Back Aa

Radio Planet

<h2 id="c19">XIX THE BATTLE IN THE AIR</h2> Cabot unslung his rifle, held his torch high above him, and approached the crouching figure. The crouching figure groaned. It was Tipi, still trussed up, forgotten by all. Myles cut his bonds and helped him to his feet, but he collapsed again with a groan. So, leaving him lying there, the earth-man hastened back to the plane, and then returned with one of his Vairkings, whom he instructed to take charge of the young noble until he was able to walk, and then turn him loose through the secret gate into the alley. There was no point in leaving even an enemy to be burned to death, trussed up in a corner. Tipi attended to, Myles proceeded to Jud’s quarters, where he tuned in the palace. The result was immediate. “Jud speaking,” said a voice. “Answer, Cabot. For Builder’s sake, answer!” <div class="pb" id="Page_143">143</div> “Cabot speaking,” he replied. “I am at your quarters, O Jud. With me are Quivven, Doggo, and about two dozen of the laboratory guards. We have eight magic slingshots now, and also the magic aerial wagon, which you have so long concealed from me. As soon as day breaks we shall rise in the air and do battle with the beasts. If you had let me have this wagon before, I could have prevented the fall of Vairkingi. Now it may be too late. How are things with you?” Back came the answer. “Theoph the Grim, Arkilu the Beautiful, and I are safe in the palace, with most of the army of the Vairkings. So far we have repulsed every assault of the beasts and their Roy allies, but their magic slingshots do frightful havoc. Come and rescue us, O magician.” To which Cabot replied: “With daylight I shall come.” As he came out of the house he looked up at the sky. The background, against which swirled the smoke clouds, now showed faintly purple. By the time he rejoined his party by the plane, day had come. And it was well, for the buildings in the next inclosure had started to burn. Cabot gave his parting instructions to the captain of the guard: “Take six of these eight rifles. Convoy the Princess Quivven to her father’s palace.” “But am I not going with you?” she interrupted in surprise. “I am afraid not, my dear,” Myles sadly replied. “You have been a good little pal, and I hate to leave you, but you would be entirely out of place among the Cupians. Besides there is every chance of our perishing in crossing the boiling seas.” “Then you are going home?” she wailed. “You are planning to desert us in our extremity?” “No,” he answered, “I shall first fight the ant-men, and do all that I can to save Vairkingi. When I am done, you will be safer here than you would be with me.” But she sank to the ground by his side and buried her head on her arms, sobbing: “Myles, Myles, I love you. Can’t you see that I loved you all this time? Oh, you are so blind. You must take me with you. Your Quivven. Your own little Golden Flame.” <div class="pb" id="Page_144">144</div> The earth-man sternly put her in the care of one of the guards, saying grimly: “This makes it more impossible for you to go with me, Quivven, for I have a wife and child in that other land across the seas. I am sorry, sorrier than I can say, that you have come to love me. Can’t you see, Quivven, that this effectually seals the question? If it had not been for this, I might have yielded to your entreaties, but now it is impossible.” Then to the captain of the guards: “With these six rifles, march to the palace and join the forces of Theoph and Jud. I will endeavor to destroy as many of the beasts as possible before I finally leave you and depart for my own country. Start at once, leaving only two or three of your number to help us.” So the guard marched away, dragging a reproachful and tear-stained Quivven with them. Three leather-clad Vairkings remained, and these shortly were joined by a fourth. Cabot half consciously noticed this new arrival, but paid little attention in the bustle of his preparations. The tapestries which were to serve in place of fire-worm fur to swathe himself and Doggo in their flight across the boiling seas were rearranged so as to take up less room. The goggles, which he had brought from the laboratory, were packed with them. The bombs and rifle ammunition were placed in handy positions. A small quantity of provisions were added. Everything was lashed down. Then Myles drew Doggo to one side for a conference and wrote: “I plan first to attack those Formians and Roies who are besieging Theoph’s palace; then to dispose of as many as possible of the scout planes. How many of these are there?” “We had seven airships in our city in the south,” wrote Doggo in reply. “This is one of them here. One is probably temporarily disabled by the shots which you fired in the laboratory yard. That should