Staggering over the heaving, shifting bed of stone, Haller felt as though he were in an inferno. The heat was overpowering.
Staggering over the heaving, shifting bed of stone, Haller felt as though he were in an inferno. The heat was overpowering.
Staggering over the heaving, shifting bed of stone, Haller felt as though he were in an inferno. The heat was overpowering.
With startling suddenness the storm of meteors ceased. Two or three belated thuds, and there was only the pall of dust, the wrecked spaceships, the great craters, to mark its path.
"Short and sweet," Barger grunted. "You don't carry a rabbit's foot, do you, Cap'n? How we ever got through that barrage alive!" He glanced back. Luminous figures were streaming from the caverns. "Here come our boy-friends, hell-bent!"
Haller peered through the swirling dust. The stumpy, battered shape of theLodestarwas visible not a hundred yards ahead.
"You see, Fay?" he laughed jubilantly. "She's not much of a ship but her hull's tough enough to hold off atomite guns and we've food enough for months. Maybe by that time we can figure out a way to break the magnetic grip!"
She nodded, the color returning to her cheeks, quickened her pace. Behind them faint shouts of rage were audible, and a few blue bolts of energy tore up the rocks nearby. The distance was too great for accurate shooting; and a moment later the three fugitives had swung into the freighter's airlock.
"So!" Haller wiped a paste of sweat and dust from his forehead. "Barger, see that all ports are secure. Replace that smashed one in the control room with a spare from the stores. We're in for a seige!"
As Barger made fast the heavy glassex ports, Haller and the girl closed the massive lock. Howls of rage from outside announced the presence of their pursuers. A moment later several spots on the steel hull glowed red under atomite blasts.
"Let 'em have their fun," Haller grinned. "There's not enough juice in their guns to melt the steel, and as long as we keep away from the outer walls, we don't get burned! Right now the one thing that interests me is a sandwich and...."
"Cap'n!" Old Barger rattled down the companionway steps, his face gray. "Big guns! Look!"
Steve whirled, glanced through one of the ports. From a wrecked space-cruiser about half a mile away the sub-men were laboriously dragging a gleaming mass of copper and glass tubes. A heavy heat-gun, designed to destroy armored warships. The littleLodestarcould have no chance of withstanding its blast. Bestial ape-like figures were setting it up to cover the vessel's bow, while another group were dragging a second heavy projector around to play upon the stern.
"Sixteen-power projectors!" Fay whispered. "Oh, Steve, isn't there anything we can do? To have come through so much ... and now...."
Haller was silent, and his face took on the old living robot look. No escape! If only the dragging magnetism didn't hold them down! It would have been so simple to open the rockets, leap skyward. But the invisible field held them like a vise, as it had held so many helpless vessels on this Island of Lost Spaceships, never to leave!
A roar from the sub-men sounded outside. Beams of dazzling blue light had burst from the two projectors, had caught the ship in their focus, until it was like a bit of steel in the middle of a spark-gap. Heat ... searing, unbearable heat, swept the cabin.
"They're turning on the juice slowly," Barger muttered through clenched teeth. "Full power would blast the ship to atoms, but they're trying to force us to surrender! They don't want to destroy the food we got aboard!"
Haller nodded grimly. The heat within the cabin was becoming unbearable now, and the walls were beginning to turn a dull red. He shot a glance at Fay; paper-white, face drawn, the girl was gasping for breath. The veins in old Barger's neck were beginning to stand out apoplectically.
"Lie down!" Haller whispered. "Cooler ... on floor!"
"What's use!" the quartermaster gasped.
Moment by moment the heat increased. The dull red of the hull was beginning to creep along the floorplates, until they were searing to the touch. Outside the howling of the sub-men was vulpine, frenzied, in mad triumph. Barger groaned, writhing in agony.
"Can't stand it!" he choked. "Being roasted alive!"
Fay turned tortured eyes toward Haller, touched his hand.
"Good fight, Steve!" she whispered. "Shame it has to end like this! Pray that ... fuel tanks blow up, end it quickly! I ... I...." She fell back, unconscious.
"Fuel tanks...." Haller repeated dully. There was something in his mind but he couldn't think. So hot. Hell—living hell. That something in his mind! Heat ... magnetism ... no escape.
"Magnetism ... heat...." Drunkenly Haller lurched to his feet. "Barger! Barger!" He dragged the groaning spaceman erect. "Heat destroys magnetism! You see? The bulk of the ship's interior bulkheads are aluminum alloy for lightness! It was the steel hull that dragged us down! And now it's hot ... red hot! No magnetism! Get down to those motors!"
Half-conscious Barger stumbled down to the engine-room. Haller reeled toward the controls. Everything was spinning before his gaze, the red glare from the searing hull plates dazzled him. Heat! Unbelievable heat ... killing heat! An ant in an oven! Hair singed, hands blistered, he tugged at the rocket switch. Every movement was torture, the hot air tore at his lungs. Frantically he jerked the switch. Why didn't they start?
The sudden roar of the rockets was like a roar of triumph. But though the red-hot hull of theLodestarwas now non-magnetic, the engines were still in the grip of the field. The ship ground forward, but did not rise. Desperately Haller opened the jets wide, and slowly the vessel began to climb, gathering speed with each second. Suddenly, as though breaking invisible bonds that had held her, the little ship, glowing like a furnace, leaped toward open space. With a weary sigh Haller slumped over the controls, out, but anything but cold.
They were heading in the general direction of Vega when Barger staggered into the control room, swung theLodestarback toward Mars. Fay bent over Haller, pressed a damp cloth to his face.
"O ... okay!" he muttered. "Are we clear?"
"Away clean as a whistle," the quartermaster grinned, caressing blistered hands. "And here's hoping I never see the Isle o' Lost Spaceships again!"
Haller lurched to his feet, one arm about the girl's shoulders.
"Aren't you coming along, then?" he laughed. "I haven't forgotten that crack you made about an aluminum, non-magnetic spaceship, and as soon as we reach Mars I'm going to organize a company, have one built! We'll take a well-armed expedition and have a go at that treasure the sub-men had in their caves. After all, a man needs money when" ... he glanced at the girl beside him ... "when he's going to get married! I'll need you on an expedition like that, Barger. Think of the fortune in that cave! Millions and millions! How about it?"
The old quartermaster shifted his quid to the other cheek, grinned.
"You could talk the devil into installing air-conditioning," he chuckled. "I'll go!"