CHAPTER VII
The Hill
Its atmosphere was withdrawn, the outer door opened, and he glanced across a bare hundred feet of space at the rocket-plane which, keel ports fiercely aflame, was braking her terrific speed to match the slower pace of the gigantic ship of war.]
The heavy cruiser _Chicago_ hung motionless in space, thousands of milesdistant from the warring fleets of space-ships so viciously attackingand so stubbornly defending the planetoid of the enemy. In the captain'ssanctum Lyman Cleveland crouched tensely above his ultra-cameras, hissensitive fingers touching lightly their micrometric dials. His body wasrigid, his face was set and drawn. Only his eyes moved: flashing backand forth between the observation plates and smoothly-running rollswhich were feeding into the cameras the hardened steel tapes upon whichwere being magnetically recorded the frightful scenes of carnage anddestruction there revealed.
Silent and bitterly absorbed, though surrounded by staring officers,whose fervent, almost unconscious cursing was prayerful in itsintensity, the visiray expert kept his ultra-instruments upon that awfulstruggle to its dire conclusion. Flawlessly those instruments notedevery detail of the destruction of Roger's fleet, of the transformationof the armada of Triplanetary into an unknown fluid, and finally of thedissolution of the gigantic planetoid itself. Then furiously Clevelanddrove his beams against the crimsonly opaque obscurity into which thepeculiar, viscous stream of substance was disappearing. Time after timehe applied his every watt of power, with no result. A vast volume ofspace, roughly ellipsodial in shape, was closed to him by forcesentirely beyond his experience or comprehension. But suddenly, while hisrays were still trying to pierce that impenetrable murk, it disappearedinstantly and, without warning, the illimitable infinity of space oncemore lay revealed upon his plates and his beams flashed on and onthrough the void, unimpeded.
"Back to Tellus, sir?" The _Chicago_'s captain broke the strainedsilence.
"I wouldn't say so, if I had the say." Cleveland, baffled and frustrate,straightened up and shut off his cameras. "We should report back as soonas possible, of course, but there seems to be a lot of wreckage outthere yet, that we can't photograph in detail at this distance. A closestudy of it might help us a lot in understanding what they did and howthey did it. I'd say that we should get close-ups of whatever is left,and do it right away, before it gets scattered all over space; but ofcourse I can't give you orders."
"You can, though," the captain made surprising answer. "My orders arethat you are in command of this vessel."
"In that case we will proceed at full emergency acceleration toinvestigate the wreckage," Cleveland replied, and the cruiser--solesurvivor of Triplanetary's supposedly invincible force--shot away withevery projector delivering its maximum blast.
As the scene of the disaster was approached there was revealed upon theplates a confused mass of debris; a mass whose individual units wereapparently moving at random: yet which was as a whole still followingthe orbit of Roger's planetoid. Space was full of machine parts,structural members, furniture, flotsam of all kinds; and everywhere werethe bodies of men. Some were encased in space-suits, and it was to thesethat the rescuers turned first--space-hardened veterans though the menof the _Chicago_ were, they did not care even to look at the others.Strangely enough, however, not one of the floating figures spoke ormoved, and space-line men were hurriedly sent out to investigate.
"All dead." Quickly the dread report came back. "Been dead a long time.The armor is all stripped off the suits, and the generators and theother apparatus are all shot. Something funny about it, too--none ofthem seem to have been touched, but the machinery of the suits seems tobe about half of it missing."
"I've got it all on the spools, sir." Cleveland, his close-up survey ofthe wreckage finished, turned to the captain. "What they've justreported checks up with what I've photographed everywhere. I've got anidea of what might have happened, but it's so dizzy that I'll have tohave a lot of reenforcement before I'll believe it myself. But you mighthave them bring in a few of the armored bodies, a couple of thoseswitchboards and panels floating around out there, and half a dozenmiscellaneous pieces of junk--the nearest things they get hold of,whatever they happen to be."
"Then back to Tellus at maximum?"
"Right--back to Tellus, as fast as we can possibly go there."
