<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></SPAN>CHAPTER XII<br/> The Mysterious "Air Balls"</h2>
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> American barrage had
been a long distance bombardment,
designed, apparently,
to draw the Han disintegrator
ray batteries into operation and
so reveal their positions on the
mountain tops and slopes, for
the Hans, after the destruction
of Nu-Yok, had learned quickly
that concealment of their positions
was a better protection
than a surrounding wall of disintegrator
rays shooting up into
the sky.</p>
<p>The Hans, however, had failed
to reply with disintegrator rays.
For already this arm, which formerly
they had believed invincible,
was being restricted to a
limited number of their military
units, and their factories were
busy turning out explosive rockets
not dissimilar to those of the
Americans in their motive power
and atomic detonation. They had
replied with these, shooting them
from unrevealed positions, and
at the estimated positions of the
Americans.</p>
<p>Since the Americans, not
knowing the exact location of the
Han outer line, had shot their
barrage over it, and the Hans
had fired at unknown American
positions, this first exchange of
fire had done little more than to
churn up vast areas of mountain
and valley.</p>
<p>The Hans appeared to be elated,
to feel that they had driven
off an American attack. I knew
better. The next American move,
I felt, would be the occupation of
the air, from which they had
driven the Hans, and from
swoopers to direct the rocket fire
at the city itself. Then, when
they had destroyed this, they
would sweep in and hunt down
the Hans, man to man, in the
surrounding mountains. Command
of the air was still important
in military strategy, but
command of the air rested no
longer in the air, but on the
ground.</p>
<p>The Hans themselves attempted
to scout the American positions
from the air, under cover
of a massed attack of ships in
"cloud bank" or beaming formation,
but with very little success.
Most of their ships were
shot down, and the remainder
slid back to the city on sharply
inclined repeller rays, one of
them which had its generators
badly damaged while still fifty
miles out, collapsed over the
city, before it could reach its
berth at the airport, and crashed
down through the glass roof of
the city, doing great damage.</p>
<p>Then followed the "air balls,"
an unforeseen and ingenious
resurrection by the Americans
of an old principle of air and
submarine tactics, through a
modern application of the principle
of remote control.</p>
<p>The air balls took heavy toll of
the morale of the Hans before
they were clearly understood by
them, and even afterward for
that matter.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Their</span> first appearance was
quite mysterious. One uneasy
night, while the pulsating growl
of the distant barrage kept the
nerves of the city's inhabitants
on edge, there was an explosion
near the top of a pinnacle not
far from the Imperial Tower. It
occurred at the 732nd level, and
caused the structure above it to
lean and sag, though it did not
fall.</p>
<p>Repair men who shot up the
shafts a few minutes later to
bring new broadcast lamps to
replace those which had been
shattered, reported what seemed
to be a sphere of metal, about
three feet in diameter, with a
four-inch lens in it, floating slowly
down the shaft, as though it
were some living creature making
a careful examination, pausing
now and then as its lens
swung about like a great single
eye. The moment this "eye"
turned upon them, they said, the
ball "rushed" down on them,
crushing several to death in its
vicious gyrations, and jamming
the mechanism of the elevator,
though failing to crash through
it. Then, said the wounded survivors,
it floated back up the
shaft, watchfully "eyeing" them,
and slipped off to the side at the
wrecked level.</p>
<p>The next night several of
these "air balls" were seen, following
explosions in various
towers and sections of the city
roof and walls. In each case repair
gangs were "rushed" by
them, and suffered many casualties.
On the third night a few of
the air balls were destroyed by
the repair men and guards, who
now were equipped with disintegrator
pistols.</p>
<p>This, however, was pretty costly
business, for in each case the
ray bored into the corridor and
shaft walls beyond its target,
wrecking much machinery,
injuring the structural members
of that section, penetrating
apartments and taking a number
of lives. Moreover, the "air
balls," being destroyed, could
not be subjected to scientific
inspection.</p>
<p>After this the explosions
ceased. But for many days the
sudden appearances of those "air
balls" in the corridors and shafts
of the city caused the greatest
confusion, and many times they
were the cause of death and
panic.</p>
<p>At times they released poison
gases, and not infrequently
themselves burst, instead of
withdrawing, in a veritable
explosion of disease germs, requiring
absolute quarantine by the
Han medical department.</p>
<p>There was an utter heartlessness
about the defense of the
Han authorities, who considered
nothing but the good of the community
as a whole; for when
they established these quarantines,
they did not hesitate to
seal up thousands of the city's
inhabitants behind hermetic barriers
enclosing entire sections of
different levels, where deprived
of food and ventilation, the
wretched inhabitants died miserably,
long before the disease
germs developed in their systems.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">At</span> the end of two weeks the
entire population of the city
was in a mood of panicky revolt.
