Project Gutenberg's The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds, by Francis Flagg
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Title: The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds
Author: Francis Flagg
Release Date: December 12, 2007 [EBook #23831]
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note: This e-text was produced from "Astounding Stories",
January, 1932. Extensive research did not reveal any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
[Illustration: _His clutching hands closed on something small and
hard._]
The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds
By Francis Flagg
[Sidenote: Little did Prof. Reubens suspect what his atom-tampering
would set loose upon the world.]
Talbot had been working that day, far up in the Catalinas, looking over
some mining prospects for his company, and was returning to the
Mountain View Hotel in Oracle when, from the mouth of an abandoned
shaft some distance back of that town, he saw a strange object emerge.
"Hello," he said to Manuel, his young Mexican assistant, "what the
devil can that be?"
Manuel crossed himself swiftly.
"Dios!" he exclaimed, "but it is a queer bird, señor."
Queer, it certainly was, and of a species Talbot had never before laid
eyes on. The bird stood on the crumbling rim of the mining shaft and
regarded him with golden eyes. Its body was as large as that of a
buzzard, and its head had a flat, reptilian look, unpleasant to see.
Nor was that the only odd thing. The feathers glittered metallically,
like blued copper, and a streak of glistening silver outlined both
wings.
Marveling greatly, and deciding that the bird must be some rare kind
escaped from a zoo, or a stray from tropical lands much further south,
Talbot advanced cautiously, but the bird viewed his approach with
unconcern. Ten feet from it he stopped uneasily. The strange fowl's
intent look, its utter immobility, somewhat disconcerted him.
"Look out, señor," warned Manuel.
Involuntarily, Talbot stepped back. If he had possessed a rifle he
would have shot the bird, but neither Manuel nor himself was armed.
Suddenly--he had looked away for a moment--the bird was gone. Clutching
a short miner's pick-ax, and a little ashamed of his momentary
timidity, he strode to the edge of the abandoned shaft and peered down.
There was nothing to see; only rotting joists of wood, crumbling earth
for a few feet, and then darkness.
He pondered for a moment. This was the old Wiley claim. He knew it
well. The shaft went down for over two hundred feet, and there were
several lateral workings, one of which tunneled back into the hills for
a considerable distance. The mine had been a bonanza back in the days
when Oracle boomed, but the last ore had been taken out in 1905, and
for twenty-seven years it had lain deserted. Manuel came up beside him
and leaned over.
"What is that?" he questioned.
Talbot heard it himself, a faint rumbling sound, like the rhythmic
throb of machinery. Mystified, he gazed blankly at Manuel. Of course it
was impossible. What could functioning machinery be doing at the bottom
of an abandoned hole in the ground? And where there were no signs of
human activity to account for the phenomenon? A more forsaken looking
place it would be hard to imagine. Not that the surrounding country
wasn't ruggedly beautiful and grand; the hills were covered with
live-oak, yucca grass, chulla, manzanita, and starred with the white
blossoms of wild thistle. But this locality was remote from human
habitation, and lonely.
Could it be, Talbot wondered, the strange bird making that noise? Or
perhaps some animal? The noise sounded like nothing any creature,
furred or feathered, could make, but, of course, that must be the
explanation. However, it would be dark within the hour, with Oracle
still two miles distant, so he turned reluctantly away, Manuel
thwacking the burros from the grazing they had found. But that was not
to be the end of the odd experience. Just before the trail swung over
the next rise, Talbot glanced back. There, perching on the rim of the
abandoned mining shaft, were not one but two of the strange birds. As
if cognizant of his backward glance, they napped their gleaming,
metallic wings, although they did not rise, and gave voice to what
could only be their natural harsh cries, measured and, somehow,
sinister.
"_Toc-toc, toc-toc._"
Talbot went to bed determined to investigate the old Wiley claim the
next day, but in the morning an urgent telegram called him and Manuel
to Phoenix, and so the matter was necessarily postponed. Moreover, on
mature reflection, he decided that there was nothing much to
investigate. The days went by, the matter slipped his mind, and he had
almost forgotten the incident.
It was an Indian who first brought news of the jungle to Oracle. His
name was John Redpath and he wasn't the average person's idea of an
Indian at all. He wore store clothes and a wide-brimmed hat, and spoke
English with the colloquial ease of one whose native language it was.
It was ten o'clock in the morning, the hour when people gathered at the
local store and post-office to gossip and get their mail, when he came
driving into town in his Ford, his terrified wife and three children
crowded into the back seat.
"What's the matter, John?" asked Silby, the constable.
"Matter?" said Redpath. "I'll tell you what's the matter."
He held the attention of the crowd which now began flocking around him.
"You know me, Silby; I'm not easily frightened; but what's happened at
my place has me scared stiff."
He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow.
"When we went to bed last night, everything looked as usual; but this
morning...."
He paused.
"Something over night had grown up in my pasture. Don't ask me what it
is. The whole hillside was filled with it. I went to the pasture to
milk my goats--that's some distance from the house and over a rise; you
know how rugged my land is--and there was the stuff, acres of it,
twenty, thirty feet tall, like--like nothing I had ever seen before.
And Silby"--his voice was suddenly low--"I could see it growing."
At this remarkable statement, everyone in sound of his voice gaped with
astonishment. Had it been any other Indian they would have said he was
drunk--but not John Redpath. He didn't drink.
"Growing?" echoed Silby stupidly.
"Yes. The damn stuff was growing. But it wasn't that which stampeded me
out of there. It was the globe."
"The globe!" said Silby, more mystified than ever.
"It was floating over the growing stuff, like a black balloon. Just
over my place the balloon began to sift down a shower of pebbles. Like
beans, they were; seeds, rather; for when they hit the ground they
started to sprout."
"Sprout?" The constable was capable of nothing more than an echo.
"I'm telling you the truth," continued Redpath. "Incredibly fast. I had
barely time to crank up the car and get out of there. I never would
have done it if the strange growth hadn't left the way clear from the
garage to the road. Silby, I had the devil of a time getting the wife
and kids out of the house. When I looked back after going a quarter of
a mile the house had disappeared under a tangled mass."
