IX
"They can't take this, at least," sighed McLaurin as they retreated fromLuna.
"I didn't think they could--right away. I'm wondering though if theyhaven't something we haven't seen yet. Besides which--give them time,give them time."
"Well, give us time, too," snapped McLaurin. "How are you coming?"
Buck smiled. "I'm sure I don't know. I have a machine but I haven't theslightest idea of whether or not it's any good."
"Why not?"
"I can destroy--I hope--but I can't build up their ray. I can't test themachine because I haven't their ray to test it against."
"What can we do to test it?"
"The only thing I can see is to call for volunteers--and send out asix-man cruiser. If the ship's too small, they may not destroy it withthe big crumbler rays. If it's too large--and the machine didn'twork--we'd lose too much."
Twelve hours later, the IP men at the Lunar Bank fort were lined up.McLaurin stepped up on the platform, and addressed the men briefly, toldthem what was needed. Six volunteers were selected by a process ofelimination, those who were married, had dependents, officers, andothers were refused. Finally, six men of the IP were chosen, neitherrookies nor veterans, six average men. And one average six-man cruiser,one hundred and eleven feet long, twenty-two in diameter. It was theT-208, a sister ship of the T-247, the first ship to be destroyed.
The T-208 started out from Luna, and with full acceleration, sped outtoward Phobos. Slowly she circled the satellite, while distant scoutskept her under view. Lazily, the Miran patrol on Phobos watched theT-208, indifferent to her. The T-208 dove suddenly, after five fruitlesscircles of the tiny world, and with her four-foot UV beam flaming,stabbed angrily at a flight of Miran scouts berthed in the very shadowof a great battle cruiser, one of the interstellar ships stationed hereon Phobos.
Four of the little ships slumped in incandescence. Angrily the terrificsword of energy slashed at the frail little scouts.
Angrily the Miran interstellar ship shot herself abruptly into actionagainst this insolent cruiser. The cruiser launched a flight of themercury-torpedoes. Flashing, burning, ultra-violet energy flooded thegreat ship, harmlessly, for the men were, as usual, protected. The Mirananswered with the neutron beam, atomic and gamma bombs--and the crumblerray.
Gently, softly a halo of shimmering-violet luminescence built up aboutthe T-208. The UV beam continued to flare, wavering slightly in itsaim--then fell way off to one side. The T-208 staggered suddenly,wandered from her course--whole, but uncontrolled. For the men withinthe ship were dead.
Majestically the Miran swung along beside the dead ship, a greatmagnetic tow-cable shot out toward it, to shy off at first, then slowlyto be adjusted, and take hold in the magnetic shield of the T-208. Thepilots of the watching scout-ships turned away. They knew what wouldhappen.
It did. Five--ten--twenty seconds passed. Then the "dead-man" took overthe ship--and the stored power in the atostor tanks blasted in aterrible flame that shattered the metal hull to molecular fragments. Theinterstellar cruiser shuddered, and rolled half over at the blastingpressure. Leaking seams appeared in her plates.
The scouts raced back to Luna as the Miran settled heavily, and a trifleclumsily to Phobos. Miran radio-beams were forcing their way out towardthe Miran station on Europa, to be relayed to the headquarters onJupiter, just as Solarian radio beams were thrusting through spacetoward Luna. Said the Miran messages: "Their ships no longer crumble."Said the Solarian messages: "The ships no longer crumble--but the mendie."
* * * * *
His deep eyes burning tensely, Buck Kendall heard the messages comingin, and rose slowly from his seat to pace the floor. "I think I knowwhy," he said at last. "I should have thought. For that too can beprevented."
"Why--what in the name of the Planets?" asked McLaurin. "It didn't killthe men in the forts--why does it kill the men in the ships, when theships are protected?"
"The protection kills them."
"But--but they had the protective oscillations on all the way out!"protested the Commander.
