Triplanetary
I'll be in it where it's thick, but you two won't need any. The gas is
soluble enough in water so that three or four thicknesses of wet cloth
over your noses will be enough. I'll tell you when to wet down. We're
going to break away or go out trying--there aren't enough amphibians
between here and Andromeda to keep us humans cooped up like menagerie
animals forever! But here comes my specialist with the keys to the city;
time for the overture to start. See you later!"
The Nevian physician directed his key-tube upon the transparent wall of
the chamber and an opening appeared, an opening which vanished as soon
as he had stepped through it; Costigan kicked a valve open; and from
various innocent tubes there belched forth into the water of the central
lagoon and into the air over it a flood of deadly vapor. As the Nevian
turned toward the prisoner there was an almost inaudible hiss and a tiny
jet of the frightful, outlawed stuff struck his open gills, just below
his huge, conical head. He tensed momentarily, twitched convulsively
just once, and fell motionless to the floor. And outside, the streams of
avidly soluble liquefied gas rushed out into air and into water. It
spread, dissolved, and diffused with the extreme mobility which is one
of its characteristics; and as it diffused and was borne outward the
Nevians, in their massed hundreds, died. Died not knowing what killed
them; not knowing even that they died. Costigan, bitterly resentful of
the inhuman treatment accorded the three and fiercely anxious for the
success of his plan of escape, held his breath and, grimly alert,
watched the amphibians die. When he could see no more motion anywhere he
donned his gas-mask, strapped upon his back a large canister of the
poison--his capacious pockets were already full of smaller
containers--and two savagely exultant sentences escaped him.
"I am a poor, ignorant specimen of ape, that can be let play with
apparatus, am I?" he rasped, as he picked up the key-tube of the
specialist and opened the door of his prison. "Maybe they'll learn
sometime that it ain't always safe to judge by the looks of a flea how
far he can jump!"
He stepped out through the opening into the water, and, burdened as he
was, made shift to swim to the nearest ramp. Up it he ran, toward a main
corridor. But ahead of him there was wafted a breath of dread Vee-Two,
and where that breath went, went also unconsciousness--an
unconsciousness which would deepen gradually into permanent oblivion
save for the prompt intervention of one who possessed, not only the
necessary antidote, but the equally important knowledge of exactly how
to use it. Upon the floor of that corridor were strewn Nevians, who had
dropped in their tracks. Past or over their bodies Costigan strode,
pausing only to direct a jet of lethal vapor into whatever branching
corridor or open doorway caught his eye. He was going to the intake of
the city's ventilation plant, and no unmasked creature dependent for
life upon oxygen could bar his path. He reached the intake, tore the
canister from his back, and released its full, vast volume of horrid
contents into the primary air stream of the entire city.
And all throughout that doomed city Nevians dropped; quietly and without
a struggle, unknowing. Busy executives dropped upon their cushioned,
flat-topped desks; hurrying travelers and messengers dropped upon the
floors of the corridors or relaxed in the noxious waters of the ways;
lookouts and observers dropped before their flashing screens; central
operators of communications dropped under the winking lights of their
panels. Observers and centrals in the outlying sections of the city
wondered briefly at the unwonted universal motionlessness and
stagnation; then the racing taint in water and in air reached them, too,
and they ceased wondering--forever.
Then through those quiet halls Costigan stalked to a certain storage
room, where with all due precaution he donned his own suit of
Triplanetary armor. Making an ungainly bundle of the other Solarian
equipment stored there, he dragged it along behind him as he clanked
back toward his prison, until he neared the dock at which was moored the
Nevian space-speedster which he was determined to take. Here, he knew,
was the first of many critical points. The crew of the vessel was
aboard, and, with its independent air-supply, unharmed. They had
weapons, were undoubtedly alarmed, and were very probably highly
suspicious. They, too, had ultra-beams and might see him, but his very
closeness to them would tend to protect him from ultra-beam observation.
Therefore he crouched tensely behind a buttress, staring through his
spy-ray goggles, waiting for a moment when none of the Nevians would be
near the entrance, but grimly resolved to act instantly should he feel
any touch of a spying ultra-beam.
"Here's where the pinch comes," he growled to himself. "I know the
combination, but if they're suspicious enough and act quick enough they
can seal that door on me before I can get it open, and then rub me out
like a blot; but ... ah!"
The moment had arrived, before the touch of any revealing ray. He
trained the key-tube, the entrance opened, and through that opening in
the instant of its appearance there shot a brittle bulb of glass, whose
breaking meant death. It crashed into fragments against a metallic wall
and Costigan, entering the vessel, consigned its erstwhile crew one by
one to the already crowded waters of the lagoon. He then leaped to the
controls and drove the captured speedster through the air, to plunge it
down upon the surface of the lagoon beside the door of the isolated
structure which had for so long been his prison. Carefully he
transferred to the vessel the motley assortment of containers of
Vee-Two, and after a quick check-up to make sure that he had overlooked
nothing, he shot his craft straight up into the air. Then only did he
close his ultra-wave circuits and speak.
