Nord Holber laughed again. "That's what he thinks! Mike, there's high
frequency current in that cable."
He shot their battered fighter aside--to port--as the fiery beam
flashed upward. The slack cable passed under and over the pirate's
ship. Nord sent the Patrol vessel down, then to starboard and up again,
as Kadine's fiery pencil of destruction whipped toward them.
"He doesn't suspect a thing," Holber said tensely. "It looks like fancy
dodging we're doing. But look at the cable, partner! A couple more
times around--"
The plastic ship was weaving an intricate course, dodging, yet feinting
downward, only to dance upward and away--and the insulated cable was
wound loosely around the enemy craft.
"O.K., Mike," Nord said at last. "Reverse that winch, and pull the
cable out."
Doren, understanding breaking at last into his flaming blue eyes,
pressed the stud, and stared into the lower screen. "A high frequency
current," he whispered, "flowing through a coil around a metal
core--Kadine's steel hull!"
Within the metal hull of Dhain Kadine's spacer induced electrical
current lashed a torrent of irresistible energy against sluggish
electro-magnetic potentialities. Resistance of the steel produced
heat--heat more intense than Mike Doren's beam could create. Despite
the bulk of the outlaw ship within those few turns of cable, the
induced current, surging through the steel drove the temperature
higher--higher--toward the melting point itself! And, in the
inner-hull, it was the same--rising temperature, heat radiating,
warming the air within the cabin--
"An induction furnace," said Nord Holber quietly. "It must be pretty
warm inside there now!"
Before him, the visaphone jangled suddenly. The screen glowed as he
snapped it on. In it the dark, hawklike face of Dhain Kadine, was a
blurred, flickering, terror-white, blob. His voice shouted hoarse
unintelligible words--rose almost to a shriek. Sweat drenched his
clothes--poured from every pore of his skin, flashed dancing highlights
on the screen.