Rays and Rays
Barclay had been looking about the room. The guard who had been at
the door when the prisoners entered had gone up to his platform, and
was interestedly watching Belasco's discomfiture at the hands of the
Jovian girl. Belasco had reached her again, and this time she was
slapping him. Her slap was comparable to the playful slap of a tiger,
and Belasco was getting a more severe beating than many men could have
given him. She slapped him with her left hand, which threw him against
her right, her right hand slapped his ribs, and hurled him back to the
left.
"Keep it up," her mother said softly. "Donnie is doing something."
Pat kept it up, till Belasco's head lolled with each jerk, and
blood began to pour from his nose. The guard on the platform didn't
interfere, he didn't like Belasco any more than most of the others of
the crew. In fact he was laughing. Finally Pat threw the unconscious
giant into the middle of the room. The guard looked at him, but made
no move to aid him. Pat Willman also looked at him, her breath coming
rapidly, for the air in the ship was thin for such exertion, used as
she was to Jupiter's dense atmosphere.
Barclay crouched slowly as she turned to look at him, then, like a
flash of light, he bounded straight into the air, and toward the guard
platform thirty feet away, and ten up. His first enormous bound carried
him directly beneath the shelf-like platform, and as the guard rose
with a sudden cry of amazement, to look over the edge, a powerful hand
grasped him, and hauled him downward. As he fell, Barclay eased the
landing with a catlike softness, his great hand about the throat of the
other.
The other hand rose, and with a queer semblance of preciseness, struck
the small man on the side of the head. He went suddenly limp and
Barclay released him. "Two hours," he said judicially, and leapt over
to Belasco. He hit him also on the side of the head with the palm of
his hand.
"Three hours, considering what you did to him, Pat," he smiled at the
girl. "You took their attention away while I broke those chains. I knew
the strength of the chains, and we always have to use double-shackles
on Jovians. This is an ex-Patrol ship, and I know a whale of a lot more
about it than they do."
Barclay drew Belasco's heat-gun, and his paralyzer gun, gave the heat
gun to Pat, and took the paralyzer from the guard. He looked at them
hastily. "Hmmm--twenty shots in all, or ten minutes operation. I'll--"
He stopped abruptly as the heavy metal door shot up. Two men stood
revealed. They had come for the body of the man Jennings had killed.
With a cry of alarm they sprang back, and brought their paralyzer
pistols up. Barclay, moving three times as fast, threw a streaking beam
across both of them. Suddenly one of the pistols exploded in a flash
of light, then grew gradually red-hot. The guard dropped it as Barclay
released him from the beam. In an instant Barclay's swift mind saw what
it meant--the pistols were vulnerable to each other, some induction
effect released the stored energy of one caught in a ray from another.
The dropped pistol was white hot now, smoking and glowing.
From down the corridor came shouts and calls, pounding feet. The
reenforcements were coming. "Throw me your pistol!" commanded Barclay,
lowering his own ray till it paralyzed only the lower part of the man's
body. The second pistol was thrown to him. An instant's glance told him
it was full. He slipped it into his belt, and retreated to the platform.
A moment later a crush of pirates tumbled through the still-open door,
and came with their paralyzers in their hands. Swiftly Barclay passed
his rays over each, and one by one they dropped pistols that were
swiftly heating to incandescence.
But from the door, a yet un-rayed pistol reached Barclay, and his
weapons were suddenly growing unbearably hot. But they seemed to suck
the paralyzing energy into themselves, away from the man, for as he
hurled them from him, he drove like a bullet toward the man whose
pistol had ruined his weapons. The ray caught him in mid-air, but so
swiftly was he coming the man had no time to dodge, and Barclay's
flying body knocked him down, the pistol flying from his hand to crash
into wreckage as it struck the metal wall.
Then men began to pile on Barclay. But Barclay was a rubber ball. He
bounced about the room with unbelievable speed, his flying hands merely
slapping men, but leaving them unconscious for an hour, unless revived
by outside aid.
[Illustration: Men began to pile on Barclay. But he was like a rubber
ball. He bounced about the room with unbelievable speed, merely
slapping men into unconsciousness.]
There were twelve men attacking him, it took him less than forty-five
seconds to send them all to sleep.
* * * * *
Now he lost no time. Others were coming from other parts of the ship no
doubt, and he had no more pistols.
