CHAPTER XI

Captain Blake's game of solitaire had become an obsession. He drove

himself to the utmost in the line of duty, and, through the day, the

demands of the flying field filled his mind to forgetfulness. And for

the rest, he forced his mind to concentrate upon the turn of the cards.

He could not read--and he must not think!--so he sat through long

evenings trying vainly to forget.

He looked up with an expressionless face as Colonel Boynton entered the

room. The colonel saw the cards and nodded.

"Does that help?" he asked, and added without waiting for an answer, "I

don't like cards, but I find my mathematics works well.... My old

problems--I can concentrate on them, and stop this eternal, damnable

thinking, thinking--"

There was something of the same look forming about the eyes of

both--that look that told of men who struggled gamely under the sentence

of death, refusing to think or to fear, and waiting, waiting,

impotently. Blake looked at the colonel with a carefully emotionless

gaze. "It's hell in the big towns, I hear."

The Colonel nodded. "Can't blame them much, if that's what appeals to

them. A year and a half!--and they've got to forget it. Why not crowd

all the recklessness and excesses they can into the time that is

left?--poor devils! But for the most part the world is wagging along,

and people are going through the familiar motions."

"Well," said Blake, "I used to wonder at times how a man might feel if

he were facing execution. Now we all know. Just going dumbly along,

feeling as little as we can, thinking of anything, everything--except

the one thing. They've turned to using dope, a lot of them, I hear.

Maybe it helps; nobody cares much. Only a year and a half."

* * * * *

He raised his face from which all expression was consciously erased.

"Any possible hope?" he asked. "Or do we take it when it comes and fight

with what we've got as long as we can? There was some talk in the papers

of an invention--Bureau of Standards cooperating with the big General

Committee to investigate. Anything come of it?"

"A thousand of them," said the colonel, "all futile. No, we can't expect

much from those things. Though there's a whisper that came to me from

Washington. General Clinton--you may remember him; he was here when the

thing first broke--says that some scientist, a real one, not another of

these half-baked geniuses, has worked out a transformation of some kind.

It was too deep for me, but it is based upon changing hydrogen into

helium, I think. Liberates some perfectly tremendous amount of power.

The general had it all down pat--"

He stopped speaking at the change in Captain Blake's face. The careful

repression of all emotions was gone; the face was suddenly alive--

"I know," he said sharply; "I remember something of the theory. There is

a difference in the atoms or their protons--the liberation of an

electron from each atom--matter actually transformed into energy;

theoretical, what I have read. But--but--Oh my God, Boynton, do you mean

that they've got it?--that it will drive us through space?"

* * * * *

The colonel drove one fist into the palm of his other hand. "Fool!

Idiot!" he exclaimed, and it was evident that the epithets were intended

for himself.

"I had forgotten that you had been trained along that line. The general

wants a man to work with them, somewhat as a liason officer to link the

army requirements closely with their developments; we are hoping to work

out a space ship, of course. You are just the man; I will radio him this

minute. Be ready to leave--" The slamming of the door marked a hurried

exit toward the radio room.

And abruptly, stifflingly, Captain Blake dared to hope. "Scientists will

come through with something, some new method of propulsion. All the

world is looking to them!" His thoughts were leaping from one

possibility to another. "Some miracle of power that will drive a fleet

through space as they have done, to battle with the enemy on his own

ground--"

Could he help? Was there one little thing that he could do to apply

their knowledge to practical ends? The thought thrilled him with

overpowering emotion an hour later as he felt the lift of the plane

beneath him.

"Report to General Clinton," the colonel's reply had said. "Captain

Blake will be assigned to special duty." He opened the throttle to his

ship's best cruising speed, but his spirit was soaring ahead to urge on

the swift scout ship whose wings drove steadily into the gathering

dusk.

* * * * *

And then, after long hours, Washington! Brief words with many men--and

discouragement! The seat of government of the United States was a city

of despondent men, weary, hopeless, but fighting. There was a look of

strain on every face; the eyes told a story of sleepless nights and

futile thinking and planning. Blake's elation was short lived.

He was sent to New York and on into the state, where the laboratories of

a great electrical company had turned their equipment from commercial

purposes to those of war. Here, surely, one might find fuel to feed the

dying embers of hope; the new development must give greater promise than

General Clinton had intimated.

"Nothing you can do as yet," he was told, when he had stated his

mission. "It is still experimental, but we have worked out the

transformation on a small scale, and harnessed the power."

Captain Blake was in no mood for temporizing; he was tired with being

put off. He stared belligerently at the chief of this department.

"Power--hell!" he said. "We've got power now. How will you apply it? How

will we use it for travelling through space?"

The great man of science was unmoved by the outburst. "That is

poppycock," he replied; "the unscientific twaddle of the sensational

press. We are practical men here; we are working to give you men who do

the fighting better ships and better arms. But you will use them right

here on Earth."

The calm assurance of this man who spoke with a voice of such confidence

and authority left the flyer speechless. His brain sent a chaos of

profane and violent expletives to the lips that dared not frame them.

There was no adequate reply.

