with an iridescent light. The space-car roseeasily from the landing platform, moving upward and outward at a steepangle. There was neither noise nor vibration. The city vanished as soonas they passed outside the zone of dimensional-control on its outerwalls. Looking back and down, Gerry saw only the pitted rock of thefoundations far below. A cart was moving toward the beach with some barsof metal for the _Viking_.
Then the next flying car came into sight as it sped out beyond thewalls. Its nose came into sight first, then the middle section, finallythe whole car. One after another, the rest of the flotilla took off tillthey were flying in a V-shaped formation like a flock of wild geese.
"What kind of power makes these cars go?" Gerry asked.
"Iso-electronic rays," the pilot replied shortly, not taking his eyesfrom the indicator board.
"And can they be made invisible like the city?"
"Yes. The dimensional-control lever is here." The pilot pointed at manyof the controls, then again lapsed into silence.
It was evident that Gerry was not going to be able to have any extendedconversation with the driver of the car. That might be due toinstructions the man had received from his superiors, or simply to hisown nature. Probably a combination of both! These men of Moorn were acold and self-centered race. Probably they were an isolated off-shoot ofthe original Old Ones who had first settled this planet, a group who hadmanaged to retain the scientific knowledge of their ancestors but hadlost the vigor and fire that are found in active and vital nations.
* * * * *
Below them lay the greenish yellow expanse of the Great Sea. Thoughthese electronic flying cars of Moorn traveled with a noiselesssmoothness that was the last word in flying comfort, their speed wasmuch less than that of the _Viking_ at even minimum rocket power. Thepilots were holding the flotilla down to a level of only a few hundredfeet. The sight of the vast expanse of rippling waters sliding past soclose below them was a strange experience to Gerry Norton, who had spenthis life in space-ships that always traveled at the upper levels whereeverything below looks like a gigantic patch-work quilt.
Scattered islands shouldered their way upward through the sea ahead, andthen sailed past below. So utterly smooth and noiseless was the movementof the electronic flying cars that they seemed to be standingmotionless, while a strong wind blew against their glass shields and thesurface of the planet unrolled beneath them. It was well into theafternoon before the familiar mountain ranges bordering Savissa cameinto view ahead.
Closana was leaning forward on her seat, her eyes eager and youthful inthe shadows of the steel helmet with which she had been fitted out fromthe _Viking's_ stores. Then, as the coast line became clearer with everypassing mile, she suddenly pointed ahead and down to two black dots onthe surface of the sea. The pilot took one glance at them, and then hishand moved to the dimensional control lever.
When they first entered the flying cars, Gerry had noticed that each onebore a very realistic appearing metal bird at the end of a sort offlag-staff that protruded upward at the bow. At the time he had thoughtit was simply a form of decoration. Now he realized that the metal birdfulfilled a much more useful purpose. It was outside the zone ofinvisibility, and gave all the pilots something to indicate thelocations of the other cars and avoid collisions. When he glanced back,all he could see was a flock of birds following them in a wide V. Theflotilla was keeping formation.
* * * * *
As they soared closer to shore, the two black dots gradually took shapeas a pair of good-sized surface craft. A black-hulled raider, manned bya crew of the Scaly Ones, was hotly engaged with a wooden Savissanpatrol boat. Companies of Amazons crouched behind the high bulwarks oftheir warship, loosing their arrows in stinging flights. Explosivebullets crackled around them as the Scaly Ones replied with theirgas-guns. The boat was equipped with a big charging-tank, for reloadingthe gas-guns, equipment too heavy to be carried by land raiders butpossible here. The tide of battle was definitely setting against theAmazons. The bodies of many of the golden-haired feminine warriors laysprawled in the scuppers or scattered on the riven decks.
Closana's fists were clenched as she peered down at the battle on theseas below. The decks of the Savissan craft were beginning to smolder,and her arrow fire was weakening. Closana threw Gerry an agonizedglance, and he turned to the pilot beside him.
