IN ROGER'S PLANETOID
In the hall Clio glanced around her wildly, seeking even the narrowest
avenue of escape. Before she could act, however, her body was clamped as
though in a vise, and she struggled, motionless.
"It is useless to attempt to escape, or to do anything except what
Roger wishes," the guide informed her somberly, snapping off the
instrument in her hand and thus restoring to the thoroughly cowed girl
her freedom of motion.
"His lightest wish is law," she continued as they walked down a long
corridor. "The sooner you realize that you must do exactly as he
pleases, in all things, the easier your life will be."
"But I wouldn't _want_ to keep on living!" Clio declared, with a flash
of spirit. "And I can _always_ die, you know."
"You will find that you cannot," the passionless creature returned,
monotonously. "If you do not yield, you will long and pray for death,
but you will not die unless Roger wills it. Look at me: I cannot die.
Here is your apartment. You will stay here until Roger gives further
orders concerning you."
The living automaton opened a door and stood silent and impassive while
Clio, staring at her in horror, shrank past her and into the sumptuously
furnished suite. The door closed soundlessly and utter silence descended
as a pall. Not an ordinary silence, but the indescribable perfection of
the absolute silence, complete absence of all sound. In that silence
Clio stood motionless. Tense and rigid, hopeless, despairing, she stood
there in that magnificent room, fighting an almost overwhelming impulse
to scream. Suddenly she heard the cold voice of Roger, speaking from the
empty air.
"You are over-wrought, Miss Marsden. You can be of no use to yourself or
to me in that condition. I command you to rest; and, to insure that
rest, you may pull that cord, which will establish about this room an
ether wall: a wall to cut off even this my voice...."
The voice ceased as she pulled the cord savagely and threw herself upon
a divan in a torrent of gasping, strangling, but rebellious sobs. Then
again came a voice, but not to her ears. Deep within her, pervading
every bone and muscle, it made itself felt rather than heard.
"Clio?" it asked. "Don't talk yet...."
"Conway!" she gasped in relief, every fiber of her being thrilled into
new hope at the deep, well-remembered voice of Conway Costigan.
"Keep still!" he snapped. "Don't act so happy! He may have a spy-ray on
you. He can't hear me, but he may be able to hear you. When he was
talking to you you must have noticed a sort of rough, sandpapery feeling
under that necklace I gave you? Since he's got an ether-wall around you
the beads are dead now. If you feel anything like that under the
wrist-watch, breathe deeply, twice. If you don't feel anything there,
it's safe for you to talk, as loud as you please."
"I don't feel anything, Conway!" she rejoiced. Tears forgotten, she was
her old, buoyant self again. "So that wall _is_ real, after all? I only
about half believed it."
"Don't trust it too much, because he can cut it off from the outside any
time he wants to. Remember what I told you: that necklace will warn you
of any spy-ray in the ether, and the watch will detect anything below
the level of the ether. It's dead now, of course, since our three phones
are direct-connected; I'm in touch with Bradley, too. Don't be too
scared; we've got a lot better chance than I thought we had."
"What? You don't mean it!"
"Absolutely. I'm beginning to think that maybe we've got something he
doesn't know exists--our ultra-wave. Of course I wasn't surprised when
his searchers failed to find our instruments, but it never occurred to
me that I might have a clear field to use them in! I can't quite believe
it yet, but I haven't been able to find any indication that he can even
detect the bands we are using. I'm going to look around over there with
my spy-ray ... I'm looking at you now--feel it?"
"Yes, the watch feels that way, now."
"Fine! Not a sign of interference over here, either. I can't find a
trace of ultra-wave--anything below ether-level, you know--anywhere in
the whole place. He's got so much stuff that we've never heard of that I
supposed of course he'd have ultra-wave, too; but if he hasn't, that
gives us the edge. Well, Bradley and I've got a lot of work to do....
Wait a minute, I just had a thought. I'll be back in about a second."
There was a brief pause, then the soundless, but clear voice went on:
"Good hunting! That woman that gave you the blue willies isn't
alive--she's full of the prettiest machinery and circuits you ever saw!"
"Oh, Conway!" and the girl's voice broke in an engulfing wave of
thanksgiving and relief. "It was so unutterably horrible, thinking of
what must have happened to her and to others like her!"
