Triplanetary
E >>
Edward Elmer Smith >> Triplanetary
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14
He put both hands in his pockets and spoke.
"Samms? Costigan. Put me on a recorder, quick--I probably haven't got
much time," and for ten minutes he talked, concisely and as rapidly as
he could utter words, reporting clearly and exactly everything that had
transpired. Suddenly he broke off, writhing in agony. Frantically he
tore his shirt open and hurled a tiny object across the room.
"Wow!" he exclaimed. "They may be deaf, but they can certainly detect an
ultra-wave, and the interference they can set up on it is enough to
pulverize your bones. No, I'm not hurt," he reassured the anxious girl,
now at his side, "but it's a good thing I had you out of circuit--it
would have jolted you loose from six or seven of your back teeth."
"Have you any idea where they're taking us?" she asked, soberly.
"No," he answered flatly, looking deep into her steadfast eyes. "No use
lying to you--if I know you at all you'd rather take it standing up.
That talk of Jovians or Neptunians is the bunk--nothing like that ever
grew in our Solarian system. All the signs say that we're going for a
long, long ride!"
CHAPTER V
Nevian Strife
The Nevian space-ship was hurtling upon its way. Space-navigators both,
the two Terrestrial officers soon discovered that it was even then
moving with a velocity far above that of light and that it must be
accelerating at a stupendous rate, even though to them it seemed
stationary--they could feel only a gravitational force somewhat less
than that of their native earth.
Bradley, seasoned old campaigner that he was, had retired promptly as
soon as he had completed a series of observations, and was sleeping
soundly upon a pile of cushions in the first of the three
inter-connecting rooms. In the middle room, which was to be Clio's,
Costigan was standing very close to the girl, but was not touching her.
His body was rigid, his face was tense and drawn.
"You are wrong, Conway; all wrong," Clio was saying, very seriously. "I
know how you feel, but it's false chivalry."
"That isn't it, at all," he insisted, stubbornly. "It isn't only that
I've got you out here in space, in danger and alone, that's stopping me.
I know you and I know myself well enough to know that what we start now
we'll go through with for life. It doesn't make any difference, that
way, whether I start making love to you now or whether I wait until
we're back on Tellus--I've been telling you for half an hour that for
your own good you'd better pass me up entirely. I've got enough
horsepower to keep away from you if you tell me to--not otherwise."
"I know it, both ways, dear, but...."
"But nothing!" he interrupted. "Can't you get it into your skull what
you'll be letting yourself in for if you marry me? Assume that we get
back, which isn't sure, by any means. But even if we do, some day--and
maybe soon, too, you can't tell--somebody is going to collect fifty
grams of radium for my head."
"Fifty grams--and everybody knows that Samms himself is rated at only
sixty? I _knew_ that you were somebody, Conway!" Clio exclaimed,
undeterred. "But at that, something tells me that any pirate will earn
even that much reward several times over before he collects it. Don't be
silly, dear heart--good-night."
She tipped her head back, holding up to him her red, sweetly curved,
smiling lips, and his eager arms, hitherto kept away from her by sheer
force of will, swept around her in almost fierce intensity. As his hot
lips met hers, her arms crept up around his neck and they stood, clasped
together in the motionless ecstasy of love's first embrace.
"Girl, girl, how I love you!" Costigan's voice was husky, his usually
hard eyes were glowing with a tender light. "That settles that. I'll
really _live_ now, anyway, while...."
"Stop it!" she commanded, sharply. "You're going to live until you die
of old age--see if you don't. You'll simply _have_ to, Conway!"
"That's so, too--no percentage in dying now. All the pirates between
Tellus and Andromeda couldn't take me after this--I've got too much to
live for. Well, good-night, sweetheart, I'd better beat it--you need
some sleep."
The lovers' parting was not as simple and straightforward a procedure as
Costigan's speech would indicate, but finally he did seek his own room
and relaxed upon a pile of cushions, his stern visage transformed.
Instead of the low metal ceiling he saw a beautiful, oval, tanned young
face, framed in a golden-blonde corona of hair. His gaze sank into the
depths of loyal, honest, dark-blue eyes; and looking deeper and deeper
into those blue wells he fell asleep. Upon his face, too set and grim by
far for a man of his years--the lives of Sector Chiefs of the T. S. S.
are never easy, nor as a rule are they long--there lingered as he slept
that newly acquired softness of expression, the reflection of his
transcendent happiness.
