The Vorkul-Hexan War
Vorkulia, the city of the Vorkuls, was an immense seven-pointed
star. At its center, directly upon the south pole of Jupiter, rose a
tremendous shaft--its cross-section likewise a tapering seven-pointed
star--which housed the directing intelligence of the nation. Radiating
from the seven cardinal points of the building were short lanes leading
to star-shaped open plots, from which in turn branched out ways to other
stellate areas; ways reaching, after many such steps, to the towering
inner walls of the metropolis. The outer walls, still loftier and even
more massive ramparts of sullen gray-green metal, formed a seamless,
jointless barrier against an utterly indescribable foe; a barrier whose
outer faces radiated constantly a searing, coruscating green emanation.
Metal alone could not long have barred that voracious and implacably
relentless enemy, but against that lethal green emanation even that
ravening Jovian jungle could not prevail, but fell back, impotent.
Writhing and crawling, loathesomely palpitant with an unspeakable
exuberance of foul and repellent vigor, possible only to such
meteorological conditions as obtained there, it threw its most
hideously prolific growths against that radiant wall in vain.
The short, zig-zag lanes, the ways, and the seven-pointed areas
were paved with a greenish glass. This pavement was intended solely
to prevent vegetable growth and carried no traffic whatever, since few
indeed of the Vorkuls have ever been earth-bound and all traffic was in
the air. The principal purpose of the openings was to separate, and
thus to render accessible by air, the mighty buildings which, level
upon level, towered upward, with airships hovering at or anchored to
doorways and entrances at every level. Buildings, entrances, everything
visible--all replicated, reiterated, repeated infinite variations in
the one theme, that of the septenate stelliform.
Color ran riot; masses varied from immense blocks of awe-inspiring
grandeur to delicate tracery of sheerest gossamer; lights flamed and
flared in wide bands and in narrow, flashing pencils--but in all,
through all, over all, and dominating all was the Seven-Pointed Star.
In and almost filling the space, at least a mile in width,
between the inner and the outer walls were huge, seven-sided
structures--featureless, squat, forbidding heptagons of dull green
metal. No thing living was to be seen in that space. Its pavement was
of solid metal and immensely thick, and that metal, as well as that of
the walls, was burned and blackened and seared as though by numberless
exposures to intolerable flame. In a lower compartment of one of these
enormous heptagons Vortel Kromodeor, First Projector Officer, rested
before a gigantic and complex instrument board. He was at ease--his huge
wings folded, his sinuous length coiled comfortably in slack loops about
two horizontal bars. But at least one enormous, extensible eye was
always pointed toward the board, always was at least one nimble and
bat-like ear cocked attentively in the direction of the signal panel.
A whistling, shrieking ululation rent the air and the officer's coils
tightened as he reared a few feet of his length upright, shooting out
half a dozen tentacular arms to various switches and controls upon his
board, while throughout the great heptagon, hundreds of other Vorkuls
sprang to attention at their assigned posts of duty. As the howling wail
came to a climax in a blast of sound Kromodeor threw over a lever, as
did every other projector officer in every other heptagon, and there was
made plain to any observer the reason for the burns and scars in the
tortured space between the lofty inner and outer walls of Vorkulia.
For these heptagons were the monstrous flying fortresses which Czuv
had occasionally seen from afar, as they went upon some unusual errand
above the Jovian banks of mist, and which Brandon was soon to see in
his visiray screen. The seared and disfigured metal of the pavement
and walls was made so by the release of the furious blasts of energy
necessary to raise those untold thousands of tons of mass against the
attraction of Jupiter, more than two and a half times the gravity of our
own world! Vast volumes of flaming energy shrieked from the ports. Wave
upon wave, flooding the heptagons, it dashed back and forth upon the
heavy metal between the walls. As more and more of the inconceivable
power of those Titanic generators was unleashed, it boiled forth in
a devastating flood which, striking the walls, rebounded and leaped
vertically far above even those mighty ramparts. Even the enormous
thickness of the highly conducting metal could not absorb all the
energy of that intolerable blast, and immediately beneath the ports new
seven-pointed areas of disfigurement appeared as those terrific flying
fortresses were finally wrenched from the ground and hurled upward.