"He's running a colossal bluff, I think. He's good, all right, but he
lacks quite a lot of being omnipotent. But don't get too cocky, either.
Plenty has happened to plenty of women here, and men too--and plenty may
happen to us unless we put out a few jets. Keep a stiff upper lip, and
if you want us, yell. 'Bye!"
The silent voice ceased, the watch upon Clio's wrist again became an
unobtrusive timepiece, and Costigan, in his solitary cell far below her
tower room, turned his peculiarly goggled eyes toward other scenes. His
hands, apparently idle in his pockets, manipulated tiny controls; his
keen, highly-trained eyes studied every concealed detail of mechanism of
the great globe. Finally, he took off the goggles and spoke in a low
voice to Bradley, confined in another windowless room across the hall.
"I think I've got dope enough, Captain. I've found out where he put our
armor and guns, and I've located all the main leads, controls, and
generators. There are no ether-walls around us here, but every door is
shielded, and there are guards outside our doors--one to each of us.
They're robots, not men. That makes it harder, since they're undoubtedly
connected direct to Roger's desk and will give an alarm at the first
hint of abnormal performance. We can't do a thing until he leaves his
desk. See that black panel, a little below the cord-switch to the right
of your door? That's the conduit cover. When I give you the word, tear
that off and you'll see one red wire in the cable. It feeds the
shield-generator of your door. Break that wire and join me out in the
hall. Sorry I had only one of these ultra-wave spies, but once we're
together it won't be so bad. Here's what I thought we could do," and he
went over in detail the only course of action which his survey had shown
to be possible.
"There, he's left his desk!" Costigan exclaimed after the conversation
had continued for almost an hour. "Now as soon as we find out where he's
going, we'll start something ... he's going to see Clio, the swine! This
changes things, Bradley!" His hard voice was a curse.
"Somewhat!" blazed the captain. "I know how you two have been getting on
all during the cruise. I'm with you, but what can we do?"
"We'll do something," Costigan declared grimly. "If he makes a pass at
her I'll get him if I have to blow this whole sphere out of space, with
us in it!"
"Don't do that, Conway," Clio's low voice, trembling but determined, was
felt by both men. "If there's a chance for you to get away and do
anything about fighting him, don't mind me. Maybe he only wants to talk
about the ransom, anyway."
"He wouldn't talk ransom to _you_--he's going to talk something else
entirely," Costigan gritted, then his voice changed suddenly. "But say,
maybe it's just as well this way. They didn't find our specials when
they searched us, you know, and we're going to do plenty of damage right
soon now. Roger probably isn't a fast worker--more the cat-and-mouse
type, I'd say--and after we get started he'll have something on his mind
besides you. Think you can stall him off and keep him interested for
about fifteen minutes?"
"I'm sure I can--I'll do _anything_ to help us, or you, get away from
this horrible...." Her voice ceased as Roger broke the ether-wall of her
apartment and walked toward the divan, upon which she crouched in
wide-eyed, helpless, trembling terror.
"Get ready, Bradley!" Costigan directed tersely. "He left Clio's
ether-wall off, so that any abnormal signals would be relayed to him
from his desk--he knows that there's no chance of anyone disturbing him
in that room. But I'm holding a beam on that switch, so that the wall is
on, full strength. No matter what we do now, he can't get a warning.
I'll have to hold the beam exactly in place, though, so you'll have to
do the dirty work. Tear out that red wire and kill those two guards. You
know how to kill a robot, don't you?"
"Yes--break his eye-lenses and his ear-drums and he'll stop whatever
he's doing and send out distress calls.... Got 'em both. Now what?"
"Open my door--the shield switch is to the right."
Costigan's door flew open and the Triplanetary captain leaped into the
room.
"Now for our armor!" he cried.
"Not yet!" snapped Costigan. He was standing rigid, goggled eyes staring
immovably at a spot on the ceiling. "I can't move a millimeter until
you've closed Clio's ether-wall switch. If I take this ray off it for a
second we're sunk. Five floors up, straight ahead down a
corridor--fourth door on right. When you're at the switch you'll feel my
ray on your watch. Snap it up!"
"Right," and the captain leaped away at a pace to be equalled by few men
of half his years.
