When the Sleepers Woke Read online

their homes, in every nook and cranny of the murderedcity. He looked beneath his drifting descent and saw roads that wererivers, alive with every manner of fleeing conveyance, and he groaned,knowing that in moments the pursuing ships would send down theirlethal mist to put an end to that futile flight.

  Sugar Loaf Mountain rose toward him. At its very summit was a clearingamong the trees, and, incongruously motionless in that world whereevery one was rushing from inescapable death, a man stood calmlythere, gazing up at him. Allan screamed down to him! "Run! You fool.Run or the gas will get you!"

  Of course the man could not hear that cry, but one tiny arm rose andpointed south. Allan followed the direction of the gesture and saw ablack plane veering toward him. Then orange flared from it, though itwas distant, and a wave of intolerable heat enveloped him. Somethingcried within him: "Too far--he's too far off to kill me with hisbeam!" Then he knew no more.

  * * * * *

  From New York, from devastated San Francisco, from Rio, from BuenosAires, from fifty other desolated points along the seaboards of theAmericas, the black fleets swept along the coasts and inland, vomitingtheir yellow death till all the continents were blanketed withlife-destroying gas. And in Europe and Australasia the destroyinghordes, having smashed the proud defenses of the coastlines, engagedin the same pursuit, till in one short week all the lands of theWestern Allies were swept clear of life. Then the Eastern ships turnedhomeward, to wait until the vapor they had strewn had lost itsvirulence, and the teeming masses of the East might take possession ofthe half world the ebony-painted destroyers had conquered. The blackfliers turned homeward, but there was no homeland left for them toseek!

  For though the defense fleets of the Western Coalition had beeneverywhere beaten, their attack squadrons had been everywheresuccessful. All Asia and Africa lay under a pall of milky emerald gasas toxic, as blasting, as the Easterners' yellow.

  And the Westerners were returning too!

  In their teleview screens the commanders of the black swarms, and ofthe white thousands, sought their home ports, and saw the world to bea haze-covered sphere where not even a fly could live. Then, as if bycommon accord, the white ships and the black sped across lifelesshemispheres to meet in mid-air over the long green swells of thePacific. They met, and on the instant they were at each others'throats like two packs of wild dogs, killing, killing, killing tillthey themselves were killed. No quarter was asked in that fight, andnone given. No hope of victory was there, nor fear of defeat. Betterswift death in the high passion of combat, than slow, hopelessdrifting over a dead world.

  But there was one black ship that slunk out of that mass suicide ofman's last remnant. Within its long hulk three motionless forms lay ina welter of blood that smeared their officers' badges, and a dozengibbering men labored at the controls of their craft. The long blackshadows came at last to veil an empty sky, and a sea whereon there wasdrifting wreckage but not one sign of any life. And as far to thenorth a shadowed airship sped athwart the moon, searching for onespot, one tiny patch of solid ground, that was free from the dreadgas.

  * * * * *

  Consciousness came slowly back to Allan Dane. At first he was aware,merely, that he was alive. That was astonishing enough. Even if theorange beam had not killed him with its heat, the gas should havestruck his leather suit. The Easterners could not be behind his ownforces in their development of that terrible weapon.

  Allan felt a coolness on his face, his hands, that could mean onlythat his helmet and gloves had been removed. He heard movement, andopened his eyes.

  At first he could see only blueness, pale and lambent. He gazed dullyup at a lustrous, glasslike substance that arched above him. The soundof some one moving came again, and Allan turned his head to it. Hisneck muscles seemed stiff, that simple motion drew tremendously on hisstrength.

  About fifteen yards away, a man bent over a transparent, boxlikecontrivance in which something fluttered. From this device a metaltube angled away into the wall. There was other apparatus on the longtable at which the man was--

  "At last! Clear at last!" a mellow, rounded voice exclaimedjubilantly.

  "Clear? Are you sure, Anthony, are you sure?" This other voice,throbbing with vibrant repression as if its owner feared to believelonged-for tidings come at last, was a woman's. As the man halfturned, its owner came between him and Allan. All he could see of themwas that the one called Anthony was very tall, and thin, and the womanalmost as tall, and that both wore hooded white robes, the woman'sfalling to her heels, the man's to his knees, waist-girdled with blackcords.

