weapons can not be out-classed by any conceivable concentrationof spaceships.
Throwing rocks at an army armed with machine guns may seem futile, butif you hit them with an avalanche, they'll go under. The Rats lostthree-quarters of their fleet to planet-based guns and had to go home tobandage their wounds.
The only trouble was that Earth couldn't counterattack. Their ships werestill out-classed by those of the Rats. And the Rats, their racial pridebadly stung, were determined to wipe out Man, to erase the stain ontheir honor wherever Man could be found. Somehow, some way, they mustdestroy Earth.
And now, Al Pendray thought bitterly, they would do it.
* * * * *
The _Shane_ had sneaked in past Rat patrols to pick up a spy on one ofthe outlying Rat planets, a man who'd spent five years playing the partof a Rat slave, trying to get information on their activities there. Andhe had had one vital bit of knowledge. He'd found it and held on to itfor over three years, until the time came for the rendezvous.
The rendezvous had almost come too late. The Rats had developed a devicethat could make a star temporarily unstable, and they were ready to useit on Sol.
The _Shane_ had managed to get off-planet with the spy, but they'd beenspotted in spite of the detector nullifiers that Earth had developed.They'd been jumped by Rat cruisers and blasted by the superior Ratweapons. The lifeboats had been picked out of space, one by one, as thecrew tried to get away.
In a way, Alfred Pendray was lucky. He'd been in the sick bay with asprained ankle when the Rats hit, sitting in the X-ray room. The shotthat had knocked out the port engine had knocked him unconscious, butthe shielded walls of the X-ray room had saved him from the blast ofradiation that had cut down the crew in the rear of the ship. He'd cometo in time to see the Rat cruisers cut up the lifeboats before theycould get well away from the ship. They'd taken a couple of partingshots at the dead hulk, and then left it to drift in space--and leavingone man alive.
In the small section near the rear of the ship, there were stillcompartments that were airtight. At least, Pendray decided, there wasenough air to keep him alive for a while. If only he could get a littlepower into the ship, he could get the rear air purifiers to working.
He left the lifeboat and closed the door behind him. There was no pointin worrying about a boat he couldn't use.
He made his way back toward the engine room. Maybe there was somethingsalvageable there. Swimming through the corridors was becoming easierwith practice; his Cadet training was coming back to him.
Then he got a shock that almost made him faint. The beam of his lighthad fallen full on the face of a Rat. It took him several seconds torealize that the Rat was dead, and several more to realize that itwasn't a Rat at all. It was the spy they had been sent to pick up. He'dbeen in the sick bay for treatments of the ulcers on his back gainedfrom five years of frequent lashings as a Rat slave.
Pendray went closer and looked him over. He was still wearing theclothing he'd had on when the _Shane_ picked him up.
_Poor guy_, Pendray thought. _All that hell--for nothing._
Then he went around the corpse and continued toward the engine room.
The place was still hot, but it was thermal heat, not radioactivity. Adead atomic engine doesn't leave any residual effects.
Five out of the six engines were utterly ruined, but the sixth seemedto be in working condition. Even the shielding was intact. Again, hoperose in Alfred Pendray's mind. If only there were tools!
A half hour's search killed that idea. There were no tools aboardcapable of cutting through the hard shielding. He couldn't use it toshield the engine on the lifeboat. And the shielding that been on theother five engines had melted and run; it was worthless.
Then another idea hit him. Would the remaining engine work at all? Couldit be fixed? It was the only hope he had left.
Apparently, the only thing wrong with it was the exciter circuit leads,which had been sheared off by a bit of flying metal. The engine hadsimply stopped instead of exploding. That ought to be fixable. He couldtry; it was something to do, anyway.
It took him the better part of two days, according to his watch. Therewere plenty of smaller tools around for the job, although many of themwere scattered and some had been ruined by the explosions. Replacementparts were harder to find, but he managed to pirate some of them fromthe ruined engines.
