book two the world warchapter 5 1941 chubby, brownette eunice kinnison sat in arocker, reading the sunday papers and listening to her radio. her husband ralph lay sprawled upon thedavenport, smoking a cigarette and reading the current issue of extraordinary storiesagainst an unheard background of music.
cole haan snake print handbags, mentally, he was far from tellus, flittingin his super-dreadnaught through parsec after parsec of vacuous space. the music broke off without warning andthere blared out an announcement which yanked ralph kinnison back to earth with aviolence almost physical.
he jumped up, jammed his hands into hispockets. "pearl harbor!" he blurted."how in.... how could they have let them get that far?" "but frank!" the woman gasped.she had not worried much about her husband; but frank, her son...."he'll have to go...." her voice died away. "not a chance in the world."kinnison did not speak to soothe, but as though from sure knowledge."designing engineer for lockwood? he'll want to, all right, but anyone whowas ever even exposed to a course in
aeronautical engineering will sit this warout." "but they say it can't last very long. it can't, can it?""i'll say it can. loose talk.five years minimum is my guess--not that my guess is any better than anybody else's." he prowled around the room.his somber expression did not lighten. "i knew it," the woman said at length."you, too--even after the last one.... you haven't said anything, so i thought,perhaps...." "i know i didn't.there was always the chance that we
wouldn't get drawn into it. if you say so, though, i'll stay home.""am i apt to? i let you go when you were really indanger...." "what do you mean by that crack?" heinterrupted. "regulations.one year too old--thank heaven!" "so what? they'll need technical experts, bad.they'll make exceptions." "possibly.desk jobs. desk officers don't get killed in action--or even wounded.
why, perhaps, with the children all grownup and married, we won't even have to be separated." "another angle--financial.""pooh! who cares about that?besides, for a man out of a job...." "from you, i'll let that one pass. thanks, eunie--you're an ace.i'll shoot 'em a wire." the telegram was sent.the kinnisons waited. and waited. until, about the middle of january,beautifully-phrased and beautifully-
mimeographed letters began to arrive. "the war department recognizes the value ofyour previous military experience and appreciates your willingness once again totake up arms in defense of the country ... veteran officer's questionnaire ... pleasefill out completely ... form 191a ...form 170 in duplicate ... form 315.... impossible to forecast the extent to whichthe war department may ultimately utilize the services which you and thousands ofothers have so generously offered ... form ...
form....not to be construed as meaning that you have been permanently rejected ...form ... advise you that while at the present timethe war department is unable to use you....""wouldn't that fry you to a crisp?" kinnison demanded. "what in hell have they got in their heads--sawdust? they think that because i'm fifty one yearsold i've got one foot in the grave--i'll bet four dollars that i'm in better shapethan that cursed major general and his whole damned staff!"
"i don't doubt it, dear."eunice's smile was, however, mostly of relief."but here's an ad--it's been running for a week." "chemical engineers ... shell loading plant... within seventy-five miles of townville ... over five years experience ... organicchemistry ... technology ... explosives...." "they want you," eunice declared, soberly."well, i'm a ph.d. in organic. i've had more than five years experience inboth organic chemistry and technology. if i don't know something about explosivesi did a smart job of fooling dean montrose,
back at gosh whatta university.i'll write 'em a letter." he wrote. he filled out a form.the telephone rang. "kinnison speaking ... yes ...dr. sumner? oh, yes, chief chemist.... that's it--one year over age, so ithought.... oh, that's a minor matter.we won't starve. if you can't pay a hundred and fifty i'llcome for a hundred, or seventy five, or fifty....that's all right, too.
i'm well enough known in my own field sothat a title of junior chemical engineer wouldn't hurt me a bit ...o.k., i'll see you about one o'clock ... stoner and black, inc., operators,entwhistle ordnance plant, entwhistle, missikota....what! well, maybe i could, at that.... goodbye."he turned to his wife. "you know what?they want me to come down right away and go to work. hot dog!am i glad that i told that louse hendricks
exactly where he could stick that job ofmine!" "he must have known that you wouldn't signa straight-salary contract after getting a share of the profits so long. maybe he believed what you always say justbefore or just after kicking somebody's teeth down their throats; that you're someek and mild--a regular milquetoast. do you really think that they'll want youback, after the war?" it was clear that eunice was somewhatconcerned concerning kinnison's joblessness; but kinnison was not. "probably.that's the gossip.
and i'll come back--when hell freezesover." his square jaw tightened. "i've heard of outfits stupid enough to lettheir technical brains go because they could sell--for a while--anything theyproduced, but i didn't know that i was working for one. maybe i'm not exactly a timid soul, butyou'll have to admit that i never kicked anybody's teeth out unless they tried tokick mine out first." entwhistle ordnance plant covered twenty-odd square miles of more or less level land.ninety-nine percent of its area was "inside
the fence." most of the buildings within thatrestricted area, while in reality enormous, were dwarfed by the vast spaces separatingthem; for safety-distances are not small when tnt and tetryl by the ton areinvolved. those structures were built of concrete,steel, glass, transite, and tile. "outside the fence" was different. this was the administration area. its buildings were tremendous woodenbarracks, relatively close together, packed with the executive, clerical, andprofessional personnel appropriate to an
organization employing over twenty thousandmen and women. well inside the fence, but a safety-distance short of the one line--loading line number one--was a long, low building,quite inadequately named the chemical laboratory. "inadequately" in that the chief chemist, ahighly capable--if more than a little cantankerous--explosives engineer, hadalready gathered into his chemical section most of development, most of engineering, and all of physics, weights and measures,and weather. one room of the chemical laboratory--in thecorner most distant from administration--
was separated from the rest of the buildingby a sixteen-inch wall of concrete and steel extending from foundation to roofwithout a door, window, or other opening. this was the laboratory of the chemicalengineers, the boys who played with explosives high and low; any explosionoccurring therein could not affect the chemical laboratory proper or itspersonnel. entwhistle's main roads were paved; but infebruary of 1942, such minor items as sidewalks existed only on the blue-prints. entwhistle's soil contained much clay, andat that time the mud was approximately six inches deep.
hence, since there were neither insidedoors nor sidewalks, it was only natural that the technologists did not visit at allfrequently the polished-tile cleanliness of the laboratory. it was also natural enough for the farlarger group to refer to the segregated ones as exiles and outcasts; and that somewitty chemist applied to that isolated place the name "siberia." the name stuck.more, the engineers seized it and acclaimed it. they were siberians, and proud of it, andsiberians they remained; long after
entwhistle's mud turned into dust. and within the year the siberians were tobecome well and favorably known in every ordnance plant in the country, to many highexecutives who had no idea of how the name originated. kinnison became a siberian asenthusiastically as the youngest man there. the term "youngest" is used in its exactsense, for not one of them was a recent graduate. each had had at least five years ofresponsible experience, and "cappy" sumner kept on building.
he hired extravagantly and firedruthlessly--to the minds of some, senselessly.but he knew what he was doing. he knew explosives, and he knew men. he was not liked, but he was respected.his building was good. being one of the only two "old" men there--and the other did not stay long--kinnison, as a junior chemical engineer, was not atfirst accepted without reserve. apparently he did not notice that fact, butwent quietly about his assigned duties. he was meticulously careful with, but veryevidently not in any fear of, the materials with which he worked.
he pelleted and tested tracer, igniter, andincendiary compositions; he took his turn at burning out rejects.whenever asked, he went out on the lines with any one of them. his experimental tetryls always "miked" tosize, his tnt melt-pours--introductory to loading forty-millimeter on the three line--came out solid, free from checks and cavitations. it became evident to those young but keenminds that he, alone of them all, was on familiar ground.they began to discuss their problems with him.
out of his years of technologicalexperience, and by bringing everyone present into the discussion, he eitherhelped them directly or helped them to help themselves. his stature grew.black-haired, black-eyed "tug" tugwell, two hundred pounds of ex-football-player incharge of tracer on the seven line, called him "uncle" ralph, and the habit spread. and in a couple of weeks--at about the sametime that "injun" abernathy was slightly injured by being blown through a door by aminor explosion of his igniter on the eight line--he was promoted to full chemical
engineer; a promotion which went unnoticed,since it involved only changes in title and salary. three weeks later, however, he was madesenior chemical engineer, in charge of melt-pour. at this there was a celebration, led by"blondie" wanacek, a sulphuric-acid expert handling tetryl on the two. kinnison searched minutely for signs ofjealousy or antagonism, but could find none. he went blithely to work on the six line,where they wanted to start pouring twenty-
pound fragmentation bombs, ably assisted bytug and by two new men. one of these was "doc" or "bart" barton,who, the grapevine said, had been hired by cappy to be his assistant. his motto, like that of rikki-tikki-tavi,was to run and find out, and he did so with glee and abandon.he was a good egg. so was the other newcomer, "charley"charlevoix, a prematurely gray paint-and- lacquer expert who had also made thesiberian grade. a few months later, sumner called kinnisoninto the office. the latter went, wondering what the oldhard-shell was going to cry about now; for
to be called into that office meant onlyone thing--censure. "kinnison, i like your work," the chiefchemist began, gruffly, and kinnison's mouth almost dropped open. "anybody who ever got a ph.d. undermontrose would have to know explosives, and the f.b.i. report on you showed that youhad brains, ability, and guts. but none of that explains how you can getalong so well with those damned siberians. i want to make you assistant chief and putyou in charge of siberia. formally, i mean--actually, you have beenfor months." "why, no ...i didn't....
besides, how about barton? he's too good a man to kick in the teeththat way." "admitted."this did surprise kinnison. he had never thought that the irascible andtempestuous chief would ever confess to a mistake.this was a cappy he had never known. "i discussed it with him yesterday. he's a damned good man--but it's decidedlyquestionable whether he has got whatever it is that made tugwell, wanacek andcharlevoix work straight through for seventy two hours, napping now and then on
benches and grabbing coffee and sandwicheswhen they could, until they got that frag bomb straightened out."sumner did not mention the fact that kinnison had worked straight through, too. that was taken for granted."well, i don't know." kinnison's head was spinning."i'd like to check with barton first. o.k.?" "i expected that. o.k."kinnison found barton and led him out behind the testing shed. "bart, cappy tells me that he figures onkicking you in the face by making me
assistant and that you o.k.'d it. one word and i'll tell the old buzzard justwhere to stick the job and exactly where to go to do it.""reaction, perfect. yield, one hundred percent." barton stuck out his hand."otherwise, i would tell him all that myself and more.as it is, uncle ralph, smooth out the ruffled plumage. they'd go to hell for you, wading instanding straight up--they might do the same with me in the driver's seat, and theymight not.
why take a chance? you're it. some things about the deal i don't like, ofcourse--but at that, it makes me about the only man working for stoner and black whocan get a release any time a good permanent job breaks. i'll stick until then.o.k.?" it was unnecessary for barton to add thatas long as he was there he would really work. "i'll say it's o.k.!" and kinnison reportedto sumner.
"all right, chief, i'll try it--if you cansquare it with the siberians." "that will not be too difficult." nor was it.the siberians' reaction brought a lump to kinnison's throat."ralph the first, czar of siberia!" they yelled. "long live the czar!kowtow, serfs and vassals, to czar ralph the first!" kinnison was still glowing when he got homethat night, to the government housing project and to the three-room "mansionette"in which he and eunice lived.
he would never forget the events of thatday. "what a gang!what a gang! but listen, ace--they work under their ownpower--you couldn't keep those kids from working.why should i get the credit for what they do?" "i haven't the foggiest."eunice wrinkled her forehead--and her nose- -but the corners of her mouth quirked up."are you quite sure that you haven't had anything to do with it? but supper is ready--let's eat."more months passed.
work went on.absorbing work, and highly varied; the details of which are of no importance here. paul jones, a big, hard, top-drawer chicletechnologist, set up the four line to pour demolition blocks. frederick hinton came in, qualified as asiberian, and went to work on anti- personnel mines.kinnison was promoted again: to chief chemist. he and sumner had never been friendly; hemade no effort to find out why cappy had quit, or had been terminated, whichever itwas.
this promotion made no difference. barton, now assistant, ran the wholechemical section save for one unit-- siberia--and did a superlative job.the chief chemist's secretary worked for barton, not for kinnison. kinnison was the czar of siberia.the anti-personnel mines had been giving trouble.too many men were being killed by prematures, and nobody could find out why. the problem was handed to siberia.hinton tackled it, missed, and called for help.the siberians rallied round.
kinnison loaded and tested mines. so did paul and tug and blondie.kinnison was testing, out in the firing area, when he was called to administrationto attend a staff meeting. hinton relieved him. he had not reached the gate, however, whena guard car flagged him down. "sorry, sir, but there has been an accidentat pit five and you are needed out there." "accident! fred hinton!is he...?" "i'm afraid so, sir."
it is a harrowing thing to have to helpgather up what fragments can be found of one of your best friends. kinnison was white and sick as he got backto the firing station, just in time to hear the chief safety officer say:"must have been carelessness--rank carelessness. i warned this man hinton myself, on oneoccasion." "carelessness, hell!"kinnison blazed. "you had the guts to warn me once, too, andi've forgotten more about safety in explosives than you ever will know.fred hinton was not careless--if i hadn't
been called in, that would have been me." "what is it, then?""i don't know--yet. i tell you now, though, major moulton, thati will know, and the minute i find out i'll talk to you again." he went back to siberia, where he found tugand paul, faces still tear-streaked, staring at something that looked like asmall piece of wire. "this is it, uncle ralph," tug said,brokenly. "don't see how it could be, but it is.""what is what?" "firing pin.brittle.
when you pull the safety, the force of thespring must break it off at this constricted section here." "but damn it, tug, it doesn't make sense.it's tension ... but wait--there'd be some horizontal component, at that.but they'd have to be brittle as glass." "i know it. it doesn't seem to make much sense.but we were there, you know--and i assembled every one of those god damnedmines myself. nothing else could possibly have made thatmine go off just when it did." "o.k., tug.we'll test 'em.
call bart in--he can have the scale-labboys rig us up a gadget by the time we can get some more of those pins in off theline." they tested a hundred, under the normaltension of the spring, and three of them broke.they tested another hundred. five broke. they stared at each other."that's it." kinnison declared. "but this will stink to high heaven--haveinspection break out a new lot and we'll test a thousand."of that thousand pins, thirty two broke.
