of the clouds and drove straight on. The
what he must do, and he vaulted over the
reaction from those few exciting moments had wrecked furniture and fell compactly on the
come, and he laughed and sang as he listened prostrate form of the master criminal. He felt to the steady “throb, throb,” that was carrying
The Heat Ray
15
him along. He felt calm, secure, safe. He time to his controls. And the wisdom of his patted the brief-case beside him in the seat; tactics began to show. In every maneuver he
snuggled back into the soft comfort of his
gained ground on the other, in every sweeping chair.
circle he drew nearer to his objective. Graves
“Beastly luxurious blighters, those fought valiantly, but he could not prevent the bandits,” he murmured, laughing aloud again
inevitable; and at last Anton secured the
at the thought of their confusion, when—
position he was aiming for, over and far
something yellow flashed past his propeller—
behind the bandit. Here John Merton could not flashed, and flashed once more.
reach him with his heat ray, and Anton,
He went into a side-slip, and dropped
knowing it, swooped down in a swift,
two thousand feet in a twinkling. Back he
merciless curve. A golden, dazzling beam
swung, leveled off, and looked up. Coming
came from the under side of his wing; it
down on him, like a meteor gone mad, was a
caught the other ship in a cruel halo of
tiny ship, with the wind whistling through its radiance....
struts and a yellow eye winking now and
And then, only Anton flew the higher
again under its left wing.
skies—alone, watching with set eyes a thing
“This,” he thought humorously, “is no
of flames that staggered crazily, end over end, place for me.” And he went into an inside
down and still down, till he could see it no loop, came out of it, and began climbing. He longer! John Merton Graves had lost for the
was hanging on his propeller. He went higher first time—and for the last.
and higher, and as he looked back he saw the other ship following relentlessly. Suddenly an BEHIND the falling plane, after a moment,
idea occurred to him; he turned and ran his
came Anton. He followed it in its wild career eyes over the instrument panel, stopping them up to the time it dashed to earth; then he
when he saw, on the further end, a little white switched on his helicopters and landed not far button. He pressed it; watched the air just
from the burning wreck. He got out and stood ahead of his left wing. He knew then that he for a while on the soft green grass, watching had not guessed wrong, for a yellow tinge
the flames. The two ships had come down in a seemed to envelop the ship!
small dell, hedged in on either side by
Then it was battle of pilot against magnificent trees, its interior carpeted with the master pilot—of the hunted against the hunter.
most vivid of grasses, while a spring flowed Back and forth the two flashed across the sky, from the tiny knoll in the middle. The roaring going higher and higher with each change of
holocaust near one fringe of trees was in
direction, till they were alone in the cold terrible contrast to the peaceful beauty of the vastness, many thousands of feet above the
surrounding scene. One would have declared
ground.
Yellow ray against yellow ray—skill
penetrated into this quiet vale. The flowers against skill!
and the fernery seemed to stand aghast at such Neither
thought
of retreat as they intrusion!
turned and twisted. Once Graves’ heat ray
Reaching into the inside of his cabin,
caught Anton’s ship just behind the cabin, and Anton took out the portfolio. Then, sitting
only the distance that separated them and the there on the grass, he read, page after page, almost superhuman quickness of Anton saved
the diary and the records of his dead father.
him. Anton himself, after a few thrusts with Some parts of these he could not understand, his ray, used it no more, but devoted all his but the whole plainly showed the agony, the
Air Wonder Stories
16
tireless labor and the unutterable longing of to the bottom of the pool, so deep was the
the man to complete his invention. Failure
water; and his heart told him that here was a after failure—the man had fought his way
way. He lifted the portfolio.
through, and in the end he had won—what?
“There shall be no more heat rays....”
Fear and Death! And how little, thought He dropped the portfolio into the spring.
Anton, could his father have known, how little Down it sank, a vague bulk in the sparkling
foreseen, what misery and destruction his water, and the light, catching its polished invention would bring upon his country! fastenings, sent long reflected beams back to Anton began to see, as he sat silent there in the the surface until it bad disappeared.
glow of the afternoon sun, that it was no fault of his father’s that the evil had come. It was not even the fault of the lifeless thing that had Epilogue
been John Merton Graves, charred and burned
now in the ashes of his airplane. It was the genius of misguided and thoughtless invention WITHOUT its leader, the bandit organization
that had created the evil; the thirst for power, disintegrated. Like a house of cards crumpled that had been willing to kill in order to get the elaborate system that Graves had built up possession of it; the selfish desire common to with so much care and effort. A rejuvenated
all men, that had made the ray a source of
police force captured one after another of the misery. But like a boomerang the heat ray had ray-equipped planes. And Anton (for it was
brought disaster to the individual men who
under his leadership that law and order won
had owned it.
slowly back what had been lost), true to his It was the heat ray itself that was vow, destroyed each ray-projector as it fell guilty—not these men who had built it and
into his hands. Six months after John Merton used it! Anton seemed to see the black shadow Graves met death in the wreck of his plane,
of the ray, like a gigantic monster, looming the last of his men was sentenced to prison; over the heads of men and women, darkening
and the last heat ray, a most innocent-
the lives of innocent people, striking them
appearing black box-like contrivance, was
down, and laughing as it struck. As he thought placed behind plate glass windows in the
of these things his anger grew, and he looked Washington Museum, there to rest, the
around him to find a way to destroy it. He saw recipient of thousands of awed glances, until it the spring bubbling and gurgling; he rose and should rot away into the dust from which it
walked up to the little knoll. He could not see had come.