* * * * *
High in the air, another signal wailed up and down a peculiar scale of
sound and the mighty host of vessels formed smoothly into symmetrical
groups of seven. Each group then moved with mathematical precision into
its allotted position in a complex geometrical formation--a gigantic,
seven-ribbed, duplex cone in space. The flagship flew at the apex of
this stupendous formation; behind, and protected by, the full power
of the other floating citadels of the forty-nine groups of seven.
Due north, the amazing armada sped in rigorous alignment, flying along
a predetermined meridian--due north!
At the end of his watch Kromodeor relinquished his board to the officer
relieving him and shot into the air, propelled by the straightening of
the powerful coils of his snake-like body and tail. Wings half spread,
lateral and vertical ruddering fins outthrust, he soared across the room
toward a low opening. Just before they struck the wall upon either side
of the doorway the great wings snapped shut, the fins retracted, and the
long and heavy body struck the floor of the passage without a jar. With
a wriggling, serpentine motion he sped like a vibrant arrow along the
hall and into a wardroom. There, after a brief glance around the room,
he coiled up beside a fellow officer who, with one eye, was negligently
reading a scroll held in three or four hands; while with another eye,
poised upon its slender pedicle, he watched a moving picture upon a
television screen.
"Hello, Kromodeor," Wixill, Chief Power Officer[2] greeted the newcomer
in the wailing, hissing language of the Vorkuls. He tossed the scroll
into the air, where it instantly rolled into a tight cylinder and shot
into an opening in the wall of the room. "Glad to see you. Books and
shows are all right on practice cruises, but I can't seem to work up
much enthusiasm about such things now."
[Footnote 2: In order to avoid all unnecessary strain upon the memory of
the reader, all titles, etc., have been given in the closest possible
English equivalent, instead of in an attempted transliteration of the
foreign word. This particular officer has no counterpart upon Tellurian
vessels. He is the second in command of a Vorkulian fortress, his
function being to supervise all expenditure of power.--E. E. S.]
Kromodeor elevated an eye and studied the screen, upon which, to the
accompaniment of whistling, shrieking sound, whirled and gyrated an
interlacing group of serpentine forms.
"A good show, Wixill," the projector officer replied, "but nothing to
hold the attention of men engaged in what we are doing. Think of it!
After twenty years of preparation--two long lifetimes--and for the first
time in our history, we are actually going to war!"
"I have thought of it at length. It is disgusting. Compelled to traffic
with an alien form of life! Were it not to end in the extinction of
those unspeakable hexans, it would be futile to the point of silliness.
I cannot understand them at all. There is ample room upon this planet
for all of us. Our races combined are not using one seven-thousandth
of its surface. You would think that they would shun all strangers.
Yet for ages have they attacked us, refusing to let us alone, until
finally they forced us to prepare means for their destruction. They
seem as senselessly savage as the jungle growths, and, but for their
very evident intelligence, one would class them as such. You would
think that, being intelligent and being alien to us, they would not
have anything to do with us in any way, peacefully or otherwise.
However, their intrusions and depredations are about to end."
"They certainly are. Vorkulia has endured much--too much--but I am glad
that our forefathers did not decide to exterminate them sooner. If they
had, we could not have been doing this now."
"There speaks the rashness of youth, Kromodeor. It is a violation of all
our instincts to have any commerce with outsiders, as you will learn as
soon as you see one of them. Then, too, we will lose heavily. Since we
have studied their armaments so long, and have subjected every phase of
the situation to statistical analysis, it is certain that we are to
succeed--but you also know at what cost."
"Two-sevenths of our force, with a probable error of one in seven,"
replied the younger Vorkul. "And because that figure cannot be improved
within the next seven years and because of the exceptional weakness of
the hexans due to their unexpectedly great losses upon Callisto, we are
attacking at this time. Their spherical vessels are nothing, of course.
It is in the reduction of the city that we will lose men and vessels.
But at that, each of us has five chances in seven of returning, which is
good enough odds--much better than we had in that last expedition into
the jungle. But by the Mighty Seven, I shall make myself wrap around one
hexan, for my brother's sake," and his coils tightened unconsciously.
"Hideous, repulsive monstrosities! Creatures so horrible should not
be allowed to live--they should have been tossed over the wall to
the jungle ages ago!" Kromodeor curled out an eye as he spoke, and
complacently surveyed the writhing cylinder of sinuous, supple power
that was his own body.
"Better avoid contact work with them if possible," cautioned Wixill.