"bart, will you dictate a one-pagepreliminary report to vera and rush it over to building one as fast as you can?i'll go over and tell moulton a few things." major moulton was, as usual, "inconference," but kinnison was in no mood to wait. "tell him," he instructed the major'sprivate secretary, who had barred his way, "that either he will talk to me right nowor i will call district safety over his head. i'll give him sixty seconds to decidewhich."
moulton decided to see him."i'm very busy, doctor kinnison, but...." "i don't give a swivel-eyed tinker's damnhow busy you are. i told you that the minute i found out whatwas the matter with the m2 mine i'd talk to you again. here i am.brittle firing pins. three and two-tenths percent defective.so i'm...." "very irregular, doctor. the matter will have to go throughchannels...." "not this one.
the formal report is going throughchannels, but as i started to tell you, this is an emergency report to you as chiefof safety. since the defect is not covered by specs,neither process nor ordnance can reject except by test, and whoever does thetesting will very probably be killed. therefore, as every employee of stoner andblack is not only authorized but positively instructed to do upon discovering an unsafecondition, i am reporting it direct to safety. since my whiskers are a trifle longer thanan operator's, i am reporting it direct to the head of the safety division; and i amtelling you that if you don't do something
about it damned quick--stop production and slap a hold order on all the m2ap's you canreach--i'll call district and make you personally responsible for every prematurethat occurs from now on." since any safety man, anywhere, would muchrather stop a process than authorize one, and since this particular safety man lovedto throw his weight around, kinnison was surprised that moulton did not actinstantly. the fact that he did not so act shouldhave, but did not, give the naive kinnison much information as to conditions existingoutside the fence. "but they need those mines very badly; theyare an item of very heavy production.
if we stop them ... how long?have you any suggestions?" "yes. call district and have them rushthrough a change of spec--include heat- treat and a modified charpy test. in the meantime, we can get back into fullproduction tomorrow if you have district slap a hundred-per-cent inspection ontothose pins." "excellent! we can do that--very fine work, doctor!miss morgan, get district at once!" this, too, should have warned kinnison, butit did not. he went back to the laboratory.
tempus fugited. orders came to get ready to load m67 h.e.,a.t. (105 m/m high explosive, armor tearing) shell on the nine, and thesiberians went joyously to work upon the new load. the explosive was to be a mixture of tntand a polysyllabic compound, everything about which was highly confidential andrestricted. "but what the hell's so hush-hush aboutthat stuff?" demanded blondie, who, with five or six others, was crowding around theczar's desk. unlike the days of cappy sumner, theprivate office of the chief chemist was now
as much siberia as siberia itself."the germans developed it originally, didn't they?" "yes, and the italians used it against theethiopians--which was why their bombs were so effective.but it says 'hush-hush,' so that's the way it will be. and if you talk in your sleep, blondie,tell betty not to listen." the siberians worked.the m67 was put into production. it was such a success that orders for itcame in faster than they could be filled. production was speeded up.small cavitations began to appear.
nothing serious, since they passedinspection. nevertheless, kinnison protested, in aformal report, receipt of which was formally acknowledged. general somebody-or-other, entwhistle'scommanding officer, whom none of the siberians had ever met, was transferred tomore active duty, and a colonel--snodgrass or some such name--took his place. ordnance got a new chief inspector.an m67, entwhistle loaded, prematured in a gun-barrel, killing twenty seven men.kinnison protested again, verbally this time, at a staff meeting.
he was assured--verbally--that a formal andthorough investigation was being made. later he was informed--verbally and withoutwitnesses--that the investigation had been completed and that the loading was not atfault. a new commanding officer--lieutenant-colonel franklin--appeared. the siberians, too busy to do more thanglance at newspapers, paid very little attention to a glider-crash in whichseveral notables were killed. they heard that an investigation was beingmade, but even the czar did not know until later that washington had for once actedfast in correcting a bad situation; that inspection, which had been under
production, was summarily divorcedtherefrom. and gossip spread abroad that stillman,then head of the inspection division, was not a big enough man for the job. thus it was an entirely unsuspectingkinnison who was called into the innermost private office of thomas keller, thesuperintendent of production. "kinnison, how in hell do you handle thosesiberians? i never saw anything like them before in mylife." "no, and you never will again. nothing on earth except a war could getthem together or hold them together.
i don't 'handle' them--they can't be'handled'. i give them a job to do and let them do it. i back them up.that's all." "umngpf."keller grunted. "that's a hell of a formula--if i wantanything done right i've got to do it myself.but whatever your system is, it works. but what i wanted to talk to you about is,how'd you like to be head of the inspection division, which would be enlarged toinclude your present chemical section?" "huh?"
kinnison demanded, dumbfounded."at a salary well up on the confidential scale." keller wrote a figure upon a piece ofpaper, showed it to his visitor, then burned it in an ash-tray.kinnison whistled. "i'd like it--for more reasons than that. but i didn't know that you--or have youalready checked with the general and mr. black?""naturally," came the smooth reply. "in fact, i suggested it to them and havetheir approval. perhaps you are curious to know why?""i certainly am."
"for two reasons. first, because you have developed a crew oftechnical experts that is the envy of every technical man in the country. second, you and your siberians have doneevery job i ever asked you to, and done it fast. as a division head, you will no longer beunder me, but i am right, i think, in assuming that you will work with me just asefficiently as you do now?" "i can't think of any reason why iwouldn't." this reply was made in all honesty; butlater, when he came to understand what
keller had meant, how bitterly kinnison wasto regret its making! he moved into stillman's office, and foundthere what he thought was ample reason for his predecessor's failure to make good. to his way of thinking it was tremendouslyover-staffed, particularly with assistant chief inspectors. delegation of authority, so widely preachedthroughout entwhistle ordnance plant, had not been given even lip service here. stillman had not made a habit of visitingthe lines; nor did the chief line inspectors, the boys who really knew whatwas going on, ever visit him.
they reported to the assistants, whoreported to stillman, who handed down his jovian pronouncements. kinnison set out, deliberately this time,to mold his key chief line inspectors into just such a group as the siberians alreadywere. he released the assistants to moreproductive work; retaining of stillman's office staff only a few clerks and hisprivate secretary, one celeste de st. aubin, a dynamic, vivacious--at timesexplosive--brunette. he gave the boys on the lines fullauthority; the few who could not handle the load he replaced with men who could.
at first the chief line inspectors simplycould not believe; but after the affair of the forty millimeter, in which kinnisonrammed the decision of his subordinate past keller, past the general, past stoner and black, and clear up to the commandingofficer before he made it stick, they were his to a man.others of his section heads, however, remained aloof. pettler, whose technical section was nowpart of inspection, and wilson, of gages, were two of those who talked largely andglowingly, but acted obstructively if they acted at all.
as weeks went on, kinnison became wiser andwiser, but made no sign. one day, during a lull, his secretary hungout the "in conference" sign and went into kinnison's private office. "there isn't a reference to any suchinvestigation anywhere in central files." she paused, as if to add something, thenturned to leave. "as you were, celeste. sit down.i expected that. suppressed--if made at all.you're a smart girl, celeste, and you know the ropes.
you know that you can talk to me, don'tyou?" "yes, but this is ... well, the word isgoing around that they are going to break you, just as they have broken every othergood man on the reservation." "i expected that, too." the words were quiet enough, but the man'sjaw tightened. "also, i know how they are going to do it.""how?" "this speed-up on the nine. they know that i won't stand still for thekind of casts that keller's new procedure, which goes into effect tonight, is going toproduce ... and this new c.o. probably
will." silence fell, broken by the secretary."general sanford, our first c.o., was a soldier, and a good one," she declaredfinally. "so was colonel snodgrass. lieutenant colonel franklin wasn't; but hewas too much of a man to do the dir ..." "dirty work," dryly."exactly. go on." "and stoner, the new york half--ninety fivepercent, really--of stoner and black, inc., is a big time operator.
so we get this damned nincompoop of amajor, who doesn't know a f-u-s-e from a f- u-z-e, direct from a wall street desk.""so what?" one must have heard ralph kinnison saythose two words to realize how much meaning they can be made to carry."so what!" the girl blazed, wringing her hands. "ever since you have been over here i havebeen expecting you to blow up--to smash something--in spite of the dozens of timesyou have told me 'a fighter can not slug effectively, celeste, until he gets bothfeet firmly planted.' when--when--are you going to get your feetplanted?"
"never, i'm afraid," he said glumly, andshe stared. "so i'll have to start slugging with atleast one foot in the air." that startled her. "explain, please?""i wanted proof. stuff that i could take to the district--that i could use to tack some hides out flat on a barn door with. do i get it?i do not. not a shred.neither can you. what chance do you think there is of evergetting any real proof?"
"very little," celeste admitted."but you can at least smash pettler, wilson, and that crowd. how i hate those slimy snakes!i wish that you could smash tom keller, the poisonous moron!" "not so much moron--although he acts likeone at times--as an ignorant puppet with a head swelled three sizes too big for hishat. but you can quit yapping about slugging--fireworks are due to start at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon, when drake is going toreject tonight's run of shell." "really?
but i don't see how either pettler orwilson come in." "they don't.a fight with those small fry--even smashing them--wouldn't make enough noise. keller.""keller!" celeste squealed."but you'll...." "i know i'll get fired. so what?by tackling him i can raise enough hell so that the big shots will have to cut out atleast some of the rough stuff. you'll probably get fired too, you know--you've been too close to me for your own
good.""not me." she shook her head vigorously. "the minute they terminate you, i quit.poof! who cares?besides, i can get a better job in townville." "without leaving the project.that's what i figured. it's the boys i'm worried about.i've been getting them ready for this for weeks." "but they will quit, too.your siberians--your inspectors--of a
surety they will quit, every one!" "they won't release them; and what stonerand black will do to them, even after the war, if they quit without releases,shouldn't be done to a dog. they won't quit, either--at least if theydon't try to push them around too much. keller's mouth is watering to get hold ofsiberia, but he'll never make it, nor any one of his stooges.... i'd better dictate a memorandum to black onthat now, while i'm calm and collected; telling him what he'll have to do to keepmy boys from tearing entwhistle apart." "but do you think he will pay any attentionto it?"
"i'll say he will!"kinnison snorted. "don't kid yourself about black, celeste. he's a smart man, and before this is donehe'll know that he'll have to keep his nose clean.""but you--how can you do it?" celeste marveled. "me, i would urge them on.few would have the patriotism...." "patriotism, hell!if that were all, i would have stirred up a revolution long ago. it's for the boys, in years to come.they've got to keep their noses clean, too.
get your notebook, please, and take thisdown. rough draft--i'm going to polish it upuntil it has teeth and claws in every line."and that evening, after supper, he informed eunice of all the new developments. "is it still o.k. with you," he concluded,"for me to get myself fired off of this high-salaried job of mine?""certainly. being you, how can you do anything else? oh, how i wish i could wring their necks!"that conversation went on and on, but additional details are not necessary here.
shortly after two o'clock of the followingafternoon, celeste took a call; and listened shamelessly."kinnison speaking." "tug, uncle ralph. the casts sectioned just like we thoughtthey would. dead ringers for plate d.so drake hung a red ticket on every tray. piddy was right there, waiting, and startedto raise hell. so i chipped in, and he beat it so fastthat i looked to see his coat-tail catch fire. drake didn't quite like to call you, so idid.
if piddy keeps on going at the rate he lefthere, he'll be in keller's office in nothing flat." "o.k., tug.tell drake that the shell he rejected are going to stay rejected, and to come inright now with his report. would you like to come along?" "would i!"tugwell hung up and: "but do you want him here, doc?" celeste asked, anxiously, withoutconsidering whether or not her boss would approve of her eavesdropping."i certainly do.
if i can keep tug from blowing his top, therest of the boys will stay in line." a few minutes later tugwell strode in,bringing with him drake, the chief line inspector of the nine line. shortly thereafter the office door waswrenched open. keller had come to kinnison, accompanied bythe superintendent whom the siberians referred to, somewhat contemptuously, as"piddy." "damn your soul, kinnison, come out here--iwant to talk to you!" keller roared, and doors snapped open upand down the long corridor. "shut up, you god damned louse!"
this from tugwell, who, black eyes almostemitting sparks, was striding purposefully forward."i'll sock you so damned hard that...." "pipe down, tug, i'll handle this." kinnison's voice was not loud, but it hadthen a peculiarly carrying and immensely authoritative quality."verbally or physically; however he wants to have it." he turned to keller, who had jumpedbackward into the hall to avoid the young siberian. "as for you, keller, if you had the brainsthat god gave bastard geese in ireland, you
would have had this conference in private.since you started it in public, however, i'll finish it in public. how you came to pick me for a yes-man i'llnever know--just one more measure of your stupidity, i suppose.""those shell are perfect!" keller shouted. "tell drake here to pass them, right now.if you don't, by god i'll...." "shut up!"kinnison's voice cut. "i'll do the talking--you listen. the spec says quote shall be free fromobjectionable cavitation unquote.
the line inspectors, who know their stuff,say that those cavitations are objectionable. so do the chemical engineers.therefore, as far as i am concerned, they are objectionable.those shell are rejected, and they will stay rejected." "that's what you think," keller raged."but there'll be a new head of inspection, who will pass them, tomorrow morning!""in that you may be half right. when you get done licking black's boots,tell him that i am in my office." kinnison re-entered his suite.keller, swearing, strode away with piddy.
doors clicked shut. "i am going to quit, uncle ralph, law or nolaw!" tugwell stormed."they'll run that bunch of crap through, and then...." "will you promise not to quit until theydo?" kinnison asked, quietly."huh?" "what?" tugwell's eyes--and celeste's--were poolsof astonishment. celeste, being on the inside, understoodfirst.
