Spacehounds of IPC
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Edward Elmer Smith >> Spacehounds of IPC
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* * * * *
He found himself seated in a narrow canoe of metal, immediately behind
the pilot, who sat at a small control panel in the bow. Propelled by
electro-magnetic fields above a single rail, upon lightly touching and
noiseless wheels, the terrestrial pilot saw with keen appreciation the
manner in which switch after switch ahead of them obeyed the impulses
sent ahead from the speeding car. The streets were narrow and filled
with monorails; pedestrians pursued their courses upon walks attached
to the walls of the buildings, far above the level of the streets. The
walls were themselves peculiar, rising as they did stark, unbroken,
windowless expanses of metal, merging into and supporting a massive
roof of the same silvery metal. Walls and roof alike reflected a soft,
yet intense, white light. Soon a sliding switch ahead of them shot in
and simultaneously an opening appeared in the blank metal wall of a
building. Through the opening the street-car flew, and as the pilot
slowed the canoe to a halt, the door slid smoothly shut behind them.
Parking the car beside a row of its fellows, the Callistonian driver
indicated that the Terrestrials were to follow him and led the way into
a large hall. There the others from the _Arcturus_ were assembled,
facing Captain King, who was standing upon a table.
"Fellow travelers," King addressed them, "our course of action has
been decided. There are two hundred three of us. There will be twenty
sections of ten persons, each section being in charge of one of the
officers of the _Arcturus_. Doctor Penfield, our surgeon, a man whose
intelligence, fairness, and integrity are unquestioned, will be in
supreme command. His power and authority will be absolute, limited only
by the Callistonian Council. He will work in harmony with the engineer,
who is to direct the entire project of building the new vessel. Each of
you will be expected to do whatever he can--the work you will be asked
to do will be well within your powers, and you will each have ample
leisure for recreation, study, and amusement, of all of which you will
find unsuspected stores in this underground community. You will each
be registered and studied by physicians, surgeons, and psychologists;
and each of you will have prescribed for him the exact diet that is
necessary for his best development. You will find this diet somewhat
monotonous, compared to our normal fare of natural products, since it
is wholly synthetic; but that is one of the minor drawbacks that must
be endured. Chief Pilot Breckenridge and I will not be with you. In
some small and partial recompense for what they are doing for us all,
he and I are going with Captain Czuv to Callisto, there to see whether
or not we can aid them in any way in the fight against the hexans. One
last word--Doctor Penfield's rulings will be the products of his own
well-ordered mind after consultation and agreement with the Council of
this city, and will be for the best good of all. I do not anticipate any
refusal to cooperate with him. If, however, such refusal should occur,
please remember that he is a despot with absolute power, and that anyone
obstructing the program by refusing to follow his suggestions will spend
the rest of his time here in confinement and will go back to Tellus in
irons, if at all. In case Chief Pilot Breckenridge and I should not see
you again, we bid you goodbye and wish you a safe voyage--but we expect
to go back with you."
Brief farewells were said and captain and pilot accompanied Czuv to one
of the little street-cars. Out of the building it dashed and down the
crowded but noiseless thoroughfare to the portal. Signal lights flashed
briefly there and they did not stop, but tore on through the portal and
the tunnel, with increasing speed.
"Don't have to transfer to a big car, then?" asked Breckenridge.
"No," King made answer. "Small cars can travel these tubes as well as
the large ones, and on much less power. In the city the wheels touch
the rails lightly, not for support, but to make contacts through which
traffic signals are sent and received. In the tunnels the wheels do
not touch at all, as signaling is unnecessary--the tunnels being used
infrequently and by but one vehicle at a time. No trolleys, tracks, or
wires are visible, you notice. Everything is hidden from any possible
visiray of the hexans."
"How about their power?"
"I don't understand it very well--hardly at all, in fact."