While the _Chicago_ hurtled through space at full power, Cleveland andthe ranking officers of the vessel grouped themselves about the salvagedwreckage. Familiar with space-wrecks as were they all, none of them hadever seen anything like the material before them. For every part andinstrument was weirdly and meaninglessly disintegrated. There were nobreaks, no marks of violence, and yet nothing was intact. Bolt-holesstared empty, cores, shielding cases and needles had disappeared, thevital parts of every instrument hung awry, disorganization reignedrampant and supreme.
"I never imagined such a mess," the captain said, after a long andsilent study of the objects. "If you have any theory to cover _that_,Cleveland, I would like to hear it!"
"I want you to notice something first," the visiray expert replied. "Butdon't look for what's there--look for what _isn't_ there."
"Well, the armor is gone. So are the shielding cases, shafts, spindles,the housings and stems...." The captain's voice died away as his eyesraced over the collection. "Why, everything that was made of wood,bakelite, copper aluminum, silver, bronze, or anything but steel hasn'tbeen touched, and every bit of steel is gone. But that doesn't makesense--what does it mean?"
"I don't know--yet," Cleveland replied, slowly. "But I'm afraid thatthere's more, and worse." He opened a space-suit reverently, revealingthe face; a face calm and peaceful, but utterly, sickeningly white.Still reverently, he made a deep incision in the brawny neck, severingthe jugular vein, then went on, soberly:
"You never imagined such a thing as _white_ blood, either, but it allchecks up. Someway, somehow, every particle--probably every atom--offree or combined iron in this whole volume of space was made off with."
"Huh? How come? And above all, _why_?" from the amazed and staringofficers.
"You know as much as I do," grimly, ponderingly. "If it were not for thefact that there are solid asteroids of iron out beyond Mars, I would saythat somebody wanted iron badly enough to wipe out the fleets and theplanetoid to get it. But anyway, whoever they were, they carried enoughpower so that our armament didn't bother them at all. They simply tookthe metal they wanted and went away with it--so fast that I couldn'ttrace them with an ultra-beam. There's only one thing plain; but that'sso plain that it scares me stiff. This whole affair spells intelligence,with a capital "I", and that intelligence is anything but friendly. Asfor me I want to get Fred Rodebush at work on this soon--think I'llhurry it up a little."
He stepped over to his ultra-projector and called the Terrestrialheadquarters of the T. S. S. Samms' face soon appeared upon his screen.
"We got it all, Virgil," he reported.
"It's something extraordinary--bigger, wider, and deeper than any of usdreamed. It may be urgent, too, so I think I had better shoot thepictures in on the ultra-wave and save a few days. Fred has atelemagneto recorder there that he can synchronize with this cameraoutfit easily enough. Right?"
"Right. Good work, Lyman--thanks," came back terse approval andappreciation, and soon the steel tapes were again flashing between thefeed-rolls. This time, however, their varying magnetic charges weremodulating an ultra-wave so that every detail of that calamitous battleof the void was being screened and recorded in the innermost privatelaboratory of the Triplanetary Secret Service.
Eager though he naturally was to join his fellow-scientists, Clevelanddid not waste his time during the long, but uneventful journey back toearth. There was much to study, many improvements to be made in hiscomparatively crude first ultra-camera. Then, too, there were longconferences with Samms, and particularly with Rodebush, the mathematicalphysicist, whose was the task of solving the riddles of the energies and
weapons of the Nevians. Thus it did not seem long before green Terragrew large beneath the flying sphere of the _Chicago_.
"Going to have to circle at once, aren't you?" Cleveland asked the chiefpilot. He had been watching that officer closely for minutes, admiringthe delicacy and precision with which the great vessel was beingmaneuvered preliminary to entering the earth's atmosphere.
"Yes," the pilot replied. "We had to come in in the shortest possibletime, and that meant a velocity here that we can't check without aspiral. However, even at that we saved a lot of time. You can save quitea bit more, though, by having a rocket-plane come out to meet ussomewhere around fifteen or twenty thousand kilometers, depending uponwhere you want to land. With their power-to-mass ratio they can matchour velocity and still make the drop direct."
"Guess I'll do that--thanks," and the operative called his chief, onlyto learn that his suggestion had already been acted upon.
"We beat you to it, Lyman," Samms smiled. "The _Silver Sliver_ is outthere now, looping to match your course, acceleration, and velocity attwenty-two thousand kilometers. You'll be ready to transfer?"
