The Return to Ganymede

Must you go back to Ganymede?" Barkovis asked, slowly and thoughtfully. He was

sitting upon a crystal bench beside the fountain, talking with Stevens, who, dressed in

his bulging space-suit, stood near an airlock of the Forlorn Hope. "It seems a shame

that you should face again those unknown, monstrous creatures who so inexcusably

attacked us both without provocation." "I'm not so keen on it myself, but I can't see any

other way out of it," the Terrestrial replied. "We left a lot of our equipment there, you

know; and even if I should build duplicates here, it wouldn't do us any good. These ten-

nineteens are the most powerful transmitting tubes known when we left Tellus, but even

their fields, dense as they are, can't hold an ultra-beam together much farther than

about six astronomical units. So you see we can't possibly reach our friends from here

with this tube; and your system of beam transmission won't hold anything together even

that far, and won't work on any wave shorter than Roeser's Rays. We may run into

some more of those little spheres, though, and I don't like the prospect. I wonder if we

couldn't plate a layer of that mirror of yours onto the Hope, and carry along a few of

those bombs ? By the way, what is that explosive—or is it something beyond Tellurian

chemistry?"

     "Its structure should be clear to you, although you probably could not prepare it

upon Tellus because of your high temperature. It is nothing but nitrogen—twenty-six

atoms of nitrogen combined to form one molecule of what you would call—N-twenty

six?"

     "Wow!" Stevens whistled. "Crystalline, pentavalent nitrogen—no wonder it's

violent!"

     "We could, of course, cover your vessel with the mirror, but I am afraid that it

would prove of little value. The plates are so hot that it would soon volatilize."

     "Not necessarily," argued Stevens. "We could live in number one life-boat, and

shut off the heat everywhere else. The life-boats are insulated from the structure proper,

and the inner and outer walls of the structure are insulated from each other. With only

the headquarters lifeboat warm, the outer wall could be held pretty close to zero

absolute."

     "That is true. The bombs, of course, are controlled by radio, and therefore may

be attached to the outer wall of your vessel. We shall be glad to do these small things

for you."

     The heaters of the Forlorn Hope were shut off, and as soon as the outer shell

had cooled to Titanian temperature a corps of mechanics set to work. A machine very

like a concrete mixer was rolled up beside the steel vessel, and into its capacious maw

were dumped boxes and barrels of dry ingredients and many cans of sparkling liquid.

The resultant paste was pumped upon the steel plating in a sluggish, viscid stream,

which spread out into a thick and uniform coating beneath the flying rollers of the skilled

Titanian workmen. As it hardened, the paste smoothed magically into the perfect mirror

which covered the space-vessels of the satellite; and a full dozen of the mirrored

explosive bombs of this strange people were hung in the racks already provided.

     "Once again I must caution you concerning those torpedoes," Barkovis warned

Stevens. "If you use them all, very well, but do not try to take even one of them into any

region where it is very hot, for it will explode arid demolish your vessel. If you do not use

them, destroy them before you descend into the hot atmosphere of Ganymede. The

mirror will volatilize harmlessly at the temperature of melting mercury, but the torpedoes

must be destroyed. Once more, Tellurians, we thank you for what you have done, and

wish you well."

     "Thanks a lot for your help—we still owe you something," replied Stevens. "If

either of your power-plants go sour on you again, or if you need any more built, be sure

to let us know—you can come close enough to the inner planets now on your own beam

to talk to us on the ultra-communicator. We'll be glad to help you any way we can—and

we may call on you for help again. Goodbye, Barkovis—good-by, all Titania!"

     He made his way through the bitterly cold shop into the control-room of their

lifeboat, and while he was divesting himself of his heavy suit Nadia lifted the Forlorn

Hope into the blue-green sky of Titan, accompanied by an escort of the mirrored globes.

Well clear of the atmosphere of the satellite, the Terrestrial cruiser shot forward at

normal acceleration, while the Titanian vessels halted and wove a pattern of blue and

golden rays in salute to the departing guests.

     "Well, girl-friend, we're off—on a long trek, too, 's what I mean."

     "Said Wun Long Hop, the Chinese pee-lo," Nadia agreed. "Sure everything's all

x, big boy?"

     "To nineteen decimals," he declared. "You couldn't squeeze another frank into

our accumulators with a proof-bar, and since they're sending us all the power we want

to draw, we won't need to touch our batteries or tap our own beam until we're almost to

Jupiter. To cap the climax, what it takes to make big medicine on those spherical friends

of ours, we've got. We're not sitting on top of the world, ace —we're perched on the

exact apex of the entire universe!"

     "How long is it going to take ?"

     "Don't know. Haven't figured it yet, but it'll be beau-coup days," and the two

wanderers from far-distant Earth settled down to the routine of a long and uneventful

journey.

     They gave Saturn and his spectacular rings a wide berth and sped on, with ever-

increasing velocity. Past the outer satellites, on and on, the good ship Forlorn Hope flew

into the black-and-brilliant depths of interplanetary space. Saturn was an ever-

diminishing disk beneath them: above them were Jupiter's thin crescent, growing ever

larger and more bright, and the Monarch of the Solar System, remaining almost

stationary day after day, increasing steadily in apparent diameter and in brilliance.

     Although the voyage from Titan to Ganymede was long, it was not monotonous,

for there was much work to be done in the designing and fabrication of the various units

which were to comprise the ultra-radio transmitting station. In the various compartments

of the Forlorn Hope there were sundry small motors, blowers, coils, condensers, force-

field generators, and other items which Stevens could use with little or no alteration; but

for the most part he had to build everything himself. Thus it was that time passed

quickly; so quickly that Jupiter loomed large and the Saturnian beam of power began to

attenuate almost before the Terrestrials realized that their journey was drawing to an

end.

     "Our beam's falling apart fast," Stevens read his meters carefully, then swung his

communicator beam toward Jupiter. "We aren't getting quite enough power to hold our

acceleration at normal—think I'll cut now, while we're still drawing enough to let the

Titanians know we're off their beam. We've got lots of power of our own now; and we're

getting pretty close to enemy territory, so that they may locate that heavy beam. Have

you found Ganymede yet?"

     "Yes, it will be on the other side of Jupiter by the time we get there. Shall I detour,

or put on a little more negative and wait for it to come around to this side ?"

     "Better wait, I think. The further away we stay from Jupiter and the major

satellites, the better."

     "All x—it's on. Suppose we'd better start standing watches, in case some of them

show up?"

     "No use," he dissented. "I've been afraid to put out our electro-magnetic

detectors, as they could surely trace them in use. Without them, we couldn't spot an

enemy ship even if we were looking right at it, except by accident; since they won't be

lighted up and it's awfully hard to see anything out here, anyway. We probably won't

know that they're within a million kilometers until they put a beam on us. Barkovis says

that this mirror will reflect any beam they can use, and I've already got a set of photo-

cells in circuit to ring an alarm at the first flash off of our mirror plating. I'd like to get in

the first licks myself, but I haven't been able to dope out any way of doing it. So you

might as well sleep in your own room, as usual, and I'll camp here right under the panel

until we get to Ganymede. There's a couple of little things I just thought of, though, that

may help some; and I'm going to do 'em right now."

     Putting on his space-suit, he picked up a power drill and went out into the bitter

cold of the outer structure. There he attacked the inner wall of their vessel, and the

carefully-established inter-wall vacuum disappeared in a screaming hiss of air as the

tempered point bit through plate after plate.

     "What's the idea, Steve?" Nadia asked, when he had re-entered the control

room. "Now you'll have all that pumping to do over again."

     "Protection for the mirrors," he explained. "You see, they aren't perfect reflectors.

There's a little absorption, so that some stuff comes through. Not much, of course; but

enough to kill some of those Titanians and almost enough to ruin their ship got through

in about ten minutes, and only one enemy was dealing it out. We can stand more than

they could, of course, but the mirror itself won't stand much more heat than it was

absorbing then. But with air in those spaces instead of vacuum, and with the whole

mass of the Hope except this one lifeboat as cold as it is, I figure that there'll be enough

conduction and convection through them to keep the outer wall and the mirror

cold—cool enough, at least, to hold the mirror on for an hour. If only one ship tackles us

it won't be bad—but I figure that if there's only one, we're lucky."

     Stevens' fears were only too well grounded, for during the "evening" of the

following day, while he was carefully scanning the heavens for some sign of enemy

craft, the alarm bell over his head burst into its brazen clamor. Instantly he shot out the

detectors and ultra-lights and saw not one, but six of the deadly globes—almost upon

them, at point-blank range! One was already playing a beam of force upon the Forlorn

Hope, and the other five went into action immediately upon feeling the detector

impulses and perceiving that the weapon of their sister ship had encountered an

unusual resistance in the material of that peculiarly mirrored wedge. As those terrific

forces struck her the Terrestrial cruiser became a vast pyrotechnic set-piece, a dazzling

fountain of coruscant brilliance: for the mirror held. The enemy beams shot back upon

themselves and rebounded in all directions, in the same spectacular exhibition of

frenzied incandescence which had marked the resistance of the Titanian sphere to a

similar attack.

     But Stevens was not idle. In the instant of launching his detectors, as fast as he

could work the trips, four of the frightful nitrogen bombs of Titan—all that he could

handle at once—shot out into space, their rocket-tubes flaring viciously. The enemy

detectors of course located the flying torpedoes immediately, but, contemptuous of

material projectiles, the spheres made no attempt to dodge, but merely lashed out upon

them with their ravening rays. So close was the range that they had no time to avoid the

radio-directed bombs after discovering that their beams were useless against the

unknown protective covering of those mirrored shells. There were four practically

simultaneous detonations—silent, but terrific explosions as the pent-up internal energy

of solid pentavalent nitrogen was instantaneously released—and the four insensately

murderous spheres disappeared into jagged fragments of wreckage, flying wildly away

from the centers of explosion. One great mass of riven and twisted metal was blown

directly upon the fifth globe, and Nadia stared in horrified fascination at the silent crash

as the entire side of the ship crumpled inward like a shell of cardboard under the awful

impact. That vessel was probably out of action, but Stevens was taking no chances. As

soon as he had clamped a tractor rod upon the sixth and last of the enemy fleet he

drove a torpedo through the gaping wall and into the interior of the helpless war-vessel.

There he exploded it, and the awful charge, detonated in that confined space, literally

tore the globular space-ship to bits.

     "We'll show these jaspers what kind of trees make shingles!" he gritted between

clenched teeth; and his eyes, hard now as gray iron, fairly emitted sparks as he

launched four torpedoes upon the sole remaining globe of the squadron of the void.

"I've had a lot of curiosity to know just what kind of unnatural monstrosities can possibly

have such fiendish dispositions as they've got—but beasts, men, or devils, they'll find

they've grabbed something this time they can't let go of," and fierce blasts of energy

ripped from the exhausts as he drove his missiles, at their highest possible acceleration,

toward the captive sphere so savagely struggling at the extremity of his tractor beam.

     But that one remaining vessel was to prove no such easy victim as had its sister

ships. Being six to one, and supposedly invincible, the squadron had been

overconfident and had attacked carelessly, -with only its crippling slicing beams instead

of its more deadly weapons of total destruction ; and so fierce and hard had been

Stevens' counter-attack that five of its numbers had been destroyed before they realized

what powerful armament was mounted by that apparently crude, helpless, and

innocuous wedge. The sixth, however, was fully warned, and every resource at the

command of its hellish crew was now being directed against the Forlorn Hope.

     Sheets, cones, and gigantic rods of force flashed and crackled. Space was filled

with silent, devastating tongues of flame. The Forlorn Hope was dragged about

erratically as the sphere tried to dodge those hurtling torpedoes; tried to break away

from the hawser of energy anchoring her so solidly to her opponent. But the linkage

held, and closer and closer Stevens drove the fourfold menace of his frightful dirigible

bombs. Pressor beams beat upon them in vain. Hard driven as those pushers were they

could find no footing, but were reflected at obtuse angles by that untouchable mirror and

their utmost force scarcely impeded the progress of the rocket-propelled missiles.

