CHAPTER X
The Walls of Hell
The traitors were, it seemed, a degenerate gang of Americans, located afew miles north of Nu-yok on the wooded banks of the Hudson, theSinsings. They had exchanged scraps of information to the Hans in returnfor several old repellor-ray machines, and the privilege of tuning in onthe Han electronic power broadcast for their operation, provided theirships agreed to subject themselves to the orders of the Han trafficoffice, while aloft.
The rest wanted to ultrophone their news at once, since there was alwaysdanger that we might never get back to the gang with it.
I objected, however. The Sinsings would be likely to pick up ourmessage. Even if we used the directional projector, they might havescouts out to the west and south in the big inter-gang stretches ofcountry. They would flee to Nu-yok and escape the punishment theymerited. It seemed to be vitally important that they should not, for thesake of example to other weak groups among the American gangs, as wellas to prevent a crisis in which they might clear more vital informationto the enemy.
"Out to sea again," I ordered Gibbons. "They'll be less likely to lookfor us in that direction."
"Easy, Boss, easy," he replied. "Wait until we get up a mile or twomore. They must have discovered evidences of our raid by now, and theirdis-ray wall may go in operation any moment."
Even as he spoke, the ship lurched downward and to one side.
"There it is!" he shouted. "Hang on, everybody. We're going to nosestraight up!" And he flipped the rocket-motor control wide open.
Looking through one of the rear ports, I could see a nebulous, luminousring, and on all sides the atmosphere took on a faint iridescence.
We were almost over the destructive range of the disintegrator-ray wall,a hollow cylinder of annihilation shooting upward from a solid ring ofgenerators surrounding the city. It was the main defense system of theHans, which had never been used except in periodic tests. They may ormay not have suspected that an American rocket ship was within thecylinder; probably they had turned on their generators more as aprecaution to prevent any reaching a position above the city.
But even at our present great height, we were in great danger. It was aquestion how much we might have been harmed by the rays themselves, fortheir effective range was not much more than seven or eight miles. Thegreater danger lay in the terrific downward rush of air within thecylinder to replace that which was being burned into nothingness by thecontinual play of the disintegrators. The air fell into the cylinderwith the force of a gale. It would be rushing toward the wall from theoutside with terrific force also, but, naturally, the effect wasintensified on the interior.
Our ship vibrated and trembled. We had only one chance of escape--tofight our way well above the current. To drift down with it meantultimately, and inevitably, to be sucked into the destruction wall atsome lower level.
But very gradually and jerkily our upward movement, as shown on theindicators, began to increase, and after an hour of desperate strugglewe were free of the maelstrom and into the rarefied upper levels. Theterror beneath us was now invisible through several layers of cloudformations.
Gibbons brought the ship back to an even keel, and drove her eastwardinto one of the most brilliantly gorgeous sunrises I have ever seen.
We described a great circle to the south and west, in a long easy dive,for he had cut out his rocket motors to save them as much as possible.We had drawn terrifically on their fuel reserves in our battle with theelements. For the moment, the atmosphere below cleared, and we could seethe Jersey coast far beneath, like a great map.
"We're not through yet," remarked Gibbons suddenly, pointing at hisperiscope, and adjusting it to telescopic focus. "A Han ship, and a'drop ship' at that--and he's seen us. If he whips that beam of his onus, we're done."
I gazed, fascinated, at the viewplate. What I saw was a cigar-shapedship not dissimilar to our own in design, and from the proportional sizeof its ports, of about the same size as our swoopers. We learned laterthat they carried crews, for the most part of not more than three orfour men. They had streamline hulls and tails that embodieduniversal-jointed double fish-tail rudders. In operation they rose togreat heights on their powerful repellor rays, then gathered speedeither by a straight nose dive, or an inclined dive in which theysometimes used the repellor ray slanted at a sharp angle. He was alreadyabove us, though several miles to the north. He could, of course, try toget on our tail and "spear" us with his beam as he dropped at us from agreat height.
Suddenly his beam blazed forth in a blinding flash, whipping downwardslowly to our right. He went through a peculiar corkscrew-likeevolution, evidently maneuvering to bring his beam to bear on us with aspiral motion.
Gibbons instantly sent our ship into a series of evolutions that musthave looked like those of a frightened hen. Alternately, he used theforward and the reverse rocket blasts, and in varying degree. Wefluttered, we shot suddenly to right and left, and dropped like aplummet in uncertain movements. But all the time the Han scout droppedtoward us, determinedly whipping the air around us with his beam. Onceit sliced across beneath us, not more than a hundred feet, and wedropped with a jar into the pocket formed by the destruction of the air.
He had dropped to within a mile of us, and was coming with the speed ofa projectile, when the end came. Gibbons always swore it was sheer luck.Maybe it was, but I like pilots who are lucky that way.
In the midst of a dizzy, fluttering maneuver of our own, with the Hanship enlarging to our gaze with terrifying rapidity, and its beam slowlyslicing toward us in what looked like certain destruction within thesecond, I saw Gibbons' fingers flick at the lever of his rocket gun anda split second later the Han ship flew apart like a clay pigeon.
We staggered, and fluttered crazily for several moments while Gibbonsstruggled to bring our ship into balance, and a section of about foursquare feet in the side of the ship near the stern slowly crumbled likerusted metal. His beam actually had touched us, but our explosive rockethad got him a thousandth of a second sooner.
Part of our rudder had been annihilated, and our motor damaged. But wewere able to swoop gently back across Jersey, fortunately crossing theship lanes without sighting any more Han craft, and finally settling torest in the little glade beneath the trees, near Hart's camp.