There was no time for anyone to question John Redpath further. Even as
he finished speaking a large automobile dashed up and out tumbled a
well-dressed and portly red-faced stranger.
"What the devil's the matter with the road above here? Funniest thing I
ever saw. The road to Mount Lemmon's blocked. My family," he said
inconsequentially, "is at Mount Lemmon for the summer and I want to get
through to them."
Blocked! The crowd stared at him wonderingly. John Redpath threw in his
clutch. "So long," he said. "I've a brother in Tucson, and I'm going to
his place until this blows over."
As he left Oracle, John Redpath noticed several dark globes drifting
down on it from the hills.
The first inkling the outside world had of the terrible tragedy that
was happening at Oracle came over the phone to Tucson while John
Redpath was still en route to that city.
"Hello, hello! Is this the police station? Silby speaking. Silby, town
constable at Oracle. For God's sake, send us help! We're being
attacked. Yes, attacked from the air. By strange aircraft, round
globes, discharging--oh, I don't know what it is; only it grows when it
hits the earth. Yes, grows. Oracle is hemmed in. And there are the
birds--b-i-r-d-s, birds----"
There was a stifled cry, the voice suddenly ceased, and the wire went
dead.
"My God!" said the chief of police of Tucson, "somebody's raving." He
lost no time in communicating with the sheriff's office and sending out
his men. They soon returned, white-faced and shaken.
"Chief," said the officer in charge of the party, "you know where the
road to Oracle switches off the main highway? Well, it's impassable,
covered with stuff a hundred feet high."
The chief stared. "Are you crazy?"
"No. Listen. It's the queerest growth you ever saw. Not like vegetation
at all. More like twisted metal...."
But now the city began to seethe with excitement. Farmers and their
families flocked in from the Seep Springs district, and from Jayhnes,
telling weird tales of drifting globes and encroaching jungle. The
Southern Pacific announced that traffic northward was disrupted. Extras
appeared on the streets with shrieking headlines. Everything was in
confusion.
A flyer from the local airport flew over Oracle and announced on his
return that he could see no signs of the town, that its immediate
vicinity was buried under an incredibly tall and tangled mass of
vegetation. "From the air it looks like giant stalks of spaghetti,
twisted, fantastic," was his description. He went on to say that he
noticed quite a few drifting globes and large birds with black,
glistening wings, but these offered no hindrance to his flight.
Now the wires hummed with the startling news. All the world was
informed of the tragedy. The great cities of the nation stood aghast.
An aroused Washington dispatched orders for the aerial forces of the
country to proceed to Arizona without delay. The governor of Arizona
mobilized the state militia. All border patrol officers proceeded to
the area affected. And yet in the face of what was happening they were
powerless to do a thing.
At two o'clock of the day following the wiping out of Oracle, the first
black globes approached Tucson. They floated down from the north,
skirting the granite ridges and foothills of the Catalinas, and were
met with a withering hail of lead from anti-aircraft guns, and burst,
scattering wide their contents. When some three hours later the first
squadron of the air fleet came to earth on the landing field a few
miles south of the city, the northern environs of Tucson, all the area
the other side of Speedway, and running east and west as far as the eye
could see, was a monstrous jungle a hundred or more feet tall--and
still growing.
Terrified residents fled before the uncanny invasion. People congested
the streets. Thousands fled from the city in automobiles, and thousands
of others thronged the railroad station and bus-line offices seeking
for transportation. Rumors ran from lip to lip that Russia was
attacking the United States with a newly invented and deadly method of
warfare; that it wasn't Russia but Japan, China, England, Germany, a
coalition of European and Asiatic powers.
Frantically, the city officials wired railroad companies to send in
emergency trains. The mayor appealed to the citizens to be quiet and
orderly, not to give way to panic, that everything was being done to
insure their safety. Hastily deputized bodies of men were set to
patrolling streets and guarding property. Later, martial law was
established. The south side of Speedway rapidly assumed the appearance
of an armed camp. At the landing field Flight Commander Burns refueled
his ships and interviewed the flyer who had flown over Oracle. That
worthy shook his head.
"You're going out to fight, Commander," he said, "but God knows what.
So far we have been unable to detect any human agency back of those
globes. They just drift in, irrespective of how the wind is blowing. So
far our only defense has been to shoot them down, but that does little
good; it only helps to broadcast their seed. Then, too, the globes shot
down have never been examined. Why? Because where they hit a jungle
springs up. Sometimes they burst of their own accord. One or two of
them got by us in the darkness last night, despite our searchlights,
and overwhelmed a company of National Guards."
The flight commander was puzzled.
"Look here," he said, "those globes don't just materialize out of thin
air. There must be a base from which they operate. Undoubtedly an enemy
is lurking in those mountains." He got up decisively. "If it is humanly
possible to locate and destroy that enemy, we shall do it."
Flying in perfect formation, the bombing squadron clove the air.
Looking down, the observers could see the gigantic and mysterious
jungle which covered many square miles of country. Like sinuous coils
of spaghetti, it looked, and also curiously like vast up-pointed
girders of steel and iron. The rays of the late afternoon sun glinted
on this jungle and threw back spears of intense light. Over the iron
ridges of the Catalinas the fleet swept at an elevation of several
thousand feet. Westward, numerous huge globes could be seen drifting
south. The commander signaled a half dozen of his ships to pursue and
shoot them down.
In the mountains themselves, there was surprisingly little of the
uncanny vegetation. Mile after mile of billowing hills were quartered,
but without anything of a suspicious nature being noted. Here and there
the observers saw signs of life. Men and women waved at them from
isolated homesteads and shacks. At Mount Lemmon the summer colonists
appeared unharmed, but in such rugged country it was impossible to
think of landing. Oracle, and for a dozen miles around its vicinity,
was deserted.
