The Citadel in Space

For the first time in many days Brandon and Westfall sat at dinner in the main dining

room of the Sirius. They were enjoying greatly the unaccustomed pleasure of a

leisurely, formal meal; but still their talk concerned the projection of pure forces instead

of subjects more appropriate to the table; still their eyes paid more attention to diagrams

drawn upon scraps of paper than to the diners about them.

     "But I tell you, Quince, you're full of little red ants, clear to the neck!" Brandon

snorted, as Westfall waved one of his arguments aside. "You must have had help to get

that far off—no one man could possibly be as wrong as you are. Why, those fields

absolutely will . . ."

     "Hi, Quincy! Hi, Norman!" a merry voice interrupted. "Fighting, as usual, I see!

What kind of knights are you, anyway, to rescue us poor damsels in distress, and then

never even know that we're alive ?" A tall, willowy brunette had seen the two physicists

as she entered the saloon, and came over to their table, a hand outstretched to each in

cordial greeting.

     "Ho, Verna!" both men exclaimed, and came to their feet as they welcomed the

smiling, graceful newcomer.

     "Sit down here, Verna—we have hardly started," West-fall invited, and Brandon

looked at the girl in assumed surprise as she seated herself in the proffered chair.

     "Well, Verna, it's like this . . ." he began.

     "That's enough!" she broke in. "That phrase always was your introduction to one

of the world's greatest brainstorms. But I know that this is the first time you have had

time even to eat like civilized beings, so I'll forgive you this once. Why all the registering

of amazement, Norman ?"

     "I'm astonished that you aren't being monopolized by some husband or other.

Surely the officers of the Arcturus weren't so dumb that they'd stand for your still being

Verna Picketing, were they?"

     "Not dumb, Norman, no. Far from it—just the opposite, in fact. I'm still working for

my M.R.S. degree, but I haven't succeeded in snaring it yet. You'd be surprised at how

cagy those officers got after a few of them had been captured. But they are just like any

other hunted game, I suppose — the antelopes that survive get pretty wild, you know,"

she concluded, plaintively.

     "Well, that certainly is one tough break for a poor little girl," Brandon

sympathized. "I could cry a bucket of tears, just thinking about it. Quince, our little Nell,

here, ain't been done right by. I'm bashful and you're a woman-hater, but between us,

some way, we've simply got to take steps."

     "You might take longer steps than you think." Verna laughed, her regular, white

teeth and vivid coloring emphasized by her olive skin and her startling hair, black as

Brandon's own. "Perhaps I would like a scientist even better than an I-P officer. The

more I think of it, the surer I am that Nadia Newton had the right idea. I believe that I'll

catch a physicist, too—either of you would do quite nicely, I think," and she studied the

two men carefully.

     Westfall, the methodical and precise, had never been able to defend himself

against Verna Pickering's badinage, but Brandon's ready tongue took up the challenge.

     "Verna, if you really decided to get any living man, he wouldn't stand a chance in

the world," he declared. "If you've already made up your mind that I'm your meat, I'll

come down like Davy Crockett's coon. But if either of us will do, that'll give us each a

fifty-fifty chance to escape your toils. What say we play a game of freeze-out to decide

it?"

     "Fine, Norman! When shall we play ?"

     "Oh, between Wednesday and Thursday, any week you say," and the two fenced

on, banteringly but skillfully, with Westfall an appreciative and unembarrassed listener.

     Dinner over, Brandon and Westfall went back to the control room, where they

found Stevens already seated at one of the master screens.

     "All x, Perce?"

     "All x. The observers report no registrations during the last two watches," and the

three fell into discussion. Long they talked, studying every angle of the situation

confronting them; until suddenly a speaker rattled furiously and an enormous, staring

eye filled both master plates. Brandon's hand flashed to a switch, but the image

disappeared even before he could establish the full-coverage ray screen.

     "I'm on the upper band—take the lower!" he snapped, but Stevens' projector was

already in action. Trained minds all, they knew that some intelligence had traced them,

and all realized that it was of the utmost importance to know what and where that

intelligence was. Stevens found the probing frequency in his range and they flashed

their own beam along it, encountering finally one of the monstrous Vorkulian fortresses,

far from Jupiter and almost directly between them and the planet! Its wall screens were

in operation, and no frequency at their command could penetrate that neutralizing

blanket of vibrations.

