It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that in the following hours, Hilliard and I felt close about us the intense despair that ever since the ill-fated attempt of Connell and Macklin had surrounded us. Through all that night following the first demonstration of the immense speed of the air-city, we sat awake, listening to the great shouts of triumph and exultation that came dimly up to us from the crowds that remained in the streets far beneath. The European Federation, we knew, already felt the glow of imminent victory that this new speed of their great air-cities would give them, and were exultant at the chance to annihilate completely the hated American Federation. And, to accomplish that, the very last great preparations were going on now in every part of the air-city.
Great loads of shining heat-shells were being transferred from the stores that had been brought to Berlin, to the giant batteries of heat-guns around the city's edge and its central plaza around the electrostatic tower. The cruisers of the European battle-fleet, still some two thousand in number, were resting on all the landing plazas, and were being cared for and inspected by hordes of green-uniformed attendants. All other air-craft were lowered into the great city's base-hangars to be out of the way during the oncoming combat. By a stroke of genius on the part of Berlin's commander, the power of the great air-forts had been added to that of the city itself, by simply placing the air-forts here and there on unused landing plazas, where they formed in effect great armored gun-turrets on the city's surface. And, finally, the mighty city's speed and power to maneuver had been tested rigorously. With all its peoples inside its metal towers, it was shot at terrific speed low and high above the earth; turning and dipping and rising at that awful velocity like a flashing airplane rather than a gigantic city of the magnitude it really had.
Through all the hours of that night, and the next day (the thirteenth of our imprisonment) those great preparations, that unceasing rush of excited activity, continued. Night came, and still the last preparations were to be made; magazines were being filled, and green-uniformed figures were swarming in countless numbers in the streets; going about their maneuvers; battle-cruisers were moving ceaselessly across the sky. During the hours of that night, as Hilliard and I sat silent there, high above all the tremendous turmoil of the streets and plazas below, we sometimes raised our eyes to watch also the calm, slow march of the great constellations across the sky above; glittering groups of stars that seemed to look down with cool and contemptuous eyes upon all this mad flurry of human excitement and human endeavor. Dozing a little now and then, we sat there until at last dawn sent its rosy light across the world. It was the last dawn, I knew, that Hilliard or I would look upon.
Now, it seemed, all the preparations in the giant air-city about us were completed. The crowds that had moved in its streets during the day and night before remained, but silent now with the thrill of approaching combat. Tense and silent the city remained, as the sun crept up toward the zenith through the morning hours of that fateful day. And, high in our tower-cell, Hilliard and I found ourselves gripped by the same tense feeling of anticipation. From our window as we watched the city, we made out the west, a dark spot rushing through the air toward Berlin, a spot that was growing steadily larger in size, that was broadening out into a large dark disk; and then as it came swiftly closer we saw with astonishment that it was a city, a giant air-city almost as large as Berlin itself!
The Gathering of the Cities
We heard a stir of excitement in the streets below as that mighty air-city came closer to us; then saw it slowing down until at last it had come smoothly to rest out to the south of Berlin, hanging there in mid-air a half-dozen miles away. It was London! Even as I had recognized it, Hilliard had done so also. London! The great air-city that held all southern England for the European Federation, could be clearly recognized, not only by its size but by the somewhat different architectural design of its metal towers and plazas. We could make out clearly now the surface of the other city, its huge batteries of heat-guns, and its great towers surmounted by a central pinnacle. And now, as we scanned the horizon away to the north, we could see another dark disk, another mighty air-city, rushing swiftly toward us!
"They're gathering!" Hilliard's voice was agonized. "Gathering—all the air-cities of the European Federation! It's the beginning of the end."
"Gathering for their great attack," I said.
"God, if Connell and Macklin could have escaped!" Hilliard's cry burst from his tortured soul. "If our own air-cities had only the speed and the power to resist this attack!"