Hastily Glayne jumped out of the flier and hurried to the navigation bridge, dropping Niala in her quarters along the way. Harbin would take General Ganser—the precious, indispensable Ganser—to Surgery for facial repairs.
Graysen nodded at him, as taciturn as ever. "Your orbit, Captain?"
"Anywhere," Glayne replied. "Anywhere, just so long as we get far enough out of this system to drop into sub-space." He rubbed his bristly chin for a moment, thinking. "Make it eight G's," he added.
Graysen acknowledged and turned away. Almost immediately the inert screens were dropped and a floor began to build under Glayne's feet. By the time he had mounted to the Captain's Station, he was panting with effort. Automatically he jabbed an anti-thrust surette into his arm and felt his muscles relax instantaneously under the influence of the magic drug.
The inter-ship communicator phones gurgled over his head for a couple of seconds, then Brodis' voice issued from the speaker: "The General is floating up to his ears in verchromynal, Captain. They're putting his face back together right now. Give the word and I'll go to work on him, thrust or no thrust."
"No," Glayne replied. "We'll make sub-space in a few hours. Then we'll have all the time we need to pump him. And, Lieutenant...."
"Sir?"
"Prepare the General's very own treatments for him."
Brodis paused for an appreciable instant, then said, "Right, Captain," and cut off.
Glayne watched the globe of Sterle II diminish in his battle screen with deep satisfaction. The first step in his plan had been carried off with miraculous good fortune. Now the most pressing necessity was speed. Once theAlgolwas sufficiently far from mass to drop into sub-space, the mysterious power source of the Delbans would be only a couple of hours distant at the most. With Ganser under control and acting as a safe conduct, Glayne saw success dangling just within his fingers.
Yet deep within his nether-mind he felt a twinge of foreboding—as if he had forgotten some vital factor in his calculations. The dim awareness was almost on the threshold of prescience, but it was too indistinct for him to make out clearly. Uneasily he sought to ignore it but could not.
VI
In sub-space, time crept along in low gear. Glayne was aware of the fact that five hours in sub-space corresponded to about forty minutes in flat, normal space due to the difference in time rates. But time was time, whether fast or slow. General Hoteh Ganser also realized that time was passing; in fact, he exerted every effort to increase the length of time theAlgolwould have to remain in sub-space.
Sullenly he stared at Brodis and Glayne as they stood over him. There was a hint of amusement in the depths of his peculiar, crimson eyes.
"You deserve congratulations in the success of your attack, Captain Glayne," he said mockingly. "A touch of bravado here, a bit too audacious there ... but, all in all, quite well executed. His Excellency will remember it for a long time. In fact, your success now will add to his delight at witnessing your Vibra-Death later."
Glayne suppressed an involuntary shudder. What a fertile imagination the Delban had!
"Shut up!" snapped Brodis with disgust in his voice. "You might as well make it easier for yourself, Ganser. Relax your mind barriers or we will smash them down and drag the information from you. Either way, we'll get it in the end!"
Ganser sneered at the young Guardian.
"I can loosen him up with some physical persuasion, Captain," suggested Brodis hopefully.
Ganser made an obscene remark which brought Brodis to his feet, enraged. The young officer was on the verge of clobbering him with a meaty fist, but Glayne stopped him.
"Such an old veteran as the General is certain to have taken the precaution of having automatic anesthesia cultures introduced into his blood stream," he said. "He would like nothing better than to have you strike him because the sustained trauma of physical pain would trigger the anesthesia and make him unconscious for as long as forty-eight hours."
Ganser made a mocking bow to Glayne.
The Guardian Captain rubbed his cheek wearily. Nothing else but the Ganser conditioner probe now, he realized. He caught Brodis' eye and moved his head slightly in the direction of the gleaming mass of coils and the huge helmet which was the Ganser conditioner.
Brodis nodded. With the aid of a couple of the technicians he set the helmet down carefully over the General's bald pate.
"Have you ever tried these wonderful treatments of yours, General?" Brodis inquired with clinical detachment. "They eliminate all your worries in instants, I understand. They can even make a new man of you, I'm told."
Ganser remained obstinately silent as the massive helmet was adjusted about his head and clamped to the chair in which he was secured. In spite of himself Glayne admired the Delban's strength of will. He, if anyone, should know the mental anguish of the conditioner. But now it was dog eat dog, kill or be killed, and the devil take the hindmost. He nodded imperceptibly to Brodis who was waiting for the signal to begin.
Hours passed and Glayne cursed each inexorable minute. He and Brodis and the four grey-faced technicians were wet with perspiration. Ganser drooped in the chair, but his crimson eyes still blazed with fanatical hatred.
"Lord, what barriers!" whispered Brodis. He stared with fascination at the indomitable Delban.
"What is the power source?" Glayne asked repeatedly, holding his face impassive through sheer force of will. "You want to help us, Guardian. Tell us about the broadcast power."
The conditioned self was slowly beginning to take shape in Ganser's mind. It offered a new set of values, new goals and desires, uppermost of which was to give all possible aid to the Stellar Guardians. Thus the Ganser-personality they were so painstakingly superimposing upon the Delban was almost that of a Stellar Guardian. Gradually they saw it appear in the Delban's crimson eyes.
"The Tane Jewel," he whispered. "Found it in space ... no bigger than a Terran grapefruit. Engineers ... found way to drain its power potential ... almost infinite."
The Tane! The Flame-Jewel of the Elder Tane!
Glayne was stunned. He remembered the legends he had heard of the incredible Tane—weird creatures who had ruled the Galaxy long before the existence of protein life forms. He even recalled the tales of their fabulous Second Universe in which they had sought refuge in order to maintain an artificial stasis and escape extermination. Ever since the discovery of the Tane legends, scientists had speculated about the Second Universe and the titanic source of power it represented. And now it had been found by the Delban Empire and was at the disposal of Gort Bro-Doral.
What had Ganser called it? AJewel—and no larger than a grapefruit! Incredulously Glayne snapped a glance at one of the technicians who was watching the jerking movements of the lie detector stylus on its graphed scroll. The man looked up and nodded, his mouth a tight line across his face.
Glayne turned back to the Delban prisoner. "Where is the power broadcast from, Guardian?" he asked urgently.
"Tjadlinn," muttered Ganser, under the control of a pseudo-Guardian personality. "Jorger Sun ... deep helio orbit. The planetless Jorger Sun—remember,wewere commissioned to clear it of meteor drift. Latertheybuilt the Tjadlinn discoid around the Jewel...."
Glayne smiled mirthlessly. So the Delbans had planted the Jewel right under their noses. Yet what more logical place! He recalled the job he had supervised there five years before. The Delbans were going to build a power research station in an orbit about the planetless sun—a practice common in many Sectors.
Glayne tensed as he leaned toward Ganser to ask a third question. It was the crucial one and the others knew it. There was a hushed silence as Glayne asked:
"What is the frequency of the Jewel power broadcast? What do you know about the design of the mesh receiving antennae? Tell us, Guardian. We need your help."
Silence followed Glayne's question. It lengthened and became unbearable.
At last: "The mesh antennae are manufactured at the secret Karkara Fleet Station on Scone III. It is defended by Jewel-powered Kellander batteries in addition to secondary auxiliary projectors. The approach code is not available to me. Neither is there information available on broadcast frequencies or antenna design."
