Triplanetary
"Come again, Chief!" Cleveland advised the engineer. "None of us would
live long enough to get there. We can't travel inertialess until the
repairs are made, so if they can't be made without very much traveling,
it's just too bad."
"I don't see how we could support our jacks...." The engineer paused,
then went on. "If you can't give me Mars or Tellus, how about some other
planet? I don't care about atmosphere, or about anything but mass. I can
stiffen her up in three or four days if I can sit down on something
heavy enough to hold our jacks and presses; but if we have to rig up
space-cradles around the ship herself it'll take a long time--months,
probably. Haven't got a spare planet on hand, have you?"
"We might have, at that," Rodebush made surprising answer. "A couple of
seconds before we engaged we were heading toward a sun with at least two
planets. I was just getting ready to dodge them when we cut the
neutralizers, so they should be fairly close somewhere--yes, there's the
sun, right over there. Rather pale and small; but it's close,
comparatively speaking. We'll go back up into the control room and find
out about the planets."
The strange sun was found to have three large and easily located
children, and observation showed that the crippled space-ship could
reach the nearest of these in about five days. Power was therefore fed
to the driving projectors, and each scientist, electrician, and mechanic
bent to the task of repairing the ruined generators; rebuilding them to
handle any load which the converters could possibly put upon them. For
two days the _Boise_ drove on; then her acceleration was reversed, and
finally a landing was effected upon the forbidding, rocky soil of the
strange world.
It was larger than the earth, and of a somewhat stronger gravitation.
Although its climate was bitterly cold, even in its short daytime, it
supported a luxuriant but outlandish vegetation. Its atmosphere, while
rich enough in oxygen and not really poisonous, was so rank with
indescribably fetid vapors as to be scarcely breathable.
But these things bothered the engineers not at all. Paying no attention
to temperature or to scenery and without waiting for chemical analysis
of the air, the space-suited mechanics leaped to their tasks; and in
only a little more time than had been mentioned by the chief engineer
the hull and giant frame of the super-ship were as staunch as of yore.
"All right, Skipper!" came finally the welcome word. "You might try her
out with a fast hop around this world before you shove off in earnest."
Under the fierce blast of her projectors the vessel leaped ahead, and
time after time, as Rodebush hurled her mass upon tractor beam or
pressor, the engineers sought in vain for any sign of weakness. The
strange planet half girdled and the severest tests passed flawlessly,
Rodebush reached for his neutralizer switches. Reached and paused,
dumfounded, for a brilliant purple light had sprung into being upon his
panel and a bell rang out insistently.
"What the blue blazes!" Rodebush shot out an exploring beam along the
detector line and gasped. He stared, mouth open, then yelled:
"_Roger_ is here, rebuilding his planetoid! _STATIONS ALL_!"
CHAPTER XI
Roger Carries On
For gray Roger had not perished in the floods of Nevian energy which had
destroyed his planetoid. While those terrific streamers of force
emanating from the crimson obscurity surrounding the amphibians'
space-ship were driving into his defensive screens, Roger sat impassive
and immobile at his desk. His hard gray eyes moved methodically over his
instruments and recorders; and after a few minutes he smiled coldly,
while an expression of relief struggled fleetingly to move his
expressionless face. Even though his screens were better than anyone had
supposed, why admit it?
"Baxter, Hartkopf, Chatelier, Anandrusung, Penrose, Nishimura,
Mirsky...." He called off a list of names. "Report to me here at once!"
"The planetoid is lost," he informed his select group of scientists when
they had assembled, "and we must abandon it in exactly fifteen minutes,
which will be the time required for the robots to fill this first
section with our most necessary machinery and instruments. Pack each of
you one box of the things he most wishes to take with him, and report
back here in not more than thirteen minutes. Say nothing to anyone
else."
They filed out calmly, and as they passed out into the hall Baxter,
perhaps a trifle less case-hardened than his fellows, at least voiced a
thought for those they were so brutally deserting.
"I say, it seems a bit thick to dash off this way and leave the rest of
them; but still, I suppose...."
"You suppose correctly." Bland and heartless Nishimura filled in the
pause. "A small part of the planetoid may be able to escape; which, to
me at least, is pleasantly surprising news. It cannot carry all of our
men and mechanisms, therefore only the most important of both are saved.
What would you? For the rest it is simply what you call 'the fortune of
war,' no?"
"But the beautiful...." began the amorous Chatelier.
"Hush, fool!" snorted Hartkopf. "One word of that to the ear of Roger
and you too are left behind. Of such non-essentials the Universe is
full, to be collected in times of ease, but in times hard to be
disregarded. Und this is a time of schrecklichkeit indeed!"
The group broke up, each man going to his own quarters; to meet again in
the First Section a few minutes before the zero time. Roger's "office"
was now packed so tightly with machinery and supplies that but little
room was left for the scientists. The gray monstrosity still sat unmoved
behind his dials.
