by E. E. Smith
CHAPTER IX
The _Sirius_ Takes a Hand
The _Sirius_ loafed along through the ether at normal accelerationjust outside the orbit of Mars and a million miles north of theecliptic plane. In the control room, which had been transformed into abewilderingly complete laboratory, Norman Brandon strode up and down,waving his arms, his unruly black hair on end, addressing savagely hisfriend and fellow-scientist, who sat unmoved and at ease.
"For cat's sake, Quince, let's get busy! They're outside somewhere,since the police have scoured every cubic kilometer within range ofthe power plants without finding a trace of them. We've got the powerquestion licked right now--with these fields we can draw sixty thousandkilofranks from cosmic radiation, which is lots more than we'll everneed. We haven't drawn a frank from a plant in a month, and we've had tocut our field strength down to a whisper to keep from burning out ouraccumulators. We can hunt as far as Neptune easy--we can go to AlphaCentauri if we want to. This thing of piffling and monkeying aroundhere's pulling my cork, and for the ten thousand four hundred and sixtyseventh time I say _let's prowl_ and _prowl now_! In fact, I'm gettingso sick of sticking around doing nothing that I'm going out anyway, ifI have to go alone in a lifeboat!"
_The flying fortresses were finally wrenched from theground and hurled upward._]
Impetuous and violent as Brandon had always been, never before had hegone to such lengths as to suggest a disruption of the partnership;and Westfall, knowing that Brandon, in his most violent moments, neverthreatened idly, thought long before he replied.
"You will not go alone, of course. If you insist upon going withoutfurther preparation I will go too, no matter how foolish I think sucha course to be. We have power, it is true, but in all other respects weare in no condition to meet an opponent having command of such resourcesas must certainly be possessed by those who attacked the _Arcturus_.Our detectors are inefficient, our system of vision is crude, to saythe least, and many other things are still in the experimental stage.We have not the slightest idea whom or what we may encounter. It is alltoo probable that we would simply be throwing away uselessly the lives ofmore good men. It is also foolish from a general viewpoint, for as youalready know, we and our assistants happen to be in better position tostudy these things than is any one else at the present time. However,I will compromise with you. We can learn much in a month if you willreally try, instead of wasting time in fuming around the ship andindulging in these idiotic tantrums. If you will buckle down and reallystudy the problems confronting us for thirty days, we will set out atthe end of that time, ready or not."
"All x. I hate to do it, but we've been together too long to bust itup now," and Brandon turned toward his bench. Scarcely had he reachedit when a series of dots and dashes roared from an amplifier. Both menleaped for the receiver which had so unexpectedly burst into sound,reaching it just as it relapsed into silence, and from the tape of therecorder they read the brief message.
"...h four seven ganymede point oh four seve...."
"That's Steve!" yelled Brandon. "Nobody else could build anultra-sender! Direction?"
"No need of calculating distance or direction. Ganymede is the thirdmajor satellite of Jupiter."
"Sure. Of course, Quince--never thought of that. Dope enough--point ohfour seven."
As Stevens had told Nadia, the message was completely informing to thosefor whom it was intended, and soon Brandon's answer was flying towardthe distant satellite. He then started to call the officers of theInterplanetary Corporation, but was restrained by his conservativefriend.
"It would be better to wait a while, Norman. In a few hours we will knowwhat to tell them."
At high acceleration the _Sirius_ drove toward the Jupiter-Earth-Northplane, and Brandon calculated from his own bearings and from the currentissue of the "Ephemeris" the time at which Stevens' reply should bereceived. Two minutes before that time he was pacing up and down infront of the ultra-receiver, and fifteen seconds after it he snapped:
"Come on, Perce, get busy! Shake a leg!"