"You might not be able to unwrap, and to touch one of them is almost
unthinkable. Speaking of wrapping, you know that they are putting on the
finals of the contact work in the star this evening. Let's watch them."
They slid to the floor and wriggled away in perfect "step"--undulating
along in such nice synchronism that their adjacent sides, only a few
inches apart, formed two waving rigidly parallel lines. Deep in the
lower part of the fortress they entered a large assembly room, provided
with a raised platform in the center and having hundreds of short,
upright posts in lieu of chairs; most of which were already taken by
spectators. The two officers curled their tails comfortably around two
of the vacant pillars, elevated their heads to a convenient level of
sight and directed each an eye or two upon the stage. This was, of
course, heptagonal. Its sides, like those of the mighty flying forts
themselves, were not straight, but angled inward sufficiently to make
the platform a seven-pointed star. The edge was outlined by a low rail,
and bulwark and floor were padded with thick layers of a hard but smooth
and yielding fabric.
* * * * *
In this star-shaped ring two young Vorkuls were contending for the
championship of the fleet in a contest that seemed to combine most of
the features of wrestling, boxing, and bar-room brawling, with no holds
barred. Four hands of each of the creatures held heavy leather billies,
and could be used only in striking with those weapons, the remaining
hands being left free to employ as the owner saw fit. Since the sport
was not intended to be lethal, however, the eyes and other highly
vulnerable parts were protected by metal masks, and the wing ribs
were similarly guarded by leathern shields. The guiding fins, being
comparatively small and extremely tough, required no protection.
"We're just in time," Kromodeor whistled. "The main bout is nicely on.
See anyone from the flagship? I might stake a couple of korpels that
Sintris will paint the symbol upon his wing."
"Most of their men seem to be across the star," Wixill replied, and both
beings fell silent, absorbed in the struggle going on in the ring.
It was a contest well worth watching. Wing crashed against mighty wing
and the lithe, hard bodies snapped and curled this way and that, almost
faster than the eye could follow, in quest of advantageous holds. Above
the shrieking wails of the crowd could be heard the smacks and thuds of
the eight flying clubs as they struck against the leather shields or
against tough and scaly hides. For minutes the conflict raged, with no
advantage apparent. Now the fighters were flat upon the floor of the
star, now dozens of feet in the air above it, as one or the other sought
to gain a height from which to plunge downward upon his opponent; but
both stayed upon or over the star--to leave its boundaries was to lose
disgracefully.
Then, high in air, the visiting warrior thought that he saw an opening
and grappled. Wings crashed in fierce blows, hands gripped and furiously
wrenched. Two powerful bodies, tapering smoothly down to equally
powerful tails, corkscrewed around each other viciously, winding up into
something resembling tightly twisted lamp cord; and the two Vorkuls,
each helpless, fell to the mat with a crash. Fast as was Zerexi, the
gladiator from the flagship, Sintris was the merest trifle faster.
Like the straightening of a twisted spring of tempered steel that long
body uncoiled as they struck the floor, and up under those shielding
wings--an infinitesimal fraction of a second slow in interposing--that
lithe tail sped. Two lightning loops flashed around the neck of the
visitor and tightened inexorably. Desperately the victim fought to break
that terrible strangle hold, but every maneuver was countered as soon
as it was begun. Beating wings, under whose frightful blows the very air
quivered, were met and parried by wings equally capable. Hands and clubs
were of no avail against that corded cable of sinew, and Sintris, his
head retracted between his wings and his own hands reenforcing that
impregnable covering over his head and neck, threw all his power into
his tail--tightening, with terrific, rippling surges, that already
throttling band about the throat of his opponent. Only one result was
possible. Soon Zerexi lay quiet, and a violet beam of light flared from
a torch at the ringside, bathing both contenders. At the flash the
winner disengaged himself from the loser, and stood by until the latter
had recovered the use of his paralyzed muscles. The two combatants then
touched wing tips in salute and flew away together, over the heads of
the crowd; plunging into a doorway and disappearing as the two officers
uncoiled from their "seats" and wriggled out into the corridor.
"Fine piece of contact work," said Wixill, thoughtfully. "I'm glad that
Sintris won, but I did not expect him to win so easily. Zerexi shouldn't
have gone into a knot so early against such a fast man."