leave five.” “Can we fight five?” “Most assuredly,” Doggo wrote, agitating his antennae eagerly. <div class="pb" id="Page_145">145</div> “Then let’s go!” wrote Cabot. With a quick take-off diagonally down the inclosure, the huge bombing plane rose slowly into the air amid shouts from the Vairking soldiers below. It was now broad daylight. Myles glanced over the rail, and noted that there were now only three leather-clad warriors. He vaguely wondered what had become of the fourth, but it was too late to inquire. Up through the swirling sparks and smoke they rose, up, up, until they could get a bird’s-eye view of the whole city of Vairkingi. There, on a slight eminence in the center, stood the palace and inclosures of the white-furred king, its walls manned by leather-clad Vairking warriors, surrounded by savage besiegers. The flames had not yet reached that part of the city, and with a change in the wind, appeared to be sweeping past it. As Myles and Doggo circled the palace they noted that practically all the ant-men within sight were massing in a side street, evidently preparing for an assault. How convenient! Myles took the levers and swooped low, while Doggo deluged his fellow countrymen with bombs. When their sudden attack was over, fully half of the Formian menace to the city had been wiped out. Now for the scout planes. These, five in number, could be seen circling the outskirts of the city. The two friends were able to approach one of these without being suspected of being an enemy. Before its flyers realized the peril it had gone down in flames from one well-placed bomb. The other four scout planes at once realized that their own countryman, Doggo, had returned to do them battle, and accordingly converged upon him. Again the two friends exchanged places. And then there took place one of the finest examples of aerial warfare which the earth-man had ever witnessed. This was not like the battles with the whistling bees before the advent of Cabot-made rifles on the planet Poros, when the fighting tail of the plane was pitted against the sting of the bee. For now it was rifle against rifle, bomb against bomb. <div class="pb" id="Page_146">146</div> One by one the enemy planes crashed to the ground, as Doggo spiraled, looped, tailspun, and side-slipped. At last there was only one Formian opponent left. Doggo maneuvered to a position just above it, and Cabot reached for a bomb to give it the coup de grâce. But the bombs were all gone! And the ant-men in the plane below were raising their rifles, watching for a good opening. What was to be done? With Doggo’s deafness to sound waves, it would be impossible to explain the situation to him in time for him to veer away. He naturally assumed that, as he maneuvered the ship into this position of advantage, Cabot would at once put an end to the fight. In this extremity the earth-man suddenly thought of the obsolete fighting tail. Its levers were there. Was it still in operation? He would see. Grasping its levers, he manipulated them swiftly, and drove the tip of the tail through the fuel tank of the enemy. Two bullets zipped by him. Then the machine below careened and soared to earth—or rather, Poros—followed by a stream of shots from the earth-man’s rifle. The battle was over. Cabot relieved Doggo at the controls, and circled the palace once more. His own squad of laboratory guards were just entering one of the palace gates. The captain waved to him. But he noted that Quivven was not among them. Poor girl! What could have become of the poor little golden creature? But there was no time to ask. With so many of the ants killed, all their aircraft disabled and the Vairkings firmly entrenched in the palace and supplied with at least six ant-rifles, Quivven’s people were in as good a position as possible. For Cabot to stop now might mean not only renewed complications with the golden maid, but also possibly the confiscation of his plane by Jud. It would not pay to take any chances; he must hasten home to Lilla, leaving the ants, the Roies, and the Vairkings to contend for the possession of the burning city. <div class="pb" id="Page_147">147</div> As he turned the nose of the airship upward and began the ascent preparatory to flying across the western mountains to the sea, he observed a large marching body of troops far to the south. These might change his responsibility with respect to his late hosts; it would only take a few minutes to investigate; so southward he turned the plane. The marching troops were Roies, as he judged by their absence of leather armor. Swooping low he picked out the face of their leader. It was Otto the Bold, son of Grod the Silent, the leader of the friendly faction of the furry wild-men of the hills. Having captured and sacked the city of the ants, they