NEVIAN STRIFE
The Nevian space-ship was hurtling upon its way. Space-navigators both,
the two Terrestrial officers soon discovered that it was even then
moving with a velocity far above that of light and that it must be
accelerating at a high rate, even though to them it seemed
stationary--they could feel only a gravitational force somewhat less
than that of their native Earth.
Bradley, seasoned old campaigner that he was, had retired promptly as
soon as he had completed a series of observations, and was sleeping
soundly upon a pile of cushions in the first of the three
inter-connecting rooms. In the middle room, which was to be Clio's,
Costigan was standing very close to the girl, but was not touching her.
His body was rigid, his face was tense and drawn.
"You are wrong, Conway; all wrong," Clio was saying, very seriously. "I
know how you feel, but it's false chivalry."
"That isn't it, at all," he insisted, stubbornly. "It isn't only that
I've got you out here in space, in danger and alone, that's stopping me.
I know you and I know myself well enough to know that what we start now
we'll go through with for life. It doesn't make any difference, that
way, whether I start making love to you now or whether I wait until
we're back on Tellus; but I'm telling you that for your own good you'd
better pass me up entirely. I've got enough horsepower to keep away from
you if you tell me to--not otherwise."
"I know it, both ways, dear, but...."
"But nothing!" he interrupted. "Can't you get it into your skull what
you'll be letting yourself in for if you marry me? Assume that we get
back, which isn't sure, by any means. But even if we do, some day--and
maybe soon, too, you can't tell--somebody is going to collect fifty
grams of radium for my head."
"Fifty grams--and everybody knows that Samms himself is rated at only
sixty? I _knew_ that you were somebody, Conway!" Clio exclaimed,
undeterred. "But at that, something tells me that any pirate will earn
even that much reward several times over before he collects it. Don't be
silly, my dear--goodnight."
She tipped her head back, holding up to him her red, sweetly curved,
smiling lips, and his arms swept around her. Her arms went up around his
neck and they stood, clasped together in the motionless ecstasy of
love's first embrace.
"Girl, girl, how I love you!" Costigan's voice was husky, his usually
hard eyes were glowing with a tender light. "That settles that. I'll
really _live_ now, anyway, while...."
"Stop it!" she commanded, sharply. "You're going to live until you die
of old age--see if you don't. You'll simply _have_ to, Conway!"
"That's so, too--no percentage in dying now. All the pirates between
Tellus and Andromeda couldn't take me after this--I've got too much to
live for. Well, goodnight, sweetheart, I'd better beat it--you need some
sleep."
The lovers' parting was not as simple and straightforward a procedure as
Costigan's speech would indicate, but finally he did seek his own room
and relaxed upon a pile of cushions, his stern visage transformed.
Instead of the low metal ceiling he saw a beautiful, oval, tanned young
face, framed in a golden-blonde corona of hair. His gaze sank into the
depths of loyal, honest, dark blue eyes; and looking deeper and deeper
into those blue wells he fell asleep. Upon his face, too set and grim by
far for a man of his years--the lives of Sector Chiefs of the
Triplanetary Service were not easy, nor as a rule were they long--there
lingered as he slept that newly-acquired softness of expression, the
reflection of his transcendent happiness.
For eight hours he slept soundly, as was his wont, then, also according
to his habit and training he came wide awake, with no intermediate stage
of napping.
"Clio?" he whispered. "Awake, girl?"
"Awake!" her voice come through the ultra phone, relief in every
syllable. "Good heavens, I thought you were going to sleep until we got
to wherever it is that we're going! Come on in, you two--I don't see how
you can possibly sleep, just as though you were home in bed."
"You've got to learn to sleep anywhere if you expect to keep in...."
Costigan broke off as he opened the door and saw Clio's wan face. She
had evidently spent a sleepless and wracking eight hours. "Good Lord,
Clio, why didn't you call me?"
"Oh, I'm all right, except for being a little jittery. No need of asking
how _you_ feel, is there?"
"No--I feel hungry," he answered cheerfully. "I'm going to see what we
can do about it--or say, guess I'll see whether they're still
interfering on Samms' wave."
He took out the small, insulated case and touched the contact stud
lightly with his finger. His arm jerked away powerfully.