"Oh, I don't know," argued Kromodeor. "His big mistake was in that
second body check. If he had blocked the sixth arm with his fifth, taken
out the fourth and second with his third, and then gone in with...." and
so, quite like two early experts after a good boxing match, the friends
argued the fine points of the contest long after they had reached their
quarters.
Day after day the vast duplex cone of Vorkulian fortresses sped
toward the north pole of the great planet, with a high and constant
velocity. Day after day the complex geometrical figure in space remained
unchanged, no unit deviating measurably from its precise place in the
formation. Over rapacious jungles, over geysers spouting hot water,
over sullenly steaming rivers and seas, over boiling lakes of mud, and
high over gigantic volcanoes, in uninterrupted eruptions of cataclysmic
violence, the Vorkulian phalanx flew--straight north. The equatorial
regions, considerably hotter than the poles, were traversed with
practically no change in scenery--it was a world of steaming fog,
of jungle, of hot water, of boiling, spurting mud, and of volcanoes.
Not of such mild and sporadic volcanic outbreaks as we of green Terra
know, but of gigantic primordial volcanoes, in terrifyingly continuous
performances of frightful intensity. Due north the Vorkulian spearhead
was hurled, before the rigorous geometrical alignment was altered.
"All captains, attention!" Finally, in a high latitude, the flagship
sent out final instructions. "The hexans have detected us and our long
range observers report that they are coming to meet us in force. We will
now go into the whirl, and proceed with the maneuvers exactly as they
have been planned. Whirl!"
At the command, each vessel began to pursue a tortuous spiral path.
Each group of seven circled slowly about its own axis, as though each
structure were attached rigidly to a radius rod, and at the same time
spiraled around the line of advance in such fashion that the whole
gigantic cone, wide open maw to the fore, seemed to be boring its way
through the air.
"Lucky again!" Kromodeor, in the wardroom, turned to Wixill as the two
prepared to take their respective watches. "It looks as though the first
action would come while we're on duty. I've got just one favor to ask,
if you have to economize on power, let Number One alone, will you?"
"No fear of that," Wixill hissed, with the Vorkulian equivalent of a
chuckle. "We have abundance of power for all of your projector officers.
But don't waste any of it, or I'll cut you down five ratings!"
"You're welcome. When I shine old Number One on any hexan work, one
flash is all we'll take. See you at supper," and, leaving his superior
at the door of the power room, Kromodeor wriggled away to his station
upon the parallel horizontal bars before his panel.
Making sure that his tail coils were so firmly clamped that no possible
lurch or shock could throw him out of position, he set an eye toward
each of his sighting screens, even though he knew that it would be long
before those comparatively short range instruments would show anything
except friendly vessels. Then, ready for any emergency, he scanned his
one "live" screen--the one upon which were being flashed the pictures
and reports secured by the high-powered instruments of the observers.
* * * * *
With the terrific acceleration employed by the hexan spheres, it
was not long until the leading squadron of fighting globes neared
the Vorkulian war-cone. This advance guard was composed of the new,
high-acceleration vessels. Their crews, with the innate blood-lust
and savagery of their breed, had not even entertained the thought of
accommodating their swifter pace to that of the main body of the fleet.
These vast, slow-moving structures were no more to be feared than those
similar ones whose visits they had been repulsing for twenty long
Jovian years--by the time the slower spheres could arrive upon the scene
there would be nothing left for them to do. Therefore, few in number
as were the vessels of the vanguard, they rushed to the attack. In one
blinding salvo they launched their supposedly irresistible planes of
force--dazzling, scintillating planes under whose fierce power the
studying, questing, scouting fortresses previously encountered had fled
back southward; cut, beaten, and crippled. These spiraling monsters,
however, did not pause or waver in their stolidly ordered motion.
As the hexan planes of force flashed out, the dull green metal walls
broke into a sparkling green radiance, against which the Titanic
bolts spent themselves in vain. Then there leaped out from the weird
brilliance of the walls of the fortresses great shafts of pale green
luminescence--tractor ray after gigantic tractor ray, which seized
upon the hexan spheres and drew them ruthlessly into the yawning
open end of that gigantic cone.