"Oh, come, Norman; give him a few minutes' leeway, at least," saidWestfall, with amused tolerance. "Even if your calculations are thataccurate--which of course they are," he added hastily at a stormy glancefrom hot black eyes, "since we received that message direct, instead ofthrough one of our relay stations, Stevens probably has been throwingit around for hours or perhaps days, looking for us, and the shock ofhearing from us at last might well have put him out of control for aminute or two."
The carrier wave hissed into the receiver, forestalling Brandon's fieryreply, followed closely by the code signals they had been expecting. Assoon as the story had been told, and while Brandon was absorbed in thescientific addenda of Stevens, Westfall thoughtfully called up Newton,Nadia's father.
"Nadia is alive, free, safe, well, and happy," he shot out withoutpreliminary or greeting, as soon as the now lined features of thedirector showed upon the communicator screen, and the careworncountenance smoothed magically into the keen face of the fighting Newtonof old, as Westfall recounted rapidly the tale of the castaways.
"They apparently have not suffered in any way," he concluded. "All thatStevens wants is some cigarettes, and your daughter's needs, whilesomewhat more numerous than his, seem to be only clothes, powder,perfume, and candy. Therefore we need not worry about them. The fate ofthe others is still unknown, but there seems to be a slight possibilitythat some of them may yet be rescued. You may release as much or aslittle of this story as may seem desirable. Stevens is still sendingdata of a highly technical nature. We shall arrive there at 21:32 nextTuesday."
* * * * *
In due time the message from Ganymede ended and Brandon, with many pagesof his notebook crammed with figures and equations, snapped off thepower of the receiver and turned to his bench. Gone was the storming,impetuous rebel; his body was ruled solely by the precise and insatiablebrain of the research scientist.
"He's great, that kid Perce! When I see him, I'm going to kiss himon both cheeks. He's got enough dope on them to hang them higher thanFranklin's kite, and we'll nail those jaspers to the cross or I'm apolyp! He's crazier than a loon in most of his hunches, but he's filledfour of our biggest gaps. There is such a thing, as a ray-screen, youkill-joy, and there are also lifting or tractor rays--two things I'vebeen trying to dope out and that you've been giving me the Bronx cheeron. The Titanians have had a tractor ray for ages--he sent me completedope on it--and the Jovians have got them both. We'll have them in threedays, and it ought to be fairly simple to dope out the opposite of atractor, too--a pusher or presser beam. Say, round up the gang, willyou, while I'm licking some of this stuff into shape for you to tearapart? Where are Venus and Mars? Um ... m ... m. Tell Alcantro andFedanzo to come over here pronto--give 'em a special if necessary. We'llpick up Dol Kenor and Pyraz Amonar on the way--no, get them to Tellus,too. Then we'll get action quicker. Those four are all I want--getanybody else you want to come along."
His hands playing over the keys of an enormous calculating machine,Brandon was instantly immersed in a profound mathematico-physicalproblem; deaf and blind to everything about him. Westfall, knowing wellthat far-reaching results would follow Brandon's characteristic attack,sat down at the controls of the communicator. He first called Mars, thehome planet of Alcantro and Fedanzo, the foremost force-field experts ofthree planets; and was assured in no uncertain terms that those rulersof rays were ready and anxious to follow wherever Brandon and Westfallmight lead. Thence to Venus, where Dol Kenor, the electrical wizard,and Pyraz Amonar, the master of mechanism, also readily agreed toaccompany the expedition. He then called the General-in-Chief of theInterplanetary Police, requesting a detail of two hundred picked menfor the hazardous venture. These most important calls out of the way,he was busy for over an hour giving long-distance instructions so thateverything would be in readiness for the servicing of the immensespace-cruiser the following Tuesday night.
Having guarded against everything
his cautious and far-seeing mindcould envisage, he went over to Brandon's desk and sat down, smokingcontemplatively until the idea had been roughed out in mathematicalterms.