"Pat--that pistol," he demanded. Without a word the girl tossed it to
him. He whirled and shone a beam on a rivet-weld to one side of the
heavy metal door. There was a crash, and the great metal slab fell into
place as the rivet-weld glowed red-hot under the lashing heat-beam.
"Here's the gun--keep it, and cut your chains. Take care of them,
collect their guns and distribute them among the other prisoners
here. The door can't be opened from outside nor inside now, till the
generators are stopped. This is a last resort for the Patrol men on
the ship if mutiny occurs, or prisoners gain control," Barclay smiled
broadly. "I'll be back."
He leaped toward the wall where star-studded space looked in through
a narrow porthole, set deep in the double walls. He did something to
the wall of the room, and a section fell back into the space between
the walls. There was air here, air intended for those who might have
to make repairs between the walls. But this carefully concealed door
was a secret means of escape--and re-capture of the ship. For now,
between the walls of the ship, Barclay closed and re-locked the metal
door-plate, and made his way along the ribs and braces between the two
skins of the ship, climbing against the ship's acceleration toward the
bow.
In a minute or so he rested on two cross-beams outside of what he knew
was the pilot-room. A mass of cables led from this room, back to the
engine-room below. He could have entered the engine-room had he wished,
or the ray-room. He preferred the control-room. Every outside room on
the ship had these secret panels for emergencies. It was his own idea,
and one Commander Morrison hadn't too heartily approved of. But it was
proving itself now!
From an almost hidden clamp he extracted a screwdriver, rapidly
manipulated it on what appeared to be a signal-junction box, twisted
the leads to one side, and then pushed on a bolt-head. There was a
sudden, subdued hiss, and a panel sprang backwards as the pneumatic
cylinders drove it open. With a single bound, Barclay was in the
pilot-house.
Jennings, cold-eyed, bent over the chart table, while Thad stared
out of the pilot window, glancing occasionally at the meters and
instruments on the board before him. A squat, powerfully built man was
working over near the door.
The three turned as one when Barclay entered. Thad, with a trained,
dexterous flip of his fingers threw the ship on to automatic control,
leaped from his seat, and dove for Barclay. Jennings was whipping a
paralyzer pistol from his holster, and the squat man was turning to do
battle, his mouth opening for a bull roar.
It seemed like slow motion to the Jovian, while his motions seemed
streaks of blurred light to the Earth-trained pirates. Barclay still
had the long, sharp-bladed screwdriver, with its heavy insulite handle
in his hand. The hand flashed up, and the screwdriver flashed across,
to bury itself to the handle in Jennings' wrist. With a scream of pain
the pirate-scientist dropped the weapon as the metal blade severed
tendons, blood-vessels, and smashed through bone. It had been going
with nearly the speed of a pistol bullet, and weighed nearly 12 ounces.
Long before Jennings' pistol could touch the floor, and before Thad
had reached him, Barclay grasped the weapon in his hand, whirling in
the air as he dove across the small pilot-house. The opened mouth of
the squat pirate was emitting sound now, and a pistol was in his hand.
Barclay trained his ray-gun on the other in a fraction of a second,
and flicked a full-powered beam at it. In an instant a puff of smoke
shot out, and the pirate dropped his weapon to see it burst into
incandescence as it hit the floor.
From below-decks an answering roar was coming, and the pound of heavy
feet. The squat man and Thad reached Barclay almost simultaneously.
For some reason Thad had not been wearing any weapons, but now he
clung to Don's paralyzer like grim death. The squat man attempted to
uppercut to the Patrol Captain's jaw, but Don's head moved a fraction
of an inch, and the blow whistled by harmlessly. An open palm struck
the side of Thad's head, and the pilot dropped senseless. An instant
later the remaining pirate bolted through the door--or attempted to.
Barclay caught him, and a moment later he joined Thad on the floor of
the pilot-room.
A glance assured Barclay that Jennings had fainted from loss of blood
and pain. His hand reached up to a small knob to one side of the
entrance-way and a heavy steel panel fell across the one door to the
pilot-house, locking in air-tight gaskets. A moment later, and huge
magnets had fixed it immovably.
Barclay leaped back to the pilot-board, seated himself swiftly, and
threw on the powerful radio set on range 245-671. Swiftly, with nearly
1,000,000 horsepower backing his signals, he sent out a call to Wier,
somewhere in near-by space, supporting him in this mad attempt.