Comparatively small as the projectiles were, however, they soon felt the effects of the

prodigious beams of heat enveloping them, and torpedo after torpedo exploded

harmlessly in space as their mirrors warmed .up and volatilized. But for each bomb that

was lost Stevens launched another, and each one came closer to its objective than had

its predecessor.

     Made desperate by the failure of his every beam, the enemy commander thought

to use material projectiles himself—weapons abandoned long since by his race as

antiquated and inefficient, but a few of which were still carried "by the older types of

vessels. One such shell was found and launched—but in the instant of its launching

Stevens' foremost bomb struck its mark and exploded. So close were the other three

bombs that they also let go at the shock; and the warlike sphere, hemmed in by four

centers of explosion, flew apart—literally pulverized. Its projectile, so barely discharged,

did not explode—it was loaded with material which could be detonated only by the

warhead upon impact or by a radio signal. It was, however, deflected markedly from its

course by the force of the blast, so that instead of striking the Forlorn Hope in direct

central impact, its head merely touched the apex of the mirror-plated wedge. That touch

was enough. There was another appalling concussion, another blinding glare, and the

entire front quarter of the Terrestrial vessel had gone to join the shattered globes.

     Between the point of explosion and the lifeboats there had been many channels

of insulation, many bulkheads, many airbreaks, and compartment after compartment of

accumulator cells. These had borne the brunt of the explosion, so that the control room

was unharmed, and Stevens swung his communicator rapidly through the damaged

portions of the vessel.

     "How badly are we hurt, Steve—can we make it to Ganymede ?" Nadia was

staring over his shoulder into the plate, studying with him the pictures of destruction

there portrayed as he flashed the projector from compartment to compartment.

     "We're hurt—no fooling—but it might have been a lot worse," he replied, as he

completed the survey. "We've lost about all of our accumulators, but we can land on our

own beam, and landing power is all we want, I think. You see, we're drifting straight for

where Ganymede will be, and we'd better cut out every bit of power we're using, even

the heaters, until we get there. This lifeboat will hold heat for quite a while, and I'd rather

get pretty cold than meet any more of that gang. I figured eight hours just before they

met us, and we were just about drifting then. Say seven hours blind."

     "But can't they detect us anyway? They may have sent out a call, you know."

     "If we aren't using any power for anything, their electromagnetics are the only

things we'll register on, and they're mighty short-range finders. Even if they should get

that close to us, they'll probably think we're meteoric, since we'll be dead to their other

instruments. Luckily we've got lots of air, so the chemical purifiers can handle it without

power. I'll shut off everything and we'll drift it. Couldn't do much of anything,

anyway—even our shop out there won't hold air. But we can have light. We've got

acetylene emergency lamps, you know, and we don't need to economize on oxygen."

     "Perhaps we'd better run in the dark. Remember what you told me about their

possible visirays, and that you've got only two bombs left."

     "All x; that'd be better, at that. If I forget it, remind me to blow up those two before

we hit the atmosphere of Ganymede, will you?" He opened all the power switches, and,

every source of ethereal vibrations cut off, the Forlorn Hope drifted slowly on, now

appearing forlorn indeed.

     Seven hours dragged past; seven age-long hours during which the two sat tense,

expecting they knew not what, talking only at intervals and in subdued tones. Stevens

then snapped on the communicator beam just long enough to take an observation upon

Ganymede. Several such brief glimpses were taken; then, after a warning word to his

companion, he sent out and exploded the nitrogen bombs. He then threw on the power,

and the vessel leaped toward the satellite under full acceleration. Close to the

atmosphere it slanted downward in a screaming, fifteen-hundred-mile dive; and soon

the mangled wedge dropped down into the little canyon which for so long had been

"home".

     "Well, colonel, home again!" Stevens exulted as he neutralized the controls.

"There's the falls, our power plant, the catapults, V everything. Now, unless something

interrupts us again, we'll run up our radio tower and give Brandon the long yell."

     "How much more have you got to do before you can start sending?"

     "Not an awful lot. Everything's built—all I've got to do is assemble it. I should be

able to do it easily in a week. Hope nothing else happens—if I drag you into any more

such messes as those we've just been getting out of by the skin of our teeth I'll begin to

wish that we had started out at first to drift it back to Tellus in the Hope. Let's see how

much time, we've got. We should start shooting one day after an eclipse, so that we'll

have five days to send. You see, we don't want to point our beam too close to Jupiter or

to any of the large satellites, because the enemy might live there and might intercept it,

and that'd be just too bad for us. We had an eclipse yesterday—so one week from

today, at sunrise, I start shooting."

     "But Earth's an evening star now; you can't see it in the morning."

     "I'm not going to aim at Tellus. I'm shooting at Brandon, and he's never there for

more than a week or two at a stretch. They're prowling around out in space somewhere

almost all the time."

     "Then how can you possibly hope to hit them ?" , "It may be quite a job of

hunting, but not as bad as you might think. They probably aren't much, if any, outside

the orbit of Mars, and they usually stay within a couple of million kilometers or so of the

Ecliptic, so we'll start at the sun and shoot our beam in a spiral to cover that field. We

ought to be able to hit them inside of twelve hours, but if we don't, we'll widen our spiral

and keep on trying until we do hit them."

     "Heavens, Steve! Are you planning on telegraphing steadily for days at a time?"

     "Sure, but not by hand, of course—I'll have an automatic sender and automatic

pointers."

     Stevens had at his command a very complete machine-shop, he had an ample

supply of power, and all that remained for him to do was to assemble the parts which he

had built during the long journey from Titan to Ganymede. Therefore at sunrise of the

designated day he was ready, and, with Nadia hanging breathless over his shoulder he

closed the switch, a toothed wheel engaged a delicate interrupter, and a light sounder

began its strident chatter.

     "Ganymede point oh four seven ganymede point oh four seven ganymede point

oh four seven . . ." endlessly the message was poured out into the ether, carried by a

tight beam of ultra-vibrations and driven by forces sufficient to propel it well beyond the

opposite limits of the orbit of Mars.

     "What does it say? I can't read code."

     Stevens translated the brief message, but Nadia remained unimpressed.

     "But it doesn't say anything!" she protested. "It isn't addressed to anybody, it isn't

signed—it doesn't tell anybody anything about anything."

     "It's all there, ace. You see, since the beam is moving sidewise very rapidly at

that range and we're shooting at a small target, the message has to be very short or

they won't get it all while the beam's on 'em—it isn't as though we were broadcasting. It

doesn't need any address, because nobody but the Sirius can receive it—except

possibly the Jovians. They'll know who's sending it without any signature. It tells them

that Ganymede wants to receive a message on the ultra-band centering on forty-seven

thousandths. Isn't that enough ?"

     "Maybe. But suppose some of them live right here on Ganymede—you'll be

shooting right through the ground all night—or suppose that even if they don't live here,

that they can find our beam some way? Or suppose that Brandon hasn't got his

machine built yet, or suppose that it isn't turned on when our beam passes them, or

suppose they're asleep or something then ? It looks like there's a lot of things that might

happen."

     "Not so many, ace—your first objection is the only one that hasn't got more holes

in it than a sieve, so I'll take it first. Since our beam is only a meter in diameter here and

doesn't spread much in the first few million kilometers, the chance of direct reception by

the enemy, even if they do live here on Ganymede, is infinitesimally small. But I don't

believe that they live here—at least, they certainly didn't land on this satellite. As you

suggest, however, it is conceivable that they may have detector screens delicate

enough to locate our beam at a distance; but since in all probability that means a

distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers, I think it highly improbable. We've got

to take the same risk anyway, no matter what we do, whenever we start to use any kind

of driving power, so there's no use worrying about it.

     As for your last two objections, I know Brandon and I know Westfall. Brandon will

have receivers built that will take in any wave possible of propagation, and Westfall, the

cautious old egg, will have them running twenty four hours a day, with automatic

recorders, finders, and everything else that Brandon can invent—and believe me,

sweetheart, that's a lot of stuff!"

     "It's wonderful, the way you three men are," replied Nadia thoughtfully, reading

between the lines of Stevens' utterance. "They knew that you were on the Arcturus, of

course—and they knew that if you were alive you'd manage in some way to get in touch

with them. And you, away out here after all this time, are superbly confident that they

are expecting a call from you. That, I think, is one of the finest things I ever heard of."

     "They're two of the world's best—absolutely." Nadia looked at him, surprised, for

he had not seen anything complimentary to himself in her remark. "Wait until you meet

them. They're men, Nadia—real men. And speaking of meeting them—please try to

keep on loving me after you meet Norm Brandon, will you?"

     "Don't be a simp!" Her brown eyes met his steadily. "You didn't mean that—you

didn't even say it, did you?"

     "Back it comes, sweetheart! But knowing myself and knowing those two . . ."

     "Clam it! If Norman Brandon or Quincy Westfall had been here instead of you, or

both of them together, we'd have been here from now on—we wouldn't even have got

away from the Jovians!"

     "Now it's your turn to back water, guy!"

     "Well, maybe, a little—if both of them were here they ought to equal you in some

things. Brandon says himself that he and Westfall together make one scientist—Dad

says he says so."

     "You don't want to believe everything you hear. Neither of them will admit that he

knows anything or can do anything—that's the way they are."

     "Dad has told me a lot about them—how they've always been together ever since

their undergraduate days. How they studied together all over the world, even after

they'd been given all the degrees loose. How they even went to the other planets to

study—to Mars, where they had to live in space-suits all the time, and to Venus, where

they had to take ultra-violet treatments every day to keep alive. How they learned

everything that everybody else knew and then went out into space to find out things that

nobody else ever dreamed of. How you came to join them, and what you three have

done since. They're fine, of course—but they aren't you," she concluded passionately.

     "No, thank Heaven! I know you love me, Nadia, just as I love you—you know I

never doubted it. But you'll like them, really; nobody could help it. They're a wonderful

team. Brandon's a big brute, you know—fully five centimeters taller than I am, and he

weighs close to a hundred kilograms—and no lard, either. He's a wild, impetuous

lobster, always jumping at conclusions and working out theories that seem absolutely

ridiculous, but they're usually sound, even though impractical. Westfall's the practical

member— he makes Norm pipe down, pins him down to facts, and makes it possible to

put his hunches and wild flashes of genius into workable form. Quince is a . . ."

     "Now you pipe down! I've heard you rave so much about those two—I'd lots

rather rave about you, and with more reason. I wish that sounder would start sounding."

     "Our first message hasn't gone half way yet. It takes about forty minutes for the

impulse to get to where I think they are, so that even if they got the first one and

answered it instantly, it'd be eighty minutes before we'd get it. I sort of expect an answer

late tonight, but I won't be disappointed if it takes a week to locate them."

     "I will!" declared the girl, and indeed, very little work was done that day by either

of the castaways.

     Slowly the day wore on, and the receiving sounder remained silent. Supper was

eaten as the sun dropped low and disappeared, but they felt no desire to sleep. Instead,

they went out in front of the steel wall, where Stevens built a small campfire. Leaning

back against the wall of their vessel they fell into companionable silence, which was

suddenly broken by Stevens.

     "Nadia, I just had a thought. I'll bet four dollars I've wasted a lot of time. They'll

certainly have automatic relays on Tellus, to save me the trouble of hunting for them,

but like an idiot I never thought of it until just this minute, in spite of the speech I made

you about them. I'm going to change those directors right now."

     "That's quite a job, isn't it?"

     "No, only a few minutes."

     "Do it in the morning; you've done enough for one day—maybe you've hit them

already, anyway."

     They again became silent, watching Jupiter, an enormous crescent moon almost

seven degrees in apparent diameter.

     "Steve, I simply can't get used to such a prodigious moon! Look at the stripes,

and look at that perfectly incredible . . ."

