Chapter V
ORTOL
After Morey's explanation of the ship was completed, Wade took Arcot'splace at the controls, while Morey and Arcot retired to the calculatingroom to do some of the needed mathematics on the time-fieldinvestigation.
Their work continued here, while the Ortolians prepared a meal andbrought it to them, and to Wade. When at last the sun of Ortol wasgrowing before them, Arcot took over controls from Wade once more.Slowing their speed to less than fifty times that of light, they droveon. The attraction of the giant sun was draining the energy from thecoils so rapidly now, that at last Arcot was forced to get into normalspace, while the planet was still close to a million miles from them.Morey was showing the Ortolians the operation of the telectroscope andhad it trained now on the rapidly approaching planet. The planet waseasily enlarged to a point where the features of continents werevisible. The magnification was increased till cities were no longerblurs, but truly cities.
Suddenly, as city after city was brought under the action of themachine, the Ortolians recognizing them with glad exclamations, oneswept into view--and as they watched, it leapt into the air, a vastcolumn of dust, then twisting, whirling, it fell back in utter, chaoticruin.
Zezdon Fentes staggered back from the screen in horror.
"Arcot--drive down--increase your speed--the Thessians are there alreadyand have destroyed one city," called Morey sharply. The men securedthemselves with heavy belts, as the deep toned hum of the warning echoedthrough the ship. A moment later they staggered under an acceleration offour gravities. Space was dark for the barest instant of time, and thenthere was the scream of atmosphere as the ship rocketed through the airof the planet at nearly fifteen hundred miles per second. The outer wallwas blazing in incandescence in a moment, and the heavy relux screensseemed to leap into place over the windows as the blasting heat,radiated from the incandescent walls flooded in. The millions of tonspressure of the air on the nose of the ship would have brought it to astop in an instant, and had it not been that the molecular drive was onat full power, driving the ship against the air resistance, and stilllosing. The ship slowed swiftly, but was shrieking toward the destroyedcity at terrific speed.
"Hesthis--to the--right and ahead. That would be their next attack,"said the Ortolian. Arcot altered the ship's course, and they shot towardthe distance city of Hesthis. They were slowing perceptibly, and yet,though the city was half around the world, they reached it in half aminute. Now Arcot's wizardry at the controls came into play, for byaltering his space field constants, he succeeded in reaching a conditionthat slowed the ship almost instantly to a speed of but a mile a second,yet without apparent deceleration.
High in the white Ortolian sky was a shining point bearing down on thenow-visible city. Arcot slanted toward it, and the approaching ship grewlike an expanding rubber balloon.
A ray of intense, blindingly brilliant light flashed out, and a gout oflight appeared in the center of the city. A huge flame, bright blue,shot heavenward in roaring heat.
Seeing that a strange ship had arrived was enough for the Thessians, andthey turned, and drove at Arcot instantly. The Thessian ship was builtfor a heavy world, and for heavy acceleration in consequence, and, asthey had found from the captured ship, it was stronger than the _AncientMariner_. Now the Thessians were driving at Arcot with an accelerationand speed that convinced him dodging was useless. Suddenly space wasblack around them, the sunlit world was gone.
"Wonder what they thought of _that_!" grinned Arcot. Wade smiled grimly.
"It's not what they thought, but what they'll do, that counts."
Arcot came back to normal space, just in time to see the Thessian shipspin in a quick turn, under an acceleration that would have crushed ahuman to a pulp. Again the pilot dived at the terrestrian ship. Again itvanished. Twice more he tried these fruitless tactics, seeing the shiploom before him--bracing for the crash--then it was goneinstantaneously, and though he sailed through the spot he knew it tohave occupied, it was not there. Yet an instant later, as he turned, itwas floating, unharmed, exactly where his ship had passed!
Rushing was useless. He stood, and prepared to give battle. A molecularray reached out--and disappeared in flaring ions on a shield utterlyimpenetrable in the ionizing atmosphere.
Arcot meanwhile watched the instrument of his shield. The Thessianshield would have been impenetrable, but his shield, fed by lessefficient tubes, was not, and he knew it. Already the terrific energy ofthe Thessian ray was noticeably heating the copper plates of the tube.The seal would break soon.
Another ray reached out, a ray of flaring light. Arcot, watching throughthe "eyes" of his telectroscope viewplates, saw it for but an instant,then the "eyes" were blasted, and the screen went blank.