Soon he was back, and after Costigan had tested the ether-wall of the
"bridal suite" to make sure that no warning signal from his desk or his
servants could reach Roger within it, the two officers hurried away
toward the room in which their space-armor was.
"Too bad they don't wear uniforms," panted Bradley, short of breath
from the many flights of stairs. "Might have helped some as disguise."
"I doubt it--with so many robots around, they've probably got signals
that we couldn't understand anyway. If we meet anybody it'll mean a
battle. Hold it!" Peering through walls with his spy-ray, Costigan had
seen two men approaching, blocking an intersecting corridor into which
they must turn. "Two of 'em, a man and a robot--the robot's on your
side. We'll wait here, right at the corner--when they round it take
'em!" and Costigan put away his goggles in readiness for strife.
All unsuspecting, the two pirates came into view, and as they appeared
the two officers struck. Costigan, on the inside, drove a short, hard
right low into the human pirate's abdomen. The fiercely-driven fist sank
to the wrist into the soft tissues and the stricken man collapsed. But
even as the blow landed Costigan had seen that there was a third enemy,
following close behind the two he had been watching, a pirate who was
even then training a ray projector upon him. Reacting automatically,
Costigan swung his unconscious opponent around in front of him, so that
it was into an enemy's body that the vicious ray tore, and not into his
own. Crouching down into the smallest possible compass, he straightened
out with the lashing force of a mighty steel spring, hurling the corpse
straight at the flaming mouth of the projector. The weapon crashed to
the floor and dead pirate and living went down in a heap. Upon that heap
Costigan hurled himself, feeling for the pirate's throat. But the fellow
had wriggled clear, and countered with a gouging thrust that would have
torn out the eyes of a slower man, following it up instantly with a
savage kick for the groin. No automaton this, geared and set to perform
certain fixed duties with mechanical precision, but a lithe, strong man
in hard training, fighting with every foul trick known to his murderous
ilk.
But Costigan was no tyro in the art of dirty fighting. Few indeed were
the maiming tricks of foul combat unknown to even the rank and file of
the highly efficient under-cover branch of the Triplanetary Service; and
Costigan, a Sector Chief, knew them all. Not for pleasure,
sportsmanship, nor million-dollar purses did those secret agents use
Nature's weapons. They came to grips only when it could not possibly be
avoided, but when they were forced to fight in that fashion they went in
with but one grim purpose--to kill, and to kill in the shortest possible
space of time. Thus it was that Costigan's opening soon came. The
pirate launched a vicious _coup de sabot_, which Costigan avoided by a
lightning shift. It was a slight shift, barely enough to make the kicker
miss, and two powerful hands closed upon that flying foot in midair like
the sprung jaws of a bear-trap. Closed and twisted viciously, in the
same fleeting instant. There was a shriek, smothered as a heavy boot
crashed to its carefully predetermined mark--the pirate was out,
definitely and permanently.
The struggle had lasted scarcely ten seconds, coming to its close just
as Bradley finished blinding and deafening the robot. Costigan picked up
the projector, again donned his spy-ray goggles, and the two hurried on.
"Nice work, Chief--it must be a gift to rough-house the way you do,"
Bradley exclaimed. "That's why you took the live one?"
"Practice helps some, too--I've been in brawls before, and I'm a lot
younger and maybe a bit faster than you are," Costigan explained
briefly, penetrant gaze rigidly to the fore as they ran along one
corridor after another.
Several more guards, both living and mechanical, were encountered on the
way, but they were not permitted to offer any opposition. Costigan saw
them first. In the furious beam of the projector of the dead pirate they
were riven into nothingness, and the two officers sped on to the room
which Costigan had located from afar. The three suits of Triplanetary
space armor had been locked up in a cabinet; a cabinet whose doors
Costigan literally blew off with a blast of force rather than consume
time in tracing the power leads.
"I feel like something now!" Costigan, once more encased in his own
armor, heaved a great sigh of relief. "Rough-and-tumble's all right with
one or two, but that generator room is full of grief, and we won't have
any too much stuff as it is. We've got to take Clio's suit along--we'll
carry it down to the door of the power room, drop it there, and pick it
up on the way back."