Glayne smashed his fist against his leg in violent disappointment. The facts were simply not available in Ganser's mind, so the pseudo-Guardian personality naturally failed to produce them. Again Glayne felt a twinge of respect for the Delban. If anyone knew the technical secrets of the Jewel broadcast, it should have been Ganser. But the Delban's wily cunning had thwarted them. He had carefully avoided all technical knowledge of the Jewel, anticipating an attempt to drain his mind.
There was only one course open to him now. Attack Tjadlinn! He looked at his wrist-chrono. Twelve hours they had spent in this nether-space! It was inconceivable. Glayne swore to himself and thought furiously.
According to Ganser, the mass of the Tjadlinn discoid was too slight to maintain an interstellar telephone; only message craft connected it with the rest of Bro-Doral's empire. That was a break, thought Glayne. In spite of the time they had spent in sub-space, they might still reach Jorger Sun before a warning came from Sterle II. With Ganser under their control and posing as a guide, they could bluff through the outer defenses of the Jewel station. Once inside, they would have to take the breaks as they came.
His shoulders suddenly sagged at the appalling decision he would have to make. Once within the discoid, he would be cut off from outside communication and could not warn the fleet if anything went wrong. On the other hand, the fleet had to be standing by or there was no possible chance of success. Desperately he sought for alternatives to his scheme but none presented themselves. The Terran Combine's last chance rested within his own hands, he realized grimly. An immediate decision had to be made. But if he failed....
With sudden resolve he crushed out his burning doubts and turned to Brodis. "Take the fastest flier we have, dope yourself up with verchromynal, and go to the Stellar Guardian Communication Station at Zandrome. They generate enough power there to push a message over the interstellar telephone to Dorleb in thirty-five minutes. Contact Admiral Garstow. Give him all the information we have and tell him that Scone III will be without Jewel power in forty-eight hours. Have him advise Admiral Bardled of the Terran Fleet that his aid is essential. Inform Garstow that every available fleet unitmustbe at Scone III in forty-eight hours. Hurry!"
Brodis reached the door in one jump and was half-way down the corridor in another. Glayne watched him go, bleakly phrasing the rest of the message under his breath.Garstow, he thought,you will be slaughtered if there's one tiny slip on my part. It's good you don't know about it.
Then Glayne shrugged and went up to the navigation bridge.
Jorger Sun was barely visible through the glassene observation ports. But it blew up hugely in Glayne's auxiliary battle screen—a white dwarf of brilliant intensity and a temperature equal to that of the greatest white super-giants in the main galaxy. It was incrediblyaloneout on the furthest reaches of the vast, trailing arms of the galaxy.
TheAlgolwas decelerating as it flashed toward Jorger Sun. Somewhere behind it was the Tjadlinn discoid built around the fabulous Tane Jewel. It would look strange, Glayne knew, if they were detected in a maximum ten G deceleration thrust while on an official inspection tour—especially with their low-gravity guide, General Ganser, aboard.
Commander Graysen approached, shifting his weight from one gnarled leg to the other in the space-man's shuffling gait. His leathery face widened in a rare grin as he reached Glayne. "I should have retired after that last cruise," he wheezed. "Here is Harbin for last minute instructions, Captain."
Glayne nodded to the younger officer. "Harbin, you will take over when Commander Graysen and I leave with the landing party. If you are fired upon while we are inside the discoid, clear out fast. Take theAlgolto Scone III as quickly as possible. Warn Admiral Garstow that my plan has failed and that it would be best to disperse all fleet units. Under no conditions are you to attempt battle. Do you understand?"
"Aye, sir!" snapped the youngster. His face worked for an instant, but he suppressed his protest and brought himself under control.
"Destination in sight, Captain Glayne," called the pilot over the communicator.
"Cut deceleration to four G's." To Graysen: "How is Ganser?"
"In excellent shape—even his face. According to Psych he is completely under control."
Glayne turned back to his screen and stared at the expanding Tjadlinn discoid. Instinctively he looked for the slim and deadly Jewel-powered cruisers that would be waiting for them if a warning had reached Tjadlinn. But of course he saw nothing. If they were there, they would be masked by inert detector screens, waiting for him to approach so closely that no amount of frantic acceleration could tear him from their grasp.
The discoid was a huge thing of beralloy, all of ten kilometers in diameter. About half-way from the center he could make out the landing dock as Ganser had indicated. He could also make out the evil snouts of Kellander projectors sprouting in clusters on Tjadlinn's metallic surface. Even as he watched, they wheeled about ominously, coming to bear on the deceleratingAlgol. Were they simply taking precautions, Glayne wondered, or were they cagily waiting for him to climb right down the barrels of their projectors?
As he stood alone before the battle screen he suddenly felt a small hand touch his. He looked around. It was Niala Chodred, subdued and somewhat apprehensive. She looked up at him intently, forcing him to meet her eyes.
"I believe you are planning to leave me behind in the ship when you land at Tjadlinn, aren't you?"
Glayne winced at the slight accusation in her eyes. A sudden wave of nervous irritation welled up in him and he was on the verge of hurling a curse at her and driving her back to her quarters. But the tenderness in her eyes made him feel guilty because of his hasty mood and he relented.
"Yes," he said. "I'm very sorry. The ship is unsafe enough as it is, but down there—" he gestured at the image of Tjadlinn in the screen, "—down there will be fighting and certainly many casualties."
"But if I am present," she pointed out logically, "they will be much less likely to suspect you of hostile intentions."
"How do you think I would feel if you were killed down there?" Glayne asked, avoiding her eyes.
"How do you think I would feel if you were?" she countered.
Glayne turned to her, about to point out another difficulty, then said nothing. Suddenly she was in his arms and he felt his senses swim at her touch. For a timeless instant he forgot everything but the warm, laughing, green-eyed Niala whom he held in his arms.
VII
Tjadlinn was gigantic. It rotated on its central axis once every forty hours and completed a revolution about Jorger Sun once every eighty-five years. The orbit was like that of a comet; at perihelion its velocity approached seventy miles per second. Now it had begun its journey away from the sun, swinging out into the infinite blackness of the lonely void.
Grimly the Guardian Captain looked at his crewmen, sturdy big-planet men like himself. There were six of them. Glayne wondered how many would be left when they returned—if they ever did return. He looked at the girl and wondered if she would return. She smiled at him as the artificial planetoid loomed hugely over their tiny landing launch. He felt no regret that she was along—his mind ignored all such feelings of that nature now. Instead it was concentrated to the highest degree of receptivity, sorting and classifying the sense impressions that came to it.
The massive beralloy portals of the outer air-lock gaped open at them and the launch jetted inside. Then they closed with a thunderousclangand the inner doors slid open in an oddly obsequious fashion. They were much less ponderous than the outer doors, Glayne noted. A moment later the launch came to rest and General Hoteh Ganser, Chief of Delban Intelligence, stalked out of the cabin followed by representatives of the Stellar Guardians, now allied with the Delban Empire.
There was a group of high-ranking Delban Army and Fleet officers awaiting them as they stepped from the launch. They bowed ceremoniously to Ganser, then to Glayne and his party as they were introduced. The Guardian smiled, he bowed, he clicked his heels solemnly—but all the time his hand was casually resting inside of the fold of his jumper on the Cardy gun there.
The only name Glayne remembered was that of the commander of Tjadlinn discoid: Admiral Selzi-Narfid, Right Royal Protector of the Emperor's Hunting Preserves. But he was not notable because of his absurd title; rather, it was the hint of amusement that Glayne fancied he saw flickering in the depths of his jet black eyes.
