Late that night--or, rather, very early the following morning--Senator
Morgan and his Number One secretary were closeted in the former's
doubly spy-ray-proofed office. Morgan's round, heavy, florid face had
perhaps lost a little of its usual color; the fingers of his left hand
drummed soundlessly upon the glass top of his desk. His shrewd gray
eyes, however, were as keen and as calculating as ever.
"This thing smells, Herkimer ... it _reeks_ ... but I can't figure
any of the angles. That operation was _planned_. Sure fire, it
_couldn't_ miss. Right up to the last split second it worked perfectly.
Then--blooie! A flat bust. The Patrol landed and everything was under
control. There _must_ have been a leak somewhere--but where in hell
could it have been?"
"There couldn't have been a leak, Chief; it doesn't make sense."
The secretary uncrossed his long legs, recrossed them in the other
direction, threw away a half-smoked cigarette, lit another. "If there'd
been any kind of a leak they would have done a lot more than just
kill the low man on the ladder. You know as well as I do that Rocky
Kinnison is the hardest-boiled character this side of hell. If he had
known anything, he would have killed everybody in sight, including you
and me. Besides, if there had been a leak, he would not have let Samms
get within ten thousand miles of the place--that's one sure thing.
Another is he wouldn't have waited until after it was all over to get
his army there. No, Chief, there couldn't have been a leak. Whatever
Samms or Kinnison found out--probably Samms, he's a hell of a lot
smarter than Kinnison is, you know--he learned right there and then. He
must have seen Brainerd start to pull his gun."
"I thought of that. I'd buy it, except for one fact. Apparently you
didn't time the interval between the shots and the arrival of the
tanks."
"Sorry, Chief." Herkimer's face was a study in chagrin. "I made a bad
slip there."
"I'll say you did. One minute and fifty eight seconds."
"_What!_"
Morgan remained silent.
"The patrol is fast, of course ... and always ready ... and they would
yank the stuff in on tractor beams, not under their own power ... but
even so ... five minutes, is my guess, Chief. Four and a half, absolute
minimum."
"Check. And where do you go from there?"
"I see your point. I don't. That blows everything wide open. One set of
facts says there was a leak, which occurred between two and a half and
three minutes before the signal was given. I ask you, Chief, does that
make sense?"
"No. That's what is bothering me. As you say, the facts seem to be
contradictory. Somebody must have learned something before anything
happened; but if they did, why didn't they do more? And Murgatroyd.
If they didn't know about him, why the ships--especially the big
battlewagons? If they did think he might be out there somewhere, why
didn't they go and find out?"
"Now I'll ask one. Why didn't our Mr. Murgatroyd do something? Or
wasn't the pirate fleet supposed to be in on this? Probably not,
though."
"My guess would be the same as yours. Can't see any reason for having
a fleet cover a one-man operation, especially as well-planned a one as
this was. But that's none of our business. These Lensmen are. I was
watching them every second. Neither Samms nor Kinnison did anything
whatever during that two minutes."
"Young Kinnison and Northrop each left the hall about that time."
"I know it. So they did. Either one of them _could_ have called the
Patrol--but what has that to do with the price of beef C. I. F.
Valeria?"
Herkimer refrained tactfully from answering the savage question. Morgan
drummed and thought for minutes, then went on slowly:
"There are two, and only two, possibilities; neither of which seem even
remotely possible. It was--_must_ have been--either the Lens or the
girl."
"The girl? Act your age, Senator. I knew where _she_ was, and what she
was doing, every second."
"That was evident." Morgan stopped drumming and smiled cynically. "I'm
getting a hell of a kick out of seeing you taking it, for a change,
instead of dishing it out."
"Yes?" Herkimer's handsome face hardened. "That game isn't over, my
friend."
"That's what _you_ think," the Senator jibed. "Can't believe that any
woman _can_ be Herkimer-proof, eh? You've been working on her for six
weeks now, instead of the usual six hours, and you haven't got anywhere
yet."
"I will, Senator." Herkimer's nostrils flared viciously. "I'll get her,
one way or another, if it's the last thing I ever do."
