by Earl
TRAFT suddenly snapped his fingers. “Rocket fuel!” he cried. “Like any other explosive, it can be burned too, in the open, with oxygen—
“Wait!” Shelton’s voice cracked eagerly. “If we could get the ship backed up, with its rear tubes sticking into the cave-mouth—heat and blowing pressure at once! Mark, can you do it?”
Traft had already leaped to the side port, looking the situation over.
“Ticklish!” he admitted wryly. “And I’d need someone in the engine room to keep the fuel lines open.” Hugh Benning came to his feet. “Used to be a fuel man in the spaceways, ten years ago. I’ll keep the engine at peak for you. Myra can watch the dials for me.”
“We’ll have to try it!” Shelton decided. “It’ll have to be done as quickly as possible. They have ships around here some place. They’ll investigate, try to stop us, of course.”
“Strap in!” warned Traft, as Hugh Benning and Myra turned for the engine room. “This is going to be a rough ride!”
CHAPTER XIX
Through the Warp
HIS big paws expert and quick, Traft started the engine. He let it idle hummingly for five minutes, in the meantime staring over the intervening terrain to the cave mouth, planning with narrowed eyes. Then he turned back.
“If I don’t rip the hull off on some sharp boulder,” he said grimly, “we’ll make it.”
Shelton reaped the hazards. No ship had ever before been called upon to traverse such rutted ground.
There was no chance to raise the ship and gently plop it near the cave mouth, in that short distance. It was simply a matter of wheeling over the jagged ground, trusting to luck.
The rear rockets burst out in a deafening roar at the big pilot’s touch. The ship trembled, inched forward, then catapulted ahead. Rocking crazily, the heavy craft bounced over the twisted surface of Iapetus. Muscles strained, Traft kept himself hunched forward within reach of the controls, and touched off the proper blasts.
Like a fiery monster, the ETBI-14 swung in a big arc for the cave mouth, tail end swinging as it neared. Timed neatly, the rear tubes were in line with the cave, only ten yards short. But at the last second, the ship tipped crazily, almost bowling over.
“Side wheel shot!” panted Traft.
A ravening burst of the retarding rockets shoved the ship backward, grinding on its wheelless side. But the rear tubes were almost projecting into the cave.
“Good enough!” shouted Shelton. “Give her half blast, so the ship doesn’t move, from the rear—and keep giving it!”
A hollow rumble at the rear told of long, searing tongues of flame belching into the cave, filling its confined space with terrific heat that would melt the ice, turn the water to hissing steam. The blasting of the rockets would then cram this steam down the corridor.
Shelton’s imagination vividly painted the picture. Billowing clouds of live steam rolling into the alien city, the Torms thrown into a panic. The steam rolling on, filling every corner of their cavern Spaces. Large volumes of heat released, far more heat than the cooling system for the Great Machine could cope with.
He switched on the radio. The roaring crackle of the interfering warp sounded. If that stopped, they were free to dash away from Iapetus.
It seemed they sat there for ages, with the rumbling thunder of the rear rockets filling their ears. Was it futile, after all? Did the aliens have some way of closing off the Great Machine’s compartment?
Suddenly Shelton clutched Traft’s arm. Black ships had arisen over the horizon, part of Lorg’s great fleet maneuvering within the warp. Silently, ominously, they winged close, hovering with their anti-gravity forces. Almost instantly the biting, numbing force of cold-beams gripped them, prying into every nerve with congealing fingers.
Myra’s cry and her brother’s hoarse yell came from below. Shelton began fully to realize how potent such a force could be, in battle, paralyzing gunners, pilots, crews!
“Another couple—seconds!” panted Traft, “and we’re done—for.”
DESPERATELY, cursing through lips he could barely move, the big pilot jammed his knuckles at the controls. The rocket blasts crescendoed as Traft sought to cram more heat and steam into the cave.
The next instant the bedlam of noise changed queerly. Shelton stiffly moved his head nearer the radio speaker. Only a slight, steady hiss came from it!
