"They have power there," Russ declared.
"Too much," said Greg. "More power than they have any right to have."
His hand went out to the lever on the board and pulled it back. A beam
smashed out, with the engines' screaming drive behind it, billions of
horsepower driving with unleashed ferocity at the other ship.
Greg's hand spun a dial, while the generators roared thunderous
defiance.
"I'm giving them the radiation scale," said Greg.
The _Interplanetarian_ was staggering under the terrific bombardment,
but its screen was handling every ounce of the power that Greg was
pouring into it.
"Their photo-cells can't handle that," cried Russ. "No photo-cell would
handle all that stuff you're shooting at them. Unless ..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless Craven has improved on them."
"We'll have to find out. Get the televisor."
* * * * *
Russ leaped for the television machine.
A moment later he lifted a haggard face.
"I can't get through," he said. "Craven's got our beams stopped and now
he has our television blocked out."
Greg nodded. "We might have expected that. When he could scramble our
televisors back in the Jovian worlds, he certainly ought to be able to
screen his ship against them."
He shoved the lever clear over, slamming the extreme limit of power
into the beam. The engines screamed like demented things, howling and
shrieking. Instantly a tremendous sheet of solid flame spun a fiery web
around the _Interplanetarian_, turning it into a blazing inferno of
lapping, leaping fire.
A dozen terrific beams, billions of horsepower in each, stabbed back at
the _Invincible_ as the _Interplanetarian_ shunted the terrific energy
influx from the overcharged accumulators to the various automatic energy
discharges.
The _Invincible's_ screen flared in defense and the ten great engines
wailed in utter agony. More stabbing flame shot from the
_Interplanetarian_ in slow explosions.
The temperature in the _Invincible's_ control room was rising. The ozone
was sharp enough to make their eyes water and nostrils burn. The vision
glass was blanked out by the lapping flames that crawled and writhed
over the screen outside the glass.
Russ tore his collar open, wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. "Try a
pure magnetic!"
Greg, his face set and bleak as a wall of stone, grunted agreement. His
fingers danced over the control manual.
Suddenly the stars outside twisted and danced, like stars gone mad, as
if they were dancing a riotous jig in space, some uproariously hopping
up and down while others were applauding the show that was being
provided for their unblinking eyes.
The magnetic field was tightening now, twisting the light from those
distant stars and bending it straight again. The _Interplanetarian_
reeled like a drunken thing and the great arcs of electric flame looped
madly and plunged straight for the field's very heart.
* * * * *
The stars danced weirdly in far-off space again as the
_Interplanetarian's_ accumulators lashed out with tremendous force to
oppose the energy of the field.
The field glowed softly and disappeared.
"They have us stopped at every turn," groaned Russ. "There must be some
way, something we can do." He looked at Greg. Greg grinned without
humor, wiping his face. "There is something we can do," said Russ
grimly. "We should have thought of it long ago."
He strode to the desk, reached out one hand and drew a calculator near.
"You keep them busy," he snapped. "I'll have this thing figured out in
just a while."
From the engine rooms came the roar and hum of the laboring units and
the _Invincible_ shuddered once again as Greg grimly hurled one beam
after another, at the _Interplanetarian_.
The _Interplanetarian_ struck back, using radio frequency that flamed
fiercely against the _Invincible's_ outer screen. Simultaneously the
_Interplanetarian_ leaped forward with a sudden surge of accumulated
energy, driving at the star that lay not more than three billion miles
away.
Greg worked desperately, cursing under his breath. He pulled down the
outer screen that was fighting directly against the radio frequency,
energy for energy, and allowed the beam to strike squarely on the second
screen, the inversion field that shunted the major portion of the energy
impacting against it through 90 degrees into another space.
The engines moaned softly and settled into a quieter rumble as the
necessity of supplying the first screen was eliminated. But they
screamed once again as Greg sent out a tractor beam that seized and
held, dragged the _Interplanetarian_ to a standstill. Craven's ship had
gained millions of miles, though, and established a tremendous advantage
by fighting nearer to its source of energy.
"Russ," gasped Greg, "if you don't get that scheme of yours figured out
pretty soon, we're done for. They've stopped everything we've got.
They're nearer the sun. We won't stand a chance if they make another
break like that."
Russ glanced up to answer, but his mouth fell open in amazement and he
did not speak. A streak of terrible light was striking at them from the
_Interplanetarian_, blinding white light, and along that highway of
light swarmed a horde of little green figures, like squirming green
amebas. Swarming toward the _Invincible_, stretching out hungry,
pale-green pseudopods toward the inversion barrier ... _and eating
through it_!
Wherever they touched, holes appeared. They drifted through the
inversion screen easily and began drilling into the inner screen of
anti-entropy. Eating their way into the anti-entropy ... _into a state
of matter which Russ and Greg had thought would resist all change_!
* * * * *
For seconds both men stood transfixed, unable to believe the evidence of
their eyes. But the ameba things came on in ever-increasing throngs,
creatures that gnawed and slobbered at the anti-entropy, eating into it,
flaking it away, drilling their way through it.
When they pierced the anti-entropy, they would cut through the steel
plates of the _Invincible_ like so much paper!
And more were coming. More and more!
With a grunt of amazement, Greg slammed a beam straight into the heart
of the amebas. They ate the beam and vanished as mistily as before,
little glowing things that ate and died. But there were always more to
take their place. They overwhelmed the beam and ate back along its
length, attacked the screen again.
They ate through walls of force and walls of metal, and a rush of
hissing air began to flame into ions in the terrific battle of energies
outside the _Invincible_.
Russ was crouching over the manual of the televisor board. His breath
moaned in his throat as his fingers flew.
"I have to have power, Greg," he said. "Lots of power."
"Take it." Greg replied. "I haven't been able to do anything with it. It
isn't any use to me."
Russ's thumb reached out and tripped the activating lever. The giant
engines shrieked and yowled.
Something was happening on the television screen ... something
terrifying. Craven's ship seemed to retreat suddenly for millions of
miles ... and as suddenly the _Invincible_ appeared on the screen. For a
single flashing instant, the view held; then it was gone in blank
grayness. For seconds nothing happened on the screen, unnerving seconds
while the two men held their breath.
The screen's grayness fled and they looked into the control room of the
_Interplanetarian_. Craven was hunched in a chair, intent upon a series
of controls. Behind him and to one side stood Stutsman, a heat pistol
dangled from his hand, his face twisted into a sneer of triumph. There
was no sign of Chambers.
"You damn fool," Craven was snapping at Stutsman. "You're cheating us
out of the only chance we ever had of getting home."
* * * * *
"Shut up," snarled Stutsman, the pistol jerking in his hand. "Have you
got that apparatus on full power?"
"It's been on full power for minutes now," said Craven. "It must be
eating holes straight through Manning's ship."
"See you keep it that way. I really don't need you any more, anyhow.
I've watched and I know all the tricks. I could carry on this battle
single-handed."
Craven did not reply, merely hunched closer over the controls, eyes
watching flickering dials.
Greg jogged Russ's elbow. "That must be the apparatus over there, in the
corner of the room. That triangular affair. A condenser of some sort.
That stuff they're throwing at us must be super-saturated force fields
and they'd need a space-field condenser for that."