* * * * *

Blake jammed his hat upon his head and walked blindly from the room.

Heedless of the protests of those he jostled on the street he went

raging on, but some subconscious urge directed his steps. He found

himself at the railway. There was a station, and a grilled window where

he was asking for a ticket back to Washington. And on the following

day--

"There is nothing I can do," he told General Clinton. "It is hopeless. I

ask to be relieved."

"Why?" The general snapped the question at him. What kind of man was

this that Boynton had sent him?

"They are fools," said Blake bluntly, "pompous, well-meaning fools! They

are planning better motors, more power"--he laughed harshly--"and they

think that with them we can attack ships that are independent of the

air."

"Still," asked General Clinton coldly, "for what purpose do you wish to

be relieved? What do you intend to do?"

"Return to the field," said Captain Blake, "to work, and put my planes

and personnel in the best possible condition; then, when the time comes,

go up and fight like hell."

An unusual phrasing of a request when one is addressing one's commander;

but the older man threw back his shoulders, that were bending under

responsibilities too great for one man to bear, and took a long breath

that relaxed his face and seemed to bring relief.

"You've got the right idea,"--he spoke slowly and thoughtfully--"the

right philosophy. It is all we have left--to fight like hell when the

time comes. Give my regards to Colonel Boynton; he sent me a good man

after all."

* * * * *

Another long flight, westward this time, and, despite the failure of his

hopes and of his errand, Blake was flying with a mind at peace. "It is

all we have left," the general had said. Well, it was good to face

facts, to admit them--and that was that! There was no use of thinking or

worrying.... He lifted the ship to a higher level and glanced at his

compass. There were clouds up ahead, and he drove still higher into the

night, until he was above them.

And again his peace of mind was not to last.

It was night when he swung the ship over his home port and signalled for

a landing. A flood of light swept out across the field to guide him

down. He went directly to the colonel's quarters but found him gone.

"In the radio room, I think," an orderly told him.

Colonel Boynton was listening intently in the silent room; he scowled

with annoyance at the disturbance of Blake's coming; then, seeing who it

was, he motioned quickly for the captain to listen in.

"Good Lord, Blake," he told the captain in an excited whisper; "I'm glad

you're here. Another ship had been sighted; she's been all over the

earth; just scouting and mapping, probably. And there have been signals

the same as before--the same until just now. Listen!--it's talking

Morse!--it's been calling for you!"

He thrust a head set into Blake's hands, then reached for some papers.

"Poor reception, but there's what we've got," he said.

* * * * *

The paper held the merest fragments of messages that the operator had

deciphered. Blake examined them curiously while he listened at the

silent receiver.

"Maricopa"--the message, whatever it was, was meant for them, but there

were only parts of words and disjointed phrases that the man had written

down--"Venus attacking Earth ... Captain Blake ... Sykes and...."

At the name of Sykes, Blake dropped the paper.

"What does this mean?" he demanded. "Sykes!--why Sykes was the

astronomer who was captured with McGuire!"

"Listen! Listen!" The colonel's voice was almost shrill with excitement.

The night was whispering faintly the merest echo of a signal from a

station far away, but it resolved itself into broken fragments of sound

that were long and short in duration, and the fragments joined to form

letters in the Morse code.

"See Winslow," it told them, and repeated the message: "See Winslow at

Sierra...." Some distant storm crashed and rattled for breathless

minutes. "Blake see Winslow. This is McGuire, Blake. Winslow can

help--"

The message ended abruptly. One long, wailing note; then again the night

was voiceless ... and in the radio room at Maricopa Flying Field two men

stood speechless, unbreathing, to stare at each other with incredulous

eyes, as might men who had seen a phantom--a ghost that spoke to them

and called them by name.

"McGuire--is--alive!" stammered Blake. "They've taken him--there!"

* * * * *

Colonel Boynton was considering, weighing all the possibilities, and his

voice, when he answered, had the ring of conviction.

"That was no hoax," he agreed; "that quavering tone could never be

faked. That message was sent from the same station we heard before. Yes,

McGuire is alive--or was up to the end of that sending.... But, who the

devil is Winslow?"

Blake shook his head despairingly. "I don't know," he said. "And it

seems as if I should--"

It was hours later, far into the night, when he sprang from out of a

half-conscious doze to find himself in the middle of the floor with the

voice of McGuire ringing clearly in his ears. A buried memory had

returned to the level of his conscious mind. He rushed over to the

colonel's quarters.

"I've got it," he shouted to that officer whose head was projecting from

an upper window. "I remember! McGuire told me about this Winslow--some

hermit that he ran across. He has some invention--some machine--said he

had been to the moon. I always thought Mac half believed him. We'll go

over Mac's things and find the address."

"Do you think--do you suppose--?" began Colonel Boynton doubtfully.

"I don't dare to think," Blake responded. "God only knows if we dare

hope; but Mac--Mac's got a level head; he wouldn't send us unless he

knew! Good Lord, man!" he exclaimed, "Mac radioed us from Venus; is

there anything impossible after that?"

"Wait there," said Colonel Boynton; "I'll be right down--"