"Still at it," he gave the unnecessary explanation. "They don't seem to
want us to talk outside, but his interference is as good as my
talking--they can trace it, of course. Now I'll see what I can find out
about our breakfast."
He stepped over to the plate and shot its projector beam forward into
the control room, where he saw Nerado lying, doglike, at his instrument
panel. As Costigan's beam entered the room a blue light flashed on and
the Nevian turned an eye and an arm toward his own small observation
plate. Knowing that they were now in visual communication, Costigan
beckoned an invitation and pointed to his mouth in what he hoped was the
universal sign of hunger. The Nevian waved an arm and fingered controls,
and as he did so a wide section of the floor of Clio's room slid aside.
The opening thus made revealed a table which rose upon its low pedestal,
a table equipped with three softly-cushioned benches and spread with a
glittering array of silver and glassware.
Bowls and platters of a dazzlingly white metal, narrow-waisted goblets
of sheerest crystal; all were hexagonal, beautifully and intricately
carved or etched in apparently conventional marine designs. And the
table utensils of this strange race were peculiar indeed. There were
tearing forceps of sixteen needle-sharp curved teeth; there were
flexible spatulas; there were deep and shallow ladles with flexible
edges; there were many other peculiarly-curved instruments at whose uses
the Terrestrials could not even guess; all having delicately-fashioned
handles to fit the long slender fingers of the Nevians.
But if the table and its appointments were surprising to the
Terrestrials, revealing as they did a degree of culture which none of
them had expected to find in a race of beings so monstrous, the food was
even more surprising, although in another sense. For the wonderful
crystal goblets were filled with a grayish-green slime of a nauseous and
over-powering odor, the smaller bowls were full of living sea spiders
and other such delicacies; and each large platter contained a fish fully
a foot long, raw and whole, garnished tastefully with red, purple, and
green strands of seaweed!
Clio looked once, then gasped, shutting her eyes and turning away from
the table, but Costigan flipped the three fish into a platter and set it
aside before he turned back to the visiplate.
"They'll go good fried," he remarked to Bradley, signaling vigorously to
Nerado that the meal was not acceptable and that he wanted to talk to
him, _in person_. Finally he made himself clear, the table sank down out
of sight, and the Nevian commander cautiously entered the room.
At Costigan's insistence, he came up to the visiplate, leaving near the
door three alert and fully-armed guards. The man then shot the beam into
the galley of the pirate's lifeboat, suggesting that they should be
allowed to live there. For some time the argument of arms and fingers
raged--though not exactly fluent conversation, both sides managed to
convey their meanings quite clearly. Nerado would not allow the
Terrestrials to visit their own ship--he was taking no chances--but
after a thorough ultra-ray inspection he did finally order some of his
men to bring into the middle room the electric range and a supply of
Terrestrial food. Soon the Nevian fish were sizzling in a pan and the
appetizing odors of coffee and browning biscuit permeated the room. But
at the first appearance of those odors the Nevians departed hastily,
content to watch the remainder of the curious and repulsive procedure in
their visiray plates.
Breakfast over and everything made tidy and ship-shape, Costigan turned
to Clio.
"Look here, girl; you've got to learn how to sleep. You're all in. Your
eyes look like you've been on a Martian picnic and you didn't eat half
enough breakfast. You've got to sleep and eat to keep fit. We don't
want you passing out on us, so I'll put out this light, and you'll lie
down here and sleep until noon."
"Oh, no, don't bother. I'll sleep tonight. I'm quite...."
"You'll sleep now," he informed her, levelly. "I never thought of you
being nervous, with Bradley and me on each side of you. We're both right
here now, though, and we'll stay here. We'll watch over you like a
couple of old hens with one chick between them. Come on; lie down and go
bye-bye."
Clio laughed at the simile, but lay down obediently. Costigan sat upon
the edge of the great divan holding her hand, and they chatted idly. The
silences grew longer, Clio's remarks became fewer, and soon her
long-lashed eyelids fell and her deep, regular breathing showed that she
was sound asleep. The man stared at her, his very heart in his eyes. So
young, so beautiful, so lovely--and _how_ he did love her! He was not
formally religious, but his every thought was a prayer. If he could only
get her out of this mess ... he wasn't fit to live on the same planet
with her, but ... just give him one chance, God ... just one!
