Triplanetary
watchful routine of the flight, with every possible instrument set to
detect any sign of the pursuit they so feared.
CHAPTER VII
The Hill
The heavy cruiser _Chicago_ hung motionless in space, thousands of miles
distant from the warring fleets of space-ships so viciously attacking
and so stubbornly defending the planetoid of the enemy. In the captain's
sanctum Lyman Cleveland crouched tensely above his ultra-cameras, his
sensitive fingers touching lightly their micrometric dials. His body was
rigid, his face was set and drawn. Only his eyes moved: flashing back
and forth between the observation plates and smoothly-running rolls
which were feeding into the cameras the hardened steel tapes upon which
were being magnetically recorded the frightful scenes of carnage and
destruction there revealed.
Silent and bitterly absorbed, though surrounded by staring officers,
whose fervent, almost unconscious cursing was prayerful in its
intensity, the visiray expert kept his ultra-instruments upon that awful
struggle to its dire conclusion. Flawlessly those instruments noted
every detail of the destruction of Roger's fleet, of the transformation
of the armada of Triplanetary into an unknown fluid, and finally of the
dissolution of the gigantic planetoid itself. Then furiously Cleveland
drove his beams against the crimsonly opaque obscurity into which the
peculiar, viscous stream of substance was disappearing. Time after time
he applied his every watt of power, with no result. A vast volume of
space, roughly ellipsodial in shape, was closed to him by forces
entirely beyond his experience or comprehension. But suddenly, while his
rays were still trying to pierce that impenetrable murk, it disappeared
instantly and, without warning, the illimitable infinity of space once
more lay revealed upon his plates and his beams flashed on and on
through the void, unimpeded.
"Back to Tellus, sir?" The _Chicago_'s captain broke the strained
silence.
"I wouldn't say so, if I had the say." Cleveland, baffled and frustrate,
straightened up and shut off his cameras. "We should report back as soon
as possible, of course, but there seems to be a lot of wreckage out
there yet, that we can't photograph in detail at this distance. A close
study of it might help us a lot in understanding what they did and how
they did it. I'd say that we should get close-ups of whatever is left,
and do it right away, before it gets scattered all over space; but of
course I can't give you orders."
"You can, though," the captain made surprising answer. "My orders are
that you are in command of this vessel."
"In that case we will proceed at full emergency acceleration to
investigate the wreckage," Cleveland replied, and the cruiser--sole
survivor of Triplanetary's supposedly invincible force--shot away with
every projector delivering its maximum blast.
As the scene of the disaster was approached there was revealed upon the
plates a confused mass of debris; a mass whose individual units were
apparently moving at random: yet which was as a whole still following
the orbit of Roger's planetoid. Space was full of machine parts,
structural members, furniture, flotsam of all kinds; and everywhere were
the bodies of men. Some were encased in space-suits, and it was to these
that the rescuers turned first--space-hardened veterans though the men
of the _Chicago_ were, they did not care even to look at the others.
Strangely enough, however, not one of the floating figures spoke or
moved, and space-line men were hurriedly sent out to investigate.
"All dead." Quickly the dread report came back. "Been dead a long time.
The armor is all stripped off the suits, and the generators and the
other apparatus are all shot. Something funny about it, too--none of
them seem to have been touched, but the machinery of the suits seems to
be about half of it missing."
"I've got it all on the spools, sir." Cleveland, his close-up survey of
the wreckage finished, turned to the captain. "What they've just
reported checks up with what I've photographed everywhere. I've got an
idea of what might have happened, but it's so dizzy that I'll have to
have a lot of reenforcement before I'll believe it myself. But you might
have them bring in a few of the armored bodies, a couple of those
switchboards and panels floating around out there, and half a dozen
miscellaneous pieces of junk--the nearest things they get hold of,
whatever they happen to be."
"Then back to Tellus at maximum?"
"Right--back to Tellus, as fast as we can possibly go there."
While the _Chicago_ hurtled through space at full power, Cleveland and
the ranking officers of the vessel grouped themselves about the salvaged
wreckage. Familiar with space-wrecks as were they all, none of them had
ever seen anything like the material before them. For every part and
instrument was weirdly and meaninglessly disintegrated. There were no
breaks, no marks of violence, and yet nothing was intact. Bolt-holes
stared empty, cores, shielding cases and needles had disappeared, the
vital parts of every instrument hung awry, disorganization reigned
rampant and supreme.
"I never imagined such a mess," the captain said, after a long and
silent study of the objects. "If you have any theory to cover _that_,
Cleveland, I would like to hear it!"
"I want you to notice something first," the visiray expert replied. "But
don't look for what's there--look for what _isn't_ there."
"Well, the armor is gone. So are the shielding cases, shafts, spindles,
the housings and stems...." The captain's voice died away as his eyes
raced over the collection. "Why, everything that was made of wood,
bakelite, copper aluminum, silver, bronze, or anything but steel hasn't
been touched, and every bit of steel is gone. But that doesn't make
sense--what does it mean?"