For eight hours he slept soundly, as was his wont; then, also according
to his habit and training, he came wide awake, with no intermediate
stage of napping.
"Clio?" he whispered. "Awake, girl?"
"Awake!" Her voice came through the ultra-phone, relief in every
syllable. "Good heavens, I thought you were going to sleep until we got
to wherever it is that we're going! Come on in, you two--I don't see how
you can possibly sleep, just as though you were home in bed."
"You've got to learn to sleep anywhere if you expect to keep in...."
Costigan broke off as he opened the door and saw Clio's wan face. She
had evidently spent a sleepless and wracking eight hours. "Good Lord,
Clio, why didn't you call me?"
"Oh, I'm all right, except for being a little jittery. No need of asking
how _you_ feel, is there?"
"No--I feel hungry," he answered cheerfully. "I'm going to see what we
can do about it--or say, guess I'll see whether they're still
interfering on Samms' wave."
He took out a small, insulated case and touched the contact stud lightly
with his fingers. His arm jerked away powerfully.
"Still at it," he gave the necessary explanation. "They don't seem to
want us to talk outside, but his interference is as good as my
talking--they can trace it, of course. Now I'll see what I can find out
about our breakfast."
He stepped over to the plate and shot its projector beam forward into
the control room, where he saw Nerado lying, doglike, at his instrument
panel. As Costigan's beam entered the room a blue light flashed on and
the Nevian turned an eye and an arm toward his own small observation
plate. Knowing that they were now in visual communication, Costigan
beckoned an invitation and pointed to his mouth in what he hoped was the
universal sign of hunger. The Nevian waved an arm and fingered controls,
and as he did so a wide section of the floor of Clio's room slid aside.
The opening thus made revealed a table which rose upon its low pedestal,
a table equipped with three softly cushioned benches and spread with a
glittering array of silver and glassware. Bowls and platters of
dazzlingly white metal, narrow-waisted goblets of sheerest crystal; all
were hexagonal, beautifully and intricately carved or etched in
apparently conventional marine designs. And the table utensils of this
strange race were peculiar indeed. There were tearing forceps of sixteen
needle-sharp curved teeth; there were flexible spatulas; there were deep
and shallow ladles with flexible edges; there were many other peculiarly
curved instruments at whose uses the Terrestrials could no even guess;
all having delicately fashioned handles to fit the long, slender fingers
of the Nevians.
But if the table and its appointments were surprising to the
Terrestrials, revealing as they did a degree of culture which none of
them had expected to find in a race of beings so monstrous, the food was
even more surprising, although in another sense. For the wonderful
crystal goblets were filled with a grayish-green slime of a nauseous and
overpowering odor, the smaller bowls were full of living sea spiders and
other such delicacies; and each large platter contained a fish fully a
foot long, raw and whole, garnished tastefully with red, purple, and
green strands of seaweed!
Clio looked once, then gasped, shutting her eyes and turning away from
the table, but Costigan flipped the three fish into a platter and set it
aside before he turned back to the visiplate.
"They'll go good fried," he remarked to Bradley, signaling vigorously to
Nerado that the meal was not acceptable and that he wanted to talk to
him, _in person_. Finally he made himself clear, the table sank down out
of sight, and the Nevian commander cautiously entered the room.
At Costigan's insistence, he came up to the plate, leaving near the door
three guards armed with projectors in instant readiness. The operative
then shot the beam into the galley of the pirate's lifeboat, suggesting
that they should be allowed to live there. For some time the argument of
arms and fingers raged--though not exactly a fluent conversation, both
sides managed to convey their meanings quite clearly. Nerado would not
allow the Terrestrials to visit their own ship--he was taking no
chances--but after a thorough ultra-ray inspection he did finally order
some of his men to bring into the middle room the electric range and a
supply of Terrestrial food. Soon the Nevian fish were sizzling in a pan
and the appetizing odors of coffee and of browning biscuit permeated the
room. But at the first appearance of those odors the Nevians departed
hastily, content to watch the remainder of the curious and repulsive
procedure in their visiray plates.
Breakfast over and everything made tidy and shipshape, Costigan turned
to Clio.
"Look here, girl; you've got to learn how to sleep. You're all in. Your
eyes look like you'd been on a Martian picnic and you didn't eat half
enough breakfast. You've got to sleep and eat to keep fit. We don't want
you passing out on us, so I'll put out this light, and you'll lie down
here and sleep until noon."
"Oh, no; don't bother. I'll sleep to-night. I'm quite...."