"Wier--Wier--P.C. 2500. Wier--Wier--P.C. 2500," he repeated
monotonously, listening in his set.
* * * * *
It became difficult presently as men began to work on the door.
Meanwhile his other hand was swiftly altering the course of the ship,
bearing back toward the Jupiter-Mars lane.
"Don--Don--P.C. 2500 answering."
"Temporarily in control here. Heading ship back toward Jupiter-Mars
lane. Using spotlight beam and floodlight. Will start radio and leave
it going as long as possible. Get direction and distance. Step on it.
They're working on this door."
"P.C. 2500 coming," replied the radio set.
Don's flying fingers did things to the radio controls, necessitating
considerable work to stop it, and much more work to repair it. But
it sent out a continuous high-pitched note. Now he short-circuited
certain resistances, and relays, and the ship staggered forward under a
full Jovian gravity. There was an abrupt stoppage of work on the door
outside, as the terrestrials fell down. Barclay grinned, and locked the
controls as they were, adding some bits of wire to hold his shorts in
place. Then he got up heavily, and with a tremendous effort walked to
the door through which he had entered. From the other side he arranged
it to close and lock in place when he released it. Returning, he
released it, and watched it merge into the wall.
He returned to the pilot-table once more, seated himself heavily, and
listened to Dave Wier's calls.
"Distance 500,000 miles. Approaching rapidly." Carefully Barclay
altered the course of the ship's flight till it was pointed toward
Wier's machine, and racing toward it even faster. The tremendous
acceleration was beginning to tell on the speed indicator.
Barclay glanced back at the door. A dull blue haze was forming about
it. "Hmmm--distintegrator didn't stop working. Probably has a range of
ten feet, and will hit that wall over there. I wonder--"
Barclay took two heavy bus-bars from the stock room attached to the
pilot room, connected them swiftly, bending them over his knee. These
he led over, and set up like two poles close together in the necessary
path of the disintegration machine's ray. The haze of ionization
was growing stronger swiftly. By the time the two bus-bars were in
position, there was a tiny pin-prick of blue ray flaming across the
room, and a moment later scores of holes appeared.
Then two of them hit the bare copper bus-bars, charged with 150,000
volts. There were two wires. First the door, or what was left of
it, exploded into flaming vaporized steel. Next the disintegrator
exploded with a terrific concussion, raining white-hot metal parts all
about. The machine had short-circuited the twenty-million horsepower
generators of the ship, and the result was inevitable.
Barclay looked out through the hole in the door. One man had been badly
burned, but the others had crawled laboriously down the hall and away
from danger, when they realized that none of them could stand up to
turn off the disintegrator and guessed what Barclay, who could stand
the weight, would do.
Barclay laughed, and taking his paralyzing pistol, rayed first one then
another of the men. Practically the entire crew had come to the defense
of the pilot-house. The others had been working on the brig door. As
one after another felt the ray, he slumped, and threw his burning
pistol to one side the instant he was released.
Barclay's weapon had two shots left when he finished and returned to
the cabin. No sooner had he crossed the threshold than from the ceiling
above there poured a rain of the paralyzing rays. His fingers relaxed,
and dropped the ray-pistol, which smoked slightly, but didn't explode,
as all its charges were gone, his knees held for a moment before he
toppled over and fell with a crash.
Joyfully the pirates in the hall hastened to crawl back toward the
pilot-house, helping each other. Three made it, and promptly keeled
over as they entered the paralyzing rays that filled the room.
Finally one of them crawled back and got a metal bar about five feet
long. It took four of them to raise it into position and bring it
down on the master-switch, opening it, and instantly shutting off all
acceleration.
Then one of the men hauled himself back along the corridor to the
engine room, and from the emergency engine-room controls, which were
powerless as long as the master-switch was closed, but which now sent
the ship ahead under one Earth-gravity.
Gathering a brace of ray pistols from the bench as he ran up to join
his friends, he watched them manipulating the metal bar again. It was
easier now, and they quickly worked the half-hidden button that had
flooded the room with rays. It was just over Jennings' face as he had
lain there.
* * * * *
His eyes were bright and hard as he watched. He was weak, and knew
it, holding his right wrist with his left hand. But Barclay wasn't.