It was Selzi-Narfid who turned to Ganser and said: "I'm sure you must be weary after your arduous journey, Your Excellency. Won't you and Captain Glayne and his party partake of some refreshment?"
Glayne frowned. That was not so good. They could not afford to waste time eating and drinking because the message craft might bring the warning from Sterle II at any minute. Yet how could they refuse?
Evidently this same train of thought flashed through the conditioned intellect of General Ganser. For just an instant he paused before saying yes, they would be delighted.
Again Selzi-Narfid bowed and this time Glayne was positive he saw mockery in the Tjadlinn commander's eyes. Following him, they entered a large mono-car poised on its single, gleaming span by gyros. It started with a jolt, picked up speed, and was presently bulleting down the tunnel, the walls a blur on either side. To Glayne it almost seemed as if they were moving down hill.
"You will notice the gravity attraction increasing as we progress," began Selzi-Narfid. "That is because we are approaching the Jewel. It is considerably more comfortable in my quarters close to the center. On the periphery of the discoid one has almost no weight because of the distance from the Jewel.
"No one knows the exact mass of the Tane Jewel. Probably around two hundred million tons, it is thought. Naturally it is not safe to approach too closely—the inverse square law, you know. Within a few meters the attraction is so tremendous that we have great difficulty in anchoring the power drain machinery. But you will see for yourself in the Jewel Chamber."
The mono-car sighed to a halt and Selzi-Narfid ushered them graciously into a tapestried corridor. Glayne noticed that the gravity was just about Terran Standard. He also noticed that Selzi-Narfid, in spite of his flow of suave conversation, was worried. Suddenly a peculiar sensation ofwrongnessflared up in Glayne's mind and he knew that his battle-trained, preternatural intuition was at work. His hand tightened on the Cardy and his eyes flickered everywhere but could discover nothing.
At the wide entrance stage the Admiral held back, gesturing for Ganser, Glayne, and the others to precede him. The small hairs on the back of Glayne's neck arose as they entered the luxurious suite of the Tjadlinn commander. Something was definitely very wrong.
Then sick dismay scalded up in the pit of his stomach. He saw what was wrong. It was Gort Bro-Doral who faced them, a Cardy gun in his hand.
Calmly the Delban Overlord fired at Ganser. The energy beam lashed into the pseudo-Guardian, making a big, ragged hole where his belly had been.
Glayne could do nothing more than stare helplessly. He did not even think to resist when the room filled with armed Delbans who went about the job of disarming them in a very silent and efficient fashion.
"Such a pity," remarked Gort Bro-Doral, glancing down at Ganser's charred and crumpled body. "Hoteh was my right hand, but the poor wretch was just too thorough. His own mind-conditioning device caught him in the end." He produced his sickly, explosive laugh and inclined his head to one of the armed Delbans. "Take it away," he murmured.
"How did you get here so quickly?" Glayne said, asking the question uppermost in his mind. He was bewildered to think of the incredible acceleration the low-gravity Delban must have undergone to have beaten the Guardian ship.
"Another of the wonders of the glorious Tane Jewel," replied Bro-Doral with amused condescension. "Theoretically it was always possible to project material bodies into sub-space directly from planetary mass in the same way that the immaterial waves of an interstellar telephone message are cast directly into sub-space. Heretofore, however, there has never been sufficient power to form a shield around the material object strong enough to prevent its being completely crushed by the brutal space warp in the presence of mass. That difficulty vanishes when one has the unlimited power of the Tane Jewel at his disposal."
Glayne understood. Ganser, who had meticulously avoided all technical knowledge, did not know this. Consequently they had walked straight into a trap. Glayne's shoulders sagged as he looked around, savouring the taste of defeat. Tough old Graysen stood at his side, impotently balling his fists. His carefully picked crewmen were behind him, arms above their heads. They looked grim and ready for anything. But Niala...
Glayne fought down the painful lump in his throat. It made no difference. They had theAlgol, too. So it mattered not at all whether she came along or stayed behind, he told himself. They had only one thing to look forward to—and that would be unpleasant. Surreptitiously he touched the massive ring on his hand. It contained a single blaster charge. Shakily he resolved to use it on Niala when it came to that.
Bro-Doral whinnied. "I have your day planned for you, Captain," he said. "I have often been accused of lacking a sense of justice, but you will see for yourself that such a charge wrongs me. Your men will be executed as humanly as possible. You and the esteemed Graysen will be given a chance to witness the destruction of your ship. And then—" the Delban snickered, "—the Vibra-Death! The girl ... I'm not sure. Yes, it will take some thought. But you may be sure that it will be interesting."
Bro-Doral's sadism was too much for Glayne. With a snarl of animal hatred he leaped at the Delban Overlord, brushing aside his Cardy gun and reaching for his throat. The force of his lunge carried them back a few steps and the Bro tripped. Glayne, blazing with blind rage, lifted his foot to crush the Bro like a worm. At that instant a cold beam lanced into his back. Its icy fingers played along his spine and paralyzed him with numbness. Helplessly his arms fell to his sides and two of the armed Delbans came up behind him, supporting him to prevent his falling.
Gort Bro-Doral clambered up from the floor. His heavily-veined eyes were red with insane ferocity. He thrust his contorted face close to Glayne's own and said: "Guardian, you will now be extended another privilege. You will be permitted to see the girl writhing in the agonies of the Vibra-Death!"
Bro-Doral turned to one of his men. "Take those crewmen away—execute them," he said. "Keep the girl here under guard while I show the two officers around."
Glayne was horrified at the fruits of his unthinking attack on the Bro. It was almost as if he himself had pulled the switch which would subject Niala to the most infamous nerve torture ever devised. Dully he realized that he could not even lift his hand to administer a merciful death with the clean, fast energy beam of his ring.
"The paralysis will wear off in a minute or two, Captain," observed Bro-Doral. He had completely regained his self-control. "Since you have exerted so much useless effort to destroy our Tane Jewel, I think you ought at least be permitted to see it. But after that—" he sighed expressively, "—after that, we will procrastinate no longer."
Even before the effects of the cold-beam had worn off completely, Bro-Doral nodded to his men and they took him by the arms and escorted him from the room. In despair, Glayne tried to jerk his head around to see the girl. For the briefest of instants he saw her smiling bravely at him. Then his view was cut off by the door as the guards maneuvered his still half-paralyzed frame around it.
In a couple of moments Glayne was able to move under his own power. He turned to find Graysen staring anxiously at him, alert for the slightest command. Glayne nodded imperceptibly and examined the guards. There were six of them. He noticed wryly that they held cold-beam weapons in their long-fingered fists while the ones that really produced the fatal damage—the Cardys—hung in holsters at their sides. Trust them not to risk killing their prisoners when so many more delightful methods presented themselves, he thought bitterly.
As he and Graysen were led side-by-side down a maze of corridors, their weight gradually increased. Along with it was the sensation of going down hill. Glayne's mind operated rapidly and with cold precision but the Delbans showed not the slightest weakness. Not even the increase in gravity seemed to annoy them. Nevertheless, Glayne resolved, he would risk everything on a sudden attack when they got as close to the Jewel as possible. There the conditions would be ideal for him. With eyes narrowed, he tried desperately to remember the turns they had taken through the winding corridors of the beralloy discoid.
