"We know less than nothing of these creatures, in what part of the universe they are spawned, how they live, where they live – Saturn! – Mars! – the Moon! But – we shall soon know how one dies!"
The thing was coming from the cliff. In the dim grayness it seemed less yellow, less fluid. A membrane enclosed it. It was close to the car. Was it hunger that drove it, or cold rage for these puny opponents? The hollow eyes were glaring; a thick arm formed quickly to dart out toward the car. A cloud, high above, caught the color of approaching day…
Before their eyes the vile mass pulsed visibly; it quivered and beat. Then, sensing its danger, it darted like some headless serpent for its machine.
It massed itself about the shattered top to heave convulsively. The top was lifted, carried toward the rest of the great metal egg. The sun's first rays made golden arrows through the distant peaks.
The struggling mass released its burden to stretch its vile length toward the dark caves under the cliffs. The last sheltering fog-veil parted. The thing was halfway to the high bank when the first bright shaft of direct sunlight shot through.
Incredible in the concealment of night, the vast protoplasmic pod was doubly so in the glare of day. But it was there before them, not a hundred feet distant. And it boiled in vast tortured convulsions. The clean sunshine struck it, and the mass heaved itself into the air in a nauseous eruption, then fell limply to the earth.
The yellow membrane turned paler. Once more the staring black eyes formed to turn hopelessly toward the sheltering globe. Then the bulk flattened out on the sand. It was a jellylike mound, through which trembled endless quivering palpitations.
The sun struck hot, and before the eyes of the watching, speechless men was a sickening, horrible sight – a festering mass of corruption.
The sickening yellow was liquid. It seethed and bubbled with liberated gases; it decomposed to purplish fluid streams. A breath of wind blew in their direction. The stench from the hideous pool was overpowering, unbearable. Their heads swam in the evil breath… Thurston ripped the gears into reverse, nor stopped until they were far away on the clean sand.
The tide was coming in when they returned. Gone was the vile putrescence. The waves were lapping at the base of the gleaming machine.
"We'll have to work fast," said MacGregor. "I must know, I must learn." He drew himself up and into the shattered shell.
It was of metal, some forty feet across, its framework a maze of latticed struts. The central part was clear. Here in a wide, shallow pan the monster had rested. Below this was tubing, intricate coils, massive, heavy and strong. MacGregor lowered himself upon it, Thurston was beside him. They went down into the dim bowels of the deadly instrument.
"Hydrogen," the physicist was stating. "Hydrogen – there's our starting point. A generator, obviously, forming the gas – from what? They couldn't compress it! They couldn't carry it or make it, not the volume that they evolved. But they did it, they did it!"
Close to the coils a dim light was glowing. It was a pin-point of radiance in the half-darkness about them. The two men bent closer.
"See," directed MacGregor, "it strikes on this mirror – bright metal and parabolic. It disperses the light, doesn't concentrate it! Ah! Here is another, and another. This one is bent – broken. They are adjustable. Hm! Micrometer accuracy for reducing the light. The last one could reflect through this slot. It's light that does it, Thurston, it's light that does it!"
"Does what?" Thurston had followed the other's analysis of the diffusion process. "The light that would finally reach that slot would be hardly perceptible."
"It's the agent," said MacGregor, "the activator – the catalyst! What does it strike upon? I must know – I must!"
The waves were splashing outside the shell. Thurston turned in a feverish search of the unexplored depths. There was a surprising simplicity, an absence of complicated mechanism. The generator, with its tremendous braces to carry its thrust to the framework itself, filled most of the space. Some of the ribs were thicker, he noticed. Solid metal, as if they might carry great weights. Resting upon them were ranged numbers of objects. They were like eggs, slender, and inches in length. On some were propellers. They worked through the shells on long slender rods. Each was threaded finely – an adjustable arm engaged the thread. Thurston called excitedly to the other.
"Here they are," he said. "Look! Here are the shells. Here's what blew us up!"
He pointed to the slim shafts with their little propellerlike fans. "Adjustable, see? Unwind in their fall … set 'em for any length of travel … fires the charge in the air. That's how they wiped out our air fleet."
There were others without the propellers; they had fins to hold them nose downward. On each nose was a small rounded cap.
"Detonators of some sort," said MacGregor. "We've got to have one. We must get it out quick; the tide's coming in." He laid his hands upon one of the slim, egg-shaped things. He lifted, then strained mightily. But the object did not rise; it only rolled sluggishly.
The scientist stared at it amazed. "Specific gravity," he exclaimed, "beyond anything known! There's nothing on earth … there is no such substance … no form of matter…" His eyes were incredulous.
"Lots to learn," Thurston answered grimly. "We've yet to learn how to fight off the other four."
The other nodded. "Here's the secret," he said. "These shells liberate the same gas that drives the machine. Solve one and we solve both – then we learn how to combat it. But how to remove it – that is the problem. You and I can never lift this out of here."
His glance darted about. There was a small door in the metal beam. The groove in which the shells were placed led to it; it was a port for launching the projectiles. He moved it, opened it. A dash of spray struck him in the face. He glanced inquiringly at his companion.
"Dare we do it?" he asked. "Slide one of them out?"
Each man looked long into the eyes of the other. Was this, then, the end of their terrible night? One shell to be dropped – then a bursting volcano to blast them to eternity…
"The boys in the planes risked it," said Thurston quietly. "They got theirs." He stopped for a broken fragment of steel. "Try one with a fan on; it hasn't a detonator."
The men pried at the slim thing. It slid slowly toward the open port. One heave and it balanced on the edge, then vanished abruptly. The spray was cold on their faces. They breathed heavily with the realization that they still lived.
There were days of horror that followed, horror tempered by a numbing paralysis of all emotions. There were bodies by thousands to be heaped in the pit where San Diego had stood, to be buried beneath countless tons of debris and dirt. Trains brought an army of helpers; airplanes came with doctors and nurses and the beginning of a mountain of supplies. The need was there; it must be met. Yet the whole world was waiting while it helped, waiting for the next blow to fall.
Telegraph service was improvised, and radio receivers rushed in. The news of the world was theirs once more. And it told of a terrified, waiting world. There would be no temporizing now on the part of the invaders. They had seen the airplanes swarming from the ground – they would know an airdrome next time from the air. Thurston had noted the windows in the great shell, windows of dull-colored glass which would protect the darkness of the interior, essential to life for the horrible occupant, but through which it could see. It could watch all directions at once.
The great shell had vanished from the shore. Pounding waves and the shifting sands of high tide had obliterated all trace. More than once had Thurston uttered devout thanks for the chance shell from an anti-aircraft gun that had entered the funnel beneath the machine, had bent and twisted the arrangement of mirrors that he and MacGregor had seen, and, exploding, had cracked and broken the domed roof of the bulb. They had learned little, but MacGregor was up north within reach of Los Angeles laboratories. And he had with him the slim cylinder of death. He was studying, thinking.
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