Contemptuous now of possible guards, the armored pair strode toward the
power plant--the very heart of the immense fortress of space. Guards
were encountered, and captains--officers who signaled frantically to
their chief, since he alone could unleash the frightful forces at his
command, and who profanely wondered at his unwonted silence--but the
enemy beams were impotent against the ether walls of that armor; and the
pirates, without armor in the security of their own planetoid as they
were, vanished utterly in the ravening beams of the twin Lewistons. As
they paused before the door of the power room, both men felt Clio's
voice raised in her first and last appeal, an appeal wrung from her
against her will by the extremity of her position.
"Conway! Hurry! His eyes--they're tearing me apart! Hurry, dear!" In the
horror-filled tones both men read clearly--however inaccurately--the
girl's dire extremity. Each saw plainly a happy, carefree young
Earth-girl, upon her first trip into space, locked inside an ether-wall
with an over-brained, under-conscienced human machine--a
super-intelligent, but lecherous and unmoral mechanism of flesh and
blood, acknowledging no authority, ruled by nothing save his own
scientific drivings and the almost equally powerful urges of his desires
and passions! She must have fought with every resource at her command.
She must have wept and pleaded, stormed and raged, feigned submission
and played for time--and her torment had not touched in the slightest
degree the merciless and gloating brain of the being who called himself
Roger. Now his tantalizing, ruthless cat-play would be done, the
horrible gray-brown face would be close to hers--she wailed her final
despairing message to Costigan and attacked that hideous face with the
fury of a tigress.
Costigan bit off a bitter imprecation. "Hold him just a second longer,
sweetheart!" he cried, and the power room door vanished.
Through the great room the two Lewistons swept at full aperture and at
maximum power, two rapidly-opening fans of death and destruction. Here
and there a guard, more rapid than his fellows, trained a futile
projector--a projector whose magazine exploded at the touch of that
frightful field of force, liberating instantaneously its thousands upon
thousands of kilowatt-hours of-stored-up energy. Through the delicately
adjusted, complex mechanisms the destroying beams tore. At their touch
armatures burned out, high-tension leads volatilized in crashing,
high-voltage arcs, masses of metal smoked and burned in the path of vast
forces now seeking the easiest path to neutralization, delicate
instruments blew up, copper ran in streams. As the last machine subsided
into a semi-molten mass of metal the two wreckers, each grasping a
brace, felt themselves become weightless and knew that they had
accomplished the first part of their program.
Costigan leaped for the outer door. His the task to go to Clio's
aid--Bradley would follow more slowly, bringing the girl's armor and
taking care of any possible pursuit. As he sailed through the air he
spoke.
"Coming, Clio! All right, girl?" Questioningly, half fearfully.
"All right, Conway." Her voice was almost unrecognizable, broken in
retching agony. "When everything went crazy he ... found out that the
ether-wall was up and ... forgot all about me. He shut it off ... and
seemed to go crazy too ... he is floundering around like a wild man now
... I'm trying to keep ... him from ... going downstairs."
"Good girl--keep him busy one minute more--he's getting all the warnings
at once and wants to get back to his board. But what's the matter with
you? Did he ... hurt you, after all?"
"Oh, no, not that--he didn't do anything but look at me--but that was
bad enough--but I'm sick--horribly sick. I'm falling ... I'm so dizzy
that I can scarcely see ... my head is breaking up into little pieces
... I just _know_ I'm going to die, Conway! Oh ... oh!"
"Oh, is _that_ all!" In his sheer relief that they had been in time,
Costigan did not think of sympathizing with Clio's very real present
distress of mind and body. "I forgot that you're a ground-gripper--that's
just a little touch of space-sickness. It'll wear off directly.... All
right, I'm coming! Let go of him and get as far away from him as you can!"
He was now in the street. Perhaps two hundred feet distant and a hundred
feet above him was the tower room in which were Clio and Roger. He
sprang directly toward its large window, and as he floated "upward" he
corrected his course and accelerated his pace by firing backward at
various angles with his heavy service pistol, uncaring that at the point
of impact of each of those shells a small blast of destruction erupted.