As they progressed Glayne saw the tough, all-metal walls were more heavily buttressed with the massive beralloy supports. Selzi-Narfid saw the direction of his glance and said, "Those were necessary when we maneuvered the Jewel into the center of the discoid. You have no idea of what such a tremendous mass in a body the size of the Jewel can do when it is not balanced."
Glayne listened to the Admiral with just a part of his mind. His main attention was devoted to photographing mentally the warren of passages. Here and there he saw groups of Delban technicians, none of them armed.
Good, thought Glayne.
They reached the entrance stage of the Jewel Chamber. The beralloy walls here were nearly a meter thick. In single file the party crawled through the narrow opening that dilated ponderously in the entrance stage. Two very weary-looking guards snapped to attention as they passed, but almost immediately slumped back into their somnolent positions, exhausted by their abnormally increased weight.
Better yet, thought Glayne.
"This is the Jewel Chamber, Captain. It is the very heart of Tjadlinn," puffed Selzi-Narfid after he had crawled through the dilated entrance stage.
Glayne stared about the vaulted room curiously. It was shaped like the inside of an oval, thick at the center but tapering off to nothing at the sides. They were standing on a balcony which was heavily buttressed and ran all the way around the Chamber past several other massive portals. In the exact center of the Chamber a kind of a nest was formed by the tremendously thick beralloy girders. Something burned there with a cold, golden brilliance that filtered through the interstices of the girders and etched them sharply in banded shadows about the heavy walls.
An uncanny sensation possessed Glayne as he gazed at the Jewel. A vague dread passed over him and he found himself wondering if the Elder Tane Gods would emerge from their crypt and wreak hideous vengeance on mere mortals for disturbing their sleep. Uneasily he crushed the fantasy that was rioting up in his mind and determined to look for something more practical.
He concentrated on the power drain machinery which hung in clusters from the massive girders. Obviously those mechanisms were far more delicate than their supports and could be sabotaged with comparatively little work. As he calculated he gradually became aware of Bro-Doral who was speaking:
"—were remarkable creatures. As you know, Tane legends exist in every part of the known galaxy. They even possessed immortality—but they lost it for all practical purposes when they failed to adjust their bodies to the expanding universe.
"While the universe expands, quanta emission frequencies remain constant. You are familiar, of course, with the shift in the wave length of the cadmium spectrum, taken over the centuries. Ages ago, emission frequencies were so long, relatively speaking, that energy liberation from protein organisms was impossible. That definitely rules out protein construction for the Tane—but just what they were composed of is unknown. At any rate, their bodies couldn't stand the shortened emission frequencies which overloaded their muscles. They exploded. Like a plague. Billions and billions of them must have died before they discovered the answer to the strange death that was striking among them. And billions more must have died before their marvelous science was able to build the Second Universe, as the legends call it."
Gort Bro-Doral gestured at the Jewel which shed its cold, brilliant light about the Chamber.
"They enclosed themselves in that tiny ovoid crypt you see there," he went on. "That was countless ages ago. Somehow they had managed to construct shields capable of withstanding the spatial expansion of the universe. Who knows—they may still live in their static crypt?
"As millions and millions of years passed, the Tane Jewel—the Second Universe, as the legends call it—slowly dwindled in size when considered in relation to our own universe. As it dwindled, its energy potential grew. Now its accumulated charge is so titanic that it defies conception.
"Some day those beautiful engines of the Tane Gods would have run down and the shield would have collapsed. Then our own universe would have been destroyed. The sudden release of such a vast energy potential would have caused a concussion which would literally warp our flat space into the fourth-dimensional sub-space.
"Now that can't happen. We are draining off that infinite potential and broadcasting it—flooding it—through sub-space to be received everywhere there is a Delban receiving antenna. The power is limitless. We Delbans will be the rulers of the universe just as the Tane Gods were of old. There is no limit to our power!"
Bro-Doral's eyes blazed with a pure lust for power as he stared exultantly at the green brilliance of the Tane Jewel. His mouth was slack and he breathed heavily from the effort of his speech. Selzi-Narfid, too, was tired. Wearily he rested against the support rail of the balcony. The guards blinked their large pop-eyes from fatigue, shuffling from one foot to another to promote circulation. Most of them had placed their weapons in holsters as Bro-Doral talked. That is, all except one. He still held his weapon loosely in his fingers at his side. Slowly and gently Glayne poised, gathering his strength.
"Isn't it beautiful, Glayne?" mused the Delban Overlord, staring into the tiny radiant sun. "An artifact of the mightiest culture that ever existed. Now we will carry on in their footsteps. We will be the mightiest—"
VIII
Then Glayne leaped. With one flailing fist he caught the Delban guard on his bony jaw and with the other he snatched the cold-beam gun from his limp fingers. Whirling, he played it among the stupefied guards. Then old Graysen exploded into action, seizing Selzi-Narfid and hurling him bodily at Bro-Doral who was in the act of bringing up his Cardy gun. Three of the guards had collapsed and another was crumpling on his knees under Glayne's cold-beam. The other two had crouched back in the shadows of the entrance portal, trying to bring their weapons to bear upon Glayne.
Graysen whirled and lunged at them, smashing one down with a single blow. The last guard on his feet, surprised and dismayed by this attack from the rear, fled to the portal and tried to dilate it. But he was too late and sagged in a heap under Glayne's hand weapon.
Scooping up two of the Cardy guns which had fallen to the balcony floor, Glayne shouted: "Pick up an energy gun, Graysen. Cut down the power drain machinery."
Graysen reached for an energy gun in the holster of one of the paralyzed guards. He never even saw Gort Bro-Doral scramble to his feet and fire point blank. His head disappeared as the Delban's beam struck full force. Glayne fired back wildly but he was off balance and missed. Before he could collect himself to fire again, Bro-Doral had fled to another stage and darted through the dilation.
Glayne whirled toward the Delbans. Selzi-Narfid had a broken neck and was obviously dead. The guards were all unconscious and would remain so for a long time.
Glayne turned back to the Jewel which cast its chill, gold light steadily through the interstices of the surrounding girders. Calmly he leveled the Cardy gun and fired at it. As if it were so much water, the deadly little energy beam washed off the Tane Jewel and fused with the beralloy supports. It was as he had expected. Given several hours, the little hand weapon might have made an impression on the incredibly tough beralloy but Glayne had no time to lose.
As he had seen before, the power drain machinery which hung in clusters from the big beams and transmitted the energy through the heavy busbars looked to be the most fragile. Glayne wondered what would happen if he fired into them. There was only one way to find out. The muscles of his jaw hardened as he depressed the firing stud on the Cardy.
Nothing happened. He let the beam of his energy gun play up and down the clusters of power drains, fusing them into slag. Now the thin, invisible rays of power which the drains extracted from the Jewel no longer existed since they had no place to go. But nothing happened.
Then it occurred to him that nothing would happen in the Jewel Chamber itself. It needed no power for lights—the Jewel provided all the light needed. Heartened, Glayne blasted at every drain in reach, following the balcony around the Chamber.
But even this method, he realized, would take too long. Gort Bro-Doral would soon have squads of men hurrying into the Chamber after him. Grimly he wished he had an energy bomb. With one of those he could finish the job in a few seconds.
Suddenly he remembered an old Guardian trick. Hurriedly he began to tinker with one of the Cardy guns. By jamming a couple of the safety gadgets, it was possible to make the weapon fire out of phase. When the trigger stud was depressed, its tiny miatron coils would build up an unstable load in a couple of seconds, then explode. Quickly he fixed the weapon to his satisfaction, then hurried on around the balcony to find a suitable opening in the girders through which to hurl the ersatz bomb.
