CHAPTER XIX
THE STRICKEN CITY
The little glowing bricks had been spread in scores of places. The acres of tumbled masonry which once reared aloft in proud splendor—the Woolworth Building—lay still smoking. Other buildings were down. Lower Manhattan—its pile of monuments to the engineering skill of man—was interspersed with areas of ruin. A smoke pall hung over everything. Through it as we arrived I saw another giant building come down....
A warship lay in the upper harbor. Small boats were clustered around it. Over its decks and within its structure, men were frantically rushing. It stood there, a shadow on the shadowy water, the embodiment of impregnable power; the small anxious boats around it like milling pygmies trying futilely to help its distress.
Then men began pouring from it. The little boats took them and made off. Alone it lay there. Motionless. Then there came a surge of its giant bulk upward—a torrent waterspout as of a great mine exploding beside it. Bow down, it began to sink.
The Statue of Liberty fell. Head down, with torch plunging like a falling symbol....
The great Fort Wadsworth guarding the Narrows, as though an earthquake had torn it apart, rose and shook itself and fell into a shapeless mass. A small police boat was scurrying by in a panic. The tumbling white waves engulfed it....
The Brooklyn Bridge lay broken and fallen. Its dangling cables hung like rent cobwebs ripped apart by a giant, ruthless hand.... Figures of men were clinging to parts of it.
Death, destruction everywhere. But there were soldiers grimly standing in Battery Park. Machine guns idly standing. Another warship, unattacked, belching belligerent smoke, moving majestically around the Battery from one river to another.
A harried lion. Undaunted. But helpless to fight.
Beneath the shadows of the lower Hudson we came upon Brutar and his clustered cohorts. The devastation was slackening; the bricks had done their work. Brutar was doubtless thinking of rejoining his people up there under the little Westchester town. He saw our shapes, and started north. We followed. Urging him on, but not attacking.
Thone began, "Once we get them all together up there—all of them together—" But he did not finish.
Our lines let them through. It was a crescent battle line now, open to the south. But when Brutar swept in we closed it as before.
The scene here had changed somewhat since we left it. The lurid red of the opposing thought-streams still held balanced between the lines of the fighters. But in one place it was indented now far into Brutar's territory—a red gash like a wound gaping amid his huddled throng. And I noticed, too, that the dim purple haze hung now like an aura close above the heads of our enemies.
I asked Thone about it. He said, "Those who are not fighters in there are beginning to feel our thoughts. Perhaps even they begin to suspect what awaits them. Soon the fighters also will know."
He spoke quietly, but on a note of calm certainty that in the end we would triumph. From that same height we watched the scene. Almost immovable, struggling ghosts—grey translucent shapes to my vision as now I regarded them. Yet—I wondered—were not those shapes of Brutar's people more solid than our own? A vague shudder mingled with triumph unholy, swept over me. Was it fancy, or was there indeed a change?
I could see Brutar, or at least a shape I assumed to be his, raised upon a height in the center of his forces; his arms waving; his soundless voice doubtless exhorting his fighters to greater effort. The fog of purple haze swirled about him, tinting, but not obscuring, for it seemed utterly transparent. Was it my fancy that Brutar's shape was of changing aspect?
And then I was aware of an uneasiness growing in the mob huddled there in the midst of the fighting. A stirring. A ripple of movement. Spreading like the ripples of a pebble thrown into a pond; spreading until abruptly the mob was surging, struggling to break the bonds of its own protecting ring of fighters.
The fighters felt the press of the throng behind them. Their efforts wavered. With diverted minds their thought-stream weakened. At once the red tumult moved in upon them.
But Thone called his orders and a score of shapes relayed them throughout our circular investing ring. I could not understand it. We were not to press our advantage. Our fighters lessened visibly the strength of their attack. And our antagonists in a moment recovered.
Thone said quietly, "No, Rob—if we were to force in there now and overwhelm them, there would be many minds unhinged, but not driven irrevocably away. They might return. It is my aim to destroy them completely—mind and body—annihilation!"
Savage purpose, savagely expressed! But he added, "It is best—and I think, more merciful."