Chapter XV: For Control of the Air

Toron, King of Cupia; Portheris, King of the Bees; and Myles Cabot, the earthman; conferred together on the situation.

Said Toron: “The latest advices from Kuana are that Yuri has convinced the Princess Lilla of your death, O Cabot, and that she has consented to wed him, in order that her poor country may again be at peace.”

“Is that exactly loyal to you, the rightful king?” asked Portheris, but Cabot refused to put the question, for fear of hurting Toron’s feeling. So he explained to the bee that Lilla’s high patriotism transcended any mere personal loyalty.

“How do you come by this information?” he then asked Toron. “And how do you know it to be authentic? For, if true, it demands immediate action. Otherwise I am loath to strike until the time is right. Most of the wireless relay-stations have been destroyed. Is some supporter of ours at the capital possessed of a sufficiently powerful set to send from Kuana to here? And, if so, how do you prevent the interception of messages?”

Toron’s reply astounded him: “Yuri’s forces naturally expect radio from the army of Myles Cabot, the radio man; and so I have dropped wireless for the present and have turned to optics. I have been eager to tell you about this for some time, but have not yet had the opportunity.

“My apparatus consists of a telescope on a tripod. At the focus of the telescope is a small electric-light bulb. Thus, when two of these telescopes are focused on each other, at a distance say of eleven or twelve stads, the flashing of one bulb can be distinctly seen in the other telescope, and cannot possibly be intercepted except on a path less than a third of a parastad—about twelve feet—wide, even if the enemy should learn of the existence of our device, which there is no evidence that they have done. But, to make assurance doubly sure, both instruments are masked with screens which admit only the black light about which you taught me. Do you remember?

“We have spies in Kuana,” he went on, “equipped with these instruments, and we have relay stations at intervals all the way from here to there. We use the dot-dash code, of course.”

“Toron,” exclaimed Myles Cabot, “you are a genius! Your invention has probably saved the day. Send word to Kuana that Myles Cabot has returned to life and is about to march to do battle against his foes. I guess that that will not give too much information as to our plans. ‘March’ is good, for they will never suspect that it means ‘fly.’ Eh, Portheris?”

The bee wiggled his antennae in appreciation.

Hah Babbuh, Buh Tedn and Poblath were then called in, and the plans were laid for the attack.

The next morning, as the invisible sun rose over Poros, there rose also the serried ranks of the orange and black air navy of the bees, led by Myles Cabot, mounted on the back of Portheris, the striped King of the Hymernians. Each bee carried a Cupian sharpshooter, armed with a rifle and a basket of bombs. The whole formation flew over the hills and ravines which housed the gathering armies of Cupia, then out across the broad valley which divided the two contending forces.

The Formians, and the few renegade Cupians who fought with them under the banners of Yuri, were prepared for an attack, by reason of Cabot’s message which had been flashed to the capital, but they were totally unprepared for such an attack as this. The ant sentinels, eagerly scanning the opposing row of hills for the first appearance of the foot troops of Cabot, were picked off by fire from the air almost before they could give warning. Then the animated planes swept on and began bombing the hastily assembling Formians.

Close in the wake of the bees, came the foot troops of Cupia, surging across the plain and easily mopping up the demoralized Formians.

Soon, however, appeared the battle planes of the ants; but they were surprised and bewildered at the new aerial tactics of their enemies. They had fought against bees before; but never before against bees manned with sharpshooters. And so, although the advance of the striped fleet was stayed and many bees were shot down, an equal number of planes fell victims of the encounter.

By night the Cupians had consolidated their position to the south of Lake Luno, and Cabot had established his headquarters in the ruins of Luno Castle.

That evening, at a conference with his generals, it was decided that it would not do for the advance to continue too precipitately. In the first place, the air force ought not to be permitted to get too far ahead of the infantry. And in the second place, the casualties among the bees had been altogether too high. Planes could be rebuilt by the Formians, but bees could not be bred to order for Cupia. This was something which Cabot had not figured on.

So, now that the first shock attack was over, the advance progressed more slowly in the days that followed, strategy taking the place of brute force. Captured airplanes were repaired and manned by ex-flyers of the old Cupian air navy, and were used whenever possible in place of the bees, but still the mortality of these winged allies continued, until it became evident that, unless something were speedily done, the ant-men would soon regain control of the air. But what was to be done?

One day an aviator from a distant point on the front landed at headquarters with a message. As he stood talking to Myles Cabot, he suddenly remarked: “Why, I left my engine running. How careless of me!”

And he looked intently at his plane for a moment, whereat the motor ceased its purring.

“How did that happen?” Cabot exclaimed. “Does your engine stop whenever you want it to?”

“I merely spoke to it, and it obeyed me,” answered the Cupian, simply, yet with suppressed pride. “There are several of us in the air service who have learned that trick.”

“What do you mean? How can mere words stop an alcohol motor?”

“Oh, it isn’t _words_ that do it,” the airman explained, “but rather a sort of radiation akin to speech. The right kind of an emanation from our antennae will effectively interfere with the ignition at a distance of as much as one parastad.”

“And can the same principle be invoked against a kerkool?”

“Of course not,” laughed the aviator, “for kerkools employ trophil engines, which ignite by compression, rather than by electricity.”

“So they do,” said Cabot. “That is what we call a ‘diesel’ engine on Minos.”

And then there was born in the mind of the radio man, the germ of a great idea. He hurriedly sent for Toron, ablest electrician of the whole planet, and for Oya Buh, who had been professor of electricity at the University of Kuana before the civil war.

