Triplanetary
so that they could pick it up; nor would it have done any good if he had
heard and had obeyed. So immeasurably great had been their velocity that
they had flashed past the speedster without seeing it, even upon the
ultra-plates, and now they were unknown billions of miles beyond the
fugitives they had come so far to help--far beyond the range of any
possible broadcast. But Cleveland had understood instantly what had
happened. He now had a little data upon which to work, and his fingers
were flying over the keys of the calculator.
"Back blast, maximum, seventeen seconds!" he directed, crisply. "Not
exact, of course, but that'll put us close enough to find 'em with our
detectors!"
Then for the calculated seventeen seconds the super-ship retraced her
path, at the same awful speed with which she had come so far. The blast
expired and there, plainly limned upon the observation plates, was the
Nevian speedster.
"As a computer you're good," Rodebush applauded. "So close that we can't
use the neutralizers to catch him. If we use a dyne of driving force
we'll overshoot him a million kilometers before I can snap the switches
out."
"And yet he's so far away and going so fast that if we keep our inertia
on it'll take all day at full drive to overtake him." Cleveland was
frankly puzzled. "What to do? Shunt in a potentiometer?"
"No, we don't need it." Rodebush turned to the transmitter. "Costigan!
We are going to take hold of you with a very light tractor. Don't cut
it!"
"A tractor--inertialess?" Cleveland wondered.
"Why not?" Rodebush launched the tractor, set at its absolute minimum of
power, and threw in his master switches.
While hundreds of thousands of miles separating the two vessels and the
tractor beam was exerting the least effort of which it was capable, yet
the super-ship leaped toward the smaller craft at a pace which covered
that distance in the twinkling of an eye. So rapidly were the objectives
enlarging upon the plates that the automatic focusing devices could
scarcely function rapidly enough to keep them in place. Cleveland
flinched involuntarily and seized his arm-rests in a spasmodic clutch as
he watched this, the first inertialess space-approach; and even
Rodebush, who knew better than anyone else what to expect, held his
breath and swallowed hard at the unbelievable rate at which the two
vessels were rushing together.
And if these two, who had rebuilt the space-flyer, could hardly control
themselves, what of the three in the speedster, who knew nothing
whatever of the super-ship's potentialities? Clio, staring into the
plate with Costigan, uttered a piercing shriek, as she sank her fingers
into his shoulders. Bradley swore a mighty deep-space oath and braced
himself against certain annihilation. Costigan stared for an instant,
unable to believe his eyes, then his hand darted to the contacts which
would cut the beam. Too late. Before his flying fingers could reach the
studs the _Boise_ was upon them; had struck them in direct central
impact. Moving at the full measure of her unthinkable velocity though
the super-ship was at the moment of impact, yet the most delicate
recording instruments of the speedster could not detect the slightest
shock as the enormous globe struck the comparatively tiny torpedo and
clung to it; accommodating instantly and effortlessly her own terrific
pace to that of the smaller and infinitely slower craft. Clio sobbed in
relief and Costigan, one arm around her, sighed hugely.
"Hey, you space-fleas!" he cried. "Glad to see you and all that, but you
might as well kill a man outright as scare him to death! So that's the
super-ship, huh? SOME ship!"
"Hello, Conway!" "Clear ether, Conway!" The two scientists answered the
hail of their fellow.
"I didn't realize that an inertialess approach would be quite such a
terrifying spectacle, or I would have warned you," Rodebush went on.
"Yes, thanks to you, the super-ship works as she should, at last. But
you had better put on your suits and transfer. You might get your things
ready...."
"'Things' is good!" Costigan laughed, and Clio giggled sunnily.
"We've made so many transfers already that what you see us in is all we
have," Bradley explained. "We'll bring ourselves, and we'll hurry; that
Nevian is coming up fast."
"Is there anything on this ship you fellows want?" Costigan asked.
"There may be, but we haven't any locks big enough to let her inside and
we haven't time to study her now. You might leave her controls in
neutral, so that Lyman can calculate her position if we should want her
later on."
"All right." The three armor-clad figures stepped into the _Boise_'s
open lock, the tractor beam was cut off, and the speedster flashed away
from the now stationary super-ship.
"Better let formalities go for a while," Captain Bradley interrupted the
general introduction taking place. "I was scared out of nine years'
growth when I saw you coming at us, and maybe I've still got the humps;
but that Nevian is coming up fast, and if you don't already know it I
can tell you that he's no light cruiser."
"That's so, too," Costigan concurred. "Have you fellows got enough stuff
so that you think you can take him? You've got the legs on him,
anyway--you can certainly run if you want to!"
"Run?" Cleveland laughed. "We have a bone of our own to pick with that
ship. We licked her to a standstill once, until we burned out a set of
generators, and since we got them fixed we've been chasing her all over
space. We were chasing her when we picked up your call. See there? She's
doing the running."
The Nevian was running, in truth. Her commander had seen and had
recognized the great vessel which had flashed out of nowhere to the
rescue of the three Terrestrials; and, having once been at grips with
that vengeful super-dreadnaught, he had little stomach for another
encounter. Therefore his side-thrust was now being exerted in the
opposite direction; he was frankly trying to put as much distance as
possible between himself and Triplanetary's formidable cruiser. In vain.
