Chapter 17: Marta's Sacrifice

Progress up the hillside was slow. It had become completely dark; they were without any means of making a light and would not have dared to make one if they could. The mud was tenacious, the constant contact with stumps and rocks both irritating and difficult. But at last in their fumbling way, they reached a spot where the denudation gave place to a line of trees, looming dark and friendly overhead against the skyline, and after that they went faster. Where they were or what route to take neither had any idea. That portion of the Catskills is still as wild as in the days of the Iroquois, save for the few thin roads along the line of the valleys and these they dared not seek.

They solved the difficulty by keeping to the hillcrest till it ran out in a valley, then rapidly climbing the next hill and proceeding along that in the shelter of the forest. Though they necessarily went slowly they did not halt; neither felt the need of rest or sleep, their metal limbs took no serious bruises, and the slip of the hill kept them from running in circles as people usually do when lost in the woods.

Just as the eastern sky began to hold some faint promise of dawn they came upon a farmhouse in a clearing at the top of a hill. It was an unprepossessing affair with a sagging roof, but they burst in the door and went through it in the hope of finding weapons and perhaps an electric battery, for both were used to the bountiful electric meals of the Lassans and were beginning to feel the lack.

The best the place afforded, however, was a rather ancient axe, of which Sherman possessed himself, and a large pot of vaseline with which they anointed themselves liberally, for the continued damp was making them feel rusty in the joints.

They pressed on, and did not halt to consider the situation till full day had come.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Marta, perching herself on a tree-bole.

“South, I guess,” offered Sherman. “They may be looking for us there, but we got to find a city and get some things.”

“There’s Albany,” she suggested.

“Yes, and Schenectady and they have a lot of electric power there we could use. But I vote for New York. If we head in there I can pick up a plane at one of the airports and walk right away from them.”

“Well, it’s a chance,” she said, “but anything is. Come on...” and as they forced their way through the underbrush, “You know, from what I understood of those Lassans’ thoughts, they’ve got something hot cooking up. I’m almost sure there are other people in the world and they’re getting ready to fight them.”

“Let ‘em come,” said Sherman grimly. “That light-ray won’t stand the chance of a whistle in a whirlwind when they get after them with heavy artillery and airplane observation.”

“That’s just where you’re all wet,” replied the dancer. “They’ve been figuring on that for a long time. They got a gun from somewhere, and they’ve had all their fighting machines out, shooting it at them, and then armoring up the fighting machines to stand it. And they’re building guns of their own to shoot those light-bombs. I ought to know. I was on the job.”

Sherman cursed himself inwardly. So that had been the result of his exchange of information with the old Lassan who was so anxious to know about guns.

“How do they get away from it?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t know quite,” she said. “I’m a sap about stuff like that. All I know is what the guy that was controlling me thought about and let me have without knowing it. But I got this much out of it--that the outside of these fighting machines is coated with this ‘substance of life’ they talk about some way, so it’s a perfect mirror, and reflects everything that hits it, even shells. The coating reflects their light ray, too, but it has to have a lead backing for that. It’s no good without the lead. Seems like lead will stop that light-ray every time.”

“I wonder how about big guns,” murmured Sherman.

“Don’t know. I didn’t get anything like that in what the boss was thinking. He seemed to imagine the gun he had was the biggest there was.”

They toiled on. As they progressed southward the thinning forest and the increasing walls of the cliffs drove them farther and farther toward the river, till they were forced to take to the main road willy-nilly. Along it they could walk faster, but there was more danger. They watched the heavens narrowly for any sign of the four-winged birds, but the skies seemed deserted.

At Kingston they found a filling station, and kicking in the door, located a couple of storage batteries that supplied them with a needed meal. “What do you say to a car?” asked Sherman.

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” said the dancer. “It’s running a chance, isn’t it? Still, we’re getting nowhere awful fast this way. Let’s try it.”

Finding a car in running order was a procedure of some difficulty, and Kingston seemed a weaponless town, though Marta finally did locate one little pearl-handled .25 calibre pop-gun. Sherman eyed it dubiously.

“That’s a good thing to kill mosquitoes with,” he remarked, “but I don’t think it will be much use for anything else.”

“Boloney,” she replied. “These Lassans are yellow from way back. If I stuck this under the nose of one of them he’d throw a fit. Come on. Let’s go.”

Eventlessly, the road flowed past under their wheels--Newburgh, Haverstraw, Nyack--one, two, three hours. Then, just south of Chester the dancer suddenly gripped Sherman’s arm.

“What’s that?” she said. “No, over there. Isn’t it--?”

But in one swift glance he had seen as clearly as she. Like a living thing, the car swerved from the road, dived across the ditch, and losing speed, rolled to a halt on the green lawn of a suburban bungalow. Sherman leaped out. “Come on, for God’s sake,” he cried. “It’s a fighting machine. If they’ve seen us they’ll start shooting.”

Dragging her after him, he dived around the house, through a seedy flower-garden, down a path. As though to lend emphasis to his words there came the familiar buzzing roar, and as Sherman dropped, pulling the girl flat on her face after him, they saw the wall of the bungalow cave in, and the roof tilt slowly over and drop into the burning mass beneath. A vivid blue beam, brighter than the sunlight of the dark day, swept across the sky, winked once or twice, and disappeared.

Marta would have risen, but “Take it easy,” said Sherman. “If they see us they’ll pop another of those tokens at us.”

He wriggled along on his stomach, picking up weeds in his body plates in the process, and making for the shelter of an overgrown hedge that ran behind the next bungalow.

“Look out,” called the dancer suddenly. “Here come the birds.”

She waved her hand up and back, and by screwing up his eyes Sherman could just make out a black speck against the clouds, far north. They rolled under the shelter of the hedge and lay still, scarcely daring to whisper.