"The next hour," I said soberly, "cannot pass too quickly for me!"
* * * * *
We had decelerated steadily during the hour, but we were still above
maximum atmospheric speed when at last I gave the order to open the
invaders with disintegrator rays. They were close, but of course the
rays are not as effective in space as when operating in a more favorable
medium, and I wished to make sure of our prey.
I pressed the attention signal to Correy's post, and he answered
instantly.
"Ready, Mr. Correy?"
"Ready, sir!"
"Then commence action!"
Before I could repeat the command to Hendricks, I heard the deepening
note of the atomic generators, and knew Correy had already begun
operations.
Together, and silently, Kincaide and I bent over the television disk. We
watched for a moment, and then, with one accord, lifted our heads and
looked into each other's eyes.
"No go, sir," said Kincaide quietly.
I nodded. It was evident the disintegrator rays were useless here. When
they struck into the horde of crescent-shaped things coming so hungrily
toward us, the things changed from red to a sickly, yellowish pink, and
seemed to writhe, as though in some discomfort, but that was all.
"Perhaps at closer range...?" ventured Kincaide.
"I think not. If Mr. Hendricks is correct--and I believe he is--these
things aren't material; they're not matter, as we comprehend the word.
And so, they can't be disintegrated."
"Then, sir, how are we to best them?"
"First, we'll have to know more about them. For one thing, their mode of
attack. We should know very soon. Please recall Mr. Hendricks, and then
order all hands to their posts. We may be in for it."
* * * * *
Hendricks came rushing in breathlessly.
"The rays are useless, sir," he said. "They'll be on us in a few
minutes. Any further orders?"
"Not yet. Have you any ideas as to their mode of attack? What they can
do to us?"
"No, sir. That is, no reasonable idea."
"What's your unreasonable theory, then, Mr. Hendricks?"
"I'd prefer, sir, to make further observation first," he replied.
"They're close enough now, I think, to watch through the ports. Have I
your permission to unshutter one of the ports?"
"Certainly, sir." The _Ertak_, like all Special Patrol ships of the
period, had but few ports, and these were kept heavily shuttered. Her
hull was double; she was really two ships, one inside the other, the two
skins being separated and braced by innumerable trusses. Between the
outer and the inner skin the air pressure was kept about one half of
normal, thus distributing the strain of the pressure equally between the
two hulls.
In order to arrange for a port or an exit, it was necessary to bring
these two skins close together at the desired point, and strengthen this
weak point with many braces. As a further protection against an
emergency--and a fighting ship must be prepared against all
emergencies--the ports were all shuttered with massive doors of solid
metal, hermetically fitted. I am explaining this so much in detail for
the benefit of those not familiar with the ships of my day, and because
this information is necessary that one may have a complete understanding
of subsequent events.
Hendricks, upon receiving my permission, sprang to one of the two ports
in the navigating room and unshuttered it.
"The lights, please?" he asked, over his shoulder. Kincaide nodded, and
switched off the _ethon_ tubes which illuminated the room. The three of
us crowded around the recessed port.
* * * * *
The things were not only close: they were veritably upon us! Even as we
looked, one of them swept by the port so close that, save for the thick
crystal, one might have reached out into space and touched it.
The television disk had represented them very accurately. They were, in
their greatest dimension, perhaps twice the height of a man, and at
close range their reddish color was more brilliant than I had imagined;
in the thickest portion of the crescent, which seemed to be the nucleus,
the radiance of the thing was almost blinding.
It was obvious that they were not material bodies. There were no
definite boundaries to their bodies; they faded off into nothingness in
a sort of fringe, almost like a dim halo.
An attention signal sounded sharply, and Kincaide groped his way swiftly
to answer it.
"It's Correy, sir," he said. "He reports his rays are utterly useless,
and asks for further orders."
"Tell him to cease action, and report here immediately." I turned to
Hendricks, staring out the port beside me. "Well, what do you make of
them now?"
Before he could reply, Kincaide called out sharply.
"Come here, sir! The charts are out of commission. We've gone blind."
It was true. The charts were no more than twin rectangles of lambent red
flame, with a yellow spark glowing dimly in the center of each, the fine
black lines ruled in the surface showing clearly against the wavering
red fire.
"Mr. Hendricks!" I snapped. "Let's have your theory--reasonable or
otherwise."
* * * * *
Hendricks, his face pressed at an angle against one side of the port,
turned toward me, and swung the shutter into place. Kincaide snapped on
the lights.
"It's no longer a theory, sir," he said in a choked, hushed voice,
"although it's still unreasonable. These things--are _eating_ us!"
"Eating us?" Correy's voice joined Kincaide's and mine in the
exclamation of amazement. He had just entered the navigating room in
response to my order.
"Eroding us, absorbing us--whatever you want to call it. There's one at
work close enough to the port so that I could see it. It is feeding upon
our hull as an electric arc feeds upon its electrodes!"
"Farewell _Ertak_!" said Correy grimly. "Anything the rays can't
lick--wins!"
"Not yet!" I contradicted him. "Kincaide, what's the nearest body upon
which we can set down?"
"N-127, sir," he replied promptly. "Just logged her a few minutes ago."
He poured hastily through a dog-eared index. "Here it is: 'N-127,
atmosphere unbreathable; largely nitrogen, oxygen insufficient to
support human life; no animal life reported; insects, large but reported
non-poisonous; vegetation heroic in size, probably with edible fruits,
although reports are incomplete on this score; water unfit for drinking
purpose unless distilled; land area approximately--'"
"That's enough," I interrupted. "Mr. Correy, set a course for N-127 by
the readings of the television instrument. Mr. Kincaide, accelerate to
maximum space speed, and set us down on dry land as quickly as emergency
speed can put us there. And you, Mr. Hendricks, please tell us all you
know--or guess--about the enemy."