"I'll give you eight to five you don't; and a six-month time limit."
"I'll take five thousand of that. But what makes you think that she's
anything to be afraid of? She's a trained psychologist, yes; but so am
I; and I'm older and more experienced than she is. That leaves that
yoga stuff--her learning how to sit cross-legged, how to contemplate
her navel, and how to try to get in tune with the infinite. How do you
figure _that_ puts her in my class?"
"I told you, I don't. Nothing makes sense. But she is Virgil Samms'
daughter."
"What of it? You didn't gag on George Olmstead--you picked him yourself
for one of the toughest jobs we've got. By blood he's just about as
close to Virgil Samms as Virgilia is. They might as well have been
hatched out of the same egg."
"Physically, yes. Mentally and psychologically, no. Olmstead is a
realist, a materialist. He wants his reward in this world, not the
next, and is out to get it. Furthermore, the job will probably kill
him, and even if it doesn't, he will never be in a position of trust
or where he can learn much of anything. On the other hand, Virgil Samms
is--but I don't need to tell you what _he_ is like. But you don't seem
to realize that she's just like him--she isn't playing around with you
because of your overpowering charm...."
"Listen, Chief. She didn't know anything and she didn't do anything. I
was dancing with her all the time, as close as that," he clasped his
hands tightly together, "so I know what I'm talking about. And if you
think she could _ever_ learn anything from me, skip it. You know that
nobody on Earth, or anywhere else, can read my face; and besides, she
was playing coy right then--wasn't even looking at me. So count her
out."
"We'll have to, I guess." Morgan resumed his quiet drumming. "If there
were any possibility that she pumped you I'd send you to the mines, but
there's no sign ... that leaves the Lens. It has seemed, right along,
more logical than the girl--but a lot more fantastic. Been able to find
out anything more about it?"
"No. Just what they've been advertising. Combination radio-phone,
automatic language-converter, telepath, and so on. Badge of the top
skimmings of the top-bracket cops. But I began to think, out there on
the floor, that they aren't advertising everything they know."
"So did I. You tell me."
"Take the time zero minus three minutes. Besides the five Lensmen--and
Jill Samms--the place was full of top brass; scrambled eggs all over
the floor. Commodores and lieutenant-Commodores from all continental
governments of the Earth, the other planets, and the colonies, all
wearing full-dress side-arms. Nobody knew anything then; we agree on
that. But within the next few seconds, somebody found out something
and called for help. One of the Lensmen could possibly have done that
without showing signs. BUT--at zero time all four Lensmen had their
guns out--and _not_ Lewistons, please note--and were shooting; whereas
none of the other armed officers knew that anything was going on until
after it was all over. That puts the finger on the Lens."
"That's the way I figured it. But the difficulties remain unchanged.
_How?_ Mind-reading?"
"Space-drift!" Herkimer snorted. "My mind can't be read."
"Nor mine."
"And besides, if they could read minds, they wouldn't have waited
until the last possible split second to do it, unless ... say, wait a
minute!... Did Brainerd act or look nervous, toward the last? I wasn't
to look at him, you know."
"Not nervous, exactly; but he did get a little tense."
"There you are, then. Hired murderers aren't smart. A Lensman saw
him tighten up and got suspicious. Turned in the alarm on general
principles. Warned the others to keep on their toes. But even so, it
doesn't look like mind-reading--they'd have killed him sooner. They
were watchful, and mighty quick on the draw."
"That could be it. That's about as thin and as specious an explanation
as I ever saw cooked up, but it _does_ cover the facts ... and the two
of us will be able to make it stick ... but take notice, pretty boy,
that certain parties are not going to like this at all. In fact, they
are going to be very highly put out."
"That's a nice hunk of understatement, boss. But notice one beautiful
thing about this story?" Herkimer grinned maliciously. "It lets us pass
the buck to Big Jim Towne. We can be--and will be--sore as hell because
he picks such weak-sister characters to do his killings!"