"It is quite simple." To the surprise of both Terrestrials, Czuv was
speaking English, but with a strong and very peculiar accent; slighting
all the vowels and accenting heavily the consonant sounds. "The car no
longer requires my attention, so I am now free to converse. You are
surprised at my knowing your language? You will speak mine after a few
more applications of the thought exchanger. I am speaking with a vile
accent, of course, but that is merely because my vocal organs are
not accustomed to making vowel sounds. Our power is obtained by the
combustion of gases in highly efficient turbines. It is transmitted and
used as direct current, our generator and motors being so constructed
that they can produce no etheric disturbances capable of penetrating
the shielding walls of our city. The city was built close to deposits
of coal, oil, and gas of sufficient amount to support our life for
thousands of years; for from these deposits come power, food, clothing,
and all the other necessities and luxuries of our lives. Strong fans
draw air from various extinct craters, force it through ventilating
ducts into every room and recess of the city, and exhaust it into the
shaft of a quiescent volcano, in whose gaseous outflow any trace of our
activities is, of course, imperceptible. For obvious reasons no rockets
or combustion motors are used in the city proper."
* * * * *
Thus Captain Czuv explained to the Terrestrials his own mode of life,
and received from them in turn full information concerning Earthly life,
activity, and science. Long they talked, and it was almost time to slow
down for the journey's end when the Callistonian brought the conversation
back to their immediate concerns.
"My lieutenant and I were upon a mission of some importance, but it is
more important to take you to Callisto, for there may be many things
in which you can help us. Not in rays--we know all the vibrations you
have mentioned and several others. The enemy, however, is supreme
in that field, and until our scientists have succeeded in developing
ray-screens, such as are used by the hexans, it would be suicidal to
use rays at all. Such screens necessitate the projection of pure, yet
dirigible, forces--you do not have them upon your planet?"
"No, and so far as I know such screens are also unknown upon Mars and
Venus, with whose inhabitants we are friendly."
"The inhabitants of all the planets should be friendly; the solar
system should be linked together in intercourse for common advancement.
But that is not to be. The hexans will eventually triumph here, and a
Jovian system peopled by hexans will have no intercourse with any human
civilization save that of internecine war. We, of Callisto, have only
one hope--or is it really a hope? In the South Polar country of Jupiter,
there dwells a race of beings implacably hostile to the hexans. They
seem to invade the country of the hexans frequently, even though they
are apparently repulsed each time. Our emissaries to the South Polar
country, however, have never returned--those beings, whatever they
are, if not actively inimical, certainly are not friendly toward us."
"You know nothing of their nature?"
"Nothing, since our electrical instruments are not sufficiently
sensitive to give us more than a general idea of what is transpiring
there, and vision is practically useless in that eternal fog. We know,
however, that they are far advanced in science, and we are thankful
indeed that none of their frightful flying fortresses have been launched
against us. They apparently are not interested in the satellites, and it
is no doubt due to their unintentional assistance that we have survived
as long as we have."
In the cavern at last, the three men boarded the Callistonian
space-plane and were shot up the crater's shaft. The voyage to
Callisto was uneventful, even uninteresting save at its termination.
The _Bzarvk_, coated every inch as it was with a dull, dead black,
completely absorptive outer coating, entered the thin layer of
Callisto's atmosphere in darkest night, with all rockets dead, with not
a light showing, and with no apparatus of any kind functioning. Utterly
invisible and undetectable, she dove downward, and not until she was
well below the crater's rim did the forward rockets burst into furious
life. Then the Terrestrials understood another reason for the immense
depth of those shafts other than that of protection from the detectors
of the enemy--all that distance was necessary to overcome the velocity
of their free fall without employing a negative acceleration greater
than the frail Callistonian bodies could endure. From the cavern at the
foot of the shaft, a regulation tunnel extended to the Callistonian city
of Zbardk. Portal and city were very like Wruszk, upon distant Europa,
and soon the terrestrial captain and pilot were in conference with the
Council of Callisto.
* * * * *
Months of Earthly time dragged slowly past, months during which King and
Breckenridge studied intensively the offensive and defensive systems
of Callisto without finding any particular in which they could improve
them to any considerable degree. Captain Czuv and his warplane still
survived, and it was while the Callistonian commander was visiting his
terrestrial guests, that King voiced the discontent that had long
affected both men.
"We're both tired of doing nothing, Czuv. We have been of little real
benefit, and we have decided that your ideas of us are all wrong. We are
convinced that our personal horsepower can be of vastly more use to you
than our brain-power, which doesn't amount to much. Your whole present
policy is one of hiding and sniping. I think that I know why, but I want
to be sure. Your vessels carry lots of fuel--why can the hexans outrun
you?" Thus did King put his problem.