“The warp’s gone!” he cried, clumsily trying to shake Traft’s shoulder with a hand he could not feel. “Up—the ship—”
His throat seemed filled with liquid air. He slumped back, with dancing spots before his eyes.
Traft responded like a berserk madman, He hunched his powerful shoulders, in defiance of the cold force that had almost paralyzed them to rigidity. Growling, he threw his hands at the rocket studs. They were like amputated stumps. Muscles cracked with strain.
Somehow, through sheer determination, he hammered his wrists down, moved studs. The rocket blast grew to the thunder of take-off power. Bouncing crazily on its wheelless side, the big ship jerked forward.
Traft nudged over other studs, with his elbows. The underjets belched and thrust the ship up into the air. The upward surge was almost enough to snap their necks.
But there was a moment of respite, as the cold beams momentarily lost their range. Traft shoved the acceleration lever over to its last notch. Like a flaming comet, the ETBI-14 hurtled up into the sky of Iapetus, beyond the area that had once been the warp barrier.
They were free!
Shelton, his senses swimming back, realized that, but he also saw that a horde of alien ships were at their tail, rapidly overhauling. Lorg was not going to let his prey escape. The black ships zoomed close, and again the numbing force came into play. Already weakened by it, Shelton knew they could not hold out long.
Traft’s eyes were smoldering thoughtfully.
“Got to get away!” he mumbled “One possibility—richer fuel mixture. Will give six gravities of acceleration. We’ll go unconscious—or worse! Engine might blow up. But aliens couldn’t match that acceleration. Automatic shut-off after five minutes. Want to chance it, Rod?”
Shelton nodded. “Last chance! Go ahead!”
Traft poked at his controls, setting a robot shut-off five minutes ahead. Then he grasped the fuel mixture wheel with the heels of his two palms and groaningly slammed it over from “normal” to-“rich.” With a terrific surge, the ship leaped forward.
Crushing weight, six times normal, came into being for the humans aboard the ETBI-14. Each carried a burden whose equivalent would be a half ton on Earth. Their senses reeled into oblivion. But before he passed out, Shelton saw the alien ships dwindle, as though they were going the other way.
Traft clung to consciousness for a moment longer. There was a triumphant grin on his face, but behind it stark anxiety. Death, whom no acceleration could leave behind, might steal up on one or all of them. Overburdened hearts stopping—engine exploding—hull cracking open—anything might happen during those five minutes while super-forces shoved the ship through space. Then the big pilot plunged into a river of darkness. . . .
SHELTON came to with an infinite ache in every bone. He moaned with sharp pain as he moved his head. But the mountain that had been lying on his chest was gone now. The ship was silent and unpowered. He looked around, meeting Traft’s eyes.
“That did it!” The big pilot’s voice was weak, but jubilant. “No sign of the alien ships!”
Shelton nodded in voiceless relief, looking for himself. The stars shone clearly, with no black hulks blotting them out. Iapetus was visible as a large disk. Already it was maneuvering to grip Neptune’s second moon again, after the temporary halt of the Great Machine’s activity. The Earth people had succeeded in stopping its operation only for the minutes needed for escape. But for that, Shelton was supremely thankful.
Traft groaned suddenly and darted out of his seat.
“My camera!” The super-acceleration had torn it from its clamp and hurled it into the corner.
He picked it up and his face cleared. “Not a scratch!” he said, with almost more relief than he had had for their escape. “Let’s go down—see how the others are.”
Shelton unstrapped himself and managed to stagger down to the engine room, with muscles that threatened to turn to water. Thankfully, he saw that the two down there, though numbed by the experience, were unharmed, though grimy from the engine’s fumes while it had been blasting so furiously.
Hugh Benning looked up dazedly. “We got away?” he asked hopefully.
At Shelton’s nod, Myra gave a cry of joy.
“Thank heaven!” she whispered. “Away from the aliens—from Lorg!” A little later, when they had all recuperated somewhat, Shelton spoke to his companions, his eyes lighting grimly.