     "What kind of an eye was that—ever see anything like it, Perce?" Brandon

demanded.

     "I don't think so, though of course we got only an awfully short flash of it. It didn't

look like the periscopic eyes that those flying snakes had—looked more like a hexan

eye, don't you think? Couldn't very well be hexan, though, in that kind of a ship."

     "Don't think so, either. Maybe it's a purely mechanical affair that they use for

observing. Anyway, old sons, I don't like the looks of things at all. Quince, you're the

brains of this outfit—shift the massive old intellect into high and tell us what to do."

     Westfall, staring into the eyepiece of the filar micrometer, finished measuring the

apparent size of the heptagon before he turned toward Stevens and Brandon.

     "It is hard to decide upon a course of action, since anything that we do may prove

to be wrong," he said, slowly. "However, I do not see that this latest development can

operate to change the plan we have already adopted; that of running away, straight out

from the sun. We may have to increase our acceleration to the highest value the women

and babies can stand. A series of observations of our pursuer will of course be

necessary to decide that point. It would be useless to go to Titan, for they would be

powerless to help us. We could not hold their mirror upon either the Sirius or their

torpedoes against such forces as that fortress has at her command. Then, too, we might

well be bringing down upon them an enemy who would destroy much of their world

before he could be stopped. Both Uranus and Neptune are approximately upon our

present course. Do the Titanians know anything of either of them, Steve?"

     "Not a thing," the computer replied. "They can't get nearly as far as Uranus on

their power beam—it's all they can do to make Jupiter. They seem to think, though, that

one or more of the satellites of Uranus or Neptune may be inhabited by beings similar to

themselves, only perhaps even more so. But considering the difference between what

we found on the Jovian satellites and on Titan, I'd say that anything might be out

there—on Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, their satellites, or anywhere else."

     "Cancel Uranus, double that for Neptune and quadruple it for Pluto," Brandon

commanded. "Realize how far away they are?"

     "That's right, too," agreed Stevens. "Before we got there, with any acceleration

we can use now, this whole mess will be cleaned up, one way or the other."

     Westfall completed the series of observations and calculated his results. Then,

with a grave face, he went to consult the medical officers. The women, children, and the

two Martian scientists were sent to the sick-bay and the acceleration was raised slowly

to twenty meters per second per second, above which point the physicians declared

they should not go unless it became absolutely necessary. Then the scientists met

again—met without Alcantro and Fedanzo, who lay helpless upon narrow hospital

bunks, unable even to lift their massive arms.

     While Westfall made another series of precise measurements of the super-

dreadnaught of space so earnestly pursuing them, Brandon stumbled heavily about the

room, hands jammed deep into pockets, eyes unseeing, emitting clouds of smoke from

his villainously reeking pipe. The Venerians, lacking Brandon's physical strength and by

nature quieter of disposition, sat motionless; keen minds hard at work. Stevens sat at

the calculating machine, absently setting up and knocking down weird and meaningless

integrals while he also concentrated upon the problem before them.

     "They are still gaining, but comparatively slowly," Westfall finally reported. "They

seem to be . . ."

     "In that case we may be all x," Brandon interrupted, brandishing his pipe

vigorously. "We know that they're on a beam—apparently we're the only ones

hereabout having cosmic power. If we can keep away from 'em until their beam

attenuates, we can whittle 'em down to our size and then take 'em, no matter how much

accumulator capacity they've got."

     "But can we keep away from them that long?" asked Dol Kenor, pointedly; and

his fellow Venerian also had a question to propound:

     "Would it not be preferable to lead them in a wide circle, back to a rendezvous

with the Space Fleet, which will probably be ready by the time of meeting?"

     "I am afraid that that would be useless," Westfall frowned in thought. "Given

power, that fortress could destroy the entire Fleet almost as easily as she could wipe

out the Sirius alone."

     "Kenor's right." Stevens spoke up from the calculator, "You're getting too far

ahead of the situation. We aren't apt to keep ahead of them long enough to do much

leading anywhere. The Titanians can hold a beam together from Saturn to Jupiter—why

can't these snake folks ?"

