Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

892 ‘Let’s go,” said Toron, who was begin- ning to pick up army slang from the earth- man. And so, a few sangths later, when Por- theris had entirely recovered, he flew away, to return in several days with a vast con- course of his winged brethren. It was indeed an imposing spectacle. Three thousand orange-and-black bees, each the size of a horse, winging their way through the air in such swarms that they obscured the silver skies and darkened the ground beneath. And the noise! Cabot alone could hear the combined hum of twelve thousand wings, but the Cupians were nearly deafened by the whistling. But finally all the bees settled down and found resting places on the surrounding rocks. Portheris reported that all had agreed to follow him in this new undertaking, and their battle lust was hard to restrain. There, in the presence of a large part of the Cupian army and of his own followers, Portheris the First was crowned King of the Bees, and he and Toron concluded the treaty of alliance between Cupia and the bee-people. Cupia at last had an air navy! But Cupia by no means yet had control of the air. First it would be necessary to discipline and train that wild and lawless winged horde. And some task it was! Cabot had to take personal charge of the instruction, for although others could talk to the Hymerians, he was the only person on all Poros who could hear and understand their replies. And it was with great difficulty that he kept back the half-trained bees from spoil- ing the whole show by picking a fight with every Formian airplane which appeared. At last, however, the animate air fleet were completely subjugated and trained. All that the Cupian leaders awaited was the auspicious moment at which to strike. CHAPTER XV; FOR CONTROL OF THE AIR. ORON, King of Cupia; Portheris, King of the Bees, and Myles Cabot, the earthman, conferred together on the situation. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, Said Toron: “ The latest advices from Kuana are that Yuri has convinced the Princess Lilla of your death, O Cabot, and that she has consented to wed him, in order that her poor country may again be at peace.” ‘Ts that exactly loyal to you, the right- ful king?” asked Portheris, but Cabot re- fused to put the question, for fear of hurt- ing Toron’s feelings: so, he explained to the bee that Lilla’s high patriotism trans- cended any mere personal loyalty. “How do you come by this informa- tion?” he then asked Toron. “‘ And how do you know it to be authentic? For, if true, it demands immediate action. But otherwise I am loath to strike until the time is right. Most of the wireless relay-stations have been destroved. Is some supporter of ours at the capital possessed of a sufficiently powerful set to send from Kuana to here? And, if so, how do you prevent the inter- ception of messages?” Toron’s reply astounded him: “ Yuri’s forces naturally expect radio from the army Of Myles Cabot, the radio man; and so I have dropped wireless for the present and have turned to optics. I have been eager to tell you about this for some time, but have not vet had the opportunity. ‘““ My apparatus consists of a telescope on a tripod. At the focus of the telescope is a small electric-light bulb. Thus, when two of these telescopes are focused on each other, at a distance say of eleven or twelve stads, the flashing of one bulb can be dis- tinctly seen in the other telescope, and can- not possibly be intercepted except on a path less than a third of a parastad—about twelve feet—wide, even if the enemy should learn of the existence of our device, which there is no evidence that they have done. But, to make assurance doubly sure, both instruments are masked with screens which admit only the black light about which you taught me. Do you remember? “We have spies in Kuana,” he went on, “equipped with these instruments, and we have relay stations at intervals all the way from here to there. We use the dot-dash code, of course.” Toron,” exclaimed Myles Cabot, ‘‘ you are a genius! That is exactly the scheme Conn lDOOlK