"This is it, Uncle Ralph," Tug said, brokenly. "Don't see how it could be, but it is."
"What is what?" Kinnison demanded.
"Firing pin. Brittle. When you pull the safety, the force of the spring must break it off at this constricted section here."
"But damn it, Tug, it doesn't make sense. It's tension ... but wait—there'd be some horizontal component, at that. But they'd have to be brittle as glass."
"I know it. It doesn't seem to make much sense. But we were there, you know—and I assembled every one of those God damned mines myself. Nothing else could possibly have made that mine go off just when it did."
"O.K., Tug. We'll test 'em. Call Bart in—he can have the scale-lab boys rig us up a gadget by the time we can get some more of those pins in off the line."
They tested a hundred, under the normal tension of the spring, and three of them broke. They tested another hundred. Five broke. They stared at each other.
"That's it." Kinnison declared. "But this will stink to high Heaven—have Inspection break out a new lot and we'll test a thousand."
Of that thousand pins, thirty two broke.
"Bart, will you dictate a one-page preliminary report to Vera and rush it over to Building One as fast as you can? I'll go over and tell Moulton a few things."
Major Moulton was, as usual, "in conference," but Kinnison was in no mood to wait.
"Tell him," he instructed the Major's private secretary, who had barred his way, "that either he will talk to me right now or I will call District Safety over his head. I'll give him sixty seconds to decide which."
Moulton decided to see him. "I'm very busy, Doctor Kinnison, but...."
"I don't give a swivel-eyed tinker's damn how busy you are. I told you that the minute I found out what was the matter with the M2 mine I'd talk to you again. Here I am. Brittle firing pins. Three and two-tenths percent defective. So I'm...."
"Very irregular, Doctor. The matter will have to go through channels...."
"Not this one. The formal report is going through channels, but as I started to tell you, this is an emergency report to you as Chief of Safety. Since the defect is not covered by specs, neither Process nor Ordnance can reject except by test, and whoever does the testing will very probably be killed. Therefore, as every employee of Stoner and Black is not only authorized but positively instructed to do upon discovering an unsafe condition, I am reporting it direct to Safety. Since my whiskers are a trifle longer than an operator's, I am reporting it direct to the Head of the Safety Division; and I am telling you that if you don't do something about it damned quick—stop production and slap a HOLD order on all the M2AP's you can reach—I'll call District and make you personally responsible for every premature that occurs from now on."
Since any safety man, anywhere, would much rather stop a process than authorize one, and since this particular safety man loved to throw his weight around, Kinnison was surprised that Moulton did not act instantly. The fact that he did not so act should have, but did not, give the naive Kinnison much information as to conditions existing Outside the Fence.
"But they need those mines very badly; they are an item of very heavy production. If we stop them ... how long? Have you any suggestions?"
"Yes. Call District and have them rush through a change of spec—include heat-treat and a modified Charpy test. In the meantime, we can get back into full production tomorrow if you have District slap a hundred-per-cent inspection onto those pins."
"Excellent! We can do that—very fine work, Doctor! Miss Morgan, get District at once!"
This, too, should have warned Kinnison, but it did not. He went back to the Laboratory.
Tempus fugited.
Orders came to get ready to load M67 H.E., A.T. (105 m/m High Explosive, Armor Tearing) shell on the Nine, and the Siberians went joyously to work upon the new load. The explosive was to be a mixture of TNT and a polysyllabic compound, everything about which was highly confidential and restricted.
"But what the hell's so hush-hush aboutthatstuff?" demanded Blondie, who, with five or six others, was crowding around the Czar's desk. Unlike the days of Cappy Sumner, the private office of the Chief Chemist was now as much Siberia as Siberia itself. "The Germans developed it originally, didn't they?"
"Yes, and the Italians used it against the Ethiopians—which was why their bombs were so effective. But it says 'hush-hush,' so that's the way it will be. And if you talk in your sleep, Blondie, tell Betty not to listen."
The Siberians worked. The M67 was put into production. It was such a success that orders for it came in faster than they could be filled. Production was speeded up. Small cavitations began to appear. Nothing serious, since they passed Inspection. Nevertheless, Kinnison protested, in a formal report, receipt of which was formally acknowledged.
General Somebody-or-other, Entwhistle's Commanding Officer, whom none of the Siberians had ever met, was transferred to more active duty, and a colonel—Snodgrass or some such name—took his place. Ordnance got a new Chief Inspector.
An M67, Entwhistle loaded, prematured in a gun-barrel, killing twenty seven men. Kinnison protested again, verbally this time, at a staff meeting. He was assured—verbally—that a formal and thorough investigation was being made. Later he was informed—verbally and without witnesses—that the investigation had been completed and that the loading was not at fault. A new Commanding Officer—Lieutenant-Colonel Franklin—appeared.
The Siberians, too busy to do more than glance at newspapers, paid very little attention to a glider-crash in which several notables were killed. They heard that an investigation was being made, but even the Czar did not know until later that Washington had for once acted fast in correcting a bad situation; that Inspection, which had been under Production, was summarily divorced therefrom. And gossip spread abroad that Stillman, then Head of the Inspection Division, was not a big enough man for the job. Thus it was an entirely unsuspecting Kinnison who was called into the innermost private office of Thomas Keller, the Superintendent of Production.
"Kinnison, how in hell do you handle those Siberians? I never saw anything like them before in my life."
"No, and you never will again. Nothing on Earth except a war could get them together or hold them together. I don't 'handle' them—they can't be 'handled'. I give them a job to do and let them do it. I back them up. That's all."
"Umngpf." Keller grunted. "That's a hell of a formula—if I want anything done right I've got to do it myself. But whatever your system is, it works. But what I wanted to talk to you about is, how'd you like to be Head of the Inspection Division, which would be enlarged to include your present Chemical Section?"
"Huh?" Kinnison demanded, dumbfounded.
"At a salary well up on the confidential scale." Keller wrote a figure upon a piece of paper, showed it to his visitor, then burned it in an ash-tray.
Kinnison whistled. "I'd like it—for more reasons than that. But I didn't know that you—or have you already checked with the General and Mr. Black?"
"Naturally," came the smooth reply. "In fact, I suggested it to them and have their approval. Perhaps you are curious to know why?"
"I certainly am."
"For two reasons. First, because you have developed a crew of technical experts that is the envy of every technical man in the country. Second, you and your Siberians have done every job I ever asked you to, and done it fast. As a Division Head, you will no longer be under me, but I am right, I think, in assuming that you will work with me just as efficiently as you do now?"
"I can't think of any reason why I wouldn't." This reply was made in all honesty; but later, when he came to understand what Keller had meant, how bitterly Kinnison was to regret its making!
He moved into Stillman's office, and found there what he thought was ample reason for his predecessor's failure to make good. To his way of thinking it was tremendously over-staffed, particularly with Assistant Chief Inspectors. Delegation of authority, so widely preached throughout Entwhistle Ordnance Plant, had not been given even lip service here. Stillman had not made a habit of visiting the lines; nor did the Chief Line Inspectors, the boys who really knew what was going on, ever visit him. They reported to the Assistants, who reported to Stillman, who handed down his Jovian pronouncements.
