Air Wonder Stories, December 1929 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

eT ge te Ls Cane aS eS ee ao ¥ : as .- a ES ; ae CITIES IN THE AIR 553 the anterooms into the plaza. “They're breaking down the doors, Brant!” he was screaming’ above the wild thunder of battle and: the clamor of giant crowds that: surged against those doors outside: “Fight on, though—we'll try to hold them back !” “Hold them a moment longer!” I yelled back to him: “A moment more—!” For now I sent Berlin whirling downward in another terrific swoop across the mass. of- our enemy cities and it sheared across half their mass, as they sought by rising or sinking to. avoid that deadly. swoop. But a half-score were left. of them now, and now the half- hundred cities of the American Federation had gathered about them and were hammering them with: terrific fire. No gun sounded now on Berlin, all its crews.and soldiers were rushing wildly across it toward the-electro- static tower, as the city whirled and crashed and: fought and ran there against their own-alljed cities! Caught in the terrific fire of the cities around them, the half-score European and ‘Asiatic cities were going down with guns thundering into annihilation. -But now I was aware - at.the same moment of a terrific uproar there at the tower's doors and of wild shouts and:clanging blows there as our men fought to hold back the madly. surging crowds outside! . Grippitig the levers before-me for one last effort, T jerked open the speed-control to its widest; and then, as it shot above the mass of the European and. Asiatic cities, only. a half-dozen in number now, I whirled the mighty mass of Berlin down. upon then in one. last tremendous swoop from which they. sought-in vain to swerve. They too were hesitating for a moment and then went whirling down: to death, the last of the Europ- ean and Asiatic cities save for Berlin: itself about me! And then, as I brought that city to a stay, with the last of its companions crashing beneath and with the Ameri- ean cities hanging-all about us now, there was a great clang of falling metal at the tower's doors, and back through them wild crowds without were pushing: our black-uniformed-defenders ! Connell: and Hilliard at their head, our men were being pushed back through the ante-rooms, back toward the great circular room in-which I sat at the controls; and, as I gazed out through the opening in the great periscope-hall about me, I saw that-an instant more would see them overpowering the last of our men, rush- ing in upon me to.take the city’s controls once more! But as I saw that, I reached forward, slammed down the lever that sent. the city rushing downward! I ripped that lever and with a supreme effort tore ‘it completely from its socket! The next moment-a wilder cry came from the crowds fighting through. the door and the crowds over all the city. outside, as they felt that city whirling and swaying beneath them, felt -it whirling down to death through the night to -annihi- . lation! And as they uttered that tremendous cry, as the swaying city flashed downward, their struggle at the door forgotten in that awful moment of doom, I was aware subconsciously that I was staggering with Con- nell and Hilliard and our remaining men, up the nar- row stair. Up to the great tower's second level and to its windows, beside which hung our cruisers: with Macklin and a skeleton crew, holding them there be- side the tower even as the great city whirled with awful speed downward! Then we jumped through those windows into the cruisers. And the next moment, just as the cruisers with ourselves inside them drove upward like light from the falling city, Berlin had crashed into the earth just beneath us, with a terrific, annihilating shock that buckled it, broke it, made of it but a great twisted mass of rended metal! - Then we were driving up toward the half-hundred remaining American air-cities:that hung still high above, the giant city of New: York ‘still at their center. Up until. we shad soared-above those cities and they Jay beneath us, giant circles of brilliant light, scarred here and there with countless.craters of fused: metal! Their great crowds of peoples had surged, now, from their towers, out into:their squares and streets, They gazed as if incredulously stunned. by their deliverance, at the empty air and night about them, where so shortly he- fore had hung the enemy that had been sending them to doom. In that moment, as we hung there high over them, in that moment of incredible surprise and dawn- ing joy, it seemed that all the world was silent after the terrific thunder. of that wild rushing battle that had riven earth and sky so-short a time before. It was as though the night, and the winds about us, and the white ‘stars overhead, were as silent with astonishment in that moment as the crowds on the cities that hung around and beneath us. Then: suddenly, from those-cities, there was. com- ing up.toward-us as though from a single voice a single, mighty cry! Dawnward A. dawn of the next day our half-hundred great air-cities prepared to separate, to move back to those positions that had been theirs before danger had brought them together. Through all of that night they had hung: there together, their. streets crowded with weeping yet rejoicing crowds; and, now that the dawn showed them the green plains far beneath, they were beginning to depart. And we five, sitting there within the periscopic screens in the power-tower of New York, were watching them as they-prepared to go. Battered and scarred, all of them, by that titanic battle through which alt had fought, many of them with great towers fused and broken, and scarred with great craters, they were crowding toward 11s. Wash- ington was. foremost: among them, until it hung just beside our city, its great streets and plazas thronged with shouting crowds, And; in the wild shouts of those crowds, we could hear our own names, their roaring tribute. — For, in their eyés, we had saved them by that last wild effort of ours. And then Washington was moving away front us, toward the southeast, speeding away and vanishing as a dark spot in the southeastern sky. And now another was crowding beside us, and an- other, and still they came. Pittsburgh and Guatemala, Tacoma, Chicago and Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro, Kansas City and Vancouver—one by one they were driving beside us, their giant bulks hanging beside New York, their mighty cheers reaching us. They moved away to north and south and east and west, to vanish as dark, dwindling spots in the skies, until New York alone of them remained hovering there high above the earth. And'then, Yarnall’s eyes returned to, the screen beneath us, where there were revealed ‘the great, shat- ae wrecks, laying half-buried in the green earth far elow. “We-win,” he said, slowly: “The American Federa- tion-wins ; but at what cost? Two-thirds of the world’s cities have crashed to annihilation and-death, and.a half of our own.” “Tt’s so, Yarnall,” I said, gazing down with him: “vet it was our necessity, and not our will, They at- > 7 | | | | comicbooks.co