"He won't do anything with that but burn out eyes," muttered theterrestrian. He pushed a small button when his instruments told him therays were off. Another scanner came into action, and the viewplate wasalive again.
Arcot shot out a cosmic ray himself, and swept the Thessian with itthoroughly. For the instant he needed the enemy ship was blinded.Immediately the _Ancient Mariner_ dove, and the automatic ray-finderscould no longer hold the rays on his ship. As soon as he was out of thedeadly molecular ray he shut off his screen, and turned on all hismolecular rays. The Thessian ship, their own ray on, had been unable toput up their screen, as Arcot was unable to use his ray with the enemy'sray forcing him to cover with a shield.
Almost at once the relux covering of the Thessian ship shone withcharacteristic iridescence as it changed swiftly to lux metal. Themolecular ray blinked out, and a ray screen flashed out instead. TheThessians were covering up. Their own rays were useless now. ThoughArcot could not hope to destroy their ray shield, they could no longerattack his, for their rays were useless, and already they had lost somuch of the protective relux, that they would not be so foolhardy as torisk a second attack of the ray.
Arcot continued to bathe the ship in energy, keeping their "eyes"closed. As long as he could hold his barrage on them, they would notdamage him.
"Morey--get into the power room, strap onto the board. Throw all thepower-coil banks into the magnets. I may burn them out, but I havehopes--" Arcot already had the generators going full power, charging thepower coils.
Morey dived. Almost simultaneously the Thessians succeeded in themaneuver they had been attempting for some time. There were a dozen raysflaring wildly from the ship, searching blindly over the sky and ground,hoping to stumble on the enemy ship, while their own ship dived andtwisted. Arcot was busily dodging the sweeping rays, but finally one hithis viewplates, and his own ship was blind. Instantly he threw the rayscreen out, cutting off his own molecular ray. His own cosmics he setrotating in cones that covered the three dimensions--save below, wherethe city lay. Immediately the Thessian had retreated to this one segmentwhere Arcot did not dare throw his own rays. The Thessian cosmicscontinued to make his relux screens necessary, and his ship remainedblind.
His ray screen was showing signs of weakening. The Thessians got a thirdray into position for operation, and opened up. Almost at once the tubesheated terrifically. In an instant they would give way. Arcot threw hisship into space, and let the tubes cool under the water jacket. Moreyreported the coils ready as soon as he came out of space.
Arcot cut in the new set of eyes, and put up his molecular ray screenagain. Then he cut the energy back to the coils.
Half a mile below the enemy ship was vainly scurrying around an emptysky. Wade laughed at the strange resemblance to a puppy chasing itstail. The _Ancient Mariner_ was utterly lost to them.
"Well, here goes the last trick," said Arcot grimly. "If this doesn'twork, they'll probably win, for their tubes are better than ours, andthey can maneuver faster. By win I mean force us to let them attackOrtol. They can't really attack us; artificial space is a perfectdefense."
Arcot's molecular ray apprized the Thessians of his presence. Theirscreen flared up once more. Arcot was driving straight toward thei
r shipas they turned. He snapped the relux screens in front of his eyes aninstant before the enemy cosmics reached his ship. Immediately the thudof four heavy relays rang through the ship. The quarter of a million tonship leaped forward under a terrific acceleration, and then, as the fourrelays cut out again, the acceleration was gone. The screen regainedlife as Arcot opened the shutters. Before them, still directly in theirpath, was the huge Thessian ship. But now its screen was down, the reluxiridescent in decomposition. It was falling, helplessly falling to therocky plateau seven miles below. Its rays reached out even yet--andagain the _Ancient Mariner_ staggered under the terrific pull of someacceleration. The Thessian ship lurched upward, and a terrificconcussion came, and the entire neighborhood of that projectordisappeared in a flash of radiation.
Arcot drove the _Ancient Mariner_ down beneath the Thessian ship in itslong fall, and with a powerful molecular beam ripped a mighty chasm inthe deserted plateau. The Thessian ship fell into a quarter mile rift inthe solid rock, smashing its way through falling debris. A moment laterit was buried beneath a quarter mile of broken rock as Arcot swept amolecular beam about with the grace of a mine foreman filling breaks.
An instant later, a heat ray followed the molecular in dazzlingbrilliance. A terrific gout of light appeared in the barren rocks. Inten minutes the plateau was a white hot cauldron of molten rocks,glowing now against a darkening sky. Night was falling.
"That ship," said Arcot with an air of finality, "will never riseagain."