     A gong sounded and they both jumped to their feet and raced madly into the

Hope. The ultra-receiver had come to life and the sounder was chattering

insanely—someone was sending with terrific speed, but with perfect definition and

spacing.

     "That's Brandon's fist—I'd know his style anywhere," Stevens shouted, as he

seized notebook and pencil.

     "Tell me what it says, quick, Steve!" Nadia implored.

     "Can't talk—read it!" Stevens snapped. His hand was flying over the paper,

racing to keep up with the screaming sounder.

     ". . . ymede all x stevens ganymede all x stevens ganymede all x placing and will

keep sirius on plane between you and tellus circle fifteen forty north going tellus first

send full data spreading beam to cover circle fifteen forty quince suggests possibility

this message intercepted and translated personally I think such translation impossible

and that he is wilder than a hawk but just in case they should be supernaturally

intelligent . . ."

     Stevens stopped abruptly and stared at the vociferous sounder.

     "Don't stop to listen—keep on writing!" commanded Nadia.

     "Can't," replied the puzzled mathematician. "It doesn't make sense. It sounds

intelligent—it's made up of real symbols of some kind or other, but they don't mean a

thing to me."

     "Oh, I see—he's sending mush on purpose. Read the last phrase!"

     "Oh, sure—'mush' is right," and with no perceptible break the signals again

became intelligible.

     ". . . if they can translate that they are better scholars than we are signing off until

hear from you brandon."

     The sounder died abruptly into silence and Nadia sobbed convulsively as she

threw herself into Stevens' arms. The long strain over, the terrible uncertainty at last

dispelled, they were both incoherent for a minute—Nadia glorifying the exploits of her

lover, Stevens crediting the girl herself and his two fellow-scientists with whatever

success had been achieved. A measure of self-control regained, Stevens cut off his

automatic sender, changed the adjustments of his directors and cut in his manually-

operated sending key.

     "What waves are you using, anyway?" asked Nadia, curiously. "They must be

even more penetrating than Roeser's Rays, to have such a range, and Roeser's Rays

go right through a planet without even slowing up."

     "They're of the same order as Roeser's—that is, they're sub-electronic waves of

the fourth order—but they're very much shorter, and hence more penetrating. In fact,

they're the shortest waves yet known, so short that Roeser never even suspected their

existence."

     "Suppose there's a Jovian space-ship out there somewhere that intercepts our

beams. Couldn't they locate us from it?"

     "Maybe, and maybe not—we'll just have to take a chance on that. That goes right

back to what we were talking about this morning. They might be anywhere, so the

chance of hitting one is very small. It isn't like hitting the Sirius, because we knew within

pretty narrow limits where to look for her and she had receivers tuned to this exact

frequency. Even at that we had to hunt for her for half a day before we hit her. We're

probably safe, but even if they should have located us, we'll probably be able to hide

somewhere until the Sirius gets here. Well, the quicker I get busy sending the dope, the

sooner they can get started."

     "Tell them to be sure and bring me all my clothes they can find, a gallon of

perfume, a barrel of powder, and a carload of Delray's Fantasia chocolates—I've been a

savage so long that I want to wallow in luxury for a while."

     "I'll do that—and I want some real cigarettes!"

     Stevens first sent a terse, but complete account of everything that had happened

to the Arcturus, and a brief summary of what he and Nadia had done since the cutting

up of the IPV. The narrative finished, he launched into a prolonged and detailed

scientific discussion of the enemy and their offensive and defensive weapons. He dwelt

precisely and at length upon the functioning of everything he had seen. Though during

the long months of their isolation he had been too busy to do any actual work upon the

weapons of the supposed Jovians, yet his keen mind had evolved many mathematical

and physical deductions, hypotheses, and theories, and each of these he sent out to the

Sirius in full, concluding:

     "There's all the dope I can give you. Figure it out, and don't come at all until you

can come loaded for bear; they're bad medicine. Call us occasionally, to keep us

informed as to when to expect you, but don't call too often. We don't want them locating

you, and if they should locate us through your ray or ours, it would be just too bad. So-

long. Stevens and Newton."

     Nadia had insisted upon staying up and had been brewing pot after pot of her

substitute for coffee while he sat at the key; and it was almost daylight when he finally

shut off the power and arose, his right arm practically paralyzed from the unaccustomed

strain of hours of telegraphing.

     "Well, sweetheart, that's that!" he exclaimed in relief. "Brandon and Westfall are

on the job. Nothing to do now but wait, and study up on our own account on those

Jovians' rays. This has been one long day for us, though, little ace of my heart, and I

suggest that we sleep for about a week!"

CHAPTER 8

Callisto to the Rescue

All humanity of Callisto, the fourth major satellite of Jupiter, had for many years been

waging a desperate and apparently hopeless defense against invading hordes of six-

limbed beings. Every city and town had long since been reduced to level fields of lava

by the rays of the invaders. Every building and every trace of human civilization had

long since disappeared from the surface of the satellite. Far below the surface lay the

city of Zbardk, the largest of the few remaining strongholds of the human race. At one

portal of the city a torpedo-shaped, stubby-winged rocket plane rested in the carriage of

a catapult. Near it the captain addressed briefly the six men normally composing his

crew.

     "Men, you already know that our cruise today is not an ordinary patrol. We are to

go to One, there to destroy a base of the hexans. We have perhaps one chance in ten

thousand of returning. Therefore I am taking only one man—barely enough to operate

the plane. Volunteers step one pace forward."

     The six stepped forward as one man, and a smile came over the worn face of

their leader as he watched them draw lots for the privilege of accompanying him to

probable death. The two men entered the body of the torpedo, sealed the openings, and

waited.

     "Free exits?" snapped the Captain of the Portal, and twelve keen-eyed observers

minutely studied screens and instrument panels connected to the powerful automatic

lookout stations beneath the rims of the widely separated volcanic craters from which

their craft could issue into Callisto's somber night.

     "No hexan radiation can be detected from Exit Eight," came the report. The

Captain of the Portal raised an arm in warning, threw in the guides, and the two

passengers were hurled violently backward, deep into their cushioned seats, as the

catapult shot their plane down the runway. As the catapult's force was spent automatic

trips upon the undercarriage actuated the propelling rockets and mile after mile, with

rapidly mounting velocity, the plane sped through the tube. As the exit was approached

the tunnel described a long vertical curve, so that when the opening into the shaft of the

crater was reached and the undercarriage was automatically detached the vessel was

projected almost vertically upward. Such was its velocity and so powerful was the liquid

propellant of its rocket motors that the eye could not follow the flight of the warship as it

tore through the thin layer of the atmosphere and hurled itself out into the depths of

space.

     "Did we get away ?" asked the captain, hands upon his controls and eyes upon

his moving chart of space.

     "I believe so, sir," answered the other officer, at the screens of the six periscopic

devices which covered the full sphere of vision. "No reports from the rim, and all

screens blank."

     "Good!" Once more a vessel had issued from the jealously secret city of Zbardk

without betraying its existence to the hated and feared hexans.

     For a time the terrific rocket motors continued the deafening roar of their

continuous explosions, then, the desired velocity having been attained, they were cut

out and for hours the good ship Bzarvk hurtled on through the void at an enormous but

constant speed toward the distant world of One, which it was destined never to reach.

     "Captain Czuv! Hexan radiation, coordinates twenty two, fourteen, area six!"

cried the observer, and the commander swung his own telescopic finder into the

indicated region. His hands played over course and distance plotters for a brief minute,

and he stared at his results in astonishment.

     "I never heard of a hexan traveling that way before," he frowned. "Constant

negative acceleration and in a straight line. He must think that we have been cleared

out of the ether. Almost parallel to us and not much faster—even at this long range it is

an easy kill unless he starts dodging, as usual."

     As he spoke he snapped a switch and from a port under the starboard wing there

shot out into space a small package of concentrated destruction—a rocket-propelled,

radio controlled torpedo. The rockets of the tiny missile were flaming, but that flame was

visible only from the rear and no radio beam was upon it. Czuv had given it precisely the

direction and acceleration necessary to make it meet the hexan sphere in central impact

provided that sphere maintained its course and acceleration unchanged.

     "Shall I direct the torpedo in case the hexan shifts?" asked the officer.

     "I think not. They can, of course, detect any wave at almost any distance, and at

the first sign of radio activity they would locate and destroy the bomb. They also, in all

probability, would destroy us. I would not hesitate to attack them on that account alone,

but we must remember that we are upon a more important mission than attacking one

hexan ship. We are far out of range of their electro-magnetic detectors, and our torpedo

will have such a velocity that they will have no time to protect themselves against it after

detection. Unless they shift in the next few seconds they are lost.

     This is the most perfect shot I ever had at one of them, but one shot is all I dare

risk—we must not betray ourselves."

     Course, lookout, and rank forgotten, the little crew of two stared into the narrow

field of vision, set at its maximum magnification. The instruments showed that the

enemy vessel was staying upon its original course. Very soon the torpedo came within

range of the detectors of the hexans. But as Captain Czuv had foretold, the detection

was a fraction of a second too late, rapidly as their screens responded, and the two men

of Zbardk uttered together a short, fierce cry of joy as a brilliant flash of light announced

the annihilation of the hexan vessel.

     "But hold!" The observer stared into his screen. "Upon that same line, but now at

constant velocity, there is still a very faint radiation, of a pattern I have never seen

before."

     "I think . . . I believe . . ." the captain was studying the pattern, puzzled. "It must

be low-frequency, low-tension electricity, which is never used, so far as I know. It may

be some new engine of destruction, which the hexan was towing at such a distance that

the explosion of our torpedo did not destroy it. Since there are no signs of hexan activity

and since it will not take much fuel, we shall investigate that radiation."

     Tail and port-side rockets burst into roaring activity and soon the plane was

cautiously approaching the mass of wreckage, which had been the IPV Arcturus.

     "Human beings, although of some foreign species!" exclaimed the captain, as his

vision-ray swept through the undamaged upper portion of the great liner and came to

rest upon Captain King at his desk.

     Although the upper ultra-lights of the Terrestrial vessel had been cut away by the

hexan plane of force, jury lights had been rigged, and the two commanders were soon

trying to communicate with each other. Intelligible conversation was of course

impossible, but King soon realized that the visitors were not enemies. At their

pantomimed suggestion he put on a space-suit and wafted himself over to the airlock of

the Callistonian warplane. Inside the central compartment, the strangers placed over his

helmet a heavily wired harness, and he found himself instantly in full mental

communication with the Callistonian commander. For several minutes they stood silent,

exchanging thoughts with a rapidity impossible in any language; then, dressed in space-

suits, both leaped lightly across the narrow gap into the still open outer lock of the

Terrestrial liner. King watched Czuv narrowly after the pressure began to collapse his

suit, but the stranger made no sign of distress. He had been right in his assurance that

the extra pressure would scarcely inconvenience him. King tore off his helmet, issued a

brief order, and soon every speaker in the Arcturus announced:

     "All passengers and all members of the crew except lookouts on duty will

assemble immediately in Saloon Three to discuss a possible immediate rescue."

     The subject being one of paramount interest, it was a matter of minutes until the

full complement of two hundred men and women were in the main saloon, clinging to

hastily rigged hand lines, closely packed before the raised platform upon which were

King and Czuv, wired together with the peculiar Callistonian harnesses. To most of the

passengers, familiar with the humanity of three planets, the appearance of the stranger

brought no surprise; but many of them stared in undisguised amazement at his childish

body, his pale, almost colorless skin, his small, weak legs and arms, and his massive

head.

     "Ladies and gentlemen!" Captain King opened the meeting. "I introduce to you

Captain Czuv, of the scout cruiser Bzarvk, of the only human race now living upon the

fourth large satellite of Jupiter, which satellite we know as Callisto. I am avoiding their

own names as much as possible, because they are almost unpronounceable in English

or Interplanetarian. This device that you see connecting us is a Callistonian thought

transformer, by means of which any two intelligent beings can converse without

language. Our situation is peculiar, and in order that you may understand fully what lies

ahead of us, the captain will now speak to you, through me— that is, what follows will

be spoken by Captain Czuv, of the Bzarvk, but he will be using my vocal organs.