"You'll sleep now," he informed her, levelly. "I never thought of you
being nervous, with Bradley and me on each side of you. We're both right
here now, though, and we'll stay here. We'll watch over you like a
couple of old hens with one chick between them. Come on; lie down and go
bye-bye."
Clio laughed at the simile, but lay down obediently. Costigan sat upon
the edge of the great divan, holding her hand, and they chatted idly.
The silences grew longer, Clio's remarks became fewer, and soon her
long-lashed lids fell and her deep, regular breathing showed that she
was sound asleep. The man stared at her, his very heart in his eyes. So
young, so beautiful, so lovely--and _how_ he did love her! He was not
formally religious, but his every thought was a sincere prayer. If he
could only get her out of this mess ... he wasn't fit to live on the
same planet with her, but ... just give him one chance, just one!
But Costigan had been laboring for days under a terrific strain, and had
been going very short on sleep. Half hypnotized by his own mixed
emotions and by his staring at the smooth curves of Clio's cheek, his
own eyes closed and, still holding her hand, he sank down into the soft
cushions beside her and into oblivion.
Thus sleeping hand-in-hand like two children Bradley found them, and a
tender, fatherly expression came over his face as he looked down at
them.
"Nice little girl, Clio," he mused, "and when they made Costigan they
broke the mould. They'll do--about as fine a couple of kids as old
Tellus ever produced. I could do with some more sleep myself." He yawned
prodigiously, lay down at Clio's left, and almost instantly was himself
asleep.
Hours later, both men were awakened by a merry peal of laughter. Clio
was sitting up, regarding them with sparkling eyes. She was refreshed,
buoyant, ravenously hungry and highly amused. Costigan was amazed and
annoyed at what he considered a failure in a self-appointed task;
Bradley was calm and matter-of-fact.
"Thanks for being such a nice bodyguard, you two," Clio laughed again,
but sobered quickly. "I slept wonderfully well, but I wonder if I can
sleep to-night without making you hold my hand all night?"
"Oh, he doesn't mind doing that," Bradley commented.
"Mind it!" Costigan exclaimed, and his eyes and his tone spoke volumes
that his tongue left unsaid.
They prepared and ate another meal, one to which Clio did full justice;
and, rested and refreshed, had begun to discuss possibilities of escape
when Nerado and his three armed guards entered the room. The Nevian
scientist placed a box upon a table and began to make adjustments upon
its panels, eyeing the Terrestrials attentively after each setting.
After a time a staccato burst of articulate speech issued from the box,
and Costigan saw a great light.
"You've got it--hold it!" he exclaimed, waving his arms excitedly. "You
see, Clio, their voices are pitched either higher or lower than
ours--probably higher--and they've built an audio-frequency changer.
He's nobody's fool, that fish!"
Nerado heard Costigan's voice; there was no doubt of that. His long neck
looped and angled in Nevian gratification, and, although neither side
could understand the other, both knew that intelligent speech and
hearing were attributes common to the two races. This fact altered
markedly the relations between captors and captives. The Nevians
admitted among themselves that the strange bipeds might be quite
intelligent, after all; and the Terrestrials at once became more
hopeful.
"It isn't so bad, if they can talk," Costigan summed up the situation.
"We might as well take it easy and make the best of it, particularly
since we haven't been able to figure out any possible way of getting
away from them. They can talk and hear, and we can learn their language
in time. Maybe we can make some kind of a deal with them to take us back
to our own system, if we can't make a break."
The Nevians being as eager as the Terrestrials to establish
communication, Nerado kept the newly devised frequency-changer in
constant use. There is no need of describing at length the details of
that interchange of languages. Suffice it to say that starting at the
very bottom they learned as babies learn, but with the great advantage
over babies of possessing fully developed and capable brains. And while
the human beings were learning the tongue of Nevia, several of the
amphibians (and incidentally Clio Marsden) were learning Triplanetarian;
the two officers knowing well that it would be much easier for the
Nevians to learn the logically-built common language of the Three
Planets than to master the senseless intricacies of English.
In a few weeks the two parties were able to understand each other after
a fashion, by using a weird mixture of both languages. As soon as a few
ideas had been exchanged, the Nevian scientists built transformers small
enough to be worn collar-like by the Terrestrials, and the captives were
allowed to roam at will throughout the great vessel; only the
compartment in which was stored the dismembered pirate lifeboats being
sealed to them. Thus it was that they were not left long in doubt, when
another fish-shaped cruiser of the world was revealed upon their lookout
plates in the awful emptiness of interstellar space.
