"Graham here," replied Celia from her station.
"Get a radar fix on the _Lachesis_ and hold it. Send your dope up to
Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate."
"Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply.
"Gun deck!"
"Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice.
"Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool
of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range."
"Yes, sir!" The girl switched off.
"And now you, Miss Hendricks."
"Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low.
"Take over Control ... and Ivy...."
"Yes?"
"Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her.
She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly
she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward....
* * * * *
Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable,
the _Lachesis_ and the _Atropos_ fell helplessly toward the sun. The
frantic flame that lashed out from the _Lachesis'_ tube was fading, her
fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms.
Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she
save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles
of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences
that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for
the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins,
the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning
to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants
on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were
dying.
Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her
flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in
the darkened viewport.
The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell
of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with
perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped
for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with
apprehension.
Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on
the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the _Atropos_. It plunged
straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against
the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly,
a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure.
Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three
spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge
together.
[Illustration: _They were diving into the sun._]
The heat in the _Aphrodite's_ bridge was unbearable. The thermometer
showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by
comparison.
Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came
out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field
of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit
rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious,
but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument
panel.
"_Ivy!_" Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm.
"I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the
show ... after ... all."
Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the
control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on
the surge-circuit.
Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within
old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the
circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the
tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in
space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line.
More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail.
Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's
fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat."
"We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The
gauges showed the accumulators full. "_Now!_" He spun the rheostat to
the stops, and black space burst over his brain....
The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And
it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And
that was all.
The space-tug _Scylla_ found them.
The three ships ... _Atropos_, _Lachesis_, and old Aphrodisiac ...
lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out
cold from the acceleration, and _Aphrodite's_ tanks bone dry. But they
were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol....
* * * * *
The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob
leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the
Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded
with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the
broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled.
"All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind,
Cob? Something's eating you."
Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I
understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the _Ganymede_
back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...."
"All I said to him...."
"I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But
you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't
want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what
about Ivy?"
"Ivy?"
Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that
when we got back ... well...."
Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a
designing job."