     "Friends from distant Tellus," King's voice went on, almost without a break, "I

greet you. I am glad, for your sake as well as our own, that our vessel was able to

destroy the hexan ship holding you captive, and whose crew would have killed you all

as soon as they had landed your vessel and had read your minds. I regret bitterly that

we can do so little for you, for only the representatives of a human civilization being

exterminated by a race of highly intelligent monsters can fully realize how desirable it is

for all the various races of humanity to assist and support each other. In order that you

may understand the situation it is necessary that I delve at some length into ancient

history, but we have ample time. In about . . ." he broke off, realizing that the two races

had no thought in common in the measure of time.

     "One-half time of rotation of Great Planet upon axis ?" flashed from Czuv's brain,

and "About five hours," King's mind flashed back.

     "It will be about five hours before any steps can be taken, so that I feel justified in

using a brief period in explanation. In the evolution of the various forms of life upon

Callisto, two genera developed intelligence far ahead of all others." One genus was the

human, as you and I; the other the hexan. This creature, happily unknown to you of the

planets nearer our common sun, is the product of an entirely different evolution. It is a

six-limbed animal, with a brain equal to our own—one perhaps in some ways superior to

our own. They have nothing in common with humanity, however; they have few of our

traits and fewer of our mental processes. Even we who have fought them so long can

scarcely comprehend the chambers of horror that are their minds. Even were I able to

paint a sufficiently vivid picture with words, you of Earth could not begin to understand

their utter ruthlessness and inhumanity, even among themselves. You would believe

that I was lying, or that my viewpoint was warped. I can say only that I hope most

sincerely that none of you will ever get better acquainted with them.

     "Ages ago, then, the human and the hexan developed upon all four of the major

satellites of the Great Planet, which you know as Jupiter, and upon the north polar

region of Jupiter itself. By what means the two races came into being upon worlds so

widely separated in space we know not—we only know it to be the fact. Human life,

however, could not long endure upon Jupiter. The various human races, after many

attempts to meet conditions of life there by variations in type, fell before the hexans;

who, although very small in size upon the planet, thrived there amazingly. Upon the

three outer satellites humanity triumphed, and many hundreds of cycles ago the hexans

of those satellites were wiped out, save for an occasional tribe of savages of low

intelligence who lived in various undesirable portions of the three worlds. For ages then

there was peace upon Callisto. Here is the picture at that time—upon Jupiter the

hexans; upon lo hexans and humans, waging a ceaseless and relentless war of mutual

extermination; upon the three outer satellites humanity in undisturbed and unthreatened

peace. Five worlds, each ignorant of life upon any other.

     "As I have said, the hexans of Jupiter were, and are, diabolically intelligent.

Driven probably by their desire to see what lay beyond their atmosphere of eternal

cloud, to the penetration of which their eyesight was attuned, they first perfected the

space-ship; and effected a safe landing, first upon the barren, airless moonlet nearest

them, and then upon fruitful lo. There they made common cause with the hexans

against the humans, and in a space of time Ionian humanity ceased to exist. Much

traffic and interbreeding followed between the hexans of Jupiter and those of lo,

resulting in time in a race intermediate in size between the parent stocks and equally at

home in the widely variant air pressures and gravities of planet and satellite. Soon their

astronomical instruments revealed the cities of Europa to their gaze, and as soon as

they discovered that the civilization of Europa was human they destroyed it utterly, with

the insatiable blood lust that is their heritage.

     "In the meantime the human civilizations of Ganymede and Callisto had also

developed instruments of power. Observing the cities upon the other satellites, many

scientists studied intensively the problem of space navigation, and finally there was

some commerce between the two outer satellites at favorable times. Finally, vessels

were also sent to lo and to Europa, but none of them returned. Knowing then what to

expect, Ganymede and Callisto joined forces and prepared for war. But our science, so

long attuned to the arts of peace, had fallen behind lamentably in the devising of more

and ever more deadly instruments of destruction. Ganymede fell, and in her fall we read

our own doom. Abandoning our cities, we built anew underground. Profiting from

lessons learned full bloodily upon Ganymede, we resolved to prolong the existence of

the human race as long as possible.

     "The hexans were, and are, masters of the physical sciences. They command

the spectrum in a way undreamed of. Their detectors reveal etheric disturbances at

unbelievable distances, and they have at their beck and call forces of staggering

magnitude. Therefore in our cities is no electricity save that which is wired, shielded,

and grounded; no broadcast radio; no source whatever of etheric disturbances save

light—and our walls are fields of force which we believe to be impenetrable to any

searching frequency capable of being generated. Now I am able to picture to you the

present.

     "We are the last representatives of the human race in the Jovian planetary

system. Our every trace upon the surface has been obliterated. We are hiding in our

holes in the ground, coming out at night by stealth so that our burrows shall not be

revealed to the hexans. We are fighting for time in which our scientists may learn the

secrets of power— and fearing, each new day, that the enemy may have so perfected

their systems of rays that they can detect 'us and destroy us, even in our underground

and heavily shielded retreats, by means of forces even more incomprehensible than

those they are now employing.

     "Therefore, friends, you see how little we are able to do for you—we, a race

fighting for our very existence and doomed to extinction save for a miracle. We cannot

take you to Callisto, for it is besieged by the hexans and the driving forces of your

lifeboats, practically broadcast as they are, would be detected and we should all be

destroyed long before we could reach safety. Captain King and I have pondered long,

and have been able to see only one course of action. We are drifting at constant

velocity, using no power, and with all save the most vitally necessary machinery at rest.

Thus only may we hope to avoid detection during the next two hours. Our present

course will take us very close to Europa, which the hexans believe to be, like

Ganymede, entirely devoid of civilized life. Its original humanity was totally destroyed,

and all its civilized hexans are finding shelter from our torpedoes upon Jupiter until we

of Callisto shall likewise have been annihilated. The temperature of Europa will suit you.

Its atmosphere, while less dense than that to which you are accustomed, will

adequately support your life. If we are not detected in the course of the next few hours

we can probably land upon Europa in safety, since its neighborhood is guarded but

loosely. In fact, we have a city there, as yet unsuspected by the hexans, in which our

scientists shall continue to labor after Callisto's civilization shall have disappeared. We

think that it will be safe to use your power for the short time necessary to effect a

landing. We shall land in a cavern, in a crater already in communication with our city. In

that cavern, instructed and aided by some of us, you will build a rocket vessel—no rays

can be used because of the hexans—in which you will be able to travel to a region close

enough to your Earth so that you can call for help. You will not be able to carry enough

fuel to land there—in fact, nearly all the journey will have to be made without power,

traveling freely in a highly elongated orbit around the sun—but if you escape the hexans

you should be able to reach home safely, in time. It is for the consideration of this plan

that this meeting has been called."

     "Just one question," Breckenridge spoke. "The hexans are intelligent. Why are

they leaving Europa and Ganymede so unguarded that human beings can move back

there and that we can land there, all undetected?"

     "I will answer that question myself," replied King. "Captain Czuv did not quite do

justice to his own people. It is true that they are being conquered, but for every human

life that is taken a thousand hexans die, and for every human ship that is lost twenty

hexan vessels are annihilated in return. While the hexans are masters of rays, the

humans are equally masters of rockets and explosives. They can hit a perfect score

upon any target in free space whose course and acceleration can be determined, at any

range up to five thousand kilometers. Ray screens are effective only against rays, and

the hexans cannot destroy anything that they cannot see before it strikes them. So it is

that all the vessels of the hexans except those necessary to protect their own

strongholds are being concentrated against Callisto. They cannot spare vessels to

guard uselessly the abandoned satellites. Because of the enormously high gravity of

Jupiter the hexans there are safe from human attack save for comparatively ineffectual

long-range bombardment, but lo is being attacked constantly and it is probable that in a

few more years lo also will be an abandoned world. Some of you may have received the

impression that the hexans are to triumph immediately, but such an idea is wrong. The

humans can, and will, hold out for a hundred years or more unless the enemy perfects a

destructive ray of the type referred to. Even then, I think that our human cousins will

hold out a long time. They are able men, fighters all, and their underground cities are

beautifully protected."

     There was little argument. Most of the auditors could understand that the

suggested course was the best one possible. The remainder were so stunned by the

unbelievable events of the attack that they had no initiative, but were willing to follow

wherever the more valiant spirits led. It was decided that no attempt should be made to

salvage any portion of the Arc turns, since any such attempt would be fraught with

danger and since the wreckage would be of little value. The new vessel was to be

rocket driven, and was to be built of Callistonian alloys. Personal belongings were

moved into lifeboats, doors were closed, and there ensued a painful period of waiting

and of suspense.

     The stated hour was reached without event—no hexan scout had come close

enough to them to detect the low-tension radiation of the vital machinery of the Arcturus,

cut as it was to the irreducible minimum and quite effectively grounded as it was by the

enormous mass of her shielding armor. At a signal from Captain Czuv the pilot of each

lifeboat shot his tiny craft out into space and took his allotted place in the formation

following closely behind the Bzarvk, flying toward Europa, now so large in the field of

vision that she resembled more a world than a moon. Captain King, in the Callistonian

vessel, transmitted to Breckenridge the route and flight data given him by the navigator

of the winged craft. The chief pilot, flying "point", in turn relayed more detailed

instructions to the less experienced pilots of the other lifeboats.

     Soon the surface of Europa lay beneath them; a rugged, cratered, and torn

topography of mighty ranges of volcanic mountains. Most of the craters were cold and

lifeless, but here and there a plume of smoke and steam betrayed the presence of vast,

quiescent forces. Straight down one of those gigantic lifeless shafts the fleet of space

craft dropped —straight down a full two miles before the landing signal was given. At

the bottom of the shaft a section of the rocky wall swung aside, revealing the yawning

black mouth of a horizontal tunnel. At intervals upon its roof there winked into being

almost invisible points of light. Along that line of lights the lifeboats felt their way, coming

finally into a huge cavern, against one sheer metal wall of which they parked in an

orderly row. Roll was called, and the Terrestrials walked, as well as they could in the

feeble gravity of the satellite, across the vast chamber and into a conveyance somewhat

resembling a railway coach, which darted away as soon as the doors were shut. For

hundreds of miles that strange tunnel extended, and as the car shot along door after

door of natural rock opened before it, and closed as soon as it had sped through. In

spite of the high velocity of the vehicle it required almost two hours to complete the

journey. Finally, however, it slowed to a halt and the Terrestrial visitors disembarked at

a portal of the Europan city of the Callistonians.

     "Attention!" barked Captain King. "The name of this city, as nearly as I can come

to it in English, is 'WRUSZK'. 'Roosk' comes fairly close to it, and is easier to pronounce.

We must finish our trip in small cars, holding ten persons each. We shall assemble

again in the building in which we have been assigned quarters. The driver of each car

will lead his passengers to the council room in which we shall meet."

     "Oh, what's the use — this is horrible, horrible — we might as well die!" a

nervous woman shrieked, and fainted.

     "Such a feeling is, perhaps, natural," King went on, after the woman had been

revived and quiet had been restored, "but please control it as much as possible. We are

alive and well, and will be able to return to Tellus eventually. Please remember that

these people are putting themselves to much trouble and inconvenience to help us,

desperate as their own situation is, and conduct yourselves accordingly."

     The rebuke had its effect, and with no further protest the company boarded the

small cars, which shot through an opening in the wall and into a street of that strange

subterranean city. Breckenridge, in the last car to leave the portal, studied his

surroundings with interest as his conveyance darted through the gateway. More or less

a fatalist by nature and an adventurer, of course, since no other type existed among the

older spacehounds of the IPC, he was intensely interested in every new phase of their

experience, but was no whit dismayed or frightened.