He ate and slept as he felt the need. There was plenty of food in thesick bay kitchen, and there is no need for a bed under gravity-lessconditions.
After the engine was repaired, he set about getting the rest of the shipready to move--if it _would_ move. The hull was still solid, so theinfraspace field should function. The air purifiers had to bereconnected and repaired in a couple of places. The lights ditto. Thebiggest job was checking all the broken leads to make sure there weren'tany short circuits anywhere.
The pseudogravity circuits were hopeless. He'd have to do withoutgravity.
* * * * *
On the third day, he decided he'd better clean the place up. There wereseveral corpses floating around, and they were beginning to benoticeable. He had to tow them, one by one, to the rear starboard airlock and seal them between the inner and outer doors. He couldn't dumpthem, since the outer door was partially melted and welded shut.
He took the personal effects from the men. If he ever got back to Earth,their next-of-kin might want the stuff. On the body of the imitationRat, he found a belt-pouch full of microfilm. The report on the Rats'new weapon? Possibly. He'd have to look it over later.
On the "morning" of the fourth day, he started the single remainingengine. The infraspace field came on, and the ship began moving atmultiples of the speed of light. Pendray grinned. _Half gone, willtravel_, he thought gleefully.
If Pendray had had any liquor aboard, he would have gotten mildly drunk.Instead, he sat down and read the spools of microfilm, using theprojector in the sick bay.
He was not a scientist in the strict sense of the word. He was anavigator and a fairly good engineer. So it didn't surprise him any thathe couldn't understand a lot of the report. The mechanics of making asemi-nova out of a normal star were more than a little bit over hishead. He'd read a little and then go out and take a look at the stars,checking their movement so that he could make an estimate of his speed.He'd jury-rigged a kind of control on the hull field, so he could aimthe hulk easily enough. He'd only have to get within signaling range,anyway. An Earth ship would pick him up.
_If there was any Earth left by the time he got there._
He forced his mind away from thinking about that.
It was not until he reached the last spool of microfilm that hissituation was forcibly brought to focus in his mind. Thus far, he hadthought only about saving himself. But the note at the end of the spoolmade him realize that there were others to save.
The note said: _These reports must reach Earth before 22 June 2287.After that, it will be too late._
_22 June!_
That was--let's see....
_This is the eighteenth of September_, he thought, _June of next yearis--nine months away. Surely I can make it in that time. I've got to._
The only question was, how fast was the hulk of the _Shane_ moving?
It took him three days to get the answer accurately. He knew thestrength of the field around the ship, and he knew the approximatethrust of the single engine by that time. He had also measured themotions of some of the nearer stars. Thank heaven he was a navigator andnot a mechanic or something! At least he knew the direction and distanceto Earth, and he knew the distance of the brighter stars from where theship was.
He had two checks to use, then. Star motion against engine thrust andfield strength. He checked them. And rechecked them. And hated theanswer.
He would arrive in the vicinity of Sol some time in late July--a fullmonth too late.
What could he do? Increase the output of the engine? No. It was doingthe best it could now. Even s
hutting off the lights wouldn't helpanything; they were a microscopic drain on that engine.
He tried to think, tried to reason out a solution, but nothing wouldcome. He found time to curse the fool who had decided the shielding onthe lifeboat would have to be removed and repaired. That little craft,with its lighter mass and more powerful field concentration, could makethe trip in ten days.
The only trouble was that ten days in that radiation hell would beimpossible. He'd be a very well-preserved corpse in half that time, andthere'd be no one aboard to guide her.
Maybe he could get one of the other engines going! Sure. He _must_ beable to get one more going, somehow. Anything to cut down on that time!
He went back to the engines again, looking them over carefully. He wentover them again. Not a single one could be repaired at all.
Then he rechecked his velocity figures, hoping against hope that he'dmade a mistake somewhere, dropped a decimal point or forgotten to divideby two. Anything.