“Now that we’re away, we can inform the Empire. The Great Machine on Iapetus must be destroyed! Without it Lorg’s whole diabolic plan falls flat. Time is important. It would take too long to go to Saturn, at least a week. Well radio them. Something must be planned quickly.
“Lorg will have Neptune’s moon transported and be back for the other moon in no more than two weeks. It took a century to conceive and build the Great Machine, but only days for its accomplishments! If Earth waits too long, half the planets will be gone!”
“Direct attack on Iapetus won’t work,” Hugh Benning said heavily. “Lorg wants the Earth forces to attack, against his superior numbers on Iapetus, and be gradually cut down. He’s probably ready to lose ten ships to one.”
“He wouldn’t lose that many,” Traft gloomily observed. “With gravity control, they can outmaneuver our ships in space. And that damned cold force is bound to play hell with pilots and gunners.” He shook his head. “Then on top of it all, the warp protecting Lorg and his underground headquarters so thoroughly!”
Solemnly they looked at one another, baffled by a problem that seemed insoluble.
Shelton’s mind battered against the stalemate. What could be done before Lorg stripped the planets away from the Sun, like peeling a ripe fruit? A queer expression spun in his brain, though it had little meaning at the moment: “The best defense is a good offense.” But suddenly it crystallized into a plan, a daring, breathtaking plan that made the blood race through his veins.
“WHY is it that Lorg made such a desperate try to stop us, if he’s invulnerable?” he demanded,. and answered himself exultantly: “Because we know where Torm, his home world, lies!”
“You mean attack Torm?” cried Benning. “Most Earth ships don’t carry enough fuel to get to Pluto and back, much less Torm.”
“But they can carry more, fill every available inch of cabin space!” snapped Shelton. “And bombs—”
“But what good would that do?” objected Traft. “The Great Machine would still be left. I don’t see—”
“Listen to me!” Shelton went on rapidly. “Lorg has most of the alien forces, in ships, there on Iapetus. In a way, that’s a tactical blunder. If Torm is attacked, he must send help. The warp must be lifted, for ships to leave on that mission. While the warp is lifted, a fleet of our ships, secretly hovering, dart down and land. Then it’s just a matter of storming the underground city!”
“Sounds like it might work!” cried Traft.
“It will work,” Shelton said confidently, “if it is timed right.”
“Providing,” croaked Hugh Benning, “Lorg doesn’t catch on and leave half his fleet at Torm, now that we’ve escaped.”
“That’s up to chance,” admitted Shelton. “And to one more thing I’m banking on—Lorg’s own certainty that he is a mastermind and we are inferior thinkers!” He pushed the pilot toward the cupola. “I’m going to write out what I want to say and you’ll code it, so Lorg’s ears won’t intercept it. Then, while I’m radioing, you scoot the ship in several directions alternately, in case Lorg’s ships are waiting to trace our position by our signals.”
Shelton began writing furiously, composing the most startling message that had ever been winged over the humming ether lines of the Empire. Fleetingly, he thought of the stupefied surprise with which his fellow-men would hear of Iapetus, the motorized satellite, the incredible theft of Pluto, and of the Impossible World of aliens, far out in the void.
CHAPTER XX
At Bay with the Aliens
FOUR hours later, when the portentous message had found its way to Earth, the Earth Union Council gathered for the most momentous conclave in its history, or in all the history of mankind.
Shocked beyond words by what they heard, there was a period of excited, dazed comment. It all seemed inconceivable, fantastic—impossible. Particularly the thought of a dark sun, companion to Sol, out in the void, unsuspected by astronomers. That was the Impossible World!
But they had the evidence of the vanishment of three heavenly bodies, which could not be denied. And Director Beatty, one of the councillors, fiercely declaimed that his young protege, Dr. Rodney Shelton, had one of the soundest minds he had ever known, and that every word he spoke must be true.
Bewildered, the council took up Shelton’s plans, and as an official gesture, passed them in the record time of half an hour. For they knew that in this stupendous crisis everything depended upon the soundness of the reasoning of a keen-minded young scientist; far out in space.
