by Earl
The third phalanx hurled infrabeams at the target, at such close quarters that one ship’s nose melted away from the reflected heat. This deadly surge of energy from disintegrated atoms had no more effect on the Sirian ship’s hull than a candle-flame.
The next line of ships drifted up and from hard, plastic nozzles they sprayed forth thin, biting streams of acid. Space warfare of previous times had developed this weapon, to weaken heavy armor-plate for shellfire to work through. The powerful corrosive, anathema to all metals and alloys, bubbled and hissed violently against the enemy ship’s hull, but when it had evaporated, not a line had been etched into the smooth, shiny surface!
Desperate shell-fire was begun again. In the last analysis, this weapon counted the most in space, where one tiny hole in a ship’s hull most often put it out of commission, at least temporarily. Battleships of successively greater size, crew, and armament rocketed up, to pour their shells against the mile-long hull that had so impossibly withstood all previous forces. The explosions against the target grew to tremendous fountains of flame and disruptive matter.
The alien ship did not even budge the slightest from the titanic shocks. It seemed rigidly locked into space, totally unaffected by forces that would have reduced an Earthly city to smoking ruins. And it hadn’t as yet made one attempt at retaliation.
Soon the last row of ships remained to try their guns. These were the superdreadnaughts, each as large as an ocean-going capital battleship, manned by a crew of a thousand. Their long, wicked gun-barrels stabbed from the hull like giant spikes.
“The last hope!” whispered Pitman, moving his ship back a ways. “If they fail—”
The mighty dreadnaughts, lining up, delivered one concentrated broadside. The alien ship’s surface was totally obscured by the resulting melee of frightful detonations. Even a large asteroid would have cracked in half from that salvo, but the ship of the invading Sirians, when the gases had cleared, lay there as shiny and inconceivably undamaged as ever.
Pitman’s exclamations were drowned out by the hail of bomb particles against his hull from the terrific bombardment. Mayella trembled against him. Earth’s forces had failed! The ghastly fact lay clear that the alien ship could not be destroyed!
But the battle fleet of Earth did not give up. As one now, they plunged to the attack, from all sides, seeking a vulnerable spot. There was none in the unbroken surface against which they hurled all their armament.
And then the besieged ship retaliated, as though all the while it had been laughing at the attack, and had now grown tired of the game. Blinding bolts of superlightning shot from its surface. Ship after ship of the Earth fleet exploded into atomic dust. It was carnage—slaughter!
Pitman watched, sickened to the roots of his being. It occurred to him now that the aliens had wanted him to call the attack. It was furthering their program. Soon the Solar System would lie defenseless to the invaders. Pitman signalled the flagship frantically. “Stop it! Stop it!” he yelled. “It’s a senseless waste of lives and ships. Retreat! Something may be done against the aliens in the future, if we have some ships left!”
“Yes, I guess you’re right,” came back Admiral Harmon’s voice, dully.
The bombardment ceased and the undestroyed half of the fleet scurried bade. But now the giant Sirian craft leaped after them, with its Jovian lightning, bent on complete destruction of the fleet.
“Scatter! They must scatter—” groaned Pitman.
At the same moment, the fleet carried out this obvious maneuver, ships scooting away in all directions. The Sirian ship, like a monstrous bear, gave chase to a few and then finally stopped, unable to do anything about that.
Pitman stared at it. There it lay, the victor, the master of the Solar System, in one battle. The Sirians could go where they wished, do what they wanted. It was a forlorn hope that they could be defeated at any time in the future. Their sealed habitations on Earth would be impregnable too.
The handwriting was on the wall—mankind’s doom!
IN A daze of futility, Pitman hovered near the great ship of menace. It barely occurred to him that his oxygen supply would not last another hour. The Earth fleet had reformed and limped back to Earth. It was even too late now to overhaul them. He stirred. He must send an SOS for one of the ships to return. The individual will to live could not be ignored, even in the face of what the alien ship represented.
As Pitman turned to the radio, its signal-buzz sounded—someone trying to contact him. He snapped the switch.