     He found himself seated in a narrow canoe of metal immediately behind the pilot,

who sat at a small control panel in the bow. Propelled by electromagnetic fields above a

single rail upon lightly-touching and noiseless wheels, the Terrestrial pilot saw with keen

appreciation the manner in which switch after switch ahead of them obeyed the

impulses sent ahead from the speeding car. The streets were narrow and filled with

monorails; pedestrians pursued their courses upon walks attached to the walls of the

buildings, far above the level of the streets. The walls were themselves peculiar, rising

as they did stark, unbroken, window-less expanses of metal, merging into and

supporting a massive roof of the same silvery metal. Walls and roof alike reflected a

soft, yet intense, white light. Soon a sliding switch ahead of them shot in and

simultaneously an opening appeared in the blank metal wall of a building. Through the

opening the street-car flew, and as the pilot slowed the canoe to a halt the door slid

smoothly shut behind them. Parking the car beside a row of its fellows, the Callistonian

driver indicated that the Terrestrials were to follow him and led the way into a large hall.

There the others from the Arcturus were assembled, facing Captain King, who was

standing upon a table.

     "Fellow travelers," King addressed them, "our course of action has been decided.

There are two hundred three of us. There will be twenty sections of ten persons, each

section being in charge of one of the officers of the Arcturus. Doctor Penfield, our

surgeon, a man whose intelligence, fairness and integrity are unquestioned, will be in

supreme command. His power and authority will be absolute, limited only by the

Callistonian Council. He will work in harmony with the engineer who is to direct the

entire project of building the new vessel. Each of you will be expected to do whatever he

can—the work you will be asked to do will be well within your power, and you will each

have ample leisure for recreation, study, and amusement, of all of which you will find

unsuspected stores in this underground community. You will each be registered and

studied by physicians, surgeons, and psychologists; and each of you will have

prescribed for him the exact diet that is necessary for his best development. You will

find this diet somewhat monotonous compared to our normal fare of natural products,

since it is wholly synthetic; but that is one of the minor drawbacks that must be endured.

Chief Pilot Breckenridge and I will not be with you. In some small and partial

recompense for what they are doing for us all, he and I are going with Captain Czuv to

Callisto, there to see whether or not we can aid them in any way in the fight against the

hexans. One last word—Doctor Penfield's rulings will be the products of his own well-

ordered mind after consultation and agreement with the Council of this city, and will be

for the best good of all. I do not anticipate any refusal to cooperate with him. If,

however, such refusal should occur, please remember that he is a despot with absolute

power, and that anyone obstructing the program by refusing to follow his suggestions

will spend the rest of his time here in confinement and will go back to Tellus in irons, if

at all. In case Chief Pilot Breckenridge and I should not see you again we bid you

goodbye and wish you a safe voyage —but we expect to go back with you."

     Brief farewells were said and captain and pilot accompanied Czuv to one of the

little street-cars. Out of the building it dashed and down the crowded but noiseless

thoroughfare to the portal. Signal lights flashed briefly there and they did not stop, but

tore on through the portal and on into the tunnel, with ever increasing speed.

     "Don't have to transfer to a big car, then?" asked Breckenridge.

     "No," King made answer. "Small cars can travel these tubes as well as the large

ones, and on much less power. In the city the wheels touch the rails lightly, not for

support, but to make contacts through which traffic signals are sent and received. In the

tunnels the wheels do not touch at all, as signaling is unnecessary—the tunnels being

used infrequently and by but one vehicle at a time. No trolleys, tracks, or wires are

visible, you notice. Everything is hidden from any possible visiray of the hexans."

     "How about their power?"

     "I don't understand it very well—hardly at all, in fact."

     "It is quite simple." To the surprise of both Terrestrials, Czuv was speaking

English, but with a strong and very peculiar accent; slighting all the vowels and

accenting heavily the consonant sounds. "The car no longer requires my attention, so I

am now free to converse. You are surprised at my knowing your language ? You will

speak mine after a few more applications of the thought exchanger. I am speaking with

a vile accent, of course, but that is merely because my vocal organs are not

accustomed to making vowel sounds. Our power is obtained by the combustion of

gases in highly efficient turbines. It is transmitted and used as direct current, our

generators and motors being so constructed that they can produce no etheric

disturbances capable of penetrating the shielding walls of our city. The city was built

close to deposits of coal, oil, and gas of sufficient amount to support our life for

thousands of years; for from these deposits come power, food, clothing, and all the

other necessities and luxuries of our lives. Strong fans draw air from various extinct

craters, force it through ventilating ducts into every room and recess of the city, and

exhaust it into the shaft of a quiescent volcano, in whose gaseous outflow any trace of

our activities is of course imperceptible. For obvious reasons no rockets nor combustion

motors are used in the city proper."

     Thus Captain Czuv explained to the Terrestrials his own mode of life, and

received from them in turn full information concerning Earthly life, activity, and science.

Long they talked, and it was almost time to slow down for the journey's end when the

Callistonian brought the conversation back to their immediate concerns.

     "My lieutenant and I were upon a mission of some importance, but it is more

important to take you to Callisto, for there may be many things in which you can help us.

Not in atomic energy, as we do not have any elements above bismuth. Nor in rays—we

know all the vibrations you have mentioned, and several others. The enemy, however,

is supreme in that field, and until our scientists have succeeded in developing ray-

screens, such as are used by the hexans, it would be suicidal to use rays at all. Such

screens necessitate the projection of pure, yet dirigible, forces—you do not have them

upon your planet?"

     "No, and so far as I know such screens are also unknown upon Mars and Venus,

with whose inhabitants we are friendly."

     "The inhabitants of all the planets should be friendly; the solar system should be

linked together in intercourse for common advancement. But that is not to be. The

hexans will eventually triumph here, and a Jovian system peopled by hexans will have

no intercourse with any human civilization save that of internecine war. We of Callisto

have only one hope—or is it really a hope? In the South Polar country of Jupiter there

dwells a race of beings implacably hostile to the hexans. They seem to invade the

country of the hexans frequently, even though they are apparently repulsed ,each time.

Our emissaries to the South Polar country, however, have never returned—those

beings, whatever they are, if not actively inimical, certainly are not friendly toward us."

     "You know nothing of their nature?"

     "Nothing, since our electrical instruments are not sufficiently sensitive to give us

more than a general idea of what is transpiring there, and in that eternal fog vision is

practically useless. We know, however, that they are far advanced in science, and we

are thankful indeed that none of their frightful flying fortresses have been launched

against us. They apparently are not interested in the satellites, and it is no doubt due to

their unintentional assistance that we have survived as long as we have."

     In the cavern at last, the three men boarded the Callistonian space-plane and

were shot up the crater's shaft. The voyage to Callisto was uneventful, even

uninteresting save at its termination. The Bzarvk, coated every inch as it was with a dull,

dead black, completely absorptive outer coating, entered the thin layer of Callisto's

atmosphere in darkest night, with all rockets dead, with not a light showing, and with no

apparatus of any kind functioning. Utterly invisible and undetectable she dove

downward, and not until she was well below the crater's rim did the forward rockets

burst into furious life. Then the Terrestrials understood another reason for the immense

depth of those shafts other than that of protection from the detectors of the enemy— all

that distance was necessary to overcome the velocity of their free fall without employing

a negative acceleration greater than the frail Callistonian bodies could endure. From the

cavern at the foot of the shaft a regulation tunnel extended to the Callistonian city of

Zbardk. Portal and city were very like Wruszk, upon distant Europa, and soon the

Terrestrial captain and pilot were in conference with the Council of Callisto.

                         *  *  *  *  *

     Months of Earthly time dragged slowly past, months during which King and

Breckenridge studied intensively the offensive and defensive systems of Callisto without

finding any particular in which they could improve them to any considerable degree.

Captain Czuv and his warplane still survived, and it was while the Callistonian

commander was visiting his Terrestrial guests that King voiced the discontent that had

long affected both men.

     "We're both tired of doing nothing, Czuv. We have been of little real benefit, and

we have decided that your ideas of us are all wrong. We are convinced that our

personal horse-power can be of vastly more use to you than our brain-power, which

doesn't amount to much. Your whole present policy is one of hiding and sniping. I think

that I know why, but I want to be sure. Your vessels carry lots of fuel—why can the

hexans outrun you?"

     "They can stand enormously higher accelerations than we can. The very

strongest of us loses consciousness at an acceleration of twenty-five meters per second

per second, no matter how he is braced, and that is only a little greater than the normal

gravity of our enemies upon Jupiter. Their vessels at highest power develop an

acceleration of thirty-five meters, and the hexans themselves can stand much more

than even that high figure."

     "I thought so. Assume that you traveled in a bath at forty-five. Would it disable

you permanently, or would you recover as soon as it was lowered?"

     "We would recover promptly, unless the exposure had been unduly prolonged.

Why?"

     "Because I can stand an acceleration of fifty-four meters for two hours, and

Breckenridge here tests fifty-two. I can navigate anything, and Breckenridge can

observe as well as any of your own men. Build a plane to accelerate at forty-five meters

and we will blow those hexans out of the ether. You will have to revive and do the

shooting, however—your gunnery is entirely beyond us."

     "That is an idea of promise, and one that had not occurred to any of us," Czuv

replied, and work was begun at once upon the new flyer.

     When the super-plane was ready for its maiden voyage its crew of three studied

it as it lay in the catapult at the portal. Dead black as were all the warplanes, its body

was twice as large as that of the ordinary vessel, its wings were even more stubby, and

its accommodations had been cut to a minimum to make room for the enormous stores

of fuel necessary to drive the greatly increased battery of rocket motors and for the

extra supply of torpedoes carried. Waving to the group of soldiers and citizens gathered

to witness the take-off of the new dreadnaught of space the three men entered the

cramped operating compartment, strapped themselves into their seats, and were shot

away. As usual the driving rockets were cut off well below the rim of the shaft, and the

vessel rose in a long and graceful curve, invisible in the night. Such was its initial

velocity and so slight was the force of gravity of the satellite that they were many

hundreds of miles from the exit before they began to descend, and Breckenridge

studied his screens narrowly for signs of hexan activity.

     "Do you want to try one of your long-range shots when we find one of them ?" the

pilot asked Czuv.

     "No, it would be useless. Between deflection by air-currents and the dodging of

the enemy vessels our effective range is shortened to a few kilometers, and their beams

are deadly at that distance. No, our best course is to follow the original plan—to lure

them out into space at uniform acceleration, where we can destroy them easily."

     "Right," and Breckenridge turned to King, who was frowning at his controls. "How

does she work on a dead stick, Chief?"

     "Maneuverability about minus ten at this speed and in this air. She'd have to

have at least fifteen hundred kilometers an hour to be responsive out here. See

anything yet ?"

     "Not yet . . . wait a minute! Yes, there's one now— P-I2 on area five. Give us all

the Xio and W27 you can, without using power—we want to edge over close enough so

that she can't help but see us when we start the rockets."

     "Be sure and stay well out of range. I'm giving her all she'll take, but she won't

take much. With these wings she has the gliding angle of a kitchen sink."

     "All x—I'm watching the range, close. Wish we had instruments like these on the

IPV's. We'll have to install some when we get back. All x! Give her the gun—level and

dead ahead!"

     Half the battery of rockets burst into their stuttering, explosive roar of power and

the vessel darted away in headlong flight.

     "He sees us and is after us—turn her straight up!"

     A searing, coruscating finger of flame leaped toward them, but their calculations

had been sound—the hexan was harmless at that extreme range. King, under the pilot's

direction, kept the plane at a safe distance from the sphere while the satellite grew

smaller and smaller behind them and Czuv lapsed quietly into unconsciousness.

     "He's been out for quite a while. Far enough?" asked King.

     "All x now, I guess—don't believe they can see the flash from here. Cut!"

     The rockets died abruptly and a blast from the side ports threw the plane out of

the beam—and once out of it, beyond range of the electromagnetic detectors as they

were, their coating of absolute black rendered the craft safe from observation. One

dirigible rocket remained in action, its exhaust hidden from the enemy by the bulk of the

vessel, and Captain Czuv soon recovered his senses.