* * * * *
In the heavily armored improvised ambulance, Virgil Samms sat up and
directed a thought at his friend Kinnison, finding his mind a turmoil
of confusion.
"What's the matter, Rod?"
"Plenty!" the big Lensman snapped back. "They were--maybe still
are--too damn far ahead of us. Something has been going on that we
haven't even suspected. I stood by, as innocent as a three-year-old
girl baby, and let you walk right into that one--and I emphatically
do not enjoy getting caught with my pants down that way. It makes me
jumpy. This may be all, but it may not be--not by eleven thousand
light-years--and I'm trying to dope out what is going to happen next."
"And what have you deduced?"
"Nothing. I'm stuck. So I'm tossing it into your lap. Besides, that's
what you are getting paid for, thinking. So go ahead and think. What
would you be doing, if you were on the other side?"
"I see. You think, then, that it might not be good technique to take
the time to go back to the spaceport?"
"You get the idea. But--can you stand transfer?"
"Certainly. They got my shoulder dressed and taped, and my arm in a
sling. Shock practically all gone. Some pain, but not much. I can walk
without falling down."
"Fair enough. Clayton!" He Lensed a vigorous thought. "Have any of the
observers spotted anything, high up or far off?"
"No, sir."
"Good. Kinnison to Commodore Clayton, orders. Have a 'copter come down
and pick up Samms and myself on tractors. Instruct the _Boise_ and
the cruisers to maintain utmost vigilance. Instruct the _Chicago_ to
pick us up. Detach the _Chicago_ and the _Boise_ from your task force.
Assign them to me. Off."
"Clayton to Commissioner Kinnison. Orders received and are being
carried out. Off."
The transfers were made without incident. The two super-dreadnaughts
leaped into the high stratosphere and tore westward. Half-way to the
Hill, Kinnison called Dr. Frederick Rodebush.
"Fred? Kinnison. Have Cleve and Bergenholm link up with us. Now--how
are the Geigers on the outside of the Hill behaving?"
"Normal, all of them," the physicist-Lensman reported after a moment.
"Why?"
Kinnison detailed the happenings of the recent past. "So tell the boys
to unlimber all the stuff the Hill has got."
"My God!" Cleveland exclaimed. "Why, that's putting us back to the days
of the Interplanetary Wars!"
"With one notable exception," Kinnison pointed out. "The attack, if
any, will be strictly modern. I hope we'll be able to handle it. One
good thing, the old mountain's got a lot of sheer mass. How much
radioactivity will it stand?"
"Allotropic iron, U-235, or plutonium?" Rodebush seized his slide-rule.
"What difference does it make?"
"From a practical standpoint ... perhaps none. But with a task force
defending, not many bombs could get through, so I'd say ..."
"I wasn't thinking so much of bombs."
"What, then?"
"Isotopes. A good, thick blanket of dust. Slow-speed, fine stuff that
neither our ships nor the Hill's screens could handle. We've got to
decide, first, whether Virgil will be safer there in the Hill or out in
space in the _Chicago_; and second, for how long."
"I see ... I'd say here, _under_ the Hill. Months, perhaps years,
before anything could work down this far. And we can _always_ get out.
No matter how hot the surface gets, we've got enough screen, heavy
water, cadmium, lead, mercury, and everything else necessary to get him
out through the locks."
"That's what I was hoping you'd say. And now, about the defense ...
I wonder ... I don't want everybody to think I've gone completely
hysterical, but I'll be damned if I want to get caught again with...."
His thought faded out.
"May I offer a suggestion, sir?" Bergenholm's thought broke the
prolonged silence.
"I'd be very glad to have it--your suggestions so far haven't been idle
vaporings. Another hunch?"
"No, sir, a logical procedure. It has been some months since the last
emergency call-out drill was held. If you issue such another call now,
and nothing happens, it can be simply another surprise drill; with
credit, promotion, and monetary awards for the best performances;
further practice and instruction for the less proficient units."