"They can stand enormously higher accelerations than we can. The very
strongest of us loses consciousness at an acceleration of twenty-five
meters per second per second, no matter how he is braced, and that
is only a little greater than the normal gravity of our enemies upon
Jupiter. Their vessels at highest power develop an acceleration of
thirty-five meters, and the hexans themselves can stand much more than
even that high figure," replied Czuv.
"I thought so. Assume that you traveled at forty-five. Would it disable
you permanently, or would you recover as soon as it was lowered?"
"We would recover promptly, unless the exposure had been unduly
prolonged. Why?"
"Because," said King, "I can stand an acceleration of fifty-four meters
for two hours, and Breckenridge here tests fifty two meters. I can
navigate anything, and Breckenridge can observe as well as any of your
own men. Build a plane to accelerate at forty-five meters and we will
blow those hexans out of the ether. You will have to revive and do the
shooting, however--your gunnery is entirely beyond us."
"That is an idea of promise, and one that had not occurred to any of
us," Czuv replied and work was begun at once upon the new flyer.
When the super-plane was ready for its maiden voyage, its crew of three
studied it as it lay in the catapult at the portal. Dead black as were
all the warplanes, its body was twice as large as that of the ordinary
vessel, its wings were even more stubby, and its accommodations had been
cut to a minimum to make room for the enormous stores of fuel necessary
to drive the greatly increased battery of rocket motors and for the
extra supply of torpedoes carried. Waving to the group of soldiers and
citizens gathered to witness the take-off of the new dreadnought of
space, the three men entered the cramped operating compartment, strapped
themselves into their seats, and were shot away. As usual the driving
rockets were cut off well below the rim of the shaft, and the vessel
rose in a long and graceful curve, invisible in the night. Such was its
initial velocity and so slight was the force of gravity of the satellite
that they were many hundreds of miles from the exit before they began to
descend, and Breckenridge studied his screens narrowly for signs of
hexan activity.
"Do you want to try one of your long-range shots when we find one of
them?" the pilot asked Czuv.
"No, it would be useless. Between deflection by air-currents and the
dodging of the enemy vessels, our effective range is shortened to a few
kilometers, and their beams are deadly at that distance. No, our best
course is to follow the original plan--to lure them out into space at
uniform acceleration, where we can destroy them easily."
"Right," and Breckenridge turned to King, who was frowning at his
controls. "How does she work on a dead stick, Chief?"
"Maneuverability about minus ten at this speed and in this air.
She'd have to have at least fifteen hundred kilometers an hour to be
responsive out here. See anything yet?"
"Not yet ... wait a minute! Yes, there's one now--P-12 on area five.
Give us all the X10 and W27 you can, without using power--we want to
edge over close enough so that she can't help but see us when we start
the rockets."
"Be sure and stay well out of range. I'm giving her all she'll take, but
she won't take much. With these wings she has the gliding angle of a
kitchen sink."
"All x--I'm watching the range, close. Wish we had instruments like
these on the IPV's. We'll have to install some when we get back. All x!
Give her the gun--level and dead ahead!"
Half the battery of rockets burst into their stuttering, explosive roar
of power and the vessel darted away in headlong flight.
"He sees us and is after us--turn her straight up!"
A searing, coruscating finger of flame leaped toward them, but their
calculations had been sound--the hexan was harmless at that extreme
range. King, under the pilot's direction, kept the plane at a safe
distance from the sphere while the satellite grew smaller and smaller
behind them and Czuv lapsed quietly into unconsciousness.
"He's been out for quite a while. Far enough?" asked King.
"All x now, I guess--don't believe they can see the flash from here.
Cut!"
The rockets died abruptly and a blast from the side ports threw
the plane out of the beam--and once out of it, beyond range of the
electro-magnetic detectors as they were their coating of absolute black
rendered the craft safe from observation. One dirigible rocket remained
in action, its exhaust hidden from the enemy by the body of the vessel,
and Captain Czuv soon recovered his senses.
"Wonderful, gentlemen!" he exclaimed, as he manipulated the delicate
controls of his gunnery panel. "This is the first time in history that
a Callistonian vessel has escaped from a hexan by speed alone."