Then, in each group of seven, similar great streamers of energy reached
out from fortress to fortress, until each group was welded into one
mighty unit by twenty-one such bands of force. The unit formed, a ray
from each of its seven component structures seized upon a designated
sphere, and under the combined power of those seven tractors, the
luckless globe was literally snapped into the center of mass of the
Vorkulian unit. There seven dully gleaming red pressor rays leaped upon
it, backed by all the power of seven gigantic fortresses, held rigidly
in formation by the unimaginable mass of the structures and by their
twenty-one prodigious tractor beams. Under that awful impact, the
screens and walls of the hexan spheres were exactly as effective as so
many structures of the most tenuous vapor. The red glare of the vortex
of those beams was lightened momentarily by a flash of brighter color,
and through the foggy atmosphere there may have flamed briefly a drop or
two of metal that was only liquefied. The red and green beams snapped
out, the peculiar radiance died from the metal walls, and the gigantic
duplex cone of the Vorkuls bored serenely northward--as little marked or
affected by the episode as is a darting swift who, having snapped up a
chance insect in full flight, darts on.
"Great Cat!" Far off in space, Brandon turned from his visiray screen
and wiped his brow. "Czuv certainly chirped it, Perce, when he called
those things flying fortresses. But who, what, why, and how? We didn't
see any apparatus that looked capable of generating or handling those
beams--and of course, when they got started, their screens cut us
off at the pockets. Wish we could have made some sense out of their
language--like to know a few of their ideas--find out whether we can't
get on terms with them some way or other. Funny-looking wampuses, but
they've got real brains--their think-tanks are very evidently full of
bubbles. If they have it in mind to take us on next, old son, it'll be
just ... too ... bad!"
"And then some," agreed Stevens. "They've got something--no fooling. It
looks like the hexans are going to get theirs, good and plenty, pretty
soon--and then what? I'd give my left lung and four front teeth for one
long look at their controls in action."
"You and me both--it's funny, the way those green ray-screens stick to
the walls, instead of being spherical, as you'd expect ... should think
they'd _have_ to radiate from a center, and so be spherical," Brandon
cogitated. "However, we've got nothing corkscrewy enough to go through
them, so we'll have to stand by. We'll stay inside whenever possible,
look on from outside when we must, but all the time picking up whatever
information we can. In the meantime, now that we've got our passengers,
old Doctor Westfall prescribes something that he says is good for what
ails us. Distance--lots of distance, straight out from the sun--and
I wouldn't wonder if we'd better take his prescription."
The two Terrestrial observers relapsed into silence, staring into
their visiray plates, searching throughout the enormous volume of one
of those great fortresses in another attempt to solve the mystery of the
generation and propagation of the incredible manifestations of energy
which they had just witnessed. Scarcely had the search begun, however,
when the visirays were again cut off sharply--the rapidly advancing main
fleet of the hexans had arrived and the scintillant Vorkulian screens
were again in place.
True to hexan nature, training and tradition, the fleet, hundreds
strong, rushed savagely to the attack. Above, below, and around the
far-flung cone the furious globes dashed, attacking every Vorkulian
craft viciously with every resource at their command; with every weapon
known to their diabolically destructive race. Planes of force stabbed
and slashed, concentrated beams of annihilation flared fiercely through
the reeking atmosphere, gigantic aerial bombs and torpedoes were hurled
with full radio control against the unwelcome visitor--with no effect.
Bound together in groups of seven by the mighty, pale-green bands of
force, the Vorkulian units sailed calmly northward, spiraling along with
not the slightest change in formation or velocity. The frightful planes
and beams of immeasurable power simply spent themselves harmlessly
against those sparklingly radiant green walls--seemingly as absorbent
to energy as a sponge is to water, since the eye could not detect any
change in the appearance of the screens, under even the fiercest blasts
of the hexan projectors. Bombs, torpedoes, and all material projectiles
were equally futile--they exploded harmlessly in the air far from their
objectives, or disappeared at the touch of one of those dark, dull-red
pressor rays. And swiftly, but calmly and methodically as at a Vorkulian
practice drill, the heptagons were destroying the hexan fleet. Seven
mighty green tractors would lash out, seize an attacking sphere, and
snap it into the center of mass of the unit of seven. There would be a
brief flash of dull red, a still briefer flare of incandescence, and the
impalpable magnets would leap out to seize another of the doomed globes.
It was only a matter of moments until not a hexan vessel remained; and
the Vorkulian juggernaut spiraled onward, now at full acceleration,
toward the hexan stronghold dimly visible far ahead of them--a vast
city built around Jupiter's northern pole.
At the controls of his projector, Kromodeor spun a dial with a
many-fingered, flexible hand and spoke.