"I don't know--yet," Cleveland replied, slowly. "But I'm afraid that
there's more, and worse." He opened a space-suit reverently, revealing
the face; a face calm and peaceful, but utterly, sickeningly white.
Still reverently, he made a deep incision in the brawny neck, severing
the jugular vein, then went on, soberly:
"You never imagined such a thing as _white_ blood, either, but it all
checks up. Someway, somehow, every particle--probably every atom--of
free or combined iron in this whole volume of space was made off with."
"Huh? How come? And above all, _why_?" from the amazed and staring
officers.
"You know as much as I do," grimly, ponderingly. "If it were not for the
fact that there are solid asteroids of iron out beyond Mars, I would say
that somebody wanted iron badly enough to wipe out the fleets and the
planetoid to get it. But anyway, whoever they were, they carried enough
power so that our armament didn't bother them at all. They simply took
the metal they wanted and went away with it--so fast that I couldn't
trace them with an ultra-beam. There's only one thing plain; but that's
so plain that it scares me stiff. This whole affair spells intelligence,
with a capital "I", and that intelligence is anything but friendly. As
for me I want to get Fred Rodebush at work on this soon--think I'll
hurry it up a little."
He stepped over to his ultra-projector and called the Terrestrial
headquarters of the T. S. S. Samms' face soon appeared upon his screen.
"We got it all, Virgil," he reported.
"It's something extraordinary--bigger, wider, and deeper than any of us
dreamed. It may be urgent, too, so I think I had better shoot the
pictures in on the ultra-wave and save a few days. Fred has a
telemagneto recorder there that he can synchronize with this camera
outfit easily enough. Right?"
"Right. Good work, Lyman--thanks," came back terse approval and
appreciation, and soon the steel tapes were again flashing between the
feed-rolls. This time, however, their varying magnetic charges were
modulating an ultra-wave so that every detail of that calamitous battle
of the void was being screened and recorded in the innermost private
laboratory of the Triplanetary Secret Service.
Eager though he naturally was to join his fellow-scientists, Cleveland
did not waste his time during the long, but uneventful journey back to
earth. There was much to study, many improvements to be made in his
comparatively crude first ultra-camera. Then, too, there were long
conferences with Samms, and particularly with Rodebush, the mathematical
physicist, whose was the task of solving the riddles of the energies and
weapons of the Nevians. Thus it did not seem long before green Terra
grew large beneath the flying sphere of the _Chicago_.
"Going to have to circle at once, aren't you?" Cleveland asked the chief
pilot. He had been watching that officer closely for minutes, admiring
the delicacy and precision with which the great vessel was being
maneuvered preliminary to entering the earth's atmosphere.
"Yes," the pilot replied. "We had to come in in the shortest possible
time, and that meant a velocity here that we can't check without a
spiral. However, even at that we saved a lot of time. You can save quite
a bit more, though, by having a rocket-plane come out to meet us
somewhere around fifteen or twenty thousand kilometers, depending upon
where you want to land. With their power-to-mass ratio they can match
our velocity and still make the drop direct."
"Guess I'll do that--thanks," and the operative called his chief, only
to learn that his suggestion had already been acted upon.
"We beat you to it, Lyman," Samms smiled. "The _Silver Sliver_ is out
there now, looping to match your course, acceleration, and velocity at
twenty-two thousand kilometers. You'll be ready to transfer?"
"I'll be ready!" and the Quartermaster's ex-clerk went to his quarters
and packed his dunnage-bag.
In due time the long, slender body of the rocket-plane came into view,
creeping 'down' upon the space-ship from 'above,' and Cleveland bade his
friends good-bye. Donning a space-suit, he stationed himself in the
starboard airlock. Its atmosphere was withdrawn, the outer door opened,
and he glanced across a bare hundred feet of space at the rocket-plane
which, keel ports fiercely aflame, was braking her terrific speed to
match the slower pace of the gigantic ship of war. Shaped like a
toothpick, needle-pointed fore and aft, with ultra-stubby wings and
vanes, with flush-set rocket ports everywhere, built of a lustrous
silvery alloy of noble and almost infusible metals--such was the private
speedboat of the chief of the T. S. S. The fastest thing known, whether
in planetary air, the stratosphere, or the vacuus depth of
interplanetary space, her first flashing trial spins had won her the
nickname of the _Silver Sliver_. She had had a more formal name, but
that title had long since been buried in the Departmental files.
Lower and slower dropped the _Silver Sliver_, her rockets flaming even
brighter, until her slender length lay level with the airlock door. Then
her blasting discharges subsided to the power necessary to match exactly
the _Chicago_'s deceleration.
"Ready to cut, _Chicago_! Give me a three-second call!" snapped from the
pilot room of the _Sliver_.
"Ready to cut!" the pilot of the _Chicago_ replied. "Seconds! Three!
Two! One! CUT!"
At the last word the power of both vessels was instantly cut off and
everything in them became weightless. In the tiny airlock of the slender
craft crouched a space-line man with coiled cable in readiness, but he