of the same parent sun. Physical conditions here appear to be very similar to conditions back home, and if there's anything to Svend Arrehenius' theory of life spores being sent from world to world by sunlight, there's no reason why humanoid races cannot be found throughout the universe. On worlds, that is, suitable for the development of such life forms."

"Look at the size of 'em," Fuller commented.

Their size was certainly worth noting, for in all that crowd only the obviously young were less than six feet tall. The average seemed to be seven feet--well-built men and women with unusually large chests, who would have seemed very human indeed, but for a ghastly, death-like blue tinge to their skin. Even their lips were as bright a blue as man's lips are red. The teeth seemed to be as white as any human's, but their mouths were blue.

"They look as if they'd all been eating blueberries!" laughed Wade. "I wonder what makes their blood blue? I've heard of blue-blooded families, but these are the first I've ever seen!"

"I think I can answer that," said Morey slowly. "It seems odd to us--but those people evidently have their blood based on hemocyanin. In us, the oxygen is carried to the tissues, and the carbon dioxide carried away by an iron compound, hemoglobin, but in many animals of Earth, the same function is performed by a copper compound, hemocyanin, which is an intense blue. I am sure that that is the explanation for these strange people. By the way, did you notice their hands?"

"Yes, I had. They strike me as having one too many fingers--look there--that fellow is pointing--why--his hand hasn't too many fingers, but too many thumbs! He has one on each side of his palm! Say, that would be handy in placing nuts and bolts, and such fine work, wouldn't it?"

Suddenly a lane opened in the crowd, and from the great black and gold building there came a file of men in tight-fitting green uniforms; a file of seven-foot giants. Obviously they were soldiers of some particular branch, for in the crowd there were a number of men dressed in similar uniforms of deep blue.

"I think they want one or more of us to accompany them," Arcot said.

"Let's flip a coin to decide who goes--two better stay here, and two go.

If we don't come back inside of a reasonable period of time, one of you might start making inquiries; the other can send a message to Earth, and get out of harm's way till help can come. I imagine these people are friendly now, however--else I wouldn't go."

The leader of the troop stepped up to the door of the _Solarite_, and coming to what was obviously a position of attention, put his left hand over his right breast in an equally obvious salute, and waited.

The coin was flipped with due ceremony--it would decide which of them were to have the distinction of being the first Terrestrians to set foot on Venus. Arcot and Morey won, and they quickly put on the loose-fitting ventilated cooling suits that they might live comfortably in the hot air outside--for the thermometer registered 150!

The two men quickly walked over to the airlock, entered, closed it behind them, and opened the outer door. There was a slight rush of air, as the pressure outside was a bit lower than that inside. There was a singing in their ears, and they had to swallow several times to equalize the pressure.

The guards at once fell into a double row on either side of them, and the young officer strode ahead. He himself had curbed his curiosity after the single startled glance he had given these strange men. Only their hands were visible, for the cooling suits covered them almost completely, but the strange pink color must indeed have been startling to the eyes; also their dwarf stature, and the strange suits they wore.

The men of his little troop, however, as well as the people in the crowd about them, were not so disinterested. They were looking in eager amazement at these men who had just saved their city, these strange small men with their queer pink skin. And most surprising of all, perhaps, the inner thumb was missing from each hand!

But soon they had pa.s.sed beyond the sight of the crowd, which was held in check by a handful of the deep blue uniformed men.

"Those fellows would never hold such a Terrestrial crowd back if visitors from another planet landed!" remarked Morey wonderingly.

"How do they know we are visitors from another planet?" Arcot objected.