"I'll be ready!" and the Quartermaster's ex-clerk went to his quartersand packed his dunnage-bag.
In due time the long, slender body of the rocket-plane came into view,creeping 'down' upon the space-ship from 'above,' and Cleveland bade hisfriends good-bye. Donning a space-suit, he stationed himself in thestarboard airlock. Its atmosphere was withdrawn, the outer door opened,and he glanced across a bare hundred feet of space at the rocket-planewhich, keel ports fiercely aflame, was braking her terrific speed tomatch the slower pace of the gigantic ship of war. Shaped like atoothpick, needle-pointed fore and aft, with ultra-stubby wings andvanes, with flush-set rocket ports everywhere, built of a lustroussilvery alloy of noble and almost infusible metals--such was the privatespeedboat of the chief of the T. S. S. The fastest thing known, whetherin planetary air, the stratosphere, or the vacuus depth ofinterplanetary space, her first flashing trial spins had won her thenickname of the _Silver Sliver_. She had had a more formal name, butthat title had long since been buried in the Departmental files.
Lower and slower dropped the _Silver Sliver_, her rockets flaming evenbrighter, until her slender length lay level with the airlock door. Thenher blasting discharges subsided to the power necessary to match exactlythe _Chicago_'s deceleration.
"Ready to cut, _Chicago_! Give me a three-second call!" snapped from thepilot room of the _Sliver_.
"Ready to cut!" the pilot of the _Chicago_ replied. "Seconds! Three!Two! One! CUT!"
At the last word the power of both vessels was instantly cut off andeverything in them became weightless. In the tiny airlock of the slendercraft crouched a space-line man with coiled cable in readiness, but hewas not needed. As the flaring exhausts ceased Cleveland swung out hisheavy bag and stepped lightly off into space, and in a right line hefloated directly into the open doorway of the rocket-plane. The doorclanged shut behind him and in a matter of moments he stood in thecontrol room of the racer, divested of his armor and shaking hands withhis friend and co-laborer, Frederick Rodebush.
"Well, Fred, what do you know?" Cleveland asked, as soon as greetingshad been exchanged. "How do the various reports dovetail together? Iknow that you couldn't tell me anything on the wave, but there's nodanger of eavesdroppers _here_."
"You can't tell," Rodebush soberly replied. "We're just beginning towake up to the fact that there are a lot of things we don't knowanything about. Better wait until we're back at the Hill. We have a fullset of ultra-screens around there now. There's a couple of other goodreasons, too--it would be better for both of us to go over the wholething with Virgil, from the ground up; and we can't do any more talking,anyway. Our orders are to get back there at maximum, and you know whatthat means aboard the _Sliver_. Strap yourself solid in thatshock-absorber there, and here's a pair of ear-plugs."
"When the _Sliver_ really cuts loose it means a rough party, all right,"Cleveland assented, snapping about his body the heavy spring-straps ofhis deeply cushioned seat, "but I'm just as anxious to get back to theHill as anybody can be to get me there. All set."
Rodebush waved his hand at the pilot and the purring whisper of theexhausts changed instantly to a deafening, continuous explosion. The menwere pressed deeply into their shock-absorbing chairs as the _SilverSliver_ spun around her longitudinal axis and darted away from the_Chicago_ with such a tremendous acceleration that the spherical warshipseemed to be standing still in space. In due time the calculatedmid-point was reached, the slim space-plane rolled over again, and, madacceleration now reversed, rushed on toward the earth, but withconstantly diminishing speed. Finally a measurable atmospheric pressurewas encountered, the needle prow dipped downward, and the _SilverSliver_ shot forward upon her tiny wings and vanes, nose-rockets nowdrumming in staccato thunder. Her metal grew hot: dull red, bright redyellow, blinding white; but it neither melted nor burned. The pilot'scalculations had been sound, and though the limiting point of safety oftemperature was reached and steadily held, it was not exceeded. As thedensity of the air increased so decreased the velocity of the man-mademeteorite. So it was that a dazzling lance of fire sped high overSeattle, lower over Spokane, and hurled itself eastward, a furiouslyflaming arrow; slanting downward in a long, screaming dive toward theheart of the Rockies. As the now rapidly cooling greyhound of the skiespassed over the western ranges of the Bitter Roots it became apparentthat her goal was a vast, flat-topped, and conical mountain, shrouded inlivid light; a mountain whose height awed even its stupendous neighbors.