News service to the public had
been suspended, and the use of
all viewplates and phones in the
city were restricted to official
communications. The city
administration had issued orders
that all citizens not on duty
should keep to their apartments,
but the order was openly flouted,
and small mobs were wandering
through the corridors, ascending
and descending from
one level to another, seeking
they knew not what, fleeing the
air balls, which might appear
anywhere, and being driven back
from the innermost and deepest
sections of the city by the military
guard.</p>
<p>I now made up my mind that
the time was ripe for me to attempt
my escape. In all this confusion
I might have an even
break, in spite of the danger I
might myself run from the air
balls, and the almost insuperable
difficulties of making my way to
the outside of the city and down
the precipitous walls of the
mountain to which the city clung
like a cap. I would have given
much for my inertron belt, that
I might simply have leaped outward
from the edge of the roof
some dark night and floated
gently down. I longed for my ultrophone
equipment, with which
I might have established communication
with the beleaguering
American forces.</p>
<p>My greatest difficulty, I knew,
would be that of escaping my
guard. Once free of them, I figured
it would be the business of
nobody in particular, in that
badly disorganized city, to recapture
me. The knives of the
ordinary citizens I did not fear,
and very few of the military
guard were armed with disintegrator
pistols.</p>
<p>I was sitting in my apartment
busying my mind with various
plans, when there occurred a
commotion in the city corridor
outside my door. The captain of
my guard jumped nervously
from the couch on which he had
been reclining, and ordered the
excited guards to open the door.</p>
<p>In the broad corridor, the remainder
of the guard lay about,
dead or groaning, where they
had been bowled over by one of
these air balls, the first I had
ever seen.</p>
<p>The metal sphere floated hesitantly
above its victims, turning
this way and that to bring its
"eye" on various objects around.
It stopped dead on sighting the
door the guard had thrown open,
hesitated a moment, and then
shot suddenly into the apartment
with a hissing sound, flinging
into a far corner one of the
guards who had not been quick
enough to duck. As the captain
drew his disintegrator pistol, it
launched itself at him with a
vicious hiss. He bounded back
from the impact, his chest
crushed in, while his pistol,
which fortunately had fallen
with its muzzle pointed away
from me, shot a continuous beam
that melted its way instantly
through the apartment wall.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> sphere then turned on the
other guard, who had thrown
himself into a corner where he
crouched in fear. Deliberately it
seemed to gauge the distance
and direction. Then it hurled itself
at him with another vicious
hiss, which I now saw came from
a little rocket motor, crushing
him to death where he lay.</p>
<p>It swung slowly around until
the lens faced me again, and
floated gently into position level
with my face, seeming to scan
me with its blank, four-inch eye.
Then it spoke, with a metallic
voice.</p>
<p>"If you are an American," it
said, "answer with your name,
gang and position."</p>
<p>"I am Anthony Rogers," I replied,
still half bewildered,
"Boss of the Wyomings. I was
captured by the Hans after my
swooper was disabled in a fight
with a Han airship and had
drifted many hundred miles
westward. These Hans you have
killed were my guard."</p>
<p>"Good!" ejaculated the metal
ball. "We have been hunting for
you with these remote control
rockets for two weeks. We knew
you had been captured. A Han
message was picked up. Close the
door of your room, and hide this
ball somewhere. I have turned
off the rocket power. Put it on
your couch. Throw some pillows
over it. Get out of sight. We'll
speak softly, so no Hans can
hear, and we'll speak only when
you speak to us."</p>
<p>The ball, I found, was floating
freely in the air. So perfectly
was it balanced with ultron and
inertron that it had about the
weight of a spider web. Ultimately,
I suppose, it would have
settled to the floor. But I had no
time for such an idle experiment.
I quickly pushed it to my couch,
where I threw a couple of pillows
and some of the bed clothes
over it. Then I threw myself
back on the couch with my head
near it. If the dead guards outside
attracted attention, and the
Han patrol entered, I could report
the attack by the "air ball"
and claim that I had been
knocked unconscious by it.</p>
<p>"One moment," said the ball,
after I reported myself ready to
talk. "Here is someone who
wants to speak to you." And I
nearly leaped from the couch
with joy when, despite the metallic
tone of the instrument, I
recognized the eager, loving
voice of my wife, almost hysterical
in her own joy at talking to
me again.</p>
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