ORTOL
After Morey's explanation of the ship was completed, Wade took Arcot's
place at the controls, while Morey and Arcot retired to the calculating
room to do some of the needed mathematics on the time-field
investigation.
Their work continued here, while the Ortolians prepared a meal and
brought it to them, and to Wade. When at last the sun of Ortol was
growing before them, Arcot took over controls from Wade once more.
Slowing their speed to less than fifty times that of light, they drove
on. The attraction of the giant sun was draining the energy from the
coils so rapidly now, that at last Arcot was forced to get into normal
space, while the planet was still close to a million miles from them.
Morey was showing the Ortolians the operation of the telectroscope and
had it trained now on the rapidly approaching planet. The planet was
easily enlarged to a point where the features of continents were
visible. The magnification was increased till cities were no longer
blurs, but truly cities.
Suddenly, as city after city was brought under the action of the
machine, the Ortolians recognizing them with glad exclamations, one
swept into view--and as they watched, it leapt into the air, a vast
column of dust, then twisting, whirling, it fell back in utter, chaotic
ruin.
Zezdon Fentes staggered back from the screen in horror.
"Arcot--drive down--increase your speed--the Thessians are there already
and have destroyed one city," called Morey sharply. The men secured
themselves with heavy belts, as the deep toned hum of the warning echoed
through the ship. A moment later they staggered under an acceleration of
four gravities. Space was dark for the barest instant of time, and then
there was the scream of atmosphere as the ship rocketed through the air
of the planet at nearly fifteen hundred miles per second. The outer wall
was blazing in incandescence in a moment, and the heavy relux screens
seemed to leap into place over the windows as the blasting heat,
radiated from the incandescent walls flooded in. The millions of tons
pressure of the air on the nose of the ship would have brought it to a
stop in an instant, and had it not been that the molecular drive was on
at full power, driving the ship against the air resistance, and still
losing. The ship slowed swiftly, but was shrieking toward the destroyed
city at terrific speed.
"Hesthis--to the--right and ahead. That would be their next attack,"
said the Ortolian. Arcot altered the ship's course, and they shot toward
the distance city of Hesthis. They were slowing perceptibly, and yet,
though the city was half around the world, they reached it in half a
minute. Now Arcot's wizardry at the controls came into play, for by
altering his space field constants, he succeeded in reaching a condition
that slowed the ship almost instantly to a speed of but a mile a second,
yet without apparent deceleration.
High in the white Ortolian sky was a shining point bearing down on the
now-visible city. Arcot slanted toward it, and the approaching ship grew
like an expanding rubber balloon.
A ray of intense, blindingly brilliant light flashed out, and a gout of
light appeared in the center of the city. A huge flame, bright blue,
shot heavenward in roaring heat.
Seeing that a strange ship had arrived was enough for the Thessians, and
they turned, and drove at Arcot instantly. The Thessian ship was built
for a heavy world, and for heavy acceleration in consequence, and, as
they had found from the captured ship, it was stronger than the _Ancient
Mariner_. Now the Thessians were driving at Arcot with an acceleration
and speed that convinced him dodging was useless. Suddenly space was
black around them, the sunlit world was gone.
"Wonder what they thought of _that_!" grinned Arcot. Wade smiled grimly.
"It's not what they thought, but what they'll do, that counts."
Arcot came back to normal space, just in time to see the Thessian ship
spin in a quick turn, under an acceleration that would have crushed a
human to a pulp. Again the pilot dived at the terrestrian ship. Again it
vanished. Twice more he tried these fruitless tactics, seeing the ship
loom before him--bracing for the crash--then it was gone
instantaneously, and though he sailed through the spot he knew it to
have occupied, it was not there. Yet an instant later, as he turned, it
was floating, unharmed, exactly where his ship had passed!
Rushing was useless. He stood, and prepared to give battle. A molecular
ray reached out--and disappeared in flaring ions on a shield utterly
impenetrable in the ionizing atmosphere.
Arcot meanwhile watched the instrument of his shield. The Thessian
shield would have been impenetrable, but his shield, fed by less
efficient tubes, was not, and he knew it. Already the terrific energy of
the Thessian ray was noticeably heating the copper plates of the tube.
The seal would break soon.
Another ray reached out, a ray of flaring light. Arcot, watching through
the "eyes" of his telectroscope viewplates, saw it for but an instant,
then the "eyes" were blasted, and the screen went blank.
