Triplanetary
"Hardly that." The anguish did not leave his eyes and his voice was
hoarse and strained, but his hands did not vary the course of the
speedster by so much as a hair's breadth. "You're the finest little
fellow that ever waved a plume, and I would love you no matter what
happened. I'd trade my immortal soul to the devil if it would get you
out of this mess, but we're both in it up to our necks and we can't dog
it now. If they kill him we beat it--he and I both knew that it was on
the chance of that happening that I took you first--but as long as all
three of us are alive it's all three or none."
"Of course," she said again, as steadily, thrilled this time to the
depths of her being by the sheer manhood of him who had thus simply
voiced his Code; a man of such fiber that neither love of life, nor the
infinitely more powerful love of her which she knew he bore, could make
him lower its high standard.
"We are going through. Forget that I am a woman. We are three human
beings, fighting a world full of monsters. I am simply one of us three.
I will steer your ship, fire your projectors, or throw your bombs. What
can I do best?"
"Throw bombs," he directed, briefly. He knew what must be done were they
to have even the slightest chance of winning clear. "I'm going to blast
a hole down into the auditorium, and when I do you stand by that port
and start dropping bottles of perfume. Throw a couple of big ones right
down the shaft I make, and the rest of them most anywhere, after I cut
the wall open. They'll do good wherever they hit, land or water."
"But Captain Bradley--he'll be gassed, too." Her fine eyes were
troubled.
"Can't be helped. I've got the antidote, and it'll work any time under
an hour. That'll be lots of time--if we aren't gone in less than ten
minutes we'll be staying here. They're bringing in platoons of militia
in full armor, and if we don't beat those boys to it we're in for plenty
of grief. All right--start throwing!"
The speedster had come to a halt directly over the imposing edifice
within which Bradley was incarcerated, and a mighty beam had flared
downward, digging a fiery well through floor after floor of stubborn
metal. The ceiling of the amphitheater pierced, the beam expired; and
down into that assembly hall there dropped two canisters of Vee-Two; to
crash and to fill its atmosphere with imperceptible death. Then the beam
flashed on again, this time at maximum power, and with it Costigan
burned away half of the gigantic building. Burned it away until room
above room gaped open, shelf-like, to outer atmosphere; the great hall
now resembling an over-size pigeon-hole surrounded by smaller ones. Into
that largest pigeon-hole the speedster darted, and cushioned desks and
benches crashed down, crushed flat under its enormous weight as it came
to rest upon the floor.
Every available guard had been thrown into that room, regardless of
customary occupation or of equipment. Most of them had been ordinary
watchmen, not even wearing masks, and all such were already down. Many,
however, were protected by masks, and a few were dressed in full armor.
But no portable armor could mount defenses of sufficient power to
withstand the awful force of the speedster's weapons, and one flashing
swing of a projector swept the hall almost clear of life.
"Can't shoot very close to Bradley with this big beam, but I'll mop up
on the rest of them by hand. Stay here and cover me, Clio!" Costigan
ordered, and went to open the door.
"I can't--I won't!" Clio replied instantly. "I don't know the controls
well enough. I'd kill you or Captain Bradley, sure; but I _can_ shoot,
and I'm going to!" and she leaped out, close upon his heels.
Thus, flaming Lewiston in one hand and barking automatic in the other,
the two mailed figures advanced toward Bradley; now doubly helpless:
paralyzed by his enemies and gassed by his friends. For a time the
Nevians melted away before them, but as they approached more nearly the
couch, upon which the captain was, they encountered six figures encased
in armor fully as capable as their own. The beams of the Lewistons
rebounded from that armor in futile pyrotechnics, the bullets of the
automatics spattered and exploded impotently against it. And behind that
single line of armored guards were massed perhaps twenty unarmored, but
masked, soldiers; and scuttling up the ramps leading into the hall were
coming the platoons of heavily-armored figures which Costigan had
previously seen.
Decision instantly made, Costigan ran back toward the speedster, but he
was not deserting his companions.
"Keep the good work up!" he instructed the girl as he ran. "I'll pick
those jaspers off with a pencil ray and then stand off the bunch that's
coming while you rub out the rest of that crew there and drag Bradley
back here."
Back at the control panel, he trained a narrow, but intensely dense
pencil of livid flame, and one by one the six armored figures fell.
Then, knowing that Clio could handle the remaining opposition, he
devoted his attention to the reenforcements so rapidly approaching from
the sides. Again and again the heavy beam lashed out, now upon this
side, now upon that, and in its flaming path Nevians disappeared. And
not only Nevians--in the incredible energy of that beam's blast, floor,
walls, ramps, and every material thing vanished in clouds of thick and
brilliant vapor. The room temporarily clear of foes, he sprang again to
Clio's assistance, but her task was nearly done. She had "rubbed out"
all opposition and, tugging lustily at Bradley's feet, had already
dragged him almost to the side of the speedster.
"'At-a-girl, Clio!" cheered Costigan, as he picked up the burly captain
and tossed him through the doorway. "Highly useful, girl of my dreams,
as well as ornamental. In with you, and we'll start out to go places!"