"Here's the rough draft of the ray screen, Quince. We generate a blanketfrequency, impressed upon the ultra carrier wave. That's old stuff, ofcourse. Here's the novelty, in equation 59. With two fields of force,set up from data 27 to 43, it will be possible actually to project apure force of such a nature that it will react to de-heterodyne theblanketing frequency at any predetermined distance. That, of course,sets up a barrier against any frequency of the blanketed band.Incidentally, an extension of the same idea will enable us to seeanywhere we want to look--calculate a retransmitting field."
"One thing at a time, please. That screen may be possible, butthose fields will never generate it. Look at datum 31, in which yourassumptions are unsound. In order to make any solution at all possibleyou have assumed cosine squared theta negligible. Mathematically, it isof course vanishingly small compared to the first power of the cosine,but fields of that type must be _exact_, and your neglect of the squareis indefensible. Since you cannot integrate with the squared term inplace, your whole solution fails."
"Not necessarily. We'll go back to 29, and put in sine squared thetaminus one equal to z sub four. That gives us a coversed sine in 30,and then we integrate...."
Thus the argument raged, and all the assistants whose work was nottoo pressing gathered around unobtrusively, for it was from just suchfierce discussions as this that the ultra-radio and other epoch-makingdiscoveries had come into being. Yard after yard of calculator paperwas filled with equations and computations. Weirdly shaped curveswere drawn, with arguments at every point--arguments hot and violentfrom Brandon, from Westfall cold and precise, backed by lightningcalculations and with facts and diagrams culled from the many abstruseworks of reference, which by this time literally covered the bench andoverflowed upon the floor.
It was in this work that the strikingly different temperaments andabilities of the two scientists were revealed. Brandon never stoodstill, but walked around jerkily, chewing savagely the stem of anancient and reeking pipe, gesticulating vigorously, the while his keenand agile mind was finding a way over, around, or through the apparentlyinsuperable obstacles which beset their path; by means of mathematicaland physical improvisations, which no one not inspired by sheer geniuscould have evolved. Westfall, seated quietly at the calculator,mercilessly shredded Brandon's theories to ribbons, pointing out theirmany flaws with his cold, incisive reasoning and with rapid calculationsof the many factors involved. Then Brandon would find a remedy for eachweakness in turn and, when Westfall could no longer find a single flawin the structure, they would toss the completed problem upon a tableand attack the next one with unabated zeal. Brandon, in his lightremark that the two made one real scientist, had far understatedthe case--those two brains, each so powerful and each so perfectlycomplementing the other, comprised the master-scientist who was torevolutionize science completely in a few short years.
To such good purpose did they labor that the calculations werepractically finished by the time they reached the earth. There the shipwas serviced with a celerity that spoke volumes for the importance ofher mission--even the _Aldebaran_, the dazzlingly gold-plated queen ofthe fleet, waited unattended and disregarded on minus time while theentire force of the Interplanetary Corporation concentrated upon thebattle-scarred old hulk of the _Sirius_. Brandon was surprised when hesaw the two companies of police, but characteristically accepted withoutquestion the wisdom of any decision of his friend, and cordially greetedInspector-General Crowninshield, only a year or so older than himself,but already in charge of a Division.
"Keen-looking bunch, Crown. Lot of different outfits--volunteers forspecial duty from the whole Tellurian force?"
"Yes. Everybody wanted to go, and there threatened to be trouble overthe selection, so we picked the highest ratings from the whole Service.If there ever was such a thing as a picked force, we shall have itwith us."
"What d'you mean, 'us'? You aren't going, are you?"
"Try to keep me from it! The names of all five of us I-G's were put ina hat, and I was lucky."
"Well, you may come in handy, at that," Brandon conceded. "And here'sthe big boss himself. Hi, Chief!"
"Ho, Brandon! Ho, Westfall!" Newton, Chairman of the Board of Directorsof the IPC, shook hands with the two scientists. "Your Martians andVenerians are in Lounge Fifteen. I suppose that you have a lot of thingsto thrash out, so you may as well start now. Everything is beingattended to--I'll take charge now."