Though the commander searched the landscape thoroughly with his
glasses, he could detect the headquarters of no enemies; and yet the
existence of the drifting globes would seem to presuppose a sizable
base from which they operated. Mystified, he nevertheless subjected the
Oracle area to a thorough bombing, and it was while engaged in doing so
that he and his men observed a startling phenomenon.
High in the heavens, seemingly out of nothing, the mysterious globes
grew. The aviators stared, rubbed their eyes in amazement, doubted the
truth of what they saw. Their commander recollected his own words,
"Those globes don't just materialize out of thin air." But that
actually seemed to be what they were doing. Out of empty space they
leaped, appearing first as black spots, and in a moment swelling to
their huge proportions.
One pilot made the mistake of ramming a globe, which burst, and he
hurtled to earth in a shower of seed, seed which seemed to root and
grow and cover his craft with a mass of foliage even as it fell.
Horrified, ammunition and explosives exhausted, the amazed commander
ordered his ships back to Tucson. What he had to tell caused a
sensation.
"No," he said, finishing his report to the high military official who
had arrived with federal forces, "I saw nothing--aside from the
globes--that could possibly account for the attack. Nothing."
But none the less the attack went on. Though hundreds of planes scoured
the sky, though great guns bellowed day and night and thousands of
soldiers, state and federal, were under arms, still the incredible
globes continued to advance, still more and more of the countryside
came under the sway of the nightmarish jungle. And this losing battle
was not waged without loss of human life. Sometimes bodies of artillery
were cut off by globes getting beyond their lines in the darkness and
hemming them in. Then they had literally to hack their way out or
perish; and hundreds of them perished. One company sergeant told of a
thrilling race with three globes.
"It was a close thing," he said, scratching his head, "and only a third
of us made it."
Fear gripped the hearts of the most courageous of men. It was terrifying
and nerve-racking to face such an _unhuman_ foe--weird, drifting globes
and invading jungles whose very source was shrouded in mystery. Against
this enemy no weapons seemed to prevail. All the paraphernalia of
modern warfare was proving useless. And looking at each other with
white faces--not alone in Arizona, but in New York, Chicago, Los
Angeles--men asked themselves these questions, and the newspapers posed
them:
"What if this thing can't be stopped?"
"What if it keeps on and on and invades every city and state?"
"It is only starting now, but what will it be like a month from
now, a year?"
The whole nation awoke to a realization of its danger. The Administration
at Washington solemnly addressed itself to the capitals of the world.
"If some power, jealous of the greatness of America, has perfected
a new and barbarous weapon of warfare, and without due warning and
declaration of hostilities has launched it against us, not only do
we denounce such uncivilized procedure, but demand that such a
power speak out and reveal to us and the world who our enemy is."
But the powers of the world, as one, united in disclaiming any hand
in the monstrous attack being made on the United States. As for that
attack, it proceeded inexorably. On the fourth day Tucson was evacuated.
Then Winkleman awoke one morning to find that the drifting globes had
reached the river. The town was abandoned. California mobilized citizen
forces in cooperation with Nevada. The great physicist Miller was said
to be frantically at work on a chemical designed to destroy the
gigantic growths, specimens of which had been sent him. Such was the
condition of affairs when, at Washington, Milton Baxter, the young
student, told his incredible story to a still more incredulous Senate.
The Senate had been sitting in anxious session for five days, and was
little inclined to give ear to the stories of cranks. Fortunately for
the world, young Baxter came of an influential family and had taken the
precaution of having himself introduced by two prominent financiers,
who demanded that he be heard.
"Gentlemen," he said earnestly, "contrary to current opinion, America
is not being assailed by a foreign power. No! Listen to me a moment and
I shall tell you what is attacking America."
He paused and held the assemblage with compelling eyes.
"But first let me explain how I know what I am going to tell you. I was
in London when I read of what is occurring in Arizona. Before the wire
went dead on him, didn't the unfortunate constable of Oracle say
something about birds?"
The senators were silent. "Yes," said a press correspondent at length.
"If I remember correctly, he said, 'And there are the birds--b-i-r-d-s,
birds.'"
"Well," exclaimed Senator Huffy, "the man was pretty well excited and
his words may have been misunderstood. What the devil have birds to do
with those globes and jungles?"
"More than you think," replied Baxter. "Listen!" He fixed their
attention with uplifted hand. "The thing I have to reveal is of such
paramount importance that I must not be interrupted. You must bear with
me while I go back some months and even years in time to make myself
understood.
"You all remember the mysterious disappearance of Professor Reubens.
Yes, I see that you do. It caused a sensation. He was the foremost
scientist in the country--it would not be exaggerating too much to say
in the world. His name was not as well known among the masses as that
of Miller and Dean; in fact, outside of an exclusive circle it wasn't
known at all, but ask any scientist about Reubens. He was a tall, dour
man of sixty, with Scotch blood in his veins, and was content to teach
a class in a college because of the leisure it afforded him for his own
research work. That was at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
"The faculty of the college was proud to have him on its staff and
provided him with a wooden building back of the campus, for a private
laboratory and workshop. I understand that the Rockefeller Institute
contributed funds towards Professor Reubens' experiments, but I am not
certain.
"At any rate he had a wonderfully well equipped place. I was a pupil at
the University and attended his class in physics. A strong friendship
grew up between us. How can I explain that friendship? I was not a
particularly brilliant student, but he had few friends and perhaps my
boyish admiration pleased him. I think, too, that he was lonely,
heart-hungry for affection. His wife was dead, and his own boy.... But
I won't go into that.
"Suffice it to say that I believe he bestowed on me some of the
affection he had felt for his dead son. Indeed I am sure he did. Be
that as it may, I often visited him in his laboratory and watched,
fascinated, as he pored over some of his intricate apparatus. In a
vague way, I knew that he was seeking to delve more deeply into the
atom.
"'Before Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope,' the Professor once said,
'who ever dreamed of the life in a drop of water? What is needed now is
a super-microscope to view the atom.'
"The idea thrilled me.
"'Do you believe, sir, that an instrument will ever be invented that
will do that?'
