The Lancaster turned ever so slightly until the starship was directly
on the point-of-drive. His other hand touched the drive and the
acceleration increased a bit. Caustically, Farradyne said, "Go ahead
and shoot! You'll find your own living room full of by-products if you
do!"
He was right. The Lancaster was on collision course with the starship
and if the Lancaster was blasted at this moment, shards and fragments
of the spacecraft would spread like a shotgun charge. If the starship
escaped being hit with a rather uncomfortably large mass of jagged
metal it would be sheer luck.
"Veer off!" came the strident cry.
The starship moved aside. Farradyne's hands levered his handles with a
velvet touch and the starship of the enemy returned to the cross-hairs.
"Veer off!"
"I'm going to ram, goddam you!" roared Farradyne.
The starship flared at its tail and at the same time a torpedo-port
winked as a missile blasted-off. Farradyne gauged the missile and the
starship and kept his nose on the starship's lead. Gritting his teeth,
he watched the missile come at him; and at the last moment the missile
veered aside, obviously controlled. It was a war of nerves; the enemy
did not dare hit him at this moment and on this course, but they hoped
to scare him.
The starship loomed big in the astrodome and Farradyne aimed the
Lancaster amidships. The interstellar monster grew rapidly until the
individual plates could be seen; then with a silent, dark flicker that
was as shocking as a loud blast and a searing flare of light might have
been, the starship ceased to exist as an obstacle in front of them. The
enemy had resorted to the ultradrive. The sky was clear--
Except for the missile, seeking them and with no control to stop it.
It had curved in a vast circle behind them and was now closing in on a
curving course.
Dead ahead was Terra, looming huge; the tactic of the enemy was clear.
In order to escape the missile Farradyne would have to drive hard and
long, which would carry him far beyond Terra and into the hands of
another enemy ship on the other side of home. To turn and attempt a
landing would be to invite atomic death in the depths of space far
above the planet.
He chuckled, and Norma looked at him wonderingly.
"Get set for some terrific acceleration," he said. "Hunker down in the
seat!"
* * * * *
His hands ran across the board. The Lancaster turned slightly and the
drive went up and up. The flare brightened and lengthened behind them,
aimed at the missile below.
The missile followed its homing gear and came speeding up the
reaction-flare. The Lancaster drive was a reaction motor, a rocket with
a reaction mass of water heated by the atomic pile to an energy that
cracked the water down to sheer gamma and particle radiation and tossed
it rearward into a condition where the word 'heat' has no meaning
unless there is some body able to absorb the ravening energy.
The missile absorbed the energy.
Its nose melted and its homing circuits mingled with the flare of the
Lancaster's drive; then there was a minute puff as the missile was
consumed before its atomics could be joined in fission.
Farradyne cut the drive and took a deep breath; but his relief didn't
last long. Terra was before him, a monstrous blue-green globe just to
one side--close--close--
Beyond, the enemy ship was waiting.
The thin scream of atmosphere cried at their ears and there came
a braking pressure that threw them against their seat straps. The
accelerometer went crazy, reaching for the peg-stop on the left.
The blood rushed to their heads and Farradyne fought the pressure that
tried to raise his arms.
Then the screaming stopped as the Lancaster passed beyond the
atmosphere into space again. Farradyne hit the drive hard again.
But if the enemy was expecting him to come past on a line-course, they
were wrong. The touch of the upper air, thin as it was, had deflected
the Lancaster's course into a long ellipse and hurled the ship far
to one side of the expected line of flight. The course wound out and
around and back and plunged the ship into the upper air again. Terra
rotated madly below and then dropped beneath the level of the edge of
the control room dome as the Lancaster speared out into space once
more. Again they went out and around and down into the upper air, and
this time they went around in a tight ellipse with the air screaming at
them all the way. Four times around Terra they went, and then Farradyne
turned the tail of the Lancaster straight down and started to drop like
a plummet.
He was kept busy checking the controls and the autopilot and the
computing radar altimeter as he aimed the Lancaster for the southern
edge of Lake Superior; they came down in a screaming fall like a
meteorite.
The flare parted the waters of the lake and sent up a billow of steam
for about a hundredth of a second. Then the autopilot cut the drive and
the violence ceased as the Lancaster sank into the deep cool waters, to
stop, to come rising buoyantly towards the surface again.
* * * * *
Farradyne hit the switch that opened the scuttlebutt of the water
tanks and the lake waters rushed in, killing buoyancy.
The astrodome porpoised once, gently, and then the Lancaster sank very
slowly. Farradyne waited until the ship was resting tail down on the
bottom; then he turned it slightly to one side and opened the drive by
a bare fraction. Water churned below them and the ship moved loggily
sidewise, towards the shore. He spent an hour testing and trying the
depth along the shore until he found a place that was just deep enough
to let the Lancaster stand upright with its dome an inch or two below
the surface.
A small fish goggled hungrily at the shining metal.