Chapter V

The boat slipped silently, impelled by muffled oars, toward the shore that lay dark and seemingly lifeless a furlong away. The underground in New York had a couple of motor launches--but there might be sound detectors on that shore, which would not be fooled by the powerful invisibility unit that purred quietly, clamped to athwart amidships. So they rowed.

The boat was laden with men, weapons, and explosives. The men were monstrous-headed shapes, for they wore gas masks under the featureless hoods; but the poised alertness of Kane's figure, upright in the bow as he scanned the black shore and called soft directions to Vzryvov at the steering oar, expressed all their eager anxiety on the threshold of decision. Manning and Dugan sat side by side; in front of the former was lanky Clark, and beside him a chemist named Larrabie, who clasped between his knees a box full of bombs of his own making--canisters of a versatile compound which with a detonator had the violence of TNT, without one was an excellent substitute for thermite.

Manning had to remember that he had once taken part in another landing on a conquered shore--Normandy in 1944, when the air had been full of planes and the sea of ships, and the invasion had rolled ashore like a resistless juggernaut.... If those millions had failed, what could six men in a rowboat do?

The night before, in the room Kane had given them, Manning had lain long sleepless, and passed the time turning through Kane's books of history--titles like _Aufstieg Deutschlands zur Weltherrschaft_, _Eroberung der Erde_, _Das deutsche Jahrhundert_.... One thing about the oddly twisted story they told had piqued his curiosity, and he had sought earnestly before he found mention--in a footnote--of the fact that one Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) had occupied the civic office of Reichskanzler (later abolished) at the time of the Conquest. But the leaders of that period, according to the histories, had been the generals and military men such as Rundstedt, Rommel, Keitel and Doenitz.

The future had obviously not gone according to anybody's plans made prior to 1949. A new factor had come in--the monstrous reality of atomic weapons, which had suddenly made it possible for a few men in one nation to hold the threat of death over all life on Earth. America had had them first and had used them to subdue Japan. But the German onslaught had been too swift; the combination of atomic dust and atomic bombs had paralyzed the U.S.A. before she could strike back.

"Up oars," whispered Kane. The boat glided forward the last few yards as the dripping oars rose over the water, then sand crunched under the keel.

Cautiously they sloshed ashore. Vzryvov knelt in the boat for half a minute, working with wires and one of Larrabie's compact bundles of death--booby-trapping the priceless invisibility unit against possible discovery.

Each man carried a slung automatic rifle, three bombs, and a long knife. An invisible man could kill with a knife in the midst of a crowd and walk away before anyone noticed.

They started moving without time wasted in consultation or casting about. All had studied the available maps of the area until their eyes smarted; and the moon was up, which for them was a special advantage.

* * * * *

This stretch of shore was occupied by the sea-side villas of the German masters; it was a good hour's walk from the main colony and the rocket port. The Germans could hardly have protected the whole coastline with automatic alarms.

As they topped the seaward slope, though, from not far distant, where a house bulked in the shadow, exploded the barking of a watchdog. The raiders froze; Kane swore perfunctorily and said shortly, "Push on. Dogs can see us, or at least scent us. That one doesn't seem to have raised anybody yet--"

They pushed on, tramping across meadows and through woods, steering clear of the roads that might be watched by electric eyes--as the rocket port must be without doubt, if the dust ship was there.

Half a mile from the German colony, in sight of its lights and their glimmering reflection in the water of the East River, a high fence barred their way. It was plain wire, stretching to right and left out of sight--probably across the whole island.

"That wasn't on the map," said Dugan.

"Of course not," responded Kane. "That's the first line of defense. Touch it, and you'd alert the whole place." He didn't look unhappy about it, judging by the flash of his grin in the moonlight. "Brother, I think we've come to the right address!"

Vzryvov remarked imperturbably, "The road must pass through it yonder." He gestured to where an occasional moving light picked out the highway.

"Right," said Kane. They set out along the fence, keeping at a respectful distance from the wire.

The highway entrance was floodlighted and visibly protected by movable arms like those used at grade crossings. These, together with the sleepy squad of German soldiers that stood guard beyond the fence, would not have given pause to the invisible men. But there had to be invisible defenses too.

They waited on the shoulder of the in-going traffic lane. Manning and Dugan could scarcely quell the jittery feeling of being exposed in plain view of the enemy, but the others were unconcerned.