"'Yes. Why not? I am working on some such device myself. Of course the
whole thing has to be radically different. The present, method of
deducing the atom by indirection is very unsatisfactory. We can know
nothing for certain until direct observation is possible. The atomic
theory that likens the atom to our solar system, with planets revolving
round a central nucleus, is very interesting. But I shall never be
content, for one, until I can see such an atomic system in operation.'
"Now I had every admiration for the capacity and genius of my teacher,
but I couldn't forebear exclaiming:
"'Is that possible?'
"'Of course it's possible,' he cried irritably. 'Do you think I should
be pursuing my experiments if I didn't think it possible? Only
numbskulls think anything impossible!'
"I felt rather hurt at his retort and a certain coolness sprang up
between us. The summer holidays came and I went away without bidding
him good-by. But returning for the new semester, my first act was to
hurry to the laboratory. He greeted me as if there had never been any
difference between us.
"'Come,' he cried; 'you must see what I have accomplished. It is
marvelous, marvelous.'
"In his workshop stood a mechanism perhaps three feet square and four
feet high. It was made of polished steel and looked not unlike an
Edison music box.
"'You are the first I have shown it to,' he said excitedly. 'Here, look
into this.'
"Stooping over the top of the box I peered into the eye-piece
indicated. It was so fashioned that it fitted the contour of the face
snugly.
"'Now hold steady,' warned the Professor. 'This machine makes quite a
noise, but it won't harm you at all.'
"I sensed that he was fingering and arranging dials and levers on the
side of the contrivance. Suddenly an engine in the box began to throb
with a steady rhythm. This gradually increased in tempo until the
vibration of it shook the room.
"'Don't move,' shouted the Professor.
"At first I could see nothing. Everything was intensely dark. Then the
darkness began to clarify. Or rather I should say it seemed as if the
darkness increased to such a pitch that it became--oh, I can't describe
it! But of a sudden I had the sensation of looking into the utter
bleakness and desolation of interstellar space. Coldness,
emptiness--that was the feeling. And in this coldness and emptiness
flamed a distant sun, around which twelve darker bodies the size of
peas revolved. They revolved in various ellipses. And far off--millions
of light years away (the thought came to me involuntarily at the
time)--I could glimpse infinitesimal specks of light, a myriad of them.
With a cry I jerked back my head.
"'That,' shouted the Professor in my ear, 'was an atomic universe.'
"It never entered my head to doubt him. The realness, the vividness,
the overwhelming loneliness and vastness of the sight I had seen--yes,
and the suggestion of cosmic grandeur and aloofness that was
conveyed--banished any other feeling but that of belief.
"'Inside that box,' said Professor Reubens quietly, 'and directly
underneath the special crystal-ray medium I have perfected, is a piece
of matter no larger than a pin-head. But viewed through the magnifying
medium of the crystal-ray that insignificant piece of matter becomes as
vast and as empty as all space, and in that space you saw--an atomic
system.'
"An atomic system! Imagine my emotions. The tremendousness of the
assertion took away my breath. I could only seize the Professor's hand
and hold to it tightly.
"'Softly, my boy, softly,' he said, smiling at my emotion. 'What you
have seen is but the least part of the invention. There is more to it
than that.'
"'More?'
"'Yes. Did you think I would be content with merely viewing at a
distance? No. Consider that revolving round a central nucleus similar
to our sun are twelve planets, any one of which may be inhabited by
intelligent creatures.'
"I stared at him dumbly.
"'You mean--'
"'Why not? Size is only relative. Besides in this case I can
demonstrate. Please look again.'
"Not without trepidation, I did as he bade. Once more I saw the black
emptiness of atomic space, saw the blazing nucleus with its whirling
satellites. Above the roaring noise of the machine came Professor
Reubens' voice. 'I am now intensifying the magnifying medium and
focusing it on one of the planets you see. The magnifying crystal-ray
is mounted on a revolving device which follows this particular planet
in its orbit. Now ... now....'
"I gazed, enthralled. Only one atomic planet--the size of a pea and
seemingly motionless in space--now lay in my field of vision. And this
planet began to grow, to expand, until beneath my staring eyes it
looked like the full moon in all its glory.
"'I am gradually increasing the magnifying power of the crystal-ray,'
came the voice of the Professor.
"The huge mass of the planet filled the sub-atomic sky. My hands
gripped the rim of the box with excitement. On its surface began to
form continents, seas. Good God! was all this really materializing from
a speck of matter under the lens of a super-microscope? I was looking
down from an immense height upon an ever clarifying panorama. Mountains
began to unfold, plains, and suddenly beneath me appeared a mighty
city. I was too far away to see it distinctly, but it was no city such
as we have on earth. And yet it was magnificent; it was like gazing at
a strange civilization.
"Dimly I could see great machines laboring and sending forth glowing
streamers of light. Strange buildings rose. It was all bizarre,
bewildering, unbelievably weird. What creatures dwelt in this place? I
strained my eyes, strove to press forward, and in that very moment the
things at which I gazed seemed to rise swiftly to meet my descending
head. The illusion was that of plunging earthward at breakneck speed.
With a stifled cry, I recoiled, rubbed my blinking eyes, and found
myself staring stupidly into the face of Professor Reubens. He shut off
the machine and regarded me thoughtfully.
"'In that atomic universe, on a planet swinging round a sub-atomic sun,
the all of which lies somewhere in a speck of our matter, intelligent
creatures dwell and have created a great machine civilization. And
Baxter,' he leaned forward and fixed me with eyes that gleamed from
under heavy brows, 'not only has my super-atomic-microscope revealed
somewhat of that world and its marvels to human vision, but it has
opened up another, a more wonderful possibility.'
"He did not tell me what this wonderful possibility was, and a few
minutes later I left the laboratory, intending to return after a late
class. But a telegram from Phoenix was at my rooms, calling me home. My
father was seriously ill. It was June before he recovered his health.
Consequently I had to forego college until the next season.
"'Old Reubens is going dotty,' said one of my classmates to me. Rather
disturbed, I sought him out. I saw that there were dark circles of
sleeplessness under his eyes and that his face had grown thinner.