He missed the window a trifle, but that did not matter--his flaming
Lewiston opened a way for him, partly through the window, partly through
the wall. As he soared through the opening he trained projector and
pistol upon Roger, now almost to the door, noticing as he did so that
Clio was clinging convulsively to a lamp-bracket upon the wall. Door and
wall vanished in the Lewiston's terrific beam, but the pirate stood
unharmed. Neither ravening ray nor explosive shell could harm him--he
had snapped on the protective shield whose generator was always upon his
person.
* * * * *
When Clio reported that Roger seemed to go crazy and was floundering
around like a wild man, she had no idea of how she was understanding
the actual situation; for Gharlane of Eddore, then energizing the form
of flesh that was Roger, had for the first time in his prodigiously long
life met in direct conflict with an overwhelming superior force.
Roger had been sublimely confident that he could detect the use,
anywhere in or around his planetoid, of ultra-wave. He had been equally
sure that he could control directly and absolutely the physical
activities of any number of these semi-intelligent "human beings".
But four Arisians in fusion--Drounli, Brolenteen, Nedanillor, and
Kriedigan--had been on guard for weeks. When the time came to act, they
acted.
Roger's first thought, upon discovering what tremendous and inexplicable
damage had already been done, was to destroy instantly the two men who
were doing it. He could not touch them. His second was to blast out of
existence this supposedly human female, but no more could he touch her.
His fiercest mental bolts spent themselves harmlessly three millimeters
away from her skin; she gazed into his eyes completely unaware of the
torrents of energy pouring from them. He could not even aim a weapon at
her! His third was to call for help to Eddore. He could not. The
sub-ether was closed; nor could he either discover the manner of its
closing or trace the power which was keeping it closed!
His Eddorian body, even if he could recreate it here, could not
withstand the environment--this Roger-thing would have to do whatever it
could, unaided by Gharlane's mental powers. And, physically, it was a
very capable body indeed. Also, it was armed and armored with mechanisms
of Gharlane's own devising; and Eddore's second-in-command was in no
sense a coward.
But Roger, while not exactly a ground-gripper, did not know how to
handle himself without weight; whereas Costigan, given six walls against
which to push, was even more efficient in weightless combat than when
handicapped by the force of gravitation. Keeping his projector upon the
pirate, he seized the first club to hand--a long, slender pedestal of
metal--launched himself past the pirate chief. With all the momentum of
his mass and velocity and all the power of his good right arm he swung
the bar at the pirate's head. That fiercely-driven mass of metal should
have taken head from shoulders, but it did not. Roger's shield of force
was utterly rigid and impenetrable; the only effect of the frightful
blow was to set him spinning, end over end, like the flying baton of an
acrobatic drum-major. As the spinning form crashed against the opposite
wall of the room Bradley floated in, carrying Clio's armor. Without a
word the captain loosened the helpless girl's grip upon the bracket and
encased her in the suit. Then, supporting her at the window, he held his
Lewiston upon the captive's head while Costigan propelled him toward the
opening. Both men knew that Roger's shield of force must be threatened
every instant--that if he were allowed to release it he probably would
bring to bear a hand-weapon even superior to their own.
Braced against the wall, Costigan sighted along Roger's body toward the
most distant point of the lofty dome of the artificial planet and gave
him a gentle push. Then, each grasping Clio by an arm, the two officers
shoved mightily with their feet and the three armored forms darted away
toward their only hope of escape--an emergency boat which could be
launched through the shell of the great globe. To attempt to reach the
_Hyperion_ and to escape in one of her lifeboats would have been
useless; they could not have forced the great gates of the main airlocks
and no other exits existed. As they sailed onward through the air,
Costigan keeping the slowly-floating form of Roger enveloped in his
beam, Clio began to recover.
"Suppose they get their gravity fixed?" she asked, apprehensively. "And
they're raying us and shooting at us!"
"They may have it fixed already. They undoubtedly have spare parts and
duplicate generators, but if they turn it on the fall will kill Roger
too, and he wouldn't like that. They'll have to get him down with a
helicopter or something, and they know that we'll get them as fast as
they come up. They can't hurt us with hand-weapons, and before they can
bring up any heavy stuff they'll be afraid to use it, because well be
too close to their shell.