     "Wonderful, gentlemen!" he exclaimed, as he manipulated the delicate controls of

his gunnery panel. "This is the first time in history that a Callistonian vessel has escaped

from a hexan by speed alone."

     An instantaneously extinguished flare of incandescence marked the passing of

the hexan sphere into nothingness, and the cruiser shot back toward Callisto in search

of more prey. It was all too plentiful, and twenty times the drama was reenacted before

approaching day made it necessary for Czuv to take the controls and dive the vessel

into the wester-most landing-shaft of Zbardk. A rousing and enthusiastic welcome

awaited them, and joy spread rapidly when their success became known.

     "Now we know what to do, and we had better do it immediately, before they get

our system figured out and increase their own power," King reported to the Council.

     "You might send a couple of ships to Europa and bring back as many of the

Tellurian officers as want to come and can be spared from the work there. They all test

above forty-five meters, and they can learn this stuff in short order. While they're coming

your engineers can be building more ships like this one."

     The new vessel did not make another voyage until nine sister ships were ready

and manned, each with two Terrestrial officers and one Callistonian gunner. All ten took

to the ether at once, and the hexan fleet melted away like frost-crystals before a

summer sun. A few weeks of carnage and destruction and not a hexan was within range

of the detectors of Callisto—they were gone!

     "This is the first time in years that Callisto's air has been free of the hexans,"

Czuv said, thoughtfully. "With your help we have reduced their strength to a fraction of

what it was, but they have not given up. They will return, with a higher acceleration than

even you Terrestrials, powerful as you are, can stand."

     "Certainly they will, but you will be no worse off than you were before—you can

return to your own highly effective tactics."

     "We are infinitely better off for your help. You have given us a new lease of life . .

."

     He broke off as a flaring light sprang into being upon the portal board and the

observer of Exit One made his report—there was a hexan vessel in the air, location 425

over VJ-42.

     "There's one left! Let us get him! No, he's ours!" Confused shouts arose from the

bull-pen; but the original super-plane was at the top of the call-board and accordingly

King, Breckenridge, and Czuv embarked upon an expedition more hazardous far than

they had supposed—an expedition whose every feature was relayed to those in the

portal by the automatic lookouts upon the rims and which was ended before a single

supporting Callistonian plane could be manned and .launched.

     For the enemy vessel was not the last of the low-powered hexan vessels, as

everyone had supposed—it was the first of the high-powered craft, arriving long before

its appearance was expected. Before its terrific acceleration and savage onslaught the

super-plane might as well have been stationary and unarmed. After his long dive

downward King could not even leave the atmosphere—the hexan was upon them within

a few seconds, even though the stupendous battery of rockets, full driven, had roared

almost instantly into desperate action. Bomb after bomb Breckenridge hurled, with full

radio control, fighting with every resource at his command, but in vain. The frightful

torpedoes were annihilated in mid-flight; and nose, tail-assembly, and wings were

sheared neatly from the warplane by a sizzling plane of force. Side rockets and torpedo

tubes were likewise sliced away and the helpless body of the Callistonian cruiser, falling

like a plummet, was caught and held by a tractor ray. Captor and captive settled toward

the ground.

     "This is a signal honor," observed Captain Czuv when he had revived. "It has

been many, many cycles since they have taken Callistonians captive. They kill us at

every opportunity. Is it your custom to destroy yourselves in a situation such as this ?"

     "It is not. While we live there is hope."

     "Nor ours. Unless they have made enormous strides in psychological

mechanisms they cannot tear from our minds any secrets we really wish to keep. That

is useless," he went on, as King lifted a hand-weapon. "You will have no opportunity

whatever to use it," and he was right.

     A searing beam of energy drove them out of the vessel, then electromagnetic

waves burned every metallic object out of their possession. Burning rays herded them

into the hexan sphere and into a small room, whose door clanged shut behind them.

     "Ah, two are humans of a strange breed!" a snarling voice barked from the wall,

in the Callistonian language. "Our deductions were accurate, as usual—it is to the

humans of Planet Three, whose bodies are a trifle less puny than those of the humanity

of the satellites, that we owe our recent reverses. However, those reverses were merely

temporary—humanity, no matter what its breed, shall very shortly disappear from the

satellites. Now, you scum of the Solar System, you shall be permitted to witness an

entrancing spectacle on the way to our headquarters, where all your knowledge is to be

taken from you before you die, lingeringly and horribly. There is a strange space-vessel

nearing us, probably searching for the one we took and which you dogs of Callisto must

have been fortunate enough to take from us before we could study and kill its human

cargo. Watch its destruction and cringe—and know, in your suffering, that the more you

suffer, the greater shall be our enjoyment."

     "I believe that," King acknowledged. As all three prisoners stared at the wall-

screen, upon which was pictured a huge football of scarred gray steel, Czuv was

amazed to see the faces of Breckenridge and King light up with fierce smiles of

pleasure and anticipation.

     "You dissemble well," remarked the Callistonian. "That will rob them of much

pleasure."

     "They'll get robbed of more than that," King returned. "This is too good to keep,

and since they cannot understand English, I'll tell you something. I told you about

Stevens. He apparently wasn't killed, as we thought. He must have escaped, and there

is the result. That ship there is far from innocent—her being so far out of range of any of

our power-plants proves that. That vessel is the Sirius—the research laboratory of the

IPC—the Inter-Planetary Corporation! It carries the greatest scientific minds of three of

the inner planets, and it is loaded with pure poison or it wouldn't be here. Oh, you

hexans, what you have got coming to you!"

CHAPTER 9

The "Sirius" Takes a Hand

The inter-planetary vessel Sirius loafed along at normal acceleration just outside the

orbit of Mars and a million miles north of the ecliptic plane. In the control room, which

had been transformed into a bewilderingly complete laboratory, Norman Brandon strode

up and down, waving his arms, his unruly black hair on end, addressing savagely his

friend and fellow-scientist, who sat unmoved and at ease.

     "For Cat's sake, Quince, let's get busy! They're outside somewhere, since the

police have scoured every cubic kilometer within range of the power plants without

finding a trace of them. We've got the power question licked right now—with these fields

we can draw sixty thousand kilo-franks from cosmic radiation, which is lots more than

we'll ever need. We haven't drawn a frank from a plant in a month, and we've had to cut

our field strength down to a whisper to keep from burning out our accumulators. We can

hunt as far as Neptune easy—we can go to Alpha Centauri if we want to. This thing of

piffling and monkeying around here's pulling my cork, and for the ten thousand four

hundred and sixty seventh time I say LET'S PROWL, and PROWL NOW! In fact, I'm

getting so sick of sticking around doing nothing that I'm going out anyway, if I have to go

alone in a lifeboat!"

     Impetuous and violent as Brandon had always been, never before had he gone

to such lengths as to suggest a disruption of the partnership; and Westfall, knowing that

Brandon in his most violent moments never threatened idly, thought long before he

replied.

     "You will not go alone, of course. If you insist upon going without further

preparation I will go too, no matter how foolish I think such a course to be. We have

power, it is true, but in all other respects we are in no condition to meet an opponent

having command of such resources as must certainly be possessed by those who

attacked the Arcturus. Our detectors are inefficient, our system of vision is crude, to say

the least, and many other things are still in the experimental stage. We have not the

slightest idea whom or what we may encounter. It is all too probable that we would

simply be throwing away uselessly the lives of more good men. It is also foolish from a

general viewpoint, for as you already know, we and our assistants happen to be in

better position to study these things than is any one else at the present time. However, I

will compromise with you. We can learn much in a month if you will really try, instead of

wasting time in fuming around the ship and indulging in these idiotic tantrums. If you will

buckle down and really study the problems confronting us for thirty days, we will set out

at the end of that time, ready or not."

     "All x. I hate to do it, but we've been together too long to bust it up now," and

Brandon turned toward his bench. Scarcely had he reached it when a series of dots and

dashes roared from an amplifier. Both men leaped for the receiver which had so

unexpectedly burst into sound, reaching it just as it relapsed into silence, and from the

tape of the recorder they read the brief message.

     ". . . h four seven ganymede point oh four seve . . ."

     "That's Steve!" yelled Brandon. "Nobody else could build an ultra-sender!

Direction ?"

     "No need of calculating distance or direction. Ganymede is the third major

satellite of Jupiter."

     "Sure. Of course, Quince—never thought of that. Dope enough—point oh four

seven."

     As Stevens had told Nadia, the message was completely informing to those for

whom it was intended, and soon Brandon's answer was flying toward that distant

satellite. He then started to call the offices of the Inter-Planetary Corporation, but was

restrained by his conservative friend.

     "It would be better to wait a while, Norman. In a few hours we will know what to

tell them."

     At high acceleration the Sirius drove toward the Jupiter-Earth-North plane, and

Brandon calculated from his own bearings and from the current "Ephemeris" the time at

which Stevens' reply should be received. Two minutes before that time he was pacing

up and down in front of the ultra-receiver, and fifteen seconds after it he snapped:

     "Come on, Perce, get busy! Shake a leg!"

     "Oh, come, Norman; give him a few minutes leeway, at least," said Westfall, with

amused tolerance. "Even if your calculations are that accurate—which of course they

are," he added hastily at a stormy glance from hot black eyes, "since we received that

message direct, instead of through one of our relay stations, Stevens probably has been

throwing it around for hours, or perhaps days, looking for us, and the shock of hearing

from us at last might well have put him out of control for a minute or two."

     The carrier wave hissed into the receiver, forestalling Brandon's fiery reply,

followed closely by the code signals they had been expecting. As soon as the story had

been told, and while Brandon was absorbed in the scientific addenda of Stevens,

Westfall thoughtfully called Newton.

     "Nadia is alive, free, safe, well, and happy," he shot out without preliminary or

greeting, as soon as the now lined features of the director showed upon the

communicator screen, and the careworn countenance smoothed magically into the keen

face of the fighting Newton of old as Westfall recounted rapidly the tale of the

castaways.

     "They apparently have not suffered in any way," he concluded. "All that Stevens

wants is some cigarettes, and your daughter's needs, while somewhat more numerous

than his, seem to be only clothes, powder, perfume, and candy. Therefore we need not

worry about them. The fate of the others is still unknown, but there seems to be a slight

possibility that some of them may yet be rescued. You may release as much or as little

of this story as may seem desirable. Stevens is still sending data of a highly technical

nature. We shall arrive there at 21:32 next Tuesday."

     In due time the message from Ganymede ended and Brandon, with many pages

of his notebook crammed with figures and equations, snapped off the power of the

receiver and turned to his bench. Gone was the storming, impetuous rebel; his body

was ruled solely by the precise and insatiable brain of the research scientist.

     "He's a honey, that kid Perce! When I see him I'm going to kiss him on both

cheeks. He's got enough dope on 'em to hang 'em higher'n Franklin's kite, and we'll nail

those jaspers to the cross or I'm a polyp! He's crazier'n a loon in most of his hunches,

but he's filled four of our biggest gaps. There is such a thing as a ray-screen, you kill-

joy, and there are also lifting or tractor rays—two things I've been trying to dope out and

that you've been giving me the Bronx cheer on. The Titanians have had a tractor ray for

ages—he sent me complete dope on it—and the Jovians 've got 'em both. We'll have

'em in three days, and it ought to be fairly simple to dope out the opposite of a tractor,

too—a pusher or pressor beam. Say, round up the gang, will you, while I'm licking some

of this stuff into shape for you to tear apart? Where're Venus and Mars? Um . . . m . . .

m. Tell Alcantro and Fedanzo to come over here pronto—give 'em a special if

necessary. We'll pick up Dol Kenor and Pyraz Amonar on the way—no, get them to

Tellus, too. Then we'll get action quicker. Those four're all I want—get anybody else you

want to come along."