The council moved with unprecedented swiftness. Orders hummed over wires, and the vast, intricate organization of interplanetary affairs burst into feverish activity. Two fleets had to be prepared. But a strict censorship, specified by Shelton himself, kept the news from broadcast channels, so that Lorg’s radio would not hear of it.
One fleet, as planned by Shelton, was composed of any and all commercial ships available, hastily loaded with bombs and reserve fuel. Little more than enough room for skeleton crews was left in the cabins. Private ship companies were conscripted to donate ships to the project. Space crews were picked of the best and most highly trained veterans of the spaceways.
Within three days this fleet soared away from Earth. Though only the leaders knew, it was bound for Tor, on a grave mission. And on the longest trip ever undertaken by man.
The second fleet was Earth’s regularly armed Space Navy, and this was carefully outfitted, stocked and primed for its part in the coming struggle. With it went a hundred of the special ETBI ships, used to transport bio-conditioned colonists. Within these were a thousand men bio-conditioned for a cold, thin-aired world like Iapetus. Director Beatty had heeded Shelton’s first message, three weeks before.
Finally this fleet too winged into space, secretly, bound for Neptune. The climax would come in ten days’ time.
A week later the Space Navy fleet cautiously maneuvered near Neptune, and got in touch with Shelton on low-powered, coded radio signals. Further details of their plan were gone over item by item. The success of the coup depended upon timed, bursting action. Scout ships, drilled with instructions, were sent to a position beyond Pluto’s former orbit, to watch for the return of Iapetus and the aliens.
The bombing fleet arrowing for Torm followed a curving course plotted by Shelton, planned to avoid passing close to Lorg on his return trip. They arrived within the margin of time allotted and stopped to hover beyond sight of Torm. They sent back a brief, long-range signal of their readiness, then waited with cabins darkened, rockets still. The men within were somewhat dazed by the tremendous journey they had undertaken, but were grimly ready for action.
RECEIVING their signal, Shelton breathed a sigh of relief. A miracle had been accomplished already. It was as if the English Armada had sailed to the unknown shores of America, immediately after its discovery by Columbus.
Finally the electrifying signal came from the scout ships that Iapetus was rumbling up to the Solar System. Shelton gave the word, and a coded, long-range signal was sent to the Earth fleet far out near Tor. These ships thundered up to the lone planet of the aliens, swooping low and dropping bombs in their cities.
The best defense is a good offense! Shelton’s plan, carried out on two fro
nts ten billion miles apart, was smashing to its climax.
In the ETBI-14, the four Earth-people awaited developments in an agony of tenseness. Their cabin lights were out. Beyond their ports, they could barely make out the first of the Space Navy fleets, occulting the stars. The Sun was not visible to betray them while they awaited the arrival of the planet stealers. They were in the huge, conical shadow of Neptune that speared far out into space.
Telescopic observers aboard the Navy ships finally reported Iapetus approaching, aiming directly for Neptune’s great, single moon that was left. Lorg’s world-sized tug slowed and maneuvered into position. The two bodies drew closer, Iapetus dwarfed beside the moon. But it had powers that could whisk the larger body from its orbit, as easily as plucking away a marble. These powers came into play, invisibly.
The Earth observers could see the great moon’s orbital speed decrease. Shelton turned his radio to low power.
“Now’s the time!” he said in a bare whisper. “It will take them several hours to reduce the moon’s orbital velocity. Well creep up on the other side of Neptune’s moon and be within striking distance, when the time comes!”
“Aye, sir!” came back from the Navy commander, and the other ships were informed in the same careful way.
Gently, on the lowest of rocket blasts, Shelton’s ship and the fleet followed Neptune’s shadow until they were behind the moon, from Iapetus, then headed for its surface. Reaching this vantage, they crept slowly, cautiously around the Neptunian moon’s bulk. It was a game of stalking and the enemy must not receive premature warning.
Finally they hovered, high enough above the moon’s surface so that gentle underjets counteracted gravity. A slight glow over the horizon told them they were just short of seeing Iapetus—and being seen.
