Spacehounds of IPC

by E. E. Smith

  CHAPTER XII

  The Citadel in Space

  For the first time in many days Brandon and Westfall sat at dinner inthe main dining room of the _Sirius_. They were enjoying greatly theunaccustomed pleasure of a leisurely, formal meal; but still theirtalk concerned the projection of pure forces instead of subjects moreappropriate to the table; still their eyes paid more attention todiagrams drawn upon scraps of paper than to the diners about them.

  "But I tell you, Quince, you're full of little red ants, clear to theneck!" Brandon snorted, as Westfall waved one of his arguments aside."You must have had help to get that far off--no one man could possiblybe as wrong as you are. Why, those fields absolutely will...."

  "Hi, Quincy! Hi, Norman!" a merry voice interrupted. "Still fighting asusual, I see! What kind of knights are you, anyway, to rescue us poordamsels in distress, and then never even know that we're alive?" A tall,willowy brunette had seen the two physicists as she entered the saloon,and came over to their table, a hand outstretched to each in cordialgreeting.

  "Ho, Verna!" both men exclaimed, and came to their feet as they welcomedthe smiling, graceful newcomer.

  "Sit down here, Verna--we have hardly started," Westfall invited, andBrandon looked at the girl in assumed surprise as she seated herself inthe proffered chair.

  "Well, Verna, it's like this...." he began.

  "That's enough!" she broke in. "That phrase always was your introductionto one of the world's greatest brainstorms. But I know that this is thefirst time you have had time even to eat like civilized beings, so I'llforgive you this once. Why all the registering of amazement, Norman?"

  "I'm astonished that you aren't being monopolized by some husband orother. Surely the officers of the _Arcturus_ weren't so dumb that they'dstand for your still being Verna _Pickering_, were they?"

  "Not dumb, Norman, no. Far from it. But I'm still working for myM. R. S. degree, and I haven't succeeded in snaring it yet. You'd besurprised at how cagy those officers got after a few of them had beencaptured. But they are just like any other hunted game, I suppose--theantelopes that survive get pretty wild, you know," she concluded,plaintively.

  "Well, that certainly is one tough break for a poor little girl,"Brandon sympathized. "Quince, our little Nell, here, hasn't been doneright by. I'm bashful and you're a woman-hater, but between us, someway, we've simply got to take steps."

  "You might take longer steps than you think," Verna laughed, herregular, white teeth and vivid coloring emphasized by her olive skinand her startling hair, black as Brandon's own. "Perhaps I would likea scientist better than an I-P officer, anyway. The more I think of it,the surer I am that Nadia Newton had the right idea. I believe thatI'll catch me a physicist, too--either of you would do quite nicely,I think," and she studied the two men carefully.

  Westfall, the methodical and precise, had never been able to defendhimself against Verna Pickering's badinage, but Brandon's ready tonguetook up the challenge.

  "Verna, if you really decided to get any living man he wouldn't stand achance in the world," he declared. "If you've already made up your mindthat I'm your meat, I'll come down like Davy Crockett's coon. But ifeither of us will do, that'll give us each a fifty-fifty chance toescape your toils. What say we play a game of freeze-out to decide it?"

  "Fine, Norman! When shall we play?"

  "Oh, between Wednesday and Thursday, any week you say," and the twofenced on, banteringly but skilfully, with Westfall an appreciative andunembarrassed listener.

  Dinner over, Brandon and Westfall went back to the control room, wherethey found Stevens already seated at one of the master screens.

  "All x, Perce?"

  "All x. The observers report no registrations during the last twowatches," and the three fell into discussion. Long they talked, studyingevery angle of the situation confronting them; until suddenly a speakerrattled furiously and an enormous, staring eye filled both masterplates. Brandon's hand flashed to a switch, but the image disappearedeven before he could establish the full-coverage ray screen.

  "I'm on the upper band--take the lower!" he snapped, but Stevens'projector was already in action. Trained minds all, they knew that someintelligence had traced them, and all realized that it was of the utmostimportance to know what and where that intelligence was. Stevens foundthe probing frequency in his range and they flashed their own beam alongit, encountering finally one of the monstrous Vorkulian fortresses, farfrom Jupiter and almost directly between them and the planet! Its wallscreens were in operation, and no frequency at their command couldpenetrate that neutralizing blanket of vibrations.

  "What kind of an eye was that--ever see anything like it, Perce?"Brandon demanded.

  "I don't think so, though of course we got only an awfully short flashof it. It didn't look like the periscopic eyes that those flying snakeshad--looked more like a hexan eye, don't you think? Couldn't very wellbe hexan, though, in that kind of a ship."

  "Don't think so, either. Maybe it's a purely mechanical affair that theyuse for observing. Anyway, old sons, I don't like the looks of things atall. Quince, you're the brains of this outfit--shift the massive oldintellect into high and tell us what to do."

  Westfall, staring into the eyepiece of the filar micrometer, finishedmeasuring the apparent size of the heptagon before he turned towardStevens and Brandon.