"You going along, too?" asked Brandon.
"Going along, _too_? I'm _running_ this cruise!" Newton declared. "I maytake advice from you on some things and from Crowninshield on others,but I am in charge!"
"All x--it's a relief, at that," and Brandon and Westfall went to jointheir fellow-scientists in the designated room of the space-cruiser.
* * * * *
What a contrast was there as the representatives of three worldsmet! All six men were of the same original stock or of a similarevolution--science has not, even yet, decided the question definitely.Their minds were very much alike, but their respective environments hadso variantly developed their bodily structures that to outward seemingthey had but little in common.
Through countless thousands of generations the Martians had becomeacclimated to a planet having little air, less water, and characterizedby abrupt transitions from searing heat to bitter cold: fromblinding light to almost impenetrable darkness. Eight feet talland correspondingly massive, they could barely stand against thegravitational force of the Earth, almost three times as great as thatof Mars, but the two Martian scientists struggled to their feet as theTerrestrials entered.
"As you were, fellows--lie down again and take it easy." Brandonsuggested in the common Interplanetarian tongue. "We'll be away fromhere very soon, then we can ease off."
"We greet our friends standing as long as we can stand," and, toweringa full two feet above Brandon's own six-feet-two, Alcantro and Fedanzoin turn engulfed his comparatively tiny hand in a thick-shelled pawand lifted briefly the inner lids of quadruply-shielded eyes. For theMartian skin is not like ours. It is of incredible thickness; dry,pliable, rubbery, and utterly without sensation: heavily lined withfat and filled throughout its volume with tiny air-cells which makeit an almost perfect non-conductor of heat and which prevent absolutelythe evaporation of the precious moisture of the body. For the samereasons their huge and cat-like eyes are never exposed, but lookthrough sealed, clear windows of membrane, over which may be drawn atwill one or all of four pairs of lids--lids transparent, insensible,non-freezable, air-spaced insulators. Even the air they exhale carriesfrom their bodies a minimum of the all-important heat and moisture,for the passages of their nostrils do not lead directly to the lungs,as do ours. They are merely the intakes for a tortuous system oftubes comprising a veritable heat-exchanger, so that the air finallyexpelled is in almost perfect equilibrium with the incoming supplyin temperature and in moisture content. A grayish tan in color, nakedand hairless--though now, out of deference to Terrestrial conventions,wearing light robes of silk--indifferent alike to any extreme of heat orcold, light or darkness: such were the two forbidding beings who aroseto greet their Terrestrial friends, then again reclined.
"I suppose that you have been given to drink?" Westfall made sure thatthey had been tendered the highest hospitality of Mars.
"We have drunk full deeply, thanks; and it was not really necessary,for we drank scarcely three weeks ago."
Brandon and Westfall turned then and greeted the two Venerians,as different from the Martians as they were from the Terrestrials.Of earthly stature, form, and strength, yet each was encased in aspace-suit stretched like a drum-head, and would live therein or inthe special Venerian rooms of the vessel as long as the journey shouldendure. For the atmosphere of Venus is more than twice as dense as ours,is practically saturated with water-vapor, c
arries an extremely highconcentration of carbon dioxide, and in their suits and rooms is heldat a temperature of one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit. The lensesof their helmets were of heavy, yellowish-red composition, protectingtheir dead-white skins and red eyes from all actinic rays--for theVenerian lives upon the bottom of an everlasting sea of fog and histhin epidermis, utterly without pigmentation, burns and blisters asfrightfully at the least exposure to actinic light as does ours atthe touch of a red-hot iron.
Out in space at last, cruising idly with the acceleration set at a pointbearable for the Martians, Westfall called the meeting to order andoutlined the situation facing them. Brandon then handed around folios ofpapers, upon which the Venerians turned the invisible infra-red beams ofthe illuminators upon their helmets, thus flooding them with the "light"to which their retinas were most responsive.