“Lieutenant Pitman?” came the deep, cultured voice. “This is Dr. Harkness—or the Red Pirate, as you know me. I picked up your previous reports, and came here. Is—is Mayella safe?”
“Yes, I am, father!” returned the girl with a glad cry.
They could see his ship now, outside the port, shining crimsonly by reflected sunlight. A sigh of relief came from the radio.
“Dr. Harkness, you’d better leave,” said Pitman coldly. “I’m about to call a Patrol ship to rescue me, as I’m short of oxygen. If they see you—”
“No!” interrupted the former scientist quickly. “Don’t call them. Come aboard my ship!”
“What?” gasped Pitman. “But I’m a Patrol officer, and you—”
“Yes, I know. I’m a pirate. But look out of your port, at that great, impregnable ship from another star. In the presence of that we’re no longer Patrol officer and pirate chief. We’re—fellow humans!”
“What do you mean?” Pitman queried wonderingly.
“Come to my ship. I’ll explain, I promise you safe conduct.”
“Ted, please!” murmured Mayella, “No matter what he’s been, he’d never break his word.”
“All right,” agreed Pitman.
In space-suits, it was a simple matter for them to leap across to the red ship, after it had maneuvered close inside the pirate ship, they removed their suits. Several hard-bitten men looked at Pitman stonily, but left the forecabin at a sign from their leader.
Dr. Harkness looked more the pirate than the scientist. He was unshaven, hard-eyed, slovenly clothed. At his waist were two pistols. But his eyes softened as he stared at his daughter. Suddenly she flew into his arms wordlessly. Both were moistened when they broke apart.
He motioned them to seats. “I’ll be brief,” he spoke. “I came here not only to find out if Mayella was safe, but because of the—aliens. I believe I can defeat them! My weapon might do it!”
Pitman stared skeptically. “But no energy-ray can harm that hull if the fleet’s big battery of infra-rays couldn’t,” he declared.
“My weapon isn’t a ray,” replied the ex-scientist. “It’s a liquid that I spray out. And it’s the universal solvent! I’ve tested it with everything, glass, stone, metal, clay, leather,—it eats through anything, almost instantly!”
“Then how do you keep it?” Pitman asked the poser that quite naturally came with the thought of the universal solvent.
“I don’t. I produce it outside the ship. My weapon has two nozzles. One sprays out a liquid that is harmless itself, but when the radiation from the other nozzle impinges on it, its molecules rearrange chemically and it becomes the universal solvent, And I think even the Sirian’s neutron-hull couldn’t resist it!”
Pitman bounced to his feet. “We’ll try it! Dr. Harkness, you’d be doing a great thing if it succeeded. You’d save the Solar System!”
The older man made a gesture of authority. “We must have our reward, though. For my men, full pardon. They are all rich now, with hidden loot. Full pardon would be welcome to them. As for me, I want just a promise to be left free to go after we try the weapon. As you know, there is no pardon for pirate chiefs. Now radio the fleet and have them come back. If I penetrate the aliens’ hull, they must still do the rest. Have Admiral Harmon grant the pardon to my men, and my exemption from arrest.”
Filled with new hope, Pitman called the fleet and poured out the encouraging message. There was no fear that the aliens would take alarm
. They knew nothing of sound and therefore had no such thing as radio.
SEVERAL hours later, the fleet hung motionlessly above the alien ship. As usual it lay engimatic, mysterious, indifferent to the presence of the humans it would soon conquer.
The red pirate ship crept beside the vessel slowly. Suddenly from its nozzles on one side sprang thin pencils of liquid, traveling like a solid object in the airlessness of space. They impinged on the enemy ship’s hull. Trickles of fluid cohered and ran over the strange metal.
Tense eyes watched in the cabin of the pirate ship. Hard eyes of men that hoped to be freed of the law’s hounding—the eyes of two young people who represented the humanity that the aliens were bent on destroying, and the hollow eyes of a man who had conquered bitterness to join in the battle of the civilization that had ostracized him.