Halfway around, he met two panic-stricken Delban technicians. The instant they saw him they turned tail and ran back through the portal. Obviouslysomethingmust be happening, Glayne thought with grim satisfaction. Then he found a good spot, pressed the firing stud of the doctored Cardy gun, then flung it with all his strength into the remaining power drains. In an instant he had pivoted and lunged for the port of the entrance stage behind him, feeling in the shadow for its dilator stud.
It refused to open!
Obviously Glayne himself had sabotaged its power circuit. Now he was trapped in the Chamber and the ersatz bomb was about to explode. Tensely he crouched as far back in the recess of the port as he could and waited. With a terrific roar the bomb exploded in the confined Chamber, rupturing the membranes of his nose and crushing him violently against the port. Parts of the devastated power drains were hurled against the massive walls, then fell back to the Jewel. One of the heavy busbars had collapsed, ripping festoons of cables from the top of the Chamber which shorted violently against one another.
Dazed, Glayne pulled himself to his feet. Fortunately he had broken no bones. But one of his ear drums was ruptured and his nose bled unremittingly. He had lost his other Cardy. Hurriedly he felt about, found it, and thrust it into the fold of his tattered jumper.
He turned back to the port and found that the concussion had dilated it for him. Breathing heavily, he crawled through it into the inky blackness of the passages. On all sides he heard the sound of running footsteps. By touch he staggered into the blackness, realizing that he must keep going uphill, away from the Jewel's attraction.
The exertion cleared his head a bit. He knew he was lost, but he hoped to be able to find his way back to Selzi-Narfid's quarters. There he would find Niala and be oriented with the rest of the discoid.
Figures bumped into him in the blackness, hurrying to the scene of destruction. The Delbans were badly disorganized. Obviously they had not been prepared to cope with such devastation wreaked on their sacred Jewel. Not even to the extent of auxiliary power for lights, he thought as he panted up the black passages.
Even as he thought about it, the lights began to flicker weakly in their fluorescent tubes, growing stronger with each passing second. Startled, Glayne crouched back in the shadow of a recess in the wall. That was Luck in all her perversity, he thought grimly. His hand sought the butt of the blaster in his jumper. Fortunately the lights did not wax as brightly as they had when the Jewel was still functioning, but that did not offer much consolation. He would be recognized instantly by the outline of his thick-chested body if he was seen in the corridor.
He noticed that fewer Delbans were passing. He decided to chance it. Tightly grasping the gun in his jumper, he crept from his hiding place and ran on the balls of his feet, dodging and ducking into shadows every time one of the enemy passed. Once he was seen and pursued by a squad of Delban guards. Breathlessly he ran at full tilt through a cross-corridor, up a flight of high steps, and twisted into another of the endless passages of the discoid.
The pull of the Jewel had become very slight. In fact it was much slighter than it had been in Selzi-Narfid's suite. Glayne pushed on, realizing that he was hopelessly lost. His only chance now was to find the mono-rail on which they had ridden from the landing dock to the Tjadlinn commander's suite. It occurred to him that even if he did find Niala, they might never escape Tjadlinn. And it was absolutely imperative that he make contact with Garstow at Scone III. The slightest delay on the part of the Stellar Guardian Admiral in attacking the Karkara Station might give the Delbans the precious time they needed to repair the damage he had effected.
There were two entrance stages, one on either side, in the corridor through which he was hurrying. He tried one and found it was locked. He was more fortunate with the other. It creaked open slowly when he flipped the dilator stud. Tensely, hand on the Cardy gun in his jumper, he crept through the port.
It was the landing dock!
Glayne's heart jumped with delight as he crouched back in a shadow and examined the place. Not a hundred meters away was the launch which had brought his party from theAlgol. His eyes drank it in avidly and a plan for escape formed rapidly in his mind. A message craft of some sort was preparing to leave, he saw. As soon as the inner lock door closed behind it, he would smash the launch through it and the air pressure would fling him out of the discoid. How very simple!
Then the impact of the realization that he would have to leave Niala Chodred behind struck him. He was stunned by its very violence.
Leave Niala? Abandon her to Gort Bro-Doral and his sadistic vengeance for the sabotage Glayne himself had performed? No! That was out of the question. But what of the Terran Combine? What did the life of Citizen Niala Chodred mean against the lives of the trillions who made up that Combine to which she had sworn allegiance? Viewed in that light, it was obvious that the life of one person was a cheap price to pay for security of the Combine against the Tane Jewel.
Glayne crouched in the shadow and buried his face in his hands. In an agony of indecision he prodded his weary mind to discover an alternative to the horrible dilemma. But he could find none. He would have to decide between Niala, the laughing, green-eyed Niala, and the ideal of human progress which he had sworn the Guardian Oath to protect.
Dully he realized that the power of the abstract was too strong. He would forsake Niala. The pain redoubled itself as he made his decision but he set his face in a granite-mask against it. Unfortunately it was not so easy to quell the agony that burned within him.
Grimly he stood up. He saw that the time had come for action. The message craft was slowly jetting down the cinder blastway toward the lock door. Glayne tensed for an instant, then raced for the launch, covering ten meters at a stride in the light gravity. Three Delban mechanics caught sight of him as he rounded the stubby fins and leaped for the lock. In mid-stride he whipped out his Cardy gun and brought them down in charred heaps.
A guard squad saw him and fired. Their beams sang dangerously close, smashing into the beralloy side of the launch. They crunched down the blastway in pursuit as Glayne jumped through the open lock, slammed it shut, and darted to the controls. The atomic driver engine coughed and surged into life. He let it scream up beyond audibility, then fed power to the jets. The blast washed over the guards who were closest to the launch and the others fell back hastily before its searing heat.
The inner lock of the entrance port had slid shut behind the message craft. It was now or never, Glayne realized. He opened the atomic driver wide and the stubby launch shuddered for an instant, then lunged for the lock. The sudden thrust created constricting hands about Glayne's chest and he fought precariously on the edge of blacking out. For a brief instant Glayne was aware of the huge outer doors swinging shut before him—and then the air pressure struck them and flung the launch bodily through the narrow space left between them.
The launch tumbled crazily end-over-end until Glayne straightened it out and oriented himself with Tjadlinn and Jorger Sun. He had just sighted the tiny gleaming speck of theAlgola dozen kilometers distant when something struck the launch a terrific blow. Almost instantly the tell-tales indicated air was escaping. Dismayed, Glayne shot a glance over his shoulder at the receding discoid. He discovered that they were firing at him with the secondary Kellander batteries, using auxiliaries to power the miatrons. Feverishly he changed course, zig-zagging wildly away from the discoid.
Due to over confidence, the Delbans had not destroyed theAlgolimmediately. They preferred to play cat and mouse. And now, with the titanic energies of the Jewel no longer available to them, they could not destroy theAlgol.
The Kellander energy beams slashed dangerously close to the fleeing launch. Not in salvos but by ones and twos. That meant that their fire control was badly disorganized—and it was that fact which saved Glayne. Harbin had raised theAlgol'santi-shield when the Delbans had commenced firing but he had not turned tail as Glayne had ordered, realizing that the launch was fleeing in his direction.