     His hands playing over the keys of an enormous calculating machine, Brandon

was instantly immersed in a profound mathematico-physical problem; deaf and blind to

everything about him. Westfall, knowing well that far-reaching results would follow

Brandon's characteristic attack, sat down at the controls of the communicator. He first

called Mars, the home planet of Alcantro and Fedanzo, the foremost force-field experts

of three planets; and was assured in no uncertain terms that those rulers of rays were

ready and anxious to follow wherever Brandon and Westfall might lead. Thence to

Venus, where Dol Kenor, the electrical wizard, and Pyraz Amonar, the master of

mechanism, also readily agreed to accompany the expedition. He then called the

General-in-Chief of the Inter-Planetary Police, requesting a detail of two hundred picked

men for the hazardous venture. These most important calls out of the way, he was busy

for over an hour giving long-distance instructions so that everything would be in

readiness for the servicing of the immense space-cruiser the following Tuesday night.

     Having guarded against everything his cautious and far-seeing mind could

envisage, he went over to Brandon's desk and sat down, smoking contemplatively until

the idea had been roughed out in mathematical terms.

     "Here's the rough draft of the ray screen, Quince. We generate a blanket

frequency, impressed upon the ultra carrier wave. That's old stuff, of course. Here's the

novelty, in equation 59. With two fields of force, set up from data 27 to 43, it will be

possible actually to project a pure force of such a nature that it will react to

deheterodyne the blanketing frequency at any predetermined distance. That, of course,

sets up a barrier against any frequency of the blanketed band. Incidentally, an extension

of the same idea will enable us to see anywhere we want to look—calculate a

retransmitting field."

     "One thing at a time, please. That screen may be possible, but those fields will

never generate it. Look at datum 31, in which your assumptions are unsound. In order

to make any solution at all possible you have assumed cosine squared theta negligible.

Mathematically, it is of course vanishingly small compared to the first power of the

cosine, but fields of that type must be exact, and your neglect of the square is

indefensible. Since you cannot integrate with the squared term in place, your whole

solution fails."

     "Not necessarily. We'll go back to 29, and put in sine squared theta minus one

equal to z sub four. That gives us a coverse sine in 30, and then we integrate . . ."

     Thus the argument raged, and all the assistants whose work was not too

pressing gathered around unobtrusively, for it was from just such fierce discussions as

this that the ultra-radio and other epoch-making discoveries had come into being. Yard

after yard of calculator paper was filled with equations and computations. Weirdly

shaped curves were drawn, with arguments at every point—arguments hot and violent

from Brandon, from Westfall cold and precise, backed by lightning calculations and with

facts and diagrams culled from the many abstruse works of reference which by this time

literally covered the bench and overflowed upon the floor.

     It was in this work that the strikingly different temperaments and abilities of the

two scientists were revealed. Brandon never stood still, but walked around jerkily,

chewing savagely the stem of an ancient and reeking pipe, gesticulating vigorously, the

while his keen and agile mind was finding a way over, around, or through the apparently

insuperable obstacles which beset their path; by means of mathematical and physical

improvisations which no one not inspired by sheer genius could have evolved. Westfall,

seated quietly at the calculator, mercilessly shredded Brandon's theories to ribbons,

pointing out their many flaws with his cold, incisive reasoning and with rapid calculations

of the many factors involved. Then Brandon would find a remedy for each weakness in

turn and, when Westfall could no longer find a single flaw in the structure, they would

toss the completed problem upon a table and attack the next one with unabated zeal.

Brandon, in his light remark that the two made one real scientist, had far understated

the case— those two brains, each so powerful and each so perfectly complementing the

other, comprised the master-scientist who was to revolutionize science completely in a

few short years.

     To such good purpose did they labor that the calculations were practically

finished by the time they reached the Earth. There the ship was serviced with a celerity

that spoke volumes for the importance of her mission—even the Aldebaran, the

dazzingly gold-plated queen of the fleet, waited unattended and disregarded on plus

time while the entire force of the Inter-Planetary Corporation concentrated upon the

battle-scarred old hulk of the Sirius. Brandon was surprised when he saw the two

companies of police, but characteristically accepted without question the wisdom of any

decision of his friend, and cordially greeted Inspector-General Crowninshield, only a

year or so older than himself, but already in charge of a Division.

     "Keen-looking bunch, Crown. Lot of different outfits— volunteers for special duty

from the whole Tellurian force ?"

     "Yes. Everybody wanted to go, and there threatened to be trouble over the

selection, so we picked the highest ratings from the whole Service. If there ever was

such a thing as a picked force, we shall have it with us."

     "What d'you mean, 'us'? You ain't going, are you?"

     "Try to keep me from it! The names of all five of us I-G's were put in a hat, and I

was lucky."

     "Well, you may come in handy at that," Brandon conceded. "And here's the big

boss himself. Hi, Chief!"

     "Ho, Brandon! Ho, Westfall!" Newton, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the

IPC, shook hands with the two scientists. "Your Martians and Venerians are in Lounge

Fifteen. I suppose that you have a lot of things to thrash out, so you may as well get at

it. Everything is being attended to—I'll take charge now."

     "You going along, too?" asked Brandon.

     "Going along too? I'm running this cruise!" Newton declared. "I may take advice

from you on some things and from Crowninshield on others, but I am in charge—so go

ahead with your own jobs!"

     "All x—it's a relief, at that," and Brandon and Westfall went to join their fellow-

scientists in the designated room of the space-cruiser.

     What a contrast was there as the representatives of three worlds met! All six men

were of the same original stock or of a similar evolution—science has not, even yet,

decided the question definitely. Their minds were very much alike, but their respective

environments had so variantly developed their bodily structures that to outward seeming

they had but little in common.

     Through countless thousands of generations the Martians had become

acclimated to a planet having little air, less water, and characterized by abrupt

transitions from searing heat to bitter cold, from blinding light to almost impenetrable

darkness. Eight feet tall and correspondingly massive, they could barely stand against

the gravitational force of the Earth, almost three times as great as that of their native

planet, but the two Martian scientists struggled to their feet as the Terrestrials entered.

     "As you were, fellows—lie down again and take it easy," Brandon suggested in

the common Interplanetarian tongue. "We'll be away from here pretty quick, then we'll

ease off."

     "We greet our friends standing as long as we can stand," and, towering a full two

feet above Brandon's own six-feet-two, Alcantro and Fedanzo in turn engulfed his

comparatively tiny hand in a thick-shelled paw and lifted briefly the inner lids of

quadruply-shielded eyes. For the Martian skin is not like ours. It is of incredible

thickness; dry, pliable, rubbery, and utterly without sensation: heavily lined with fat and

filled throughout its volume with tiny air-cells which make it an almost perfect non-

conductor of heat and which prevents absolutely the evaporation of the precious

moisture of the body. For the same reasons their huge and cat-like eyes are never

exposed, but look through sealed, clear windows of membrane, over which may be

drawn at will one or all of four pairs of lids—lids transparent, insensible, non-freezeable,

air-spaced insulators. Even the air they exhale carries from their bodies a minimum of

the all-important heat and moisture, for the passages of their nostrils do not lead directly

to the lungs, as do ours. They are merely the intakes for a tortuous system of tubes

comprising a veritable heat-exchanger, so that the air finally expelled is in almost

perfect equilibrium with the incoming supply in temperature and in moisture content. A

grayish tan in color, naked and hairless—though now, out of deference to Terrestrial

conventions, wearing light robes of silk— indifferent alike to any extreme of heat or cold,

light or darkness: such were the two forbidding beings who arose to greet their

Terrestrial friends, then again reclined.

     "I suppose that you have been given to drink?" West-fall made sure that they had

been tendered the highest hospitality of Mars.

     "We have drunk full deeply, thanks; and it was not really necessary, for we drank

scarcely three weeks since."

     Brandon and Westfall turned then and greeted the two Venerians, as different

from the Martians as they were from the Terrestrials. Of Earthly stature, form, and

strength, yet each was encased in a space-suit stretched like a drumhead, and would

live therein or in the special Venerian rooms of the vessel as long as the journey should

endure. For the atmosphere of Venus is more than twice as dense as ours, is practically

saturated with water-vapor, carries an extremely high concentration of carbon dioxide,

and in their suits and rooms is held at a temperature of one hundred and ten degrees

Fahrenheit, The lenses of their helmets were of heavy, yellowish-red composition,

protecting their dead-white skins and red eyes from all actinic rays—for the Venerian

lives upon the bottom of an everlasting sea of fog and his thin epidermis, utterly without

pigmentation, burns and blisters as frightfully at the least exposure to actinic light as

does ours at the touch of a red-hot iron.

     Out in space at last, cruising with the acceleration set at a point bearable for the

Martians, Westfall called the meeting to order and outlined the situation facing them.

Brandon then handed around folders of papers, upon which the Venerians turned the

invisible infra-red beams of the illuminators upon their helmets, thus flooding them with

the "light" to which their retinas were most responsive.

     "Here's the data," Brandon began. "Sheet I, the equations and fundamentals of

our new cosmic-radiation drive, which renders us independent of power plants."

     "Theoretical or actual?" Pyraz Amonar asked. "We have known that you have

been studying the problem, but have heard nothing of its solution."

     "Actual," Brandon assured him. "We have been using it for a month, and have

just about all the kinks ironed out. You four are the first, outside our own crew, to hear of

it."

     "Congratulations!" Dol Kenor and the two Martians exclaimed as one, and Kenor

went on: "An accomplishment indeed, to have concluded a research which has baffled

the best minds for so long."

     "'Concluded' is good," Brandon replied. "They all helped—especially you four. But

to go on, the rest of the sheets contain the material sent in by Stevens, and various

deductions and other work based upon that material. Particular emphasis has been

placed upon the forces employed by the Jovians, as we shall call them until we find out

who or what they really are. We will discuss these forces later. For each such force we

have already calculated a screen, and we have also calculated various other forces of

our own, with which we hope to arm ourselves before we reach Ganymede. The

problems facing us are complex, since there are some nine thousand force-bands of the

order in which we are working, each differing from all the others as much as torque

differs from tension, or as much as red differs from green. Therefore we have appealed

to you for help, knowing that we could do but little alone. Alcantro and Fedanzo will

supervise the construction of the generators of the various fields from these

calculations. Dol Kenor will correlate power and electricity to and with the fields. Westfall

and I will help work out the theoretical difficulties as they arise. Pyraz Amonar, who can

devise and build a machine to perform any conceivable mechanical task, will help us all

in the many mechanical difficulties we shall certainly encounter. Discussion of any point

is now in order."

     Step by step and equation after equation the calculations and plans were gone

over, until every detail was clear in each mind. Then the men bent to their tasks; behind

them not only the extraordinarily complete facilities of that gigantic workshop which was

the Sirius, but also the full power of the detachment of police—the very cream of the

young manhood of the planet. Week after toilsome week the unremitting labor went on,

and little by little the massive cruiser of the void became endowed with an offensive and

defensive armament incredible. An armament conceived in the fertile and daring brain

of a sheer genius, guided only by the knowledge that such things were already in

existence somewhere; reduced to working theory by a precise, mathematical logician;

translated into fields of force by the greatest known experts; powered by the

indefatigable efforts of an electrical wizard; made possible by the artful mechanical

devices of the greatest inventor that three worlds had ever known! Thus it was that they

approached Ganymede ready, with blanketing screens full out save for one narrow

working band, and with a keen-eyed observer at every plate. When even the hyper-

critical Westfall was convinced that their preparations were as complete as they could

be made with the information at hand, Brandon directed a beam upon the distant

satellite and tapped off a brief message:

     "stevens ganymede will arrive in about ten hours direct carrier beam toward sun

we can detect it and will follow it to wherever you are sirius."

     "ipv sirius," came the reply, "everything here all x glad to see you thanks newton

and stevens."

     Brandon, at the controls, scanning his screens narrowly, dropped the vessel

down to within a mile or two of the point of origin of Stevens' carrier beam without

incident; then spoke to Westfall, at his side, with a grin.

