The Onslaught from Rigel Part 5

"Aren't the birds all dead?" asked the Greek, respectfully. "I saw some in the gutter outside my window and they were turned to iron."

The car coughed to the rise, made it and slid across the bridge.

"It is a bird," said the dancer, "and what a bird! Papa, look at the ostrich."

Pappagourdas and Vanderschoof followed her pointing finger. Along its direction they saw, a couple of hundred feet behind and above them, the widespread wings and heavy body of the same type of four-winged bird Roberts had encountered. Vanderschoof tugged at his pocket. "Maybe it'll come close enough to give us a shot," he said hopefully.

The bird was certainly gaining on them, though the speedometer of the car had risen beyond forty miles an hour. As it drew nearer, they could make out the high-domed, most un-birdlike head set with pop-eyes fixed in a permanent expression of astonishment, the short bill, slightly hooked at the tip, and the huge expanse of the wings. It seemed to be inspecting them as a smaller avian might inspect a bug crawling across a road.

As it drew nearer, it swooped to within a couple dozen feet of the car; they noticed that its feet, folded back beneath the body, had a metallic l.u.s.ter. Then Vanderschoof fired, with a bang that almost deafened the rest. The bird seemed surprised rather than frightened or resentful. At the sound of the gun it bounded upward a few feet and then swung again, moving along parallel with the car and twisting its neck to take a good look at the pa.s.sengers. The chance was too good to be missed; both Pappagourdas and Vanderschoof fired this time, steadying themselves against the motion of the car. One of the shots evidently went home, for a couple of feathers floated down, and the bird, with a series of ear-piercing squawks, spiralled down the side of the mountain toward the river-bank, three or four hundred feet below.

"Bull's eye!" yelled Pappagourdas. "Gimme the cigar! Let's stop the car and go get it."

"What's the use," said Stevens, "you couldn't eat it, anyway. Listen to him yell, would you?"

Above the sound of the motor the screeching of the wounded bird still reached them faintly from the bottom of the cliff.

"I think it's a d.a.m.n shame to shoot up the poor thing," said Marta Lami.

"Oh, he'll be all right," declared Vanderschoof. "Don't believe we touched anything but one wing, and it'll just sit and eat ground-berries till it gets well."

It was perhaps half an hour later, and the distant hills were beginning to acquire a fine powder of dusk when they saw the second bird--a rapidly moving speck, far behind them and to one side of the road.

Vanderschoof saw it first and called the attention of the rest, but they quickly lost interest.

He continued to observe it. Were there two? He thought so, yet--. A moment later he was sure there was more than one, as the car breasted a rise and gave them a better view. They seemed to be following fast. The ridiculous idea that they meant to do something about their fallen comrade came to him, to be dismissed instantly. Yet the birds were certainly following them and he thought he made out a third, behind the others.

The car coasted down a long slope, crossed a bridge and began to go up a hairpin rise. Vanderschoof looked back. The birds were invisible; he looked again, in the right direction this time and saw them, so much larger and nearer that he cried out. The others ceased their low-voiced conversation at the sound of his voice. "What's the matter, papa?" asked the dancer.

"Those birds. Look."

"Why it looks almost as though they were following us."

She sat upright in the seat and squinted at them under an upraised hand.

The queer birds were close enough now so that the difference between their fore-wings and the steadily beating hind wings could be made out.

"You don't suppose they could be mad at us?" she asked.

"Don't be foolish," said Stevens, without turning around. "Birds aren't intelligent enough for that." A long straight stretch lay before him and he let the car out. Vanderschoof, watching with a trace of anxiety, saw the birds also put on more speed. "They are following us," he declared with conviction.

"Look," said Marta Lami, "that one is carrying something, too."

As she spoke, the bird, flying high, gained a position just above and ahead of the car, dropped the object and instantly wheeled off and down to one side. There was a heavy thud on the road ahead, and a big rock bounded and rolled a score of feet before the car.

