Chapter 18: The End of the Light-Ray

“The Lassans?” said General Grierson, in a puzzled tone, looking at the sheet-clad apparition. “You mean these--mechanical monsters?”

Sherman winced. “Like myself? No, sir, those are their slaves. I thought you were familiar with them. They are elephant-men and quite different.”

[Illustration: This shows that Mr. Pratt’s conception of the elephant-men is not so far-fetched. This photo is Ganesha, a Hindu god, patron of art and literature Ganesha symbolizes to the Hindus wisdom and knowledge.]

“I meant those damned, long, shining objects that shoot that light-ray of theirs. Their guns shoot it out in packages, but we can understand that and deal with them; our artillery is just as good. But if we can’t stop those shining things there will be no army left and that means no men left on this planet. This army is our last resource. If you know of anything, anything, that will stop them, for God’s sake tell us! All we’ve found that does any good so far are the twelve-inch railroad guns and we have only four of them. One was knocked out by their shells this afternoon.”

“You mean their fighting-machines,” Sherman replied. “Why, I’m not absolutely certain. I only know what I picked up from them and what Marta Lami”--he swallowed hard at the mention of her name--”the bravest woman in the world, told me. But I think that a shell with a lead cap would go through those fighting machines like a knife through a piece of cheese.”

There was a tiny silence in the room at this momentous announcement. Then an artillery officer said, dreamily, “The armor-piercing shells the railroad guns use have lead caps.”

As though his words had released a spell there came a quick drumfire of questions:

“What are they armored with?”

“What kind of a power-plant do they use?”

“Can you stop the light-ray?”

“What makes you think so?”

Sherman smiled. “Just a moment. One question at a time. I’m not sure I can answer them all, anyway. As to what makes me think so and what they’re armored with, they have a coating of steel armor, but it isn’t very thick. It’s plated on the outside with a coat of lead and outside that with the substance they call ‘pure light.’ I don’t know what it is, but it’s the same stuff they use in the light-ray and in their shells, and I know that lead sheeting will stop it, even when the lead is very thin.”

General Grierson swung round in his chair. “Hartnett! write out an order to General Hudson, Chief Quartermaster, at once. Tell him to remove every piece of lead he can find in Atlantic City and get it melted down. Also to set up a plant for tipping all shells with lead...”

Ben Ruby leaned forward. “Can we get into their city, their headquarters, or whatever they call it?”

“My God, I hope so!” cried Sherman. “Marta Lami’s in there.”

“All right, young man, you’ll have your chance for that,” said General Grierson. “Now suppose you tell us as much as you know about these--things. Every bit of information we can get will be valuable ... Oh, by the way, Hartnett. Have an order made out to the infantry to cut the points of their bullets with their knives. That will make them dum-dum and bring the lead out. Also another one to evacuate as much infantry as possible. They aren’t going to be a great deal of use...”

In the factory of the Atlantic City Packing Company men were toiling, stripped to the waist, in an inferno of heat. The huge row of vats that had once held clams, oysters and fish to grace a nation’s palate, now simmered with green-phosphorescent kettles of molten lead; the hand trucks that once bore piles of canned goods to and fro now pushed by blue-faced men in khaki, held long stacks of pointed shells. In at one end of the building they came in ceaseless procession to pause before the lead tanks where the workmen took each shell and dipped its tip briefly in the lead, then returned it to the truck. Out the other end they wheeled to be loaded in trucks, buses, limousines, everything that had wheels and would move, to be rushed to the maw of the ceaselessly crying guns.

For the offensive was on--the advance of the Lassans had been turned to a retreat. Along the water’s edge, with its back to the sea and the steamers ready to pick up the survivors of the defeat of the last army of man, the last army of man had rallied; rallied and stood as the new lead-tipped shells began to come in and the artillery spouted them at the Lassan fighting-machines, no longer invincible, invulnerable monsters, but hittable and smashable pieces of mechanism.

It was Ben Ruby in a tank shining dully with the new lead plating who led the charge against the Lassan fighting machines on the first day of the battle, and who, with his little division of American tanks, had encountered three of the huge Lassan monsters outside the city. For a moment, as though dazed by the audacity of this attack, they had done nothing at all. Then all three had turned the light-rays on him. Would it hold?

The deadly rays glanced off, danced to the zenith in a shower of coruscating sparks and the gun of the American tank spoke--once, twice. A round hole, with a radiating star-pattern running out from it, appeared in the nose of the nearest Lassan fighting-machine, and it sank to the earth like a tired animal, rolling over and over, helpless. The other two turned to flee, swinging their long bodies around. Surrounded by shell-bursts, riddled by the lead-tipped weapons they too, struggled and sank, to rise no more.