  "It is hard to decide upon a course of action, since anything that wedo may prove to be wrong," he said, slowly. "However, I do not see thatthis latest development can operate to change the plan we have alreadyadopted; that of running away, straight out from the sun. We may haveto increase our acceleration to the highest value the women and babiescan stand. A series of observations of our pursuer will, of course, benecessary to decide that point. It would be useless to go to Titan,for they would be powerless to help us. We could not hold their mirrorupon either the _Sirius_ or their torpedoes against such forces as thatfortress has at her command. Then, too, we might well be bringing downupon them an enemy who would destroy much of their world before he couldbe stopped. Both Uranus and Neptune are approximately upon our presentcourse. Do the Titanians know anything of either of them, Steve?"

  "Not a thing," the computer replied. "They can't get nearly as far asUranus on their power beam--it's all they can do to make Jupiter. Theyseem to think, though, that one or more of the satellites of Uranus orNeptune may be inhabited by beings similar to themselves, only perhapseven more so. But considering the difference between what we found onthe Jovian satellites and on Titan, I'd say that anything might be outthere--on Uranus, Neptune, their satellites, or anywhere else."

  "Cancel Uranus, and double that for Neptune," Brandon commanded."Realize how far away they are?"

  "That's right, too," agreed Stevens. "Before we got there, with anyacceleration we can use now, this whole mess will be cleaned up, one wayor the other."

  * * * * *

  Westfall completed the series of observations and calculated hisresults. Then, with a grave face, he went to consult the medicalofficers. The women, children, and the two Martian scientists were sentto the sick-bay and the acceleration was raised slowly to twenty metersper second per second, above which point the physicians declared theyshould not go unless it became absolutely necessary. Then the scientistsmet again--met without Alcantro and Fedanzo, who lay helpless uponnarrow hospital bunks, unable even to lift their massive arms.

  While Westfall made another series of precise measurements of thesuper-dreadnought of space so earnestly pursuing them, Brandon stumbledheavily about the room, hands jammed deep into pockets, eyes unseeingemitting clouds of smoke from his villainously reeking pipe. TheVenetians, lacking Brandon's physical strength and by nature quieter ofdisposition, sat motionless; keen minds hard at work. Stevens sat at thecalculating machine, absently setting up and knocking down weird andmeaningless integrals, while he also concentrated upon the problembefore them.

  "They are still gaining, but comparatively slowly," Westfall finallyrep
orted. "They seem to be...."

  "In that case we may be all x," Brandon interrupted, brandishing hispipe vigorously. "We know that they're on a beam--apparently we're theonly ones hereabouts having cosmic power. If we can keep away from themuntil their beam attenuates, we can whittle 'em down to our size andthen take them, no matter how much accumulator capacity they've got."

  "But can we keep away from them that long?" asked Dol Kenor, pointedly;and his fellow Venerian also had a question to propound:

  "Would it not be preferable to lead them in a wide circle, back to arendezvous with the Space Fleet, which will probably be ready by thetime of meeting?"

  "I am afraid that that would be useless," Westfall frowned in thought."Given power, that fortress could destroy the entire Fleet almost aseasily as she could wipe out the _Sirius_ alone."

  "Kenor's right." Stevens spoke up from the calculator. "You're gettingtoo far ahead of the situation. We aren't apt to keep ahead of them longenough to do much leading anywhere. The Titanians can hold a beamtogether from Saturn to Jupiter--why can't these snake-folks?"

  "Several reasons," Brandon argued stubbornly. "First place, look at themass of that thing, and remember that the heavier the beam the harderit is to hold it together. Second, there's no evidence that they wanderaround much in space. If their beams are designed principally for travelupon Jupiter, why should they have any extraordinary range? I say theycan't hold that beam forever. We've got a good long lead, and in spiteof their higher acceleration, I think we'll be able to keep out of rangeof their heavy stuff. If so, we'll trace a circle--only one a good dealbigger than the one Amonar suggested--and meet the fleet at a pointwhere that enemy ship will be about out of power."

  Thus for hours the scientists argued, agreeing upon nothing, whilethe Vorkulian fortress crept ever closer. At the end of three days ofthe mad flight, the pursuing space ship was in plain sight, coveringhundreds of divisions of the micrometer screens. But now the size ofthe images was increasing with extreme slowness, and the scientistsof the _Sirius_ watched with strained attention the edges of thoseglowing green pictures. Finally, when the pictured edges were aboutto cease moving across the finely-ruled lines, Brandon cut down hisown acceleration a trifle, and kept on decreasing it at such a ratethat the heptagon still crept up, foot by foot.

  "Hey what's the big idea?" Stevens demanded.