"He won't do anything with that but burn out eyes," muttered the
terrestrian. He pushed a small button when his instruments told him the
rays were off. Another scanner came into action, and the viewplate was
alive again.
Arcot shot out a cosmic ray himself, and swept the Thessian with it
thoroughly. For the instant he needed the enemy ship was blinded.
Immediately the _Ancient Mariner_ dove, and the automatic ray-finders
could no longer hold the rays on his ship. As soon as he was out of the
deadly molecular ray he shut off his screen, and turned on all his
molecular rays. The Thessian ship, their own ray on, had been unable to
put up their screen, as Arcot was unable to use his ray with the enemy's
ray forcing him to cover with a shield.
Almost at once the relux covering of the Thessian ship shone with
characteristic iridescence as it changed swiftly to lux metal. The
molecular ray blinked out, and a ray screen flashed out instead. The
Thessians were covering up. Their own rays were useless now. Though
Arcot could not hope to destroy their ray shield, they could no longer
attack his, for their rays were useless, and already they had lost so
much of the protective relux, that they would not be so foolhardy as to
risk a second attack of the ray.
Arcot continued to bathe the ship in energy, keeping their "eyes"
closed. As long as he could hold his barrage on them, they would not
damage him.
"Morey--get into the power room, strap onto the board. Throw all the
power-coil banks into the magnets. I may burn them out, but I have
hopes--" Arcot already had the generators going full power, charging the
power coils.
Morey dived. Almost simultaneously the Thessians succeeded in the
maneuver they had been attempting for some time. There were a dozen rays
flaring wildly from the ship, searching blindly over the sky and ground,
hoping to stumble on the enemy ship, while their own ship dived and
twisted. Arcot was busily dodging the sweeping rays, but finally one hit
his viewplates, and his own ship was blind. Instantly he threw the ray
screen out, cutting off his own molecular ray. His own cosmics he set
rotating in cones that covered the three dimensions--save below, where
the city lay. Immediately the Thessian had retreated to this one segment
where Arcot did not dare throw his own rays. The Thessian cosmics
continued to make his relux screens necessary, and his ship remained
blind.
His ray screen was showing signs of weakening. The Thessians got a third
ray into position for operation, and opened up. Almost at once the tubes
heated terrifically. In an instant they would give way. Arcot threw his
ship into space, and let the tubes cool under the water jacket. Morey
reported the coils ready as soon as he came out of space.
Arcot cut in the new set of eyes, and put up his molecular ray screen
again. Then he cut the energy back to the coils.
Half a mile below the enemy ship was vainly scurrying around an empty
sky. Wade laughed at the strange resemblance to a puppy chasing its
tail. The _Ancient Mariner_ was utterly lost to them.
"Well, here goes the last trick," said Arcot grimly. "If this doesn't
work, they'll probably win, for their tubes are better than ours, and
they can maneuver faster. By win I mean force us to let them attack
Ortol. They can't really attack us; artificial space is a perfect
defense."
Arcot's molecular ray apprized the Thessians of his presence. Their
screen flared up once more. Arcot was driving straight toward their ship
as they turned. He snapped the relux screens in front of his eyes an
instant before the enemy cosmics reached his ship. Immediately the thud
of four heavy relays rang through the ship. The quarter of a million ton
ship leaped forward under a terrific acceleration, and then, as the four
relays cut out again, the acceleration was gone. The screen regained
life as Arcot opened the shutters. Before them, still directly in their
path, was the huge Thessian ship. But now its screen was down, the relux
iridescent in decomposition. It was falling, helplessly falling to the
rocky plateau seven miles below. Its rays reached out even yet--and
again the _Ancient Mariner_ staggered under the terrific pull of some
acceleration. The Thessian ship lurched upward, and a terrific
concussion came, and the entire neighborhood of that projector
disappeared in a flash of radiation.
Arcot drove the _Ancient Mariner_ down beneath the Thessian ship in its
long fall, and with a powerful molecular beam ripped a mighty chasm in
the deserted plateau. The Thessian ship fell into a quarter mile rift in
the solid rock, smashing its way through falling débris. A moment later
it was buried beneath a quarter mile of broken rock as Arcot swept a
molecular beam about with the grace of a mine foreman filling breaks.
An instant later, a heat ray followed the molecular in dazzling
brilliance. A terrific gout of light appeared in the barren rocks. In
ten minutes the plateau was a white hot cauldron of molten rocks,
glowing now against a darkening sky. Night was falling.
"That ship," said Arcot with an air of finality, "will never rise
again."