Part 54 (1/2)

I held my bomb out over the s.h.i.+eld, calculating the angle to throw it down. The brigand rays flashed around me. They were horribly close; Miko had understood our sudden visible s.h.i.+ft and aimed, not where we appeared to be, but approximately where we had been before.

I dropped my bomb hastily at the glowing white s.h.i.+p. The touch of a hostile ray would have exploded it in my hand. I saw others dropping also from our nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in a confusion of the white glare--and a cloud of black mist as the brigands out on the rocks used their darkness bombs.

We swept past in a blur of leaping hostile beams. Silent battle of lights! Darkness bombs down at the s.h.i.+p struggling to bar our camp searchray. The Benson radiance rays from our pa.s.sing platforms, curving down to mingle with the confusion. The electronic rays sending up their bolts....

Our platforms dropped some ten dynamitrine bombs in that first pa.s.sage over the s.h.i.+p. As we sped by, I dimmed the Benson radiance. I peered.

We had not hit the s.h.i.+p. Or if we had, the damage was inconclusive.

But on the rocks I could see a pile of ore carts scattered--broken wreckage, in which the litter of two or three projectors seemed strewn. And the gruesome deflated forms of several helmeted figures.

Others seemed to be running, scattering--hiding in the rocks and pit-holes. Twenty brigands at least were outside the s.h.i.+p. Some were running over toward the base of our camp ledge. The darkness bombs were spreading like a curtain over the valley floor; but it seemed that some of the figures were dragging their projectors away.

We sailed off toward the opposite crater rim. I remember pa.s.sing over the broken wreckage of Grantline's little s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, the _Comet_.

Miko's bolts momentarily had vanished. We had hit some of his outside projectors; the others were abandoned, or being dragged to safer positions.

After a mile we wheeled and went back. I suddenly realized that only four platforms were in the re-formed line ahead of us. One was missing! I saw it now, wavering down, close over the s.h.i.+p. A bolt leaped up diagonally from a distant angle on the rocks and caught the disabled platform. It fell, whirling, glowing red--disappeared into the blur of darkness like a bit of heated metal plunged into water.

One out of six of our platforms already lost! Three men of our small force gone!

But Grantline led us desperately back. Anita caught his signal to break our line. The five platforms scattered, dipping and wheeling like frightened birds--blurring shapes, s.h.i.+fting unnaturally in flight as the Benson curve lights were altered.

Anita now took our platform in a long swoop downward. Her tense, murmured voice sounded in my ears:

”Hold off; I'll take us low.”

A melee. Pa.s.sing platform shapes. The darting bolts, crossing like ancient rapiers. Falling blue points of fuse lights as we threw our bombs.

Down in a swoop. Then rising. Away, and then back. This silent warfare of lights! It seemed that around me must be bursting a pandemonium of sound. Yet there was none. Silent, blurred melee, infinitely frightening. A bolt struck us, clung for an instant; but we weathered it. The light was blinding. Through my gloves I could feel the tingle of the over charged s.h.i.+eld as it caught and absorbed the hostile bombardment. Under me the platform seemed heated. My little Erentz motors ran with ragged pulse. I got too much oxygen. I was dully smothering....

Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. I s.h.i.+fted over.

”Anita! Anita, dear, are you all right?”

”Yes, Gregg. All right.”

The melee went on. The brigand s.h.i.+p and all its vicinity were enveloped in dark mist now--a turgid sable curtain, made more dense by the dissipating heavy fumes of our exploding bombs which settled low over the s.h.i.+p and the rocks nearby. The searchlight from our camp strove futilely to penetrate the cloud.

Our platforms were separated. One went by, high over us. I saw another dart close beneath my s.h.i.+eld.

”G.o.d, Anita!”

”Too close! I didn't see it.”

Almost a collision.

”Gregg, haven't we broken the s.h.i.+p's dome yet?”

It seemed not. I had dropped nearly all my bombs. This could not go on much longer. Had it been only about five minutes? Only that? Reason told me so, yet it seemed an eternity of horror.

Another swoop. My last bomb. Anita had brought us into position to fling it. But I could not. A bolt stabbed up from the gloom and caught us. We huddled, pulling the s.h.i.+elds up and over us.