"oh--to keep his nose clean--i see!" sheexclaimed. "exactly.those shell will not be accepted, nor any like them. on the surface, we got licked.i will get fired. you will find, however, that we won thisparticular battle. and if you boys stay here and hang togetherand keep on slugging you can win a lot more.""maybe, if we raise enough hell, we can make them fire us, too?" drake suggested."i doubt it.
but unless i'm wrong, you can just aboutwrite your own ticket from now on, if you play it straight." kinnison grinned to himself, at somethingwhich the young people could not see. "you told me what stoner and black would doto us," tugwell said, intensely. "what i'm afraid of is that they'll do itto you." "they can't.not a chance in the world," kinnison assured him. "you fellows are young--not established.but i'm well-enough known in my own field so that if they tried to black-ball methey'd just get themselves laughed at, and
they know it. so beat it back to the nine, you kids, andhang red tickets on everything that doesn't cross-section up to standard.tell the gang goodbye for me--i'll keep you posted." in less than an hour kinnison was calledinto the office of the president. he was completely at ease; black was not. "it has been decided to ... uh ... ask foryour resignation," the president announced at last."save your breath," kinnison advised. "i came down here to do a job, and the onlyway you can keep me from doing that job is
to fire me.""that was not ... uh ... entirely unexpected. a difficulty arose, however, in decidingwhat reason to put on your termination papers.""i can well believe that. you can put down anything you like,"kinnison shrugged, "with one exception. any implication of incompetence and you'llhave to prove it in court." "incompatibility, say?" "o.k.""miss briggs--'incompatibility with the highest echelon of stoner and black, inc.,'please.
you may as well wait, dr. kinnison; it willtake only a moment." "fine.i've got a couple of things to say. first, i know as well as you do that you'rebetween scylla and charybdis--damned if you do and damned if you don't.""certainly not! ridiculous!" black blustered, but his eyes wavered."where did you get such a preposterous idea?what do you mean?" "if you ram those sub-standard h.e.a.t.shell through, you are going to have some more prematures.
not many--the stuff is actually almost goodenough--one in ten thousand, say: perhaps one in fifty thousand.but you know damned well that you can't afford any. what my siberians and inspectors know aboutyou and keller and piddy and the nine line would be enough; but to cap the climax thatbrainless jackal of yours let the cat completely out of the bag this afternoon, and everybody in building one waslistening. one more premature would blow entwhistlewide open--would start something that not all the politicians in washington couldstop.
on the other hand, if you scrap those lotsand go back to pouring good loads, your mr. stoner, of new york and washington, will bevery unhappy and will scream bloody murder. i'm sure, however, that you won't offer anyplate d loads to ordnance--in view of the temper of my boys and girls, and the numberof people who heard your dumb stooge give you away, you won't dare to. in fact, i told some of my people that youwouldn't; that you are a smart enough operator to keep your nose clean.""you told them!" black shouted, in anger and dismay. "yes? why not?"the words were innocent enough, but
kinnison's expression was full of meaning. "i don't want to seem trite, but you arejust beginning to find out that honesty and loyalty are a hell of a hard team to beat.""get out! take these termination papers and get out!" and doctor ralph k. kinnison, head high,strode out of president black's office and out of entwhistle ordnance plant. > book two the world warchapter 6 19--? "theodore k. kinnison!" a crisp, clearvoice snapped from the speaker of an
apparently cold, ordinary-enough-lookingradio-television set. a burly young man caught his breath sharplyas he leaped to the instrument and pressed an inconspicuous button."theodore k. kinnison acknowledging!" the plate remained dark, but he knew thathe was being scanned. "operation bullfinch!" the speaker blatted.kinnison gulped. "operation bullfinch--off!" he managed tosay. "off!" he pushed the button again and turned toface the tall, trim honey-blonde who stood tensely poised in the archway.her eyes were wide and protesting; both
hands clutched at her throat. "uh-huh, sweets, they're coming--over thepole," he gritted. "two hours, more or less.""oh, ted!" she threw herself into his arms. they kissed, then broke away.the man picked up two large suitcases, already packed--everything else, includingfood and water, had been in the car for weeks--and made strides. the girl rushed after him, not botheringeven to close the door of the apartment, scooping up en passant a leggy boy of fourand a chubby, curly-haired girl of two or
thereabouts. they ran across the lawn toward a big, low-slung sedan. "sure you got your caffeine tablets?" hedemanded as they ran. "uh-huh." "you'll need 'em.drive like the devil--stay ahead! you can--this heap has got the legs of acentipede and you've got plenty of gas and oil. eleven hundred miles from anywhere and apopulation of one-tenth per square mile-- you'll be safe there if anybody is.""it isn't us i'm worried about--it's you!"
she panted. "technos' wives get a few minutes' noticeahead of the h-blast--i'll be ahead of the rush and i'll stay ahead.it's you, ted--you!" "don't worry, keed. that popcycle of mine has got legs, too,and there won't be so much traffic, the way i'm going.""oh, blast! i didn't mean that, and you know it!" they were at the car.while he jammed the two bags into an exactly-fitting space, she tossed thechildren into the front seat, slid lithely
under the wheel, and started the engine. "i know you didn't, sweetheart.i'll be back." he kissed her and the little girl, thewhile shaking hands with his son. "kidlets, you and mother are going out tovisit grand-dad kinnison, like we told you all about.lots of fun. i'll be along later. now, lady lead-foot, scram--and shovel onthe coal!" the heavy vehicle backed and swung; gravelflew as the accelerator-pedal hit the floor.
kinnison galloped across the alley andopened the door of a small garage, revealing a long, squat motorcycle. two deft passes of his hands and two of histhree spotlights were no longer white--one flashed a brilliant purple, the other asearing blue. he dropped a perforated metal box into ahanger and flipped a switch--a peculiarly- toned siren began its ululating shriek. he took the alley turn at an angle offorty-five degrees; burned the pavement toward diversey.the light was red. no matter--everybody had stopped--thatsiren could be heard for miles.
he barreled into the intersection; hisstep-plate ground the concrete as he made a screaming left turn. a siren--creeping up from behind.city tone. two red spots--city cop--so soon--good!he cut his gun a trifle, the other bike came alongside. "is this it?" the uniformed rider yelled,over the coughing thunder of the competing exhausts."yes!" kinnison yelled back. "clear diversey to the outer drive, and thedrive south to gary and north to waukegan.
snap it up!"the white-and-black motorcycle slowed; shot over toward the curb. the officer reached for his microphone.kinnison sped on. at cicero avenue, although he had a greenlight, traffic was so heavy that he had to slow down; at pulaski two policemen wavedhim through a red. beyond sacramento nothing moved on wheels. seventy ... seventy five ... he took thebridge at eighty, both wheels in air for forty feet. eighty five ... ninety ... that was aboutall he could do and keep the heap on so
rough a road. also, he did not have diversey all tohimself any more; blue-and-purple-flashing bikes were coming in from every side-street. he slowed to a conservative fifty and wentinto close formation with the other riders. the h-blast--the city-wide warning for theplanned and supposedly orderly evacuation of all chicago--sounded, but kinnison didnot hear it. across the park, edging over to the left sothat the boys going south would have room to make the turn--even such riders as thoseneed some room to make a turn at fifty miles per hour!
under the viaduct--biting brakes andsquealing tires at that sharp, narrow, right-angle left turn--north on the wide,smooth drive! that highway was made for speed. so were those machines.each rider, as he got into the flat, lay down along his tank, tucked his chin behindthe cross-bar, and twisted both throttles out against their stops. they were in a hurry.they had a long way to go; and if they did not get there in time to stop those trans-polar atomic missiles, all hell would be out for noon.
why was all this necessary?this organization, this haste, this split- second timing, this city-wide exhibition ofinsane hippodrome riding? why were not all these motorcycle-racersstationed permanently at their posts, so as to be ready for any emergency? because america, being a democracy, couldnot strike first, but had to wait--wait in instant readiness--until she was actuallyattacked. because every good techno in america hadhis assigned place in some american defense plan; of which operation bullfinch was onlyone. because, without the presence of thosetechnos at their every-day jobs, all
ordinary technological work in americawould perforce have stopped. a branch road curved away to the right. scarcely slowing down, kinnison bulletedinto the turn and through an open, heavily- guarded gate. here his mount and his lights werepasswords enough: the real test would come later. he approached a towering structure ofalloy--jammed on his brakes--stopped beside a soldier who, as soon as kinnison jumpedoff, mounted the motorcycle and drove it away.
kinnison dashed up to an apparently blankwall, turned his back upon four commissioned officers holding cocked forty-fives at the ready, and fitted his right eye into a cup. unlike fingerprints, retinal patternscannot be imitated, duplicated, or altered; any imposter would have died instantly,without arrest or question. for every man who belonged aboard thatrocket had been checked and tested--how he had been checked and tested!--since onespy, in any one of those technos' chairs, could wreak damage untellable. the port snapped open.kinnison climbed a ladder into the large,
but crowded, operations room."hi, teddy!" a yell arose. "hi, walt! hi-ya, red!what-ho, baldy!" and so on. these men were friends of old."where are they?" he demanded. "is our stuff getting away? lemme take a peek at the ball!""i'll say it is! o.k., ted, squeeze in here!"he squeezed in. it was not a ball, but a hemisphere,slightly oblate and centered approximately by the north pole.
a multitude of red dots moved slowly--ahundred miles upon that map was a small distance--northward over canada; a closer-packed, less numerous group of yellowish- greens, already on the american side of thepole, was coming south. as had been expected, the americans hadmore missiles than did the enemy. the other belief, that america had moreadequate defenses and better-trained, more highly skilled defenders, would soon be putto test. a string of blue lights blazed across thecontinent, from nome through skagway and wallaston and churchill and kaniapiskau tobelle isle; america's first line of defense.
regulars all.ambers almost blanketed those blues; their combat rockets were already grabbingaltitude. the second line, from portland, seattle,and vancouver across to halifax, also showed solid green, with some flashes ofamber. part regulars; part national guard. chicago was in the third line, all nationalguard, extending from san francisco to new york.green--alert and operating. so were the fourth, the fifth, and thesixth. operation bullfinch was clicking; onschedule to the second.
a bell clanged; the men sprang to theirstations and strapped down. every chair was occupied. combat rocket number one oh six eight five,full-powered by the disintegrating nuclei of unstable isotopes, took off with awhooshing roar which even her thick walls could not mute. the technos, crushed down into their form-fitting cushions by three g's of acceleration, clenched their teeth and tookit. higher! faster!the rocket shivered and trembled as it hit
the wall at the velocity of sound, but itdid not pause. faster!higher! fifty miles high.one hundred ... five hundred ... a thousand ... fifteen hundred ... two thousand! half a radius--the designated altitude atwhich the chicago contingent would go into action.acceleration was cut to zero. the technos, breathing deeply in relief,donned peculiarly-goggled helmets and set up their panels. kinnison stared into his plate witheverything he could put into his optic
nerve. this was not like the ball, in which thelights were electronically placed, automatically controlled, clear, sharp, andsteady. this was radar. a radar considerably different from that of1948, of course, and greatly improved, but still pitifully inadequate in dealing withobjects separated by hundreds of miles and traveling at velocities of thousands ofmiles per hour! nor was this like the practice cruises, inwhich the targets had been harmless barrels or equally harmless dirigible rockets.