But Costigan had been laboring for days under a terrific strain, and had
been going very short on sleep. Half hypnotized by his own mixed
emotions and by his staring at the smooth curves of Clio's cheek, his
own eyes closed and, still holding her hand, he sank down into the soft
cushions beside her and into oblivion.
Thus sleeping hand in hand like two children Bradley found them, and a
tender, fatherly expression came over his face as he looked down at
them.
"Nice little girl, Clio," he mused, "and when they made Costigan they
broke the mold. They'll do--about as fine a couple of kids as old Tellus
ever produced. I could do with some more sleep myself." He yawned
prodigiously, lay down at Clio's left, and in minutes was himself
asleep.
Hours later, both men were awakened by a merry peal of laughter. Clio
was sitting up, regarding them with sparkling eyes. She was refreshed,
buoyant, ravenously hungry and highly amused. Costigan was amazed and
annoyed at what he considered a failure in a self-appointed task;
Bradley was calm and matter-of-fact.
"Thanks for being such a nice body-guard, you two." Clio laughed again,
but sobered quickly. "I slept wonderfully well, but I wonder if I can
sleep tonight without making you hold my hand all night?"
"Oh, he doesn't mind doing that," Bradley commented.
"Mind it!" Costigan exclaimed, and his eyes and his tone spoke volumes.
They prepared and ate another meal, one to which Clio did full justice.
Rested and refreshed, they had begun to discuss possibilities of escape
when Nerado and his three armed guards entered the room. The Nevian
scientist placed a box upon a table and began to make adjustments upon
its panels, eyeing the Terrestrials attentively after each setting.
After a time a staccato burst of articulate speech issued from the box,
and Costigan saw a great light.
"You've got it--hold it!" he exclaimed, waving his arms excitedly. "You
see, Clio, their voices are pitched either higher or lower than
ours--probably higher--and they've built an audio-frequency changer.
He's nobody's fool, that lizard!"
Nerado heard Costigan's voice, there was no doubt of that. His long neck
looped and twisted in Nevian gratification; and although neither side
could understand the other, both knew that intelligent speech and
hearing were attributes common to the two races. This fact altered
markedly the relations between captors and captives. The Nevians
admitted among themselves that the strange bipeds might be quite
intelligent, after all; and the Terrestrials at once became more
hopeful.
"It isn't so bad, if they can talk," Costigan summed up the situation.
"We might as well take it easy and make the best of it, particularly
since we haven't been able to figure out any possible way of getting
away from them. They can talk and hear, and we can learn their language
in time. Maybe we can make some kind of a deal with them to take us back
to our own system, if we can't make a break."
The Nevians being as eager as the Terrestrials to establish
communication, Nerado kept the newly devised frequency changer in
constant use. There is no need of describing at length the details of
that interchange of languages. Suffice it to say that starting at the
very bottom they learned as babies learn, but with the great advantage
over babies of possessing fully developed and capable brains. And while
the human beings were learning the tongue of Nevia, several of the
amphibians (and incidentally Clio Marsden) were learning Triplanetarian;
the two officers knowing well that it would be much easier for the
Nevians to learn the logically-built common language of the Three
Planets than to master the senseless intricacies of English.
In a short time the two parties were able to understand each other after
a fashion, by using a weird mixture of both languages. As soon as a few
ideas had been exchanged, the Nevian scientists built transformers small
enough to be worn collar-like by the Terrestrials, and the captives were
allowed to roam at will throughout the great vessel; only the
compartment in which was stored the dismembered pirate lifeboat being
sealed to them. Thus it was that they were not left long in doubt when
another fish-shaped cruiser of the void was revealed upon their lookout
plates in the awful emptiness of interstellar space.
"This is our sister-ship going to your Solarian system for a cargo of
the iron which is so plentiful there," Nerado explained to his
involuntary guests.
"I hope the gang has got the bugs worked out of our super-ship!"
Costigan muttered savagely to his companions as Nerado turned away. "If
they have, that outfit will get something more than a load of iron when
they get there!"
More time passed, during which a blue-white star separated itself from
the infinitely distant firmament and began to show a perceptible disk.
Larger and larger it grew, becoming bluer and bluer as the flying
space-ship approached it, until finally Nevia could be seen, apparently
close beside her parent orb.