"I wish we could have brought Roger along," he continued, savagely, to
Bradley. "But you were right, of course--it'd be altogether too much
like a rabbit capturing a wildcat. My Lewiston's about done right now,
and there can't be much left of yours--what he'd do to us would be a sin
and a shame."
Now at the great wall, the two men heaved mightily upon a lever, the
gate of the emergency port swung slowly open, and they entered the
miniature cruiser of the void. Costigan, familiar with the mechanism of
the craft from careful study from his prison cell, manipulated the
controls. Through gate after massive gate they went, until finally they
were out in open space, shooting toward distant Tellus at the maximum
acceleration of which their small craft was capable.
Costigan cut the other two phones out of circuit and spoke, his
attention fixed upon some extremely distant point.
"Samms!" he called sharply. "Costigan. We're out ... all right ... yes
... sure ... absolutely ... you tell 'em, Sammy, I've got company here."
Through the sound-disks of their helmets the girl and the captain had
heard Costigan's share of the conversation. Bradley stared at his
erstwhile first officer in amazement, and even Clio had often heard that
mighty, half-mythical name. Surely that bewildering young man must rank
high, to speak so familiarly to Virgil Samms, the all-powerful head of
the space-pervading Service of the Triplanetary League!
"You've turned in a general call-out," Bradley stated, rather than
asked.
"Long ago--I've been in touch right along," Costigan answered. "Now that
they know what to look for and know that ether-wave detectors are
useless, they can find it. Every vessel in seven sectors, clear down to
the scout patrols, is concentrating on this point, and the call is out
for all battleships and cruisers afloat. There are enough operatives out
there with ultra-waves to locate that globe, and once they spot it
they'll point it out to all the other vessels."
"But how about the other prisoners?" asked the girl. "They'll be killed,
won't they?"
"Hard telling," Costigan shrugged. "Depends on how things turn out. We
lack a lot of being safe ourselves yet."
"What's worrying me mostly is our own chance," Bradley assented. "They
will chase us, of course."
"Sure, and they'll have more speed than we have. Depends on how far away
the nearest Triplanetary vessels are. But we've done everything we can
do, for now."
Silence fell, and Costigan cut in Clio's phone and came over to the seat
upon which she was reclining, white and stricken--worn out by the
horrible and terrifying ordeals of the last few hours. As he seated
himself beside her she blushed vividly, but her deep blue eyes met his
gray ones steadily.
"Clio, I ... we ... you ... that is," he flushed hotly and stopped. This
secret agent, whose clear, keen brain no physical danger could cloud;
who had proved over and over again that he was never at a loss in any
emergency, however desperate--this quick-witted officer floundered in
embarrassment like any schoolboy; but continued, doggedly: "I'm afraid
that I gave myself away back there, but...."
"We gave ourselves away, you mean," she filled in the pause. "I did my
share, but I won't hold you to it if you don't want--but I _know_ that
you love me, Conway!"
"_Love_ you!" the man groaned, his face lined and hard, his whole body
rigid. "That doesn't half tell it, Clio. You don't need to hold me--I'm
held for life. There never was a woman who meant anything to me before,
and there never will be another. You're the only woman that ever
existed. It isn't that. Can't you see that it's impossible?"
"Of course I can't--it isn't impossible, at all." She released her
shields, four hands met and tightly clasped, and her low voice thrilled
with feeling as she went on: "You love me and I love you. That is all
that matters."
"I wish it were," Costigan returned bitterly, "but you don't know what
you'd be letting yourself in for. It's who and what you are and who and
what I am that's griping me. You, Clio Marsden, Curtis Marsden's
daughter. Nineteen years old. You think you've been places and done
things. You haven't. You haven't seen or done anything--you don't know
what it's all about. And whom am I to love a girl like you? A homeless
spacehound who hasn't been on any planet three weeks in three years. A
hard-boiled egg. A trouble-shooter and a brawler by instinct and
training. A sp ..." he bit off the word and went on quickly: "Why, you
don't know me at all, and there's a lot of me that you never _will_
know--that I can't let you know! You'd better lay off me, girl, while
you can. It'll be best for you, believe me."