  "Coax 'em along. If we run away from them they'll probably reverse powerand go back home, won't they? Their beam is falling apart fast, butthey're still getting so much stuff along it that we couldn't do a thingto stop them. If they think that we're losing power even faster thanthey are, though, they'll keep after us until their beam's so thin thatthey'll just be able to stop on it. Then they'll reverse or else go ontotheir accumulators--reverse, probably, since they'll be a long ways fromhome by that time. We'll reverse, too, and keep just out of range. Then,when we both have stopped and are about to start back, their beam willbe at its minimum and we'll go to work on 'em--foot, horse, and marines.Nobody can run us as ragged as they've been doing and get away with itas long as I'm conscious and stand a chance in the world of hanging oneonto their chins in retaliation. I've got a hunch. If it works, we cantake those birds alone, and take 'em so they'll _stay_ took. We might aswell break up--this is going to be an ordinary job of piloting for a fewdays, I think. I'm going up and work with the Martians on that hunch.You fellows work out any ideas you want to. Watch 'em close, Mac. Keepkidding 'em along, but don't let them get close enough to puncture us."

  * * * * *

  Everything worked out practically as Brandon had foretold, and a fewdays later, their acceleration somewhat less than terrestrial gravity,he called another meeting in the control room. He came in grinning fromear to ear, accompanied by the two Martians, and seated himself at hiscomplex power panel.

  "Now watch the professor closely, gentlemen," he invited. "He is goingto cut that beam."

  "But you can't," protested Pyraz Amonar.

  "I know you can't, ordinarily, when a beam is tight and solid. Butthat beam's as loose as ashes right now. I told you I had a hunch, andAlcantro and Fedanzo worked out the right answer for me. If I can cutit, Quince, and if their screens go down for a minute, shoot yourvisiray into them and see what you can see."

  "All x. How much power are you going to draw?"

  "Plenty--it figures a little better than four hundred thousandkilofranks. I'll draw it all from the accumulators, so as not todisturb you fellows on the cosmic intake. We don't care if we do run thebatteries down some, but I don't want to hold that load on the bus-barsvery long. However, if my hunch is right, I won't be on that beam fiveminutes before it's cut from Jupiter--and I'll bet you four dollars thatyou won't see the original crew in that fort when you get into it."

  He set upper and lower bands of dirigible projectors to apply apowerful sidewise thrust, and the _Sirius_ darted off her course.Flashing a minute pencil behind the huge heptagon, Brandon manipulatedhis tuning circuits until a brilliant spot in space showed him that hewas approaching resonance with the heptagon's power beam. Micrometerdials were then engaged and the delicate tuning continued until themeters gave evidence that the two beams were precisely synchronized andexactly opposite in phase. Four plunger switches closed, that tiny pilotray became an enormous rod of force, and as those two gigantic beams metin exact opposition and neutralized each other, a solid wall of blindingbrilliance appeared in the empty ether behind the Vorkulian fortress. Asthat dazzling wall sprang into being, the sparkling green protectiondied from the walls of the heptagon.

  "Go to it, Quince!" Brandon yelled, but the suggestion was entirelysuperfluous. Even before the wall-screen had died, Westfall's beam wastrying to get through it, and when the visiray revealed the interior ofthe heptagon, the quiet and methodical physicist was shaken from hishabitual calm.

  "Why, they aren't the winged monsters at all--they're _hexans_!"he exclaimed.

  "Sure they are." Brandon did not even turn his heavily-goggled eyesfrom the blazing blankness of his own screen. "That was my hunch. Thosesnakes went about things in a business-like fashion. They didn't strikeme as being folks who would pull off such a wild stunt as trying tochase us clear out of the solar system, but a gang of hexans would dojust that. Some of them must have captured that ship and, already havingit in their cock-eyed brains that we were back of what happened onCallisto, they decided to bump us off if it was the last thing they everdid. That's what I'd do myself, if I were a hexan. Now I'll tell youwhat's happening back at the home power plant of that ship and what'sgoing to happen next. I'm kicking up a horrible row out there with myinterference, and a lot of instruments at the other end of that beammust be cutting up all kinds of didoes, right now. They'll check up onthat ship with the expedition, by radio and what-not, and when they findout that it's clear out here--chop! Didn't get to see much, did you?"

  "No, they must have switched over to their accumulators almostinstantly."

  "Yeah, but if they've got accumulator capacity enough to hold off ourentire cosmic intake and get back to Jupiter besides, I'm a polyp! We'regoing to take that ship, fellows, and learn a lot of stuff we neverdreamed of before. Ha! There goes his beam--pay me the four, Quince."

  The dazzling wall of incandescence had blinked out without warning, andBrandon's beam bored on through space, unimpeded. He shut it off andturned to his fellows with a grin--a grin which disappeared instantlyas a thought struck him and he leaped back to his board.

  "Sound the high-acceleration warning quick, Perce!" he snapped, anddrove in switch after switch.

  "Cosmic intake's gone down to zero!" exclaimed MacDonald, as the_Sirius_ leaped away.