An instantaneously extinguished flare of incandescence marked the
passing of the hexan sphere into nothingness, and the cruiser shot back
toward Callisto in search of more prey. It was all too plentiful, and
twenty times the drama was reenacted before approaching day made it
necessary for Czuv to take the controls and dive the vessel into the
westermost landing-shaft of Zbardk. A rousing and enthusiastic welcome
awaited them, and joy spread rapidly when their success became known.
"Now we know what to do, and we had better do it immediately, before
they get our system figured out and increase their own power." King
reported to the Council. "You might send a couple of ships to Europa and
bring back as many of the Tellurian officers as want to come and can be
spared from the work there. They all test above forty-five meters, and
they can learn this stuff in short order. While they're coming, your
engineers can be building more ships like this one."
The new vessel did not make another voyage until nine sister ships
were ready and manned, each with two Terrestrial officers and one
Callistonian gunner. All ten took to the ether at once, and the hexan
fleet melted away like frost-crystals before a summer sun. A few weeks
of carnage and destruction and not a hexan was within range of the
detectors of Callisto--they were gone!
"This is the first time in years that Callisto's air has been free of
the hexans," Czuv said, thoughtfully. "With your help we have reduced
their strength to a fraction of what it was, but they have not given up.
They will return, with a higher acceleration than even you Terrestrials,
powerful as you are, can stand."
"Certainly they will, but you will be no worse off than you were
before--you can return to your own highly effective tactics."
"We are infinitely better off for your help. You have given us a new
lease on life...."
He broke off as a flaring light sprang into being upon the portal board
and the observer of Exit One made his report--there was a hexan vessel
in the air, location 425 over VJ-42.
"There's one left! Let us get him! No, he's ours!" Confused shouts arose
from the bull-pen; but the original superplane was at the top of the
call-board and accordingly King, Breckenridge, and Czuv embarked upon
an expedition more hazardous far than they had supposed--an expedition
whose every feature was relayed to those in the portal by the automatic
lookouts upon the rims and which was ended before a single supporting
Callistonian plane could be launched.
For the enemy vessel was not the last of the low-powered hexan vessels,
as everyone had supposed--it was the first of the high-powered craft,
arriving long before its appearance was expected. Before its terrific
acceleration and savage onslaught, the superplane might as well have
been stationary and unarmed. After his long dive downward, King could
not even leave the atmosphere--the hexan was upon them within a few
seconds, even though the stupendous battery of rockets, full driven,
had roared almost instantly into desperate action. Bomb after bomb
Breckenridge hurled, with full radio control, fighting with every
resource at his command, but in vain. The frightful torpedoes were
annihilated in mid-flight; and nose, tail-assembly, and wings were
sheared neatly from the warplane by a sizzling plane of force. Side
rockets and torpedo tubes were likewise sliced away and the helpless
body of the Callistonian cruiser, falling like a plummet, was caught and
held by a tractor ray. Captor and captive settled toward the ground.
"This is a signal honor," observed Captain Czuv when he had revived. "It
has been many, many cycles since they have taken Callistonians captive.
They kill us at every opportunity. Is it your custom to destroy
yourselves in a situation such as this?"
"It is not. While we live there is hope."
"Not ours. Unless they have made enormous strides in psychological
mechanisms, they cannot tear from our minds any secrets we really wish
to keep. That is useless," he went on, as King lifted a hand-weapon.
"You will have no opportunity whatever to use it," and he was right.
A searing beam of energy drove them out of the vessel, then
electro-magnetic waves burned every metallic object out of their
possession. Burning rays herded them into the hexan sphere and into
a small room, whose door clanged shut behind them.
"Ah, two are humans of a strange breed!" a snarling voice barked
from the wall, in the Callistonian language. "Our deductions were
accurate, as usual--it is to the humans of Planet Three, whose bodies
are a trifle less puny than those of the humanity of the satellites,
that we owe our recent reverses. However, those reverses were merely
temporary--humanity, no matter what its breed, shall very shortly
disappear from the satellites. Now, you scum of the Solar System, you
shall be permitted to witness an entrancing spectacle on the way to our
headquarters, where all your knowledge is to be taken from you before
you die, lingeringly and horribly. There is a strange space-vessel
nearing us probably searching for the one we took and which you dogs of
Callisto must have been fortunate enough to take from us before we could
study and kill its human cargo. Watch its destruction and cringe--and
know, in your suffering, that the more you suffer, the greater shall be
our enjoyment."