"But of what use is it, Roger?" the Russian physicist demanded. "Those
waves are of some ultra-band, of a frequency immensely higher than
anything heretofore known. Our screens should not have stopped them for
an instant. It is a mystery that they have held so long, and certainly
this single section will not be permitted to leave the planetoid without
being destroyed."
"There are many things you do not know, Mirsky," came the cold and level
answer. "Our screens, which you think are of your own devising, have
several improvements of my own in the formulae, and would hold forever
had I the power to drive them. The screens of this section, being
smaller, can be held as long as will be found necessary."
"Power!" the dumfounded Russian exclaimed. "Why, we have almost infinite
power--unlimited--sufficient for a lifetime of high expenditure!"
But Roger made no reply, for the time of departure was at hand. He
pressed down a tiny lever, and a robot in the power room threw in the
gigantic plunger switches which launched against the Nevians the
stupendous beam which so upset the complacence of Nerado the
amphibian--the beam into which was poured recklessly every resource of
power afforded by the planetoid, careless alike of burn-out and of
exhaustion. Then, all the attention of the Nevians and the greater part
of their power output devoted to the neutralization of that last
desperate thrust, the metal wall of the planetoid opened and the First
Section shot out into space. Full-driven as they were, Roger's screens
flared white as he drove through the temporarily lessened attack of the
Nevians; but in their preoccupation the amphibians did not notice the
additional disturbance and the section tore on, unobserved and
undetected. Far out in space, Roger raised his eyes from the instrument
panel and continued the conversation as though it had not been
interrupted.
"Everything is relative, Mirsky, and you have misused gravely the term
'unlimited.' Our power was, and is, very definitely limited. True, it
then seemed ample for our needs, and is far superior to that possessed
by the inhabitants of any solar system with which I am familiar; but the
beings behind that red screen, whoever they are, have sources of power
as far above ours as ours are above those of the Solarians."
"How do you know?"
"That power, what is it?" "We have, then, the analyses of those fields
recorded!" Came simultaneous questions and explanations.
"Their power-source is very probably the intra-atomic energy of iron;
and if so, much remains to be done before I can proceed with my plan. I
must have the most powerful structure in the known Universe before I can
act. In the light of what I have just learned, the loss of the planetoid
is but a trifle." Roger, as unmoved as one of his own automatons, was
coldly analyzing the situation, thinking the thing through to its
logical conclusion, paying no attention whatever to the losses of life,
time and treasure now behind him.
"But what can you do about it?" growled the Russian.
"Many things. From the charts of the recorders we can compute their
fields of force, and from that point it is only a step to their method
of liberating the energy. We shall build robots. They shall build other
robots, who shall in turn construct another planetoid; one this time
that, wielding the theoretical maximum of power, will be suited to my
needs."
"And where will you build it? We are marked. Invisibility now is
useless. Triplanetary will find us, even if we take up an orbit beyond
that of Pluto!"
"We have already left your Solarian system far behind. We are going to
another system; one far enough removed so that the spy-rays of
Triplanetary will never find us, and yet one that we can reach in a
reasonable length of time with the energies at our command. Some fifteen
days will be required for the journey, however, and our quarters are
cramped. Therefore make places for yourselves wherever you can, and
lessen the tedium of those fifteen days by working upon whatever
problems are most pressing in your respective researches."
The gray monster fell silent, immersed in what thoughts no one knew, and
the scientists set out to obey his orders. Baxter, the British chemist,
followed Penrose, the lantern-jawed, saturnine American engineer and
inventor, as he made his way to the furthermost cubicle of the section.
"I say, Penrose, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't
mind?"
"Go ahead. Ordinarily it's dangerous to be a cackling hen anywhere
around _him_, but he can't hear anything here now. His system is pretty
well shot to pieces. You want to know all I know about Roger?"
"Exactly so. You have been with him so much longer than I have, you
know. In some ways he impresses one as being scarcely human, if you know
what I mean. Ridiculous, of course, but of late I have been wondering
whether he really _is_ human. He knows too much, about too many things.
He seems to be acquainted with many solar systems, to visit which would
require life-times. Then, too, he has dropped remarks which would imply
that he actually saw things that happened long before any living man
could possibly have been born. Finally, he looks--well, peculiar--and
certainly does not act human. I have been wondering, and have been able
to learn nothing about him; as you have said, such talk as this aboard
the planetoid was impossible."
"You needn't worry about being paid your price; that's one thing. If we
live--and that was part of the agreement, you know--we will all get what
we sold out for. You will become a belted earl. I have already made
millions, and shall make many more. Similarly, Chatelier has had and
will have his women, Anandrusung and Nishimura their cherished revenges.
Hartkopf his power, and so on." He eyed the other speculatively, then
went on:
"I might as well spill it all, since I'll never have a better chance and
since you should know what the rest of us do. You're in the same boat