"Clio, Bradley--I got away clean, without a bit of trouble. Now I'm
coming after you, Clio."
"Oh, it's wonderful that you got away, Conway!" the girl exclaimed. "But
hadn't you better get Captain Bradley first? Then, if anything should
happen, he would be of some use, while I...."
"I'll knock him into an outside loop if he does!" the captain snorted,
and Costigan went on:
"You won't need to. You come first, Clio, of course. But you're too far
away for me to see you with my spy, and I don't want to use the
high-powered beam of this boat for fear of detection; so you'd better
keep on talking, so that I can trace you."
"That's one thing I _am_ good at!" Clio laughed in sheer relief. "If
talking were music, I'd be a full brass band!" and she kept up a flow of
inconsequential chatter, until Costigan told her that it was no longer
necessary; that he had established the line.
"Any excitement around there yet?" he asked her then.
"Nothing unusual that I can see," she replied. "Why? Should there be
some?"
"I hope not, but when I made my get-away I couldn't kill them all, of
course, and I thought maybe they might connect things up with my
jail-break and tell the other cities to take steps about you two. But I
guess they're pretty well disorganized back there yet, since they can't
know who hit them, or what with, or why. I must have got about everybody
that wasn't sealed up somewhere, and it doesn't stand to reason that
those who are left can check up very closely for a while yet. But
they're nobody's fools--they'll certainly get conscious when I snatch
you, maybe before ... there, I see your city, I think."
"What are you going to do?"
"Same as I did back there, if I can. Poison their primary air and all
the water I can reach...."
"Oh, Conway!" Her voice rose to a scream. "They must know--they're all
getting out of the water and are rushing inside the buildings as fast as
they possibly can!"
"I see they are," grimly. "I'm right over you now, 'way up. Been
locating their primary intake. They've got a dozen ships around it, and
have guards posted all along the corridors leading to it; and _those
guards are wearing masks!_ They're clever birds, all right, those
amphibians--they know what they got back there and how they got it. That
changes things, girl! If we use gas here we won't stand a chance in the
world of getting old Bradley. Stand by to jump when I open that door!"
"Hurry, dear! They are coming out here after me!"
"Sure they are." Costigan had already seen the two Nevians swimming out
toward Clio's cage, and had hurled his vessel downward in a screaming
power dive. "You're too valuable a specimen for them to let you be
gassed, but if they can get there before I do they're traveling fast!"
He miscalculated slightly, so that instead of coming to a halt at the
surface of the liquid medium the speedster struck with a crash that
hurled solid masses of water for hundreds of yards. But no ordinary
crash could harm that vessel's structure, her gravity controls were not
overloaded, and she shot back to the surface; gallant ship and reckless
pilot alike unharmed. Costigan trained his key-tube upon the doorway of
Clio's cell, then tossed it aside.
"Different combinations over here!" he barked. "Got to cut you out--lie
down in that far corner!"
His hands flashed over the panel, and as Clio fell prone without
hesitation or question a heavy beam literally blasted away a large
portion of the roof of the structure. The speedster shot into the air
and dropped down until she rested upon the tops of opposite walls; walls
still glowing, semi-molten. The girl piled a stool upon the table and
stood upon it, reached upward, and seized the mailed hands extended
downward toward her. Costigan heaved her up into the vessel with a
powerful jerk, slammed the door shut, leaped to the controls, and the
speedster darted away.
"Your armor's in that bundle there. Better put it on, and check your
Lewistons and pistols--no telling what kind of jams we'll get into," he
snapped, without turning. "Bradley, start talking ... all right, I've
got your line. Better get your wet rags ready and get organized
generally--every second will count by the time we get there. We're
coming so fast that our outer plating's white hot, but it may not be
fast enough, at that."
"It isn't fast enough, quite," Bradley announced, calmly. "They're
coming out after me now."
"Don't fight them and probably they won't paralyze you. Keep on talking,
so that I can find out where they take you."
"No good, Costigan." The voice of the old space-flea did not reveal a
sign of emotion as he made his dread announcement. "They have it all
figured out. They're not taking any chances at all--they're going to
paral...." His voice broke off in the middle of the word.
With a bitter imprecation Costigan flashed on the powerful ultra-beam
projector of the speedster and focused the plate upon Bradley's prison;
careless now of detection, since the Nevians were already warned. Upon
that plate he watched the Nevians carry the helpless body of the captain
into a small boat, and continued to watch as they bore it into one of
the largest buildings of the city. Up a series of ramps they took the
still form, placing it finally upon a soft couch in an enormous and
heavily guarded central hall. Costigan turned to his companion, Clio,
and even through the helmets she could see plainly the white agony of
his expression. He moistened his lips and tried twice to speak--tried
and failed: but he made no move either to cut off their power or to
change their direction.
"Of course," she approved, steadily. "We are going through. I know that
you _want_ to run with me, but if you actually did it, I would never
want to see you or hear of you again, and you would hate me forever."