"Here's the data," Brandon began. "As you see from Sheet 1, we canalready draw any amount of power we shall need from cosmic radiationalone...."
"Perpetual motion--ridiculous!" snapped from the sending disk upon thehelmet of the master of mechanism.
"Not at all, Amonar," put in his fellow Venerian, "any more thana turbo-generator at the foot of a waterfall is perpetual motion.Those radiations originate we know not where, probably as a resultof intra-atomic reactions. The fields of force of our hosts merelyintercept these radiations, as a water-driven turbine intercepts thewater. We merely use a portion of their energy before permittingthem to go on, to we know not what end. Truly you have made a notableachievement in science, Tellurian friends, and we congratulate you uponits accomplishment. Please proceed."
"Upon the following sheets are described the forces employed by theJovians, as we shall call them until we find out who or what they reallyare. We will discuss these forces later. For each force we have alreadycalculated a screen, and we have also calculated various other forces ofour own, with which we hope to arm ourselves before we reach Ganymede.The problems facing us are complex, since there are some nine thousandforcebands of the order in which we are working, each differing from allthe others as much as torque differs from tension, or as much as reddiffers from green. Therefore we have appealed to you for help, knowingthat we could do but little alone. Alcantro and Fedanzo will supervisethe construction of the generators of the various fields from thesecalculations. Dol Kenor will correlate power and electricity to andwith the fields. Westfall and I will help work out the theoreticaldifficulties as they arise. Pyraz Amonar, who can devise and build amachine to perform any conceivable mechanical task, will help us allin the many mechanical difficulties we shall certainly encounter.Discussion of any point is now in order."
* * * * *
Step by step and equation after equation the calculations and planswere gone over, until every detail was clear in each mind. Then the menbent to their tasks; behind them not only the extraordinarily completefacilities of that gigantic workshop which was the _Sirius_; but alsothe full power of the detachment of police--the very cream of the youngmanhood of the planet. Week after toilsome week the unremitting laborwent on, and little by little the massive cruiser of the void becameendowed with an offensive and defensive armament incredible. An armamentconceived in the fertile and daring brain of a sheer genius, guided onlyby the knowledge that such things were already in existence somewhere;reduced to working theory by a precise, mathematical logician;translated into fields of force by the greatest known experts; poweredby the indefatigable efforts of an electrical wizard; made possible bythe artful mechanical devices of the greatest inventor that three worldshad ever known! Thus it was that they approached Ganymede, ready, withblanketing screens full out, save for one narrow working band, andwith a keen-eyed observer at every plate. When even the hyper-criticalWestfall was convinced that their preparations were as complete as theycould be made with the limited information at hand, Brandon directed abeam upon the satellite and tapped off a brief message:
"stevens ganymede will arrive in about ten hours direct carrier beamtoward sun we can detect it and will follow it to wherever you aresirius."
"ipv sirius," came the reply, "everything here, all x glad to see youthanks newton and stevens."
Brandon, at the controls, scanning his screens narrowly, dropped thevessel down to within a mile or two of the point of origin of Stevens'carrier beam without incident; then spoke to Westfall, at his side, witha grin.
"Nice layout the kid's got down there, Quince. It's too bad--don't looklike we're going to get any action for our money a-tall. 'Sa shame,too--what's the use of wasting it, now that we've got it all made?"
"We are not done yet," cautioned Westfall, and even as he spoke an alarmbell burst into strident clamor--one of their far-flung detector screenswas telling the world that it had encountered a dangerous frequency.The new ultra-lights flared instantly along the line automatically laiddown by the detector, and upon the closely ruled micrometer screen ofBrandon's desk there glowed in natural color the image of a globularspace-ship, approaching them with terrific speed.
"Men all stationed, of course, Crown?"
"Stationed and ready." Crowninshield, phones at his ears and microphoneat his lips, was staring intently into his own plate.
