Part 6 (2/2)

”That's no mild dose,” he said in a tense voice, working rapidly. ”He's a real-for-sure battles.h.i.+p. Better get down in the power room, Morey.”

In a few moments the s.h.i.+p was ready again. Opening the s.h.i.+eld somewhat, Arcot was able to determine that no rays were being played on it, for no energy fields disclosed as distorting the opened field, other than the field of the sun and planet.

Arcot opened it. The battles.h.i.+p was searching vainly about the mountains, and was now some miles distant. His last view of Arcot's s.h.i.+p had been a suddenly contracting s.h.i.+p, one that vanished in infinite distance, the infinite distance of another s.p.a.ce, though he did not know it.

Arcot turned three powerful heat beams on the Thessian s.h.i.+p, and drove down toward it, accompanying them with molecular rays. The Thessian s.h.i.+eld stopped the moleculars, but the heat had already destroyed the eyes of the s.h.i.+p. By some system of magnetic or electrostatic locating devices, the enemy guns and rays replied, and so successfully that Arcot was again blinded.

He had again been driving in a line straight toward the enemy, and now he threw in the entire power of his huge magnetic field-rays. The induction ray disappeared, and the heat, light and cannons stopped.

”Worked again,” grinned Arcot. A new set of eyes was inserted automatically, and the screen again lighted. The Thessian s.h.i.+p was spinning end over end toward the ground. It landed with a tremendous crash. Simultaneously from the rear of the _Ancient Mariner_ came a terrific crash, an explosion that drove the terrestrian s.h.i.+p forward, as though a giant hand had pushed it from behind.

The _Ancient Mariner_ spun like a top, facing the direction of the explosion, though still traveling in the direction it had been pursuing, but backward now. Behind them the air was a gigantic pool of ionization.

Tremendous fragments of what obviously had been a s.h.i.+p were drifting down, turning end over end. And those fragments of the wall showed them to be fully four feet of solid relux.

”Enemy got up behind somehow while the eyes were out, and was ready to raise merry h.e.l.l. Somebody blew them up beautifully. Look at the ground down there--it's red hot. That's from the radiated heat of our recent encounter. Heat rays reflected, light bombs turned off, heat escaping from ions--nice little workout--and it didn't seriously bother our defenses of two-inch relux. Now tell me: what will blow up four-foot relux?” asked Arcot, looking at the fragments. ”It seems to me those fellows don't need any help from us; they may decline it with thanks.”

”But they may be willing to help us,” replied Afthen, ”and we certainly need such help.”

”I didn't expect to come out alive from that battles.h.i.+p there. It was luck. If they knew what we had, they could insulate against it in an hour,” added Arcot.

”Let's finish those fellows over there--look!” From the wreck of the s.h.i.+p they had downed, a stream of men in glistening relux suits were filing. Any men comparable to humans would have been killed by the fall, but not Thessians. They carried peculiar machines, and as they drove out of the s.h.i.+p in dive that looked as though they had been shot from a cannon, they turned and landed on the ground and proceeded to jump back, leaping at a speed that was bewildering, seemingly impossible in any living creature.

They busied themselves quickly. It took less than thirty seconds, and they had a large relux disc laid under the entire group and machines.

Arcot turned a molecular ray down. The rock and soil shot up all about them, even the s.h.i.+p shot up, to fall back into the great pit its ray had formed. But the ionization told of the ray s.h.i.+eld over the little group of men. A heat ray reached down, while the men still frantically worked at their stubby projectors. The relux disc now showed its purpose. In an instant the soil about them was white hot, bubbling lava. It was liquid, boiling furiously. But the deep relux disc simply floated on it. The enemy s.h.i.+p began sinking, and in a moment had fallen almost completely beneath the white hot rock.

A fountain of the melted lava sprung up, and under Arcot's skillful direction, fell in a cloud of molten rock on the men working. The suits protected, and the white hot stuff simply rolled off. But it was sinking their boat. Arcot continued hopefully.

Meanwhile a signaling machine was frantically calling for help and sending out information of their plight and position.

Then all was instantly wiped out in a single terrific jolt of the magnetic beam. The machines jumped a little, despite their weight, and the ray s.h.i.+eld apparatus slumped suddenly in blazing white heat, the interior mechanism fused. But the men were still active, and rapidly spreading from the spot, each protected by a ray s.h.i.+eld pack.

A brilliant stab of molecular ray shot at each from either of two of the _Ancient Mariner'_s projectors as Morey aided Arcot. Their little packs flared brilliantly for an instant under the thousands of horsepower of energy las.h.i.+ng at the screen, then flashed away, and the opalescent relux yielded a moment later, and the figure went twisting, hurtling away. Meanwhile Wade was busy with the magnetic apparatus, destroying s.h.i.+eld after s.h.i.+eld, which either Arcot or Morey picked off. The fall from even so much as half a mile seemed not sufficient to seriously bother these supermen, for an instant later they would be up tearing away in great leaps on their own power as their molecular suits, blown out by the magnetic field, failed them.

It was but a matter of minutes before the last had been chased down either by the rays or the s.h.i.+p. Then, circling back, Arcot slowly settled beside the enemy s.h.i.+p.

”Wait,” called Arcot sharply as Morey started for the door.

”Don't go out yet. The friends who wrecked that little sweetheart who crept up behind will probably show up. Wait and see what happens.”

Hardly had he spoken, when a strange apparition rose from behind a rock scarcely a quarter of a mile away. Immediately Arcot intensified the vision screen covering him. He seemed to leap near. There was one man, and he held what was obviously a sword by the blade, above his head, waving it from side to side.

”There they are--whatever they are. Intelligent all right--what more universally obvious peace sign than a primitive weapon such as a knife held in reverse position? You go with Zezdon Afthen. Try holding a carving knife by the blade.”

Morey grinned as he got into his power suit, on Wade's O.K. of the atmosphere. ”They may mistake me for the cook out looking for dinner, and I wouldn't risk my dignity that way. I'll take the baseball bat and hold it wrong way instead.”

Nevertheless, as he stepped from the s.h.i.+p, with Afthen close behind, he held the long knife by the blade, and Afthen, very awkwardly operating his still rather unfamiliar power suit, followed.

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