this was the real thing; the targets todaywould be lethal objects indeed. practice gunnery, with only a place in theproficiency list at stake, had been exciting enough: this was too exciting--much too exciting--for the keenness of brain and the quickness and steadiness ofeye and of hand so soon to be required. a target?or was it? yes--three or four of them! "target one--zone ten," a quiet voice spokeinto kinnison's ear and one of the white specks upon his plate turned yellowishgreen. the same words, the same lights, were heardand seen by the eleven other technos of
sector a, of which kinnison, by virtue ofstanding at the top of his combat rocket's proficiency list, was sector chief. he knew that the voice was that of sectora's fire control officer, whose duty it was to determine, from courses, velocities, andall other data to be had from ground and lofty observers, the order in which hissector's targets should be eliminated. and sector a, an imaginary but sharply-defined cone, was in normal maneuvering the hottest part of the sky. fire control's "zone ten" had informed himthat the object was at extreme range and hence there would be plenty of time.nevertheless:
"lawrence--two! doyle--one!drummond--stand by with three!" he snapped, at the first word. in the instant of hearing his name eachtechno stabbed down a series of studs and there flowed into his ears a rapid streamof figures--the up-to-the-second data from every point of observation as to everyelement of motion of his target. he punched the figures into his calculator,which would correct automatically for the motion of his own vessel--glanced once atthe printed solution of the problem-- tramped down upon a pedal once, twice, or
three times, depending upon the number ofprojectiles he had been directed to handle. kinnison had ordered lawrence, a bettershot than doyle, to launch two torpedoes; neither of which, at such long range, wasexpected to strike its mark. his second, however, should come close; soclose that the instantaneous data sent back to both screens--and to kinnison's--by thetorpedo itself would make the target a sitting duck for doyle, the less proficientfollower. drummond, kinnison's number three, wouldnot launch his missiles unless doyle missed. nor could both drummond and harper,kinnison's number two, be "out" at once.
one of the two had to be "in" at all times,to take kinnison's place in charge of the sector if the chief were ordered out. for while kinnison could order eitherharper or drummond on target, he could not send himself. he could go out only when ordered to do soby fire control: sector chiefs were reserved for emergency use only."target two--zone nine," fire control said. "carney, two. french, one.day, stand by with three!" kinnison ordered."damn it--missed!"
this from doyle. "buck fever--no end.""o.k., boy--that's why we're starting so soon.i'm shaking like a vibrator myself. we'll get over it...." the point of light which represented targetone bulged slightly and went out. drummond had connected and was back "in"."target three--zone eight. four--eight," fire control remarked. "target three--higgins and green; harperstand by. four--case and santos: lawrence."after a minute or two of actual combat the
technos of sector a began to steady down. stand-by men were no longer required andwere no longer assigned. "target forty-one--six," said fire control;and: "lawrence, two. doyle, two," ordered kinnison.this was routine enough, but in a moment: "ted!"lawrence snapped. "missed--wide--both barrels. forty-one's dodging--manned or directed--coming like hell--watch it, doyle--watch it!""kinnison, take it!"
fire control barked, voice now neither lownor steady, and without waiting to see whether doyle would hit or miss."it's in zone three already--collision course!" "harper!take over!" kinnison got the data, solved theequations, launched five torpedoes at fifty gravities of acceleration. one ... two--three-four-five; the lastthree as close together as they could fly without setting off their proximity fuzes. communications and mathematics and theelectronic brains of calculating machines
had done all that they could do; the restwas up to human skill, to the perfection of co-ordination and the speed of reaction ofhuman mind, nerve, and muscle. kinnison's glance darted from plate topanel to computer-tape to meter to galvanometer and back to plate; his lefthand moved in tiny arcs the knobs whose rotation varied the intensities of two mutually perpendicular components of historpedoes' drives. he listened attentively to the reports oftriangulating observers, now giving him data covering his own missiles, as well asthe target object. the fingers of his right hand punchedalmost constantly the keys of his computer;
he corrected almost constantly historpedoes' course. "up a hair," he decided. "left about a point."the target moved away from its predicted path.down two--left three--down a hair--right! the thing was almost through zone two; wasblasting into zone one. he thought for a second that his first torpwas going to connect. it almost did--only a last-instant, full-powered side thrust enabled the target to evade it. two numbers flashed white upon his plate;his actual error, exact to the foot of
distance and to the degree on the clock,measured and transmitted back to his board by instruments in his torpedo. working with instantaneous and exact data,and because the enemy had so little time in which to act, kinnison's second projectilemade a very near miss indeed. his third was a graze; so close that itsproximity fuze functioned, detonating the cyclonite-packed war-head. kinnison knew that his third went off,because the error-figures vanished, almost in the instant of their coming into being,as its detecting and transmitting instruments were destroyed.
that one detonation might have been enough;but kinnison had had one glimpse of his error--how small it was!--and had afraction of a second of time. hence four and five slammed home; deadcenter. whatever that target had been, it was nolonger a threat. "kinnison, in," he reported briefly to firecontrol, and took over from harper the direction of the activities of sector a.the battle went on. kinnison sent harper and drummond out timeafter time. he himself was given three more targets.the first wave of the enemy--what was left of it--passed.
sector a went into action, again at extremerange, upon the second. its remains, too, plunged downward andonward toward the distant ground. the third wave was really tough. not that it was actually any worse than thefirst two had been, but the cr10685 was no longer getting the data which her technosought to have to do a good job; and every man aboard her knew why. some enemy stuff had got through, ofcourse; and the observatories, both on the ground and above it--the eye of the wholeamerican defense--had suffered heavily. nevertheless, kinnison and his fellows werenot too perturbed.
such a condition was not entirelyunexpected. they were now veterans; they had been triedand had not been found wanting. they had come unscathed through a bath offire the like of which the world had never before known. give them any kind of computation at all--or no computation at all except old cr10685's own radar and their own torps, ofwhich they still had plenty--and they could and would take care of anything that couldbe thrown at them. the third wave passed.targets became fewer and fewer. action slowed down ... stopped.
the technos, even the sector chiefs, knewnothing whatever of the progress of the battle as a whole. they did not know where their rocket was,or whether it was going north, east, south, or west.they knew when it was going up or down only by the "seats of their pants." they did not even know the nature of thetargets they destroyed, since upon their plates all targets looked alike--small,bright, greenish-yellow spots. hence: "give us the dope, pete, if we've got aminute to spare," kinnison begged of his
fire control officer."you know more than we do--give!" "it's coming in now," came the promptreply. "six of those targets that did such fancydodging were atomics, aimed at the lines. five were dirigibles, with our number on'em. you fellows did a swell job. very little of their stuff got through--notenough, they say, to do much damage to a country as big as the u.s.a. on the other hand, they stopped scarcelyany of ours--they apparently didn't have anything to compare with you technos."but all hell seems to be busting loose,
all over the world. our east and west coasts are both beingattacked, they say; but are holding. operation daisy and operation fairfield areclicking, just like we did. europe, they say, is going to hell--everybody is taking pot-shots at everybody else.one report says that the south american nations are bombing each other ... asia, too ... nothing definite; as straightdope comes in i'll relay it to you. "we came through in very good shape,considering ... losses less than anticipated, only seven percent.
the first line--as you know already--took agod-awful shellacking; in fact, the churchill-belcher section was practicallywiped out, which was what lost us about all of our observation.... we are now just about over the southern endof hudson bay, heading down and south to join in making a vertical fleet formation... no more waves coming, but they say to expect attacks from low-flying combatrockets--there goes the alert! on your toes, fellows--but there isn't athing on sector a's screen...." there wasn't. since the cr10685 was diving downward andsouthward, there wouldn't be.
nevertheless, some observer aboard thatrocket saw that atomic missile coming. some fire control officer yelled orders;some technos did their best--and failed. and such is the violence of nuclearfission; so utterly incomprehensible is its speed, that theodore k. kinnison diedwithout realizing that anything whatever was happening to his ship or to him. gharlane of eddore looked upon ruinedearth, his handiwork, and found it good. knowing that it would be many of hundredsof tellurian years before that planet would again require his personal attention, hewent elsewhere; to rigel four, to palain seven, and to the solar system of velantia,
where he found that his creatures theoverlords were not progressing according to schedule. he spent quite a little time there, thensearched minutely and fruitlessly for evidence of inimical activity within theinnermost circle. and upon far arisia a momentous decisionwas made: the time had come to curb sharply the hitherto unhampered eddorians."we are ready, then, to war openly upon them?" eukonidor asked, somewhat doubtfully."again to cleanse the planet tellus of dangerous radioactives and of too-noxiousforms of life is of course a simple matter.
from our protected areas in north america astrong but democratic government can spread to cover the world.that government can be extended easily enough to include mars and venus. but gharlane, who is to operate as roger,who has already planted, in the adepts of north polar jupiter, the seeds of thejovian wars...." "your visualization is sound, youth. think on." "those interplanetary wars are of courseinevitable, and will serve to strengthen and to unify the government of the innerplanets ... provided that gharlane does not
interfere.... oh, i see.gharlane will not at first know; since a zone of compulsion will be held upon him. when he or some eddorian fusion perceivesthat compulsion and breaks it--at some such time of high stress as the nevian incident--it will be too late. our fusions will be operating. roger will be allowed to perform only suchacts as will be for civilization's eventual good. nevia was selected as prime operatorbecause of its location in a small region
of the galaxy which is almost devoid ofsolid iron and because of its watery nature; its aquatic forms of life being precisely those in which the eddorians areleast interested. they will be given partial neutralizationof inertia; they will be able to attain velocities a few times greater than that oflight. that covers the situation, i think?" "very good, eukonidor," the eldersapproved. "a concise and accurate summation."hundreds of tellurian years passed. the aftermath.
reconstruction.advancement. one world--two worlds--three worlds--united, harmonious, friendly. the jovian wars. a solid, unshakeable union.nor did any eddorian know that such fantastically rapid progress was beingmade. indeed, gharlane knew, as he drove hisimmense ship of space toward sol, that he would find tellus inhabited by peopleslittle above savagery. and it should be noted in passing that notonce, throughout all those centuries, did a man named kinnison marry a girl with red-bronze-auburn hair and gold-flecked, tawny
eyes. book three triplanetarychapter 7 pirates of space apparently motionless to her passengers andcrew, the interplanetary liner hyperion bored serenely onward through space atnormal acceleration. in the railed-off sanctum in one corner ofthe control room a bell tinkled, a smothered whirr was heard, and captainbradley frowned as he studied the brief message upon the tape of the recorder--a message flashed to his desk from theoperator's panel. he beckoned, and the second officer, whosewatch it now was, read aloud:
"reports of scout patrols still negative." "still negative."the officer scowled in thought. "they've already searched beyond the widestpossible location of wreckage, too. two unexplained disappearances inside amonth--first the dione, then the rhea--and not a plate nor a lifeboat recovered.looks bad, sir. one might be an accident; two mightpossibly be a coincidence...." his voice died away."but at three it would get to be a habit," the captain finished the thought. "and whatever happened, happened quick.neither of them had time to say a word--
their location recorders simply went dead.but of course they didn't have our detector screens nor our armament. according to the observatories we're inclear ether, but i wouldn't trust them from tellus to luna.you have given the new orders, of course?" "yes, sir. detectors full out, all three courses ofdefensive screen on the trips, projectors manned, suits on the hooks. every object detected to be investigatedimmediately--if vessels, they are to be warned to stay beyond extreme range.anything entering the fourth zone is to be
rayed." "right--we are going through!""but no known type of vessel could have made away with them without detection," thesecond officer argued. "i wonder if there isn't something in thosewild rumors we've been hearing lately?" "bah! of course not!" snorted the captain. "pirates in ships faster than light--sub-ethereal rays--nullification of gravity mass without inertia--ridiculous!proved impossible, over and over again. no, sir, if pirates are operating in space--and it looks very much like it--they won't get far against a good big battery full ofkilowatt-hours behind three courses of
heavy screen, and good gunners behindmultiplex projectors. they're good enough for anybody. pirates, neptunians, angels, or devils--inships or on broomsticks--if they tackle the hyperion we'll burn them out of the ether!"leaving the captain's desk, the watch officer resumed his tour of duty. the six great lookout plates into which thealert observers peered were blank, their far-flung ultra-sensitive detector screensencountering no obstacle--the ether was empty for thousands upon thousands ofkilometers. the signal lamps upon the pilot's panelwere dark, its warning bells were silent.
a brilliant point of white light in thecenter of the pilot's closely ruled micrometer grating, exactly upon the cross-hairs of his directors, showed that the immense vessel was precisely upon the calculated course, as laid down by theautomatic integrating course plotters. everything was quiet and in order."all's well, sir," he reported briefly to captain bradley--but all was not well. danger--more serious by far in that it wasnot external--was even then, all unsuspected, gnawing at the great ship'svitals. in a locked and shielded compartment, deepdown in the interior of the liner, was the
great air purifier. now a man leaned against the primary duct--the aorta through which flowed the stream of pure air supplying the entire vessel. this man, grotesque in full panoply ofspace armor, leaned against the duct, and as he leaned a drill bit deeper and deeperinto the steel wall of the pipe. soon it broke through, and the slight rushof air was stopped by the insertion of a tightly fitting rubber tube. the tube terminated in a heavy rubberballoon, which surrounded a frail glass bulb.
the man stood tense, one hand holdingbefore his silica-and-steel-helmeted head a large pocket chronometer, the other lightlygrasping the balloon. a sneering grin was upon his face as hewaited the exact second of action--the carefully predetermined instant when hisright hand, closing, would shatter the fragile flask and force its contents intothe primary air stream of the hyperion! far above, in the main saloon, the regularevening dance was in full swing. the ship's orchestra crashed into silence,there was a patter of applause, and clio marsden, radiant belle of the voyage, ledher partner out onto the promenade and up to one of the observation plates.
