Part 21 (1/2)
A huge spot on the side of the s.h.i.+p had become incandescent. A vapor, a strange puff of smokiness exploded from it, and disappeared instantly.
Another came and faster and faster they followed each other. The cosmium was disintegrating under the ray, but very slowly, breaking first into gaseous cosmic rays, then free, and spreading.
”We will not fight,” muttered Morey happily as he saw Arcot s.h.i.+ft in his seat.
Arcot picked the moleculars. They reached out, touched the heavy relux of the fort, and it exploded into opalescence that was hazily white, the colors s.h.i.+fted so quickly. A screen sprang into being, and the ray was chopped off. The screen was a ma.s.s of darting flames as energies of stupendous magnitude clashed.
Arcot used a bit more of his inconceivable power. The ray struck the screen, and it flashed once--then died into blackness. The fort suddenly crumpled in like a dented can, and rolled clumsily away. The other fort was near now, and started an attack of its own. Arcot chose the artificial matter this time. He was not watching the many attacking s.h.i.+ps.
The great s.h.i.+p careened suddenly, fell over heavily to one side.
”Foolish of me,” said Arcot. ”They tried cras.h.i.+ng us.”
A ma.s.s of crumpled, broken relux and lux surrounded by a haze of gas lying against a slight scratch on the great sides, told the story. Eight inches of cosmium does not give way.
Yet another s.h.i.+p tried it. But it stopped several feet away from the real wall of the s.h.i.+p. It struck a wall even more unyielding--artificial matter.
But now Arcot was using this major weapon--artificial matter. s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p, whether fleeing or attacking, was surrounded suddenly by a great sphere of it, a sudden terrific blaze of energy as the sphere struck the ray s.h.i.+eld, the control forces now backed by the energy of all the millions of stars of s.p.a.ce shattered it in an instant. Then came the inexorable crush of the artificial matter, and a ball of matter alone remained.
But the pressing disc of the battle-front which had been lowering on Chicago, greatest of Earth's metropolises, was lifted. This disc-front was staggering back now as Arcot's mighty s.h.i.+p weakened its strength, and destroyed its morale, under the steady drive of the now hopeful Solarians.
The other gigantic fort moved up now, with twenty of the largest battles.h.i.+ps. The fort turned loose its destructive ray--and Arcot tried his new ”magnet.” It was not a true magnet, but a transformed s.p.a.ce field, a field created by the energy of all the universe.
The fort was gigantic. Even Arcot's mighty s.h.i.+p was a small thing beside it, but suddenly it seemed warped and twisted as s.p.a.ce curved visibly in a magnetic field of such terrific intensity as to be immeasurable.
Arcot's armory was tested and found not wanting.
Suddenly every Thessian s.h.i.+p in sight ceased to exist. They disappeared.
Instantly Arcot threw on all time power, and darted toward Venus. The Thessians were already nearing the planet, and no possible rays could overtake them. An instantaneous touch of the s.p.a.ce control, and the mighty s.h.i.+p was within hundreds of miles of the atmosphere.
s.p.a.ce twisted about them, reeled, and was firm. The Thessian fleet was before them in a moment, visible now as they slowed to normal speed.
Startled, no doubt, to find before them the s.h.i.+p they had fled, they charged on for a s.p.a.ce. Then, as though by some magic, they stopped and exploded in gouts of light.
When s.p.a.ce had twisted, seconds before, it was because Arcot had drawn on the enormous power of s.p.a.ce to an extent that had been appreciable even to it--ten sols. That was forty million tons of matter a second, and for a hundredth part of a second it had flowed. Before them, in a vast plane, had been created an infinitesimally thin film of artificial matter, four hundred thousand tons of it, and into this invisible, infinitely hard barrier, the Thessian fleet had rammed. And it was gone.
”I think,” said Arcot softly, as he took off his headpiece, ”that the beginning of the end is in sight.”
”And I,” said Morey, ”think it is now out of sight. Half a dozen s.h.i.+ps stopped. And they are gone now, to warn the others.”
”What warning? What can they tell? Only that their s.h.i.+ps were destroyed by something they couldn't see.” Arcot smiled. ”I'm going home.”
Chapter XX
DESTRUCTION
Some time later, Arcot spoke. ”I have just received a message from Zezdon Fentes that he has an important communication to make, so I will go down to New York instead of to Chicago, if you gentlemen do not mind.
Morey will take you to Chicago in the tender, and I can find Zezdon Fentes.”