Triplanetary
loving me at all, to say nothing of loving me _this_ way! But you do,
and that's all I ask, here or hereafter!"
"Love you? _Love_ you!" Their mutual embrace tightened and her low voice
thrilled brokenly as she went on: "Conway, dearest.... I can't say a
thing, but you know.... Oh, Conway!"
After a time Clio drew a long and tremulous, but supremely happy breath
as the realities of their predicament once more obtruded themselves upon
her consciousness. She released herself gently from Costigan's arms.
"Do you really think that there is a chance of us getting back to the
earth, so that we can be together ... always?"
"A chance, yes. A probability, no," he replied, unequivocally. "It
depends upon two things. First, how much of a start we got on Nerado.
His ship is the biggest and fastest thing I ever saw, and if he strips
her down and drives her--which he will--he'll catch us long before we
can make Tellus. On the other hand, I gave Rodebush a lot of data, and
if he and Lyman Cleveland can add it to their own stuff and get that
super-ship of ours rebuilt in time, they'll be out here on the prowl;
and they'll have what can give even Nerado plenty of argument. No use
worrying about it, anyway. We won't know anything until we can detect
one or the other of them, and then will be the time to do something
about it."
"If Nerado catches us, will you...." She paused.
"Rub you out? I will not. Even if he does catch us, and takes us back to
Nevia, I won't. There's lots more time coming onto the clock. Nerado
won't hurt either of us badly enough to leave scars, either physical,
mental, or moral. I'd kill you in a second if it were Roger; he's dirty
and he's thoroughly bad. But Nerado's a good enough old scout, in his
way. He's big and he's clean. You know, I could really like that fish,
if I could meet him on terms of equality sometime?"
"_I_ couldn't!" she declared, vigorously. "He's crawly and scaly and
snaky; and he smells so ... so...."
"So rank and fishy?" Costigan laughed deeply. "Details, girl; mere
details. I've seen people who looked like money in the bank and who
smelled like a bouquet of violets that you couldn't trust half the
length of Nerado's neck."
"But look what he did to us!" she protested. "And they weren't trying to
recapture us back there; they were trying to kill us."
"That was perfectly all right, what he did and what they did--what else
could they have done?" he wanted to know. "And while you're looking,
look at what we did to them--plenty, I'd say. But we all had it to do,
and neither side will blame the other for doing it. He's a square
shooter, I tell you."
"Well, maybe, but I don't like him a bit, and let's not talk about him
any more. Let's talk about us. Remember what you said once, when you
advised me to 'let you lay,' or whatever it was?" Woman-like, she wished
to dip again lightly into the waters of pure emotion, even though she
had such a short time before led the man out of their profoundest
depths. But Costigan, into whose hard life love of woman had never
before entered, had not yet recovered sufficiently from his soul-shaking
plunge to follow her lead. Inarticulate, distrusting his newly found
supreme happiness, he must needs stay out of those enchanted waters or
plunge again. And he was afraid to plunge--diffident, still deeming
himself unworthy of the miracle of this wonder-girl's love--even though
every fiber of his being shrieked its demand to feel again that slender
body in his clasping arms. He did not consciously think those thoughts.
He acted them without thinking; they were inherent in his personality.
"I do remember, and I still think it's a sound idea, even though I am
too far gone now to let you put it into effect," he assured her, half
seriously. He kissed her, tenderly and reverently, then studied her
carefully. "But you look as though you'd been on a Martian picnic. When
did you eat last?"
"I don't remember, exactly. This morning, I think."
"Or maybe last night, or yesterday morning? I thought so! Bradley and I
can eat anything that's chewable, and drink anything that will pour, but
you can't. I'll scout around and see if I can't fix up something that
you'll be able to eat."
He rummaged through the store-rooms, emerging with sundry viands from
which he prepared a highly satisfactory meal.
"Think you can sleep now, sweetheart?" After supper, once more within
the circle of Costigan's arms, Clio nodded her head against his
shoulder.
"Of course I can, dear. Now that you are with me, out here alone, I'm
not a bit afraid any more. You will get us back to the earth some way,
sometime; I just know that you will. Good-night, Conway."
"Good-night, Clio ... little sweetheart," he whispered, and went back to
Bradley's side.
In due time the captain recovered consciousness, and slept. Then for
days the speedster flashed on toward our distant solar system; days
during which her wide-flung detector screens remained cold.
"I don't know whether I'm afraid they'll hit something or afraid that
they won't," Costigan remarked more than once, but finally those tenuous
sentinels did in fact encounter an interfering vibration. Along the
detector line a visibeam sped, and Costigan's face hardened as he saw
the unmistakable outline of Nerado's interstellar cruiser, far behind
them.
"Well, a stern chase always was a long one," Costigan said finally. "He
can't catch us for plenty of days yet ... now what?" for the alarms of
the detectors had broken out anew. There was still another point of
interference to be investigated. Costigan traced it; and there, almost
dead ahead of them, between them and their sun, nearing them at the
incomprehensible rate of the sum of the two vessels' velocities, came
another cruiser of the Nevians!