  "Look for yourself, Helen."

  She bent over the transparent cage. "Oh Anthony, how wonderful!"

  Allan attempted to rise. He was unutterably weak; to move a finger wasa gigantic task, to do more impossible. He tried to call out. No soundcame from his straining throat.

  The couple straightened. The man spoke, too low for Dane to hear. Eachtook something from the table, something that gleamed metallically.Then they turned--and Allan saw what the white robes clothed!

  * * * * *

  Skulls leered at him from beneath the hoods--fleshless skulls; tinteda pale green! Jutting jawbones, cavernous cheeks, lipless mouths thatgrinned mirthlessly--his eyes froze to them and a scream formed withinhim that he could not utter. Hands appeared from within the flowingsleeves, and they were skeleton hands, each phalanx clearly marked.They moved, that was the worst of it, the hands moved; and deep in theshadowed eye-pits of the skulls blue light glowed in living eyes thatpeered at something to Allan's right.

  His eyes followed the direction of their gaze. Ranged along the wall,and jutting out, he saw four couches. On each was a figure, shroudedand hooded in white. Utterly still they were--and the cadaverouscountenances exposed between robe and hood betrayed not the slightesttwitch. The arms were crossed on each breast. Allan realized that hisown arms were similarly crossed. He looked down at them, saw the whitegleam of a robe that fell down his length in smooth, still folds, sawhis hands--greenish skin stretched tight over fleshless bones.Suddenly it seemed to him that the air was musty and fetid.

  Footsteps slithered across the floor. The woman-form bent over thefarthest couch. With one skeleton hand she bared an arm of thecorpselike figure; the other hand lifted--metal glinted in it andplunged into the unshrinking limb! A slow movement of the bony fingersand the threadlike, silvery thing was withdrawn. She staredghoulishly--and the man, too, gazed tensely at her victim. A longquiver ran through the recumbent shape, another. The death's-head onthe pallet moved slightly--and merciful blackness welled up in Allan'sbrain....

  * * * * *

  A cool liquid was in his mouth. He swallowed instinctively, and warmthran through his veins. He felt strength flooding back into him--and heremembered horror.

  "That's better," a mellow voice said, close above him. "Drink just alittle more." The cool liquid came up against Allan's lips again,pungent, and he drank. Once more strength surged warmingly within him."That's a good fellow. A little more now."

  Fingers were on Allan's wrist, life-warm. There was friendliness inthe voice that was speaking to him, and solicitude. He dared to look.

  A skull-like head was right before him. But seen thus closely, theterror of it was lessened. Fleshless indeed it was. But a parchmentskin was tightly drawn over the bones, and Allan could see that itstrue shade was a sere yellow. It was the bluish light that had givenit the green of decay. The deep-sunk eyes were kindly; they gleamedwith pleasure as Allan's opened; and the voice asked:

  "How do you feel?"

  Allan made shift to reply, though a strange lassitude still enervatedhim, and his mouth was full of tongue. "Much better, thank you. Butwho--who...?"

  With a sudden access of energy Allan sat up on his couch. He lookedabout him, and his fears were back full flood.

  He was in a chamber with neither door nor window--floor, walls, andarched cei
ling entirely formed of the palely lustrous, glasslikesubstance. The room was perhaps twenty by forty feet, its ceilingcurving to about five yards from the floor at its highest point, andthe spectral blue glow that filled it was apparently sourceless. Itlit three vacant couches to his left. To his right were the four hehad already seen. The woman was ministering to the occupants ofthese--living skeletons that lay flaccid, but whose heads were moving,barely moving from side to side. Like nothing else but a sepulcher theplace seemed, a tomb in which the dead had come to life!

  * * * * *

  Allan clutched at Anthony's arm, grasped textured fabric that was coldto his frantic touch, and thin bone beneath. "In Heaven's name," hemouthed, "tell me what sort of place this is before--" He stopped,appalled by a sudden thought. Perhaps he was insane, this seeming tombreally some hospital ward transformed by his crazed