Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

THE RADIO BEASTS. therefore attacked Ktuth in force shortly after the newcomers reached there. In Cupia there are but two principal roads running from the cities which border the old pale to the northern part of the Okarze Mountains, at the foothills of which lies Lake Luno. One of these roads starts at Kuaria, and Is the one over which Poblath and his jail kerkools, Buh Tedn and his foot troops, Prince Toron, the army of Yuri and lastly, Myles Cabot himself, made their way. This is the direct road. The other runs north from Ktuth and enters the Okarze range at a point northeast of Luno. And it was over this second road that Kamel and Hah retreated. It was well that they did, for they gathered additional supporters from every town through which they passed, and thev kept the enemy from making a hurried ad- vance along this road, and thus perhaps reaching the mountains, and possibly even Luno Castle, ahead of the main Cupian army. As it was, Hah and Kamel held the road. beat a masterly retreat and joined the main army as it was entrenching itself just after the battle of Lake Luno. So much for Hah’s account, which I have greatly boiled down, as its details would have but little bearing on the main events which I am endeavoring to cover. Now that Myles had heard this latest narrative, he was able to piece together a very complete history of the war to date, compiled from the events in Kuana before all the parties separated at the mangool, and from his own adventures, and the stories told by the priests of Kar, by Prince Toron and by Hah Babbuh. During the reconnaissance which now was in progress, Cabot’s attention was chiellyv devoted to recalling to memory and check- ing up these various accounts. Save for the cheers of the loyal troops, the trip along the front was uneventful un- til there was heard in the southern skies the familiar purr of a nearing motor. An enemy plane on scout duty. Instantly Hah and Myles and their party got quickly under cover. On came the plane, but presently another sound was borne to the antenne of the 839 watchers, namely, a shrill whistling from the woods on their right. “ Now we'll see some fun,” softly radiat- ed Hah, * for here comes a whistling bee to do battle with the plane controlled by the ant-men.” And sure enough, even as he spoke, a huge orange and black insect winged its way Into the silver sky. The fight took place almost directly overhead, and was a repetition of the two battles in which Cabot himself had taken part near Saltona, while still a guest of the ant-men at Wautoosa during the early part of his stay on the planet. Both partics appeared to be adepts in the art of aerial warfare, but, of course, the bee had only his sting and legs with which to defend himself, whereas the plane had its fighting tail, its grapple hooks and at least one rifle. Given a fair deal, with only side-slips, spirals, loop-the-loops and _tail- jabs, and the bee would have had the ad- vantage; but what chance had he against explosive bullets? And so in due course of time the bee was shot down, and fell screaming to the ground; while the plane, evidently injured to some extent itself, re- tired again to the southward. The bee fell quite close to where the ob- Servers were stationed; and, impelled by curiosity to see how badly it was damaged —for every whistling bee remaining alive meant just one more obstacle to the air fleet of the enemy—Hah and Cabot and their suite drew near to the disabled crea- ture, keeping their revolvers reacy, however, lest it should attack them. Cabot's radio headset had been working badly that morning, and now apparently it began playing tricks upon him, for as he walked along he thought he heard a very faint voice calling: “‘ Cabot, Cabot, O Myles Cabot!” But as his radio sense was nondirectional, he could not tell whence seemed to come the voice. He stopped and began to ad- just the controls. Clearer and yet morxe clear sounded the voice until, at the short- est wave length of which his set was cap- able, entirely outside the range of Cupian conversation, the sound became no longer a@ vague suggestion, but rather an unmis- Conn GIOok