"Think how it works though. Think, man. The enemy's field is anelectric-field oscillation. We combat it by setting up a similaroscillating field in the metal of the hull ourselves. Because the metalconducts the strains, they meet, and oppose. It is not a shield--ashield is impossible, as I have said, because of energy concentrationfactors. If their beam carried a hundred thousand horsepower in aten-foot square beam, in every ten square feet of our shield, we'd haveto have one hundred thousand horsepower. In other words, hundreds oftimes as much energy would be needed in the shield, as they used intheir beam. We can't afford that. We had to let the beams oppose ouroscillations in the metal, where, because the metal conducts, they meeton an equal basis. But--when two oscillations of slightly differentfrequency meet, what is the result?"
"In this case, a heterodyne frequency of a lower, and harmlessfrequency."
"So I thought. I was partly right. It does _not_ harm the metal. But itkills the men. It is super-sonic. The terrible, shrill sounds destroythe cells of the men's bodies. Then, when their dead hands release thecontrols, the automatic switches blow up the ship."
"God! We stop one menace--and it is like the Hydra. For every head welop off, two spring up."
"Ah--but they are lesser heads. Look, what is the fundamental differencebetween sound and light?"
"One is a vibration of matter and the--ah--eliminate the materialcontact!"
"Exactly! All we need to do is to let the ships operate airless, the menin space suits. Then the air cannot carry the sounds to them. And byputting special damping materials in their suits, we can stop thevibrations that would reach them through their feet and hands. Anothersix-man ship must go out--but this ship will come back!"
And with the order for another experimental ship, went the orders forcommercial supplies of this new apparatus. Every IP ship must beequipped to resist it.
Buck Kendall sailed on the six-man scout that went out this time. Againthey swooped once at Phobos, again Miran scout-ships crumbled under theattack of the vicious UV beams. The Mirans were not waitingcontemptuously this time. In an instant the great interstellar ship rosefrom its berth, its weapons working angrily. The crumbler ray snappedout at the T-253.
Kendall stared into the periscope visor intently. Clumsily his paddedhands worked at the specially adapted controls. The soft hiss of theoxygen release into his suit disturbed him slightly. The radio-phones inhis helmet carried all the conversations in the ship to him with equalclarity. He watched as the great ship angled angrily up--
His vision was momentarily obscured by a violet glow that built up andreached out gently from every point of metal in the ship. The instantKendall saw that, the T-253 was fleeing under his hands. The test hadbeen made. Now all he desired was safety again. The ion-rockets flaredrecklessly as, crushed under an acceleration of four Earth-gravities, hesank heavily into his seat. Grimly the Miran ship was pursuing them,easily keeping up with the fleeing midget. The crumbler became moreintense, the violet glow more vivid.
The UV beam was reaching out directly behind now. The--
With a cry of agony, Kendall ripped the radio-phone connection out ofhis suit. A soft hiss of leaking air warned him of too great violenceonly minutes later. For his ears had been deafened by the sudden shriekof a tremendous signal from outside!
Instantly Kendall knew what that meant. And he could not communicatewith his men! There was no metal in these special suits, even the oxygentanks were made of synthetic plastics of tremendous strength. No scrapof vibrating metal was permissible. The padded gloves and bootsprotected him--but there was a new and different type of crackle andhaze from the metal points now. It was almost invisible in thepractically airless ship, but Kendall saw it.
Presently he felt it, as he desperately increased his acceleration. Slowcreeping heat was attacking him. The heat was increasing rapidly now.Desperately he was working at the crumbler-protection con
trols--butimmediately set them back as they were. He had to have the crumblerprotection as well--!
* * * * *
Grimly the great Miran ship hung right beside them. Angrily the twofour-foot UV beams flashed back--seeking some weak spot. There werenone. At her absolute maximum of acceleration the little ship plungedon. Gamma and atomic bombs were washing her in flame. The heavy blocksof paraffin between her walls were long since melted, retained only bythe presence of the metal walls. Smoke was beginning to filter out now,and Kendall recognized a new, and deadlier menace! Heat--quantities ofheat were being poured into the little ship, and the neutron guns weredoing their best to add to it. The paraffin was confined in there--andlike any substance, it could be volatilized, and as a vapor, developpressure--explosive pressure!