Kinnison set out, deliberately this time, to mold his key Chief Line Inspectors into just such a group as the Siberians already were. He released the Assistants to more productive work; retaining of Stillman's office staff only a few clerks and his private secretary, one Celeste de St. Aubin, a dynamic, vivacious—at times explosive—brunette. He gave the boys on the Lines full authority; the few who could not handle the load he replaced with men who could. At first the Chief Line Inspectors simply could not believe; but after the affair of the forty millimeter, in which Kinnison rammed the decision of his subordinate past Keller, past the General, past Stoner and Black, and clear up to the Commanding Officer before he made it stick, they were his to a man.
Others of his Section Heads, however, remained aloof. Pettler, whose Technical Section was now part of Inspection, and Wilson, of Gages, were two of those who talked largely and glowingly, but acted obstructively if they acted at all. As weeks went on, Kinnison became wiser and wiser, but made no sign. One day, during a lull, his secretary hung out the "In Conference" sign and went into Kinnison's private office.
"There isn't a reference to any such Investigation anywhere in Central Files." She paused, as if to add something, then turned to leave.
"As you were, Celeste. Sit down. I expected that. Suppressed—if made at all. You're a smart girl, Celeste, and you know the ropes. You know that you can talk to me, don't you?"
"Yes, but this is ... well, the word is going around that they are going to break you, just as they have broken every other good man on the Reservation."
"I expected that, too." The words were quiet enough, but the man's jaw tightened. "Also, I know how they are going to do it."
"How?"
"This speed-up on the Nine. They know that I won't stand still for the kind of casts that Keller's new procedure, which goes into effect tonight, is going to produce ... and this new C.O. probably will."
Silence fell, broken by the secretary.
"General Sanford, our first C.O., was a soldier, and a good one," she declared finally. "So was Colonel Snodgrass. Lieutenant Colonel Franklin wasn't; but he was too much of a man to do the dir ..."
"Dirty work," dryly. "Exactly. Go on."
"And Stoner, the New York half—ninety five percent, really—of Stoner and Black, Inc., is a Big Time Operator. So we get this damned nincompoop of a major, who doesn't know a f-u-s-e from a f-u-z-e, direct from a Wall Street desk."
"So what?" One must have heard Ralph Kinnison say those two words to realize how much meaning they can be made to carry.
"So what!" the girl blazed, wringing her hands. "Ever since you have been over here I have been expecting you to blow up—to smash something—in spite of the dozens of times you have told me 'a fighter can not slug effectively, Celeste, until he gets both feet firmly planted.' When—when—are you going to get your feet planted?"
"Never, I'm afraid," he said glumly, and she stared. "So I'll have to start slugging with at least one foot in the air."
That startled her. "Explain, please?"
"I wantedproof. Stuff that I could take to the District—that I could use to tack some hides out flat on a barn door with. Do I get it? I do not. Not a shred. Neither can you. What chance do you think there is of ever getting any real proof?"
"Very little," Celeste admitted. "But you can at least smash Pettler, Wilson, and that crowd.HowI hate those slimy snakes! I wish that you could smash Tom Keller, the poisonous moron!"
"Not so much moron—although he acts like one at times—as an ignorant puppet with a head swelled three sizes too big for his hat. But you can quit yapping about slugging—fireworks are due to start at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon, when Drake is going to reject tonight's run of shell."
"Really? But I don't see how either Pettler or Wilson come in."
"They don't. A fight with those small fry—even smashing them—wouldn't make enough noise. Keller."
"Keller!" Celeste squealed. "But you'll...."
"I know I'll get fired. So what? By tackling him I can raise enough hell so that the Big Shots will have to cut out at least some of the rough stuff. You'll probably get fired too, you know—you've been too close to me for your own good."
"Not me." She shook her head vigorously. "The minute they terminate you, I quit. Poof! Who cares? Besides, I can get a better job in Townville."
"Without leaving the Project. That's what I figured. It's the boys I'm worried about. I've been getting them ready for this for weeks."
"But they will quit, too. Your Siberians—your Inspectors—of a surety they will quit, every one!"
"They won't release them; and what Stoner and Black will do to them, even after the war, if they quit without releases, shouldn't be done to a dog. They won't quit, either—at least if they don't try to push them around too much. Keller's mouth is watering to get hold of Siberia, but he'll never make it, nor any one of his stooges.... I'd better dictate a memorandum to Black on that now, while I'm calm and collected; telling him what he'll have to do to keep my boys from tearing Entwhistle apart."
"But do you think he will pay any attention to it?"
"I'll say he will!" Kinnison snorted. "Don't kid yourself about Black, Celeste. He's a smart man, and before this is done he'll know that he'll have to keep his nose clean."
"But you—how can you do it?" Celeste marveled. "Me, I would urge them on. Few would have the patriotism...."
"Patriotism, hell! If that were all, I would have stirred up a revolution long ago. It's for the boys, in years to come. They've got to keeptheirnoses clean, too. Get your notebook, please, and take this down. Rough draft—I'm going to polish it up until it has teeth and claws in every line."
And that evening, after supper, he informed Eunice of all the new developments.
"Is it still O.K. with you," he concluded, "for me to get myself fired off of this high-salaried job of mine?"
"Certainly. Being you, how can you do anything else? Oh, how I wish I could wring their necks!" That conversation went on and on, but additional details are not necessary here.
Shortly after two o'clock of the following afternoon, Celeste took a call; and listened shamelessly.
"Kinnison speaking."
"Tug, Uncle Ralph. The casts sectioned just like we thought they would. Dead ringers for Plate D. So Drake hung a red ticket on every tray. Piddy was right there, waiting, and started to raise hell. So I chipped in, and he beat it so fast that I looked to see his coat-tail catch fire. Drake didn't quite like to call you, so I did. If Piddy keeps on going at the rate he left here, he'll be in Keller's office in nothing flat."
"O.K., Tug. Tell Drake that the shell he rejected are going to stay rejected, and to come in right now with his report. Would you like to come along?"
"WouldI!" Tugwell hung up and:
"But do you wanthimhere, Doc?" Celeste asked, anxiously, without considering whether or not her boss would approve of her eavesdropping.
"I certainly do. If I can keep Tug from blowing his top, the rest of the boys will stay in line."
A few minutes later Tugwell strode in, bringing with him Drake, the Chief Line Inspector of the Nine Line. Shortly thereafter the office door was wrenched open. Keller had come to Kinnison, accompanied by the Superintendent whom the Siberians referred to, somewhat contemptuously, as "Piddy."
"Damn your soul, Kinnison, come out here—I want to talk to you!" Keller roared, and doors snapped open up and down the long corridor.
"Shut up, you God damned louse!" This from Tugwell, who, black eyes almost emitting sparks, was striding purposefully forward. "I'll sock you so damned hard that...."
"Pipe down, Tug, I'll handle this." Kinnison's voice was not loud, but it had then a peculiarly carrying and immensely authoritative quality. "Verbally or physically; however he wants to have it."
He turned to Keller, who had jumped backward into the hall to avoid the young Siberian.
"As for you, Keller, if you had the brains that God gave bastard geese in Ireland, you would have had this conference in private. Since you started it in public, however, I'll finish it in public. How you came to pickmefor a yes-man I'll never know—just one more measure of your stupidity, I suppose."
"Those shell are perfect!" Keller shouted. "Tell Drake here to pass them, right now. If you don't, by God I'll...."