"Wixill, I am being watched again--I can feel very plainly that strange
intelligence watching everything I do. Have the tracers located him?"
"No, they haven't been able to synchronize with his wave yet. Either
he is using a most minute pencil or, what is more probable, he is on a
frequency which we do not ordinarily use. However, I agree with you that
it is not a malignant intelligence. All of us have felt it, and none of
us senses enmity. Therefore, it is not a hexan--it may be one of those
strange creatures of the satellites, who are, of course, perfectly
harmless."
"Harmless, but unpleasant," returned Kromodeor. "When we get back I'm
going to find his beam myself and send a discharge along it that will
end his spying upon me. I do not...."
* * * * *
A wailing signal interrupted the conversation and every Vorkul in
the vast fleet coiled even more tightly about his bars, for the real
battle was about to begin. The city of the hexans lay before them,
all her gigantic forces mustered to repel the first real invasion of
her long and warlike history. Mile after mile it extended, an orderly
labyrinth of spherical buildings arranged in vast interlocking series
of concentric circles--a city of such size that only a small part of it
was visible, even to the infra-red vision of the Vorkulians. Apparently
the city was unprotected, having not even a wall. Outward from the low,
rounded houses of the city's edge there reached a wide and verdant
plain, which was separated from the jungle by a narrow moat of
shimmering liquid--a liquid of such dire potency that across it,
even those frightful growths could neither leap nor creep.
But as the Vorkulian phalanx approached--now shooting forward and
upward with maximum acceleration, screaming bolts of energy flaming out
for miles behind each heptagon as the full power of its generators was
unleashed--it was made clear that the homeland of the hexans was far
from unprotected. The verdant plain disappeared in a blast of radiance,
revealing a transparent surface, through which could be seen masses of
machinery filling level below level, deep into the ground as far as the
eye could reach; and from the bright liquid of the girdling moat there
shot vertically upward a coruscantly refulgent band of intense yellow
luminescence. These were the hexan defences, heretofore invulnerable and
invincible. Against them any ordinary warcraft, equipped with ordinary
weapons of offense, would have been as pitifully impotent as a naked
baby attacking a battleship. But now those defenses were being
challenged by no ordinary craft; it had taken the mightiest intellects
of Vorkulia two long lifetimes to evolve the awful engine of destruction
which was hurling itself forward and upward with an already terrific and
constantly increasing speed.
Onward and upward flashed the gigantic duplex cone, its entire whirling
mass laced and latticed together--into one mammoth unit by green tractor
beams and red pressors. These tension and compression members, of
unheard-of power, made of the whole fleet of three hundred forty-three
fortresses a single stupendous structure--a structure with all the
strength and symmetry of a cantilever truss! Straight through that wall
of yellow vibrations the vast truss drove, green walls flaming blue
defiance as the absorbers overloaded; its doubly braced tip rearing
upward, into and beyond the vertical as it shot through that searing
yellow wall. Simultaneously from each heptagon there flamed downward a
green shaft of radiance, so that the whole immense circle of the cone's
mouth was one solid tractor beam, fastening upon and holding in an
unbreakable grip mile upon mile of the hexan earthworks.
Practically irresistible force and supposedly immovable object!
Every loose article in every heptagon had long since been stored in
its individual shockproof compartment, and now every Vorkul coiled his
entire body in fierce clasp about mighty horizontal bars: for the entire
kinetic energy of the untold millions of tons of mass comprising the
cone, at the terrific measure of its highest possible velocity, was
to be hurled upon those unbreakable linkages of force which bound
the trussed aggregation of Vorkulian fortresses to the deeply buried
intrenchments of the hexans. The gigantic composite tractor beam snapped
on and held. Inconceivably powerful as that beam was, it stretched a
trifle under the incomprehensible momentum of those prodigious masses
of metal, almost halted in their terrific flight. But the war-cone was
not quite halted; the calculations of the Vorkulian scientists had been
accurate. No possible artificial structure, and but few natural ones--in
practice maneuvers entire mountains had been lifted and hurled for miles
through the air--could have withstood the incredible violence of that
lunging, twisting, upheaving impact. Lifted bodily by that impalpable
hawser of force and cruelly wrenched and twisted by its enormous couple
of angular momentum, the hexan works came up out of the ground as a
waterpipe comes up in the teeth of a power shovel. The ground trembled
and rocked and boulders, fragments of concrete masonry, and masses of
metal flew in all directions as that city-encircling conduit of
diabolical machinery was torn from its bed.