While not artificial, the Hill had been altered markedly by theTriplanetary engineers who had built into it the headquarters of theSecret Service. Its mile-wide top was a jointless expanse of gray armorsteel; the steep, smooth surface of the truncated cone was acontinuation of the same immensely thick sheet of metal. No knownvehicle could climb that smooth, hard, forbidding slope of steel; noknown projectile could mar that armor; no known craft could evenapproach the Hill without detection. Could not approach it at all, infact, for it was constantly inclosed in a vast hemisphere of lambentviolet flame through which neither material substance nor destructiveray could pass.
As the _Silver Sliver_, crawling along at a bare three-hundred miles anhour, approached that transparent, brilliantly violet wall ofdestruction, a violet light filled her control room and as suddenly wentout; flashing on and off again and again.
"Giving us the once-over, eh?" Cleveland asked. "That is something new,isn't it, Fred?"
"Yes, it's a high-powered ultra-wave spy," Rodenbush returned. "Thelight is simply a warning, which can be carried if desired. It can alsocarry voice and vision...."
"Like this," Samms' voice interrupted from the powerful dynamic speakerupon the pilots' panel and his clear-cut face appeared upon thetelevision screen. "I don't suppose Fred thought to mention it, but thisis one of his inventions of the last few days. We are just trying it outon you. It doesn't mean a thing though, as far as the _Sliver_ isconcerned. Come ahead!"
A circular opening appeared in the wall of force, an opening whichdisappeared as soon as the plane had darted through it; and at the sametime her landing-cradle rose into the air through a great trap-door.Slowly and gracefully the space-plane settled downward into thatcushioned embrace. Then cradle and nestled _Sliver_ sank from view and,turning smoothly upon mighty trunnions, the plug of armor drove solidlyback into its place in the metal pavement of the mountain's loftysummit. The cradle-elevator dropped rapidly, coming to rest many levelsdown in the heart of the Hill, and Cleveland and Rodebush leaped lightlyout of their transport, through her still hot outer walls. A door openedbefore them and they found themselves in a large room of full daylightillumination; the anteroom of the private office of Virgil Samms. Chiefsof Departments sat at their desks, concentrated upon problems or atease, according to the demands of the moment; televisotypes andrecorders flashed busily but silently; calmly efficient men and womenwent wontedly about the all-embracing busin
ess of Triplanetary'sspace-pervading Secret Service.
"Right of way, Norma?" Rodebush paused briefly before the desk of theChief's private secretary; but even before he had spoken she had presseda button and the door behind her swung wide.
"You two do not need to be announced," the attractive young womansmiled. "Go right in."
Samms met them at the door eagerly, shaking hands particularlyvigorously with Cleveland.
"Congratulations on that camera, Lyman!" he exclaimed. "You did awonderful piece of work on that. Help yourselves to smokes and sitdown--there are a lot of things we want to talk over. Your picturescarried most of the story, but they would have left us pretty much atsea without Costigan's reports. But as it was, Fred here and his crewworked out most of the answers from the dope the two of you got; andwhat few they haven't got yet they soon will have."
"Nothing new on Conway?" Cleveland was almost afraid to ask thequestion.
"No." A shadow came over Samms' face. "I'm afraid ... but I'm hopingit's only that those creatures, whatever they are, have taken him so faraway that he can't reach us."
"They certainly are so far away that we can't reach them." Rodenbushvolunteered. "We can't even get their ultra-wave interference any more."
"Yes, that's a hopeful sign," Samms went on. "I hate to think of ConwayCostigan checking out. There, fellows, was a real observer. He was theonly man, I have ever known, who combined the two qualities of theperfect witness. He could actually see everything he looked at, andcould report it truly, to the last, least detail. Take all this stuff,for instance; especially their ability to transform iron into a fluidallotrope, and in that form to use its intra-atomic energy as power.Something brand new--unheard of except in the ravings of imaginativefiction--and yet he described their converters and projectors sominutely that Fred was able to work out the underlying theory in threedays, and to tie it in with our own super-ship. My first thought wasthat we'd have to rebuild it iron-free, but Fred showed me my error--youfound it first yourself, of course."
