The Earth-Tube (29 page)

The President motioned toward the battery of microphones, which had been set up, ready for use. “With the permission of the other members of the War Council,” he said, “I give you free rein to handle this as you think best. The Government will give you every assistance within its power.”

King was for a moment taken off his feet by this casual remark, implying as it did that the brunt of the vital reorganization would be, temporarily at least, upon his shoulders. He hesitated a moment before making reply.

“I will undertake it,” he said at length, “if I may also have your permission to make a certain. gesture which I believe is absolutely necessary in impressing the people with our good faith.”

The President glanced at Dr. Scott and Secretary Angell and nodded. “We must proceed with due caution,” he said, “but we feel there need be no fear of what you will do.”

King turned quickly to Secretary Angell. “Will you speak over the radio for me?” he asked. “Your voice in the past has moved the American people more than any other in the world.” The Secretary responded with alacrity. “But you must tell them the truth,” King went on, quietly. “Tell them that the whole world is at stake, that North America has got its back against the wall. Tell them that unless every man, woman and child in the country forgets his selfish interests and joins the great movement to sweep the Asians off the earth, the whole country will fall prey to these monsters within two weeks.”

“Yes, yes. I understand,” replied the Secretary. “And then you can tell them that the gold they have picked up they can keep. for souvenirs of the time when it was considered valuable. Tell them that free gold will be distributed again to-morrow at the steps of the United States Treasury Building in Washington, and the Sub-Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank Buildings in New York, for any one who wishes to send some souvenirs to his relatives. Tell them that paper money and other monetary tokens will also be given away. The Government is going out of the money business, and anybody who wants a free sample can have it, as long as they last.”

“But my dear young fellow!” exclaimed five Secretaries in unison. “You will have rioting; you will have complete disorganization. Think of business!”

King smiled. “It’s too late to save business now,” he replied. “With so much gold lying in the streets, of what value are the few tons of it we have stored here and there in vaults? And with the gold valueless, what value has paper money? We may as well give it away, to show them that we mean what we say.”

“Is this the gesture you spoke of?” asked the President.

King replied quickly. “Yes. It is the only way, in my opinion, to impress upon them the worthlessness of gold. Those who do not hear what we are saying tonight over the radio will read it in the papers to-morrow, or hear of it from the neighbors.”

The President gave his consent. The perspiring Secretary of War, confused by the puzzling orders he had received, but nevertheless clearing his throat in his best manner, stepped before the microphones.

Addressing the others, King continued the outlining of his plan.

II

Feverishly, as the hours went by, King and the Secretaries worked with the details of reorganization. Morning came, and later, in the middle of the long forenoon, King received word that the Asians had at last entered the old United States.

At Houston the defenders had fallen back. The city was almost completely evacuated. The invaders had rolled into the empty streets and taken quiet possession. Now they were preparing to continue onward again, aided for the first time by battle planes bearing the royal Asian colors. A scout plane had been observed mapping out a route eastward. The tanks were resting for a little, while their forward trail was being planned for them.

It seemed a hopeless task, exhorting all America to meet this double attack; invasion at the south and chaos within. Without sleep the President and Dr. Scott had worked with King throughout the night, and when at dawn King had ordered the aged scientist off to bed he had gone protesting that he might still be of further use. At noon the President followed him, worn out with the effort of the night. The Secretaries had been handling their work in relays, and many were coming back in the early afternoon, fresh to take up the details of the reorganization again.

“Have you had any sign that we have reached the people?” one asked of King.

He looked up wearily from his desk and shook bis head.

“No definite word of anything,” he replied, “except that the Asian tanks are on the move again,” “Where to?”

“Toward the Mississippi.”

A little later the President appeared and commanded King to rest.

“I’ve ordered our whole supply of liquid air sent down to the encampment near New Orleans,” said King. “I think it’s our last chance to defend the country. If we don’t stop them there we never will.”

Like a drunken man, so drugged was he with weariness, King left his work and went for a few hours’ rest. It was night when he awoke again. The first thing that caught his eye when he had returned to his desk was a huge sheaf of telegrams. Nervously he looked at them; they were from the heads of the army, the controllers of food depots, the factories, the units throughout the country who at his orders had been engaged all day in registering the population and assigning it to necessary tasks.

A few minutes later Dr. Scott and Diane called upon him.

“What do you hear from the invasion?” asked Dr. Scott.

“The tanks are proceeding eastward from Houston. The Asians are certain, no doubt, that America is still demoralized. They will be surprised to-morrow to find us ready to attack when they approach the Mississippi.”

“Will you be ready for them?”

King nodded.

Dr. Scott replied quietly. “It’s a tremendous task you’ve done in the last few hours. On every hand I hear that it has been a success.”

King smiled his appreciation and turned to Diane, his weariness overcome by his pleasure at being near her. “Tell your Asian friends that we have beaten them again,” he said banteringly. “Our new system is working. Here is the proof!”

He held out to her the great sheaf of telegrams, messages from every corner of the continent.

Diane took his arm impulsively

Dr. Scott nodded his head briskly and turned away. His emotions were very near the surface.

Diane spoke. “If the defense of New Orleans is a success,” she said, “America may be saved. But you must strike hammer-blows. Your new government is too new and too unstable to long withstand defeat.”

King saw before him the fierce battle that was yet to be won.

“That is true,” he admitted.

Later he said: “Diane, will you go with me tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she replied.

III

The Asians had burned Houston. Now they were progressing by a direct route through Beaumont and across the Sabine River. Already the defenders had retreated hastily from the fragile and useless fortifications at Lake Charles, and the folk of the town were hurrying away in autos, motor trucks, by wagon and team, afoot. anything to get out of the path of that fearful advance. At the beginning of the invasion the Asians had moved slowly, destroying and capturing everything as they went. Now they appeared intent upon taking only the key cities, leaving it to the lighter armament behind them and the slower establishment of Asian dominion in the controlled territory to conquer the outlying areas.