Glayne flipped the stud of the shield-nullifier that was matched to the frequency of theAlgol'santi-shield and darted the launch through it, braking with eye-searing blasts of the forward jets as the huge Reception Deck locks yawned open. With a heavy lurch, his battered craft came to rest inside the lip of the gaping outer doors.
IX
TheAlgol'sofficers formed a silent group beneath the huge glassene dome of the navigation bridge. They looked expectantly at Glayne as the elevator port dilated and he approached them, weary and unshaven, his face covered with blood.
Ignoring their unspoken questions, Glayne said brusquely, glancing at the navigation chrono, "Lieutenant Harbin: Compute an orbit for Scone III. Get the ship under way immediately ... drop into sub-space at three ten to the seventh kilos from Jorger Sun. Thrust—eight G's."
He was about to turn on his heel when Harbin's hesitant voice stopped him.
"Sir ... what ... what about Commander Graysen and the others?"
Glayne stared at the youngster bleakly. "Graysen is dead," he said with a flat voice. "So is Ganser. And I presume that our escort has been executed."
Harbin's youthful jaw tightened. "And Lieutenant Chodred?"
The lines about Glayne's mouth deepened. He let his gaze travel over Harbin's troubled face and the impassive faces of the rest of the ship's officers. He saw accusation in their eyes along with resentment and veiled hostility. He knew what they were thinking. Why should he be the only one to return. Why had he abandoned the others? And now they wanted to know what had happened to the girl. So he told them.
"She is still alive." Bitterly he wondered why Fate had designated her to be the only one left to face Gort Bro-Doral's vengeance. He looked up again at the silent cluster of officers. "If your curiosity is satisfied, gentlemen, suppose we get on with the war?"
"If Tjadlinn is without Jewel power," persisted Harbin stubbornly, "why can't we attack? We might be able to rescue Lieutenant Chodred. It's the least we could do—"
"Follow my orders!" Glayne cut in savagely. He turned on his heel and mounted to his shock seat in the Captain's Station. Yes, he thought bitterly, they could attack Tjadlinn, incur heavy damage on the discoid—perhaps even accomplish a miraculous rescue of Niala. But weighed against that was the possibility that theAlgolmight be heavily damaged or destroyed by the highly potent secondary Kellanders of the discoid. Unless he got through to Garstow, the conservative Grand Admiral of the Stellar Guardians was likely to delay his attack on Karkara—and such a delay would be suicidal.
Gradually a floor began to build under his feet and theAlgolgot under way. As the thrust increased, the discoid began to shrink in the distance. Glayne stared at its image grimly in the battle screen. He didn't say farewell because he knew he would be back. He rubbed his bristly cheek. He saw success now. He felt it on the tips of his clutching fingers. But something else was beyond his grasp now—something that made success dry and unpalatable. He covered his eyes with his hand as the thought stabbed him: The laughing, green-eyed Niala....
The Stellar Guardian fleet lay motionless across forty thousand kilometers of space when theAlgolreached the rendezvous at Scone III. Admiral Garstow's anxious face formed rapidly in the featureless grey surface of Glayne's ship-to-ship communicator screen.
"Give me a fast, verbal report on the Jewel, Glayne," ordered the Admiral.
The Guardian Captain complied, rapidly sketching the main details of his sabotage and providing a rough outline of the Delban defense of the discoid.
When he finished, Garstow nodded thoughtfully. "Do you think it advisable to risk an immediate attack on the discoid on the chance that we can knock it out before they repair the power drains?"
Glayne frowned, then said, "No. It's too long a chance. They will mass their fleet at Tjadlinn immediately. Under normal circumstances we could lick them, but if they repair that Jewel faster than I expect, then we'll be sitting ducks."
Garstow nodded again. "Lieutenant Brodis informed me of the plan you had in mind of attacking the Karkara Fleet Station on Scone III and thereby acquiring the Jewel power-receiving antennae. On the whole, I think that is the shrewder move. Since you've managed this show up to now, Captain, I think you might as well organize the attack."
"Thank you, sir," Glayne replied. "I'll take my own cruiser division in first to clear away what little resistance they'll put up. That will be the simplest part about it. The real difficulty will come when we install the antennae. As Brodis probably told you, we were unable to get any technical information from General Ganser."
Garstow rubbed his fleshy nose thoughtfully, then said, "It's in your hands, Captain." Then he cut out.
Rapidly Glayne organized the attack, placing his own cruiser division at the point of the spearhead. Smoothly the Stellar Guardian striking force flashed down on Scone III. As Glayne had anticipated, their sudden assault was little more than an armed landing. The Delbans were caught completely off guard. They put up a fanatical resistance with the auxiliary-powered Kellander secondary batteries, but the superior weight of Glayne's miatron blasters soon crushed every last shred of opposition.
As soon as theAlgolhad jetted down on the immense space-port of the Karkara Fleet Station, a group of technicians in addition to the landing party raced off to confiscate an antennae unit for the big ship. Glayne set up an operations unit in the glassene dome of theAlgolto assign landing patterns to the other Guardian fleet units. The heaviest Cluster and Galactic class warships he assigned to fast orbits about Scone to defend the ships which had already landed.
After he saw that landing operations were proceeding smoothly he descended to the engine room of theAlgolto see how the installation of the antenna was progressing. Massive cables snaked across the deck in confusions, waiting to be hooked into the heavy buses which the technicians were jockeying into place. Outside on the hull, gangs of men were welding in the mesh antenna. Fuming, he looked at his wrist-chrono repeatedly.
"How much longer?" he asked Harbin impatiently.
"Thirty minutes at the most, sir," replied Harbin stiffly, refusing to meet Glayne's eyes.
Glayne rubbed his bristly cheek thoughtfully as he turned away. The young officer was determined to give him the silent treatment along with the rest of the officers in his crew. Word would spread; soon the whole fleet would hear of his cowardly negligence. He smiled thinly as he made his way back up to the navigation bridge. He had seen it happen before. There were just two ways to escape it. One was retirement. The other involved a Cardy gun placed at the temple....
The red light of his personal communicator was blinking intermittently when he regained the bridge. It was Garstow.
"Glayne!" he barked abruptly, "Bardled is on his way in with the fleet of Imperial Terra. And a dozen other Sectors have massed their fleets and are on the way, too."
"Excellent," said Glayne. "We're working faster now. We've put the Delban technicians to work and repaired the damage to their assembly lines. We ought to be able to handle a thousand ships an hour. How long before Bardled will arrive?"
"Four hours ... maybe six."
"I'm lifting in a few minutes," Glayne said. "When Bardled arrives, install the units in his heavy ships first. Those tubs will smash the Tjadlinn anti-shield if anything will."
Rapidly Glayne went on to sketch his plan of attack. When he finished, Garstow nodded ponderously. "Then we will sub-space as soon as we pick up the power broadcast. A sound strategy, Captain. Good luck!" His face faded from the screen.
The first of the big Cluster class battleships were easing down on vast fingers of flame when Harbin reported that the work of installation was complete. In quick succession the other cruisers of his division reported readiness and he gave the command to blast off.
TheAlgolwas almost two hundred million kilos below Scone System's plane of ecliptic when the hastily installed antenna unit began to pick up the first surges of power from the Tane Jewel. Cautiously theAlgol'spilot experimented with it, accustoming himself to unlimited power at his finger tips. One by one, the ship's atomic drivers fell silent as the pilot gained confidence.
"Raise the anti-shield, Lieutenant Harbin," Glayne said crisply over his inter-ship phone. "We'll sub-space right now."