Somewhat diffidently I questioned him about his experiments. He
answered slowly:
"'You will recollect my telling you that the super-atomic-microscope
had opened up another wonderful possibility?'
"I nodded, sharply curious now.
"'Look.'
"He led the way into his workshop. The super-atomic-microscope, I
noticed, had been altered almost out of recognition. It is hopeless for
me to attempt describing those changes, but midway along one side of
its length projected a flat surface like a desk, with a large
funnel-shaped device resting on it. The big end of this funnel pointed
towards a square screen set against the wall, a curious screen
superimposed on what appeared to be a background of frosted glass.
"'This,' said the Professor, laying one hand on the funnel and
indicating the screen with the other, 'is part of the arrangement with
which I have established communication with the world in the atom.
"'No,' he said, rightly interpreting my exclamation, 'I am not crazy.
For months I have been exchanging messages with the inhabitants of that
world. You know the wave and corpuscular theories of light? Both are
correct, but in a higher synthesis--But I won't go into that. Suffice
it to say that I broke through the seemingly insuperable barrier
hemming in the atomic world and made myself known. But I see that you
still doubt my assertion. Very well, I will give you a demonstration.
Keep your eyes on the screen--so----'
"Adjusting what seemed a radio headpiece to my ears, he seated himself
at a complicated control-board. Motors purred, lights flashed, every
filament of the screen became alive with strange fires. The frosted
glass melted into an infinity of rose-colored distance. Far off, in the
exact center of this rosy distance appeared a black spot. Despite the
headpiece, I could hear the Professor talking to himself, manipulating
dials and levers. The black spot grew, it advanced, it took on form and
substance; and then I stared, I gasped, for suddenly I was gazing into
a vast laboratory, but depicted on a miniature scale.
"But it wasn't this laboratory which riveted my attention. No. It was
the unexpected creature that perched in the midst of it and seemed to
look into my face with unwinking eyes of gold set in a flat reptilian
head. This creature moved; its feathers gleamed metallically; I saw its
bill open and shut. Distinctly through the ear-phones came a harsh
sound, a sound I can only describe by the words _toc-toc, toc-toc_.
Then, just as the picture had appeared, it faded, the lights went out,
the purring of the motors ceased.
"'Yes,' said the Professor, stepping to my side and removing the
headpiece, 'the inhabitants of the sub-atomic planet are birds.'
"I could only stare at him dumbly.
"'I see that astounds you. You are thinking that they lack hands and
other characteristics of the _genus homo_. But perhaps certain
faculties of manipulation take their place. At any rate those birds are
intelligent beings; in some respects, further advanced in science than
are we ourselves. Perhaps it would be more exact to say that their
scientific investigations and achievements have been along slightly
different lines. If such messages I sent them had come to our world
from another planet or dimension, how readily they might have been
misconstrued, ridiculed or ignored.' The Professor shrugged his
shoulders. 'But the beings in this sub-atomic world interpreted my
communications without difficulty.
"In no time we were conversing with one another through means of a
simplified code. I was soon given to understand that their scientists
and philosophers had long recognized the fact that their universe was
but an atom in an immeasurably greater dimension of existence; yes, and
had long been trying to establish contact with it.' The Professor's
voice fell. 'And not that alone: they were eager to cooperate with me
in perfecting a method of passing from their world to ours!
"'Yes,' he cried, 'much of what I have accomplished has been under
their advice and guidance; and they on their part have labored; until
now'--his eyes suddenly blazed into my fascinated face--'until now,
after months of intensive work and experiment, success is nigh, and any
day may see the door opened and one of them come through!'
"Gentlemen!" cried Milton Baxter, "what more is there to say? I
staggered from Professor Reubens' laboratory that afternoon, my head in
a whirl. That was on a Monday.
"'Come back Thursday,' he said.
"But as you know, Professor Reubens disappeared on a Wednesday night
before; and stranger still, his machines disappeared with him. In his
laboratory were signs of a struggle, and bloodstains were found. The
police suspected me of a guilty knowledge of his whereabouts, in short
of having made away with my friend. When I told somewhat of the
experiments he had been engaged in, spoke of the missing inventions,
they thought I was lying. Horrified at the suspicion leveled at myself,
I finally left Tucson and went abroad. Months passed; and during all
those months I pondered the mystery of the Professor's fate, and the
fate of his machines. But my fevered brain could offer no solution
until I read of what was happening in Arizona; then, then...."
Milton Baxter leaned forward, his voice broke.
"Then," he cried, "then I understood! Professor Reubens had succeeded
in his last experiment. He had opened the door to earth for the bird
intelligences from the atom and they had come through and slain him and
spirited away his machines and established them in a secret place!
"God help us," cried Milton Baxter, "there can be but one conclusion to
draw. They are waging war against us with their own hideous methods of
warfare; they have set out to conquer earth!"
Such was the amazing story Milton Baxter told the Senate, but that body
placed little credence in it. In times of stress and disaster cranks
and men of vivid imaginations and little mental stability inevitably
spring up. But the Washington correspondents wired the story to their
papers and the Associated Press broadcast it to the four winds.
Talbot had just returned to Phoenix from New Mexico. He had been out of
touch with civilization and newspapers and it was with a feeling of
stunned amazement that he learned of the evacuation of Tucson and
Winkleman and the wiping out of Oracle. Reading Milton Baxter's
incredible story he leapt to his feet with an oath. Toc-toc! Why, that
was the sound the strange birds had uttered in the hills back of
Oracle. And there was the noise of machinery coming from the old shaft.
Full of excitement he lost no time in seeking an interview with the
military commander whose headquarters were located in Phoenix and
related to him what Manuel and himself had witnessed and heard that day
at the abandoned mine. Manuel corroborated his tale. The commander was
more than troubled and doubtful.
"God knows we cannot afford to pass up an opportunity of wiping out the
enemy. If you will indicate on a map where the old shaft is we will
bomb it from the air."
But Talbot shook his head.