"That is our sister-ship, going to your Solarian system for a cargo of
the iron which is so plentiful there," Nerado explained to his
involuntary guests.
"I hope the gang has got the bugs worked out of our super-ship,"
Costigan muttered savagely to his companions as Nerado turned away. "If
they have, that outfit will get something more than a load of iron when
they get there!"
More weeks passed; weeks during which a blue-white star separated itself
from the infinitely distant firmament and began to show a perceptible
disk. Larger and larger it grew, becoming bluer and bluer as the flying
space-ship approached it, until finally Nevia could be seen, apparently
close beside her parent orb.
Heavily laden though the vessel was, such was her power that she was
soon dropping vertically toward a large lagoon in the middle of the
Nevian city. That bit of open water was strangely devoid of life, for
this was to be no ordinary landing. Under the terrific power of the
beams braking the descent of that unimaginable load of allotropic iron
the water seethed and boiled; and instead of floating gracefully upon
the surface of the sea, this time the huge ship of space sank like a
plummet to the bottom. Having accomplished this delicate feat of docking
the vessel safely in the immense cradle prepared for her, Nerado turned
to the Terrestrials, who, now under guard, had been brought before him.
"While our cargo of iron is being discharged, I am to take you three
Tellurians to the College of Science, where you are to undergo a
thorough physical and psychological examination. Follow me."
"Wait a minute!" protested Costigan, with a quick and furtive wink at
his companions. "Do you expect us to go _through water_, and at this
frightful depth?"
"Certainly," replied the Nevian, in surprise. "You are air-breathers, of
course, but you must be able to swim a little, and this slight
depth--but little more than thirty of your meters--will not trouble
you."
"You are wrong, twice," declared the Terrestrial, convincingly. "If by
'swimming' you mean propelling yourself in or through the water, we know
nothing of it. In water over our heads we drown helplessly in a minute
or two, and the pressure at this depth would kill us instantly."
"Well, I could take a lifeboat, of course, but that...." The Nevian
Captain began, doubtfully, but broke off at the sound of a staccato call
from his signal panel.
"Captain Nerado, attention!"
"Nerado," he acknowledged into a microphone.
"The Third City is being attacked by the fishes of the greater deeps.
They have developed new and powerful mobile fortresses mounting
unheard-of weapons and the city reports that it cannot long withstand
their attack. The inhabitants are asking for all possible help. Your
vessel not only has vast stores of iron, but also mounts weapons of
power. You are requested to proceed to their aid at the earliest
possible moment."
Nerado snapped out orders and the liquid iron fell in streams from
wide-open ports, forming a vast, red pool in the bottom of the dock. In
a short time the great vessel was in equilibrium with the water she
displaced, and as soon as she had attained a slight buoyancy the ports
snapped shut and Nerado threw on the power.
"Go back to your own quarters and stay there until I send for you," the
Nevian directed, and as the Terrestrials obeyed the curt orders the
fish-shaped cruiser of space tore herself from the water and flashed up
into the crimson sky.
"What a barefaced liar!" Bradley exclaimed. The three, transformers cut
off, were back in the middle room of their suite. "You can outswim an
otter, and I happen to know that you came up out of the old DZ83 from a
depth of...."
"Maybe I did exaggerate a trifle," Costigan interrupted him, "but the
more helpless he thinks we are the better for us. And we want to stay
out of any of their cities as long as we can, because they may be hard
places to escape from. I've got a couple of ideas, but they aren't ripe
enough to pick yet.... Wow! how this bird's been traveling! We're there
already! If he hits the water going like this, he'll split himself,
sure!"
With undiminished velocity they were flashing downward in a long slant
toward the beleaguered Third City, and from the flying vessel there was
launched toward the city's central lagoon a torpedo. No missile this,
but a capsule containing a full ton of allotropic iron, which would be
of more use to the Nevian defenders than millions of men. For the Third
City was sore pressed indeed. Around it was one unbroken ring of
boiling, exploding water--water billowing upward with searing, blinding
bursts of superheated steam, or being hurled bodily in all directions in
solid masses by the cataclysmic forces being released by the embattled
fishes of the greater deeps. Her outer defenses were already down, and
even as the Terrestrials stared in amazement another of the immense
hexagonal buildings burst into fragments; its upper structure flying
wildly into scrap metal, its lower half subsiding drunkenly below the
surface of the boiling sea.