“Look—” Mayella dug her fingers into Pitman’s arm. “The liquid is working through!”
And it was, though at first it had seemed to give the lie to its name.
Slowly, with far less efficacy than it ate through ordinary matter, the universal solvent pitted the adamant surface, dug deeper.
Harkness gave low commands in his inter-ship tube and the craft began a revolution around the stupendous alien hulk, spraying down its corrosive burden in moving lines that steadily gnawed inward.
Pitman’s heart sang, but suddenly he jerked. “Look out!” he yelled. A portion of the hull suddenly glowed violet and the Sirians’ lightning force leaped at them. But warned of this previously, Harkness jerked a rocket lever that catapulted the ship back, throwing them all against the wall. The lightning missed.
And now, at this signal, the Patrol fleet charged down, all weapons hammering away at the weakened portion of the hull. For a while it seemed they had again failed. Not even the biggest shells of the superdreadnaughts worked through. And the Sirian ship trembled and began arrowing. away, evidently aware of its danger.
The fleet dogged it relentlessly, before its superior acceleration took effect, pouring down a withering, desperate barrage. Suddenly, one shell took effect. A portion of the hull, lined with the universal solvent’s etchings, cracked slightly. A rain of shells followed. The crack became a gaping pit, and succeeding bombs plummeted within the Sirian ship.
It rocked crazily. Other parts of the hull weakened, cracked, and exposed the interior. Vengeful, accurate shell-fire poured into the breeches. The alien ship stopped accelerating, its engines damaged. It could not get away. The end was near.
Once past that adamant hull, the Earth ships worked with deadly efficiency. Shells poured into the holes from all angles. The interior must be a shambles. For an hour the grim work went on, till it was inconceivable that any corner of the great ship even with its stupendous bulk, could be untouched.
Then the Sirian ship floated, a lifeless, debris-filled hulk and the menace of the invaders from another star was over. If others came, the forces of Earth would be prepared and would know how to fight them.
IN THE pirate ship, some time later, Pitman prepared to leave. He and Mayella began donning their spacesuits. Harkness watched with shadowed eyes. He turned as the radio signal buzzed.
“For you, Lieutenant,” he announced. “The admiral calling.”
Pitman stepped before the instrument. The admiral’s voice rang out loudly. “I have a message from the Earth Council, as follows: Dr. Andrew Harkness, for his momentous service to mankind in making possible the defeat of the aliens, is hereby granted full pardon for his former crimes. He will be reinstated in the science bureau. It is stricken from our records that he was ever a pirate chief!”
Dr. Harkness stood stunned. Mayella hugged him eagerly, her eyes shining.
Pitman dragged her away after a moment. “I’m here too,” he reminded her. “And let’s see you think up any other reason why you can’t marry me!”
“I can’t!” the girl confessed.
THE END
THE MISSING YEAR
In an instant of time a whole year vanished from the minds of men, and chaos ruled the world
CHAPTER I
Amnesia?
“AUGUST 10th, 1940.”
Larry Benton stared at the newspaper’s dateline in utter amazement. 1940! It must be a misprint, since it was only August 10th, 1939.
Rapidly he turned the pages and found them all labeled with the erroneous date. How could they make such a glaring mistake? Being a newspaperman himself, it struck him as incomprehensible, since no man-made institution watched dates as closely as the newspapers, the soul of whose wares was time. A simple slip of 1940 for 1939 on one page would be understandable, but to find it on every page!
And his own newspaper, the Times-Star! He felt his face actually burning with shame.
A queer shock went through him as he turned his eyes from the paper. He looked down at the cloud packs over which he was flying, and suddenly realized he was in an airliner. The muffled sound of laboring propellors came to his ears. His glance next took in the cabin and its nine other passengers.
He suppressed a gasp.
To save his soul, he couldn’t remember boarding the plane! In fact, he couldn’t remember a thing in connection with his journey!
Why was he in the plane? Where was he going? What did it all mean?
Amnesia!