"Splendid, Dr. Bergenholm!" Samms' brilliant and agile mind snatched
up the thought and carried it along. "And what a chance, Rod, for
something vastly larger and more important than a Continental, or even
a Tellurian, drill--make it the first maneuver of the Galactic Patrol!"
"I'd like to, Virge, but we can't. My boys are ready, but you aren't.
No top appointments and no authority."
"That can be arranged in a very few minutes. We have been waiting for
the psychological moment. This, especially if trouble should develop,
is the time. You yourself expect an attack, do you not?"
"Yes. I would not start anything unless and until I was ready to finish
it, and I see no reason for assuming that whoever it was that tried to
kill you is not at least as good a planner as I am."
"And the rest of you...? Dr. Bergenholm?"
"My reasoning, while it does not exactly parallel that of Commissioner
Kinnison, leads to the same conclusion; that an attack in great force
is to be expected."
"Not _exactly_ parallel?" Kinnison demanded. "In what respects?"
"You do not seem to have considered the possibility, Commissioner, that
the proposed assassination of First Lensman Samms could very well have
been only the first step in a comprehensive operation."
"I didn't ... and it _could_ have been. So go ahead, Virge, with...."
The thought was never finished, for Samms had already gone ahead.
Simultaneously, it seemed, the minds of eight other Lensmen joined
the group of Tellurians. Samms, intensely serious, spoke aloud to his
friend:
"The Galactic Council is now assembled. Do you, Roderick K. Kinnison,
promise to uphold, in as much as you conscientiously can and with all
that in you lies, the authority of this Council throughout all space?"
"I promise."
"By virtue of the authority vested in me its president by the Galactic
Council, I appoint you Port Admiral of the Galactic Patrol. My fellow
councillors are now inducting the armed forces of their various solar
systems into the Galactic Patrol ... It will not take long ... There,
you may make your appointments and issue orders for the mobilization."
The two super-dreadnaughts were now approaching the Hill. The _Boise_
stayed "up on top"; the _Chicago_ went down. Kinnison, however, paid
very little attention to the landing or to Samms' disembarkation, and
none whatever to the _Chicago's_ reascent into the high heavens. He
knew that everything was under control; and, now alone in his cabin, he
was busy.
"All personnel of all armed forces just inducted into the Galactic
Patrol, attention!" He spoke into an ultra-wave microphone, the
familiar parade-ground rasp very evident in his deep and resonant
voice. "Kinnison of Tellus, Port Admiral, speaking. Each of you has
taken oath to the Galactic Patrol?"
They had.
"At ease. The organization chart already in your hands is made
effective as of now. Enter in your logs the date and time. Promotions:
Commodore Clayton of North America, Tellus...."
In his office at New York Spaceport Clayton came to attention and
saluted crisply; his eyes shining, his deeply-scarred face alight.
"... to be Admiral of the First Galactic Region. Commodore Schweikert
of Europe, Tellus ..."
In Berlin a narrow-waisted, almost foppish-seeming man, with roached
blond hair and blue eyes, bowed stiffly from the waist and saluted
punctiliously.
"... to be Lieutenant-Admiral of the First Galactic Region."
And so on, down the list. A marshal and a lieutenant-marshal of the
Solarian System; a general and a lieutenant-general of the planet Sol
Three. Promotions, agreed upon long since, to fill the high offices
thus vacated. Then the list of commodores upon other planets--Guindlos
of Redland, Mars; Sesseffsen of Talleron, Venus; Raymond of the Jovian
Sub-System; Newman of Alphacent; Walters of Sirius; van-Meeter of
Valeria; Adams of Procyon; Roberts of Altair; Barrtell of Fomalhout;
Armand of Vega; and Coigne of Aldebaran--each of whom was actually the
commander-in-chief of the armed forces of a world. Each of these was
made general of his planet.
"Except for lieutenant-commodores and up, who will tune their minds to
me--dismissed!" Kinnison stopped talking and went onto his Lens.
"That was for the record. I don't need to tell you, fellows, how glad
I am to be able to do this. You're tops, all of you--I don't know of
anybody I'd rather have at my back when the ether gets rough ..."