But getting the speedster out of the now completely ruined hall proved
to be much more of a task than driving it in had been, for scarcely had
the Terrestrials closed their locks than a section of the building
collapsed behind them, cutting off their retreat. Nevian submarines and
airships were beginning to arrive upon the scene, and were raying the
building viciously in an attempt to entrap or to crush the Terrestrials
in its ruins. Costigan managed finally to blast his way out, but the
Nevians had had time to assemble in force and he was met by a
concentrated storm of beams and of metal from every inimical weapon
within range.
But not for nothing had Conway Costigan selected for his dash for
liberty the craft which, save only for the two immense interstellar
cruisers, was the most powerful vessel ever built upon red Nevia. And
not for nothing had he studied minutely and to the last, least detail
every item of its controls and of its armament during wearily long days
and nights of solitary imprisonment. He had studied it under test, in
action, and at rest; studied it until he knew thoroughly its every
possibility--and what a ship it was! The iron-driven generators of his
shielding screens handled with ease the terrific load of the Nevians'
assault, his polycyclic screens were proof against any material
projectile, and the machines supplying his offensive beams with power
were more than equal to their tasks. Driven now at full rating those
frightful weapons lashed out against the Nevian blocking the way, and
under their impacts her screens flared brilliantly through the spectrum
and went down. And in the instant of their failure the enemy vessel was
literally blown into nothingness--no unprotected metal, however
resistant, could exist for a moment in the pathway of those iron-driven
tornadoes of pure energy.
Ship after ship of the Nevians plunged toward the speedster in
desperately suicidal attempts to ram her down, but each met the same
flaming fate before its mass could collide with the ship of the
Terrestrials. Then, from the grouped submarines far below, there reached
up red rods of force, which seized the space-ship and began relentlessly
to draw her down.
"What are they doing that for, Conway? _They_ can't fight us!"
"They don't want to fight us. They want to hold us, but I know what to
do about that, too," and the powerful tractor rods snapped as a plane of
lurid light drove through them. Upward now at the highest permissible
velocity the speedster leaped, and past the few ships remaining above
her she dodged; there was nothing now between her and the freedom of
boundless space.
"You did it, Conway; you did it!" Clio exulted. "Oh, Conway, you're just
simply wonderful!"
"I haven't done it yet," Costigan cautioned her. "The worst is yet to
come. Nerado. He's why they wanted to hold us back, and why I was in
such a hurry to get away. That boat of his is bad medicine, girl, and we
want to put plenty of kilometers behind us before he gets started."
"But do you think he will chase us?"
"_Think_ so? I _know_ so! The mere facts, that we are rare specimens and
that he told us that we were going to stay there all the rest of our
lives, would make him chase us clear to Dustheimer's Nebula. Besides
that, we stepped on their toes pretty heavily before we left. We know
altogether too much now to be let get back to Tellus; and finally,
they'd all die of acute enlargement of the spleen if we get away with
this prize ship of theirs. I hope to tell you they'll chase us!"
He fell silent, devoting his whole attention to his piloting, driving
his craft onward at such velocity that its outer plating held steadily
at the highest point of temperature compatible with safety. Soon they
were out in open space, hurtling toward the sun under the drive of every
possible iota of power, and Costigan took off his armor and turned
toward the helpless body of the captain.
"He looks so ... so ... so _dead_, Conway! Are you really sure that you
can bring him to?"
"Absolutely. Lots of time yet. Just three simple squirts in the right
places will do the trick." He took from a locked compartment of his
armor a small steel box, which housed a surgeon's hypodermic and three
vials. One, two, three, he injected small, but precisely measured
amounts of the fluids into the three vital localities, then placed the
inert form upon a deeply cushioned couch.
"There! That'll take care of the gas in five or six hours. The paralysis
will wear off before that, so he'll be all right when he wakes up; and
we're going away from here with every watt of power we can put out. We
have done everything I know how to do, for the present."
Then only did Costigan turn and look down, directly into Clio's eyes.
Wide, eloquent blue eyes that gazed back up into his, tender and
unafraid; eyes freighted with the oldest message of woman to chosen man.
His hard young face softened wonderfully as he stared at her; there were
two quick steps and they were in each other's arms. Clio's lithely
rounded form nestled against Costigan's powerful body as his mighty arms
tightened around her; his neck and shoulder were no less
enthusiastically clasped, and less strongly only because of her woman's
slighter musculature. Lips upon eager lips, blue eyes to gray,
motionless they stood clasped in ecstasy; thinking nothing of the
dreadful past, nothing of the fearful future, conscious only of the
glorious, the wonderful present.
"Clio mine ... darling ... girl, girl, how I love you!" Costigan's deep
voice was husky with emotion. "I haven't kissed you for seven thousand
years! I don't rate you, by hundreds of steps; but if I can just get you
out of this mess, I swear by all the space...."
"You needn't, lover. Rate _me_? Good Heavens, Conway? It's just the
other way...."
"Chop it!" he commanded in her ear. "I'm still dizzy at the idea of your