Part 2

Hoshawk actually snorted. "Transmitter stations! You can't fight with words! And, anyway, there won't be any power at all within a half hour."

"They each have their own power-plant," The President said quietly.

Hoshawk looked at the map again and groaned. The nation was almost covered by a canopy of orange lights marked with black crosses. "There must be at least a million bombers over us! They'll wipe out the whole country within an hour. If there's anything you can do, _do it_!"

The President was pale, but he sat quietly. "Stalled," Hoshawk thought sardonically. It took something besides smartness to win a war. It took character, too.

Wadsworth pointed to the American shores. Long lines of green and white and black and yellow dots coming from the sea, crawling in among the orange lights that swarmed over America like a gigantic swarm of hornets. "Submarines, amphibian battleships, flame-throwers, tanks," he said.

Hoshawk stood erect. "If it were not against regulations, Sire, I would be tempted to blow my head off. We shall be destroyed as a people and as a continent."

The President's hands were clenched, but he answered slowly, "As a continent, perhaps. But the buildings can be built again. As a people--no, I don't think so. As a civilization, I hope we can be saved."

Hoshawk's eyes narrowed. "How?" he demanded.

"Those purple lights represent sonic transmitters. In other words, generating stations for sound frequencies above the narrow band which can be heard by humans. They were developed, built, and financed by graduate mutants. They broadcast on different frequencies that we have determined most effective in upsetting the equilibrium of unstable chemical compounds."

"Do you mean," asked Hoshawk, "that you are going to try to detonate the explosives carried by Forgacs' planes?"

"His planes, and anything else that carries them. We have analyzed samples of his explosives to determine the critical frequency of each. These nineteen stations cover the country. Any known explosive in the continental United States will be detonated when these stations go into operation."

"What if Forgacs has some unknown explosive?"

Wadsworth was solemn. "We take that chance," he said. "But the range of possible explosive combinations is well known, and something entirely different is unlikely. At any rate--"

"They're starting to drop bombs!" Hoshawk said.

* * * * *

The President watched the red glow around Kansas City. His face was taut. "There will be many cities destroyed," he said. "But we must wait for all of Forgacs' equipment to be within our continental limits. It must all be destroyed at once."

"But the bombers are in action," said Hoshawk. "Denver is getting it now."

Wadsworth's eyes were on the coastlines. "It will be twenty minutes at least before we can open the transmitters. We may lose most of our cities by that time, but there is nothing we can do."

The red glows began to spread. Dallas and Fort Worth, New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami, San Diego and Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. The bombers were systematically destroying America's population centers. And still Wadsworth waited. He sat tense before the Map, watching the endless stream of lights come from the sea.

But they were beginning to end. Many were far inland, attacking the smaller cities, cleaning up the big ones.

"The bombers won't be destroyed," said Hoshawk, "if they've already dropped their bombs."

"I think they will, for all practical purposes," said the President. "Their ammunition, their signal flares--everything explosive will be detonated."

"How can you cover them all at once?"

"There are over nine hundred frequencies--but we don't know that they will be enough," Jeffrey pointed out gravely. "We can only hope."

Hoshawk couldn't stand still any longer. He paced the floor before the Map. "Every city in America of more than a hundred thousand is gone--obliterated," he said tonelessly. "Can't we ever--"

"Wait!" The President was alert. "The last line of flame-throwers is coming on land." He pointed to the black dots streaming up on the west coast. He spoke into the audio transmitter. He didn't bother with the scrambler now. "Sonic stations on. Emergency force. Sonic stations on. Emergency force. Situation critical."

He pointed to the Map and sat back. Within a few seconds the purple lights began to flash intermittently.

"They're on," said the President. "But it will take a few minutes for them to reach full intensity. The sonic devices operate at high speeds--some at two hundred thousand r.p.m."

Hoshawk watched, almost without breathing. For the first time he was aware that the forty statesmen of the Western Hemisphere were watching through the glass windows of the Chamber.

At that instant purple glows began to surround the green lights, starting on the east coast of Florida and spreading upward.

"Amphibian submarines," whispered the President. "Their aerial torpedoes are exploding!"

"And up around the Great Lakes," said Hoshawk. "There it's amphibian tanks."

The President sat, and watched. The glows spread. They absorbed flame-throwers, tractors, mine-heavers. The Map of America was a clustered mass of lights, with the purple glow beginning to consume everything in its reach.

"The planes," said Jeffrey. "They're still untouched. They anticipated something like this." He barked into the microphone. "All stations, ascending frequency!" he ordered, and turned to Hoshawk. "We don't know how effective this will be. It isn't as powerful as the static ranges. But--"

"It is! They've got the range!" cried Hoshawk.

Jeffrey looked. Near Albuquerque, New Mexico, a cluster of orange lights was being consumed by the purple glow. Jeffrey shot a glance at a dial. "All stations! All stations! Frequency seventy-two thousand, nine eighty. Emergency. Frequency seventy-two thousand, nine eighty."

And the purple glow rolled and spread and consumed Forgacs' bombers by the thousands.

At last Wadsworth looked at the Map, with nothing left but the dead embers of a mighty army.

Hoshawk shook hands with him and then looked for a place to sit down for a moment. "Sire," he said at last, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue, "if it isn't presumptuous, I'd stand the check for a dish of that new ice cream."

Jeffrey looked at him and smiled. "You'd better have one yourself."

Hoshawk's grizzled face was solemn. "I'm going to," he said.