  "Had to cut it--they might shoot a jolt through that band. Just thoughtof something. Maybe unnecessary, but no harm done if ... it's necessary,all x--we're taking a sweet kissing right now. You see, even thoughwe're at pretty long range, they've got some horrible projectors, andthey were evidently mad enough to waste some power taking a good,
solidflash at us--and if we hadn't been expecting it, that flash would havebeen a bountiful sufficiency, believe me--Great Cat! Look at thatmeter--and I've had to throw in number ten shunt! The outer screen isdrawing five hundred and forty thousand!"

  * * * * *

  They stared at the meter in amazement. It was incredible, even afterthey had seen those heptagons in action, that at such extreme rangeany offensive beam could be driven with such unthinkable power--powerrequiring for its neutralization almost the full output of theprodigious batteries of accumulators carried by the _Sirius_! Yet forfive, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes that beam drove furiously againsttheir straining screens, and even Brandon's face grew tense and hardas that frightful attack continued. At the end of twenty-two minutes,however, the pointer of the meter snapped back to the pin and everyman there breathed an explosive sigh of relief--the almost unbearablebombardment was over; the screen was drawing only its maintenance load.

  "Wow!" Brandon shouted. "I thought for a minute they were going to hangto us until we cracked, even if it meant that they'd have to freeze todeath out here themselves!"

  "It would have meant that, too, don't you think?" asked Stevens.

  "I imagine so--don't see how they could possibly have enough power leftto get back to Jupiter if they shine that thing on us much longer. Ofcourse, the more power they waste on us, the quicker we can take them;but I don't want much more of that beam, I'll tell the world--I justabout had heart failure before they cut off!"

  The massive heptagon was now drifting back toward Jupiter at constantvelocity. The hexans were apparently hoarding jealously their remainingpower, for their wall screens did not flash on at the touch of thevisiray. Through unresisting metal the probing Terrestrial beams sped,and the scientists studied minutely every detail of the Vorkulianarmament; while the regular observers began to make a detailedphotographic survey of every room and compartment of the great fortress.Much of the instrumentation and machinery was familiar, but some of itwas so strange that study was useless--days of personal inspection andexperiment, perhaps complete dismantling, would be necessary to revealthe secrets hidden within those peculiar mechanisms.

  "They're trying to save all the power they can--think I'll make themspend some more," Brandon remarked, and directed against the heptagon aheavy destructive beam. "We don't want them to get back to Jupiter untilafter we've boarded them and found out everything we want to know. Comehere, Quince--what do you make of this?"

  Both men stared at the heptagon, frankly puzzled; for the screens of thestrange vessel did not radiate, nor did the material of the walls yieldunder the terrible force of the beam. The destructive ray simply struckthat dull green surface and vanished--disappeared without a trace, as atiny stream of water disappears into a partially-soaked sponge.

  "Do you know what you are doing?" asked Westfall, after a few minutes'thought. "I believe that you are charging their accumulators at the rateof," he glanced at a meter, "exactly thirty-one thousand five hundredkilofranks."

  "Great Cat!" Brandon's hand flashed to a switch and the beam expired."But they can't just simply grab it and store it, Quince--it'simpossible!"

  "The word 'impossible' in that connection, coming from you, has a queersound," Westfall said pointedly and Brandon actually blushed.

  "That's right, too--we have got pretty much the same idea in our cosmicintake fields, but we didn't carry things half as far as they have done.Huh! They're flashing us again ... but those thin little beams don'tmean anything. They're just trying to make us feed them some more, Iguess. But we've got to hold them back some way--wonder if they canabsorb a tractor field?"

  The hexans had lashed out a few times with their lighter weapons,but, finding the _Sirius_ unresponsive, had soon shut them off and werestolidly plunging along toward Jupiter. Brandon flung out a tractor rodand threw the mass of his cruiser upon it as it locked into those sullengreen walls. But as soon as the enemy felt its drag, their screensflared white, and the massive Terrestrial space-ship quivered in everymember as that terrific cable of force was snapped.

  "They apparently cannot store up the energy of a tractor," commentedWestfall, "but you will observe that they have no difficulty inradiating when they care to."

  "Those two ideas didn't pan out so heavy. There's lots of things nottried yet, though. Our next best bet is to get around in front of himand push back. If they wiggle away from more than fifty percent of apressor, they're really good."

  The pilot maneuvered the _Sirius_ into line, directly between Jupiterand the pentagon; and as the driving projectors went into action,Brandon drove a mighty pressor field along their axis, squarely into thecenter of mass of the Vorkulian fortress. For a moment it held solidly,then, as the screens of the enemy went into action, it rebounded andglanced off in sparkling, cascading torrents. But the hexans, with alltheir twisting and turning, could not present to that prodigious beam offorce any angle sufficiently obtuse to rob it of half its power, and thedriving projectors of the pentagon again burst into activity as thebackward-pushing mass of the _Sirius_ made itself felt. In a short time,however, the wall-screens were again cut off--apparently more power wasrequired to drive them than they were able to deflect.