"Your planes would have a tough job hitting a spot as small as that
from the air. Besides, a direct hit might only close up the shaft and
not destroy the workings underground. If the enemy be the creatures
Milton Baxter says they are, what is to prevent them from digging their
way out and resuming the attack?"
"Then we will land troops in there somehow and overwhelm them with----"
Talbot interrupted. "Pardon me, General, but the enemy would have no
difficulty in spotting such a maneuver. What chance would your soldiers
have against a shower of jungle seed? You would only be sending them to
destruction. No, the only way is for someone familiar with those old
underground diggings to enter them, locate the birds and the machines
and blow them up."
"But who----"
"Myself. Listen. This is the plan. About five years ago my company
mined for copper and other ores about a half mile above the Wiley
claim. I was in charge of operations. That is how I know the ground so
well. One of our northern leads broke through into a tunnel of the
abandoned mine. When copper prices were shot to hell in the depression
of 1930 we quit taking out ore; but when I went through the place
eighteen months ago it was still possible to crawl from one mine to
another. Of course earth and rock may have fallen since then, but I
don't believe the way is yet blocked. If I were dropped in that
vicinity at night with another man and the necessary tools and
explosives...."
The general thought swiftly.
"An auto-gyroscope could land you all right. There's one here now. But
what about the second man to accompany you?"
Manuel said quickly, "I'm going with the boss."
"You, Manuel," Talbot said roughly. "Don't be a fool. If anything
should happen to me--well, I've lived my life; but you're only a kid."
Manuel's face set stubbornly. "An experienced mining man you need, is
it not? In case there should be difficulties. And I am experienced.
Besides, señores," he said simply, "my wife and child are somewhere in
those mountains ... above Oracle...."
Talbot gripped his hand in quick sympathy. "All right, Manuel; come if
you like."
A moonless sky hung above them as they swung over the dark and
jungle-engulfed deserted city of Tucson, a sky blazing with the clarity
of desert stars, and to the south and west shot through with the beams
of great searchlights. Flying at a lofty altitude to avoid contact with
drifting globes or betrayal of their coming with no lights showing
aboard their craft save those carefully screened and focused on the
instrument board, it was hard to realize that the fate of America,
perhaps of the world, hung on the efforts of two puny individuals.
Everything seemed unreal, ghost-like, and suddenly the strangeness of
it all came over Talbot and he felt afraid. The noiseless engine made
scarcely a sound; the distant rumble of gunfire sounded like low and
muttering thunder. They had come by way of Tucson so as to pick up a
ten-gallon tube of concentrated explosive gas at the military camp in
the Tucson mountains.
"This gas," the general had assured them, "has been secretly developed
by the chemical branch of the War Department and is more powerful than
TNT or nitro-glycerin. It is odorless, harmless to breathe and exploded
by a wireless-radio device."
He had showed them how to manipulate the radio device, and explained
that in the metal tube was a tiny chamber from which gas could not
escape, and a receiving-detonating cap. "If you can introduce the tube
into the underground galleries where you suspect the enemy's
headquarters to be, allow the contents to escape for ten minutes, and a
mile distant you can blow the mine and all in it to destruction. And
you needn't be afraid of anything escaping alive," he had added grimly.
Talbot thought of his words as the dark and silent world slid by. He
glanced at the luminous dial of his wrist-watch. Eleven-fifteen. The
moon rose at eleven-twenty-four. He studied the map. High over Mount
Lemmon the craft soared. He touched the army pilot's arm. "All right,"
he said, "throttle her down." Their speed decreased. "Lower."
Swiftly they sank, until the dark bulk of hills and trees lay blackly
beneath; so near as to seem within the touch of a hand. Though he
strained his ears, no alien sound came wafting upward. "Keep circling
here," he directed the pilot. "The moon'll be up in a minute and then
we can be sure of where we are." The pilot nodded. He was a phlegmatic
young man. Not once during the trip had he uttered a word.
The east glowed as if with red fire. Many a time before had Talbot
watched the moon rise, but never under stranger circumstances. Now the
night was illuminated with mellow glory. "Hit the nail on the head," he
whispered. "Do you see that spot over there? To the left, yes. Can you
land us there?"
Without a word the pilot swung for the clearance. It was a close thing,
requiring delicate maneuvering, and only an auto-gyroscope could have
made it without crashing. Hurriedly Manuel and Talbot unloaded their
gear.
"All right," said Talbot to the pilot. "No need to wait for us. If we
are successful, we'll send out the wireless signal agreed on, and if we
aren't...." He shrugged his shoulders. "But tell the General to be sure
and allow us the time stipulated on before undertaking another attack."
Standing there on the bleak hillside, watching the auto-gyroscope run
ahead for a few yards and then take the air, Talbot experienced a
feeling of desolation. Now he and Manuel were alone, cut off from their
own kind by barriers of impregnable jungle. And yet on that lonely
hillside there were no signs of an enemy. For a moment he wondered if
he weren't asleep, dreaming; if he wouldn't soon awake to find that all
this was nothing but a nightmare.
But Manuel gathering up the tools aroused him from such thoughts. Not
without difficulty were the necessary things conveyed to the abandoned
mine back of the old Wiley claim. Their course lay along the bottom of
a dry creek, over a ridge, and so to the shaft half-way down the side
of a hill. A second trip had to be made to bring the gas tube.
It was two o'clock in the morning when Manuel stood at the foot of the
four-hundred-foot hole and signaled up that the air was good. Talbot
lowered the tools to him, and the gas container, and lastly went down
himself. As already stated, Talbot had explored the underground
workings of the mine not eighteen months before. Picking out the main
tunnel and keeping a close watch for rattlers with electric torches,
the two men went cautiously ahead. In places earth had fallen and had
to be cleared away, but the formation for the most part was a soft rock
and shale. They went slowly, for fear of starting slides.