The shutting off of the paralyzing rays had started him even more
quickly than it had started his enemies. With a bound he leaped for
them, burying himself in their midst. The metal bar was wrenched from
their hands, and thrown across the room. Then the sixteen men who had
congregated there got a taste of a Jovian in action. His terrible,
flying hands meant certain unconsciousness, or broken bones, while he
himself was an invulnerable mass of iron-hard muscle to their blows.
The one on the outskirts of the battle who held the two pistols,
hesitated to use them, they would paralyze friend and foe alike.
Presently Jennings saw them. "FOOL!" he shrieked over the noise of the
fight, "RAY THEM ALL--FOOL!"
The two pistols shot out their beams, and suddenly the fight stopped,
Barclay, and those near him fell helpless, those on the outskirts had
not been rayed, and with a cheer, fell to pulling their comrades out of
the melée.
"He sent a call for help. I couldn't read the radio code, confound him,
but he called someone, and got an answer. He shifted our course till
we were headed right for that other ship. We were traveling under that
acceleration of 4.5 normal for I don't know how long. I'm hurt, the
---- ---- ---- used a screwdriver on me. Threw it like a bullet from a
gun.
"Now: battle stations. Tie that thing up till I'm ready for it. It
escaped? Broke its bonds? Then tie it! Put one and a half reverse
accelerations, but turn the ship around. First, put that damned radio
on the blink, he's got it going, sending a direction-howl. Then make
sure the lights are off, and use only the colored lights inside. Check
the electrometer."
There was a shrill clangor as the electro-detector caught the tell-tale
emanations of powerful atomic generators driven hard. "Ship over-taking
us, Captain! Comin' like a streak of light. Funny looking patchwork
thing. Must be a thousand years old. I'll bet they plan to ram us,
they're comin' too fast to stop," reported the pilot.
"Ray--paralyzer," snapped Jennings.
The generators in the bowels of the ship hummed a deeper note.
"Oh, GOD! Cap--they've _got a screen! The rays don't touch them!_"
called the pilot.
Barclay's face lit with a smile, Jennings' eyes opened in consternation.
"Put all your power in induction, switch suddenly to paralyzer,"
ordered Jennings.
The ray operator's fingers flew. A moment later his face fell. "Didn't
touch 'em," he reported.
"Why aren't they raying us?" demanded Jennings in a puzzled tone.
"Oh--the prisoners." A smile of satisfaction came over his face.
"Listen, throw every kilowatt, even the shield-base power, since they
won't ray us, and turn it into the Miller Twin rays, our kind friend
installed for us."
Jennings grinned at Barclay as he wrapped a bandage around his injured
wrist. The ray operator was working again, and the shrill whine of
the generators fell to a rumbling hum. The Twenty-five-Hundred hung
motionless beside them now, manned by Jovians it had been able to stop.
A green bulb flashed suddenly on the pilot-board. The Twins were ready.
* * * * *
Two milky tubes of radiance leaped out into space, curved sharply, and
cut suddenly across the Twenty-five-Hundred. Something was wrong, the
Twin Beams, touching adjacent patches on the ship's side, did not flash
into arcing, burning light.
"The paralyzer screen," said Barclay's calm voice in the tense silence,
"I helped develop it. You left records when your fiasco demonstration
was made."
"Guns," he went on, but his voice was suddenly drowned out. The two
patches which the beams touched suddenly flashed with terrific fire.
Somewhere below, in the depths of the ship, the great generators rose
to a singing whine as the milky beams glowed with blue fires, terrific
shattering lightnings at 100,000,000 volts pressure and 15,000,000
horsepower.
They whined like titanic disc saws, then, incredibly they struck
some cosmic snag, the shrill whine became an awful, soul-wrenching,
nerve-shattering grind, the ship trembled throughout her length, and
with an awful abruptness but there was no sound. A man speaking in the
engine room suddenly was shouting in silence. The awful calm lasted
a fraction of a second. Then it exploded into eye-searing light and
terrific concussion. The generators had been re-polarized and exploded,
taking a wall with them.
It was quiet again, the faint chug of air-pumps gone.
"Guns," resumed Barclay calmly, "kick--and Miller beams work both ways.
I hoped you'd install those beams for me. It was the only way we could
destroy your defensive generators without destroying you--to throw them
against the hundred million horsepower Ridgely Atomic on that ship."
Jennings stared at him in stupid amazement.
Somewhere behind came the bump and clang as the Twenty-five-Hundred
came alongside the helpless ship.
THE END