* * * * *
A portion of that conduit fully thirty miles in length was in the air,
a twisted, flaming inferno of wrecked generators, exploding ammunition,
and broken and short-circuited high-tension leads before the hexans
could themselves cut it and thus save the remainder of their
fortifications. With resounding crashes, the structure parted at the
weakened points, the furious upheaval stopped and, the tractor beams
shut off, the shattered, smoking, erupting mass of wreckage fell in
clashing, grinding ruin upon the city.
The enormous duplex cone of the Vorkuls did not attempt to repeat the
maneuver, but divided into two single cones, one of which darted toward
each point of rupture. There, upon the broken and unprotected ends of
the hexan cordon, their points of attack lay: theirs the task to eat
along that annular fortress, no matter what the opposition might bring
to bear--to channel in its place a furrow of devastation until the two
cones, their work complete, should meet at the opposite edge of the
city. Then what was left of the cones would separate into individual
heptagons, which would so systematically blast every hexan thing into
nothingness as to make certain that never again would they resume their
insensate attacks upon the Vorkuls. Having counted the cost and being
grimly ready to pay it, the implacable attackers hurled themselves upon
their objectives.
Here were no feeble spheres of space, commanding only the limited
energies transmitted to their small receptors through the ether. Instead
there were all the offensive and defensive weapons developed by hundreds
of generations of warrior-scientists; wielding all the incalculable
power capable of being produced by the massed generators of a mighty
nation. But for the breach opened in the circle by the irresistible
surprise attack, they would have been invulnerable, and, hampered as
they were by the defenseless ends of what should have been an endless
ring, the hexans took heavy toll.
The heptagons, massive and solidly braced as they were, and anchored by
tractor rays as well, shuddered and trembled throughout their mighty
frames under the impact of fiercely driven pressor beams. Sullenly
radiant green wall-screens flared brighter and brighter as the Vorkulian
absorbers and dissipators, mighty as they were, continued more and more
to overload; for there were being directed against them beams from the
entire remaining circumference of the stronghold. Every deadly frequency
and emanation known to the fiendish hexan intellect, backed by the full
power of the city, was poured out against the invaders in sizzling
shrieking bars, bands, and planes of frenzied incandescence. Nor was
vibratory destruction alone. Armor-piercing projectiles of enormous
size and weight were hurled--diamond-hard, drill-headed projectiles
which clung and bored upon impact. High-explosive shells, canisters of
gas, and the frightful aerial bombs and radio-dirigible torpedoes of
highly scientific war--all were thrown with lavish hand, as fast as
the projectors could be served. But thrust for thrust, ray for ray,
projectile for massive projectile, the Brobdingnagian creations of
the Vorkuls gave back to the hexans.
The material lining of the ghastly moat was the only substance capable
of resisting the action of its contents, and now, that lining destroyed
by the uprooting of the fortress, that corrosive, brilliantly mobile
liquid cascaded down in to the trough and added its hellish contribution
to the furious scene. For whatever that devouring fluid touched flared
into yellow flame, gave off clouds of lurid, strangling vapor, and
disappeared. But through yellow haze, through blasting frequencies,
through clouds of poisonous gas, through rain of metal and through
storm of explosive the two cones ground implacably onward, their every
offensive weapon centered upon the fast-receding exposed ends of the
hexan fortress. Their bombs and torpedoes ripped and tore into the
structure beneath the invulnerable shield and exploded, demolishing
and hurling aside like straws, the walls, projectors, hexads and vast
mountains of earth. Their terrible rays bored in, softening, fusing,
volatilizing metal, short-circuiting connections, destroying life
far ahead of the point of attack; and, drawn along by the relentlessly
creeping composite tractor beam, there progressed around the circumference
of the hexan city two veritable Saturnalia of destruction--uninterrupted,
cataclysmic detonations of sound and sizzling, shrieking, multi-colored
displays of pyrotechnic incandescence combining to form a spectacle
of violence incredible.
But the heptagons could not absorb nor radiate indefinitely those
torrents of energy, and soon one greenishly incandescent screen went
down. Giant shells pierced the green metal walls, giant beams of force
fused and consumed them. Faster and faster the huge heptagon became a
shapeless, flowing mass, its metal dripping away in flaming gouts of
brilliance; then it disappeared utterly in one terrific blast as some
probing enemy ray reached a vital part. The cone did not pause nor
waver. Many of its component units would go down, but it would go
on--and on and on until every hexan trace had disappeared or until
the last Vorkulian heptagon had been annihilated.