  Although even the enormous tonnage of the Terrestrial cruiser wasinsignificant in comparison with the veritable mountain of metal towhich she was opposed, so that the fiercest thrust of her drivingprojectors did not greatly affect the monster's progress; yet Brandonand his cohorts were well content.

  "It's a long trip back to where they came from, and since they wantedto drift all the way, I think they'll be out of power before they getthere," Brandon summed up the situation. "We aren't losing any power,either, since we are using only a part of our cosmic intake."

  In a few hours the struggle had settled down to a routine matter--the_Sirius_ being pushed backward steadily against the full drive of herevery projector, contesting stubbornly every mile of space traversed.Assured that the regular pilots and lookouts were fully capableof handling the vessel, the scientists were about to resume theirinterrupted tasks when one of the photographers called them over to lookat something he had discovered in one of the lowermost and smallestcompartments of the heptagon. All crowded around the screens, and sawpictured there the winged, snake-like form of one of the original crewof the Vorkulian vessel!

  "Dead?" Brandon asked.

  "Not yet," replied the photographer. "He is twitching a little once ina while, but you see, he's pretty badly cut up."

  "I see he is ... he must have a lot of vitality to have lasted thislong--may be he'll live through it yet. Hold him on the plate, and gethis exact measurements." He turned to the communicator. "Doctor vonSteiffel? Can you come down to the control room a minute? We may wantyou to operate upon one of these South Jovians after a while."

  "_Himmel! Es ... ist ... der...._" The great surgeon, bearded andmassive, stared into the plate, and in his surprise started to speakin his native German. He paused, his long, powerful fingers tracing thelikeness of the Vorkul upon the plate, then went on: "I would like verymuch to operate, but, not understanding our intentions, he would, ofcourse, struggle. And when that body struggles--_schrecklichkeit_!" andhe waved his arms in a pantomime of wholesale destruction.

  "I thought of that--that's why I am talking to you now instead of whenwe get to him, two or three days from now. We'll give you his exactmeasurements, and a crew of mechanics will, under your direction, sinkholes in the steel floor and install steel bands heavy enough to holdhim rigid, from tailfins to wing-tips. We'll hold him there until we canmake him understand that we're friends. It is of the utmost importanceto save that creature's life if possible; because we do not want one oftheir fortresses launched against us--and in any event, it will not dous any harm to have a friend in the City of the South."

  "Right. I will also have prepared some kind of a space-suit in whichhe can be brought from his vessel to ours," and the surgeon took themeasurements and went to see that the "operatin
g table" and suit weremade ready for Kromodeor, the sorely wounded Vorkul.

  * * * * *

  It was not long until the projectors of the heptagon went out andshe lay inert in space, power completely exhausted. Knowing that thescreens of the enemy would absorb any ordinary ray, the scientists hadcalculated the most condensed beam they could possibly project, a beamwhich, their figures showed, should be able to puncture those screens bysheer mass action--puncture them practically instantaneously, before theabsorbers could react. To that end they had arranged their circuits tohurl seven hundred sixty-five thousand kilofranks--the entire power oftheir massed accumulators and their highest possible cosmic intake--inone tiny bar of superlative density, less than one meter in diameter!Everything ready, Brandon shot in prodigious switches that launched thatbolt--a bolt so vehement, so inconceivably intense, that it seemedfairly to blast the very ether out of existence as it tore its way alongits carefully predetermined line. The intention was to destroy all thecontrol panels of the absorber screens; parts so vital that without themthe great vessel would be helpless, and yet items which the Terrestrialscould reconstruct quite readily from their photographs and drawings.

  As that irresistible bolt touched the Vorkulian wall-screen, the spotof contact flared instantaneously through the spectrum and into theblack beyond the violet as that screen overloaded locally. Fast as itresponded and highly conductive though it was, it could not handle thatfrightfully concentrated load. In the same fleeting instant of timeevery molecule of substance in that beam's path flashed into tenuousvapor--no conceivable material could resist or impede that stabbingstiletto of energy--and the main control panel of the Vorkulianwall-screen system vanished. Time after time, as rapidly as he couldsight his beam and operate his switches, Brandon drove his needle ofannihilation through the fortress, destroying the secondary controls.Then, the walls unresisting, he cut in the vastly larger, but infinitelyless powerful, I-P ray, and with it systematically riddled the immenseheptagon. Out through the gaping holes in the outer walls rushed thedense atmosphere of Jupiter, and the hexans in their massed hundredsdied.

  The _Sirius_ was brought up beside the heptagon, so that her mainair-lock was against one of the yawning holes in the green metal wallof the enemy. There she was anchored by tractor beams, and the twohundred picked men of the I-P police, in full space equipment, preparedto board the gigantic fortress of the void. Brandon sat tense at hiscontrols, ready to send his beam ahead of the troopers against anyhexans that might survive in some as yet unpunctured compartment.General Crowninshield sat beside the physicist at an auxiliary board,phones at ears and four infra-red visiray plates ranged in front of him;ready through light or darkness to direct and oversee the attack, nomatter where it might lead or how widely separated the platoons mightbecome before the citadel was taken.