Heavily laden though the vessel was, such was her power that she was
soon dropping vertically downward toward a large lagoon in the middle of
the Nevian city. That bit of open water was devoid of life, for this was
to be no ordinary landing. Under the terrific power of the beams braking
the descent of that unimaginable load of allotropic iron the water
seethed and boiled; and instead of floating gracefully upon the surface
of the sea, this time the huge ship of space sank like a plummet to the
bottom. Having accomplished the delicate feat of docking the vessel
safely in the immense cradle prepared for her, Nerado turned to the
Tellurians, who, now under guard, had been brought before him.
"While our cargo of iron is being discharged, I am to take you three
specimens to the College of Science, where you are to undergo a thorough
physical and psychological examination. Follow me."
"Wait a minute!" protested Costigan, with a quick and furtive wink at
his companions. "Do you expect us to go through _water_, and at this
frightful depth?"
"Certainly," replied the Nevian, in surprise. "You are air-breathers, of
course, but you must be able to swim a little, and this slight
depth--but little more than thirty of your meters--will not trouble
you."
"You are wrong, twice," declared the Terrestrial, convincingly. "If by
'swimming' you mean propelling yourself in or through the water, we know
nothing of it. In water over our heads we drown helplessly in a minute
or two, and the pressure at this depth would kill us instantly."
"Well, I could take a lifeboat, of course, but that ..." the Nevian
Captain began, doubtfully, but broke off at the sound of a staccato call
from his signal panel.
"Captain Nerado, attention!"
"Nerado," he acknowledged into a microphone.
"The Third City is being attacked by the fishes of the greater deeps.
They have developed new and powerful mobile fortresses mounting
unheard-of weapons and the city reports that it cannot long withstand
their attack. They are asking for all possible help. Your vessel not
only has vast stores of iron, but also mounts weapons of power. You are
requested to proceed to their aid at the earliest possible moment."
Nerado snapped out orders and the liquid iron fell in streams from
wide-open ports, forming a vast, red pool in the bottom of the dock. In
a short time the great vessel was in equilibrium with the water she
displaced, and as soon as she had attained a slight buoyancy the ports
snapped shut and Nerado threw on the power.
"Go back to your own quarters and stay there until I send for you," the
Nevian directed, and as the Terrestrials obeyed the curt orders the
cruiser tore herself from the water and flashed up into the crimson sky.
"What a barefaced liar!" Bradley exclaimed. The three, transformers cut
off, were back in the middle room of their suite. "You can outswim an
otter, and I happen to know that you came up out of the old DZ83 from a
depth of...."
"Maybe I did exaggerate a trifle," Costigan interrupted, "but the more
helpless he thinks we are the better for us. And we want to stay out of
any of their cities as long as we can, because they may be hard places
to get out of. I've got a couple of ideas, but they aren't ripe enough
to pick yet.... Wow! How this bird's been traveling! We're there
already! If he hits the water going like this, he'll split himself,
sure!"
With undiminished velocity they were flashing downward in a long slant
toward the beleaguered Third City, and from the flying vessel there was
launched toward the city's central lagoon a torpedo. No missile this,
but a capsule containing a full ton of allotropic iron, which would be
of more use to the Nevian defenders than millions of men. For the Third
City was sore pressed indeed. Around it was one unbroken ring of
boiling, exploding water--water billowing upward in searing, blinding
bursts of super-heated steam, or being hurled bodily in all directions
in solid masses by the cataclysmic forces being released by the
embattled fishes of the greater deeps. Her outer defenses were already
down, and even as the Terrestrials stared in amazement another of the
immense hexagonal buildings burst into fragments; its upper structure
flying wildly into scrap metal, its lower half subsiding drunkenly below
the surface of the boiling sea.
The three Earth-people seized whatever supports were at hand as the
Nevian space-ship struck the water with undiminished speed, but the
precaution was needless--Nerado knew thoroughly his vessel, its strength
and its capabilities. There was a mighty splash, but that was all. The
artificial gravity was unchanged by the impact; to the passengers the
vessel was still motionless and on even keel as, now a submarine, she
snapped around like a very fish and attacked the rear of the nearest
fortress.
For fortresses they were; vast structures of green metal, plowing
forward implacably upon immense caterpillar treads. And as they crawled
they destroyed, and Costigan, exploring the strange submarine with his
visiray beam, watched and marveled. For the fortresses were full of
water; water artificially cooled and aerated, entirely separate from the
boiling flood through which they moved. They were manned by fish some
five feet in length. Fish with huge, goggling eyes; fish plentifully
equipped with long, armlike tentacles; fish poised before control panels
or darting about intent upon their various duties. Fish with brains,
waging war!