In one of the lowermost heptagons, one bearing the full brunt of the
hexan armament, Kromodeor reared upright as his projector controls
went dead beneath his hands. Finding his communicator screens likewise
lifeless, he slipped to the floor and wriggled to the room of the Chief
Power Officer, where he found Wixill idly fingering his controls.
"Are we out?" asked Kromodeor, tersely.
"All done," the Chief Power Officer calmly replied. "We have power left,
but we cannot use it, as they have crushed our screens and are fusing
our outer walls. Two out of seven chances, and we drew one of them. We
are still working on the infra band, over across on the Second's board,
but we won't last long...."
* * * * *
As he spoke, the mighty fabric lurched under them, and only their quick
and powerful tails, darting in lightning loops about the bars, saved
them from being battered to death against the walls as the heptagon was
hurled end over end by a stupendous force. With a splintering crash it
came to rest upon the ground.
"I wonder how that happened? They should have rayed us out or exploded
us," Kromodeor pondered. The Vorkuls, with their inhumanly powerful,
sinuous bodies, were scarcely affected by the shock of that frightful
fall.
"They must have had a whole battery of pressors on us when our greens
went out--they threw us half-way across the city, almost into the gate
we made first," Wixill replied, studying the situation of the vessel in
the one small screen still in action. "We aren't hurt very badly--only a
few holes that they are starting to weld already. When the absorber and
dissipator crews get them cooled down enough so that we can use power
again, we'll go back."
But they were not to resume their place in the attack. Through the
holes in the still-glowing walls, hexan soldiery were leaping in
steady streams, fighting with the utmost savagery of their bloodthirsty
natures, urged on by the desperation born of the knowledge of imminent
defeat and total destruction. Hand-weapons roared, flashed, and
sparkled; heavy bars crashed and thudded against crunching bones;
mighty bodies and tails whipped crushingly about six-limbed forms which
wrenched and tore with monstrously powerful hands and claws. Fiercely
and valiantly the Vorkuls fought, but they were outnumbered by hundreds
and only one outcome was possible.
Kromodeor was one of the last to go down. Weapons long since exhausted,
he unwrapped his deadly coils from about a dead hexan and darted toward
a storeroom, only to be cut off by a horde of enemies. Throwing himself
down a vertical shaft, he flew toward a tiny projector-locker, in the
lowermost part of one of the great star's points, the hexans in hot
pursuit. He wrenched the door open, and even while searing planes of
force were riddling his body, he trained the frightful weapon he had
sought. He pressed the contact, and bursts of intolerable flame swept
the entire passage clear of life. Weakly he struggled to go out into the
aisle, but his muscles refused to do the bidding of his will and he lay
there, twitching feebly.
In the power room of the heptagon a hexan officer turned fiercely to
another, who was offering advice.
"Vorkuls? Bah!" he snarled, viciously. "Our race is finished. Die we
must, but we shall take with us the one enemy, who above all others
needs destruction!" and he hurled the captured Vorkulian fortress into
the air.
As the heptagon lurched upward, the massive door of a lower projector
locker clanged shut and Kromodeor collapsed in a corner, his
consciousness blotted out.
* * * * *
"Well, that certainly tears it! That's a ... I...." Stevens' ready
vocabulary failed him and he turned to Brandon, who was still staring
narrow-eyed into the plate, watching the destruction of the hexan city.
"They've got something, all right--you've got to hand it to them,"
Brandon replied. "And we thought we knew something about forces and
physical phenomena in general. Those birds have forgotten more than we
ever will know. Just one of those things could take the whole I-P fleet,
armed as we are now, any morning before breakfast, just for setting-up
exercises. We've got to do something about it--but what?"
"It's okay--whatever you say. There may be an out somewhere, but I don't
see it," and Stevens' gloomy tone matched his words.
Highly trained scientists both, they had been watching that which
transcended all the science of the inner planets and knew themselves
outclassed immeasurably.
"Only one thing to do, as I see it," Brandon cogitated. "That's to keep
on going straight out, the way we're headed now. We'd better call a
council of war, to dope out a line of action."