The word struck him like a blow in the face. That was the only explanation. He was one of those unfortunate amnesia victims you read about—unknowing of his present actions. Yet he knew who he was—or did he?—
Hastily, he drew his wallet from his coat pocket and looked at his press-card. With some relief he saw the name “Lawrence Benton.” Furthermore, he remembered everything quite clearly—up to August 10, 1939. From there on, his mind was a blank.
His eye caught the newspaper dateline again.
August 10, 1940! His memory had skipped a whole year! With a hollow feeling, he read some of the headlines. New Chicago Subway Opened. It had been only half done, the last he, Larry Benton, remembered! Second Year of New York World’s Fair Doing Landslide Business. Benton hadn’t even known they planned a second year of operation! Gigantic Crime Wave Still Sweeping World. This, to Benton, was a total stunning surprise.
Benton groaned. Obviously, he had known of those events, had lived through that period. But by some queer twist of amnesia, he had lost all memory of it.
And he didn’t even know where he was going, or what assignment he was on for his newspaper. Or, if he was returning from one, what assignment had he been on?
Surreptitiously, he glanced at the man in the opposite aisle seat. He tried to screw up enough courage to ask him where the airliner would land, but shrank from the prospect of a chilling suspicious glare. Perhaps it would be better to wait for the arrival at the airport, wherever it would be. Then he could call his paper, by long distance if necessary, and find out a few facts. Thank God he remembered quite clearly that the central offices of the Times-Star were in Chicago. The chief editor’s name was James Woodley. He should remember that, having worked under him for five years, which preceded the strange missing year in his memory.
Benton felt a little heartened now. Things wouldn’t be so bad. He’d get along, using common sense. Perhaps soon his amnesia would clear up. A whimsical thought struck him—for all he knew, he might have gotten a raise in the past year. That would be a pleasant surprise.
Alicia!
Her name suddenly flashed across his mind. Alicia Deane! What about her? He’d met her some three months prior to the blank period in his memory. Good Lord! On the night of August 10th, 1939, he had been with her and they had quarreled bitterly. That was the last he could remember of that, too. Had they made up—or not?
Benton hoped they had. And had seen much of each other in the past year of which he knew nothing. If, on the other hand, she were out of his life since that night—he squirmed at the oppressive thought. Quite frankly, he loved her.
No senses denying that.
This wasn’t going to be
much fun, this amnesia. Benton saw that quite clearly. After landing—whether it was Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Timbuctoo—he’d try to tie up as many threads as he could, for his own peace of mind.
He settled himself back with a philosophical shrug.
He might as well enjoy the trip till the landing. Vaguely, he noticed now that the other passengers were acting strangely. Their heads were twisting, probably as Benton’s had a few moments before.
He sat up, wonderingly. The man across the aisle stared at him. The look in his eye was that of a lost being.
Then the door to the pilot’s front compartment opened. The co-pilot stepped in, staring at the passengers as though he had never seen them before.
“Can—can anyone tell me where we’re going?” he asked stupidly.
IN a flash, Benton realized that not he alone suffered a blank mind. They had all been stricken by the amnesia.
The pilot didn’t know where he was piloting the ship. The stewardess, who came forward dumbly, was equally bewildered. And all the passengers remembered nothing of having taken this airliner. They had all gone through the same experience, undoubtedly, that Benton had before. The rude awakening to their surroundings—the hopeless straining to remember—the sick feeling of destination unknown.
An instant air of panic charged the cabin, with the co-pilot’s thoughtless question. A woman passenger screamed and fainted. Several of the men bounced to their feet, looking around wildly, as though for escape. One man yelled something about parachutes. A confused babble rose from trembling lips.
Benton leaped to his feet, aware that the situation might lead to serious trouble.
“Quiet!” he yelled out. “There’s nothing to get panicky about. Calm down, all of you. The plane is still going, and we’re in no physical danger. There are a hundred airports where we can land. Sit back and we’ll figure out what’s to be done.”
The passengers sat back obediently, calmed by his sensible words. Benton shoved the stewardess forward, to take care of the woman who had fainted. Then he turned to the co-pilot.