It seemed particularly that they sought to take New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi. From this region they could then move northward along the stream, dividing North America. The huge, lumbering tanks, which were still the mainstay of the invasion, seemed capable of the speed of race horses when their pilots so chose. Now, as if aware for the first time that the Americans were preparing an adequate defense at New Orleans, they were speeding forward at their utmost.

More than seventy of the large tanks, accompanied by above a hundred of the attending machines, made up the vanguard of the invasion as it passed Beaumont early in the day. Above them, like vultures awaiting the plunder of battle, soared hundreds of Asian planes, no longer disguised by American markings, but bearing the black and scarlet of the Tal Majod. The large tanks were progressing four abreast. Ahead of them ran a dozen of the lighter scouts, selecting the way, while on the sides and in the van, echeloned across the front like a flashing, protective wave, the whippets mowed down the country as they moved.

The Americans had selected a site about twenty miles northwest of New Orleans for their stand, in flat country which would give them opportunity to fire upon the Asians and to pursue them should there be a retreat. There was a great deal of nervousness in the American camp. The new and, except in experimental and training work, untried howitzers which Dr. Scott and King had designed to hurl the liquid-air shells, these strange shells themselves, and the whole apparatus of defense seemed impotent and inadequate against monsters which had not been stopped by mountains, water, flame, shot, or the thickness of the earth itself, which they had penetrated.

The earthen breastworks, behind which nestled the liquid-air guns and the flame-throwers, as well as the heavy artillery for firing the ordinary projectiles of war, were laid out along a front more than ten miles in length, in the shape of a series of pockets or Vs. Each pocket was a complete fighting unit, and each was so arranged that Asian machines entrapped there could be fired upon from all points within the unit. Back of the lines were infantrymen and runners and small American tanks, ready for whatever emergency might occur.

From the air, as he came from Washington to superintend the defense, King learned what arrangements had been made. With Diane in the high cabin of the commanding plane he watched the warm, spring-green earth of North America slipping away beneath. All this great quiet land, with its industry, its peace and prosperity, its civilization built up by years of patient toil and the far-reaching adventures of pioneers; its freedom, which had been made possible by the sacrifices of patriots since the beginning of American history . all now lay under the threat of the new dominion. The long skinny hand of a leper from the East had reached out and infected the Americas; like a loathsome disease was the organization of the Asians moving northward, to despoil and destroy.

Far ahead King caught a glimpse of the great Mississippi, cutting its broad channel southward a hundred miles to join the sea; reaching its mighty arm into the north, with fingers of a hundred branches, to drain and communicate with the heart of America. New Orleans, the ancient Crescent City, lay in its river curve, with its buildings running back toward Lake Borgne and Lake Ponchartrain. Beyond the river toward the west was Algiers, itself a mighty city now, though a suburb. About it all lay the thickly settled and rich country of southern Louisiana, reaching westward to touch Texas and the Sabine.

Beneath him the roads were choked. The cities had no faith in this new and strange defense; it was too fantastic to be believed, and people by the tens of thousands were running for their lives. New Orleans had already been abandoned to her fate by half her citizens. North and eastward the flying caravans were speeding. Tall spirals of smoke here and there in the city indicated that it had been abandoned even by its fire guards, and many buildings were in flames.

Farther away, across the river, could be seen the vague and fragile outlines of the defense fortifications. They had been completed none too soon. The enemy was already in sight; the air was filled with his ships, the ground seemed covered with his crawling tanks. King drew a deep breath. The hour to strike had come. The test of the defenses and the liquid air was at hand.

In touch with his commanders, King cautioned them that the success of the attack depended in some measure upon surprise. “You will wait until the foremost tanks are almost at the ends of your guns,” he directed, bearing in mind an earlier and equally historic defense of America against overwhelming odds. “You will fire first with liquid air, watching its effect. In the meantime the air fleet will close with the enemy fliers. They will not trouble you upon the ground while they are engaged with us.”

The American flying squadrons came up on either side of their commander’s plane, moving into battle formation, waiting for the enemy planes to begin the attack. But the Asian fliers were inclined to hang back, realizing their inadequacy above the ground. They contented themselves, rather, with circling above the onrushing tanks, which had not slowed or given any indication of having sighted the fortifications before them. The vanguard of whippets stampeded directly toward the center of the defense; it seemed as if they were intent upon bursting directly through by the sheer weight of their numbers.

Then, at the last moment, the Asians on the ground chose to give battle to the defenders. As King watched,fascinated, the heavy tanks spread out of their column in fours, deploying in a long, thin line. The smaller tanks wheeled and drew back, leaving the front to their big brothers. The battle of New Orleans was to be a supreme test. The Asians knew it, the Americans too. Like old-fashioned dancers upon a threshing floor, the lumbering tanks moved in small groups to the right and left, assuming a new battle formation, a series of flying wedges to assail the American line. The planes on either side, realizing that the main battle would be for possession of the ground, lagged back to watch the outcome of the attack.

For a full minute there was silence. Both sides were alert, waiting. The American gunners were nervous at their posts. The gigantic, lizard-like tanks, though almost out of the range of their field guns, loomed above them, waiting to spring. Pop-guns and pale blue liquid was no defense against such gleaming beasts of prey!

The signal came which broke the quiet of the tanks. The air was instantly filled with the furious humming of the highly geared machines. Slowly, with deadly intensity, they began to advance upon the pitiful earthworks of the defenders. At the same moment the dazzling, hypnotic ray began to sweep the terrain. Even in the sunlight it was faintly, unbelievably visible, like pale, blue smoke shot outward from the generators at tremendous speed.