Murray Leinster - War with the Gizmos

“Now,” called the professor over the dog’s outcry, “now we make this creature squawk. Keep them from suffocating me, Carol.”

She caught the neck of the pillowslip with her other hand. She twisted it, confining her prisoner more tightly still. And it uttered a frantic buzzing, whining sound which rose in pitch, and rose again.

“Hal” said the professor with confidence. “Now we can make time! I think they’ll follow us!”

Lane swerved to avoid a stopped car. The traffic in the town had been considerable, but the tumult had lasted only minutes. There was a strong tendency for cars to stop to see what was the matter, rather than to flee the spot where other humans might be in trouble. But Lane was leading that trouble away—he hoped. Once, where double-parking blocked the road, he jolted up on a sidewalk and went around the jammed place. The car lurched down again to the pavement of the street.

“Look behind,” Lane ordered, “and see if people are still being attacked.”

“One man’s getting up,” Carol reported, “with people running to him to ask why he fell. There’s another man being helped up.”

“How badly are things blurred?” demanded Lane. “If the whole swarm’s following us…”

There was a pause. He drove at twenty miles an hour. Trees appeared ahead now; the business district was behind them.

“They’re following,” said Carol, composedly. “They aren’t thick at the ground level. I can see clearly there. Most of them are higher. Housetops are fuzzy to look at. Probably most of them are higher still.”

Trees closed over their heads. The car rolled on.

The professor asked, “Do you think I’d better squeeze this thing tighter, Dick? They seem to be with us. I can feel them touching my hands and wrists. And Carol’s keeping a flame playing out the window that seems to be popping them off at a good rate. But they keep after the squalling thing in the pillowcase.”

“Maybe I can speed up a trifle,” said Lane. He did so. It did not occur to him to be astonished at his or the professor’s composure. When one is busy, though, panic is rare. To be doing something about any situation is an excellent tranquilizer.

“Twenty-five miles an hour,” said Lane a moment later. “We’ll time their maximum flight-speed. When they stop fumbling at your hands, we’ll have hit their speed limit.”

The car left the green-shaded streets of Murfree. The cloudless sky and brilliant sunshine on the open fields was an almost dramatic change. Rolling valley and towering mountains made an amazing difference in the feel of the world. There were, now, small buff tings of breeze in the opened front windows of the car, which continued to gather speed.

“They’re barely able to keep up, now,” said the professor briskly. “How fast?”

“Thirty-two, no, thirty-three miles an hour.”

The dusty car rattled less loudly and roared at a lessened tempo. The professor grunted: “Hm. They’re back in force now. I don’t like the feel of their fumbling at my hands. They are nasty creatures, Dick! Carol, is the main swarm still following?”

“They’re still following,” said Carol.

“Find out from Burke,” Lane told her, “where we can stop their chasing us, without being near any town they can vent their spite on.”

Burke had not spoken once since the others forced him to open the car door. He still trembled. Now he said, dry-throated: “I’m—sorry, Mr. Lane, that I didn’t help much back yonder. But I didn’t understand what you were plannin’ to do.”

“That’s all right,” said Lane, with politeness. “The Gizmos attacked Murfree. Professor Warren caught one, and we’re making the others follow us because of its squealing. While they follow us, they can’t kill people we’ve left behind. Now we want to know when to make them stop following us. Somewhere as far as we can get from a village, and, if possible, even a dwelling.”

“Y-yes,” said Burke. But he sat still, frozen. The Monster howled.

“Slap the Monster,” said Lane irritably. “Make him shut up! And tell me where to dump our whining friends.”

“I’ll—try to think, Mr. Lane,” said Burke.

Lane drove on. Clouds banked up ahead. There were flickerings of lightning.

“Looks like a thunderstorm,” said Lane. “I might manage to drive through it. What do Gizmos do in thunderstorms?”

The professor chortled. “It should be a beautiful thing, Dick! A gas metabolism means ionized gases. But when you want to de-ionize a gas you bubble it through water! Rain ought to cut them down to size!”

Lane saw the gray front of falling water appear through a lower place in the westward rampart of the mountains. It advanced over other crests, presenting a long, drapery-like curtain of rain that moved into the valley. The highway forked, and Lane chose the turning that would take the car nearer to the rain.

“Maybe,” said the professor hopefully, “if the rain lets us lose the others, we can keep this one.”

“For a pet, no doubt,” said Lane. “Is it in extra good voice just now, or are the ones behind us getting nearer?”

“Some,” Carol told him, “are going on ahead.”

“Which we can’t allow,” said Lane. “I don’t know how smart they are, but if they’re smart enough they might blind me with dust and get me ditched.” He increased the car’s speed a trifle and headed for the center of the storm area.

Presently there was a rush of wind, bearing dust in curling masses before it; then a gray curtain marched across the land. The car rumbled and rattled between ranks of pine trees which hid everything but the dark clouds overhead and the way ahead.

With a sudden rush the rain arrived. It pattered loudly on the car roof, and washed reddish streaks of wet dust down the back window, and the windshield wipers swept it from one side to the other. The professor cranked up the window beside her, cramping the open end of the pillowcase tightly into place. The inflated bag of cloth flapped and wobbled outside, becoming spotted by the rain. Carol turned off the brazing torch with which she’d been protecting her aunt against attack.

The sound of all the world changed as the car was closed. Rain fell in seeming streaks. The highway surface turned dark and glistening, and a two-inch mist seemed to carpet it. The woodland on either side became almost black. Thunder roared and lightning flashed, and the tires sang and the windshield wipers clicked and the air inside the car became dank and somehow fragrant with odors brought in by the wetness.

“We ought to bring our prisoner in,” said the professor uncomfortably. “We can probably get it into the little garbage can you’ve provided. I’ve decided. Dick, that if I can take this to Washington and show it to some government biologists, there’ll be no difficulty in having this affair taken care of.”

“Perhaps,” said Lane. “But I’m not worried too much about the Gizmos’ health. Let’s let it stay outside.”

He went on. The road curved to the right and went steeply down, returning toward the broader bottom of the valley. There was rain in solid masses, falling on pastureland which now appeared.

They had ridden for a good two miles beyond the last patch of pine trees before, abruptly, they ran out of the rain. Then there was wet red earth on either hand. Ahead, the storm marched toward the north and east. They followed it. The world appeared exactly as usual. But the pillowcase, bouncing and flapping outside the front right-hand window, did not look as resilient as it had some time before.

“I wish you’d stop,” said the professor uneasily, “and let me see what’s happened to my specimen. It doesn’t look as lively as it did. I do want to get this to Washington!”