  The space-line men--the engineers of weightless combat--led the van,protected by the projectors of their fellows. Theirs the task to set upways of rope, along which the others could advance. Power drills bitsavagely into metal, making holes to receive the expanding eyebolts;grappling hooks seized fast every protuberance and corner; points oflittle stress were supported by powerful suction cups; and at intervalswere strung beam-fed lanterns, illuminating brilliantly the line ofmarch. Through compartments and down corridors they went, bridging themany gaps in the metal through which Brandon's beams had blasted theirway; guided by Crowninshield along the shortest feasible path toward thelittle projector room in which Kromodeor, the wounded Vorkul, lay. Therewere so many chambers and compartments in the heptagon that it had, ofcourse, been impossible to puncture them all, and in some of the tightrooms were groups of hexans, anxious to do battle. But the general's eyeled his men, and if such a room lay before them, Brandon's frightfulbeam entered it first--and where that beam entered, life departed.

  But the hexans were really intelligent, as has been said. They had hadtime to prepare for what they knew awaited them, and they were renderedutterly desperate by the knowledge that, no matter what might happen,their course was run. Their power was gone, and even if the presentenemy should be driven off, they would float idly in space until theydied of cold; or, more probably, hurtling toward Jupiter as they were,they would plunge to certain death upon its surface as soon as they camewithin its powerful gravitational field. Therefore some fifty of thecreatures, who had had space experience in their spherical vessels,had spent the preceding days in manufacturing space equipment. Let theweight-fiends plan upon detonating magazines of explosives, upon layingmines calculated to destroy the invaders, even the vessel itself andall within it. Let them plan upon any other such idle schemes, whichwere certain to be foreseen and guarded against by the space-hardenedveterans who undoubtedly moaned that all-powerful and vengeful footballof scarred gray metal. Space-fighters were they, and as space-fighterswould they die; taking with them to their own inevitable death a fullquota of the enemy.

  * * * * *

  Thus it came about that the head of the column of police had scarcelypassed a certain door, when in the room behind it there began toassemble the half-hundred spacehounds of the hexans. When the vanguardhad approached that room, Crowninshield had inspected it thoroughly withhis infra-red beams. He had found it punctured and airless, devoid oflife or of lethal devices, and had passed on. But now the space-suitedwarriors of the horde, guided in their hiding by their own visirays,were massing there. When the center of the I-P column reached that door,it burst open. There boiled out into the corridor, into the very midstof the police, fifty demoniacal hexans, fighting with Berserk fury,ruled by but one impulse--to kill.

  Hand-weapons flashed viciously, tearing at steel armor and at bulgingspace-suits. Space-hooks bit and tore. Pikes and lances were driven withthe full power of brawny arms. Here and there could be seen trooper andhexan, locked together in fierce embrace far from any hand-line--sixlimbs against four, all ten plied with abandon in mortal, hand-to-hand,foot-to-foot combat.

  "Give way!" yelled Crowninshield into the ears of his men. "Epstein,back! LeFevre, advance! Get out of block ten--give us a chance to usea beam!"

  As the police fell back out of the designated section of the corridor,Brandon's beam tore through it, filling it from floor to ceiling witha volume of intolerable energy. In that energy walls, doorway, andspace-lines, as well as most of the hexans, vanished utterly. But thebeam could not be used again. Every surviving enemy had hurled himselffrantically into the thickest ranks of the police and the battle ragedfiercer than ever. It did not last long. The ends of the column hadalready closed in. The police filled the corridor and overflowed intothe yawning chasm cut by the annihilating ray. Outnumbered, surroundedupon all sides, above, and below by the Terrestrials, the hexans foughtwith mad desperation to the last man--and to the last man died. And eventhough in lieu of their own highly efficient space-armor they had foughtin weak, crude, and hastily improvised space-suits, which were pitifullyinferior to the ray resistant, heavy steel armor of the I-P forces,nevertheless the enormous strength and utter savagery of the hexans hadtaken toll; and when the advance was resumed, it was with extra lookoutsscanning the entire neighborhood of the line of march.

  Since the troops had entered the fortress as close to their goal aspossible, it was not long until the leading platoon reached the doorbehind which Kromodeor lay. Tools and cylinders of air were brought up,and the engineers quickly fitted pressure bulkheads across the corridor.There was a screaming hiss from the valves, the atmosphere in thatwalled-off space became dense, and mechanics attacked with their powerdrills the door of the projector room. It opened, and four huskyorderlies rapidly but gently encased the long body of the Vorkul in thespace-suit built especially to receive it. As that monstrous form inits weirdly bulging envelope was guided through the air-locks into the_Sirius_, Crowninshield barked orders into his transmitter and thepolice reformed. They would now systematically scour the fortress, towipe out any hexans that might still be in hiding; to discover
anddestroy any possible traps or infernal machines which the enemy mighthave planted for their undoing.