Nor was their warfare ineffectual. Their heat-rays boiled the water for
hundreds of yards before them and their torpedoes were exploding against
the Nevian defenses in one appallingly continuous concussion. But most
potent of all was a weapon unknown to Triplanetary warfare. From a
fortress there would shoot out, with the speed of a meteor, a long,
jointed, telescopic rod; tipped with a tiny, brilliantly-shining ball.
Whenever that glowing tip encountered any obstacle, that obstacle
disappeared in an explosion world-wracking in its intensity. Then what
was left of the rod, dark now, would be retracted into the fortress-only
to emerge again in a moment with a tip once more shining and potent.
Nerado, apparently as unfamiliar with the peculiar weapon as were the
Terrestrials, attacked cautiously; sending out far to the fore his
murkily impenetrable screens of red. But the submarine was entirely
non-ferrous, and its officers were apparently quite familiar with Nevian
beams which licked at and clung to the green walls in impotent fury.
Through the red veil came stabbing ball after ball, and only the most
frantic dodging saved the space-ship from destruction in those first few
furious seconds. And now the Nevian defenders of the Third City had
secured and were employing the vast store of allotropic iron so
opportunely delivered by Nerado.
From the city there pushed out immense nets of metal, extending from the
surface of the ocean to its bottom; nets radiating such terrific forces
that the very water itself was beaten back and stood motionless in
vertical, glassy walls. Torpedoes were futile against that wall of
energy. The most fiercely driven rays of the fishes flamed incandescent
against it, in vain. Even the incredible violence of a concentration of
every available force-ball against one point could not break through. At
that unimaginable explosion water was hurled for miles. The bed of the
ocean was not only exposed, but in it there was blown a crater at whose
dimensions the Terrestrials dared not even guess. The crawling
fortresses themselves were thrown backward violently and the very world
was rocked to its core by the concussion, but that iron-driven wall
held. The massive nets swayed and gave back, and tidal waves hurled
their mountainously destructive masses through the Third City, but the
mighty barrier remained intact. And Nerado, still attacking two of the
powerful tanks with his every weapon, was still dodging those flashing
balls charged with the quintessence of destruction. The fishes could not
see through the sub-ethereal veil, but all the gunners of the two
fortresses were combing it thoroughly with ever-lengthening,
ever-thrusting rods, in a desperate attempt to wipe out the new and
apparently all-powerful Nevian submarine whose sheer power was slowly
but inexorably crushing even their gigantic walls.
"Well, I think that right now's the best chance we'll ever have of doing
something for ourselves." Costigan turned away from the absorbing scenes
pictured upon the visiplate and faced his two companions.
"But what can we possibly do?" asked Clio.
"Whatever it is, we'll try it!" Bradley exclaimed.
"Anything's better than staying here and letting them analyze us--no
telling what they'd do to us," Costigan went on.
"I know a lot more about things than they think I do. They never did
catch me using my spy-ray--it's on an awfully narrow beam, you know, and
uses almost no power at all--so I've been able to dope out quite a lot
of stuff. I can open most of their locks, and I know how to run their
small boats. This battle, fantastic as it is, is deadly stuff, and it
isn't one-sided, by any means, either, so that every one of them, from
Nerado down, seems to be on emergency duty. There are no guards watching
us, or stationed where we want to go--our way out is open. And once out,
this battle is giving us our best possible chance to get away from them.
There's so much emission out there already that they probably couldn't
detect the driving force of the lifeboat, and they'll be too busy to
chase us, anyway."
"Once out, then what?" asked Bradley.
"We'll have to decide that before we start, of course. I'd say make a
break back for Earth. We know the direction and we'll have plenty of
power."
"But good Heavens, Conway, it's so far!" exclaimed Clio. "How about
food, water, and air--would we ever get there?"