A light tractor was clamped on and the _Boise_ flashed up to close range
before Rodebush threw on her inertia and Cleveland brought the two
vessels relatively to rest by increasing gradually his tractor's pull.
And this time the Nevian could not cut the tractor. Again that shearing
plane of force bit into it and tore at it, but it neither yielded nor
broke. The rebuilt generators of Number Four were designed to carry the
load, and they carried it. And again Triplanetary's every mighty weapon
was brought into play.
The "cans" were thrown, ultra-and infra-beams were driven, the furious
macro-beam gnawed hungrily at the Nevian's defenses; and one by one
those defenses went down. In desperation the enemy commander threw his
every generator behind a polycyclic screen; only to see Cleveland's even
more powerful drill bore relentlessly through it. Punctured that last
defense, the end came soon. A secondary SX7 beam was now in place on
mighty Ten's inner rings, and one fierce blast blew a hole completely
through the Nevian cruiser. Into that hole entered Adlington's terrific
bombs and their gruesome fellows, and where they entered, life departed.
All defenses vanished, and under the blasts of the _Boise_'s projectors,
now unopposed, the metal of the Nevian vessel exploded instantly into a
widely spreading cloud of vapor. Sparkling vapor, with perhaps here and
there a droplet or two of material which had only been liquefied.
So passed the sister-ship, and Rodebush turned his plates upon the
vessel of Nerado. But that highly intelligent amphibian had seen all
that had occurred. He had long since given over the pursuit of the
speedster, and he did not rush in to do hopeless battle beside his
fellow Nevians against the Terrestrials. His analytical detectors had
written down each detail of every weapon and of every screen employed;
and even while prodigious streamers of red force were raving out from
his vessel, braking her terrific progress and swinging her around in an
immense circle back toward far Nevia, his scientists and mechanics were
doubling and redoubling the power of his already Titanic installations,
to match and if possible to overmatch those of Triplanetary's
super-dreadnaught.
"Do we kill him now or do we let him suffer a while longer?" Costigan
demanded.
"I don't think so, yet," replied Rodebush. "Would you, Lyman?"
"Not yet," replied Cleveland, grimly, reading the thought of the other
and agreeing with it. "Let him pilot us to Nevia; we might not be able
to find it without a guide. While we're at it we want to so pulverize
that crowd that if they never come near the Solarian system again
they'll think it's twenty minutes too soon!"
Thus it was that the _Boise_, under only a few dynes of propulsion,
pursued the Nevian ship. Apparently exerting every effort, she never
came quite within range of the fleeing raider; yet never was she so far
behind that the Nevian space-ship was not in clear register upon her
observation plates. Nor was Nerado alone in strengthening his vessel.
Costigan knew well and respected highly the Nevian scientist-captain,
and at his suggestion the entire time of the long and uneventful flight
was spent in re-enforcing the super-ship's armament to the iron-driven
limit of theoretical and mechanical possibility.
Thus, when Nevia and her hot, blue sun appeared upon his plates Rodebush
was ready for any emergency, and hurled his battleship upon the Nevian
with every weapon aflame. But so was Nerado ready; and, unlike her
sister-ship, his vessel was manned by scientists well versed in the
fundamental theory of the weapons with which they fought. Beams, rods,
and lances of energy flamed and flared; planes and pencils cut, slashed,
and stabbed; defensive screens glowed redly or flashed suddenly into
intensely brilliant, coruscating incandescence. Crimson opacity
struggled sullenly against violet curtain of annihilation. Material
projectiles and torpedoes were launched under full beam control; only to
be exploded harmlessly in mid-space, to be rayed into nothingness, or to
disappear innocuously against impenetrable polycyclic screens. Both
vessels were equipped completely with iron-driven mechanisms; both were
manned by scientists capable of wringing the last possible watt of power
from their sources. They were approximately equal in size, and each ship
now wielded the theoretical ultimate of power for her mass; therefore
neither could harm the other, furiously though each was trying. And more
and more nearly they were approaching the red atmosphere of the world of
the amphibians. Down into that crimson blanket the two warring
space-ships dropped, down toward a city which Costigan recognized as
that in which Nerado made his headquarters.
"Better hold off a bit," Costigan cautioned. "If I know that bird at
all, he's cooking up something," and even as he spoke there shot upward
from the city a multitude of flashing balls. The Nevians had mastered
the secret of the explosive of the fishes of the greater deeps and were
launching it in a veritable storm against the Terrestrial visitor.
"Those?" asked Rodebush, calmly. The detonating balls of destruction
were literally annihilating even the atmosphere beyond the polycyclic
screen, but that barrier was scarcely affected.
"No, that," pointing out a hemispherical dome which, redly translucent,
surrounded a group of buildings towering high above their neighbors.
"Neither those high towers nor those screens were there the last time I
was in this town. They're stalling for time down there, that's all those
fireballs are for. Good sign, too--maybe they aren't ready for us yet.
If not, you'd better take 'em while the taking's good; and if they _are_