"Must be the sister-ship, coming back from our System with a load of
iron," Costigan deduced. "Heavily loaded as she is, we may be able to
dodge her; and she's coming so fast that if we can stay out of her range
we'll be all right--she won't be able to stop for probably three or four
days. But if our super-ship is anywhere in these parts, now's the time
for her to rally 'round!"
He gave the speedster all the side-thrust she would take; then, putting
every available communicator tube behind a tight beam, he drove it
sunward and began sending out a long-continued call to his fellows of
Triplanetary's Secret Service.
Nearer and nearer the Nevian flashed, trying with all her power to
intercept the speedster; and it soon became evident that, heavily laden
though she was, she could make enough sideway to bring her within range
at the time of meeting.
"Of course, they've got partial neutralization of inertia, the same as
we have," Costigan cogitated, "and by the way he's coming I'd say that
he had orders to blow us out of the ether--he knows as well as we do
that he can't capture us alive at anything like the relative velocities
we've got now. I can't give her any more side thrust without overloading
the gravity controls, so overloaded they've got to be. Strap down, you
two, because they may go out entirely."
"Do you think that you can pull away from them, Conway?" Clio was
staring in horrified fascination into the plate, watching the pictured
vessel increase in size, moment by moment.
"I don't know, girl, but I'm going to try. Just in case we don't,
though, I'm going to keep on yelling for help. In solid? All right,
boat, DO YOUR STUFF!"
CHAPTER XIII
The Meeting of the Giants
"Check your blast, Fred, I think I hear something trying to come
through!" Cleveland called out, sharply. For days the _Boise_ had torn
through the illimitable reaches of empty space, and now the long vigil
of the keen-eared listeners was to be ended. Rodebush cut off his power,
and through the deafening roar of tube-noise an almost inaudible voice
made itself heard.
" ... all the help you can give us. Samms--Cleveland--Rodebush--anybody
of Triplanetary who can hear me, listen! This is Costigan, with Miss
Marsden and Captain Bradley, heading for where we think the sun is, from
right ascension about six hours, declination about plus fourteen
degrees. Distance unknown, but probably hundreds of light-years. Trace
my call. One Nevian ship is overhauling us slowly, another is coming
toward us from the sun. We may or may not be able to dodge it, but we
need all the help you can give us. Samms--Rodebush--Cleveland--anybody
of Triplanetary...."
Endlessly the faint, faint voice went on, but Rodebush and Cleveland
were no longer listening. Sensitive ultra-loops had been swung, and
along the indicated line shot Triplanetary's super-ship at a velocity
which she had never before even approached; the utterly
incomprehensible, almost incalculable velocity attained by inertialess
matter, driven through an almost perfect vacuum by the _Boise_'s maximum
projector blast--a blast which would lift her stupendous normal tonnage
against a gravity five times that of earth's! At the full frightful
measure of that velocity the super-ship literally annihilated distance,
while ahead of her the furiously driven, but scarcely faster spy-ray
beam tore on in quest of the three Terrestrials who were calling for
help.
"Got any idea how fast we're going?" Rodebush demanded, glancing up for
an instant from the observation plate. "We should be able to see him,
since we could hear him, and our range is certainly as great as anything
he can have."
"No, can't figure velocity without any reliable data on how many atoms
of matter exist per cubic meter out here." Cleveland was staring at the
calculator. "It's constant, of course, at the value at which the
friction of the medium is equal to our thrust. Incidentally, we can't
hold it long. We're running a temperature, which shows that we're
stepping along faster than anybody ever computed before. Taking
Throckmorton's estimates it figures somewhere near the order of
magnitude of ten to the twenty-seventh. Fast enough, anyway, so you'd
better bend an eye on that plate. Even after you see him you won't know
anything about where he really is, because we don't know any of the
velocities involved--our own, his, or that of the beam--and we may be
right on top of him."
"Or, if we are outrunning the beam, we won't see him at all. That makes
it nice piloting."
"How are you going to handle things when we get there?"
"Lock to them and take them aboard if we're in time. If not, if they are
fighting already--_there they are_!"
The picture of the speedster's control room flashed upon the plate and
Costigan's voice greeted them from the speaker.
"Hello, fellows, welcome to our city! Where are you?"
"We don't know," Cleveland snapped back, "and we don't know where you
are, either. Can't figure anything without data. I see you're still
breathing air. Where are the Nevians? How much time we got yet?"
"Not enough, I'm afraid. By the looks of things they will be within
range of us in a couple of hours, and you're so far away yet that it
took our voices four minutes and about fifty seconds to make the round
trip, _on the ultra_! Play that on your calculator, Lyman! You haven't
even touched our detector screen yet. I'm mighty glad to have seen you
fellows again, though, anyway."
"A couple of hours!" In his relief Cleveland almost shouted the words.
"That's time to burn. We can be clear out of the Galaxy in less
than...." He broke off at a yell from Rodebush.
"Broadcast, Conway, broadcast!" that worthy had cried, as Costigan's
image had disappeared utterly from his plate.
Now he cut off the _Boise_'s power, stopping her instantaneously in
mid-space, but the connection had been broken. Costigan could not
possibly have heard the orders to change his beam signal to a broadcast,