"Shut up!" Kinnison's voice cut. "I'll do the talking—you listen. The spec says quote shall be free from objectionable cavitation unquote. The Line Inspectors, who know their stuff, say that those cavitations are objectionable. So do the Chemical Engineers. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, they are objectionable. Those shell are rejected, and they willstayrejected."
"That's whatyouthink," Keller raged. "But there'll be a new Head of Inspection, who will pass them, tomorrow morning!"
"In that you may be half right. When you get done licking Black's boots, tell him that I am in my office."
Kinnison re-entered his suite. Keller, swearing, strode away with Piddy. Doors clicked shut.
"Iamgoing to quit, Uncle Ralph, law or no law!" Tugwell stormed. "They'll run that bunch of crap through, and then...."
"Will you promise not to quit until they do?" Kinnison asked, quietly.
"Huh?" "What?" Tugwell's eyes—and Celeste's—were pools of astonishment. Celeste, being on the inside, understood first.
"Oh—to keep his nose clean—I see!" she exclaimed.
"Exactly. Those shell will not be accepted, nor any like them. On the surface, we got licked. I will get fired. You will find, however, that we won this particular battle. And if you boys stay here and hang together and keep on slugging you can win a lot more."
"Maybe, if we raise enough hell, we can make them fire us, too?" Drake suggested.
"I doubt it. But unless I'm wrong, you can just about write your own ticket from now on, if you play it straight." Kinnison grinned to himself, at something which the young people could not see.
"You told me what Stoner and Black would do to us," Tugwell said, intensely. "What I'm afraid of is that they'll do it to you."
"They can't. Not a chance in the world," Kinnison assured him. "You fellows are young—not established. But I'm well-enough known in my own field so that if they tried to black-ball me they'd just get themselves laughed at, and they know it. So beat it back to the Nine, you kids, and hang red tickets on everything that doesn't cross-section up to standard. Tell the gang goodbye for me—I'll keep you posted."
In less than an hour Kinnison was called into the Office of the President. He was completely at ease; Black was not.
"It has been decided to ... uh ... ask for your resignation," the President announced at last.
"Save your breath," Kinnison advised. "I came down here to do a job, and the only way you can keep me from doing that job is to fire me."
"That was not ... uh ... entirely unexpected. A difficulty arose, however, in deciding what reason to put on your termination papers."
"I can well believe that. You can put down anything you like," Kinnison shrugged, "with one exception. Any implication of incompetence and you'll have to prove it in court."
"Incompatibility, say?"
"O.K."
"Miss Briggs—'Incompatibility with the highest echelon of Stoner and Black, Inc.,' please. You may as well wait, Dr. Kinnison; it will take only a moment."
"Fine. I've got a couple of things to say. First, I know as well as you do that you're between Scylla and Charybdis—damned if you do and damned if you don't."
"Certainly not! Ridiculous!" Black blustered, but his eyes wavered. "Where did you get such a preposterous idea? What do you mean?"
"If you ram those sub-standard H.E.A.T. shell through, you are going to have some more prematures. Not many—the stuff is actually almost good enough—one in ten thousand, say: perhaps one in fifty thousand. But you know damned well that you can't affordany. What my Siberians and Inspectors know about you and Keller and Piddy and the Nine Line would be enough; but to cap the climax that brainless jackal of yours let the cat completely out of the bag this afternoon, and everybody in Building One was listening. One more premature would blow Entwhistle wide open—would start something that not all the politicians in Washington could stop. On the other hand, if you scrap those lots and go back to pouring good loads, your Mr. Stoner, of New York and Washington, will be very unhappy and will scream bloody murder. I'm sure, however, that you won't offer any Plate D loads to Ordnance—in view of the temper of my boys and girls, and the number of people who heard your dumb stooge give you away, you won't dare to. In fact, I told some of my people that you wouldn't; that you are a smart enough operator to keep your nose clean."
"Youtoldthem!" Black shouted, in anger and dismay.
"Yes? Why not?" The words were innocent enough, but Kinnison's expression was full of meaning. "I don't want to seem trite, but you are just beginning to find out that honesty and loyalty are a hell of a hard team to beat."
"Get out! Take these termination papers and GET OUT!"
And Doctor Ralph K. Kinnison, head high, strode out of President Black's office and out of Entwhistle Ordnance Plant.
CHAPTER 6
19—?
"Theodore K. Kinnison!" a crisp, clear voice snapped from the speaker of an apparently cold, ordinary-enough-looking radio-television set.
A burly young man caught his breath sharply as he leaped to the instrument and pressed an inconspicuous button.
"Theodore K. Kinnison acknowledging!" The plate remained dark, but he knew that he was being scanned.
"Operation Bullfinch!" the speaker blatted.
Kinnison gulped. "Operation Bullfinch—Off!" he managed to say.
"Off!"
He pushed the button again and turned to face the tall, trim honey-blonde who stood tensely poised in the archway. Her eyes were wide and protesting; both hands clutched at her throat.
"Uh-huh, sweets, they're coming—over the Pole," he gritted. "Two hours, more or less."
"Oh, Ted!" She threw herself into his arms. They kissed, then broke away.
The man picked up two large suitcases, already packed—everything else, including food and water, had been in the car for weeks—and made strides. The girl rushed after him, not bothering even to close the door of the apartment, scooping upen passanta leggy boy of four and a chubby, curly-haired girl of two or thereabouts. They ran across the lawn toward a big, low-slung sedan.
"Sure you got your caffeine tablets?" he demanded as they ran.
"Uh-huh."
"You'll need 'em. Drive like the devil—stay ahead! You can—this heap has got the legs of a centipede and you've got plenty of gas and oil. Eleven hundred miles from anywhere and a population of one-tenth per square mile—you'll be safe there if anybody is."
"It isn't us I'm worried about—it's you!" she panted. "Technos' wives get a few minutes' notice ahead of the H-blast—I'll be ahead of the rush and I'll stay ahead. It's you, Ted—you!"
"Don't worry, keed. That popcycle of mine has got legs, too, and there won't be so much traffic, the way I'm going."
"Oh, blast! I didn't mean that, and you know it!"
They were at the car. While he jammed the two bags into an exactly-fitting space, she tossed the children into the front seat, slid lithely under the wheel, and started the engine.
"I know you didn't, sweetheart. I'll be back." He kissed her and the little girl, the while shaking hands with his son. "Kidlets, you and mother are going out to visit Grand-dad Kinnison, like we told you all about. Lots of fun. I'll be along later. Now, Lady Lead-Foot, scram—and shovel on the coal!"
The heavy vehicle backed and swung; gravel flew as the accelerator-pedal hit the floor.
Kinnison galloped across the alley and opened the door of a small garage, revealing a long, squat motorcycle. Two deft passes of his hands and two of his three spotlights were no longer white—one flashed a brilliant purple, the other a searing blue. He dropped a perforated metal box into a hanger and flipped a switch—a peculiarly-toned siren began its ululating shriek. He took the alley turn at an angle of forty-five degrees; burned the pavement toward Diversey.
The light was red. No matter—everybody had stopped—that siren could be heard for miles. He barreled into the intersection; his step-plate ground the concrete as he made a screaming left turn.
A siren—creeping up from behind. City tone. Two red spots—city cop—so soon—good! He cut his gun a trifle, the other bike came alongside.