"You know as much about that as I do. I think so, but of course anything
might happen. This ship is none too big, is considerably slower than the
big space-ship, and we're a long ways from home. Another bad thing is
the food question. The boat is well stocked according to Nevian ideas,
but it's pretty foul stuff for us to eat. However, it's nourishing, and
we'll have to eat it, since we can't carry enough of our own supplies to
the boat to last long. Even so, we may have to go on short rations, but
I think that we'll be able to make it. On the other hand, what happens
if we stay here? They will find us sooner or later, and we don't know
any too much about these ultra-weapons. We are land-dwellers, and there
is little if any land on this planet. Then, too, we don't know where to
look for what land there may be, and even if we could find it, we know
that it is all over-run with amphibians already. There's a lot of things
that might be better, but they might be a lot worse, too. How about it?
Do we try or do we stay here?"
"We try it!" exclaimed Clio and Bradley, as one.
"All right. I'd better not waste any more time talking--let's go!"
Stepping up to the locked and shielded door, he took out a peculiarly
built torch and pointed it at the Nevian lock. There was no light, no
noise, but the massive portal swung smoothly open. They stepped out and
Costigan relocked and reshielded the entrance.
"How ... what...." Clio demanded.
"I've been going to school for the last few weeks," Costigan grinned,
"and I've picked up quite a few things here and there--literally, as
well as figuratively. Snap it up, guys! Our armor is stored with the
pieces of the pirates' lifeboat, and I'll feel a lot better when we've
got it on and have hold of a few Lewistons."
They hurried down corridors, up ramps, and along hallways, with
Costigan's spy-ray investigating the course ahead for chance Nevians.
Bradley and Clio were unarmed, but the operative had found a piece of
flat metal and had ground it to a razor edge.
"I think I can throw this thing straight enough and fast enough to chop
off a Nevian's head before he can put a paralyzing ray on us," he
explained grimly, but he was not called upon to show his skill with the
improvised cleaver.
As he had concluded from his careful survey, every Nevian was at some
control or weapon, doing his part in that frightful combat with the
denizens of the greater deeps. Their path was open; they were neither
molested nor detected as they ran toward the compartment within which
was sealed all their belongings. The door of that room opened, as had
the other, to Costigan's knowing beam; and all three set hastily to
work. They made up packs of food, filled their capacious pockets with
emergency rations, buckled on Lewistons and automatics, donned their
armor, and clamped into their external holsters a full complement of
additional weapons.
"Now comes the ticklish part of the business," Costigan informed the
others. His helmet was slowly turning this way and that, and the others
knew that through his spy-ray goggles he was studying their route.
"There's only one boat we stand a chance of reaching, and somebody's
mighty apt to see us. There's a lot of detectors up there, and we'll
have to cross a corridor full of communicator beams. There, that line's
off--scoot!"
At his word they dashed out into the hall and hurried along for minutes,
dodging sharply to right or left as the leader snapped out orders.
Finally he stopped.
"Here's those beams I told you about. We'll have to roll under 'em.
They're less than waist high--right there's the lowest one. Watch me do
it, and when I give you the word, one at a time, you do the same. _Keep
low_--don't let an arm or a leg get up into a ray or they may see us."
He threw himself flat, rolled upon the floor a yard or so, and scrambled
to his feet. He gazed intently at the blank wall for a space.
"Bradley--now!" he snapped, and the captain duplicated his performance.
But Clio, unused to the heavy and cumbersome space-armor she was
wearing, could not roll in it with any degree of success. When Costigan
barked his order she tried, but stopped, floundering almost directly
below the network of invisible beams. As she struggled one mailed arm
went up, and Costigan saw in his ultra-goggles the faint flash as the
beam encountered the interfering field. But already he had acted.
Crouching low, he struck down the arm, seized it, and dragged the girl
out of the zone of visibility. Then in furious haste he opened a nearby
door and all three sprang into a tiny compartment.
"Shut off all the fields of your suits, so that they can't interfere!"
he hissed into the utter darkness. "Not that I'd mind killing a few of
them, but if they start an organized search we're sunk. But even if they
did get a warning by touching your glove, Clio, they probably won't
suspect us. Our rooms are still shielded, and the chances are that
they're too busy to bother much about us, anyway."
He was right. A few beams darted here and there, but the Nevians saw
nothing amiss and ascribed the interference to the falling into the beam
of some chance bit of charged metal. With no further misadventures the
fugitives gained entrance to the Nevian lifeboat, where Costigan's first
act was to disconnect one steel boot from his armor of space. With a
sigh of relief he pulled his foot out of it, and from it carefully
poured into the small power-tank of the craft fully thirty pounds of
allotropic iron!