The three Terrestrials involuntarily seized whatever supports were at
hand as the Nevian space-ship struck the water with undiminished speed,
but the precaution was needless--Nerado knew thoroughly his vessel, its
strength and its capabilities. There was a mighty splash, but that was
all. The artificial gravity was unchanged by the impact; to the
passengers the vessel was still motionless and on even keel as, now a
submarine, she snapped around like a very fish and attacked the rear of
the nearest fortress.
For fortresses they were; vast structures of green metal, plowing
forward implacably upon immense caterpillar treads. And as they crawled
they destroyed, and Costigan, exploring the strange submarine with his
visiray beam, watched and marveled. For the fortresses were full of
water; water artificially cooled and aerated, entirely separate from the
boiling flood through which they moved. They were manned by fish some
five feet in length. Fish with huge, goggling eyes; fish plentifully
equipped with long, armlike tentacles; fish poised before control panels
or darting about intent upon their various duties. Fish with intelligent
brains, waging desperate war upon a hated foe!
Nor was their warfare ineffectual. Their heat-rays boiled the water for
hundreds of yards before them and their torpedoes were exploding against
the Nevian defenses in one appallingly continuous concussion. But most
potent of all was a weapon unknown to Triplanetary warfare. From a
fortress there would shoot out, with the speed of a meteor, a long,
jointed, telescopic rod, tipped with a tiny, brilliantly shining ball.
Whenever this glowing tip encountered any obstacle, that obstacle
disappeared in an explosion world-wracking in its intensity. Then what
was left of the rod, dark now, would be retracted into the
fortress--only to emerge again in a moment with a tip once more shining
and potent.
Nerado, apparently as unfamiliar with the peculiar weapon as were the
Terrestrials, attacked cautiously; sending out far to the fore his
murkily impenetrable screens of red. But the submarine was entirely
non-ferrous, and its officers were apparently quite familiar with the
Nevian beams which licked at and clung to the green walls in impotent
fury. Through the red veil came stabbing tiny ball after brilliant ball,
and only the most frantic dodging saved the space-ship from destruction
in those first few furious seconds. And now the Nevian defenders of the
Third City had secured and were employing the vast store of allotropic
iron so opportunely delivered by Nerado.
From the city there pushed out immense nets of metal, extending from the
surface of the ocean to its bottom; nets radiating such terrific forces
that the very water itself was beaten back and stood motionless in
vertical, glassy walls. Torpedoes were futile against that wall of
energy. The most fiercely driven rays of the fishes flamed incandescent
against it, in vain. Even the incredible violence of a concentration of
every available force-ball against one point could not break through. At
that unimaginable explosion water was hurled for miles. The bed of the
ocean was not only exposed, but in it there was blown a crater at whose
dimensions the Terrestrials dared not even guess. The crawling
fortresses themselves were thrown backward violently and the very world
was rocked to its core by the concussion, but that iron-driven wall
held. The massive nets swayed and gave back, and tidal waves hurled
their mountainously destructive masses through the Third City, but the
mighty barrier remained intact. And Nerado, still attacking two of the
powerful tanks with his every weapon, was still dodging those flashing
balls charged with the quintessence of destruction. The fishes could not
see through the sub-ethereal veil, but all the rod-gunners of the two
fortresses were combing it thoroughly with ever-lengthening,
ever-thrusting rods, in a desperate attempt to wipe out the new and
apparently all-powerful Nevian submarine, whose sheer power was slowly
but inexorably crushing even their gigantic walls.
"Well, I think that right now's the best chance we'll ever have of doing
something for ourselves." Costigan turned away from the absorbing scenes
pictured upon the visiplate and faced his two companions.
"But what can we possibly do?" asked Clio, and
"Whatever it is, we'll try it!" Bradley exclaimed.
"Anything's better than staying here and letting them analyze us--no
telling what they'd do to us," Costigan went on. "I know a lot more
about things than they think I do. They never did catch me using my
spy-ray--it's on an awfully narrow beam, you know, and uses almost no
power at all--so I've been able to dope out quite a lot of stuff. I can
open most of their locks, and I know how to run their small boats. This
battle, fantastic as it is, is deadly stuff, and it isn't one-sided, by
any means, either, so that every one of them, from Nerado down, seems to
be on emergency duty. There are no guards watching us, or stationed
where we want to go--our way out is open. And once out, this battle is
giving us our best possible chance to get away from them. There's so
much emission out there already that they probably couldn't detect the
driving rays of the lifeboat, and they'll be too busy to chase us,
anyway."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14