Triplanetary
defense known to that arch-Nevian, Nerado!
Unknowing and contemptuous, Roger launched his converter field, and
instantly found himself fighting for his very life. For from Rodebush at
the controls down, the men of the Secret Service countered with wave
after wave and with salvo after salvo of vibratory and material
destruction. No thought of mercy for the men of the pirate ship could
enter their minds. The outlaws had each been given a chance to
surrender, and each had refused it. Refusing, they knew, as the
Triplanetarians knew and as all modern readers know, meant that they
were staking their lives upon victory. For with modern armaments it is
seldom indeed that a single man lives through the defeat in battle of a
war-vessel of space.
Roger launched his field of red opacity, but it did not reach even
_Boise_'s screens. All space seemed to explode into violet splendor as
Rodebush neutralized it, drove it back with his obliterating zone of
force; but even that all-devouring zone could not touch Roger's
peculiarly efficient screen. The outlaw vessel stood out, unharmed.
Ultra-violet, infra-red, pure heat, infra-sound, solid beams of
high-tension high-frequency current in whose paths the most stubborn
metals would be volatilized instantly; all iron-driven, every deadly and
torturing vibration known was hurled against that screen; but it, too,
was iron-driven, and it held. Even the awful force of the macro-beam was
dissipated by it--reflected, hurled away on all sides in coruscating
torrents of blinding, dazzling energy. Cooper, Adlington, Spencer, and
Dutton hurled against it their bombs and torpedoes--and still it held.
But Roger's fiercest blasts and heaviest projectiles were equally
impotent against the force-shields of the super-ship. The adept, having
no liking for a battle upon anything like equal terms, sought safety in
flight, only to be brought to a crashing, stunning halt by a massive
tractor beam.
"That must be that sixth-phase polycyclic screen that Conway reported
on," Cleveland frowned in thought. "I've been doing a lot of work on
that, and I think I've calculated an opener for it, Fred, but I'll have
to have number ten projector and the whole output of number ten power
room. Can you let me play with that much juice for a while? All right,
Blake, tune her up to fifty-five thousand--there, hold it! Now, you
other fellows, listen! I'm going to try to drill a hole through that
screen with a hollow, quasi-solid beam: like a diamond drill cutting out
a core. You won't be able to shove anything into the hole from outside
the beam, so you'll have to steer your cans out through the central
orifice of number ten projector--that'll be cold, since I'm going to use
only the edge. I don't know how long I'll be able to hold the hole open,
though so shoot them along as fast as you can. Ready? Here goes!"
He pressed a series of contacts. Far below, in number ten converter
room, massive switches drove home and the enormous mass of the vessel
quivered under the terrific reaction of the newly-calculated,
semi-material beam of energy that was hurled out, backed by the
mightiest of all the mighty converters and generators of Triplanetary's
super-dreadnaught. That beam, a pipe-like hollow cylinder of intolerable
energy, flashed out, and there was a rending, tearing crash as it struck
Roger's hitherto impenetrable wall. Struck and clung, grinding, boring
in, while from the raging inferno that marked the circle of contact of
cylinder and shield the pirates' screen radiated scintillating torrents
of cracking, streaming sparks, lightning-like in length and in
intensity.
Deeper and deeper the gigantic drill was driven. It was through! Pierced
Roger's polycyclic screen; exposed the bare metal of Roger's walls! And
now, concentrated upon one point, flamed out in seemingly redoubled fury
Triplanetary's raging rays--in vain. For even as they could not
penetrate the screen, neither could they penetrate the wall of
Cleveland's drill, but rebounded from it in the cascaded brilliance of
thwarted lightning.
"Oh, what a dumb-bell I am!" groaned Cleveland. "Why, oh why didn't I
have somebody rig up a secondary SX7 beam on Ten's inner rings? Hop to
it, will you, Blake, so that we'll have it in case they are able to stop
the cans?"
But the pirates could not stop all of Triplanetary's projectiles, now
hurrying along inside the pipe as fast as they could be driven. In fact,
for a few minutes desperate Roger, knowing that he faced his long life's
gravest crisis, paid no attention to them at all, nor to any of his own
useless offensive weapons: he struggled only and madly to break away
from the savage grip of the _Boise_'s tractor rod. Futile. He could
neither cut nor stretch that inexorably anchoring beam. Then he devoted
his every resource to the closing of that unbelievable breach in his
shield; the barrier which through all previous emergencies had kept
death at bay. Equally futile. His most desperate efforts resulted only
in more frenzied displays of incandescence along the curved surface of
contact of that penetrant cylinder. And through that terrific conduit
came speeding package after package of destruction. Bombs, and
armor-piercing shells, gas shells, and shells of poisonous and corrosive
fluids followed each other in close succession. The surviving scientists
of the planetoid, expert gunners and ray-men all, destroyed many of the
projectiles, but it was not humanly possible to frustrate them all. And
the breach could not be forced shut against the all but irresistible
force of Cleveland's "opener". And with all his power Roger could not
shift his vessel's position in the grip of Triplanetary's tractors
sufficiently to bring a projector to bear upon the super-ship along the
now unprotected axis of that narrow, but deadly tube.