"Is this IT?" the uniformed rider yelled, over the coughing thunder of the competing exhausts.
"Yes!" Kinnison yelled back. "Clear Diversey to the Outer Drive, and the Drive south to Gary and north to Waukegan. Snap it up!"
The white-and-black motorcycle slowed; shot over toward the curb. The officer reached for his microphone.
Kinnison sped on. At Cicero Avenue, although he had a green light, traffic was so heavy that he had to slow down; at Pulaski two policemen waved him through a red. Beyond Sacramento nothing moved on wheels.
Seventy ... seventy five ... he took the bridge at eighty, both wheels in air for forty feet. Eighty five ... ninety ... that was about all he could do and keep the heap on so rough a road. Also, he did not have Diversey all to himself any more; blue-and-purple-flashing bikes were coming in from every side-street. He slowed to a conservative fifty and went into close formation with the other riders.
The H-blast—the city-wide warning for the planned and supposedly orderly evacuation of all Chicago—sounded, but Kinnison did not hear it.
Across the Park, edging over to the left so that the boys going south would have room to make the turn—even such riders as those needsomeroom to make a turn at fifty miles per hour!
Under the viaduct—biting brakes and squealing tires at that sharp, narrow, right-angle left turn—north on the wide, smooth Drive!
That highway was made for speed. So were those machines. Each rider, as he got into the flat, lay down along his tank, tucked his chin behind the cross-bar, and twisted both throttles out against their stops. They were in a hurry. They had a long way to go; and if they did not get there in time to stop those trans-polar atomic missiles, all hell would be out for noon.
Why was all this necessary? This organization, this haste, this split-second timing, this city-wide exhibition of insane hippodrome riding? Why were not all these motorcycle-racers stationed permanently at their posts, so as to be ready for any emergency? Because America, being a democracy, could not strike first, but had to wait—wait in instant readiness—until she was actually attacked. Because every good Techno in America had his assigned place in some American Defense Plan; of which Operation Bullfinch was only one. Because, without the presence of those Technos at their every-day jobs, all ordinary technological work in America would perforce have stopped.
A branch road curved away to the right. Scarcely slowing down, Kinnison bulleted into the turn and through an open, heavily-guarded gate. Here his mount and his lights were passwords enough: the real test would come later. He approached a towering structure of alloy—jammed on his brakes—stopped beside a soldier who, as soon as Kinnison jumped off, mounted the motorcycle and drove it away.
Kinnison dashed up to an apparently blank wall, turned his back upon four commissioned officers holding cocked forty-fives at the ready, and fitted his right eye into a cup. Unlike fingerprints, retinal patterns cannot be imitated, duplicated, or altered; any imposter would have died instantly, without arrest or question. For every man who belonged aboard that rocket had been checked and tested—howhe had been checked and tested!—since one spy, in any one of those Technos' chairs, could wreak damage untellable.
The port snapped open. Kinnison climbed a ladder into the large, but crowded, Operations Room.
"Hi, Teddy!" a yell arose.
"Hi, Walt! Hi-ya, Red! What-ho, Baldy!" and so on. These men were friends of old.
"Where are they?" he demanded. "Is our stuff getting away? Lemme take a peek at the Ball!"
"I'll say it is! O.K., Ted, squeeze in here!"
He squeezed in. It was not a ball, but a hemisphere, slightly oblate and centered approximately by the North Pole. A multitude of red dots moved slowly—a hundred miles upon that map was a small distance—northward over Canada; a closer-packed, less numerous group of yellowish-greens, already on the American side of the Pole, was coming south.
As had been expected, the Americans had more missiles than did the enemy. The other belief, that America had more adequate defenses and better-trained, more highly skilled defenders, would soon be put to test.
A string of blue lights blazed across the continent, from Nome through Skagway and Wallaston and Churchill and Kaniapiskau to Belle Isle; America's First Line of Defense. Regulars all. Ambers almost blanketed those blues; their combat rockets were already grabbing altitude. The Second Line, from Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver across to Halifax, also showed solid green, with some flashes of amber. Part Regulars; part National Guard.
Chicago was in the Third Line, all National Guard, extending from San Francisco to New York. Green—alert and operating. So were the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Sixth. Operation Bullfinch was clicking; on schedule to the second.
A bell clanged; the men sprang to their stations and strapped down. Every chair was occupied. Combat Rocket Number One Oh Six Eight Five, full-powered by the disintegrating nuclei of unstable isotopes, took off with a whooshing roar which even her thick walls could not mute.
The Technos, crushed down into their form-fitting cushions by three G's of acceleration, clenched their teeth and took it.
Higher! Faster! The rocket shivered and trembled as it hit the wall at the velocity of sound, but it did not pause.
Higher! Faster! Higher! Fifty miles high. One hundred ... five hundred ... a thousand ... fifteen hundred ... two thousand! Half a radius—the designated altitude at which the Chicago Contingent would go into action.
Acceleration was cut to zero. The Technos, breathing deeply in relief, donned peculiarly-goggled helmets and set up their panels.
Kinnison stared into his plate with everything he could put into his optic nerve. This was not like the Ball, in which the lights were electronically placed, automatically controlled, clear, sharp, and steady. This was radar. A radar considerably different from that of 1948, of course, and greatly improved, but still pitifully inadequate in dealing with objects separated by hundreds of miles and traveling at velocities of thousands of miles per hour!
Nor was this like the practice cruises, in which the targets had been harmless barrels or equally harmless dirigible rockets. This was the real thing; the targets today would be lethal objects indeed. Practice gunnery, with only a place in the Proficiency List at stake, had been exciting enough: this was too exciting—muchtoo exciting—for the keenness of brain and the quickness and steadiness of eye and of hand so soon to be required.
A target? Or was it? Yes—three or four of them!
"Target One—Zone Ten," a quiet voice spoke into Kinnison's ear and one of the white specks upon his plate turned yellowish green. The same words, the same lights, were heard and seen by the eleven other Technos of Sector A, of which Kinnison, by virtue of standing at the top of his Combat Rocket's Proficiency List, was Sector Chief. He knew that the voice was that of Sector A's Fire Control Officer, whose duty it was to determine, from courses, velocities, and all other data to be had from ground and lofty observers, the order in which his Sector's targets should be eliminated. And Sector A, an imaginary but sharply-defined cone, was in normal maneuvering the hottest part of the sky. Fire Control's "Zone Ten" had informed him that the object was at extreme range and hence there would be plenty of time. Nevertheless:
"Lawrence—two! Doyle—one! Drummond—stand by with three!" he snapped, at the first word.
In the instant of hearing his name each Techno stabbed down a series of studs and there flowed into his ears a rapid stream of figures—the up-to-the-second data from every point of observation as to every element of motion of his target. He punched the figures into his calculator, which would correct automatically for the motion of his own vessel—glanced once at the printed solution of the problem—tramped down upon a pedal once, twice, or three times, depending upon the number of projectiles he had been directed to handle.
Kinnison had ordered Lawrence, a better shot than Doyle, to launch two torpedoes; neither of which, at such long range, was expected to strike its mark. His second, however, should come close; so close that the instantaneous data sent back to both screens—and to Kinnison's—by the torpedo itself would make the target a sitting duck for Doyle, the less proficient follower.