Harbin's image stared at him incredulously from the communicator screen for an instant but he fought down the words that trembled on his lips.
"Aye, sir," he snapped.
Glayne was grimly amused at his anxiety but said nothing to relieve it. They were dangerously close to mass, he knew, but if Gort Bro-Doral could blast into sub-space directly from Sterle II with a shield supported by Jewel power, then he ought to be able to get away with it at two hundred million kilos from mass.
Briefly Glayne communicated his intent to the commanders of the thirty other cruisers in his division and their anti-shields began to build. At his curt command they dropped smoothly into sub-space, their shield generators heating up slightly as the sudden strain hit them.
They plunged on through sub-space, building up to incredible velocities in that nether dimension where such commonplace things as mass and light did not exist. Glayne's mind worked rapidly, analyzing his plan of battle for any defects. Obviously the enemy would mass his fleet at the all-important Tjadlinn. If his calculations were correct, his cruiser division would pop into normal space right among them. If they struck fast enough, they could disorganize the Delbans sufficiently for Garstow and Bardled to get in among them with the heavy units of their fleets. And that, he knew, would be the end of the Delban Grand Fleet.
The discoid was another matter. Paradoxically, it contained within it the very source of the power which they would use to destroy it. The only possible way the Delbans could deprive them of the Jewel power would be to turn off the non-directional broadcast entirely. That, however, would leave them open to an attack by the regular miatron batteries of the heavy Guardian and Terran battleships. They could not possibly hope to beat off such an attack with their Kellander secondaries. Hence, Glayne reasoned, they would keep up the power broadcast at all costs.
Satisfied with his plan, Glayne let his mind relax and drift where it wanted. Abruptly it turned to thoughts of Niala Chodred and he winced at the pain which filled him. Grimly, he realized that if the silent treatment by his fellow officers failed to ruin him, the bitter acid of remorse which burned his soul would certainly accomplish the job.
X
One instant the fleet of the Delban Empire was assembling about the vital Tjadlinn discoid in an orderly fashion. An instant later all hell broke loose amid its massed ranks.
Glayne's cruiser division popped out of sub-space at two hundred kilometers per second and flailed through the Delbans like a giant scythe. His eyes glued to the small battle screen in front of him, Glayne clipped off rapid commands over the ship-to-ship communicator that kept him in touch with the rest of his group.
Three Delban warships—one a battle-ship—had been caught with their shields down and were now exploding enthusiastically in nova-fashion. A dozen others had been heavily damaged by the slashing miatron beams as they vainly sought to lift their shields.
TheAlgolscreamed in protest as the pilot flung her around to bore in again. Her armored hide seemed to crawl in squealing agony at the twenty G turn. Glayne panted, on the verge of blacking out. Dimly he glimpsed the strained features of the pilot wracked with spasms of coughing that flung lobs of blood and lung tissue against the terraced banks of instruments at his side....
Then they were among the Delbans again, slashing right and left with Kellander miatron beams. This time the Delbans were ready for them and replied with a vengeance. Torrents of energy smashed at theAlgol'sshield which shuddered like a live thing under the impact. Behind Glayne a knot of sweating gunnery officers rattled off firing data to waiting Kellander crews before the mammoth battle screen. Somewhere in the bowels of the ship the accumulators were screaming as they fed the Jewel energies from the antenna to the smoking banks of shield generators and the ravenous Kellander condensers. But dominating the ear-splitting crescendo of theAlgolin full fighting stride was the continuous, ravening thunder of Kellander projectors as they flung their blasts at the Delban warships.
Glayne saw that his division had scattered widely—but, at the same time, the disorganization of the Delbans was even more evident. Unaware that the sudden attack was a feint to draw them away from Tjadlinn, a dozen Delban fleet divisions abandoned the Jewel to join the fray.
As the Guardian Captain scanned the screen, he saw that the tide was fast running in favor of the Delbans. TheAnzawas finished for the day. A flotilla of swift Delban destroyers had darted in with mines and torpedoes, one of which had gotten through her shield and exploded with a devastating energy concussion against her stern, sheering off plates and jet tubes by it force. TheAltorandAstridwere cornered by a dozen Delban Galactics and Clusters and their shields coruscated in brilliant hues as they trembled on the point of collapse. A third Guardian ship, theAesir, blasted in to offer aid and even as Glayne watched, hurled her energies in a concerted salvo at a point just below the jets of one of the Delban Clusters. Its shield coruscated brilliantly, tottered, and suddenly it was strewing its guts, nova-fashion. Almost immediately theAesirfollowed her example as a salvo of Galactic beams struck her amidships, rupturing her shield. A torpedo ripped into the bridge of theAstridand she exploded in an eye-searing nova. TheAltormanaged to limp away in the confusion, her beralloy hide mangled and torn from a near miss.
TheAlgolherself was in trouble. Two Delban Stellars were hurling torrents of energy at her shield, making it coruscate in a blaze of overloaded power foci. A pack of destroyers was circling hungrily, looking for a chance to dart in and plant their seeds of destruction. The pilot maneuvered desperately, but the overloaded power lines could not shunt sufficient power through the drivers to pull them out of their difficulty.
Glayne swore, wondering where the rest of the fleet was. It couldn't go on much longer. TheAkkadhad novaed; theAshlarandAsgardhad disappeared without leaving a trace. Only six of his original thirty were in fighting shape—and even as he watched he had to revise it to five. TheAtlas, surrounded by a dozen enemies, exploded in nova-fashion as her shield collapsed.
And then the void was suddenly full of great warships bearing the Guardian and Terran insignia, appearing magically in the midst of the Delbans. What had appeared to be triumph suddenly turned into a rout for the Delbans. Badly disorganized, they attempted to flee back to the safety of the mighty Kellander projectors of Tjadlinn.
But Glayne's annihilated cruiser division had done its work well; the Delbans, drawn too far from the discoid, were cut off by the fleets that opposed them. They fought desperately and fanatically, but there was only one possible outcome. One after another they exploded nova-fashion as the massed salvos of the tremendous Terran and Guardian battle ships swept aside their shields and touched destructive fingers to their beralloy sides.
Glayne's ship-to-ship suddenly crackled into life and Garstow's heavy face appeared on the screen. "My boy," he boomed, "I'm proud of you. Excellent work! We've bagged them all at almost no cost. Bardled tells me he didn't lose a ship."
Glayne gazed stupidly at him for a moment before he could adjust himself to the idea of victory. Then he said quietly: "I have five ships left out of a command of thirty."
"Oh! ... that's too bad," mumbled Garstow, his broad face becoming serious. "What I mean to say is—"
"The chaplain will say what needs to be said," Glayne cut in with unnecessary bitterness. "If you still want me to run this show, then I submit that we attack Tjadlinn without delay."
Admiral Garstow nodded, his face like a deflated balloon.
Quickly Glayne outlined his plan for the assault on the discoid itself. The battle would be fought between the Kellander accumulator and condenser capacity of the massed fleets and the total generator capacity of the mighty anti-shield which the Delbans would raise from the discoid. If the Delban shield capacity was less than the massed strength of the fleet, then the discoid would be destroyed. But if the Delbans held them off, they would try something else.
It took several hours to assemble the scattered and highly numerous Terran and Guardian warships into a closely-integrated formation. Matters were not helped by the appearance of dozens of warships from the fleets of other Sectors. They roamed about searching for enemy stragglers, but succeeded only in getting in the way. Finally, however, Glayne got them organized and the enormous fleet moved ponderously on Tjadlinn.