At a spot taking an abrupt turn--and it was here that the newer tunnel
had broken through into the older gallery of the Wiley claim--Manuel
caught swiftly at Talbot's arm. "What is that?" To straining ears came
the unmistakable throb of machinery. They snapped off their torches and
crouched in Stygian darkness. Not a ray of light was to be seen. Talbot
knew that in following the ore stratum, the Wiley gallery took several
twists. Laboriously he and Manuel advanced with the gas tube. It was
stiflingly close. He counted the turns, one, two, three. Now the roar
of machinery was a steady reverberation that shook the tunnel. He
whispered to Manuel:
"Go back and wait for me at the mouth of the shaft. Only one of us must
risk taking the gas tube any nearer the enemy. Here, take my watch. It
is now two-forty-five. If I don't rejoin you by four o'clock touch off
the explosive."
Manuel started to protest. "Do as I say," commanded Talbot. "The fate
of the world is at stake. Give me an hour; but no longer--remember!"
Left alone in the clammy darkness Talbot wiped the sweat from his face.
Grabbing one end of the rope sling in which the tube was fastened, he
pulled it ahead. There was a certain amount of unavoidable noise; rock
rattled, earth fell; but he reasoned shrewdly enough that the roar of
the machinery would drown this. Beyond a crevice created by a cave-in
he saw an intense light play weirdly. He squirmed through the crevice
and pulled the tube after him.
His mind reconstructed the mine ahead. He recollected that when the
lead of this mine had petered out, the owners had begun to sink the
shaft deeper into the earth before abandoning the mine. This meant that
the foot of the shaft, with the addition of an encroaching twenty feet
of the southern gallery, was deeper by some several yards than the
floor of the tunnel in which he stood. Here was the logical place to
set the gas tube, nose pointed ahead.
With trembling fingers he loosened the screwed-in nose of the tube with
a wrench. A slight hiss told of the deadly gas's escape. It would
inevitably flow towards the shaft, drawn by the slight suction of
machinery, following the easiest direction of expansion. Now Talbot's
work was done, and if he had immediately retreated all would have been
well, but the weird light fascinated him. Here he was, one man in the
bowels of earth pitting his strength, his ingenuity against something
incredible, unbelievable. Beings from an atomic universe, from a world
buried within the atom; beings attacking his own earth with uncanny
methods of destruction. Oh, it was impossible, absurd, but he must look
at them, he must see.
Scarcely daring to breathe, he squirmed, he crawled, and suddenly he
saw. He was looking down into an underground crypt flooded with
brilliant light. That crypt had been altered out of all recognition,
its greater expanse of roof supported with massive pillars, the light
screened away from the shaft. But it was not all this which riveted his
staring eyes. No--it was the machines; strange, twisted things,
glowing, pulsing, and--in the light of his knowledge--menacing and
sinister.
Talbot gasped. Almost at once he observed the birds, twelve of them,
two standing in front of what appeared to be a great square of polished
crystal, wearing metal caps and goggles, heads cocked forward intently.
The others also perched in front of odd machines like graven images.
That was the uncanny thing about the birds: they appeared to be doing
nothing. Only the occasional jerk of a head, the filming of a hard
golden eye, gave them a semblance of life. But, none the less, there
could be no mistaking the fact that they were the guiding, the
directing geniuses back of all the pulsing, throbbing mechanisms.
Half mesmerized by the sight, forgetful of time and place, Talbot
leaned forward in awe. There was a great funnel, a shallow cabinet, and
out of the cabinet poured an intense reddish beam, and out of the
beam....
It was a minute before he understood, and then comprehension came to
him. Those dark spots shooting from the cabinet, no larger than peas,
were the mysterious drifting globes whose scattered seed was fast
covering miles of Arizonian soil with impenetrable jungle. From a
universe in a piece of matter no larger than a pin-head, from a
sub-atomic world, the weapons of an alien intelligence were ruthlessly
being hurled against man, to conquer, to destroy him.
And now it was made plain to him why the drifting globes had seemed to
materialize out of thin air. Being infinitesimally small parts of an
atom, these globes were released from the cabinet and soon assumed the
size of peas; they were guided across the crypt, up the old Wiley
shaft, and high in the air, somewhere in space, enlarged to immense
proportions. How? Talbot could not guess. By some manipulation of
science and machinery beyond that of earth.
Engrossed, he moved an inch forward, craned his head, and in that
moment it happened. Beneath his weight a section of earth and rock
crumbled, cracked, slid forward, and he plunged headlong to the floor
below, striking his skull with stunning force!
He came to himself, staring up into the dour-looking face of a tall
man. He recollected pitching forward among the birds and the machines.
But the birds and the machines had disappeared and he was lying in an
odd room without windows but lit with a soft radiance. Bewildered, he
sat up.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The man's beard looked straggly, untrimmed.
"My name," he said, "is Reubens--Professor Reubens."
Professor Reubens! Talbot gasped. "Not the scientist who disappeared?"
"Yes--as you've disappeared."
"What!"
"Through the machine."
It was a moment before Talbot understood. "You mean...."
"That you are a prisoner in a sub-atomic world."
Talbot now realized with startling clearness what had happened to him.
When he had fallen into the crypt the weird birds had directly placed
him in the cabinet and transported him to their own world. In other
words, he and Reubens and everything he saw about him were infinitely
small creatures in an atom-world. He and the Professor were trapped!
And when Manuel blew up the only means of return....
"How long have I been here?" Talbot asked hoarsely.
"Five minutes at the most."
Then, at the shortest, the way to earth would exist twenty minutes
longer. Twenty minutes.... Incoherently he told Reubens of what had
happened in Arizona since his disappearance, of his own misadventure.
"Aye," said the Professor, "I knew as much. Nor do these inhuman birds
intend stopping with the use of seed globes. More devilish weapons than
that they plan using against earth. Oh, they are fiends, fiends!
Already have they wiped out civilization and intelligent life on other
planets in this sub-atomic system and introduced their own."
He stopped, shuddering. "Nor is it to be wondered at that no birds were
seen after the first attack on Oracle," he went on. "They do not fight
in person, as do we ourselves, but through proxy, directing machines
from centers of control. In powers of destruction, they are
immeasurably ahead of man. Thank God you discovered their headquarters
in the deserted mine and have spread the gas for its destruction. But
the rage of the birds at such a defeat will be terrible. They will
undoubtedly torture me in an effort to make me reveal the basis of my
invention so that they can resume the attack on earth. So we must
escape."
