6
"But there's something wrong, Drac."
"We've got grade five acceleration."
Grantline had joined us in the control turret. "How far would you say,at a rough guess, that ship is from us now?"
"Thirty thousand miles; about that." Drac scanned his page ofcalculations. "Impossible to gauge with any exactness; they changetheir pace so often and I can't figure out how large the damn thingis."
"Say they've got a forty thousand velocity; added to our ten, that'sfifty."
"And we're accelerating. In half an hour we'll be within range."
"But there's something wrong," I persisted.
For several minutes now I had been aware that the _Cometara_ wasacting strangely. A sluggish response to the controls, I thought, butwhen I called engine chief Franklin, he had not noticed it. Yet I wascertain.
Grantline stared at me. "Something wrong?"
"Yes. Drac, try orienting us. I did it ten minutes ago." I shoved himat my equations, giving the angles with the Sun, Earth and Moon whichwe should now have. "There's our flight course as it ought to be.Measure how we're heading, actual position. If it's what it ought tobe, with the plate-combinations I'm using, then I'm crazy."
"Oh, you're just naturally apprehensive," Grantline said.
But we were not where we should be. The _Cometara_ was off herpredetermined course. And then I realized the factor of error. Therewas a gravitational force here for which I was not allowing. Theerror was not within the _Cometara_; she was responding perfectly. Butthere was a force upon her, and not that of the Sun, Earth, Moon orthe distant starfield. I had calculated all of these. It was somethingelse. Some gravitational pull, so that we were not upon the course offlight we should have been on.
"But what could be wrong?" Grantline demanded.
It was Drac who guessed it. "That radiance from the enemy's bow?"
It was that, we felt certain. Even at this thirty thousand miledistance, the bow-beacon seemed streaming upon us. We could not seethat it illumined the _Cometara_, nor could our instruments measureany added illumination. Our flight-orbit, if held, would carry us witha swing some ten thousand miles above the South Pole of the Moon. Itwould cross diagonally in front of the trajectory that the enemyvessel was maintaining. But we were off our predetermined course, witha side-drift toward the enemy. That bow-beacon radiance was exerting aforce upon us, a strange gravitational pull.
Grantline gasped when Drac said it. "If it's that now, what will it bewhen we get closer?"
The minutes were passing. The thirty thousand miles between us and theenemy was cut to ten thousand; to five. The ship was soon visible tothe naked eye. Its visual movement, for all this time measurable onlyas a drift upon the amplified images of our instruments, now wasobvious. We could see it plunging forward, could see that probably wewould cross its bow. Within fifty miles? We hoped and guessed thatwould be the result, so that with this first passing we could use ourweapons. Fifty miles of distance at combined speeds of some fiftythousand miles an hour: that would be something like three secondsfrom a collision. The danger of a collision, which both ships would doanything to avert, was negligible; in the immensity of space twoobjects so small could not strike each other, even with intention,once in a million times.
We could not calculate the passing so closely, but suddenly it seemedthat perhaps the enemy could. The bow-beacon radiance, so obviously aminiature of the weird light-beams streaming from Earth, Mars andVenus, now swung away from us and was extinguished. Whateveralteration of our course the enemy had made, they seemed to besatisfied. The passing would be to their liking. Would it be to ours?
Grantline had left the turret. He was down on the deck, ready with hismen. The weapons were ready.
We had long since advanced beyond the possibility of mathematicalcalculations keeping pace with our changing position in relation tothe enemy, but it seemed that the passing would be within fifty miles.Grantline's weapons would carry their bolt that far.
It was barely two thousand miles away now. Two minutes of time beforethe passing. I stared at it, a long, low ship of dark metal, red wherethe moonlight struck upon it. I estimated its size to be about that ofthe _Cometara_, but it was much more nearly globular. Upon its top,seeming to project from the terraced dome, was an up-pointing funnel,like the smokestack of an old-fashioned surface steam vessel; or likea great black muzzle of an old-fashioned gun. And in a row along thebulging middle of the hull there was a series of little discs.
The vessel was still a tiny blob, but every instant it was enlarging,doubling its visual size. Drac said tensely, "Fifteen hundred miles!We'll pass in a minute and a half."
I turned the angle of the stern rocket-streams. The firmament slowlybegan swinging; the enemy ship seemed swaying up over us. I wasturning our top to it, so that Grantline might fire directly upwardfrom both sides almost simultaneously. It might be possible, if Icould roll us over at just the proper seconds.
But the enemy anticipated us. As they observed our roll, again thebow-beacon flashed on. It visibly struck us, bathed all our length inits spreading opalescent radiance.
It seemed for an instant to do nothing. Our dome did not crack; therewas no shock. But our side-roll slowed. The heavens stopped theirswing, and then swung back! We were upon an even keel again, the enemylevel with our bow. Against the force of my turning rocket-streamsthis radiation had righted us. It clung a few seconds more, and againvanished.
Grantline's deck audiphone rang with his startled voice: "Gregg, rollus over! Quick! I can only fire from one side."
"I can't."
It was too late now. A few hundred miles of distance! Drac stoodclutching me, staring through the port. And I stared, breathless,awaiting the results of these next few seconds.
The ships passed like crossing, speeding meteors. A few seconds offinal approach; I saw the enemy vessel as an elongated, flattenedglobe, with a triple-terraced dome and terraced decks beneath it. Thatqueer stack on top! The round discs, like ten-foot eyes, gleamed alongthe equator of the bulging hull.