"But I can't, Conway, and neither can you," the girl answered softly, a
glorious light in her eyes. "It's too late for that. On the ship it was
just another of those things, but since then we've come really to know
each other, and we're sunk. The situation is out of control, and we both
know it--and neither of us would change it if we could, and you know
that, too. I don't know very much, I admit, but I do know what you
thought you'd have to keep from me, and I admire you all the more for
it. We all honor the Service, Conway dearest--it is only you men who
have made and are keeping the Three Planets fit places to live in--and I
know that any one of Virgil Samms' assistants would have to be a man in
a thousand million...."
"What makes you think that?" he demanded sharply.
"You told me so yourself, indirectly. Who else in the three worlds could
possibly call him 'Sammy?' You are hard, of course, but you must be
so--and I never did like soft men, anyway. And you brawl in a good
cause. You are very much a _man_, my Conway; a real, _real_ man, and I
love you! Now, if they catch us, all right--we'll die together, at
least!" she finished, intensely.
"You're right, sweetheart, of course," he admitted. "I don't believe
that I _could_ really let you let me go, even though I know you ought
to," and their hands locked together even more firmly than before. "If
we ever get out of this jam I'm going to kiss you, but this is no time
to be taking off your helmet. In fact, I'm taking too many chances with
you in keeping your shields off. Snap 'em on again--they ought to be
getting fairly close by this time."
Hands released and armor again tight, Costigan went over to join Bradley
at the control board.
"How are they coming, Captain?" he asked.
"Not so good. Quite a ways off yet. At least an hour, I'd say, before a
cruiser can get within range."
"I'll see if I can locate any of the pirates chasing us. If I do it'll
be by accident; this little spy-ray isn't good for much except close
work. I'm afraid the first warning we'll have will be when they take
hold of us with a tractor or spear us with a needle. Probably a beam,
though; this is one of their emergency lifeboats and they wouldn't want
to destroy it unless they have to. Also, I imagine that Roger wants us
alive pretty badly. He has unfinished business with all three of us, and
I can well believe that his 'not particularly pleasant extinction' will
be even less so after the way we rooked him."
"I want you to do me a favor, Conway." Clio's face was white with horror
at the thought of facing again that unspeakable creature of gray. "Give
me a gun or something, please. I don't want him ever to look at me that
way again, to say nothing of what else he might do, while I'm alive."
"He won't," Costigan assured her, narrow of eye and grim of jaw. He was,
as she had said, hard. "But you don't want a gun. You might get nervous
and use it too soon. I'll take care of you at the last possible moment,
because if he gets hold of us we won't stand a chance of getting away
again."
For minutes there was silence, Costigan surveying the ether in all
directions with his ultra-wave device. Suddenly he laughed, and the
others stared at him in surprise.
"No, I'm not crazy," he told them. "This is really funny; it had never
occurred to me that the ether-walls of all these ships make them
invisible. I can see them, of course, with this sub-ether spy, but they
can't see us! I knew that they should have overtaken us before this.
I've finally found them. They've passed us, and are now tacking around,
waiting for us to do something so that they can see us! They're heading
right into the Fleet--they think they're safe, of course, but what a
surprise they've got coming to them!"
But it was not only the pirates who were to be surprised. Long before
the pirate ship had come within extreme visibility range of the
Triplanetary Fleet it lost its invisibility and was starkly outlined
upon the lookout plates of the three fugitives. For a few seconds the
pirate craft seemed unchanged, then it began to glow redly, with a red
that seemed to become darker as it grew stronger. Then the sharp
outlines blurred, puffs of air burst outward, and the metal of the hull
became a viscous, fluid-like something, flowing away in a long, red
streamer into seemingly empty space. Costigan turned his ultra-gaze into
that space and saw that it was actually far from empty. There lay a vast
something, formless and indefinite even to his sub-etheral vision; a
something into which the viscid stream of transformed metal plunged.
Plunged and vanished.
Powerful interference blanketed his ultra-wave and howled throughout his
body; but in the hope that some parts of his message might get through
he called Samms, and calmly and clearly he narrated everything that had
just happened. He continued his crisp report, neglecting not the
smallest detail, while their tiny craft was drawn inexorably toward a
redly impermeable veil; continued it until their lifeboat, still intact,
shot through that veil and he found himself unable to move. He was
conscious, he was breathing normally, his heart was beating; but not a
voluntary muscle would obey his will!