"But how--where?"
"I have thought that out. It is one chance in a thousand. Undoubtedly
we will be killed. But that is better than being tortured or living in
this world. Look."
He held up a pearl-handled pen-knife. "The birds are smart, all right,
but they don't quite understand clothes, wearing none themselves. They
found your revolver, but overlooked this."
"Of what good is it?"
"To cut our way out of this cell."
Talbot laughed incredulously. The walls of the room were smooth, and
hard to the touch. "They're as solid as concrete," he said.
"But cut like cheese under a steel blade. I found that out. Watch."
To Talbot's amazement the point of the penknife sank into the wall and
in a moment a section of it was gouged out. The professor said tensely,
"I've been months in this place, been taken back and forth, and know
the lay of the land. This room is in a great building that houses the
laboratory from which the attack against earth is being launched. Would
you believe it, only the great scientist who picked up my messages and
helped me perfect my invention, and a few of his assistants, are
concerned in that attack, and they will be congregated at the machines.
Follow me, and whatever I command, do it promptly."
The Professor had been working feverishly as he spoke, and now he and
Talbot crawled through the hole he had made in the wall and found
themselves in a long gloomy corridor. "Quick," Reubens whispered.
They darted down the passageway. Talbot had only time to see that the
gleaming sides of the corridor were beveled and etched with strange
designs, before they came to its end and where a curious device like a
huge five-pointed star was revolving noiselessly, half sunk in a great
hole in the floor. Without hesitation the Professor stepped onto one of
the flat-tipped star-points as it came level with where they stood and
Talbot did the same. Up, turned the star-point, to a dizzy height, and
over, but the tip swung on ball-bearings, maintaining its passengers in
a perpendicular position, and from its highest point of elevation
descended to another floor far below, where they disembarked.
The huge revolving star-wheel was nothing but an ingenious movable
staircase. But the Professor gave Talbot no time to marvel, nor did the
latter try to linger. The corridor below was wider, more richly beveled
and carved, and the statue of an heroic bird stood perched in the
center of it. The lighting was soft and mellow, but Talbot could
perceive no windows or globes. Suddenly from an open doorway hopped a
bird. There was no chance to avoid it. Its wings were spread and from
its parted bill came a harsh cry, "Toc-toc, toc-toc!"
Knife in one hand, the Professor hurled himself forward and caught the
bird in the grip of the other. Instantly from the doorway sprang a
monstrous mechanism on stilts, flexible tentacles of metal reaching out
and wrapping themselves around the Professor. Talbot leaped to the
Professor's assistance. The mechanism fought like a live thing. In vain
he strove to wrench the tentacles free of the Professor. One of them
lashed out and took him by the thighs in a crushing grasp. But the
Professor had the bird by the throat. Both of his hands were free.
Back, he forced its head, back. The mechanism seemed to falter in the
attack, as if bewildered. Across the exposed throat the Professor drew
the gleaming blade. Flesh, tendons and arteries gave, blood spurted,
and in the same moment the tentacles fell away from Talbot and the
Professor and withdrew with a dull clang. The Professor released the
bird and it dropped to the floor.
"It is the birds' mentality that directs those mechanisms," said the
Professor, pointing to the now harmless machine.
Apparently the brief but terrific battle had passed unnoticed, no alarm
being given. Now the corridor twisted. The two men came to where a deep
well was sunk in the floor. To one side a star-wheel revolved smoothly.
Out of the depths came the steady throb of machinery. Cautiously
peering over the edge, Talbot saw a sight he would never forget.
He did not need the Professor's whispered words to tell him that here
was the source of the deadly attack being waged against earth.
Motionless birds perched in front of bizarre machines; lights waxed and
waned; a cannon-like device, or funnel, shot a column of light into a
screen, and through the column of light moved a steady procession of
round objects the size of plums.
"The drifting globes being shot through to earth," whispered the
Professor, "and our only hope. Listen, the birds are intent on their
machines, their backs to the star-wheel. We will descend, throw
ourselves into the column of light, seize hold of a globe, and...."
He did not need to finish. Talbot understood in a flash. They would be
dragged to their own world by the weapons hurled at it.
"Of course that column of light may kill us," went on the Professor
tensely. "Or we may be blown up on the other side. Your Mexican friend
hasn't touched off that explosive gas yet, because--But we've not a
moment to lose. Follow me."
The tip of the star-wheel went up, over, descended. The blood was
roaring in Talbot's ears. "Now!" hissed the Professor. "Now!" Together
they rushed forward. Talbot's foot slipped. The heart leaped into his
throat. He never remembered reaching the column of light; but suddenly
he was in it, blinded, dazed. His clutching hands closed on something
small and hard.
The laboratory was a pinwheel going round and round. Through a sea of
darkness he floated. A distant glow grew, expanded, became the crypt in
the old Wiley mine. A moment he glimpsed the gleaming pillars, the
pulsing machines, the startled birds, and then--Oh, it was incredible,
impossible, but the dark, crumbling walls of the old shaft were around
him; the globe in his hand no larger than a pea was lifting him towards
life and safety.
He wanted to shout, to sing, but even as the pale stars fell athwart
his upturned face, even as the cool mountain air smote his fevered
brow, the dark earth erupted beneath his feet, a whirlwind of smoke and
wind beat and buffeted him, and, in the midst of an overwhelming noise,
consciousness was blotted out!
It was bright daylight when Talbot regained his senses. Propped against
a great rock the Professor regarded him whimsically. Reubens looked
badly bruised and battered; one arm hung loosely at his side. Talbot's
head ached and he knew that a leg was broken.
"Yes," said the Professor, "we got through just in time--a few seconds
before the explosive gas was touched off. Thank God, my invention has
been destroyed. The world is safe."
Yes, the world was safe. Talbot sank back with a sigh of relief.
Overhead a white plane was dipping toward earth.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds, by Francis Flagg
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