     "Nice layout the kid's got down there, Quince. 'S too bad—don't look like we're

going to get any action for our money a-tall. 'Sa damn shame, too—what's the use of

wasting it, now that we've got it all made?"

     "We are not done yet," cautioned Westfall, and even as he spoke an alarm bell

burst into strident clamor—one of their far-flung detector screens was telling the world

that it had encountered a dangerous frequency. The new ultralights flared instantly

along the line automatically laid down by the detector, and upon the closely-ruled

micrometer screen of Brandon's desk there glowed in natural color the image of a

globular space-ship, approaching them with terrific speed.

     "Men all stationed, of course, Crown?"

     "Stationed and ready." Crowninshield, phones at his ears and microphone at his

lips, was staring intently into his own plate.

     "Kinda think I'll do most of it from here, but you can't always tell. If they get inside

my guard you all know what to do."

     "All x."

     Expecting another such hollow victory as the other hexan vessel had won over

the defenseless Arcturus the small stranger flashed nearer and nearer that huge and

featureless football. Within range, she launched her flaming plane of energy, but this

time that Jovian sheet of force did not encounter unprotected and non-resisting steel.

Upon the outer ray-screen, flaming white into incandescent defense, the furious bolt

spent itself, and in the instant of the launching of that searing blade of flame Brandon

had gone into action. Switch after switch drove home, and one after another those

frightful fields of force, those products of the mightiest minds of three planets, were

hurled out against the tiny Jovian sphere. Driven as they were by the millions upon

millions of horse-power stored in the accumulators of the Sirius they formed a

coruscating spherical shell of intolerable energy all around the enemy vessel; but even

their prodigious force was held at bay by the powerful defensive screens of the smaller

space-ship. But attack the Jovian could not, every resource at her command being

necessary to fend off the terrific counter-attack of her intended prey, and she turned in

flight. Small and agile as she was, the enormous mass of the Sirius precluded any

possibility of maneuvering with the Jovian, but Brandon had no intention of

maneuvering. Rapid as the motions of the stranger were and frantic as was her

dodging, the terrific forces of the tractor beams of the Inter-Planetary vessel held her in

an unbreakable grip, and although she dragged the massive Sirius hither and thither,

she could not escape.

     "Hm . . .m . . . m," mused Brandon. "We seem to be getting nowhere fast. How

much power we using, Mac, and how much've we got coming in?"

     "Output, eighty five thousand kilofranks," replied Mac-Donald, the first assistant.

"Intake forty nine thousand."

     "Not so good—can't hold out forever at that rate. Shove out the receptor screens

to the limit and drive 'em. They figure a top of sixty thousand, but we ought to pick up a

little extra from that blaze out there. Drive 'em wide open or up to sixty five, whichever

comes first. Can't seem to crush his screens, so guess we'll have to try something else,"

and a thoughtful expression came over his face as he slowly extended his hand toward

another switch, with a questioning glance at Westfall.

     "Better not do that yet, Norman. Use that only as a last resort, after everything

else has failed."

     "Yeah—I'm scared to death of trying it, and it ain't necessary yet. He must have

an open slit somewhere to work through, same as we've got. I'll feel around for it a

while."

     "Is there any way of heterodyning the new visiray upon the exploring frequency?"

     "Hm . . . m . . . Never thought of that—it'd be nice, too . . . Can do, I think. Watch

'em, Quince, and yell if they start anything."

     He abandoned his desk and established the necessary connections between the

visiray apparatus and the controls of his board. There was a fierce violet-white glare

from the plate as he closed the switch, and he leaped back with his hands over his

eyes, temporarily blinded.

     "Wow, that's hot stuff!" he exclaimed. "It works, all x, to the queen's taste," as he

donned his heavy ray-goggles and resumed his place.

     After making certain that the visiray was precisely synchronized and phased with

the searching frequency, he built up the power of that beam until it was using twenty

thousand kilofranks. Then, by delicately manipulating the variable condensers and

inductances of, his sensitive shunting relay circuits, he slowly shifted that frightful rod of

energy from frequency to frequency, staring into the brilliant blank-ness of his

micrometer screen as he did so. After a few minutes of search the screen darkened

somewhat, revealing the image of the Jovian globe. Brandon instantly shifted into that

one channel the entire power of his attack; steadying the controls to bring the sphere of

the Jovians into the sharpest possible focus, knowing that he had found the open slit

and that through it there was pouring upon the enemy the full power of his terrible

weapon.

     In the fraction of a. second before the Jovians could detect the attack and close

the slit he saw a portion of the wall of their vessel flare into white heat and literally

explode outward in puffs and gouts of flaming, molten metal and of incandescent gases.

But the thrust, savage as it was, had not been fatal and the enemy countered instantly.

Now that the crushing force of the full-coverage attack was lessened for a moment,

through another slit there poured a beam of energy equal to the Terrestrials' own—a

beam of such intense power that the outer screen of the Sinus flared from red through

the spectrum, to and beyond the violet and went black in less than a second, and the

inner screen had almost gone down before Brandon's lightning hands could restore the

complete coverage that so effectively blanketed the forces of the enemy.

     "Well, we're back to the status quo," announced Brandon, calmly. " 'Sa good gag

they didn't have time to locate our working slit—if they'd pushed that stuff through our

open channel we'd've got frizzled a bit. As it was we got the edge on that

exchange—take it from your Uncle Dudley, Quince, that bird knows that he's been

nudged!"

     Again he searched the entire band for an opening, but could find none. The

enemy had apparently retired into a tightly-closed shell of energy. The small vessel no

longer struggled, nor even moved, but was merely resisting passively.

     "Not an open channel, not even one for him to work through—he can't wiggle.

Well, that won't get him anything. We're so much bigger than he is that we can outlast

him and will get him sometime, since he's bound to run out of power before we do. I

don't believe that he can receive anything, sealed up as he is, and he can't have

accumulators enough more efficient than ours to make up the difference, can he,

Quince?"

     "It is quite possible. For instance, it was known long ago that the synthesis of any

unstable isotope of very high atomic number gives an almost perfect accumulator."

     "Boloney!" Brandon snorted. "And the required shielding weighs so much that the

full power of the perfect accumulator can't lift it off the ground."

     "We could postulate, I think, a form of intelligent life which would not require as

much shielding as we do."

     "Yeah?" The big physicist almost sneered. "You can postulate that the second

satellite of the fourth planet of Aldebaran is made of green cheese, too, but you'd have a

hell of a time proving it. Moreover, you can't postulate an unshielded radiation from an

unstable isotope that our gadgets here wouldn't tell us about, nor any kind of a force

screen that can stop neutrons. Or can you?"

     "Not off-hand. However, you are the very last man to deny the possibility of

either. But to return to the subject in hand: whatever the power system of the Jovians

may be, what can we do about it?"

     "Don't know yet." Brandon's passion evaporated in an instant. "I do know,

though, that we ain't half as ready for trouble as I thought we were. There's a dozen

things I want to do that I can't because we ain't got the stuff. Don't say 'I told you so',

either—I know you did! You're the champion ground-and-lofty thinker of the century.

Alcantro!"

     "Here!"

     "Round up the gang, will you, and figure me out a screen and a set of meters that

will indicate an open band ? We lose too much time feeling around, the way it is, and

we're too apt to take one on the chin while we're doing it. Ought to make it so it'll shoot a

jolt into the opening, too, while you're at it."

     "We shall begin at once," and the massive Martian stepped over to the

calculating machine.

     "Well, Quince, we can't do much to him this way—he's crawled into a hole and

pulled the hole in after him. Damnation, I wish we had more stuff!"

     "After all, we have everything whose necessity and practicability could have been

foreseen in the light of the information we had at hand. We can, of course, now go

further."

     "You chirped it! But we can't let things go on this way or we'll get our fingers

burned. About time to try the grand slam, don't you think?"

     "I am afraid so."

     "Put everything on the center of the band?"

     "That would probably be best."

     "He can't control, so we'll push him down close to the ground before we go to

work on him—so we won't have so far to fall if anything gives way. Here's hoping

nothing does!"

     The Sirius almost against the flaming screens of the Jovian and both vessels

very close to the surface of the satellite, Brandon tested the power leads briefly,

adjusted dials and coils, then touched the button which actuated the relays — relays

which in turn drove home the gigantic switches that launched a fearsome and as yet

untried weapon. Instantly released, the full seven hundred thousand kilo-franks of their

stupendous batteries of accumulators drove into the middle frequency of the attacking

band, and Brandon's heart was in his mouth as he stared into the plate to see what

would happen. He saw! Everything in the Sirius held fast. Under the impact of the

inconceivable plane of force the screens of the enemy vessel flared instantly into an

even more intense incandescence and in that same fleeting instant went down. All

defenses vanished as the metal sphere fell apart into two halves as would an apple

under the full blow of a broad-axe.

     Brandon quickly shut off his power and stared in relief into the central

compartment of the globular ship of space, now laid open, and saw there figures, one or

two of which were moving weakly. As he looked, one of these feebly attempted to raise

a peculiar, tubular something toward a helplessly-fettered body. Even as Brandon

snatched away the threatening weapon with a beam of force he recognized the captive.

     "Great Cat, there's Breckenridge!" he gasped, and directed a lifting beam upon

the bound and unconscious prisoner. Rapidly but carefully he was brought through the

double airlock and into the control room, where his shackles were cut away and where

he soon revived under vigorous and skillful treatment.

     "Any more of you in there ? Did I hit any of you with that beam ?" demanded

Brandon, intensely, as soon as Breckenridge showed signs of understanding.

     "King's in there somewhere, and there's a Callistonian human being that you

musn't kill," the chief pilot replied, weakly and with great effort in every word. "Don't

believe that you hit anybody direct, but the shock was pretty bad," and, having delivered

his message, he lay back, exhausted.

     "All x. Crown, gimme a squad . . ."

     "Not on your life!" barked the general. "This is my job and I'll do it myself. Your

job is fighting the Sirius— stay with it!"

     "Not in seven thousand years—I'm in on this, too," Brandon protested, but was

decisively overruled by Newton.

     "You belong right here at this board, since no one else can handle it the way you

can. Stay here!" he commanded.

     "All x," grudgingly assented the physicist, and held the Sirius upright, with her

needle-sharp stern buried a few feet deep in the ground.

     He watched the wreckage jealously while Crowninshield and forty armored men

issued from the service door in the lower ultra-light compartment and advanced upon

the two halves of the enemy vessel. As no hostile demonstrations ensued, scaling

ladders were quickly placed and with weapons at the alert the police boarded the

hemisphere. There they manacled the still helpless beings visible, and, after laying

down a fog of stupefying gas, vanished into compartments beyond the metal partitions.

After a short time they reappeared and climbed down the scaling ladders, carrying

several inert forms, and Brandon spoke into his transmitter.

     "King all x, Crowninshield ?"

     "I think so. Not being in the control room he was not as badly shocked by the

passage of the beam as were Breckenridge and those you saw. The things in the other

rooms were about ready to fight, so we gave them a little whiff of tritylamin, but Captain

King will be as good as ever in a few minutes."

     "Fine business!" The police entered the Sirius, the service doors clanged shut,

and Brandon turned to Westfall.

     "While they're coming up guess I'll pick up Perce and Miss Newton. We'd better

get 'em aboard and beat it, while we're all in one piece!"

     But even before he could send out the exploring beam of his communicator the

voice of Stevens came from the receiver.

     "Hi, Brandon and Westfall! We've watched the whole show. Congratulations,

fellows! Welcome to Ganymede! You are in our valley—we're upstream from you about

three hundred meters; just below the falls, on the meadow side."

     "All x," Brandon acknowledged. "We saw you. Come on out where we can pick

you up. We've got to get away from here—fast!"

     "We'll carry off the pieces of that ship, too, Quince— we may be able to get a lot

of pointers from it," and Brandon swung mighty tractor beams upon the severed halves

of the Jovian vessel, then extended a couple of smaller rays to meet the two little figures

racing across the smooth green meadow toward the Sirius.