"We've got to hitch a ride," explained Kane softly. "Just passing through behind a vehicle wouldn't be good enough, you can bet...."

A car came rushing out of the darkness and swooped to a stop with screaming tires. It was a gleaming pleasure machine, transparent plastic top flung back to let the night air cool the heated faces of three young couples that occupied it, evidently on their way to continue in town a party that had outgrown the facilities of the countryside.

"Get a good look at their admission procedure," said Kane.

The guards bestirred themselves; one operated the gate mechanism, the rest surrounded the car, grasping shining steel blades on long shafts, barbed like medieval halberds. They swung their archaic weapons around and over the car, hacking the air viciously. The girls in the car squealed and snuggled as the driver eased forward under an interlocked arch of steel.

Manning said, "They're watching for us, all right!"

Kane nodded, then tensed as another automobile rolled up and stopped. "This one's O.K.," he said aloud. "Quick, now--get inside it!"

They went forward in a pellmell rush. Kane eased open a back door of the car--a sedan with a lone man at the wheel--and all six of them squeezed themselves into the back seat, pulling the door quietly to after them. They held their breath, but there was no cry of surprise or alarm. The soldiers went routinely but thoroughly through the ritual of halberds. Any invisible man clinging to the outside of the vehicle would have had to drop off or be dragged into the wicked blades.

* * * * *

The car rolled through the gate and picked up speed with the violent surge of an electric motor. The man hunched in the front seat drove with businesslike concentration, oblivious of his six unwanted passengers. The raiders grinned at each other, shifted their cramped positions a little and waited.

Presently the town's lights began to swim past. Kane, in a position to see out the left-hand window, muttered: "We're passing the rocket field--they've thrown a brand-new wall around it. If this guy would just slow down--well, we've got to stop the car." He wriggled up until he could lean over the front seat--and stiffened. All of them heard the moan of a siren closing up behind.

"_Donnerwetter!_" growled their chauffeur, and clamped on the brakes. A few feet behind loomed up a pair of headlights and a searchlight helped bathe the car ahead in a merciless illumination.

"Out!" said Kane sharply, flinging open the left-hand door.

They sprawled out and ran, stooping instinctively, through the patch of brilliance. Uniformed Germans were climbing out of the other vehicle and starting to form a cordon.

Dugan, the last man out, halted a moment to close the car door, then sprinted after the rest. They huddled against the forbidding wall that had been built around the rocket port. Larrabie, eyes on the brightlit scene, nervously hefted a bomb. Kane shook his head.

"Time enough to make big noises when we get inside," he advised. And to the whole party, "I spotted an entrance a couple of hundred yards back. Come on!"

They ran in single file under the frowning face of concrete. It might have been possible to form a human chain and get over the wall; but there was unquestionably alarms atop it, and ready guns.

Beyond the wall, a whistle began hooting. The field was being alerted.

Kane panted, "Don't know what tipped them off--but probably we were photographed at that gate."

The entrance to the field was solidly blocked by a massive iron grille. Beyond it, they could see men running and springing into position behind a concrete redoubt, through which a machine gun thrust menacingly, covering the opening in the wall.

"Damn!" said Kane. "No more time to be subtle. We'll have to knock that out."

Eddie Dugan was already unhitching one of the home-made grenades from his belt. "Stand out of line with the gate," he said grimly, "and I'll get it for you." He gauged the distance and the weight of the bomb and threw with trained precision. The missile rose in a high arc like a mortar shell's, and hit the ground almost as Dugan did in his dive for cover. Fragments of shattered concrete and metal clanged against the grillework and whistled out into the street. A crash of glass and frightened screams came from the houses across the way; and down the street the patrol-car siren wailed suddenly into life again.

Kane sprang to his feet, verifying with a glance the emplacement's destruction, and hurled another bomb at the gateway. Its explosion was blinding, but a moment later they saw the way clear, the grille blown off its hinges and twisted like spaghetti. Simultaneously a rattle of shots, insignificant-sounding after the deafening blasts of high explosive, told that the patrol-car, racing its motor up the street, had opened fire on the entrance.

Clark was down on one knee, finger closing on the trigger of his automatic. The oncoming car skidded and spun half around. Two men spilled out and fled for cover; Clark dropped one and missed the other.