"It wouldn't do any good to make the ship non-ferrous unless you couldso change our blood chemistry that we could get along withouthemoglobin, and that would be quite a feat," Cleveland agreed. "Then,too, our most vital electrical machinery is built around iron cores. No,we'll have to develop a screen for those forces--screens, rather, sopowerful that they can't drive anything through them."
"We've been working along those lines ever since you reported," Rodebushsaid, "and we're beginning to see light. And in that same connectionit's no wonder that we couldn't handle our super-ship. We had some goodideas, but they were wrongly applied. However, things look quitepromising now. We have that transformation of iron all worked out intheory, and as soon as we get a generator going we can straighten outeverything else in short order. And think what that unlimited powermeans! All the power we want--power enough even to try out such hithertopurely theoretical possibilities as the neutralization of gravity, andeven of the inertia of matter!"
"Hold on!" protested Samms. "You certainly can't do _that_! Inertiais--_must_ be--a basic attribute of matter, and surely cannot be doneaway with without destroying the matter itself. Don't start anythinglike that. Fred--I don't want to lose you and Lyman, too."
"Don't worry about us, Chief." Rodebush replied with a smile. "If youwill tell me what matter is, fundamentally, I may agree with you ... No?Well, then, don't be surprised at anything that happens. We are going todo a lot of things that nobody ever thought of doing before."
Thus for a long time the argument and discussion went on, to beinterrupted by the voice of the secretary.
"Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Samms, but some things have come up that youwill have to handle. Knobos is calling from out near Mars. He has caughtthe _Endymion_, and has killed about half her crew doing it. Milton hasfinally reported from Venus, after being out of touch for five days. Hetrailed the Wintons into Thalleron swamp. They crashed him there, but hewon out and has what he went after. And just now I got a flash fromFletcher, in the asteroid belt. I think that he has finally traced thatdope line. But Knobos is on now--what do you want him to do about the_Endymion_?"
"Tell him to--no, put him on here, I'd better tell him myself," Sammsdirected, and his face hardened in ruthless decision as the horny,misshapen face of the Martian lieutenant appeared upon the screen. "Whatdo you think, Knobos? Shall they come to trial or not?"
"No."
"I don't think so, either. It is better that a few gangsters shoulddisappear in space than run the risk of another uprising. See to it."
"Right." The screen darkened and Samms spoke to his secretary. "PutMilton and Fletcher on whenever their rays come in." He then turned tohis guests. "We've covered the ground quite thoroughly. Good-bye--I wishI could go with you, but I'll be pretty well tied up for the next weekor two."
"Tied up, doesn't half express it," Rodebush remarked as the twoscientists walked along a corridor toward an elevator. "He probably isthe busiest man on the three planets."
"As well as the most powerful," Cleveland supplemented. "And very fewmen could use his power as fairly--but he's welcome to it, as far as I'mconcerned. I'd have the pink fantods for a month if I had to do onlyonce what he's just done--and to him it's just part of a day's work."
"You mean the _Endymion_? What else could he do?"
"Nothing--that's just what I'm talking about. It had to be done, sincebringing them to trial would probably mean killing half the people ofMorseca; but at the same time it's a ghastly thing to have to order ajob of deliberate, cold-blooded, and illegal murder."
"You're right, of course, but you would...." he broke off, unable to puthis thoughts into words. For while inarticulate, manlike, concerningtheir deepest emotions, in both men was ingrained the code of theirorganization; both knew that to every man chosen for it _The Service_was everything, himself nothing.
"But enough of that, we'll have plenty of grief of our own right here,"Rodebush changed the subject abruptly as they stepped into a vast room,almost filled by the immense bulk of the _Boise_--the sinisterspace-ship which, although never flown, had already lined with black somany pages of Triplanetary's roster. She was now, however, the center ofa furious activity. Men swarmed over her and through her, in the orderlyconfusion of a fiercely driven but carefully planned program ofreconstruction.
"I hope your dope is right, Fred!" Cleveland called, as the twoscientists separated to go to their respective laboratories. "If it is,we'll make a perfect lady out of this unmanageable man-killer yet!"