"I believe that," King acknowledged. As all three prisoners stared at
the wall-screen, upon which was pictured a huge football of scarred grey
steel, Czuv was amazed to see the faces of Breckenridge and King light
up with fierce smiles of pleasure and anticipation.
"You dissemble well," remarked the Callistonian. "That will rob them of
much pleasure."
"They'll get robbed of more than that," King returned. "This is too
good to keep, and since they cannot understand English, I'll tell you
something. I told you about Stevens. He apparently wasn't killed, as
we thought. He must have escaped, and there is the result. That ship
there is far from innocent--her being so far out of range of any of our
power-plants proves that. That vessel is the _Sirius_--the research
laboratory of the IPC--the Inter-Planetary Corporation! It carries the
greatest scientific minds of three of the inner planets, and it is
loaded with pure poison or it wouldn't be here. Oh, you hexans, what you
have got coming to you!"
* * * * *
_Concluding a Thrilling New Serial of Interplanetary Life and Travel by
Edward E. Smith, Ph.D._
_Author of "Skylark of Space," and "Skylark Three"_
PART III
Spacehounds of IPC
_The question of rays--their expanding power for good and evil--is
receiving increasing attention from scientists. The x-ray has been
found to be very beneficial, given in certain quantities, but
extremely inimical to health, and even fatal, if too much exposure
is given. The powers of the cosmic rays have not been fully
discovered as yet. And there is no reason to doubt the theory that
there may be found still more destructive and powerful rays. Even
wars are becoming a more dangerous plaything for nations of our
world--to say nothing of other possible enemies from other parts
of our universe. Stevens and Nadia Newton meet with thrilling
experiences galore in this concluding instalment._
What Went Before:
The Interplanetary Vessel _Arcturus_ sets out for Mars, with
Breckenridge as chief pilot, carrying on board, besides its
regular crew and some passengers, the famous Dr. Stevens,
designer of space ships and computer. He checks computations
made by astronomers stationed in floating observatories, and
after he has located any trouble and suggests a plan for
minimizing the hazards of the trip from the earth to Mars he
reports his findings and suggestions to Mr. Newton, chief of
the Interplanetary Corporation.
Stevens then takes Nadia, Mr. Newton's beautiful young daughter,
on a specially conducted sight-seeing tour of the _Arcturus_
and thoroughly explains to her all of the works of the vessel.
Nadia has herself had a good science education. While they
are down at the bottom of the ship--nearing the end of their
tour--Stevens feels a barely perceptible movement of the vessel
from its course. When he turns on the visiplate, he is horrified
to find that a mysterious ray of unparalleled power has neatly
sliced the _Arcturus_ in several places.
Nadia and Stevens are completely separated from the rest of the
crew and passengers of the ship, so they get into a lifeboat,
which is equipped for a limited amount of space travel. Despite
the strict and apparently effective vigilance of the enemy
destroyer, Stevens and Nadia make their getaway in the lifeboat,
which they aptly call "Forlorn Hope," and finally make a safe
landing on Ganymede, where Stevens almost completes a power-plant
and a radio transmitter, to enable him to communicate with the
earth or with the IPV _Sirius_, which is used by Westfall and
Brandon (two of the world's best scientists) as a floating
laboratory.
They start for Cantrell's Comet, where Stevens acquires the
necessary material for his giant transmitting tube, heads back
to Ganymede, when their ship is cut, top and bottom, by a strong
ray-beam. Stevens and Nadia soon find that the other ship is
manned by friendly beings from Saturn. Together they plan against
their common foes--the Hexans--who are enemies of the universe.
After helping the Saturnians to repair their power plant, they
start back to Ganymede, aided by their new friends from the
frigid civilization. Finally, however, Stevens succeeds in
connecting, by radio, with the _Sirius_ and his scientist friends
on board it, who rush to the aid of the two castaways. It is
while the castaways are captives of the Hexans that help looms
near.
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