Triplanetary
E >>
Edward Elmer Smith >> Triplanetary
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 | 13 |
14
"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
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,
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.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 | 13 |
14