"Is there any way we can strike at that raider below?" he asked. TheMoornian pilot smiled faintly, and then handed Gerry a long metal rodthat was equipped with gun-sights and had a sort of rubber stock. A wiretrailed away from it and was attached to the car's power plant beneaththe control boar. It looked like an odd form of rifle, but the metal rodwas solid instead of hollow.
"Aim--then press the button!" the taciturn Moornian said.
Gerry brought the strange-looking weapon to his shoulder and sightedthrough a line of rings set in the top. He centered the cross-hairsamidships on the black-hulled Reptilian craft, then gently pressed theswitch button set in the stock.
There was a blinding flash of lightning. An instant later came thecrashing roar of thunder. Momentarily the flying car rocked under thebuffeting of the disturbed air masses, then it steadied down again. Onthe sea below, the battle had come to an abrupt end. That single blowwas enough.
The lightning bolt struck the sea raider amidships, with a blindingflash. The metal hull glowed red hot. Water steamed about it. The darkshapes of Scaly warriors went spinning off into the sea. Then the tankof gas amidships exploded, sending a sheet of blue flame high into theair.
The Savissan war-craft rocked violently on the waves created by thelightning bolt and the explosion. The surviving Amazons clungfrantically to bullwarks and rigging to avoid being washed overboard bythe sheet of foam-flecked water that spread over the decks. Then astheir craft steadied down again, they looked up into the sky. All theycould see was a flock of small birds speeding rapidly inland. Theylifted their weapons to the sky in salute, a tribute to whatever darkGods had sped the deadly bolt that wrecked the enemy craft.
Gerry gingerly handed the deadly lightning caster back to the pilot.
"That's an effective weapon," he said. "If these flying cars can onlystay with us for a few hours after we arrive at the city of Larr, we canprobably break up the attack of the Scaly Ones and...."
"We return to Moorn immediately, as soon as we have landed you in Larr,"the pilot said with cold finality. "Those are the orders of the Councilof Elders."
* * * * *
Dusk caught them just as they passed over the Savissan coast line. Theysaw the gleaming lights of various scattered towns and hamlets belowthem. An hour later the lights of Larr itself came into view. At firstthey were only a glow along the horizon. Then, as the flotilla of flyingcars swept nearer, the lights of the city began to take on definite formand shape. Closana was again leaning eagerly forward.
"The lights look strange!" she said, "so many of them are unsteady andflickering!"
Gerry Norton peered ahead through the night. His own eyes were narrowedand thoughtful.
"Those flickering lights you see are ray-guns," he said at last. "Thecity is already under siege."
Before attempting a landing as they came to the Golden City of Larr, theflotilla of flying cars swept in a wide circle over the city and itssurrounding suburbs. Great fires burned in braziers along the walls.Other fires had been kindled by the besiegers. Dozens of cottagesoutside the circuit of the city walls were also aflame, blazingfuriously. The whole place was suffused with a ruddy and uneven light,and the observers in the flying cars had a clear view of the scenebelow.
Behind the battlements and bastions atop the city's walls crouched theGolden Amazons of the garrison, loosing their storms of arrows at theswarming besiegers below them. Other tawny-skinned crews worked thealta-ray tubes that belched blasts of blue flame at regular intervals.Wherever the blue beams struck, the ground was blackened while thetwisted and charred shapes of Scaly Ones wr
ithed in brief agony. Themyriad brazen trumpets of Larr sounded hasty rallying calls, or elsetossed staccato signals from one part of the defences to another.
The hordes of Lansa had invested the city on three sides, the marsh-landon the far border of the city protecting that side from direct assault.Groups of Scaly Ones took shelter behind tree trunks and mounds of earthand any other possible cover, firing their gas-guns up at thebattlements in an effort to lessen the arrow fire. Others crept forwardbehind movable metal shields. Heavy-caliber gas-guns inched slowlyforward behind wooden mantlets that bristled with arrows, and hurledtheir larger explosive bullets up at the walls. Wherever they struckthere was a puff of yellow dust and a scarred place on the stones.Reptilian trumpets beat with a staccato thunder as Lansa kept in touchwith his various divisions. Not all the advantage was with thebesiegers, however. Even as Gerry watched, a blue heat-ray struck fullon one of the big gas-guns