"oh, we can't see the earth any more!" sheexclaimed. "which way do you turn this, mr. costigan?" "like this," and conway costigan, burlyyoung first officer of the liner, turned the dials. "there--this plate is looking back, ordown, at tellus; this other one is looking ahead."earth was a brilliantly shining crescent far beneath the flying vessel. above her, ruddy mars and silvery jupiterblazed in splendor ineffable against a background of utterly indescribableblackness--a background thickly besprinkled
with dimensionless points of dazzlingbrilliance which were the stars. "oh, isn't it wonderful!" breathed thegirl, awed. "of course, i suppose that it's old stuffto you, but i'm a ground-gripper, you know, and i could look at it forever, i think.that's why i want to come out here after every dance. you know, i...."her voice broke off suddenly, with a queer, rasping catch, as she seized his arm in afrantic clutch and as quickly went limp. he stared at her sharply, and understoodinstantly the message written in her eyes-- eyes now enlarged, staring, hard,brilliant, and full of soul-searing terror
as she slumped down, helpless but for hissupport. in the act of exhaling as he was, lungsalmost entirely empty, yet he held his breath until he had seized the microphonefrom his belt and had snapped the lever to "emergency." "control room!" he gasped then, and everyspeaker throughout the great cruiser of the void blared out the warning as he forcedhis already evacuated lungs to absolute emptiness. "vee-two gas! get tight!" writhing and twisting in his fiercestruggle to keep his lungs from gulping in
a draft of that noxious atmosphere, andwith the unconscious form of the girl draped limply over his left arm, costigan leaped toward the portal of the nearestlifeboat. orchestra instruments crashed to the floorand dancing couples fell and sprawled inertly while the tortured first officerswung the door of the lifeboat open and dashed across the tiny room to the air-valves. throwing them wide open, he put his mouthto the orifice and let his laboring lungs gasp their eager fill of the cold blastroaring from the tanks. then, air-hunger partially assuaged, heagain held his breath, broke open the
emergency locker, donned one of the space-suits always kept there, and opened its valves wide in order to flush out of his uniform any lingering trace of the lethalgas. he then leaped back to his companion. shutting off the air, he released a streamof pure oxygen, held her face in it, and made shift to force some of it into herlungs by compressing and releasing her chest against his own body. soon she drew a spasmodic breath, chokingand coughing, and he again changed the gaseous stream to one of pure air, speakingurgently as she showed signs of returning
consciousness. "stand up!" he snapped."hang onto this brace and keep your face in this air-stream until i get a suit aroundyou! got me?" she nodded weakly, and, assured that shecould hold herself at the valve, it was the work of only a minute to encase her in oneof the protective coverings. then, as she sat upon a bench, recoveringher strength, he flipped on the lifeboat's visiphone projector and shot its invisiblebeam up into the control room, where he saw space-armored figures furiously busy at thepanels.
"dirty work at the cross-roads!" he blazedto his captain, man to man--formality disregarded, as it so often was in thetriplanetary service. "there's skulduggery afoot somewhere in ourprimary air! maybe that's the way they got those othertwo ships--pirates! might have been a timed bomb--don't see howanybody could have stowed away down there through the inspections, and nobody butfranklin can neutralize the shield of the air room--but i'm going to look around,anyway. then i'll join you fellows up there.""what was it?" the shaken girl asked. "i think that i remember your saying 'vee-two gas.'
that's forbidden!anyway, i owe you my life, conway, and i'll never forget it--never. thanks--but the others--how about all therest of us?" "it was vee-two, and it is forbidden,"costigan replied grimly, eyes fast upon the flashing plate, whose point of projectionwas now deep in the bowels of the vessel. "the penalty for using it or having it isdeath on sight. gangsters and pirates use it, since theyhave nothing to lose, being on the death list already. as for your life, i haven't saved it yet--you may wish i'd let it ride before we get
done. the others are too far gone for oxygen--couldn't have brought even you around in a few more seconds, quick as i got to you. but there's a sure antidote--we all carryit in a lock-box in our armor--and we all know how to use it, because crooks all usevee-two and so we're always expecting it. but since the air will be pure again inhalf an hour we'll be able to revive the others easily enough if we can get by withwhatever is going to happen next. there's the bird that did it, right in theair-room. it's the chief engineer's suit, but thatisn't franklin that's in it.
some passenger--disguised--slugged thechief--took his suit and projectors--hole in duct--p-s-s-t!all washed out! maybe that's all he was scheduled to do tous in this performance, but he'll do nothing else in his life!""don't go down there!" protested the girl. "his armor is so much better than thatemergency suit you are wearing, and he's got mr. franklin's lewiston, besides!""don't be an idiot!" he snapped. "we can't have a live pirate aboard--we'regoing to be altogether too busy with outsiders directly.don't worry, i'm not going to give him a break.
i'll take a standish--i'll rub him out likea blot. stay right here until i come back afteryou," he commanded, and the heavy door of the lifeboat clanged shut behind him as heleaped out into the promenade. straight across the saloon he made his way,paying no attention to the inert forms scattered here and there. going up to a blank wall, he manipulated analmost invisible dial set flush with its surface, swung a heavy door aside, andlifted out the standish--a fearsome weapon. squat, huge, and heavy, it resembledsomewhat an overgrown machine rifle, but one possessing a thick, short telescope,with several opaque condensing lenses and
parabolic reflectors. laboring under the weight of the thing, hestrode along corridors and clambered heavily down short stairways. finally he came to the purifier room, andgrinned savagely as he saw the greenish haze of light obscuring the door and walls--the shield was still in place; the pirate was still inside, still flooding with the terrible vee two the hyperion's primaryair. he set his peculiar weapon down, unfoldedits three massive legs, crouched down behind it, and threw in a switch.
dull red beams of frightful intensity shotfrom the reflectors and sparks, almost of lightning proportions, leaped from theshielding screen under their impact. roaring and snapping, the conflict went onfor seconds, then, under the superior force of the standish, the greenish radiance gaveway. behind it the metal of the door ran thegamut of color--red, yellow, blinding white--then literally exploded; molten,vaporized, burned away. through the aperture thus made costigancould plainly see the pirate in the space- armor of the chief engineer--an armor whichwas proof against rifle fire and which could reflect and neutralize for some
little time even the terrific beam costiganwas employing. nor was the pirate unarmed--a vicious flareof incandescence leaped from his lewiston, to spend its force in spitting, cracklingpyrotechnics against the ether-wall of the squat and monstrous standish. but costigan's infernal engine did not relyonly upon vibratory destruction. at almost the first flash of the pirate'sweapon the officer touched a trigger, there was a double report, ear-shattering in thatnarrowly confined space, and the pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half- kilogram shell tore through his armor andexploded.
costigan shut off his beam, and with notthe slightest softening of one hard lineament stared around the air-room;making sure that no serious damage had been done to the vital machinery of the air- purifier--the very lungs of the greatspace-ship. dismounting the standish, he lugged it backup to the main saloon, replaced it in its safe, and again set the combination lock. thence to the lifeboat, where clio criedout in relief as she saw that he was unhurt. "oh, conway, i've been so afraid somethingwould happen to you!" she exclaimed, as he
led her rapidly upward toward the controlroom. "of course you ..." she paused. "sure," he replied, laconically."nothing to it. how do you feel--about back to normal?" "all right, i think, except for beingscared to death and just about out of control. i don't suppose that i'll be good foranything, but whatever i can do, count me in on.""fine--you may be needed, at that. everybody's out, apparently, except thoselike me, who had a warning and could hold
their breath until they got to theirsuits." "but how did you know what it was? you can't see it, nor smell it, noranything." "you inhaled a second before i did, and isaw your eyes. i've been in it before--and when you see aman get a jolt of that stuff just once, you never forget it.the engineers down below got it first, of course--it must have wiped them out. then we got it in the saloon.your passing out warned me, and luckily i had enough breath left to give the word.
quite a few of the fellows up above shouldhave had time to get away--we'll see 'em all in the control room." "i suppose that was why you revived me--inpayment for so kindly warning you of the gas attack?"the girl laughed; shaky, but game. "something like that, probably," heanswered, lightly. "here we are--now we'll soon find outwhat's going to happen next." in the control room they saw at least adozen armored figures; not now rushing about, but seated at their instruments,tense and ready. fortunate it was that costigan--veteran ofspace as he was, though young in years--had
been down in the saloon; fortunate that hehad been familiar with that horrible outlawed gas; fortunate that he had had presence of mind enough and sheer physicalstamina enough to send his warning without allowing one paralyzing trace to enter hisown lungs. captain bradley, the men on watch, andseveral other officers in their quarters or in the wardrooms--space-hardened veteransall--had obeyed instantly and without question the amplifiers' gasped command to"get tight". exhaling or inhaling, their air-passageshad snapped shut as that dread "vee-two" was heard, and they had literally jumpedinto their armored suits of space--flushing
them out with volume after volume of unquestionable air; holding their breath tothe last possible second, until their straining lungs could endure no more. costigan waved the girl to a vacant bench,cautiously changing into his own armor from the emergency suit he had been wearing, andapproached the captain. "anything in sight, sir?" he asked,saluting. "they should have started something beforethis." "they've started, but we can't locate them. we tried to send out a general sectoralarm, but had hardly started when they
blanketed our wave.look at that!" following the captain's eyes, costiganstared at the high powered set of the ship's operator. upon the plate, instead of a moving,living, three-dimensional picture, there was a flashing glare of blinding whitelight; from the speaker, instead of intelligible speech, was issuing a roaring,crackling stream of noise. "it's impossible!"bradley burst out, violently. "there's not a gram of metal inside thefourth zone--within a hundred thousand kilometers--and yet they must be close tosend such a wave as that.
but the second thinks not--what do youthink, costigan?" the bluff commander, reactionary and of theold school as was his breed, was furious-- baffled, raging inwardly to come to gripswith the invisible and indetectable foe. face to face with the inexplicable,however, he listened to the younger men with unusual tolerance."it's not only possible; it's quite evident that they've got something we haven't." costigan's voice was bitter."but why shouldn't they have? service ships never get anything until it'sbeen experimented with for years, but pirates and such always get the new stuffas soon as it's discovered.
the only good thing i can see is that wegot part of a message away, and the scouts can trace that interference out there.but the pirates know that, too--it won't be long now," he concluded, grimly. he spoke truly. before another word was said the outerscreen flared white under a beam of terrific power, and simultaneously thereappeared upon one of the lookout plates a vivid picture of the pirate vessel--a huge, black torpedo of steel, now emittingflaring offensive beams of force. instantly the powerful weapons of thehyperion were brought to bear, and in the
blast of full-driven beams the stranger'sscreens flamed incandescent. heavy guns, under the recoil of whosefierce salvos the frame of the giant globe trembled and shuddered, shot out their tonsof high-explosive shell. but the pirate commander had knownaccurately the strength of the liner, and knew that her armament was impotent againstthe forces at his command. his screens were invulnerable, the giantshells were exploded harmlessly in mid- space, miles from their objective. and suddenly a frightful pencil of flamestabbed brilliantly from the black hulk of the enemy.
through the empty ether it tore, throughthe mighty defensive screens, through the tough metal of the outer and inner walls. every ether-defense of the hyperionvanished, and her acceleration dropped to a quarter of its normal value."right through the battery room!" bradley groaned. "we're on the emergency drive now.our rays are done for, and we can't seem to put a shell anywhere near her with ourguns!" but ineffective as the guns were, they weresilenced forever as a frightful beam of destruction stabbed relentlessly throughthe control room, whiffing out of existence
the pilot, gunnery, and lookout panels andthe men before them. the air rushed into space, and the suits ofthe three survivors bulged out into drum- head tightness as the pressure in the roomdecreased. costigan pushed the captain lightly towarda wall, then seized the girl and leaped in the same direction. "let's get out of here, quick!" he cried,the miniature radio instruments of the helmets automatically taking up the duty oftransmitting speech as the sound disks refused to function. "they can't see us--our ether wall is stillup and their spy-rays can't get through it
from the outside, you know. they're working from blue-prints, andthey'll probably take your desk next," and even as they bounded toward the door, nowbecome the outer seal of an airlock, the pirates' beam tore through the space whichthey had just quitted. through the airlock, down through severallevels of passengers' quarters they hurried, and into a lifeboat, whose onedoorway commanded the full length of the third lounge--an ideal spot, either for defense or for escape outward by means ofthe miniature cruiser. as they entered their retreat they felttheir weight begin to increase.