  Assured that the real danger to the _Sirius_ was over and that hispresence was no longer necessary, Brandon turned his controls over to anassistant and went up to the Venerian rooms, where von Steiffel and hisstaff were to operate upon the Vorkul. There, in the dense, hot air, butlittle different now from the atmosphere of Jupiter, Kromodeor lay;bolted down to the solid steel of the floor by means of padded steelstraps. So heavy were the bands that he could not possibly break evenone of them; so closely were they spaced that he could scarcely havemoved a muscle had he tried. But he did not try--so near death was hethat his mighty muscles did not even quiver at the trenchant bite of thesurgeon's tools. Von Steiffel and his aides, meticulously covered withsterile gowns, hoods, and gloves, worked in most rigidly aseptic style;deftly and rapidly closing the ghastly wounds inflicted by the weaponsof the hexans.

  "Hi, Brandon," the surgeon grunted as he straightened up, the workcompleted. "I did not use much antiseptic on him. Because of possibledifferences in blood chemistry and in ignorance of his native bacteria,I depended almost wholly upon asepsis and his natural resistance. It isa good thing that we did not have to use an anaesthetic. He is in badshape, but if we can feed him successfully, he may pull through."

  "Feed him? I never thought of that. What d'you suppose he eats?"

  "I have an idea that it is something highly concentrated, from hisanatomy. I shall try giving him sugar, milk chocolate, something ofthe kind. First I shall try maple syrup. Being a liquid, it is easilyadministered, and its penetrating odor also may be a help."

  * * * * *

  A can of the liquid was brought in and to the amazement of theTerrestrials, the long, delicate antennae of the Vorkul began to twitchas soon as the can was opened. Motioning hastily for silence, vonSteiffel filled a bowl and placed it upon the floor beneath Kromodeor'sgrotesque nose. The twitching increased, until finally one dull, glazedeye brightened somewhat and curled slowly out upon its slender pedicle,toward the dish. His mouth opened sluggishly and a long, red tonguereached out, but as his perceptions quickened, he became conscious ofthe strangers near him. The mouth snapped shut, the eye retracted, andheaving, rippling surges traversed that powerful body as he struggledmadly against the unbreakable shackles of steel binding him to the floor.

  "_Ach, kindlein_!" The surgeon bent anxiously over that grotesque butfrightened head; soothing, polysyllabic German crooning from his beardedlips.

  "Here, let's try this--I'm good on it," Stevens suggested, bringing upthe Callistonian thought exchanger. All three men donned headsets, andsent wave after wave of friendly and soothing thoughts toward thatfrantic and terrified brain.

  "He's got his brain shut up like a clam!" Brandon snorted. "Open up,guy--we aren't going to hurt you! We're the best friends you've got,if you only knew it!"

  "Himmel, und he iss himself killing!" moaned von Steiffel.

  "One more chance that might work," and Brandon stepped over to thecommunicator, demanding that Verna Pickering be brought at once. Shecame in as soon as the air-locks would permit, and the physicistwelcomed her eagerly.

  "This fellow's fighting so he's tearing himself to pieces. We can't makehim receive a thought, and von Steiffel's afraid to use an anaesthetic.Now it's barely possible that he may understand hexan. I thought youwasted time learning any of it, but maybe you didn't--see if you canmake him understand that we're friends."

  The girl flinched and shrank back involuntarily, but forced herself toapproach that awful head. Bending over, she repeated over and over oneharsh, barking syllable. The effect of that word was magical. InstantlyKromodeor ceased struggling, an eye curled out, and that long, suppletongue flashed down and into the syrup. Not until the last sticky tracehad been licked from the bowl did his attention wander from the food.Then the eye, sparkling brightly now, was raised toward the girl.Simultaneously four other eyes arose, one directed at each of the menand the other surveying his bonds and the room in which he was. Then theVorkul spoke, but his whistling, hissing manner of speech so garbledthe barking sounds of the hexan words he was attempting to utter, thatVerna's slight knowledge of the language was of no use. She thereforeput on one of the headsets, motioning the men to do the same, andapproached Kromodeor with the other, repeating the hexan word offriendly import. This time the Vorkul's brain was not sealed againstthe visitors and thoughts began to flow.

  "You've used those things a lot," Brandon turned to Stevens in a quickaside. "Can you hide your thoughts?"

  "Sure--why?"

  "All I can think of is that power system of theirs, and he'd know whatwe were going to do, sure. And I'd better be getting at it anyway. Soyou can wipe that off your mind with a clear conscience--the rest of uswill get everything they've got there. Your job's to get everything youcan out of this bird's brain. All x?"

  "All x."

  "Why, you didn't put yours on!" Verna exclaimed.

  "No, I don't think I'll have time. If I get started talking to him now,I'd be here from now on, and I've got a lot of work to do. Steve cantalk to him for me--see you later," and Brandon was gone.