The Delbans waited behind their featureless grey shield, not firing a single Kellander blast at the advancing fleet. When it reached to within fifty kilometers of the discoid, Glayne gave the order to commence fire.
In the center of the huge discoid the Jewel, the Second Universe of the Elder Tane, blazed with a chill, golden luminescence. It did not waver a fraction as the tremendous energy demands struck it. The power drains fed voraciously of its infinite energies and flooded them into sub-space. The cumbersome mesh antennae on the hulls of the numberless ships in the massed fleet gulped it up and transmitted it to screaming accumulators which in turn fed it to the ravenous Kellander condensers. They, in turn, cast it through the miatron projectors at the shield of Tjadlinn from whence it had emerged.
For minutes on end those titanic torrents of energy blasted at that phenomenal shield. But it held. The inconceivable energies could not crack it. Not even when every single accumulator and condenser in the massed fleets of the Terran Combine labored at peak capacity did the shield so much as tremble. Not even to the extent of a tiny spider web of coruscation along the power foci.
Glayne barked a command to cease fire. He saw that the hail of torpedoes and mines which they had strewn had penetrated the shield. But they had been detonated by roving beams from the Tjadlinn secondaries before they could strike the surface of the discoid. If they could get through that mighty barrier, Glayne reasoned, then so could theAlgol. He peered into the battle screen, attempting to locate the mammoth landing dock of the discoid through its shimmering grey shield.
He made his decision. Garstow's face came to life on his communicator screen. Briefly he communicated his intention to the Guardian leader. When he had finished, Garstow nodded soberly and mumbled farewell.
When he learned that theAlgol'sKellander batteries had been rigged to fire by remote control from the pilot's seat, Glayne contacted Harbin.
"Abandon ship!" he ordered laconically when the youngster's face filled the screen.
"Wha—what?" blurted Harbin incredulously.
"I said," Glayne repeated curtly, "abandon ship. Make haste!"
"Aye, sir," said Harbin. His face still mirrored astonishment as it faded from the screen.
XI
Glayne sat alone in the pilot's massive shock seat of theAlgol. The instruments rose about him on all sides in terraced banks with the battle screen directly in front of his eyes. Tentatively he reached for the firing studs, accustoming his fingers to their shape. When he saw that the last of theAlgol'slifeboats had been picked up he realized that the time had come.
He transferred his gaze to the discoid that was vague and indistinct beneath its anti-energy shield. Fastening his eyes to the armored outer lock doors of the landing dock, he gently fed power to the drivers. TheAlgolshuddered and gradually picked up speed. Glayne dropped the anti-shield, realizing that he would never get through the barrier with the energized shield functioning. But once he was through, it would have to go up quickly or his ship would be shattered by the roving secondaries. Hand hovering tensely over the shield control, he guided the ship toward the landing dock.
His speed increased; at twenty kilometers he was streaking toward the discoid in a free fall, all energy sources quiet. Fifteen—ten—five—and theAlgolwas boring through the energy barrier, stormed and buffeted as it sought to impede the passage of the individual circuits. Suddenly she emergedinsidethe shield and Tjadlinn was rushing upwards.
Like lightning Glayne's fingers stabbed at the shield control and fed power to the drivers. He braked the ship crazily to avoid the lashing secondary beams that reached hungrily for him. Once ... twice—and yet a third time the Kellander beams found the cruiser and slashed through her half-formed shield, dealing terrific blows to the plummeting ship.
Then the massive beralloy doors of the landing stage were expanding hugely in his screen and he braked with all the power he could shunt into the straining drivers. Somehow his clutching fingers found the Kellander firing studs and he lashed out repeatedly against the outer lock. It whitened, ran into slag, crusted, and flared again and again as the ravening bolts struck it. Desperately Glayne fought to prevent blackness encroaching on the corners of his vision.
Suddenly a rending, thundering roar filled theAlgoland she was crashing headlong through the weakened beralloy doors of the landing dock. But even above that deafening roar, Glayne could hear the scream of twisted and tortured metal. Then the big ship stopped moving and all was quiet except for the shriek of air escaping through the crevices around her mangled hull.
Groggily, Glayne shook his head in an effort to shake off the black-out which had engulfed his vision. In spite of his circulation exercises he couldn't see anything. Then a glimmering of the answer occurred to him and with wild surmise he experimentally flicked the firing stud of the ship's Kellanders.
Nothing happened.
Then Glayne understood. Every bit of the ship's power was cut off, including the lights and the battle screen. Obviously the Jewel power was cut off. Evidently the impact of theAlgol'scrash had jarred the delicate power drains so that Tjadlinn was once again without power. But he'd have to make sure.
Heartened, he rose and took a space suit from the locker, checking to see if its light torch was operating. As he turned away, a vague, ridiculous hope struck him. He took a second suit from the locker.
Twisted and buckled beralloy plates had sheered long, jagged gashes in the equally tough armor of the cruiser, Glayne saw, as he clambered from the emergency lock. A little air still sighed through the huge rent which the cruiser had smashed in the skin of the discoid. The gigantic landing dock was dwarfed by the three hundred meter bulk of the cruiser. Small Delban craft had been flung violently on either side and now littered the walls with their battered bodies. One or two of the Delban technicians had been caught by the crash and were either smeared thinly along the blastway or turned inside out as their bodies exploded from lack of air pressure.
Hurriedly Glayne flashed his torch about, trying to find the mono-car which his party had used to get to Selzi-Narfid's quarters. The car itself was gone but he found the gleaming mono-rail and followed it at a rapid trot. Fortunately the passage was well-equipped with automatic air-locks, one of which had whipped in place when the air pressure dropped suddenly. When he came to the first of these, he found that the dilator was without power. He fumed at the wasted time as he burned around the lock with his torch and triggered the mechanism with his finger.
After he closed it behind him, Glayne picked up his jogging pace down the mono-rail passage. He felt a kind of grim, ruthless hatred when he thought of Bro-Doral. He hoped wistfully that he would find the sneering sadist before Garstow's energy beams ripped the discoid to pieces.
He wondered what had happened to Niala Chodred. During the battle he had consciously held his thoughts away from her and the dull ache of her memory. A chill loathing spread through him as he thought of the Vibra-Death. He knew of the agonies of that nerve torture; it produced not one slow death but thousands. More passionately than ever he longed to find the Bro.
Suddenly Glayne felt the floor of the discoid tremble under his feet. At first he ignored it, but it grew persistently stronger and he realized that the fleet was again hurling its energy beams at the discoid—but this time they were penetrating because there was no shield to stop them. He quickened his pace, rounded a long curve, and found that he had reached his goal.
He vaulted the high curbing and pounded down the tapestried corridor to the wide entrance stage. The dilator stud refused to operate, so Glayne burned into the lock to operate the stud. He discovered that the port itself was locked and a sudden unreasoning hope blazed up in him. With rapid movements he burned the lock out altogether and threw his weight against the door. With a wheeze it dilated and he staggered into the luxurious apartment, stumbling from the force of his own momentum.
He was scrambling to his feet when something hit him. It was soft with rounded contours which he perceived even through the unsympathetic thickness of his spacesuit. And it had red hair and green eyes.
It was Niala.
"Glayne ... oh, Glayne," she murmured, clinging tightly to him.
"But ... but you're not hurt," he stammered, his mind striving to adjust to the realization of a hope which it had long rejected.