Part 22 (2/2)
”Whatever it is, we'll try it!” Bradley exclaimed.
”Anything's better than staying here and letting them a.n.a.lyze 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 force of the lifeboat, and they'll be too busy to chase us, anyway.”
”Once out, then what?” asked Bradley.
”We'll have to decide that before we start, of course. I'd say make a break back for Earth. We know the direction and we'll have plenty of power.”
”But good Heavens, Conway, it's so far!” exclaimed Clio. ”How about food, water, and air-would we ever get there?”
”You know as much about that as I do. I think so, but of course anything might happen. This s.h.i.+p is none too big, is considerably slower than the big s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p, and we're a long ways from home. Another bad thing is the food question. The boat is well stocked according to Nevian ideas, but it's pretty foul stuff for us to eat. However, it's nouris.h.i.+ng, and we'll have to eat it, since we can't carry enough of our own supplies to the boat to last long. Even so, we may have to go on short rations, but I think that we'll be able to make it. On the other hand, what happens if we stay here? They will find us sooner or later, and we don't know any too much about these ultra-weapons. We are land-dwellers, and there is little if any land on this planet. Then, too, we don't know where to look for what land there may be, and even if we could find it, we know that it is all over-run with amphibians already. There's a lot of things that might be better, but they might be a lot worse, too. How about it? Do we try or do we stay here?”
”We try it!” exclaimed Clio and Bradley, as one.
”All right. I'd better not waste any more time talking-let's go!”
Stepping up to the locked and s.h.i.+elded door, he took out a peculiarly built torch and pointed it at the Nevian lock. There was no light, no noise, but the ma.s.sive portal swung smoothly open. They stepped out and Costigan relocked and res.h.i.+elded the entrance.
”How ... what....” Clio demanded.
”I've been going to school for the last few weeks,” Costigan grinned, ”and I've picked up quite a few things here and there-literally, as well as figuratively. Snap it up, guys! Our armor is stored with the pieces of the pirates' lifeboat, and I'll feel a lot better when we've got it on and have hold of a few Lewistons.”
They hurried down corridors, up ramps, and along hallways, with Costigan's spy-ray investigating the course ahead for chance Nevians. Bradley and Clio were unarmed, but the operative had found a piece of flat metal and had ground it to a razor edge.
”I think I can throw this thing straight enough and fast enough to chop off a Nevian's head before he can put a paralyzing ray on us,” he explained grimly, but he was not called upon to show his skill with the improvised cleaver.
As he had concluded from his careful survey, every Nevian was at some control or weapon, doing his part in that frightful combat with the denizens of the greater deeps. Their path was open; they were neither molested nor detected as they ran toward the compartment within which was sealed all their belongings. The door of that room opened, as had the other, to Costigan's knowing beam; and all three set hastily to work. They made up packs of food, filled their capacious pockets with emergency rations, buckled on Lewistons and automatics, donned their armor, and clamped into their external holsters a full complement of additional weapons.
”Now comes the ticklish part of the business,” Costigan informed the others. His helmet was slowly turning this way and that, and the others knew that through his spy-ray goggles he was studying their route. ”There's only one boat we stand a chance of reaching, and somebody's mighty apt to see us. There's a lot of detectors up there, and we'll have to cross a corridor full of communicator beams. There, that line's off-scoot!”
At his word they dashed out into the hall and hurried along for minutes, dodging sharply to right or left as the leader snapped out orders. Finally he stopped.
”Here's those beams I told you about. We'll have to roll under 'em. They're less than waist high-right there's the lowest one. Watch me do it, and when I give you the word, one at a time, you do the same. Keep low-don't let an arm or a leg get up into a ray or they may see us.”
He threw himself flat, rolled upon the floor a yard or so, and scrambled to his feet. He gazed intently at the blank wall for a s.p.a.ce.
”Bradley-now!” he snapped, and the captain duplicated his performance.
But Clio, unused to the heavy and c.u.mbersome s.p.a.ce-armor she was wearing, could not roll in it with any degree of success. When Costigan barked his order she tried, but stopped, floundering almost directly below the network of invisible beams. As she struggled one mailed arm went up, and Costigan saw in his ultra-goggles the faint flash as the beam encountered the interfering field. But already he had acted. Crouching low, he struck down the arm, seized it, and dragged the girl out of the zone of visibility. Then in furious haste he opened a nearby door and all three sprang into a tiny compartment.
”Shut off all the fields of your suits, so that they can't interfere!” he hissed into the utter darkness. ”Not that I'd mind killing a few of them, but if they start an organized search we're sunk. But even if they did get a warning by touching your glove, Clio, they probably won't suspect us. Our rooms are still s.h.i.+elded, and the chances are that they're too busy to bother much about us, anyway.”
He was right. A few beams darted here and there, but the Nevians saw nothing amiss and ascribed the interference to the falling into the beam of some chance bit of charged metal. With no further misadventures the fugitives gained entrance to the Nevian lifeboat, where Costigan's first act was to disconnect one steel boot from his armor of s.p.a.ce. With a sigh of relief he pulled his foot out of it, and from it carefully poured into the small power-tank of the craft fully thirty pounds of allotropic iron!
”I pinched it off them,” he explained, in answer to amazed and inquiring looks, ”and maybe you don't think it's a relief to get it out of that boot! I couldn't steal a flask to carry it in, so this was the only place I could put it. These lifeboats are equipped with only a couple of grams of iron apiece, you know, and we couldn't get half-way back to Tellus on that, even with smooth going; and we may have to fight. With this much to go on, though, we could go to Andromeda, fighting all the way. Well, we'd better break away.”
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