  He went directly to the Vorkulian fortress, bare now of hexan life anddevoid of hexan snares and traps. There he and his fellows labored dayafter day learning every secret of every item of armament and equipmentaboard the heptagon.

  "Did you finish up today, Norm?" asked Stevens one evening. "Kromodeor'scoming to life fast. He's able to wiggle around a little now, and isinsisting that we take off the one chain we keep on him and let him usea plate, to call his people."

  "All washed up. Guess I'll go in and talk to him--you all say he's suchan egg. With this stuff off my mind I can hide it well enough. By theway, what does he eat?" And the two friends set out for the Venerianrooms.

  "Anything that's sweet, apparently, with just enough milk to furnish alittle protein. Won't eat meat or vegetables at all--von Steiffel saysthey haven't got much of a digestive tract, and I know that they haven'tgot any teeth. He's already eaten most all the syrup we had on board,all of the milk chocolate, and a lot of the sugar. But none of us canget any kind of a raise out of him at all--not even Nadia, when she fedhim a whole box of chocolates."

  "No, I mean what does he eat when he's home?"

  "It seems to be a sort of syrup, made from the juices of jungle plants,which they drag in on automatic conveyors and process on automaticmachinery. But he's a funny mutt--hard to get. Some of his thoughts arelucid enough, but others we can't make out at all--they are so foreignto all human nature that they simply do not register as thoughts at all.One funny thing, he isn't the least bit curious about anything. Hedoesn't want to examine anything, doesn't ask us any questions, andwon't tell us anything about anything, so that all we know about him wefound out purely by accident. For instance, they like games and sports,and seem to have families. They also have love, liking, and respect forothers of their own race--but they seem to have no emotions whatever foroutsiders. They're utterly inhuman--I can't describe it--you'll have toget it for yourself."

  "Did you find out about the Callistonians who went to see them?"

  "Negatively, yes. They never arrived. They probably couldn't see in thefog and must have missed the city. If they tried to land in that jungle,it was just too bad!"

  "That would account for everything. So they're strictly neutral, eh?Well, I'll tell him 'hi,' anyway." Now in the sickroom, Brandon pickedup the headset and sent out a wave of cheery greeting.

  To his amazement, the mind of the Vorkul was utterly unresponsiveto his thoughts. Not disdainful, not inimical; not appreciative, norfriendly--simply indifferent to a degree unknown and incomprehensible toany human mind. He sent Brandon only one message, which came clear andcoldly emotionless.

  "I do not want to talk to you. Tell the hairy doctor that I am nowstrong enough to be allowed to go to the communicator screen. That isall." The Vorkul's mind again became an oblivious maze of un
intelligiblethoughts. Not deliberately were Kromodeor's thoughts hidden; he wasconstitutionally unable to interest himself in the thoughts or things ofany alien intelligence.

  "Well, that for that." A puzzled, thoughtful look came over Brandon'sface as he called von Steiffel. "A queer duck, if there ever was one.However, their ship will never bother us, that's one good thing; andI think we've got about everything of theirs that we want, anyway."

  The surgeon, after a careful examination of his patient, unlocked theheavy collar with which he had been restraining the over-anxious Vorkul,and supported him lightly at the communicator panel. As surely as thoughhe had used those controls for years Kromodeor shot the visiray beam outinto space. One hand upon each of the several dials and one eye uponeach meter, it was a matter only of seconds for him to get in touch withVorkulia. To the Terrestrials the screen was a gray and foggy blank; butthe manifest excitement shrieking and whistling from the speaker inresponse to Kromodeor's signals made it plain that his message was beingreceived with enthusiasm.

  "They are coming," the Vorkul thought, and lay back, exhausted.

  "Just as well that they're comin' out here, at that," Brandon commented."We couldn't begin to handle that structure anywhere near Jupiter--infact, we wouldn't want to get very close ourselves, with passengersaboard."

  Such was the power of the Vorkulian vessels that in less than twentyhours another heptagon slowed to a halt beside the _Sirius_ and two ofits crew were wafted aboard.

  They were ushered into the Venerian room, where they talked briefly withtheir wounded fellow before they dressed him in a space-suit, whichthey filled with air to their own pressure. Then all three were liftedlightly into the air, and without a word or a sign were borne throughthe air-locks of the vessel, and into an opening in the wall of therescuing heptagon. A green tractor beam reached out, seizing thederelict, and both structures darted away at such a pace that in a fewminutes they had disappeared in the black depths of space.

  "Well--that, as I may have remarked before, is indisputably andconclusively that." Brandon broke the surprised, almost stunned, silencethat followed the unceremonious departure of the visitors. "I don't knowwhether to feel relieved at the knowledge that they won't bother us, orwhether to get mad because they won't have anything to do with us."

  He sent the "All x" signal to the pilot and the _Sirius_, once more atthe acceleration of Terrestrial gravity, again bored on through space.