more and more force was applied to thehelpless liner, until it was moving at normal acceleration."what do you make of that, costigan?" asked the captain. "tractor beams?""apparently. they've got something, all right.they're taking us somewhere, fast. i'll go get a couple of standishes, andanother suit of armor--we'd better dig in," and soon the small room became a veritablefortress, housing as it did those two formidable engines of destruction. then the first officer made another andlonger trip, returning with a complete suit
of triplanetary space armor, exactly likethose worn by the two men, but considerably smaller. "just as an added factor of safety, you'dbetter put this on, clio--those emergency suits aren't good for much in a battle.i don't suppose that you ever fired a standish, did you?" "no, but i can soon learn how to do it,"she replied pluckily. "two is all that can work here at once, butyou should know how to take hold in case one of us goes out. and while you're changing suits you'dbetter put on some stuff i've got here--
service special phones and detectors.stick this little disk onto your chest with this bit of tape; low down, out of sight. just under your wishbone is the best place.take off your wrist-watch and wear this one continuously--never take it off for asecond. put on these pearls, and wear them all thetime, too. take this capsule and hide it against yourskin, some place where it can't be found except by the most rigid search. swallow it in an emergency--it goes downeasily and works just as well inside as outside.
it is the most important thing of all--youcan get along with it alone if you lose everything else, but without that capsulethe whole system's shot to pieces. with that outfit, if we should getseparated, you can talk to us--we're both wearing 'em, although in somewhat differentforms. you don't need to talk loud--just a mutterwill be enough. they're handy little outfits--almostimpossible to find, and capable of a lot of "thanks, conway--i'll remember that, too,"clio replied, as she turned toward the tiny locker to follow his instructions."but won't the scouts and patrols be catching us pretty quick?
the operator sent a warning.""afraid the ether's empty, as far as we're concerned."captain bradley had stood by in silent astonishment during this conversation. his eyes had bulged slightly at costigan's"we're both wearing 'em," but he had held his peace and as the girl disappeared alook of dawning comprehension came over his face. "oh, i see, sir," he said, respectfully--far more respectfully than he had ever before addressed a mere first officer."meaning that we both will be wearing them shortly, i assume.
'service specials'--but you didn't specifyexactly what service, did you?" "now that you mention it, i don't believethat i did," costigan grinned. "that explains several things about you--particularly your recognition of vee-two and your uncanny control and speed ofreaction. but aren't you...." "no," costigan interrupted."this situation is apt to get altogether too serious to overlook any bets. if we get away, i'll take them away fromher and she'll never know that they aren't routine equipment.as for you, i know that you can and do keep
your mouth shut. that's why i'm hanging this junk on you--ihad a lot of stuff in my kit, but i flashed it all with the standish except what ibrought in here for us three. whether you think so or not, we're in areal jam--our chance of getting away is mighty close to zero...." he broke off as the girl came back, now toall appearances a small triplanetary officer, and the three settled down to along and eventless wait. hour after hour they flew through theether, but finally there was a lurching swing and an abrupt increase in theiracceleration.
after a short consultation captain bradleyturned on the visiray set and, with the beam at its minimum power, peeredcautiously downward, in the direction opposite to that in which he knew thepirate vessel must be. all three stared into the plate, seeingonly an infinity of emptiness, marked only by the infinitely remote and coldlybrilliant stars. while they stared into space a vast area ofthe heavens was blotted out and they saw, faintly illuminated by a peculiar blueluminescence, a vast ball--a sphere so large and so close that they seemed to be dropping downward toward it as though itwere a world!
they came to a stop--paused, weightless--avast door slid smoothly aside--they were drawn upward through an airlock and floatedquietly in the air above a small, but brightly-lighted and orderly city ofmetallic buildings! gently the hyperion was lowered, to come torest in the embracing arms of a regulation landing cradle. "well, wherever it is, we're here,"remarked captain bradley, grimly, and: "and now the fireworks start," assentedcostigan, with a questioning glance at the girl. "don't mind me," she answered his unspokenquestion.
"i don't believe in surrendering, either." "right," and both men squatted down behindthe ether-walls of their terrific weapons; the girl prone behind them.they had not long to wait. a group of human beings--men and to allappearances americans--appeared unarmed in the little lounge. as soon as they were well inside the room,bradley and costigan released upon them without compunction the full power of theirfrightful projectors. from the reflectors, through the doorway,there tore a concentrated double beam of pure destruction--but that beam did notreach its goal.
yards from the men it met a screen ofimpenetrable density. instantly the gunners pressed theirtriggers and a stream of high-explosive shells issued from the roaring weapons. but shells, also, were futile.they struck the shield and vanished-- vanished without exploding and withoutleaving a trace to show that they had ever existed. costigan sprang to his feet, but before hecould launch his intended attack a vast tunnel appeared beside him--something hadgone through the entire width of the liner, cutting effortlessly a smooth cylinder ofemptiness.
air rushed in to fill the vacuum, and thethree visitors felt themselves seized by invisible forces and drawn into the tunnel. through it they floated, up to and overbuildings, finally slanting downward toward the door of a great high-towered structure. doors opened before them and closed behindthem, until at last they stood upright in a room which was evidently the office of abusy executive. they faced a desk which, in addition to theusual equipment of the business man, carried also a bewilderingly completeswitchboard and instrument panel. seated impassively at the desk there was agray man.
not only was he dressed entirely in gray,but his heavy hair was gray, his eyes were gray, and even his tanned skin seemed togive the impression of grayness in disguise. his overwhelming personality radiated anaura of grayness--not the gentle gray of the dove, but the resistless, driving grayof the super-dreadnought; the hard, inflexible, brittle gray of the fracture ofhigh-carbon steel. "captain bradley, first officer costigan,miss marsden," the man spoke quietly, but crisply. "i had not intended you two men to live solong.
that is a detail, however, which we willpass by for the moment. you may remove your suits." neither officer moved, but both stared backat the speaker, unflinchingly. "i am not accustomed to repeatinginstructions," the man at the desk continued; voice still low and level, butinstinct with deadly menace. "you may choose between removing thosesuits and dying in them, here and now." costigan moved over to clio and slowly tookoff her armor. then, after a flashing exchange of glancesand a muttered word, the two officers threw off their suits simultaneously and fired atthe same instant; bradley with his
lewiston, costigan with a heavy automatic pistol whose bullets were explosive shellsof tremendous power. but the man in gray, surrounded by animpenetrable wall of force, only smiled at the fusillade, tolerantly and maddeningly. costigan leaped fiercely, only to be hurledbackward as he struck that unyielding, invisible wall. a vicious beam snapped him back into place,the weapons were snatched away, and all three captives were held to their formerpositions. "i permitted that, as a demonstration offutility," the gray man said, his hard
voice becoming harder, "but i will permitno more foolishness. now i will introduce myself. i am known as roger.you probably have heard nothing of me: very few tellurians have, or ever will.whether or not you two live depends solely upon yourselves. being something of a student of men, i fearthat you will both die shortly. able and resourceful as you have just shownyourselves to be, you could be valuable to me, but you probably will not--in whichcase you shall, of course, cease to exist. that, however, in its proper time--youshall be of some slight service to me in
the process of being eliminated. in your case, miss marsden, i find myselfundecided between two courses of action; each highly desirable, but unfortunatelymutually exclusive. your father will be glad to ransom you atan exceedingly high figure, but in spite of that fact i may decide to use you in aresearch upon sex." "yes?" clio rose magnificently to the occasion.fear forgotten, her courageous spirit flashed from her clear young eyes andemanated from her taut young body, erect in defiance.
"you may think that you can do anythingwith me that you please, but you can't!" "peculiar--highly perplexing--why shouldthat one stimulus, in the case of young females, produce such an entirelydisproportionate reaction?" roger's eyes bored into clio's; the girlshivered and looked away. "but sex itself, primal and basic, the mostwidespread concomitant of life in this continuum, is completely illogical andparadoxical. most baffling--decidedly, this research onsex must go on." roger pressed a button and a tall, comelywoman appeared--a woman of indefinite age and of uncertain nationality.
"show miss marsden to her apartment," hedirected, and as the two women went out a man came in."the cargo is unloaded, sir," the newcomer reported. "the two men and the five women indicatedhave been taken to the hospital." "very well, dispose of the others in theusual fashion." the minion went out, and roger continued,emotionlessly: "collectively, the other passengers may beworth a million or so, but it would not be worthwhile to waste time upon them." "what are you, anyway?" blazed costigan,helpless but enraged beyond caution.
"i have heard of mad scientists who triedto destroy the earth, and of equally mad geniuses who thought themselves napoleonscapable of conquering even the solar system. whichever you are, you should know that youcan't get away with it." "i am neither.i am, however, a scientist, and i direct many other scientists. i am not mad.you have undoubtedly noticed several peculiar features of this place?""yes, particularly the artificial gravity and those screens.
an ordinary ether-wall is opaque in onedirection, and doesn't bar matter--yours are transparent both ways and somethingmore than impenetrable to matter. how do you do it?" "you could not understand them if iexplained them to you, and they are merely two of our smaller developments. i do not intend to destroy your planetearth; i have no desire to rule over masses of futile and brainless men.i have, however, certain ends of my own in view. to accomplish my plans i require hundredsof millions in gold and other hundreds of
millions in uranium, thorium, and radium;all of which i shall take from the planets of this solar system before i leave it. i shall take them in spite of the puerileefforts of the fleets of your triplanetary league."this structure was designed by me and built under my direction. it is protected from meteorites by forcesof my devising. it is indetectable and invisible--etherwaves are bent around it without loss or distortion. i am discussing these points at such lengthso that you may realize exactly your
position.as i have intimated, you can be of assistance to me if you will." "now just what could you offer any man tomake him join your outfit?" demanded costigan, venomously. "many things," roger's cold tone betrayedno emotion, no recognition of costigan's open and bitter contempt."i have under me many men, bound to me by many ties. needs, wants, longings, and desires differfrom man to man, and i can satisfy practically any of them.
many men take delight in the society ofyoung and beautiful women, but there are other urges which i have found quiteefficient. greed, thirst for fame, longing for power,and so on, including many qualities usually regarded as 'noble.'and what i promise, i deliver. i demand only loyalty to me, and that onlyin certain things and for a relatively short period.in all else, my men do as they please. in conclusion, i can use you twoconveniently, but i do not need you. therefore you may choose now between myservice and--the alternative." "exactly what is the alternative?"
"we will not go into that.suffice it to say that it has to do with a minor research, which is not progressingsatisfactorily. it will result in your extinction, andperhaps i should mention that that extinction will not be particularlypleasant." "i say no, you...." bradley roared.he intended to give an unexpurgated classification, but was rudely interrupted."hold on a minute!" snapped costigan. "how about miss marsden?" "she has nothing to do with thisdiscussion," returned roger, icily.
"i do not bargain--in fact, i believe thati shall keep her for a time. she has it in mind to destroy herself if ido not allow her to be ransomed, but she will find that door closed to her until ipermit it to open." "in that case, i string along with thechief--take what he started to say about you and run it clear across the board forme!" barked costigan. "very well. that decision was to be expected from menof your type." the gray man touched two buttons and two ofhis creatures entered the room. "put these men into two separate cells onthe second level," he ordered.
"search them; all their weapons may nothave been in their armor. seal the doors and mount special guards,tuned to me here." imprisoned they were, and carefullysearched; but they bore no arms, and nothing had been said concerningcommunicators. even if such instruments could beconcealed, roger would detect their use instantly.at least, so ran his thought. but roger's men had no inkling of thepossibility of costigan's "service special" phones, detectors, and spy-ray--instrumentsof minute size and of infinitesimal power, but yet instruments which, working as they
were below the level of the ether, wereeffective at great distances and caused no vibrations in the ether by which their usecould be detected. and what could be more innocent than theregulation personal equipment of every officer of space? the heavy goggles, the wrist-watch and itssupplementary pocket chronometer, the flash-lamp, the automatic lighter, thesender, the money-belt? all these items of equipment were examinedwith due care; but the cleverest minds of the triplanetary service had designed thosecommunicators to pass any ordinary search, however careful, and when costigan and
bradley were finally locked into thedesignated cells they still possessed their ultra-instruments. book three triplanetarychapter 8 in roger's planetoid in the hall clio glanced around her wildly,seeking even the narrowest avenue of escape. before she could act, however, her body wasclamped as though in a vise, and she struggled, motionless. "it is useless to attempt to escape, or todo anything except what roger wishes," the guide informed her somberly, snapping offthe instrument in her hand and thus
restoring to the thoroughly cowed girl herfreedom of motion. "his lightest wish is law," she continuedas they walked down a long corridor. "the sooner you realize that you must doexactly as he pleases, in all things, the easier your life will be.""but i wouldn't want to keep on living!" clio declared, with a flash of spirit. "and i can always die, you know.""you will find that you cannot," the passionless creature returned,monotonously. "if you do not yield, you will long andpray for death, but you will not die unless roger wills it.look at me: i cannot die.