Drummond, Kinnison's Number Three, would not launch his missiles unless Doyle missed. Nor could both Drummond and Harper, Kinnison's Number Two, be "out" at once. One of the two had to be "in" at all times, to take Kinnison's place in charge of the Sector if the Chief were ordered out. For while Kinnison could order either Harper or Drummond on target, he could not send himself. He could go out only when ordered to do so by Fire Control: Sector Chiefs were reserved for emergency use only.
"Target Two—Zone Nine," Fire Control said.
"Carney, two. French, one. Day, stand by with three!" Kinnison ordered.
"Damn it—missed!" This from Doyle. "Buck fever—no end."
"O.K., boy—that's why we're starting so soon. I'm shaking like a vibrator myself. We'll get over it...."
The point of light which represented Target One bulged slightly and went out. Drummond had connected and was back "in".
"Target Three—Zone Eight. Four—eight," Fire Control remarked.
"Target Three—Higgins and Green; Harper stand by. Four—Case and Santos: Lawrence."
After a minute or two of actual combat the Technos of Sector A began to steady down. Stand-by men were no longer required and were no longer assigned.
"Target Forty-one—six," said Fire Control; and:
"Lawrence, two. Doyle, two," ordered Kinnison. This was routine enough, but in a moment:
"Ted!" Lawrence snapped. "Missed—wide—both barrels. Forty-one's dodging—manned or directed—coming like hell—watch it, Doyle—WATCH IT!"
"Kinnison, take it!" Fire Control barked, voice now neither low nor steady, and without waiting to see whether Doyle would hit or miss. "It's in Zone Three already—collision course!"
"Harper! Take over!"
Kinnison got the data, solved the equations, launched five torpedoes at fifty gravities of acceleration. One ... two—three-four-five; the last three as close together as they could fly without setting off their proximity fuzes.
Communications and mathematics and the electronic brains of calculating machines had done all that they could do; the rest was up to human skill, to the perfection of co-ordination and the speed of reaction of human mind, nerve, and muscle.
Kinnison's glance darted from plate to panel to computer-tape to meter to galvanometer and back to plate; his left hand moved in tiny arcs the knobs whose rotation varied the intensities of two mutually perpendicular components of his torpedoes' drives. He listened attentively to the reports of triangulating observers, now giving him data covering his own missiles, as well as the target object. The fingers of his right hand punched almost constantly the keys of his computer; he corrected almost constantly his torpedoes' course.
"Up a hair," he decided. "Left about a point."
The target moved away from its predicted path.
Down two—left three—down a hair—Right! The thing was almost through Zone Two; was blasting into Zone One.
He thought for a second that his first torp was going to connect. It almost did—only a last-instant, full-powered side thrust enabled the target to evade it. Two numbers flashed white upon his plate; his actual error, exact to the foot of distance and to the degree on the clock, measured and transmitted back to his board by instruments in his torpedo.
Working with instantaneous and exact data, and because the enemy had so little time in which to act, Kinnison's second projectile made a very near miss indeed. His third was a graze; so close that its proximity fuze functioned, detonating the cyclonite-packed war-head. Kinnison knew that his third went off, because the error-figures vanished, almost in the instant of their coming into being, as its detecting and transmitting instruments were destroyed. That one detonation might have been enough; but Kinnison had had one glimpse of his error—how small it was!—and had a fraction of a second of time. Hence Four and Five slammed home; dead center. Whatever that target had been, it was no longer a threat.
"Kinnison, in," he reported briefly to Fire Control, and took over from Harper the direction of the activities of Sector A.
The battle went on. Kinnison sent Harper and Drummond out time after time. He himself was given three more targets. The first wave of the enemy—what was left of it—passed. Sector A went into action, again at extreme range, upon the second. Its remains, too, plunged downward and onward toward the distant ground.
The third wave was really tough. Not that it was actually any worse than the first two had been, but the CR10685 was no longer getting the data which her Technos ought to have to do a good job; and every man aboard her knew why. Some enemy stuff had got through, of course; and the observatories, both on the ground and above it—the eye of the whole American Defense—had suffered heavily.
Nevertheless, Kinnison and his fellows were not too perturbed. Such a condition was not entirely unexpected. They were now veterans; they had been tried and had not been found wanting. They had come unscathed through a bath of fire the like of which the world had never before known. Give them any kind of computation at all—or no computation at all except old CR10685's own radar and their own torps, of which they still had plenty—and they could and would take care of anything that could be thrown at them.
The third wave passed. Targets became fewer and fewer. Action slowed down ... stopped.
The Technos, even the Sector Chiefs, knew nothing whatever of the progress of the battle as a whole. They did not know where their rocket was, or whether it was going north, east, south, or west. They knew when it was going up or down only by the "seats of their pants." They did not even know the nature of the targets they destroyed, since upon their plates all targets looked alike—small, bright, greenish-yellow spots. Hence:
"Give us the dope, Pete, if we've got a minute to spare," Kinnison begged of his Fire Control Officer. "You know more than we do—give!"
"It's coming in now," came the prompt reply. "Six of those targets that did such fancy dodging were atomics, aimed at the Lines. Five were dirigibles, with our number on 'em. You fellows did a swell job. Very little of their stuff got through—not enough, they say, to do much damage to a country as big as the U.S.A. On the other hand, they stopped scarcely any of ours—they apparently didn't have anything to compare with you Technos.
"But all hell seems to be busting loose, all over the world. Our east and west coasts are both being attacked, they say; but are holding. Operation Daisy and Operation Fairfield are clicking, just like we did. Europe, they say, is going to hell—everybody is taking pot-shots at everybody else. One report says that the South American nations are bombing each other ... Asia, too ... nothing definite; as straight dope comes in I'll relay it to you.
"We came through in very good shape, considering ... losses less than anticipated, only seven percent. The First Line—as you know already—took a God-awful shellacking; in fact, the Churchill-Belcher section was practically wiped out, which was what lost us about all of our Observation.... We are now just about over the southern end of Hudson Bay, heading down and south to join in making a vertical Fleet Formation ... no more waves coming, but they say to expect attacks from low-flying combat rockets—there goes the alert! On your toes, fellows—but there isn't a thing on Sector A's screen...."
There wasn't. Since the CR10685 was diving downward and southward, there wouldn't be. Nevertheless, some observer aboard that rocket saw that atomic missile coming. Some Fire Control Officer yelled orders; some Technos did their best—and failed.
And such is the violence of nuclear fission; so utterly incomprehensible is its speed, that Theodore K. Kinnison died without realizing that anything whatever was happening to his ship or to him.
Gharlane of Eddore looked upon ruined Earth, his handiwork, and found it good. Knowing that it would be many of hundreds of Tellurian years before that planet would again require his personal attention, he went elsewhere; to Rigel Four, to Palain Seven, and to the solar system of Velantia, where he found that his creatures the Overlords were not progressing according to schedule. He spent quite a little time there, then searched minutely and fruitlessly for evidence of inimical activity within the Innermost Circle.
And upon far Arisia a momentous decision was made: the time had come to curb sharply the hitherto unhampered Eddorians.
"We are ready, then, to war openly upon them?" Eukonidor asked, somewhat doubtfully. "Again to cleanse the planet Tellus of dangerous radioactives and of too-noxious forms of life is of course a simple matter. From our protected areas in North America a strong but democratic government can spread to cover the world. That government can be extended easily enough to include Mars and Venus. But Gharlane, who is to operate as Roger, who has already planted, in the Adepts of North Polar Jupiter, the seeds of the Jovian Wars...."
