The Gods Hate Kansas by Joseph J. Millard

Author:Joseph J. Millard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, alien, invasion, monster, pulp fiction
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2014-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Counterattack

The new concept of the Plague added barbs to the lash of desperation that drove them. They became more robot than human themselves, with every nerve in their bodies crying: Faster! Faster!

The mountains blocked television but Farge’s radio kept them informed of events outside. Apparently the entities had met the challenge by redoubling their own hellish activities.

The Crimson Plague was spreading with increased speed, leaping oceans to ravage Europe, Asia and Africa and strike ships at sea. Australia cowered, waiting for the first blow to come. Major cities were emptying as panic-stricken people fled with no place to go.

The moon flights bearing Plague victims had become daily affairs and the new enlarged rocket was almost ready for service. The parade of planes carrying victims from all over the Earth to the field beside the camp had grown so heavy that a traffic control system had to be installed and manned around the clock.

A Bomer woman was committed to a mental hospital for insisting she had seen her husband working at the camp after he had been supposedly shipped to the moon as a Plague corpse. Temple and Farge exchanged wordless looks and stepped up their efforts another impossible notch.

Temple had drawn a rough sketch of Lansdon’s detector as detailed as he could remember and this was their blueprint for the search.

“It’s a stereoscope,” he told Farge, “designed to superimpose the image of the invisible object over the visual image in correct physical relationship. One of the two viewing lenses was, as I told you, opaque, the other apparently an ordinary ground glass magnifier. The black lens could have been ground from Wood’s nickel oxide glass. We know that Wood’s glass filters out visible light rays but permits the passage of ultraviolet light. I’d almost bet that’s the answer to the lens assembly, so there’d be no problem there. Our real headache will lie in that film of violet-colored metal where I saw the combined image.”

Farge nodded and chewed his lip. “Well, films made from the alkali metals will pass short-wave light below the visible spectrum. But you said that particular film had a definite violet shade, which lets out lithium, sodium, potassium and rubidium. They block all visible light and therefore show only dead black. Cesium, the heaviest of that group, allows some of the visible violet to get through so it would have a violet tint. Your suggestion of trying cesium seems logical, but it almost seems too easy, Curt.”

“It probably is,” Temple admitted, “but it’s at least some kind of starting point to work from. We might as well try all the alkali metals with every known type of fluorescent screen and see how far we get.”

Farge nodded eagerly. “Just give me something besides all Xs to put in a formula and I can try working it out mathematically. While we’re waiting for a Wood’s lens and the stock of alkali metal films to come, what do you say we test that thing on Lee’s head for

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