"Kinda think I'll do most of it from here, but you can't always tell. Ifthey get inside my guard you all know what to do."
"All x."
Expecting another such hollow victory as the other Hexan vessel had wonover the defenseless _Arcturus_, the small stranger flashed nearer andnearer that huge and featureless football of armor steel. Within range,she launched her flaming plane of energy, but this time that Joviansheet of force did not encounter unprotected and non-resisting steel.Upon the outer ray-screen, flaming white into incandescent defense,the furious bolt spent itself, and in the instant of the launching ofthe searing blade of flame, Brandon had gone into action. Switch afterswitch drove home, and one after another those frightful fields offorce, those products of the mightiest minds of three planets, werehurled out against the tiny Jovian sphere. Driven as they were by themillions upon millions of horsepower stored in the accumulators of the_Sirius_ they formed a coruscating spherical shell of intolerable energyall around the enemy vessel, but even their prodigious force was heldat bay by the powerful defensive screens of the smaller space-ship.But attack the Jovian could not, every resource at her command beingnecessary to fend off the terrific counter-attack of her intended prey,and she turned in flight. Small and agile as she was, the enormousmass of the _Sirius_ precluded any possibility of maneuvering withthe Jovian, but Brandon had no intention of maneuvering. Rapid asthe motions of the stranger were and frantic as was her dodging, theterrific forces of the tractor beams of the Interplanetary Vesselheld her in an unbreakable grip, and although she dragged the massive_Sirius_ hither and thither, she could not escape.
"Hm ... m ... m," mused Brandon. "We seem to be getting nowhere fast.How much power we using, Mac, and how much have we got coming in?"
"Output eighty-five thousand kilofranks," replied MacDonald, the firstassistant. "Intake forty-nine thousand."
"Not so good--can't hold out forever at that rate. Shove out thereceptor screens to the limit and drive 'em. They figure a top of sixtythousand, but we ought to pick up a little extra from that blaze outthere. Drive 'em full out or up to sixty-five, whichever comes first.Can't seem to crush his screens, so I guess we'll have to try somethingelse," and a thoughtful expression came over his face as he slowlyextended his hand toward another switch, with a questioning glance atWestfall.
"Better not do that yet, Norman. Use that only as a last resort, aftereverything else has failed."
"Yeah--I'm scared to death of trying it, and it isn't necessary yet. Hemust have an open slit somewhere to work through, just as we have. I'llfeel around for it a while."
"Is there any way of hetrodyning the new visiray upon the exploringfrequency?"
"Hm ... m.... Never thought of that--it would be nice, too....I think we can do it, too. Watch 'e
m, Quince, and holler if they startanything."
He abandoned his desk and established the necessary connections betweenthe visiray apparatus and the controls of his board. There was a fierceviolet-white glare from the plate as he closed the switch, and he leapedback with his hands over his eyes, temporarily blinded.
"Wow, that's hot stuff!" he exclaimed. "It works, all x, to the queen'staste," as he donned his heavy ray-goggles and resumed his place.
After making certain that the visiray was precisely synchronized andphased with the searching frequency, he built up the power of thatbeam until it was using twenty thousand kilofranks. Then, by delicatelymanipulating the variable condensers and inductances of his sensitiveshunting relay circuits, he slowly shifted that frightful rod of energyfrom frequency to frequency, staring into the brilliant blankness of hismicrometer screen as he did so. After a few minutes of search the screendarkened somewhat, revealing the image of the Jovian globe. Brandoninstantly shifted into that one channel the entire power of his attack;steadying the controls to bring the sphere of the Jovians into thesharpest possible focus, knowing that he had found the open slit andthat through it there was pouring upon the enemy the full power of histerrible weapon.