* * * * *

First, he had the flyer demonstrate to them his ability to stop his machine by rays from his antennae. Then he outlined his plan as follows: “If the weak emanations from the speech organs of a Cupian can stop ignition at a distance of twelve paces, cannot we build a directional radio apparatus which will bring down enemy planes at a distance of a stad or more?”

“That ought to be possible,” Oya gravely assented, “but the apparatus would probably be too heavy to mount on a plane. Or on a bee,” he added, laughing.

“Mount it on a kerkool, then,” Cabot replied. “It would be infinitely more effective than an antiaircraft gun, and the planes which we shoot down by this means will be unharmed for our own immediate use.”

“But what is to prevent Yuri from learning of our contrivance and employing it against our planes?” interjected Toron. “For there be great electricians among the Formians.”

“That is where the second part of my plan comes in,” Cabot replied, with a twinkle in his eye. “We will equip all _our_ planes with _trophil_ engines. Let us send for Mitchfix, the trophil expert.”

And so it came to pass that the energies of all the mechanics of the Cupian army were turned to two tasks; namely, the trophilizing of the airplanes, and the construction of several kerkool-mounted radio machines for the propagation of the mysterious and fatal ray which was to stop the engines of the enemy. Meanwhile, of course, the advance stopped. The infantry dug in, and the activities of the bees were limited to the irreducible minimum necessary to keep off hostile scouting planes. Delay was irksome; but now Cabot, assured of eventual air control, could afford to wait.

One day, as he was scouting along the front on the back of Portheris, the whistling bee, they were suddenly boxed by three enemy planes which appeared unexpectedly from three different quarters. Such carelessness! Why had he, on whom so much depended, ventured so far from his own lines without an adequate escort? Well, there was nothing left to do now, but fight, so he unslung his rifle and entered into the fray.

Cabot was no mean shot. An animate airplane, to which he had merely to speak and which could converse with him in turn, was a decided advantage. But, even so, he was no match for three of the best flyers of the ant navy.

Nevertheless he brought down one enemy plane before the other two forced him to descend. His bee fell with him into a narrow gorge with precipitous sides. Although the bee was severely wounded, Cabot made the landing without mishap.

He had noticed during the fight that his enemies had apparently directed their shots at his mount rather than at him; and now, instead of dropping bombs, which would have been very effective in the confined space in which he found himself, they hovered down and attacked him on foot.

He still had his rifle, his bandolier of cartridges, and several hand grenades. The large boulders, with which the floor of the valley was strewn, afforded ample cover. The ant men were advancing with only their rifles, but also were taking advantage of the cover. Sniping between both sides continued without results.

Finally one of the ants held up two crossed sticks—the Porovian flag of truce—and Cabot stepped out into the open for a conference. Then, with a cry of glad surprise, he recognized the Formian. It was none other than the ant who had captured him on his first day on this planet, rescued him from the carnivorous plant, had acted as his defense counsel in his trial before Queen Formis, and had been his and Lilla’s friend in Kuana.

“Doggo!” he exclaimed, “what are you doing here? I haven’t seen you, or heard of you, since Peace Day, 358.”

“Fighting for my own country, of course,” Doggo laconically replied. “But to get down to business: ‘A life for a life.’ In your accursed ‘War of Liberation,’ you very kindly gave orders that I was to be spared. I now spare your life, for that and for old time’s sake. But I must ask you to surrender unconditionally.”

“What then?”

“I shall then take you to Kuana as a prisoner,” answered the ant. “I cannot promise that there your life will be spared, but I will use every bit of my influence, which is apt to be great, as I am now the winko of the entire air navy of Formia. You know me well enough to depend upon my word.”

“Yes, Doggo, old friend, I do,” said Cabot. He thought intently for a moment, then tuned his radio set to a shorter wave length and hastily addressed the bee: “Are you so badly hurt that you cannot reach headquarters?”

“I think not,” was the reply.

“Then tell Hah Babbuh that I go to Kuana a prisoner—to rescue the Princess Lilla.”

“But how can I tell him?” asked the bee, “seeing as you, alone of all the Cupians, can hear our speech, although all of us Hymernians can hear all of you.”

That indeed presented a complication which had never before occurred to the radio man. The ability of the bees to receive on the wave length of the Cupians had been all that had been necessary for tactical purposes, and any communications _from_ the bees had always been transmitted through Cabot. But at last he had an inspiration, which he explained as follows:

“I do not know how much you Hymernians understand about radio. Have you ever observed Cupians in battle formation?”

“Many times,” replied the bee.

“Then undoubtedly you have noticed the little boxes which our officers wear strapped upon their heads between their antennae.”

The bee assented.

Cabot continued: “These are selective sending and receiving sets. Each one contains a wave trap, which silences the radiations of ordinary speech. You bees speak at a different wave length from the Cupians. Well, these boxes contain a wave length adjuster, which, by much the same principle, enables the officers to send to each other at different wave lengths, above the din of battle-cries.”

“I get the general idea.”

“Go then to Toron,” Myles directed. “Speak to him, and point with your paw to his selective set. Perhaps that will suggest to him to tune the instrument to your wave length, and perhaps your wave length is within the range of that instrument. At all events, it is our only chance.”

At this point, noticing that Doggo was frantically agitating his antennae, the radio man tuned back to Doggo’s wave length just in time to hear him say: “Come, my friend, reply to my offer. Will you, or will you not, surrender?”

“I surrender,” replied Cabot, “but on one condition, namely, that you spare the life of my faithful bee.”

“Granted,” said Doggo. “From henceforth you are my prisoner.”