here is your apartment. you will stay here until roger givesfurther orders concerning you." the living automaton opened a door andstood silent and impassive while clio, staring at her in horror, shrank past herand into the sumptuously furnished suite. the door closed soundlessly and uttersilence descended as a pall. not an ordinary silence, but theindescribable perfection of the absolute silence, complete absence of all sound. in that silence clio stood motionless.tense and rigid, hopeless, despairing, she stood there in that magnificent room,fighting an almost overwhelming impulse to
scream. suddenly she heard the cold voice of roger,speaking from the empty air. "you are over-wrought, miss marsden.you can be of no use to yourself or to me in that condition. i command you to rest; and, to insure thatrest, you may pull that cord, which will establish about this room an ether wall: awall to cut off even this my voice...." the voice ceased as she pulled the cordsavagely and threw herself upon a divan in a torrent of gasping, strangling, butrebellious sobs. then again came a voice, but not to herears.
deep within her, pervading every bone andmuscle, it made itself felt rather than heard. "clio?" it asked."don't talk yet...." "conway!" she gasped in relief, every fiberof her being thrilled into new hope at the deep, well-remembered voice of conwaycostigan. "keep still!" he snapped. "don't act so happy!he may have a spy-ray on you. he can't hear me, but he may be able tohear you. when he was talking to you you must havenoticed a sort of rough, sandpapery feeling
under that necklace i gave you?since he's got an ether-wall around you the beads are dead now. if you feel anything like that under thewrist-watch, breathe deeply, twice. if you don't feel anything there, it's safefor you to talk, as loud as you please." "i don't feel anything, conway!" sherejoiced. tears forgotten, she was her old, buoyantself again. "so that wall is real, after all? i only about half believed it.""don't trust it too much, because he can cut it off from the outside any time hewants to.
remember what i told you: that necklacewill warn you of any spy-ray in the ether, and the watch will detect anything belowthe level of the ether. it's dead now, of course, since our threephones are direct-connected; i'm in touch with bradley, too.don't be too scared; we've got a lot better chance than i thought we had." "what?you don't mean it!" "absolutely. i'm beginning to think that maybe we've gotsomething he doesn't know exists--our ultra-wave.
of course i wasn't surprised when hissearchers failed to find our instruments, but it never occurred to me that i mighthave a clear field to use them in! i can't quite believe it yet, but i haven'tbeen able to find any indication that he can even detect the bands we are using.i'm going to look around over there with my spy-ray ... i'm looking at you now--feel it?""yes, the watch feels that way, now." "fine!not a sign of interference over here, either. i can't find a trace of ultra-wave--anything below ether-level, you know--
anywhere in the whole place. he's got so much stuff that we've neverheard of that i supposed of course he'd have ultra-wave, too; but if he hasn't,that gives us the edge. well, bradley and i've got a lot of work todo.... wait a minute, i just had a thought.i'll be back in about a second." there was a brief pause, then thesoundless, but clear voice went on: "good hunting! that woman that gave you the blue williesisn't alive--she's full of the prettiest machinery and circuits you ever saw!"
"oh, conway!" and the girl's voice broke inan engulfing wave of thanksgiving and relief. "it was so unutterably horrible, thinkingof what must have happened to her and to others like her!""he's running a colossal bluff, i think. he's good, all right, but he lacks quite alot of being omnipotent. but don't get too cocky, either. plenty has happened to plenty of womenhere, and men too--and plenty may happen to us unless we put out a few jets.keep a stiff upper lip, and if you want us, yell.
'bye!" the silent voice ceased, the watch uponclio's wrist again became an unobtrusive timepiece, and costigan, in his solitarycell far below her tower room, turned his peculiarly goggled eyes toward otherscenes. his hands, apparently idle in his pockets,manipulated tiny controls; his keen, highly-trained eyes studied every concealeddetail of mechanism of the great globe. finally, he took off the goggles and spokein a low voice to bradley, confined in another windowless room across the hall."i think i've got dope enough, captain. i've found out where he put our armor andguns, and i've located all the main leads,
controls, and generators. there are no ether-walls around us here,but every door is shielded, and there are guards outside our doors--one to each ofus. they're robots, not men. that makes it harder, since they'reundoubtedly connected direct to roger's desk and will give an alarm at the firsthint of abnormal performance. we can't do a thing until he leaves hisdesk. see that black panel, a little below thecord-switch to the right of your door? that's the conduit cover.
when i give you the word, tear that off andyou'll see one red wire in the cable. it feeds the shield-generator of your door.break that wire and join me out in the hall. sorry i had only one of these ultra-wavespies, but once we're together it won't be so bad. here's what i thought we could do," and hewent over in detail the only course of action which his survey had shown to bepossible. "there, he's left his desk!" costigan exclaimed after the conversationhad continued for almost an hour.
"now as soon as we find out where he'sgoing, we'll start something ... he's going to see clio, the swine! this changes things, bradley!"his hard voice was a curse. "somewhat!" blazed the captain."i know how you two have been getting on all during the cruise. i'm with you, but what can we do?""we'll do something," costigan declared grimly. "if he makes a pass at her i'll get him ifi have to blow this whole sphere out of space, with us in it!"
"don't do that, conway," clio's low voice,trembling but determined, was felt by both men. "if there's a chance for you to get awayand do anything about fighting him, don't mind me.maybe he only wants to talk about the ransom, anyway." "he wouldn't talk ransom to you--he's goingto talk something else entirely," costigan gritted, then his voice changed suddenly."but say, maybe it's just as well this way. they didn't find our specials when theysearched us, you know, and we're going to do plenty of damage right soon now.
roger probably isn't a fast worker--morethe cat-and-mouse type, i'd say--and after we get started he'll have something on hismind besides you. think you can stall him off and keep himinterested for about fifteen minutes?" "i'm sure i can--i'll do anything to helpus, or you, get away from this horrible...." her voice ceased as roger broke the ether-wall of her apartment and walked toward the divan, upon which she crouched in wide-eyed, helpless, trembling terror. "get ready, bradley!" costigan directed tersely.
"he left clio's ether-wall off, so that anyabnormal signals would be relayed to him from his desk--he knows that there's nochance of anyone disturbing him in that room. but i'm holding a beam on that switch, sothat the wall is on, full strength. no matter what we do now, he can't get awarning. i'll have to hold the beam exactly inplace, though, so you'll have to do the dirty work.tear out that red wire and kill those two guards. you know how to kill a robot, don't you?""yes--break his eye-lenses and his ear-
drums and he'll stop whatever he's doingand send out distress calls.... got 'em both. now what?""open my door--the shield switch is to the right."costigan's door flew open and the triplanetary captain leaped into the room. "now for our armor!" he cried."not yet!" snapped costigan. he was standing rigid, goggled eyes staringimmovably at a spot on the ceiling. "i can't move a millimeter until you'veclosed clio's ether-wall switch. if i take this ray off it for a secondwe're sunk.
five floors up, straight ahead down acorridor--fourth door on right. when you're at the switch you'll feel myray on your watch. snap it up!" "right," and the captain leaped away at apace to be equalled by few men of half his years. soon he was back, and after costigan hadtested the ether-wall of the "bridal suite" to make sure that no warning signal fromhis desk or his servants could reach roger within it, the two officers hurried away toward the room in which their space-armorwas.
"too bad they don't wear uniforms," pantedbradley, short of breath from the many flights of stairs. "might have helped some as disguise.""i doubt it--with so many robots around, they've probably got signals that wecouldn't understand anyway. if we meet anybody it'll mean a battle. hold it!"peering through walls with his spy-ray, costigan had seen two men approaching,blocking an intersecting corridor into which they must turn. "two of 'em, a man and a robot--the robot'son your side.
we'll wait here, right at the corner--whenthey round it take 'em!" and costigan put away his goggles in readiness for strife. all unsuspecting, the two pirates came intoview, and as they appeared the two officers struck. costigan, on the inside, drove a short,hard right low into the human pirate's abdomen. the fiercely-driven fist sank to the wristinto the soft tissues and the stricken man collapsed. but even as the blow landed costigan hadseen that there was a third enemy,
following close behind the two he had beenwatching, a pirate who was even then training a ray projector upon him. reacting automatically, costigan swung hisunconscious opponent around in front of him, so that it was into an enemy's bodythat the vicious ray tore, and not into his own. crouching down into the smallest possiblecompass, he straightened out with the lashing force of a mighty steel spring,hurling the corpse straight at the flaming mouth of the projector. the weapon crashed to the floor and deadpirate and living went down in a heap.
upon that heap costigan hurled himself,feeling for the pirate's throat. but the fellow had wriggled clear, andcountered with a gouging thrust that would have torn out the eyes of a slower man,following it up instantly with a savage kick for the groin. no automaton this, geared and set toperform certain fixed duties with mechanical precision, but a lithe, strongman in hard training, fighting with every foul trick known to his murderous ilk. but costigan was no tyro in the art ofdirty fighting. few indeed were the maiming tricks of foulcombat unknown to even the rank and file of
the highly efficient under-cover branch ofthe triplanetary service; and costigan, a sector chief, knew them all. not for pleasure, sportsmanship, normillion-dollar purses did those secret agents use nature's weapons. they came to grips only when it could notpossibly be avoided, but when they were forced to fight in that fashion they wentin with but one grim purpose--to kill, and to kill in the shortest possible space oftime. thus it was that costigan's opening sooncame. the pirate launched a vicious coup desabot, which costigan avoided by a
lightning shift. it was a slight shift, barely enough tomake the kicker miss, and two powerful hands closed upon that flying foot inmidair like the sprung jaws of a bear-trap. closed and twisted viciously, in the samefleeting instant. there was a shriek, smothered as a heavyboot crashed to its carefully predetermined mark--the pirate was out, definitely andpermanently. the struggle had lasted scarcely tenseconds, coming to its close just as bradley finished blinding and deafening therobot. costigan picked up the projector, againdonned his spy-ray goggles, and the two
hurried on. "nice work, chief--it must be a gift torough-house the way you do," bradley exclaimed."that's why you took the live one?" "practice helps some, too--i've been inbrawls before, and i'm a lot younger and maybe a bit faster than you are," costiganexplained briefly, penetrant gaze rigidly to the fore as they ran along one corridorafter another. several more guards, both living andmechanical, were encountered on the way, but they were not permitted to offer anyopposition. costigan saw them first.
in the furious beam of the projector of thedead pirate they were riven into nothingness, and the two officers sped onto the room which costigan had located from afar. the three suits of triplanetary space armorhad been locked up in a cabinet; a cabinet whose doors costigan literally blew offwith a blast of force rather than consume time in tracing the power leads. "i feel like something now!"costigan, once more encased in his own armor, heaved a great sigh of relief. "rough-and-tumble's all right with one ortwo, but that generator room is full of
grief, and we won't have any too much stuffas it is. we've got to take clio's suit along--we'llcarry it down to the door of the power room, drop it there, and pick it up on theway back." contemptuous now of possible guards, thearmored pair strode toward the power plant- -the very heart of the immense fortress ofspace. guards were encountered, and captains--officers who signaled frantically to their chief, since he alone could unleash thefrightful forces at his command, and who profanely wondered at his unwonted silence- -but the enemy beams were impotent againstthe ether walls of that armor; and the
pirates, without armor in the security oftheir own planetoid as they were, vanished utterly in the ravening beams of the twinlewistons. as they paused before the door of the powerroom, both men felt clio's voice raised in her first and last appeal, an appeal wrungfrom her against her will by the extremity of her position. "conway!hurry! his eyes--they're tearing me apart!hurry, dear!" in the horror-filled tones both men readclearly--however inaccurately--the girl's dire extremity.
each saw plainly a happy, carefree youngearth-girl, upon her first trip into space, locked inside an ether-wall with an over-brained, under-conscienced human machine--a super-intelligent, but lecherous and unmoral mechanism of flesh and blood,acknowledging no authority, ruled by nothing save his own scientific drivingsand the almost equally powerful urges of his desires and passions! she must have fought with every resource ather command. she must have wept and pleaded, stormed andraged, feigned submission and played for time--and her torment had not touched inthe slightest degree the merciless and
gloating brain of the being who calledhimself roger. now his tantalizing, ruthless cat-playwould be done, the horrible gray-brown face would be close to hers--she wailed herfinal despairing message to costigan and attacked that hideous face with the fury ofa tigress. costigan bit off a bitter imprecation. "hold him just a second longer,sweetheart!" he cried, and the power room door vanished. through the great room the two lewistonsswept at full aperture and at maximum power, two rapidly-opening fans of deathand destruction.
here and there a guard, more rapid than hisfellows, trained a futile projector--a projector whose magazine exploded at thetouch of that frightful field of force, liberating instantaneously its thousands upon thousands of kilowatt-hours of-stored-up energy. through the delicately adjusted, complexmechanisms the destroying beams tore. at their touch armatures burned out, high-tension leads volatilized in crashing, high-voltage arcs, masses of metal smokedand burned in the path of vast forces now seeking the easiest path to neutralization, delicate instruments blew up, copper ran instreams.
as the last machine subsided into a semi-molten mass of metal the two wreckers, each grasping a brace, felt themselves becomeweightless and knew that they had accomplished the first part of theirprogram. costigan leaped for the outer door. his the task to go to clio's aid--bradleywould follow more slowly, bringing the girl's armor and taking care of anypossible pursuit. as he sailed through the air he spoke. "coming, clio!all right, girl?" questioningly, half fearfully."all right, conway."
her voice was almost unrecognizable, brokenin retching agony. "when everything went crazy he ... foundout that the ether-wall was up and ... forgot all about me. he shut it off ... and seemed to go crazytoo ... he is floundering around like a wild man now ...i'm trying to keep ... him from ... going downstairs." "good girl--keep him busy one minute more--he's getting all the warnings at once and wants to get back to his board.but what's the matter with you? did he ... hurt you, after all?"