* * * * *
Hendricks waited, moodily silent, until the ship was coming around on
her course, picking up speed every instant. Kincaide had gradually
increased the pull of the gravity pads to about twice normal, so that we
found it barely possible to move about. The _Ertak_ was an old-timer,
but she could pick up speed when she had to that would have thrown us
all headlong were it not for the artificial gravity anchorage of the
pads.
"It's all guess-work," began Hendricks slowly, "so I hope you won't
place too much reliance in my theories, sir. I'll just give you my line
of reasoning, and you can evaluate it for yourself.
"These things are creatures of space. No form of life, as we know it,
can live in space. Therefore, they are not material; they are not
matter, like ourselves.
"From their effect upon the charts, we decided they were electrical in
nature. Not made up of atoms and electrons, but of pure electrical
energy in an unfamiliar form.
"Then, remembering that they exist in space, and concluding that they
were the destroyers of the two ships we know of, I began wondering how
they brought about the destruction--or at least, the disappearance--of
these two ships. Life of any kind must have something to feed upon. To
produce one kind of energy we must convert, apparently consume, some
other kind of energy. Even our atomic generators slowly but surely eat
up the metal in which is locked the power which makes this ship's power
possible.
"But, in space, what could these things feed upon? What--if not those
troublesome bodies, meteorites? And meteorites, as we know, are largely
metallic in composition. And ships are made of metal.
"Here are the only proofs, if proofs you can call them, that these are
not wild ideas: first, the disintegrator rays, working upon an
electrical principle, reacted upon but did not destroy these things, as
might be expected from the meeting of two not dissimilar manifestations
of energy; and the fact that I did, from the port, see one of these
space-things, or part of one, flattened out upon the body of the
_Ertak_, and feeding upon her skin, already roughened and pitted
slightly from the thing's hungry activities."
* * * * *
Hendricks fell silent, staring down at the floor. He was only a
youngster, and the significance of his remarks was as plain to him as it
was to the rest of us. If these monsters from the void were truly
feeding on the skin of our ship, vampire-like, it would not be long
before it would be weakened; weakened to the danger point, weakened
until we would explode in space like a gigantic bomb, to leave our
fragments to whirl onward forever through the darkness and the silence
of outer space.
"And what, sir, do you plan to do when we reach this N-127?" asked
Correy. "Burn them off with a run through the atmosphere?"
"No; that wouldn't work, I imagine." I glanced at Hendricks inquiringly,
and he shook his head. "My only thought was to land, so that we would
have some chance. Outside the ship we can at least attack; locked in
here we're helpless."
"Attack, sir? With what?" asked Kincaide curiously.
"That I can't answer. But at least we can fight--with solid ground under
our feet. And that's something."
"You're right, sir!" grinned Correy. It was the first smile that had
appeared on the faces of any of us in many minutes. "And fight we will!
And if we lose the ship, at least we'll be alive, with a hope of
rescue."
Hendricks glanced up at him and shook his head, smiling crookedly.
"You forget," he remarked, "that there's no air to breathe on N-127. An
atmosphere of nitrogen. And no water that's drinkable--if the reports
are accurate. A breathing mask will not last long, even the new types."
"That's so," said Kincaide. "The tanks hold about a ten-hours' supply;
less, if the wearer is working hard, or fighting."
Ten hours! No more, if we did not find some way to destroy these leeches
of space before they destroyed the _Ertak_.
* * * * *
During the next half hour little was said. We were drawing close to our
tiny, uninhabited haven, and both Correy and Kincaide were busy with
their navigation. Working in reverse, as it were, from the rough
readings of the television disk settings, an ordinarily simple task was
made extremely difficult.
I helped Correy interpret his headings, and kept a weather eye on the
gauges over the operating table. We were slipping into the atmospheric
fringe of N-127, and the surface-temperature gauge was slowly climbing.
Hendricks sat hunched heavily in a corner, his head bowed in his hands.
"I believe," said Kincaide at length, "I can take over visually now." He
unshuttered one of the ports, and peered out. N-127 was full abreast of
us, and we were dropping sideways toward her at a gradually diminishing
speed. The impression given us, due to the gravity pads in the keel of
the ship, was that we were right side up, and N-127 was approaching us
swiftly from the side.
"'Vegetation of heroic size' is right, too," said Correy, who had been
examining the terrain at close range, through the medium of the
television disk. "Two of the leaves on some of the weeds would make an
awning for the whole ship. See any likely place to land, Kincaide?"
"Nowhere except along the shore--and then we'll have to do some nice
work and lay the _Ertak_ parallel to the edge of the water. The beach is
narrow, but apparently the only barren portion. Will that be all right,
sir?"
"Use your own judgment, but waste no time. Correy, break out the
breathing masks, and order the men at the air-lock exit port to stand
by. I'm going out to have a look at these things."
"May I go with you, sir?" asked Hendricks sharply.
"And I?" pleaded Kincaide and Correy in chorus.
"You, Hendricks, but not you two. The ship needs officers, you know."
"Then why not me instead of you, sir?" argued Correy. "You don't know
what you're going up against."
"All the more reason I shouldn't be receiving any information
second-hand," I said. "And as for Hendricks, he's the laboratory man of
the _Ertak_. And these things are his particular pets. Right,
Hendricks?"
"Right, sir!" said my third officer grimly.
Correy muttered under his breath, something which sounded very much like
profanity, but I let it pass.