On past its guards and through the ante-rooms we strode, and in another moment were in the office of the First Air Chief. There was unfamiliar apparatus among the great switchboards of its walls, I noted as we entered. The First Air Chief himself had risen from his great table-map as we entered and was coming toward us; beside him, another figure, whom I recognized instantly as Connell. Then both of them were grasping the hands of Hilliard and of myself.
"Brant!" Yarnall was exclaiming: "I got Macklin's report of your escape and his rescue of you—man, but I'm glad that you got free! And it was what you did there in Berlin, what you did to help Connell and Macklin escape, that has enabled us to use Connell's knowledge and fit our air-cities for the coming battle!"
"I did no more than the others," I told him: "But you know of the enemy's coming then? You know that already the European Federation cities are on their way?"
He nodded. "They and the Asiatic Federation's cities from the westward, Brant," he said: "And we are awaiting them here—awaiting them with a chance at least, thanks to you four—to strike back at them when they come. And already they are near—by the map here you can see—"
And he turned toward the great table-map upon which was depicted the whole of the earth's surface, the red circles upon it denoting as before the position of the air-cities that hung above it. Now, however, all the circles of the American Federation cities were massed together south of the white outline of the Great Lakes, hanging motionless as the cities around us were hanging motionless. Away to the east on the map, though, just moving in from the Atlantic over the eastern coast, there was creeping across the map another mass of red circles, moving slowly toward our own, that represented the great gathered cities of the European Federation that were rushing westward toward us. And in from the Pacific was creeping a similar mass of a hundred little red circles that were, I knew, the Asiatic Federation's cities.
From east and west they were moving, there on the map, moving even as the cities they represented moved through the air, automatically showing their positions and progress. This was accomplished, I knew, by means of special batteries of cruiser-finders, tuned and trained to detect the great electrostatic-motors of air-cities, and recording instantly thus whenever those cities moved with their great electric fields. Their records were carried through complicated mechanical calculators which plotted the exact positions and movements of the cities; and these calculators, in turn, were connected to small special projectors set beneath the great ground-glass table-map, casting upward upon it the red circles of the air-cities. Thus those red circles moved upon the map, even as the great air-cities moved across the world.
This arrangement, indeed, was of no late date, and was used by both European and Asiatic Federations as well as by ourselves; but as I gazed now about the great circular room I saw that within it were some new arrangements also. These consisted of a series of six great glass screens which were arranged in box-like form about the great air-city's controls at the room's center. And, while the First Air Chief swiftly explained to us their purpose and design, I saw that one sitting inside their box-form, with four on four sides, and one above and one below, could see in all those directions as though from the very top of the great power-tower. For they were in effect great electrical periscopes; four great similar screens had been set on four sides of the electrostatic tower's high tip, and another one above that tip, while the sixth had been set in the under-side of the great city's base. The views possible to those six screens were then transferred down to the six there about us; the light-vibrations that struck the screens above and beneath being transformed by television receivers into electrical vibrations and brought down to television reproducers behind our own six screens.
Sitting there at the city's controls, amid those six screens and looking into them, one could see as clearly as though from the power-tower's tip in all directions. It was quite necessary, too, that this should be the case; since the man who operated the great air-city, from its six direction-controls and its single speed-control there, must see clearly in all directions, now that the great air-cities could rush at such tremendous speed through the air. When I said as much to the First Air Chief, who had turned now and was gazing intently at the great table-map upon which the eastern and western masses of circles were slowly creeping toward our own, he nodded, and contemplated me for a moment with a curious expression.
"The man," he said finally, "who is to hold the controls of New York in the battle tomorrow, will be you, Brant!"
"The honor is great," I said: "I've operated the city's controls, though never did I expect to take it into battle. But Macklin and Hilliard here—I want them to stay here for the time being—I want the hundred cruisers on the plaza outside to stay there during the battle."