"I pinched it off them," he explained, in answer to amazed and inquiring
looks, "and maybe you don't think it's a relief to get it out of that
boot! I couldn't steal a flask to carry it in, so this was the only
place I could put it. These lifeboats are equipped with only a couple of
grams of iron apiece, you know, and we couldn't get half-way back to
Tellus on that, even with smooth going; and we may have to fight. With
this much to go on, though, we could go to Andromeda, fighting all the
way. Well, we'd better break away."
Costigan watched his plate closely; and, when the maneuvering of the
great vessel brought his exit port as far away as possible from the
Third City and the warring tanks, he shot the little cruiser out and
away. Straight out into the ocean it sped, through the murky red veil,
and darted upward toward the surface. The three wanderers sat tense,
hardly daring to breathe, staring into the plates--Clio and Bradley
pushing at mental levers and stepping down hard upon mental brakes in
unconscious efforts to help Costigan dodge the beams and rods of death
flashing so appallingly close upon all sides. Out of the water and into
the air the darting, dodging lifeboat flashed in safety; but in the air,
supposedly free from menace, came disaster. There was a crunching,
grating shock and the vessel was thrown into a dizzy spiral, from which
Costigan finally leveled it into headlong flight away from the scene of
battle. Watching the pyrometers which recorded the temperature of the
outer shell, he drove the lifeboat ahead at the highest safe atmospheric
speed while Bradley went to inspect the damage.
"Pretty bad, but better than I thought," the captain reported. "Outer
and inner plates broken away on a seam. We wouldn't hold cotton waste,
let alone air. Any tools aboard?"
"Some--and what we haven't got we'll make," Costigan declared. "We'll
put a lot of distance behind us, then we'll fix her up and get away from
here."
"What are those fish, anyway, Conway?" Clio asked, as the lifeboat tore
along. "The Nevians are bad enough, Heaven knows, but the very idea of
intelligent and educated _fish_ is enough to drive one mad!"
"You know Nerado mentioned several times the 'semicivilized fishes of
the greater deeps'?" he reminded her. "I gather that there are at least
three intelligent races here. We know two--the Nevians, who are
amphibians, and the fishes of the greater deeps. The fishes of the
lesser deeps are also intelligent. As I get it, the Nevian cities were
originally built in very shallow water, or perhaps were upon islands.
The development of machinery and tools gave them a big edge on the fish;
and those living in the shallow seas, nearest the Islands, gradually
became tributary nations, if not actually slaves. Those fish not only
serve as food, but work in the mines, hatcheries, and plantations, and
do all kinds of work for the Nevians. Those so-called 'lesser deeps'
were conquered first, of course, and all their races of fish are docile
enough now. But the deep-sea breeds, who live in water so deep that the
Nevians can hardly stand the pressure down there, were more intelligent
to start with, and more stubborn besides. But the most valuable metals
here are deep down--this planet is very light for its size, you know--so
the Nevians kept at it until they conquered some of the deep-sea fish,
too, and put 'em to work. But those high-pressure boys were nobody's
fools. They realized that as time went on the amphibians would get
further and further ahead of them in development, so they let themselves
be conquered, learned how to use the Nevians' tools and everything else
they could get hold of, developed a lot of new stuff of their own, and
now they're out to wipe the amphibians off the map completely, before
they get too far ahead of them to handle."
"And the Nevians are afraid of them, and want to kill them all, as fast
as they possibly can," guessed Clio.
"That would be the logical thing, of course," commented Bradley. "Got
pretty nearly enough distance now, Costigan?"
"There isn't enough distance on the planet to suit me," Costigan
replied. "We'll need all we can get. A full diameter away from that crew
of amphibians is too close for comfort--their detectors are keen."
"Then they can detect us?" Clio asked. "Oh, I wish they hadn't hit
us--we'd have been away from here long ago."
"So do I," Costigan agreed, feelingly. "But they did--no use squawking.
We can rivet and weld those seams, and things could be a lot worse--we
are still breathing air!"
In silence the lifeboat flashed onward, and half of Nevia's mighty globe
was traversed before it was brought to a halt. Then in furious haste the
two officers set to work, again to make their small craft sound and
spaceworthy.