"Your visualization is sound, youth. Think on."
"Those interplanetary wars are of course inevitable, and will serve to strengthen and to unify the government of the Inner Planets ... provided that Gharlane does not interfere.... Oh, I see. Gharlane will not at first know; since a zone of compulsion will be held upon him. When he or some Eddorian fusion perceives that compulsion and breaks it—at some such time of high stress as the Nevian incident—it will be too late. Our fusions will be operating. Roger will be allowed to perform only such acts as will be for Civilization's eventual good. Nevia was selected as Prime Operator because of its location in a small region of the galaxy which is almost devoid of solid iron and because of its watery nature; its aquatic forms of life being precisely those in which the Eddorians are least interested. They will be given partial neutralization of inertia; they will be able to attain velocities a few times greater than that of light. That covers the situation, I think?"
"Very good, Eukonidor," the Elders approved. "A concise and accurate summation."
Hundreds of Tellurian years passed. The aftermath. Reconstruction. Advancement. One world—two worlds—three worlds—united, harmonious, friendly. The Jovian Wars. A solid, unshakeable union.
Nor did any Eddorian know that such fantastically rapid progress was being made. Indeed, Gharlane knew, as he drove his immense ship of space toward Sol, that he would find Tellus inhabited by peoples little above savagery.
And it should be noted in passing that not once, throughout all those centuries, did a man named Kinnison marry a girl with red-bronze-auburn hair and gold-flecked, tawny eyes.
CHAPTER 7
PIRATES OF SPACE
Apparently motionless to her passengers and crew, the Interplanetary linerHyperionbored serenely onward through space at normal acceleration. In the railed-off sanctum in one corner of the control room a bell tinkled, a smothered whirr was heard, and Captain Bradley frowned as he studied the brief message upon the tape of the recorder—a message flashed to his desk from the operator's panel. He beckoned, and the second officer, whose watch it now was, read aloud:
"Reports of scout patrols still negative."
"Still negative." The officer scowled in thought. "They've already searched beyond the widest possible location of wreckage, too. Two unexplained disappearances inside a month—first theDione, then theRhea—and not a plate nor a lifeboat recovered. Looks bad, sir. One might be an accident; two might possibly be a coincidence...." His voice died away.
"But at three it would get to be a habit," the captain finished the thought. "And whatever happened, happened quick. Neither of them had time to say a word—their location recorders simply went dead. But of course they didn't have our detector screens nor our armament. According to the observatories we're in clear ether, but I wouldn't trust them from Tellus to Luna. You have given the new orders, of course?"
"Yes, sir. Detectors full out, all three courses of defensive screen on the trips, projectors manned, suits on the hooks. Every object detected to be investigated immediately—if vessels, they are to be warned to stay beyond extreme range. Anything entering the fourth zone is to be rayed."
"Right—we are going through!"
"But no known type of vessel could have made away with them without detection," the second officer argued. "I wonder if there isn't something in those wild rumors we've been hearing lately?"
"Bah! Of course not!" snorted the captain. "Pirates in ships faster than light—sub-ethereal rays—nullification of gravity mass without inertia—ridiculous! Proved impossible, over and over again. No, sir, if pirates are operating in space—and it looks very much like it—they won't get far against a good big battery full of kilowatt-hours behind three courses of heavy screen, and good gunners behind multiplex projectors. They're good enough for anybody. Pirates, Neptunians, angels, or devils—in ships or on broomsticks—if they tackle theHyperionwe'll burn them out of the ether!"
Leaving the captain's desk, the watch officer resumed his tour of duty. The six great lookout plates into which the alert observers peered were blank, their far-flung ultra-sensitive detector screens encountering no obstacle—the ether was empty for thousands upon thousands of kilometers. The signal lamps upon the pilot's panel were dark, its warning bells were silent. A brilliant point of white light in the center of the pilot's closely ruled micrometer grating, exactly upon the cross-hairs of his directors, showed that the immense vessel was precisely upon the calculated course, as laid down by the automatic integrating course plotters. Everything was quiet and in order.
"All's well, sir," he reported briefly to Captain Bradley—but all was not well.
Danger—more serious by far in that it was not external—was even then, all unsuspected, gnawing at the great ship's vitals. In a locked and shielded compartment, deep down in the interior of the liner, was the great air purifier. Now a man leaned against the primary duct—the aorta through which flowed the stream of pure air supplying the entire vessel. This man, grotesque in full panoply of space armor, leaned against the duct, and as he leaned a drill bit deeper and deeper into the steel wall of the pipe. Soon it broke through, and the slight rush of air was stopped by the insertion of a tightly fitting rubber tube. The tube terminated in a heavy rubber balloon, which surrounded a frail glass bulb. The man stood tense, one hand holding before his silica-and-steel-helmeted head a large pocket chronometer, the other lightly grasping the balloon. A sneering grin was upon his face as he waited the exact second of action—the carefully predetermined instant when his right hand, closing, would shatter the fragile flask and force its contents into the primary air stream of theHyperion!
Far above, in the main saloon, the regular evening dance was in full swing. The ship's orchestra crashed into silence, there was a patter of applause, and Clio Marsden, radiant belle of the voyage, led her partner out onto the promenade and up to one of the observation plates.
"Oh, we can't see the Earth any more!" she exclaimed. "Which way do you turn this, Mr. Costigan?"
"Like this," and Conway Costigan, burly young First Officer of the liner, turned the dials. "There—this plate is looking back, or down, at Tellus; this other one is looking ahead."
Earth was a brilliantly shining crescent far beneath the flying vessel. Above her, ruddy Mars and silvery Jupiter blazed in splendor ineffable against a background of utterly indescribable blackness—a background thickly besprinkled with dimensionless points of dazzling brilliance which were the stars.
"Oh, isn't it wonderful!" breathed the girl, awed. "Of course, I suppose that it's old stuff to you, but I'm a ground-gripper, you know, and I could look at it forever, I think. That's why I want to come out here after every dance. You know, I...."
Her voice broke off suddenly, with a queer, rasping catch, as she seized his arm in a frantic clutch and as quickly went limp. He stared at her sharply, and understood instantly the message written in her eyes—eyes now enlarged, staring, hard, brilliant, and full of soul-searing terror as she slumped down, helpless but for his support. In the act of exhaling as he was, lungs almost entirely empty, yet he held his breath until he had seized the microphone from his belt and had snapped the lever to "emergency."
"Control room!" he gasped then, and every speaker throughout the great cruiser of the void blared out the warning as he forced his already evacuated lungs to absolute emptiness. "Vee-Two Gas! Get tight!"
Writhing and twisting in his fierce struggle to keep his lungs from gulping in a draft of that noxious atmosphere, and with the unconscious form of the girl draped limply over his left arm, Costigan leaped toward the portal of the nearest lifeboat. Orchestra instruments crashed to the floor and dancing couples fell and sprawled inertly while the tortured First Officer swung the door of the lifeboat open and dashed across the tiny room to the air-valves. Throwing them wide open, he put his mouth to the orifice and let his laboring lungs gasp their eager fill of the cold blast roaring from the tanks. Then, air-hunger partially assuaged, he again held his breath, broke open the emergency locker, donned one of the space-suits always kept there, and opened its valves wide in order to flush out of his uniform any lingering trace of the lethal gas.