The Miran seemed satisfied in his tactics so far--and changed them.Forty-seven million miles from Earth, the Miran simply accelerated a bitmore, and crowded the Solarian ship a bit. White-faced, Buck Kendall wasforced to turn a bit aside. The Miran turned also. Kendall turned a bitmore--
Flashing across his range of vision at an incredible speed, a tinything, no more than twenty feet long and five in diameter, a scout-shipappeared. Its tiny nose ultra-violet beam was blasting a solid cylinderof violet incandescence a foot across in the hull of the Miran--and, tothe Miran, angling swiftly across his range of vision. Its magneticfield clashed for a thousandth of a second with the T-253, instantlymeeting, and absorbing the fringing edges. Then--it swept through theMiran's magnetic shield as easily. The delicate instruments of the scoutinstantaneously adjusted its own magnetic field as much as possible.There was resistance, enormous resistance--the ship crumpled in onitself, the tail vanished in dust as a sweeping crumbler beam caught itat last--and the remaining portion of the ship plowed into the nose ofthe Miran.
The Miran's force-control-room was wrecked. For perhaps a minute and ahalf, the ship was without control, then the control wasre-established--and in vain the telescopes and instruments searched forthe T-253. Lightless, her rockets out now, her fields damped down toextinction, the T-253 was lost in the pulsing, gyrating fields of half adozen scout-ships.
Kendall looked grimly at the crushed spot on the nose of the Miran. Hisship was drifting slowly away from the greater ship. Presently, however,the Miran put on speed in the direction of Earth, and the T-253 fell farbehind. The Miran was not seriously injured. But that scout pilot, insacrificing life, had thrown dust in their eyes for just those fewmoments Kendall had needed to lose a lightless ship in lightlessspace--lightless--for the Mirans at any rate. The IP ships had beencovered with a black paint, and in no time at all, Kendall had gottenhis ship into a position where the energy radiations of the sun made himundetectable from the Miran's position, since the radiation of his ownship, even in the heat range, was mingled with the direct radiation ofthe sun. The sun was in the Miran's "eyes," both actual andinstrumental.
An hour later the Miran returned, passed the still-lightless ship at adistance of five million miles, and settled to Phobos for the slightrepairs needed.
Twelve hours later, the T-253 settled to Luna, for the manyrearrangements she would need.
"I rather knew it was coming," Kendall admitted sadly, "but danged if Ididn't forget all about it. And--cost the life of one of the finest menin the system. Jehnson's family get a permanent pension just twice hissalary, McLaurin. In the meantime--"
"What was it? Pure heat, but how?"
"Pure radio. Nothing but short-wave radio directed at us. They probablyhad the apparatus, knew how to make it, but that's not a good type ofheat ray, because a radio tube is generally less than eighty percentefficient, which is a whale of a loss when you're working in a battle,and a whale of an inconvenience. We were heated only four times as muchas the Miran. He had to pump that heat into a heat-reservoir--a watertank probably--to protect himself. Highly inefficient and ineffectiveagainst a large ship. Also, he had to hold his beam on us nearly tenminutes before it would have become unbearable. He was again, trying tokill the men, and not the ship. The men are the weakest point,obviously."
"Can you overcome that?"
"Obviously, no. The thing works on pure energy. I'd have to match hisenergy to neutralize it. You knew it's an old proposition, that if youcould take a beam of pure, monochromatic light and divide it exactly inhalf, and then recombine it in perfect interference, you'd haveannihilation of energy. Cancellation to extinction. The trouble is, younever do get that. You can't get monochromatic light, because lightcan't be monochromatic. That's due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty--my petbug-bear. The atom that radiates the light, must be moving. If it isn't,the emission of the light itself gives it a kick that moves it. Now, nomatter what the quantum _might_ have been, it loses energy in kickingthe atom. That changes the situation instantly, and incidentally the'color' of the light. Then, since all the radiating atoms won't bemoving alike, etc., the mass of light can't be monochromatic. Thereforeperfect interference is impossible.