"Right back at you, chief!" "Same to you Rod!" "Rocky Rod, Port
Admiral!" "Now we're blasting!" came a melange of thoughts. Those
splendid men, with whom he had shared so much of danger and of stress,
were all as jubilant as schoolboys.
"But the thing that makes this possible may also make it necessary
for us to go to work; to earn your extra stars and my wheel."
Kinnison smothered the welter of thoughts and outlined the situation,
concluding: "So you see it may turn out to be only a drill--but
on the other hand, since the outfit is big enough to have built a
war-fleet alone, if it wanted one, and since it may have had a lot of
first-class help that none of us knows anything about, we may be in
for the damndest battle that any of us ever saw. So come prepared for
_anything_. I am now going back onto voice, for the record.
"Kinnison to the commanding officers of all fleets, sub-fleets, and
task-forces of the Galactic Patrol. Information. Subject, tactical
problem; defense of the Hill against a postulated Black Fleet of
unknown size, strength, and composition; of unknown nationality or
origin; coming from an unknown direction in space at an unknown time.
"Kinnison to Admiral Clayton. Orders. Take over. I am relinquishing
command of the _Boise_ and the _Chicago_."
"Clayton to Port Admiral Kinnison. Orders received. Taking over. I
am at the _Chicago's_ main starboard lock. I have instructed Ensign
Masterson, the commanding officer of this gig, to wait; that he is to
take you down to the Hill."
"WHAT? Of all the damned...." This was a thought, and unrecorded.
"Sorry, Rod--I'm sorry as hell, and I'd like no end to have you along."
This, too, was a thought. "But that's the way it is. Ordinary Admirals
ride the ether with their fleets. Port Admirals stay aground. I report
to you, and you run things--in broad--by remote control."
"I see." Kinnison then Lensed a fuming thought at Samms. "Alex
_couldn't_ do this to me--and wouldn't--and knows damn well that I'd
burn him to a crisp if he had the guts to try it. So it's _your_
doing--what in hell's the big idea?"
"Who's being heroic now, Rod?" Samms asked, quietly. "Use _your_ brain.
And then come down here, where you belong."
And Kinnison, after a long moment of rebellious thought and with as
much grace as he could muster, came down. Down not only to the Patrol's
familiar offices, but down into the deepest crypts beneath them. He was
glum enough, and bitter, at first: but he found much to do. Grand Fleet
Headquarters--_his_ headquarters--was being organized, and the best
efforts of the best minds and of the best technologists of three worlds
were being devoted to the task of strengthening the already extremely
strong defenses of THE HILL. And in a very short time the plates of
GFHQ showed that Admiral Clayton and Lieutenant-Admiral Schweikert were
doing a very nice job.
All of the really heavy stuff was of Earth, the Mother Planet, and
was already in place; as were the less numerous and much lighter
contingents of Mars, of Venus, and of Jove. And the fleets of the
outlying solar systems--cutters, scouts, and a few light cruisers--were
neither maintaining fleet formation nor laying course for Sol. Instead,
each individual vessel was blasting at maximum for the position in
space in which it would form one unit of a formation englobing at a
distance of light-years the entire Solarian System, and each of those
hurtling hundreds of ships was literally combing all circumambient
space with its furiously-driven detector beams.
"Nice." Kinnison turned to Samms, now beside him at the master plate.
"Couldn't have done any better myself."
"After you get it made, what are you going to do with it in case
nothing happens?" Samms was still somewhat skeptical. "How long can you
make a drill last?"
"Until all the ensigns have long gray whiskers if I have to, but don't
worry--if we have time to get the preliminary globe made I'll be the
surprisedest man in the system."
And Kinnison was not surprised; before full englobement was
accomplished, a loud-speaker gave tongue.
"Flagship _Chicago_ to Grand Fleet Headquarters!" it blatted, sharply.
"The Black Fleet has been detected. RA twelve hours, declination plus
twenty degrees, distance about thirty light-years...."
