Part 5 (1/2)

Half a mile below the enemy s.h.i.+p was vainly scurrying around an empty sky. Wade laughed at the strange resemblance to a puppy chasing its tail. The _Ancient Mariner_ was utterly lost to them.

”Well, here goes the last trick,” said Arcot grimly. ”If this doesn't work, they'll probably win, for their tubes are better than ours, and they can maneuver faster. By win I mean force us to let them attack Ortol. They can't really attack us; artificial s.p.a.ce is a perfect defense.”

Arcot's molecular ray apprized the Thessians of his presence. Their screen flared up once more. Arcot was driving straight toward their s.h.i.+p as they turned. He snapped the relux screens in front of his eyes an instant before the enemy cosmics reached his s.h.i.+p. Immediately the thud of four heavy relays rang through the s.h.i.+p. The quarter of a million ton s.h.i.+p leaped forward under a terrific acceleration, and then, as the four relays cut out again, the acceleration was gone. The screen regained life as Arcot opened the shutters. Before them, still directly in their path, was the huge Thessian s.h.i.+p. But now its screen was down, the relux iridescent in decomposition. It was falling, helplessly falling to the rocky plateau seven miles below. Its rays reached out even yet--and again the _Ancient Mariner_ staggered under the terrific pull of some acceleration. The Thessian s.h.i.+p lurched upward, and a terrific concussion came, and the entire neighborhood of that projector disappeared in a flash of radiation.

Arcot drove the _Ancient Mariner_ down beneath the Thessian s.h.i.+p in its long fall, and with a powerful molecular beam ripped a mighty chasm in the deserted plateau. The Thessian s.h.i.+p fell into a quarter mile rift in the solid rock, smas.h.i.+ng its way through falling debris. A moment later it was buried beneath a quarter mile of broken rock as Arcot swept a molecular beam about with the grace of a mine foreman filling breaks.

An instant later, a heat ray followed the molecular in dazzling brilliance. A terrific gout of light appeared in the barren rocks. In ten minutes the plateau was a white hot cauldron of molten rocks, glowing now against a darkening sky. Night was falling.

”That s.h.i.+p,” said Arcot with an air of finality, ”will never rise again.”

Chapter VI

THE SECOND MOVE

”What happened to him, though?” asked Wade, bewildered. ”I haven't yet figured it out. He went down in a heap, and he didn't have any power. Of course, if he had his power he could have pulled out again. He could just melt and burn all the excess rock off, and he would be all set. But his rays all went dead. And why the explosion?”

”The magnetic beam is the answer. In our boat we have everything magnetically s.h.i.+elded, because of the enormous magnetic flux set up by the current flowing from the storage coils to the main coil. But--with so many wires heavily charged with current, what would have happened if they had not been s.h.i.+elded?

”If a current cuts across a magnetic field, a side thrust is developed.

What do you suppose happened when the terrific magnetic field of the beam and the currents in the wires of their power-board were mutually opposed?”

”Lord, it must have ripped away everything in the s.h.i.+p. It'd tear loose even the lighting wires!” gasped Wade in amazement.

”But if all the power of the s.h.i.+p was destroyed in this way, how was it that one of their rays was operating as they fell?” asked Zezdon Afthen.

”Each ray is a power plant in itself,” explained Arcot, ”and so it was able to function. I do not know the cause of the explosion, though it might well have been that they had light-bombs such as the Kaxorians of Venus have,” he added, thoughtfully.

They landed, at Zezdon's advice, in the city that their arrival had been able to save. This was Ortol's largest city, and their industrial capital. Here, too, was the University at which Afthen taught.

They landed, and Arcot, Morey and Wade, with the aid of Zezdon Afthen and Zezdon Fentes worked steadily for two of their days of fifty hours each, teaching men how to make and use the molecular s.h.i.+ps, and the rays and screens, heat beams, and relux. But Arcot promised that when he returned he would have some weapon that would bring them certain and easy salvation. In the meantime other terrestrians would follow him.

They left the morning of their third day on the planet. A huge crowd had come to cheer them on their way as they left, but it was the ”silent cheer” of Ortol, a telepathic well-wis.h.i.+ng.

”Now,” said Arcot as their s.h.i.+p left the planet behind, ”we will have to make the next move. It certainly looks as though that next move would be to the still-unknown race that lives on world 3769-37, 478, 326, 894-6.

Evidently we will have to have some weapon they haven't, and I think that I know what it will be. Thanks to our trip out to the Islands of s.p.a.ce.”

”Shall we go?”

”I think it would be wise,” agreed Morey.

”And I,” said Wade. The Ortolians agreed, and so, with the aid of the photographic copies of the Thessian charts that Arcot had made, they started for world 3769-37, 478, 326, 894-6.

”It will take approximately twenty-two hours, and as we have been putting off our sleep with drugs, I think that we had better catch up.

Wade, I wish you'd take the s.h.i.+p again, while Morey and I do a little concentrated sleeping. We have by no means finished that calculation, and I'd very much like to. We'll relieve you in five hours.”

Wade took the s.h.i.+p, and following the course Arcot laid out, they sped through the void at the greatest safe speed. Wade had only to watch the view-screen carefully, and if a star showed as growing rapidly, it was proof that they were near, and nearing rapidly. If large, a touch of a switch, and they dodged to one side, if small, they were suddenly plunged into an instant of unbelievable radiation as they swept through it, in a different s.p.a.ce, yet linked to it by radiation, not light, that were permitted in.

Zezdon Afthen had elected to stay with him, which gave him an opportunity he had been waiting for. ”If it's none of my business, just say so,” he began. ”But that first city we saw the Thessians destroy--it was Zezdon Fentes' home, wasn't it? Did he have a family?”