One of Grantline's weapons fired a silent flash. Still out of range.The spit of our electrons leaped from our side. The enemy wasuntouched.
The thought stabbed at me: _Anita! Not killed by that one._
Another shot from Grantline.
No result. It seemed that I saw the bolt strike. There was areddening, a flash upon that bulging hull, but nothing more.
I was aware again of the enemy bow-beam swinging upon us. The beam waspressing us over again so that in a moment we would be hull-bottom tothe enemy and Grantline could not fire.
He anticipated it. The ship was broadside to us. In the split secondof that passing I saw that it was not fifty miles away, hardly ten.Grantline flung his remaining bolts. The enemy was a streaked blurgoing by; and all in that second it was past, reddening in thedistance. Untouched by our bolts? It seemed so. The bow radiancedarted ahead of it. The globular shape, unharmed, dwindled in thedistance behind us.
And it had done nothing to us!
The control levers were in my hands. I would shift the gravity-plates,and make the quickest turn we could. We would go around the Moon,probably, and come back within an hour or two. Perhaps our adversarywould also turn to encounter us again.
At that second I had not seen the little discs, but I saw them now!They came sailing in a line, ten foot, flat, circular discs of a darkmetal; they gleamed reddish where the sunlight painted them. They hadbeen fastened outside the enemy vessel and in our passing they hadbeen discharged. They sailed now like whirling plates. There seemedperhaps twenty of them, heading in a curve toward us.
Grantline's voice came again from the deck audiphone. "Missed them,Gregg. That's what I thought but at least two of our bolts must havestruck. But it didn't hurt them."
"No," I replied. "It seemed not. They must have a defensive barrage."
Drac was pulling at me. "Those things out there, those discs...."
Grantline demanded, "Yes, wh
at in hell are they?"
We could not tell. It seemed that their curve would take them behindour stern. Grantline added: "Will you try going back after that ship?"
"Yes."
But I did not. To the naked eye the enemy ship had alreadydisappeared; but with the 'scopes we saw that it seemed to be turning.
I did not attempt to turn us, for we were afraid of those oncomingdiscs which took all our attention. They passed within five milesastern of us, but in a great curve they swung and now seemed headingacross our bow. With what tremendous velocity they had been endowed bytheir firing mechanisms! Their elliptical curve swung them a mile orso ahead of us.
They were circling us like tiny satellites in a narrowing spiralellipse. Our attraction, the normal gravity of our close bulk, wasdrawing them to us.
The men on the _Cometara's_ deck stood gazing, surprised but not yetalarmed. The lookout calls sounded with routine notification each timethe discs passed across our bow and stern. In the helio cubby, Waterswas still trying to raise an Earth station.
Grantline came running to the control turret. "If those cursed things,should strike us, Gregg!"
I had set the gravity-plates into new combinations, turning our coursedownward, trying to swing us under the plane of the discs' orbit. Butthey swung downward with us; they were no more than two thousand feetaway now.
Grantline said, "At the next broadside passing I'll fire at them."
Drac looked up from his calculating instruments. "Look! A circularrotation: Horribly swift. But I've caught a picture. Look!"
He had a still image of one of the discs. It had saw-teeth at its thinknife-like outer circumference. Whirling at tremendous speed, thesesaw-toothed metal discs might cut into our dome, or some other part ofour ship.
At the next round, Grantline fired. The discs reddened a little, butcame on unharmed. From the other side, he fired again. Three of thediscs seemed to have been caught full. His bolts, sustained for theirfullest ten seconds of duration at this close, thousand-foot range,took effect. The three discs seemed to crumble with a puff ofqueerly-radiant vacuum spark-glows, then were gone.
But the others came closing in.
The _Cometara_ rang now with the excitement and alarm of the men.Grantline could not set his gauges fast enough to fire at every round.
I had a sudden thought. With the rear rockets, I rolled us over. For amoment we were hull-down to the passing discs. From our hullgravity-plates I flung a full repulsion. Would it stave them off, bendtheir orbit outward? It did not. Their course was unaltered.
Again Grantline was shouting at me, "Roll us back! I must fire!"
It had been an error, that rolling; Grantline lost several shotsbecause of it. I swung us level. The discs passed within a hundredfeet; half a dozen of them were still closer. Gleaming, whirlingcircles, thin as knife-blades; they passed close under our stern, camebroadside.
These were tense, horrible seconds. The discs skimmed our bow; oneseemed to miss our dome by inches. Grantline's volley annihilated fourmore, but there were still eight of them. They swung in at our stern.
I was aware of confusion throughout the _Cometara_. The crew andstewards were running up to the bow quarter-deck. My second officerstood there, stricken. The stern lookout screamed his futile warning.
Useless! I saw one of the discs strike our stern dome, then another.Still others. They were silent blows, but it seemed that I could feelthem cutting into the dome-plates.
The dome was cracking! Then, after that horrible instant, came thesound: crunch, a rumble; the grind of crushed and breaking metal;then the puff and surge of the outward explosion.
I saw the whole tip of the stern dome cracking, bursting outward,forced by our interior air pressure. And over all the _Cometara_ theoutgoing air was sucking and whining with a growing rush of wind.
I shouted, "Drac! Close the stern bulkhead!"
I set the word-buttons for the distress siren, and pulled the lever.Its voice screamed over the uproar. "_Keep forward! Take thespace-suits! Prepare to abandon ship!_"