Kinnison started to say something; then, by main force, shut himself
up. He wanted intensely to take over, to tell the boys out there
exactly what to do, but he couldn't. He was now a Big Shot--damn the
luck! He could be and must be responsible for broad policy and for
general strategy, but, once those vitally important decisions had been
made, the actual work would have to be done by others. He didn't like
it--but there it was. Those flashing thoughts took only an instant of
time.
"... which is such extreme range that no estimate of strength or
composition can be made at present. We will keep you informed."
"Acknowledge," he ordered Randolph; who, wearing now the five silver
bars of major, was his Chief Communications Officer. "No instructions."
He turned to his plate. Clayton hadn't had to be told to pull in his
light stuff; it was all pelting hell-for-leather for Sol and Tellus.
Three general plans of battle had been mapped out by Staff. Each
had its advantages--and its disadvantages. Operation Acorn--long
distance--would be fought at, say, twelve light-years. It would keep
everything, particularly the big stuff, away from the Hill, and would
make automatics useless ... _unless_ some got past, or _unless_ the
automatics were coming in on a sneak course, or _unless_ several other
things--in any one of which cases _what_ a God-awful shellacking the
Hill would take!
He grinned wryly at Samms, who had been following his thought, and
quoted: "A vast hemisphere of lambent violet flame, through which
neither material substance nor destructive ray can pass."
"Well, that dedicatory statement, while perhaps a bit florid, was
strictly true at the time--before the days of allotropic iron and of
polycyclic drills. Now I'll quote one: 'Nothing is permanent except
change'."
"Uh-huh," and Kinnison returned to his thinking. Operation Adack.
Middle distance. Uh-uh. He didn't like it any better now than he had
before, even though some of the Big Brains of Staff thought it the
ideal solution. A compromise. All of the disadvantages of both of the
others, and none of the advantages of either. It _still_ stunk, and
unless the Black fleet had an utterly fantastic composition Operation
Adack was out.
And Virgil Samms, quietly smoking a cigarette, smiled inwardly. Rod
the Rock could scarcely be expected to be in favor of any sort of
compromise.
That left Operation Affick. Close up. It had three tremendous
advantages. First, the Hill's own offensive weapons--as long as they
lasted. Second, the new Rodebush-Bergenholm fields. Third, no sneak
attack could be made without detection and interception. It had
one tremendous disadvantage; some stuff, and probably a lot of it,
would get through. Automatics, robots, guided missiles equipped with
super-speed drives, with polycyclic drills, and with atomic war-heads
strong enough to shake the whole world.
But with those new fields, shaking the world wouldn't be enough; in
order to get deep enough to reach Virgil Samms they would damn near
have to destroy the world. Could _anybody_ build a bomb that powerful?
He didn't think so. Earth technology was supreme throughout all known
space; of Earth technologists the North Americans were, and always had
been, tops. Grant that the Black Fleet was, basically, North American.
Grant further that they had a man as good as Adlington--or that they
could spy-ray Adlington's brain and laboratories and shops--a tall
order. Adlington himself was several months away from a world-wrecker,
unless he could put one a hundred miles down before detonation, which
simply was not feasible. He turned to Samms.
"It'll be Affick, Virge, unless they've got a composition that is
radically different from anything I ever saw put into space."
"So? I can't say that I am very much surprised."
The calm statement and the equally calm reply were beautifully
characteristic of the two men. Kinnison had not asked, nor had Samms
offered, advice. Kinnison, after weighing the facts, made his decision.
Samms, calmly certain that the decision was the best that could be made
upon the data available, accepted it without question or criticism.
"We've still got a minute or two," Kinnison remarked. "Don't quite know
what to make of their line of approach. Coma Berenices. I don't know
of anything at all out that way, do you? They could have detoured,
though."
"No, I don't." Samms frowned in thought. "Probably a detour."
"Check." Kinnison turned to Randolph. "Tell them to report whatever
they know; we can't wait any ..."
As he was speaking the report came in.
The Black Fleet was of more or less normal make-up; considerably larger
than the North American contingent, but decidedly inferior to the
Patrol's present Grand Fleet. Either three or four capital ships ...