In the fraction of a second before the Jovians could detect the attackand close the slit, he saw a portion of the wall of their vessel flareinto white heat and literally explode outward in puffs and gouts offlaming, molten metal and of incandescent gases. But the thrust, savageas it was, had not been fatal and the enemy countered instantly. Nowthat the crushing force of the full-coverage attack was lessened for amoment, through another slit there poured a beam of energy equal to theTerrestrials' own--a beam of such intense power that the outer screenof the _Sirius_ flared from red through the spectrum, to and beyond theviolet, and went black in less than a second, and the inner screen hadalmost gone down before Brandon's lightning hands could restore thecomplete coverage that so effectively blanketed the forces of the enemy.
"Well, we're back to the _status quo_," announced Brandon, calmly. "It'sa good gag they didn't have time to locate our working slit--if they hadpushed that stuff through our open channel, we'd have gotten frizzled upsome around the edges. As it was, we got the edge on that exchange--takeit from your Uncle Dudley, Quince, that bird knows that he's beennudged!"
* * * * *
Again he searched the entire band for an opening, but could find none.The enemy had apparently retired into a tightly closed shell of energy.The small vessel no longer struggled, nor even moved, but was merelyresisting passively.
"Not an open channel, not even one for him to work through--he can'twiggle. Well, that won't get him anything. We're so much bigger thanhe is, that we can outlast him and will get him some time, since he'sbound to run out of power before we do. I don't believe he can receiveanything, sealed up as he is, and he can't have accumulators enough moreefficient than ours to make up the difference, can he, Quince?"
"It is quite possible. For instance, although we have never heard of anyprogress being made along such lines, it has been pointed out repeatedlythat synthesis of a radio-active element of very high atomic weightwould theoretically yield an almost perfect accumulator--one manythousands of times as efficient as ours in mass-to-energy ratio. Then,too, you realize, of course, that there is a bare possibility thatintra-atomic energy may not be absolutely impossible."
"Nix on that, Quince. I'll stand for a lot, but not for that last idea!It's hard to say that anything's impossible, of course, except thingsmade so by definition or by being contrary to observational facts, butthe best work shows that intra-atomic energy is just about as impossibleas anything can well be. It has been shown pretty conclusively that allordinary matter is already in its most stable state, so that work mustbe done upon any ordinary atom to decompose it. Besides, if he hadeither radioactive accumulators or intra-atomic energy, he would havecut us up long ago. Nope, the answer is that he's probably yelled forhelp and is trying to hold out until it gets here," was Brandon'srejoinder.
"What can we do about it?" asked Quince.
"Don't know yet. I do know, though, that we aren't half as ready fortrouble as I thought we were. There's a dozen things I want to do thatI can't because we haven't got the stuff. Don't say 'I told you so,'either--I know you did! You're the champion ground-and-lofty thinker ofthe century. Alcantro!"
"Here!"
"Round up the gang, will you, and figure me out a screen and a set ofmeters that will indicate an open band? We lose too much time feelingaround anyhow, and we're too apt to take one on the chin while we'redoing it. Also, you ought to make it so it'll shoot a jolt into theopening, while you're at it," said Brandon.
"We shall begin at once," and the massive Martian as he replied, steppedover to the calculating machine.
"Well, Quince, we can't do much to him this way--he's crawled into ahole and pulled the hole in after him. Gosh, I wish we had more stuff!"
"After all, we have everything whose necessity and practicability couldhave been foreseen in the light of our information. We can, of course,go further."
"You chirped it! But we can't let things ride this way or we'll get ourhair singed. We'll have to decorate him with the grand slam, I guess."
"Yes, it seems as though the time for emergency measures has arrived."
"Put everything on the center of the band?"
"That is probably the best frequency to use in a case of this kind."
"He can't control, so we'll push him down close to the ground beforewe go to work on him--so we don't have so far to fall if anything goesscrewy with the works. Here's hoping nothing gives away!"