Thus it was that the end came soon. A war-head touched steel plating and
there ensued a world-wracking explosion of atomic iron. Gaping wide,
helpless, with all defenses down, other torpedoes entered the stricken
hulk and completed its destruction even before they could be recalled.
Explosive bombs literally tore the pirate vessel to fragments, while
vials of pure corrosion dissolved her substance into dripping corruption
and reeking gases filled every cranny of the wreckage as its torn and
dismembered fragments began their long plunge to the ground. The
space-ship followed the pieces down, and Rodebush sent out an exploring
ray.
" ... resistance was such that it was necessary to use corrosive, and
ship and contents were completely disintegrated," he dictated into his
vessel's log, some time later. "While there were of course no remains
recognizable as human, it is practically certain that Roger and his last
eleven men died.
"Look here, Fred," Cleveland called his attention to the plate, upon
which was pictured a horde of the peculiar inhabitants of the ghastly
planet, wreaking their frenzied electrical wrath upon everything within
the circle bared by Roger. "I was just going to suggest that we clean up
that planetoid Roger started, but I see that the local boys are
attending to it."
"Just as well, perhaps. I would like to stay and study these people a
little while, but we must get back on the trail of the Nevians," and the
_Boise_ leaped away into space, toward the line of flight of the
amphibians.
They reached that line and along it they traveled at full normal blast.
As they traveled their detecting receivers and amplifiers were reaching
out with their utmost power; ultra-instruments capable of rendering
audible any signal originating within many light-years of them, upon any
known frequency. And constantly at least two men were listening to those
instruments with every sense concentrated in their ears.
Listening--straining to distinguish in the deafening roar of background
noise from the over-driven tubes any sign of voice or signal.
Listening--while, millions upon untold millions of miles beyond even the
prodigious reach of those ultra-instruments, three human beings, pitted
against overwhelming odds, were even then sending out into empty space
an almost hopeless appeal for the aid so desperately needed!
CHAPTER XII
The Specimens Escape
Knowing well that conversation with its fellows is one of the greatest
needs of any intelligent being, the Nevians had permitted the
Terrestrial specimens to retain possession of their ultra-beam
communicators. Thus it was that Costigan had been able to keep in touch
with his sweetheart and with Bradley. He learned that each had been
placed upon exhibition in a different Nevian city: that the three had
been separated in response to an insistent popular demand for such a
distribution of the peculiar, but highly interesting creatures from a
distant solar system. They had not been harmed. In fact, each was
visited daily by a specialist, who made sure that his charge was being
kept in the pink of condition.
As soon as he became aware of this condition of things Costigan became
morose. He sat still, drooped, and pined away visibly. He refused to
eat, and of the worried specialist he demanded liberty. Then, failing in
that as he knew he would fail, he demanded something to _do_. They
pointed out to him, reasonably enough, that in such a civilization as
theirs there was nothing he _could_ do. They assured him that they would
do anything they could to alleviate his mental suffering, but that since
he was a museum piece he must see, himself, that he must be kept on
display for a short time. Wouldn't he please behave himself and eat, as
a reasoning being should? Costigan sulked a little longer, then wavered.
Finally he agreed to compromise. He would eat and exercise if they would
fit up a laboratory in his apartment, so that he could continue the
studies he had begun upon his own native planet. To this they agreed,
and thus it came about that one day the following conversation was held:
"Clio? Bradley? I've got something to tell you this time. Haven't said
anything before, for fear things might not work out, but they did. I
went on a hunger strike and made them give me a complete laboratory. As
a chemist I'm a darn good electrician; but luckily, with the sea-water
they've got here, it's a very simple thing to make...."
"Hold on!" snapped Bradley. "Somebody may be listening in on us!"
"They aren't. They can't, without my knowing it, and I'll cut off the
second anybody tries to synchronize with my beam. To resume--making
Vee-Two is a very simple process, and I've got everything around here
that's hollow clear full of it...."
"How come they let you?" asked Clio.
"Oh, they don't know what I'm doing. They watched me for a few days, and
all I did was make up and bottle the weirdest messes imaginable. Then I
finally managed to separate oxygen and nitrogen, after trying hard all
of one day; and when they thought they saw that I didn't know anything
about either one of them or what to do with them after I had them, they
gave me up in disgust as a plain dumb ape and haven't paid any attention
to me since. So I've got me plenty of kilograms of liquid Vee-Two, all
ready to touch off. I'm getting out of here in about three minutes and a
half, and I'm coming over after you folks, in a new, iron-powered
space-speedster that they don't know I know anything about. They've just
given it its final tests, and it's the slickest thing you ever saw."
"But Conway, dearest, you can't possibly rescue me," Clio's voice broke.
"Why, there are thousands of them, all around here. If you can get away,
go, dear, but don't...."
"I said I was coming after you, and if I can get away I'll be there. A
good whiff of this stuff will lay out a thousand of them just as easily
as it will one. Here's the idea. I've made a gas mask for myself, since