* * * * *

The big noises had begun, and speed was the big thing now. The raiders dashed headlong through the wrecked gateway.

"Get clear!" shouted Kane, and on the heels of his cry came the sputter of machine gun fire, first from one side of the entrance and then from the other. Puffs of dust sprang out of the wall and ricochets whined plaintively. Other guard posts were covering the breach, but the German gunners must have hesitated before firing without a target, and they were seconds too late.

The Americans crouched, half-sheltered by the ruined emplacement. To the right from a cluster of buildings, the warning whistle shrieked hoarsely on, and they heard through the incessant gunfire the noises of excited voices. Ahead of them stretched the wide, seared waste of the rocket field, its boundaries invisible in the darkness.

"We're in," breathed Kane, "and there's the ship!"

Out on the field, far from all structures, it towered upright, its blunt nose five hundred feet above the blackened earth. Even though no light shone on or from it, they could recognize its lines as those of the vessel whose stolen plans they had gone over point by point--_Siegfried_, the dust ship.

"They must have raised it to launching position only tonight," said Kane harshly. "Otherwise we could have seen it from across the river. So--it must be loaded and ready to go!"

A thousand feet of open and empty field separated them from the space ship. With straining eyes they could see tiny human figures scurrying about its base in the moonlight, forming a protective circle. Then floodlights went on all over the field and left not a shadow anywhere. The Germans knew, or feared, that the invisible attackers had slipped inside their citadel.

The rain of steel on the gateway had stopped; instead came dull thudding concussions, and a creeping haze obscured the entrance. Gas.

They had prepared for that. But now a more formidable threat made itself known; from near the buildings came a frenzied barking of dogs.

"We've got to get across the open," snapped Kane. "Better stick together and run for it. If we can get among that gang around the ship--neither dogs nor instruments can tell the difference between visible and invisible men!"

They rose from their cover and pelted grimly across the endless-seeming field. To the right, parties of men with dogs were fanning out, too slowly to intercept the raiders. But they were only halfway to the ship when the lights suddenly snapped off--for a moment they stumbled, blinded, in darkness, and the lights flashed dazzlingly on again. A couple of seconds later the puzzling action was repeated--

And from the cordon about the ship, so near now, a voice screamed hysterically, "_Da lauft einer!_" On its heels came a thunder of shooting, and bullets snapped past the hurrying Americans.

They flung themselves flat on the scorched ground. The lights flashed again and again as if an insane hand were at the master switch. "What's happened?" gasped Manning. "Did they see us?"

"They've learned or guessed one of our weaknesses," said Kane in his ear. "When the whole field of vision is suddenly illuminated, the brain may register an invisible object, especially if it's moving, for a moment before it melts into the background." Something whimpered in the air and burst with an ear-splitting bang only a few yards away, showering the raiders with earth. "They've got our position. Get going--_now_!" as the lights flashed on.

Kane's fingers had been busy fusing a bomb, and as he rose erect he threw it straight into the cordon. The crash of the explosion was followed by shrieks and then, as the lights flashed on again, by a prolonged volley of shots.

Larrabie sprung around in midstride and rolled on the ground. The long-legged Clark flung out his arm and pitched forward. "Get the--" His voice choked off.

* * * * *

The survivors charged at the gap where the bomb had wrought bloody havoc. The Germans were closing it from the sides. Manning caught a glimpse of sweating faces, staring eyes glazed with fear of an enemy they could not see; and he saw also the vast loom of the space ship above him. He fumbled woodenly with a detonator cartridge.

Kane's fingers bit into his arm. "Into the ship!" he rasped. "You'd never dent it." Nothing was between the invaders and the hull, where an open airlock, high overhead, showed as a black disc.

Manning glanced over his shoulder, and in the nightmarishly flashing illumination saw Larrabie's body sprawled in a frozen convulsion, and standing over it, head thrown back, a huge hound. A black mass of yelling men was closing in....

Then the four of them were clambering up the ladder that rose dizzily to the space ship's lock forty feet above ground. Every flash of the light silhouetted them so nakedly against the great hull that it seemed impossible they should not be seen and picked off as they clung helplessly. But Manning saw Dugan above him, disappear into the lock; he heaved himself up and stumbled into the saving blackness, followed by a panting bulk that must be Vzryvov.