"oh, no, not that--he didn't do anythingbut look at me--but that was bad enough-- but i'm sick--horribly sick.i'm falling ... i'm so dizzy that i can scarcely see ... myhead is breaking up into little pieces ... i just know i'm going to die, conway!oh ... oh!" "oh, is that all!" in his sheer relief that they had been intime, costigan did not think of sympathizing with clio's very real presentdistress of mind and body. "i forgot that you're a ground-gripper--that's just a little touch of space- sickness.it'll wear off directly....
all right, i'm coming! let go of him and get as far away from himas you can!" he was now in the street. perhaps two hundred feet distant and ahundred feet above him was the tower room in which were clio and roger. he sprang directly toward its large window,and as he floated "upward" he corrected his course and accelerated his pace by firingbackward at various angles with his heavy service pistol, uncaring that at the point of impact of each of those shells a smallblast of destruction erupted.
he missed the window a trifle, but that didnot matter--his flaming lewiston opened a way for him, partly through the window,partly through the wall. as he soared through the opening he trainedprojector and pistol upon roger, now almost to the door, noticing as he did so thatclio was clinging convulsively to a lamp- bracket upon the wall. door and wall vanished in the lewiston'sterrific beam, but the pirate stood unharmed. neither ravening ray nor explosive shellcould harm him--he had snapped on the protective shield whose generator wasalways upon his person.
when clio reported that roger seemed to gocrazy and was floundering around like a wild man, she had no idea of how she wasunderstanding the actual situation; for gharlane of eddore, then energizing the form of flesh that was roger, had for thefirst time in his prodigiously long life met in direct conflict with an overwhelmingsuperior force. roger had been sublimely confident that hecould detect the use, anywhere in or around his planetoid, of ultra-wave. he had been equally sure that he couldcontrol directly and absolutely the physical activities of any number of thesesemi-intelligent "human beings".
but four arisians in fusion--drounli,brolenteen, nedanillor, and kriedigan--had been on guard for weeks.when the time came to act, they acted. roger's first thought, upon discoveringwhat tremendous and inexplicable damage had already been done, was to destroy instantlythe two men who were doing it. he could not touch them. his second was to blast out of existencethis supposedly human female, but no more could he touch her. his fiercest mental bolts spent themselvesharmlessly three millimeters away from her skin; she gazed into his eyes completelyunaware of the torrents of energy pouring
from them. he could not even aim a weapon at her!his third was to call for help to eddore. he could not. the sub-ether was closed; nor could heeither discover the manner of its closing or trace the power which was keeping itclosed! his eddorian body, even if he couldrecreate it here, could not withstand the environment--this roger-thing would have todo whatever it could, unaided by gharlane's mental powers. and, physically, it was a very capable bodyindeed.
also, it was armed and armored withmechanisms of gharlane's own devising; and eddore's second-in-command was in no sensea coward. but roger, while not exactly a ground-gripper, did not know how to handle himself without weight; whereas costigan, given sixwalls against which to push, was even more efficient in weightless combat than whenhandicapped by the force of gravitation. keeping his projector upon the pirate, heseized the first club to hand--a long, slender pedestal of metal--launched himselfpast the pirate chief. with all the momentum of his mass andvelocity and all the power of his good right arm he swung the bar at the pirate'shead.
that fiercely-driven mass of metal shouldhave taken head from shoulders, but it did not. roger's shield of force was utterly rigidand impenetrable; the only effect of the frightful blow was to set him spinning, endover end, like the flying baton of an acrobatic drum-major. as the spinning form crashed against theopposite wall of the room bradley floated in, carrying clio's armor. without a word the captain loosened thehelpless girl's grip upon the bracket and encased her in the suit.
then, supporting her at the window, he heldhis lewiston upon the captive's head while costigan propelled him toward the opening. both men knew that roger's shield of forcemust be threatened every instant--that if he were allowed to release it he probablywould bring to bear a hand-weapon even superior to their own. braced against the wall, costigan sightedalong roger's body toward the most distant point of the lofty dome of the artificialplanet and gave him a gentle push. then, each grasping clio by an arm, the twoofficers shoved mightily with their feet and the three armored forms darted awaytoward their only hope of escape--an
emergency boat which could be launchedthrough the shell of the great globe. to attempt to reach the hyperion and toescape in one of her lifeboats would have been useless; they could not have forcedthe great gates of the main airlocks and no other exits existed. as they sailed onward through the air,costigan keeping the slowly-floating form of roger enveloped in his beam, clio beganto recover. "suppose they get their gravity fixed?" sheasked, apprehensively. "and they're raying us and shooting at us!""they may have it fixed already. they undoubtedly have spare parts andduplicate generators, but if they turn it
on the fall will kill roger too, and hewouldn't like that. they'll have to get him down with ahelicopter or something, and they know that we'll get them as fast as they come up. they can't hurt us with hand-weapons, andbefore they can bring up any heavy stuff they'll be afraid to use it, because wellbe too close to their shell. "i wish we could have brought roger along,"he continued, savagely, to bradley. "but you were right, of course--it'd bealtogether too much like a rabbit capturing a wildcat. my lewiston's about done right now, andthere can't be much left of yours--what
he'd do to us would be a sin and a shame." now at the great wall, the two men heavedmightily upon a lever, the gate of the emergency port swung slowly open, and theyentered the miniature cruiser of the void. costigan, familiar with the mechanism ofthe craft from careful study from his prison cell, manipulated the controls. through gate after massive gate they went,until finally they were out in open space, shooting toward distant tellus at themaximum acceleration of which their small craft was capable. costigan cut the other two phones out ofcircuit and spoke, his attention fixed upon
some extremely distant point."samms!" he called sharply. "costigan. we're out ... all right ... yes ... sure... absolutely ... you tell 'em, sammy, i've got company here." through the sound-disks of their helmetsthe girl and the captain had heard costigan's share of the conversation. bradley stared at his erstwhile firstofficer in amazement, and even clio had often heard that mighty, half-mythicalname. surely that bewildering young man must rankhigh, to speak so familiarly to virgil
samms, the all-powerful head of the space-pervading service of the triplanetary league! "you've turned in a general call-out,"bradley stated, rather than asked. "long ago--i've been in touch right along,"costigan answered. "now that they know what to look for andknow that ether-wave detectors are useless, they can find it. every vessel in seven sectors, clear downto the scout patrols, is concentrating on this point, and the call is out for allbattleships and cruisers afloat. there are enough operatives out there withultra-waves to locate that globe, and once
they spot it they'll point it out to allthe other vessels." "but how about the other prisoners?" askedthe girl. "they'll be killed, won't they?""hard telling," costigan shrugged. "depends on how things turn out. we lack a lot of being safe ourselves yet.""what's worrying me mostly is our own chance," bradley assented."they will chase us, of course." "sure, and they'll have more speed than wehave. depends on how far away the nearesttriplanetary vessels are. but we've done everything we can do, fornow."
silence fell, and costigan cut in clio'sphone and came over to the seat upon which she was reclining, white and stricken--wornout by the horrible and terrifying ordeals of the last few hours. as he seated himself beside her she blushedvividly, but her deep blue eyes met his gray ones steadily."clio, i ... we ... you ... that is," he flushed hotly and stopped. this secret agent, whose clear, keen brainno physical danger could cloud; who had proved over and over again that he wasnever at a loss in any emergency, however desperate--this quick-witted officer
floundered in embarrassment like anyschoolboy; but continued, doggedly: "i'm afraid that i gave myself away back there,but...." "we gave ourselves away, you mean," shefilled in the pause. "i did my share, but i won't hold you to itif you don't want--but i know that you love me, conway!" "love you!" the man groaned, his face linedand hard, his whole body rigid. "that doesn't half tell it, clio.you don't need to hold me--i'm held for life. there never was a woman who meant anythingto me before, and there never will be
another.you're the only woman that ever existed. it isn't that. can't you see that it's impossible?""of course i can't--it isn't impossible, at all." she released her shields, four hands metand tightly clasped, and her low voice thrilled with feeling as she went on: "youlove me and i love you. that is all that matters." "i wish it were," costigan returnedbitterly, "but you don't know what you'd be letting yourself in for.it's who and what you are and who and what
i am that's griping me. you, clio marsden, curtis marsden'sdaughter. nineteen years old.you think you've been places and done things. you haven't.you haven't seen or done anything--you don't know what it's all about.and whom am i to love a girl like you? a homeless spacehound who hasn't been onany planet three weeks in three years. a hard-boiled egg.a trouble-shooter and a brawler by instinct and training.
a sp ..." he bit off the word and went onquickly: "why, you don't know me at all, and there's a lot of me that you never willknow--that i can't let you know! you'd better lay off me, girl, while youcan. it'll be best for you, believe me." "but i can't, conway, and neither can you,"the girl answered softly, a glorious light in her eyes."it's too late for that. on the ship it was just another of thosethings, but since then we've come really to know each other, and we're sunk. the situation is out of control, and weboth know it--and neither of us would
change it if we could, and you know that,too. i don't know very much, i admit, but i doknow what you thought you'd have to keep from me, and i admire you all the more forit. we all honor the service, conway dearest--it is only you men who have made and are keeping the three planets fit places tolive in--and i know that any one of virgil samms' assistants would have to be a man ina thousand million...." "what makes you think that?" he demandedsharply. "you told me so yourself, indirectly. who else in the three worlds could possiblycall him 'sammy?'
you are hard, of course, but you must beso--and i never did like soft men, anyway. and you brawl in a good cause. you are very much a man, my conway; a real,real man, and i love you! now, if they catch us, all right--we'll dietogether, at least!" she finished, intensely. "you're right, sweetheart, of course," headmitted. "i don't believe that i could really letyou let me go, even though i know you ought to," and their hands locked together evenmore firmly than before. "if we ever get out of this jam i'm goingto kiss you, but this is no time to be
taking off your helmet.in fact, i'm taking too many chances with you in keeping your shields off. snap 'em on again--they ought to be gettingfairly close by this time." hands released and armor again tight,costigan went over to join bradley at the control board. "how are they coming, captain?" he asked."not so good. quite a ways off yet.at least an hour, i'd say, before a cruiser can get within range." "i'll see if i can locate any of thepirates chasing us.
if i do it'll be by accident; this littlespy-ray isn't good for much except close i'm afraid the first warning we'll havewill be when they take hold of us with a tractor or spear us with a needle. probably a beam, though; this is one oftheir emergency lifeboats and they wouldn't want to destroy it unless they have to.also, i imagine that roger wants us alive pretty badly. he has unfinished business with all threeof us, and i can well believe that his 'not particularly pleasant extinction' will beeven less so after the way we rooked him." "i want you to do me a favor, conway."
clio's face was white with horror at thethought of facing again that unspeakable creature of gray."give me a gun or something, please. i don't want him ever to look at me thatway again, to say nothing of what else he might do, while i'm alive.""he won't," costigan assured her, narrow of eye and grim of jaw. he was, as she had said, hard."but you don't want a gun. you might get nervous and use it too soon. i'll take care of you at the last possiblemoment, because if he gets hold of us we won't stand a chance of getting awayagain."
for minutes there was silence, costigansurveying the ether in all directions with his ultra-wave device.suddenly he laughed, and the others stared at him in surprise. "no, i'm not crazy," he told them."this is really funny; it had never occurred to me that the ether-walls of allthese ships make them invisible. i can see them, of course, with this sub-ether spy, but they can't see us! i knew that they should have overtaken usbefore this. i've finally found them. they've passed us, and are now tackingaround, waiting for us to do something so
that they can see us! they're heading right into the fleet--theythink they're safe, of course, but what a surprise they've got coming to them!"but it was not only the pirates who were to be surprised. long before the pirate ship had come withinextreme visibility range of the triplanetary fleet it lost its invisibilityand was starkly outlined upon the lookout plates of the three fugitives. for a few seconds the pirate craft seemedunchanged, then it began to glow redly, with a red that seemed to become darker asit grew stronger.
then the sharp outlines blurred, puffs ofair burst outward, and the metal of the hull became a viscous, fluid-likesomething, flowing away in a long, red streamer into seemingly empty space. costigan turned his ultra-gaze into thatspace and saw that it was actually far from empty. there lay a vast something, formless andindefinite even to his sub-etheral vision; a something into which the viscid stream oftransformed metal plunged. plunged and vanished. powerful interference blanketed his ultra-wave and howled throughout his body; but in
the hope that some parts of his messagemight get through he called samms, and calmly and clearly he narrated everythingthat had just happened. he continued his crisp report, neglectingnot the smallest detail, while their tiny
craft was drawn inexorably toward a redlyimpermeable veil; continued it until their lifeboat, still intact, shot through thatveil and he found himself unable to move. he was conscious, he was breathingnormally, his heart was beating; but not a voluntary muscle would obey his will!