"And we've got six!" Kinnison said, exultantly. "Our own two, Asia's
_Himalaya_, Africa's _Johannesburg_, South America's _Bolivar_, and
Europe's _Europa_."
... Battle cruisers and heavy cruisers, about in the usual proportions;
but an unusually high ratio of scouts and light cruisers. There
were either two or three large ships which could not be classified
definitely at that distance; long-range observers were going out to
study them.
"Tell Clayton," Kinnison instructed Randolph, "that it is to be
Operation Affick, and for him to fly at it."
"Report continued," the speaker came to life again. "There are three
capital ships, apparently of approximately the _Chicago_ class, but
tear-drop-shaped instead of spherical ..."
"Ouch!" Kinnison flashed a thought at Samms. "I don't like that. They
can both fight and run."
"... The battle cruisers are also tear-drops. The small vessels are
torpedo-shaped. There are three of the large ships, which we are
still not able to classify definitely. They are spherical in shape,
and very large, but do not seem to be either armed or screened, and
are apparently carriers--possibly of automatics. We are now making
contact--off!"
Instead of looking at the plates before them, the two Lensmen went
en rapport with Clayton, so that they could see everything he saw.
The stupendous Cone of Battle had long since been formed; the word to
fire was given in a measured two-second call. Every firing officer in
every Patrol ship touched his stud in the same split second. And from
the gargantuan mouth of the Cone there spewed a miles-thick column of
energy so raw, so stark, so incomprehensibly violent that it must have
been seen to be even dimly appreciated. It simply cannot be described.
Its prototype, Triplanetary's Cylinder of Annihilation, had been
a highly effective weapon indeed. The offensive beams of the
fish-shaped Nevian cruisers of the void were even more powerful.
The Cleveland-Rodebush projectors, developed aboard the original
_Boise_ on the long Nevian way, were stronger still. The composite
beam projected by this fleet of the Galactic Patrol, however, was
the sublimation and quintessence of each of these, redesigned and
redesigned by scientists and engineers of ever-increasing knowledge,
rebuilt and rebuilt by technologists of ever-increasing skill.
Capital ships and a few of the heaviest cruisers could mount screen
generators able to carry that frightful load; but every smaller ship
caught in that semi-solid rod of indescribably incandescent fury simply
flared into nothingness.
But in the instant before the firing order was given--as though
precisely timed, which in all probability was the case--the
ever-watchful observers picked up two items of fact which made the new
Admiral of the First Galactic Region cut his almost irresistible weapon
and break up his Cone of Battle after only a few seconds of action.
One: those three enigmatic cargo scows had fallen apart _before_ the
beam reached them, and hundreds--yes, thousands--of small objects had
hurtled radially outward, out well beyond the field of action of the
Patrol's beam, at a speed many times that of light. Two: Kinnison's
forebodings had been prophetic. A swarm of Blacks, all small--must have
been hidden right on Earth somewhere!--were already darting at the Hill
from the south.
"Cease firing!" Clayton rapped into his microphone. The dreadful beam
expired. "Break cone formation! Independent action--light cruisers and
scouts, _get those bombs_! Heavy cruisers and battle cruisers, engage
similar units of the Blacks, two to one if possible. _Chicago_ and
_Boise_, attack Black Number One. _Bolivar_ and _Himalaya_, Number Two.
_Europa_ and _Johannesburg_, Number Three!"
Space was full of darting, flashing, madly warring ships. The three
Black super-dreadnaughts leaped forward as one. Their massed batteries
of beams, precisely synchronized and aimed, lashed out as one at the
nearest Patrol super heavy, the _Boise_. Under the vicious power of
that beautifully-timed thrust that warship's first, second, and third
screens, her very wall-shield, flared through the spectrum and into the
black. Her Chief Pilot, however, was fast--_very_ fast--and he had a
fraction of a second in which to work. Thus, practically in the instant
of her wall-shield's failure, she went free; and while she was holed
badly and put out of action, she was not blown out of space. In fact,
it was learned later that she lost only forty men.
