Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930Various
Science
Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930
Various
Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
For nearly half an hour more he kept on. Twice he switched on the
instrument board light to glance at the motor temperature. The first
time it appeared a little high. The second time it was normal again.
But there was little use in watching instruments. If the motor failed
there was no landing field to make for.
A sudden faint glow sprang into being, many miles ahead. The pinkish
glare of many, many lights turned on suddenly. As the plane thundered
on the glow grew brighter. An illuminated field, for the convenience
of messengers who carried the poison for The Master to all the nations
which were to be subjected.
The glow went out as Bell was just able to distinguish long rows of
twinkling bulbs, and he saw the harsher, fiercer glow of floodlights.
He reached forward and touched Paula's shoulder. Conversation was
impossible over the motor's roar. Her hand reached up and pressed his.
Then he saw other lights. Bright lights, as from houses. Arc lights as
from storage warehouses, or something of the sort. A long, long row of
lighted windows, which might be dormitories or perhaps sheds in which
The Master's enslaved secretaries kept the record of his victims.
* * * * *
The earth flung back the roaring of the little plane's motor. Bell had
but little time to act before other planes would dart upward to seek
him out. He dived, and the wing tip landing lights went on, sending
fierce glares downward. Twin disks of light appeared upon the earth.
Sheds, houses, a long row of shacks as if for laborers. A drying
field, on which were spread out plants with their leaves turning
brown. A wall about it....
"The damned stuff," said Bell grimly.
He swept on. Jungle, only jungle. He banked steeply as lights flicked
on and off below and as--once--the wing tip lights showed men running
frantically two hundred feet below.
Then a stream of fire shot earthward, and Bell held up his hand and
arm into the blast of the slip stream. It blew out the blaze that had
licked at his flesh. He stared down. The gas can had left a trailing
stream of fluid behind it as it went spinning down to earth. All that
stream of inflammable stuff was aflame. The can itself struck earth
and seemed to explode, and the trailing mass of fire was borne onward
by the wind and lay across a row of thatch-roofed buildings. An
incredible sheet of fire spread out. The stuff in the drying yard was
burning.
Bell laughed shortly, and flung over another of his flaming bombs, and
another, and the fourth....
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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