Kane's voice came, surprisingly steady, from deeper in the tunnel-like lock, where as their eyes adjusted a faint glow was evident, seeping no doubt from a passage beyond. "This was the main loading lock, and I guess still is. They've apparently torn out all the freight decks and replaced them with a lead-lined tank for the dust bin and they've been loading it through a hatch just across the peripheral walk. But the hatch is sealed now." He did not need to add what that meant. The _Siegfried_ had its deadly cargo and was ready to take off.

"Then," said Vzryvov matter-of-factly, "let us blast open the tank and scatter it with our remaining bombs. That will make it impossible for the Germans to salvage the ship, or even use this field, until the dust had burned itself out in a year or so." When Kane did not answer, the Russian growled impatiently, "We _must_ do it, and quickly. Our comrades' bodies are out there, and with them the secret of invisibility. We must make this area unapproachable!"

"Wait," said Kane with a curious tense urgency. Manning wondered fleetingly if the underground leader recoiled from the suicidal action which the other urged; then he realized that Kane was listening, and listened too.

The babble of voices from the ground outside had fallen to a mutter; and through it cut an incisive voice of authority.

"_Es waren ihrer nur zwei?_"

Another voice answered, "_Ja, Herr Oberst--wenigstens haben wir nur einen oder zwei bei der Blitzbeleuchtung gesehen_--"

"_Ihr habt gar nichts Verlassliches gesehen. Aber wieviel zeigen die Photos?_"

"_Zwei, Herr Oberst._"

They could almost hear the commander's gusty sigh of relief. "_Nun, so haben wir sie vor uns liegen, und die Sache ist erledigt. Noch dazu werde ich ein schones Geschenk nach Deutschland schicken konnen._..."

"You see," said Kane, "they think they've got us all. Evidently their cameras never caught more than two of us at once, and hooded we all looked alike. So we're reasonably safe."

"Safe!" stormed Vzryvov. He clambered awkwardly to his feet in the curved mouth of the lock. "If you have gone crazy or have got cold feet, I will go and blow up the dust compartment alone."

"Wait!" snapped Kane. "Listen, Igor. You don't seem to realize that luck--and the sacrifice of two of our best men--have given us a better chance than we ever hoped for. The _Siegfried_ is just waiting for the crew to come aboard. If we lie low until the ship's in space--then take care of the crew and seize control--Well, the invisibility unit will be in German hands, sure. But what good will that do them if there isn't any Germany?"

* * * * *

They could hear each other's breathing in the airlock. Then Vzryvov said, "I see. Forgive my stupidity."

Manning asked carefully, "You mean to turn the dust against Germany? Wipe out the whole country?"

"Certainly. It'll be easy, once we take over the ship; a few degrees change in course--"

"Even your allies there?"

"Germans are Germans," growled Vzryvov. "At best, they are confused dreamers who think they could repay their debt to the world with a gesture."

Manning could not see Kane's face; but the other's voice held solemn earnestness. "We'll only be doing to them what they're trying to do to America.... Oh, hell, that's no valid argument. But, Manning, you come from an age when there weren't any atomic weapons, and such things were unthinkable because they were impossible. You can't think as we do, who've lived all our lives with the knowledge of what is possible--of how little human life is worth.

"And you don't have a hundred years of slavery behind you. We were as great a people as the Germans in your day, I think, but we've been trampled into the mud until we've not got much civilization or pride or decency left. And we won't have, for a long time, even if Germany is destroyed. But if it isn't we, and the other nations of the world, will never have those things again--the things that make human beings worth something.

"I sometimes wonder what would happen if history had taken a different turning--if we, instead of the Germans, had been the ones to discover atomic energy. Would we have been any better than they were? Or would we have used the power to make ourselves the masters of Earth and to monopolize civilization, just as Germany did?"

"You would have," snorted Vzryvov. "Russia would have. Any nationalism of that time, given such a power, would have behaved the same."

"I don't know," faltered Manning. "You may be right, but I can't imagine...."

"Anyway," Kane's tone grew bitter, "the Germans have made the world into what they wanted, and they've made us what we are. And now we're going to smash their world. Maybe something better will come out of its destruction. Maybe not. If not--revenge will have to be enough for us."