The Blacks were not as fortunate. The _Chicago_, now without a
partner, joined beams with the _Bolivar_ and the _Himalaya_ against
Number Two; then, a short half-second later, with her other two
sister-ships against Number Three. And in that very short space of time
two Black super-dreadnaughts ceased utterly to be.
But also, in that scant second of time, Black Number One had all but
disappeared! Her canny commander, with no stomach at all for odds
of five to one against, had ordered flight at max; she was already
one-sixtieth of a light-year--about one hundred thousand million
miles--away from the Earth and was devoting her every energy to the
accumulation of still more distance.
"_Bolivar!_ _Himalaya!_" Clayton barked savagely. "Get him!" He wanted
intensely to join the chase, but he couldn't. He had to stay here. And
he didn't have time even to swear. Instead, without a break, the words
tripping over each other against his teeth: "_Chicago!_ _Johannesburg!_
_Europa!_ Act at will against heaviest craft left. Blast 'em down!"
He gritted his teeth. The scouts and light cruisers were doing their
damndest, but they were out-numbered three to one--Christ, what a
lot of stuff was getting through! The Blacks wouldn't last long,
between the Hill and the heavies ... but maybe long enough, at
that--the Patrol globe was leaking like a sieve! He voiced a couple of
bursts of deep-space profanity and, although he was almost afraid to
look, sneaked a quick peek to see how much was left of the Hill. He
looked--and stopped swearing in the middle of a four-letter Anglo-Saxon
word.
What he saw simply did not make sense. Those Black bombs should have
peeled the armor off of that mountain like the skin off of a nectarine
and scattered it from the Pacific to the Mississippi. By now there
should be a hole a mile deep where the Hill had been. But there wasn't.
The Hill was still there! It might have shrunk a little--Clayton
couldn't see very well because of the worse-than-incandescent radiance
of the practically continuous, sense-battering, world-shaking atomic
detonations--_but the Hill was still there_!
And as he stared, chilled and shaken, at that indescribably terrific
spectacle, a Black cruiser, holed and helpless, fell toward that
armored mountain with an acceleration starkly impossible to credit.
And when it struck it did not penetrate, and splash, and crater, as it
should have done. Instead, it simply spread out, _in a thin layer_,
over an acre or so of the fortress' steep and apparently still armored
surface!
"You saw that, Alex? Good. Otherwise you could scarcely believe it,"
came Kinnison's silent voice. "Tell all our ships to stay away. There's
a force of over a hundred thousand G's acting in a direction normal to
every point of our surface. The boys are giving it all the decrement
they can--somewhere between distance cube and fourth power--but even so
it's pretty fierce stuff. How about the _Bolivar_ and the _Himalaya_?
Not having much luck catching Mr. Black, are they?"
"Why, I don't know. I'll check ... No, sir, they aren't. They report
that they are losing ground and will soon lose trace."
"I was afraid so, from that shape. Rodebush was about the only one who
saw it coming ... well, we'll have to redesign and rebuild ..."
* * * * *
Port Admiral Kinnison, shortly after directing the foregoing thought,
leaned back in his chair and smiled. The battle was practically over.
The Hill had come through. The Rodebush-Bergenholm fields had held
her together through the most God-awful session of saturation atomic
bombing that any world had ever seen or that the mind of man had ever
conceived. And the counter-forces had kept the interior rock from
flowing like water. So far, so good.
Her original armor was gone. Converted into ... what? For hundreds of
feet inward from the surface she was hotter than the reacting slugs
of the Hanfords. Delousing her would be a project, not an operation;
millions of cubic yards of material would have to be hauled off into
space with tractors and allowed to simmer for a few hundred years; but
what of that?
Bergenholm had said that the fields would tend to prevent the
radioactives from spreading, as they otherwise would--and _Virgil Samms
was still safe_!
"Virge, my boy, come along." He took the First Lensman by his good
arm and lifted him out of his chair. "Old Doctor Kinnison's peerless
prescription for you and me is a big, thick, juicy, porterhouse steak."