He then leaped back to his companion. Shutting off the air, he released a stream of pure oxygen, held her face in it, and made shift to force some of it into her lungs by compressing and releasing her chest against his own body. Soon she drew a spasmodic breath, choking and coughing, and he again changed the gaseous stream to one of pure air, speaking urgently as she showed signs of returning consciousness.
"Stand up!" he snapped. "Hang onto this brace and keep your face in this air-stream until I get a suit around you! Got me?"
She nodded weakly, and, assured that she could hold herself at the valve, it was the work of only a minute to encase her in one of the protective coverings. Then, as she sat upon a bench, recovering her strength, he flipped on the lifeboat's visiphone projector and shot its invisible beam up into the control room, where he saw space-armored figures furiously busy at the panels.
"Dirty work at the cross-roads!" he blazed to his captain, man to man—formality disregarded, as it so often was in the Triplanetary service. "There's skulduggery afoot somewhere in our primary air! Maybe that's the way they got those other two ships—pirates! Might have been a timed bomb—don't see how anybody could have stowed away down there through the inspections, and nobody but Franklin can neutralize the shield of the air room—but I'm going to look around, anyway. Then I'll join you fellows up there."
"What was it?" the shaken girl asked. "I think that I remember your saying 'Vee-Two gas.' That's forbidden! Anyway, I owe you my life, Conway, and I'll never forget it—never. Thanks—but the others—how about all the rest of us?"
"It was Vee-Two, and it is forbidden," Costigan replied grimly, eyes fast upon the flashing plate, whose point of projection was now deep in the bowels of the vessel. "The penalty for using it or having it is death on sight. Gangsters and pirates use it, since they have nothing to lose, being on the death list already. As for your life, I haven't saved it yet—you may wish I'd let it ride before we get done. The others are too far gone for oxygen—couldn't have brought even you around in a few more seconds, quick as I got to you. But there's a sure antidote—we all carry it in a lock-box in our armor—and we all know how to use it, because crooks all use Vee-Two and so we're always expecting it. But since the air will be pure again in half an hour we'll be able to revive the others easily enough if we can get by with whatever is going to happen next. There's the bird that did it, right in the air-room. It's the Chief Engineer's suit, but that isn't Franklin that's in it. Some passenger—disguised—slugged the Chief—took his suit and projectors—hole in duct—p-s-s-t! All washed out! Maybe that's all he was scheduled to do to us in this performance, but he'll do nothing else in his life!"
"Don't go down there!" protested the girl. "His armor is so much better than that emergency suit you are wearing, and he's got Mr. Franklin's Lewiston, besides!"
"Don't be an idiot!" he snapped. "We can't have a live pirate aboard—we're going to be altogether too busy with outsiders directly. Don't worry, I'm not going to give him a break. I'll take a Standish—I'll rub him out like a blot. Stay right here until I come back after you," he commanded, and the heavy door of the lifeboat clanged shut behind him as he leaped out into the promenade.
Straight across the saloon he made his way, paying no attention to the inert forms scattered here and there. Going up to a blank wall, he manipulated an almost invisible dial set flush with its surface, swung a heavy door aside, and lifted out the Standish—a fearsome weapon. Squat, huge, and heavy, it resembled somewhat an overgrown machine rifle, but one possessing a thick, short telescope, with several opaque condensing lenses and parabolic reflectors. Laboring under the weight of the thing, he strode along corridors and clambered heavily down short stairways. Finally he came to the purifier room, and grinned savagely as he saw the greenish haze of light obscuring the door and walls—the shield was still in place; the pirate was still inside, still flooding with the terrible Vee Two theHyperion'sprimary air.
He set his peculiar weapon down, unfolded its three massive legs, crouched down behind it, and threw in a switch. Dull red beams of frightful intensity shot from the reflectors and sparks, almost of lightning proportions, leaped from the shielding screen under their impact. Roaring and snapping, the conflict went on for seconds, then, under the superior force of the Standish, the greenish radiance gave way. Behind it the metal of the door ran the gamut of color—red, yellow, blinding white—then literally exploded; molten, vaporized, burned away. Through the aperture thus made Costigan could plainly see the pirate in the space-armor of the chief engineer—an armor which was proof against rifle fire and which could reflect and neutralize for some little time even the terrific beam Costigan was employing. Nor was the pirate unarmed—a vicious flare of incandescence leaped from his Lewiston, to spend its force in spitting, crackling pyrotechnics against the ether-wall of the squat and monstrous Standish. But Costigan's infernal engine did not rely only upon vibratory destruction. At almost the first flash of the pirate's weapon the officer touched a trigger, there was a double report, ear-shattering in that narrowly confined space, and the pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half-kilogram shell tore through his armor and exploded. Costigan shut off his beam, and with not the slightest softening of one hard lineament stared around the air-room; making sure that no serious damage had been done to the vital machinery of the air-purifier—the very lungs of the great space-ship.
Dismounting the Standish, he lugged it back up to the main saloon, replaced it in its safe, and again set the combination lock. Thence to the lifeboat, where Clio cried out in relief as she saw that he was unhurt.
"Oh, Conway, I've been so afraid something would happen to you!" she exclaimed, as he led her rapidly upward toward the control room. "Of course you ..." she paused.
"Sure," he replied, laconically. "Nothing to it. How do you feel—about back to normal?"
"All right, I think, except for being scared to death and just about out of control. I don't suppose that I'll be good for anything, but whatever I can do, count me in on."
"Fine—you may be needed, at that. Everybody's out, apparently, except those like me, who had a warning and could hold their breath until they got to their suits."
"But how did you know what it was? You can't see it, nor smell it, nor anything."
"You inhaled a second before I did, and I saw your eyes. I've been in it before—and when you see a man get a jolt of that stuff just once, you never forget it. The engineers down below got it first, of course—it must have wiped them out. Then we got it in the saloon. Your passing out warned me, and luckily I had enough breath left to give the word. Quite a few of the fellows up above should have had time to get away—we'll see 'em all in the control room."
"I suppose that was why you revived me—in payment for so kindly warning you of the gas attack?" The girl laughed; shaky, but game.
"Something like that, probably," he answered, lightly. "Here we are—now we'll soon find out what's going to happen next."
In the control room they saw at least a dozen armored figures; not now rushing about, but seated at their instruments, tense and ready. Fortunate it was that Costigan—veteran of space as he was, though young in years—had been down in the saloon; fortunate that he had been familiar with that horrible outlawed gas; fortunate that he had had presence of mind enough and sheer physical stamina enough to send his warning without allowing one paralyzing trace to enter his own lungs. Captain Bradley, the men on watch, and several other officers in their quarters or in the wardrooms—space-hardened veterans all—had obeyed instantly and without question the amplifiers' gasped command to "get tight". Exhaling or inhaling, their air-passages had snapped shut as that dread "Vee-Two" was heard, and they had literally jumped into their armored suits of space—flushing them out with volume after volume of unquestionable air; holding their breath to the last possible second, until their straining lungs could endure no more.
Costigan waved the girl to a vacant bench, cautiously changing into his own armor from the emergency suit he had been wearing, and approached the captain.