Marta Lami screamed. Vanderschoof swore, with feeling. "Get out your guns and drive them off," said Stevens. "You fools, why did you have to shoot at them in the first place?"

Before he had finished speaking Vanderschoof had his revolver out and was firing at the second of the birds, now swinging into position above them with another rock. He missed, but the bird, surprised, dropped its burden too soon, and they had the satisfaction of seeing it bounce among the trees at the right of the road.

"Keep after them, that's right," said Stevens. "We're not far from the Point and we can get under cover there."

Both the men in the back were shooting now--Vanderschoof slowly and with deliberate aim; Pappagourdas in a panic-stricken rafale at the third bird, which, higher than the others, paid not the slightest attention to them but jockeyed for position. Stevens began to twist the steering wheel--the car described a fantastic series of zigzags.

"What are they?" he asked. "I never saw anything like them."

"I don't know," replied Vanderschoof. (Bang!) "Like the condors (Bang!) I used to see in South America, only bigger."

Cras.h.!.+ The third rock burst in a shower of fragments not ten feet away, one piece striking the winds.h.i.+eld with a ping, and sending a long diagonal crack across it. The first of the three birds was swinging up again with another rock, screeching hoa.r.s.e communications at the others.

Marta Lami had fallen silent. As the bird began to circle above them, picking its position, Pappagourdas suddenly ceased firing, with a curse.

"Have you got any more bullets?" he asked. "Mine are all gone...." His voice broke suddenly, half-hysterical, "It is the cranes of Ibicos," he cried.

The stone struck behind them. Evidently the bird had a healthy respect for Vanderschoof's aim, which had kept it at such a height that it could not aim accurately. But as the next stone missed they changed their tactics, screaming to each other. The third bird, whose turn it was to drop a stone, merely flew along parallel with them, high enough to be out of range, waiting for the return of the others. When they arrived, all three strung out in a line and released their rocks simultaneously.

There was a resounding crash, the car reeled perilously on the edge of the steep road, then righted and drove on with a clattering bang.

Looking over the side Vanderschoof could see where the big rock had struck the right running board, tearing a foot or two of it loose to trail on the road.

"Wait," he cried, but Stevens shook his head.

They had a bit of luck at this point. The hunt for more stones or something of the kind delayed their enemies, and when they next saw the birds winging up behind them, the white cla.s.sical lines of the West Point administration building already loomed ahead, clear in the gathering gloom.

Stevens turned in, swung the car around at the door, and halted it with screaming brakes, just as the first of the birds overhead overshot the mark and turned to come back. In an instant the banker was out of the car, dragging at Marta Lami's hand. Vanderschoof climbed numbly out the other side, and ran around the car toward the door of the building, but the Greek missed his footing where the running board should have been and fell p.r.o.ne, just as one of the birds dived down with a yell of triumph and dropped his stone accurately onto the struggling man.

"Run!" shouted Stevens.

"But--the Greek," panted Vanderschoof as they climbed the steps.

"h.e.l.l with him. Or here--wait." Stevens turned and thrust his fist through the gla.s.s upper portion of the door. Out in the dusk the three bird-forms were settling round their fallen foe. The flash of the banker's gun stabbed the night and was answered by a scream. Before he could take aim again, with a quick beat of wings, they were gone and when, daring greatly, he ran out a few moments later, he found that Pappagourdas was gone also.

He found the others on one of the benches in the outer office of the building, the girl with her face buried in her hands in an agony of fright and reaction. Vanderschoof, too old and cool a hand to give way in this fas.h.i.+on, looked up.

"What are they, Stevens?" he asked.

The Wall Street man shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I don't know,"

he said. "Some new kind of high-power bird that developed while we were all being made into machines by that comet, I suppose. It's terrible....

They've got the Greek."

"Can't we get after them? There ought to be airplanes here."

"In this light? Can you fly one? I can't and I don't imagine the little girl here can."

The "little girl" lifted her head. She had recovered. "What did we come to this joint for, anyhow?" she asked. "To hang crepe on the chandeliers?"

The words had the effect of an electric shock.