were now evidently on their way to relieve Vairkingi. The last feeling of obligation passed from the earth-man, as, waving to his savage friend, he turned the nose of his plane upward once more. Then it occurred to him that, having flown so far south, he might just as well take a final look at the ant-city. Besides, this would place him in exactly the location where the ant-men had landed when they flew east across the boiling seas from Cupia to found New Formia, and thus would be a good point for him to take off in his flight westward. Accordingly, he turned to the right until he topped the mountain range, then turned to the left again, and followed the range southward. But a tropical thunderstorm forced him to descend in a cleft of hills. Myles hoped that this rain extended to Vairkingi, and would serve to quench its fires. After several hours, the weather cleared once more. The two companions compared notes on the adventures which had befallen them since their first hop-off that morning. Then they embarked once more, and continued their course southward. Soon they passed over the smoking ruins of the once-impregnable Sur, and at last came to the little radio hut of the Formians. <div class="pb" id="Page_148">148</div> This, too, was in ruins; Otto had received his note. Wireless communication between Cupia, and Vairkingia and New Formia was at an end. Yuri would now believe the worst that Cabot had told him over the air. And that worst was likely to prove to be the truth after all. Swinging to the westward, Myles passed over the deserted city of the ants, patrolled by a handful of Otto’s Roies; and thence on and on until there loomed before him a solid wall of steam. It was the boiling sea, over which he must pass in order to rejoin his loved ones. Hovering gently down on a little silver-green meadow about five miles inland, the two fugitives prepared for the trip. First they pulled off some of the tapestries to pad the fuel tank. And there before them lay a figure in leather Vairking armor, a golden figure smiling up at them, little Quivven, whom they thought they had left behind. “You!” Myles exclaimed, scowling. “Yes,” she replied. “I usually accomplish what I set out to do. When you sent me away, I persuaded one of the guards to lend me his suit. Then I returned, helped with the loading, and hid myself while you and Doggo were writing notes to each other. But I nearly died of fright when you were turning me over and over, up there in the sky.” Myles sighed resignedly. “I can’t send you back now,” he said, “though what I shall do with you in Cupia, the Builders only knows!” So the three friends completed the preparations, and then sat down together for a meal. It was too late to start their flight that day and, besides, a rest would do them all good; so they encamped for the remainder of the afternoon and the night. The next morning, as the first faint flush of pink tinged the eastern sky, they took their farewell meal on Vairkingian soil. Then, swathed in tapestries and with goggles in place, they took their stations in the plane, and headed straight for the bank of steam. As they passed within its clouds, all sight was blotted out. <div class="pb" id="Page_149">149</div> They had decked the fusilage over like an Eskimo kayack, only Cabot’s well-wrapped head protruding. Within, Doggo manipulated the levers and watched the altimeter and gyro-compass by the light of a Vairking stone lamp; strange mingling of modernity and archaism. Cabot’s vigil was for the purpose of guarding against flying too high, and thus piercing the cloud envelope and exposing them to the fatal glare of the sun. On and on they went. Cabot could see nothing. The hot vapor condensed on his wrappings, seeped through, and scalded his head and shoulders unbearably. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He pulled in his head and tore off the bandages. The relief was instantaneous. He seized the levers, and Doggo took his place at the opening. But at last even Doggo succumbed. Having braved the heat too long, he collapsed weakly on the floor of the cockpit. “It’s my turn,” Quivven shouted, above the noise of the motors. “Now aren’t you glad you brought me along?” And in spite of Cabot’s remonstrances, she swathed her golden head and stuck it through the opening. By this time, scalding water was leaking through all the covering of the cockpit. It was only a question of minutes before it would soak through the body-coverings of those within. But just then the girl cried out, “Land. Land, once more; and clear silver sky.” Doggo revived and tore off the covers. True, the steam bank of the boiling seas lay behind them. Below them was the silver-green land. What did it hold in store? <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.