The _Sirius_, almost against the flaming screens of the Jovian, and bothvessels very close to the surface of the satellite, Brandon tested thepower leads briefly, adjusted dials and coils, then touched the buttonwhich actuated the relays--relays which in turn drove home the giganticswitches that launched a fearsome and as yet untried weapon. Instantlyreleased, the full seven hundred thousand kilofranks of their stupendousbatteries of accumulators drove into the middle frequency of theattacking band, and Brandon's heart was in his mouth as he stared intothe plate to see what would happen. He saw! Everything in the _Sirius_held fast, and under the impact of the inconceivable plane of force, thescreens of the enemy vessel flared instantly into an even more intenseincandescence and in that same fleeting instant went down, and alldefenses vanished as the metal sphere fell apart into two halves, aswould an apple under the full blow of a broad-axe.
Brandon quickly shut off his power and stared in relief into the centralcompartment of the globular ship of space, now laid open, and saw therefigures, one or two of which were moving weakly. As he looked, one ofthese feebly attempted to raise a peculiar, tubular something toward ahelplessly fettered body. Even as Brandon snatched away the threateningweapon with a beam of force, he recognized the captive.
"Great Cat, there's Breckenridge!" he gasped, and directed a liftingbeam upon the bound and unconscious prisoner. Rapidly, but carefully, hewas brought through the double airlock and into the control room, wherehis shackles were cut away and where he soon revived under vigorous andskilful treatment.
"Any more of you in there? Did I hit any of you with that beam?"demanded Brandon, intensely, as soon as Breckenridge showed signs ofunderstanding.
"King's in there somewhere, and there's a Callistonian human being thatyou mustn't kill," the chief pilot replied, weakly and with great effortin every word. "Don't believe that you hit anybody direct, but the shockwas pretty bad." Having delivered his message, he lay back, exhausted.
"All x. Crown, give me a squad...."
"Not on your life!" barked the general. "This is my job and I'll do itmyself. Your job is fighting the _Sirius_--stay with it!"
"Not in seven thousand years--I'm in on this, too," Brandon protested,but was decisively overruled by Newton.
"You belong right here at this board, since no one else can handle itthe way you can. Stay here!"
he commanded.
"All right," grudgingly assented the physicist, and held the _Sirius_upright, with her needle-sharp stern buried a few feet deep in theground.
He watched the wreckage jealously while Crowninshield and forty helmetedmen issued from the service door in the lower ultra-light compartmentand advanced upon the two halves of the enemy vessel. As no hostiledemonstrations ensued, scaling ladders were quickly placed and withweapons at the alert the police boarded the hemispheres, manacled thestill helpless beings visible, and, after laying down a fog ofstupefying gas, vanished into compartments beyond the metal partitions.After a short time they reappeared and climbed down the scaling ladders,carrying several inert forms, and Brandon spoke into his transmitter.
"King all x, Crowninshield?"
"I think so. Not being in the control room he was not as badly shockedby the passage of the beam as were Breckenridge and those you saw. Thethings in the other rooms were about ready to fight, so we gave them alittle whiff of tritylamin, but Captain King will be as good as ever ina few minutes."
"Fine business!" The police entered the _Sirius_, the service doorsclanged shut, and Brandon turned to Westfall.
"While they're coming up, I guess I'll pick up Perce and Miss Newton.We'd better get them aboard and beat it, while we're all in one piece!"
But even before he could send out the exploring beam of hiscommunicator, the voice of Stevens came from the receiver.
"Hi, Brandon and Westfall! We've watched the whole show.Congratulations, fellows! Welcome to Ganymede! You are in ourvalley--we're upstream from you about three hundred meters; just belowthe falls, on the meadow side."
"All x," Brandon acknowledged. "We saw you. Come on out where we canpick you up. We've got to get away from here, and get away fast!"
"We'll carry off the pieces of that ship, too, Quince--we may be able toget a lot of pointers from it," and Brandon swung mighty tractor beamsupon the severed halves of the Jovian vessel, then extended a couple ofsmaller rays to meet the two little figures racing across the smoothgreen meadow toward the _Sirius_.