"Anything in sight, sir?" he asked, saluting. "They should have started something before this."
"They've started, but we can't locate them. We tried to send out a general sector alarm, but had hardly started when they blanketed our wave. Look at that!"
Following the captain's eyes, Costigan stared at the high powered set of the ship's operator. Upon the plate, instead of a moving, living, three-dimensional picture, there was a flashing glare of blinding white light; from the speaker, instead of intelligible speech, was issuing a roaring, crackling stream of noise.
"It's impossible!" Bradley burst out, violently. "There's not a gram of metal inside the fourth zone—within a hundred thousand kilometers—and yet they must be close to send such a wave as that. But the Second thinks not—what do you think, Costigan?" The bluff commander, reactionary and of the old school as was his breed, was furious—baffled, raging inwardly to come to grips with the invisible and indetectable foe. Face to face with the inexplicable, however, he listened to the younger men with unusual tolerance.
"It's not only possible; it's quite evident that they've got something we haven't." Costigan's voice was bitter. "But why shouldn't they have? Service ships never get anything until it's been experimented with for years, but pirates and such always get the new stuff as soon as it's discovered. The only good thing I can see is that we got part of a message away, and the scouts can trace that interference out there. But the pirates know that, too—it won't be long now," he concluded, grimly.
He spoke truly. Before another word was said the outer screen flared white under a beam of terrific power, and simultaneously there appeared upon one of the lookout plates a vivid picture of the pirate vessel—a huge, black torpedo of steel, now emitting flaring offensive beams of force.
Instantly the powerful weapons of theHyperionwere brought to bear, and in the blast of full-driven beams the stranger's screens flamed incandescent. Heavy guns, under the recoil of whose fierce salvos the frame of the giant globe trembled and shuddered, shot out their tons of high-explosive shell. But the pirate commander had known accurately the strength of the liner, and knew that her armament was impotent against the forces at his command. His screens were invulnerable, the giant shells were exploded harmlessly in mid-space, miles from their objective. And suddenly a frightful pencil of flame stabbed brilliantly from the black hulk of the enemy. Through the empty ether it tore, through the mighty defensive screens, through the tough metal of the outer and inner walls. Every ether-defense of theHyperionvanished, and her acceleration dropped to a quarter of its normal value.
"Right through the battery room!" Bradley groaned. "We're on the emergency drive now. Our rays are done for, and we can't seem to put a shell anywhere near her with our guns!"
But ineffective as the guns were, they were silenced forever as a frightful beam of destruction stabbed relentlessly through the control room, whiffing out of existence the pilot, gunnery, and lookout panels and the men before them. The air rushed into space, and the suits of the three survivors bulged out into drum-head tightness as the pressure in the room decreased.
Costigan pushed the captain lightly toward a wall, then seized the girl and leaped in the same direction.
"Let's get out of here, quick!" he cried, the miniature radio instruments of the helmets automatically taking up the duty of transmitting speech as the sound disks refused to function. "They can't see us—our ether wall is still up and their spy-rays can't get through it from the outside, you know. They're working from blue-prints, and they'll probably take your desk next," and even as they bounded toward the door, now become the outer seal of an airlock, the pirates' beam tore through the space which they had just quitted.
Through the airlock, down through several levels of passengers' quarters they hurried, and into a lifeboat, whose one doorway commanded the full length of the third lounge—an ideal spot, either for defense or for escape outward by means of the miniature cruiser. As they entered their retreat they felt their weight begin to increase. More and more force was applied to the helpless liner, until it was moving at normal acceleration.
"What do you make of that, Costigan?" asked the captain. "Tractor beams?"
"Apparently. They've got something, all right. They're taking us somewhere, fast. I'll go get a couple of Standishes, and another suit of armor—we'd better dig in," and soon the small room became a veritable fortress, housing as it did those two formidable engines of destruction. Then the first officer made another and longer trip, returning with a complete suit of Triplanetary space armor, exactly like those worn by the two men, but considerably smaller.
"Just as an added factor of safety, you'd better put this on, Clio—those emergency suits aren't good for much in a battle. I don't suppose that you ever fired a Standish, did you?"
"No, but I can soon learn how to do it," she replied pluckily.
"Two is all that can work here at once, but you should know how to take hold in case one of us goes out. And while you're changing suits you'd better put on some stuff I've got here—Service Special phones and detectors. Stick this little disk onto your chest with this bit of tape; low down, out of sight. Just under your wishbone is the best place. Take off your wrist-watch and wear this onecontinuously—never take it off for a second. Put on these pearls, and wear them all the time, too. Take this capsule and hide it against your skin, some place where it can't be found except by the most rigid search. Swallow it in an emergency—it goes down easily and works just as well inside as outside. It is the most important thing of all—you can get along with it alone if you lose everything else, but without that capsule the whole system's shot to pieces. With that outfit, if we should get separated, you can talk to us—we're both wearing 'em, although in somewhat different forms. You don't need to talk loud—just a mutter will be enough. They're handy little outfits—almost impossible to find, and capable of a lot of things."
"Thanks, Conway—I'll remember that, too," Clio replied, as she turned toward the tiny locker to follow his instructions. "But won't the scouts and patrols be catching us pretty quick? The operator sent a warning."
"Afraid the ether's empty, as far as we're concerned."
Captain Bradley had stood by in silent astonishment during this conversation. His eyes had bulged slightly at Costigan's "we're both wearing 'em," but he had held his peace and as the girl disappeared a look of dawning comprehension came over his face.
"Oh, I see, sir," he said, respectfully—far more respectfully than he had ever before addressed a mere first officer. "Meaning that we bothwill bewearing them shortly, I assume. 'Service Specials'—but you didn't specify exactlywhatService, did you?"
"Now that you mention it, I don't believe that I did," Costigan grinned.
"That explains several things about you—particularly your recognition of Vee-Two and your uncanny control and speed of reaction. But aren't you...."
"No," Costigan interrupted. "This situation is apt to get altogether too serious to overlook any bets. If we get away, I'll take them away from her and she'll never know that they aren't routine equipment. As for you, I know that you can and do keep your mouth shut. That's why I'm hanging this junk on you—I had a lot of stuff in my kit, but I flashed it all with the Standish except what I brought in here for us three. Whether you think so or not, we're in a real jam—our chance of getting away is mighty close to zero...."
He broke off as the girl came back, now to all appearances a small Triplanetary officer, and the three settled down to a long and eventless wait. Hour after hour they flew through the ether, but finally there was a lurching swing and an abrupt increase in their acceleration. After a short consultation Captain Bradley turned on the visiray set and, with the beam at its minimum power, peered cautiously downward, in the direction opposite to that in which he knew the pirate vessel must be. All three stared into the plate, seeing only an infinity of emptiness, marked only by the infinitely remote and coldly brilliant stars. While they stared into space a vast area of the heavens was blotted out and they saw, faintly illuminated by a peculiar blue luminescence, a vast ball—a sphere so large and so close that they seemed to be dropping downward toward it as though it were a world! They came to a stop—paused, weightless—a vast door slid smoothly aside—they were drawnupwardthrough an airlock and floated quietly in the air above a small, but brightly-lighted and orderly city of metallic buildings! Gently theHyperionwas lowered, to come to rest in the embracing arms of a regulation landing cradle.