"The way that relates to the problem in hand, is that we can't possiblydestroy his energy. We can, as we do in the crumbler stunt, change it.He can't, I suspect, put too much power behind his crumbler, or he'dhave crumbling going on at home. We get a slight heating from it,anyway. Into the bargain, his radio was after us, and his neutronsnaturally carried energy. Now, no matter what we do, we've got that tohandle. When we fight his crumbler, we actually add heat-energy to it,ourselves, and make the heating effect just twice as bad. If we try toheterodyne his radio--presto--it has twice the heat energy anyway,though we might reduce it to a frequency that penetrated the shipinstead of all staying in it. But by the proposition, we have to use asmuch energy, and in fact, remember the 80% rule. We've got to take itand like it."
"But," objected McLaurin, "we _don't_ like it."
"Then build ships as big as his, and he'll quit trying to roast you.Particularly if the inner walls are synthetic plastics. Did you know Iused them in the 'S Doradus' and 'Cepheid'?"
"Yes. Were you thinking of that?"
"No--just luck--and the fact that they're light, strong as steel almost,and can be manufactured in forms much more quickly. Only the outer hullis tungsten-beryllium. The advantage in this will be that nearly all theenergy will be absorbed outside, and we'll radiate pretty fast,particularly as that tungsten-beryllium has a high radiation-factor inthe long heat range."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, ordinary polished silver is a mighty poor radiator. Homelyexample: Try waiting for your coffee to cool if it's in a polishedsilver pot. Then try it in a tungsten-beryllium pot. No matter how youpolish that tungsten-beryllium, the stuff WILL radiate heat. That's whyan IP ship is always so blamed cold. You know the passenger ships usepolished aluminum outer walls. The big help is, that thetungsten-beryllium will throw off the energy pretty fast, and in a bigship, with a whale of a lot of matter to heat, the Strangers will simplygive up the idea."
"Yes, but only two ships in the system compare with them in size."
"Sorry--but I didn't build the IP fleet, and there are lots of tungstenand beryllium on Earth. Enough anyway."
"Will they use that beam on the fort? And can't we use the thing onthem?"
"They won't and we won't--though we could. A bank of those new millionwatt tubes--perhaps a hundred of them--and we'd have a pretty effectiveheater--but an awful waste of power. I've got something better."
"New?"
"Somewhat. I've found out how to make the mirror field in a plate ofmetal, instead of a block. Come on to the lab, and I'll show you."
"What's the advantage? Oh--weight saved, and silver metal saved."
"A lot more than that, Mac. Watch."
* * * * *
At the laboratory, the new apparatus looked immensely lighter andsimpler than the old. The atostor, the ionizer, and the twinion-projectors were as before, great, rigid, metal structures that wouldmaintain the meeting point of the ions with inflexible exactitude u
nderany acceleration strains. But now, instead of the heavy silver block inwhich a mirror was figured, the mirror consisted of a polished silverplate, parabolic to be sure, but little more than a half-inch inthickness. It was mounted in a framework of complex, stout metal braces.
Kendall started the ion-flame at low intensity, so the UV beam waslittle more than a spotlight.
"You missed the point, Mac. Now--watch that tungsten-beryllium plate.I'll hold the power steady. It's an eighteen-inch beam--and now theenergy is just sufficient to heat that tungsten plate to bright red.But--"
Kendall turned over a small rheostat control--and abruptly theeighteen-inch diameter spot on the tungsten-beryllium plate begancontracting; it contracted till it was a blazing, sparkling spot ofmolten incandescence less than an inch across!
"That's the advantage of focus. At this distance of a few hundred feetwith a small beam I can do that. With a twenty-foot beam, I can get atwo-foot spot at a distance of nearly ten miles! That means that thereceiving end will have the pleasure of handling _one hundred times theenergy concentration_. That would punch a hole through most anything.All you have to do is focus it. The trouble being, if it's out of focusthe advantage is more than lost. So if there's any question aboutgetting the focus, we'll get along without it."
"A real help, if you do. That would punch a hole before the Strangership could turn away as they do now."
Kendall nodded. "That's what I was after. It is mainly for the forts,though. We'll have to signal the dope to the Mars Center and Deenmorstations. They can fix it up, themselves. In the meantime--all we can dois hold on and hunt, and let's hope better than the Strangers do."