     "Several reasons," Brandon argued stubbornly. "First place, look at the mass of

that thing, and remember that the heavier the beam the harder it is to hold it together.

Second, there's no evidence that they wander around much in space. If their beams are

designed principally for travel upon Jupiter, why should they have any extraordinary

range ? I say they can't hold that beam forever. We've got a good long lead, and in spite

of their higher acceleration I think we'll be able to keep out of range of their heavy stuff.

If so, we'll describe a circle—only one, a good deal bigger than the one Amonar

suggested—and meet the fleet at a point where that enemy ship will be about out of

power."

     Thus for hours the scientists argued, agreeing upon nothing, while the Vorkulian

fortress crept ever closer. At the end of three days of the mad flight the pursuing

spaceship was in plain sight, covering hundreds of divisions of the micrometer screens.

But now the size of the images was increasing with extreme slowness, and the

scientists of the Sirius watched with strained attention the edges of those glowing green

pictures. Finally, when the pictured edges were about to cease moving across the

finely-ruled lines, Brandon cut down his own acceleration a trifle, and kept on

decreasing it at such a rate that the heptagon still crept up, foot by foot.

     "Hey, what's the big idea?" Stevens demanded.

     "Coax 'em along. If we run away from 'em they'll probably reverse power and go

back home, won't they? Their beam is falling apart fast, but they're still getting so much

stuff along it that we couldn't do a thing to stop them. If they think that we're losing

power even faster than they are, though, they'll keep after us until their beam's so thin

that they'll just be able to stop on it. Then they'll reverse or else go onto their

accumulators—reverse, probably, since they'll be a long ways from home by that time.

We'll reverse, too, and keep just out of range. Then, when we both have stopped and

are about to start back, their beam will be at its minimum and we'll go to work on

'em—foot, horse, and marines. Nobody can run us as ragged as they've been doing

without me doing my damndest to return the compliment. I've got a hunch. If it works we

can take those birds and take 'em so they'll stay took. We might as well break up— this

is going to be an ordinary job of piloting for a few days, I think. I'm going up and work

with the Martians on that hunch. You fellows work out any ideas you want to. Watch 'em

close, Mac. Keep kidding 'em along, but don't let 'em get close enough to puncture us."

     Everything worked out practically as Brandon had foretold, and a few days later,

their acceleration somewhat less than Terrestrial gravity, he called another meeting in

the control room. He came in grinning from ear to ear, accompanied by the two

Martians, and seated himself at his complex power panel.

     "Now watch the professor closely, gentlemen," he invited. "He is going to cut that

beam."

     "But you can't," protested Pyraz Amonar.

     "I know you can't, ordinarily, when a beam is tight and solid. But that beam's as

loose as ashes right now. I told you I had a hunch, and Alcantro and Fedanzo worked

out the right answer for me. If I can cut it, Quince, and if their screens go down for a

minute, shoot your visiray into them and see what you can see."

     "All x. How much power are you going to draw ?"

     "Plenty—it figures a little better than four hundred thousand kilofranks. I'll draw it

all from the accumulators, so as not to disturb you fellows on the cosmic intake. We

don't care if we do run the batteries down some, but I don't want to hold that load on the

bus-bars very long. However, if my hunch is right I won't be on that beam five minutes

before it's cut from Jupiter—and I'll bet you four dollars that you won't see the original

crew in that fort when you get into it."

     He set upper and lower bands of dirigible projectors to apply a powerful sidewise

thrust, and the Sirius darted off her course. Flashing a minute pencil behind the huge

heptagon, Brandon manipulated his tuning circuits until a brilliant spot in space showed

him that he was approaching resonance with the heptagon's power beam. Micrometer

dials were then engaged and the delicate tuning continued until the meters gave

evidence that the two beams were precisely synchronized and exactly opposite in

phase. Four plunger switches closed, that tiny pilot ray became an enormous rod of

force, and as those two gigantic beams met in exact opposition and neutralized each

other a solid wall of blinding brilliance appeared in the empty ether behind the Vorkulian

fortress. As that dazzling wall sprang into being the sparkling green protection died from

the walls of the heptagon.

     "Go to it, Quince!" Brandon yelled, but the suggestion was entirely superfluous.

Even before the wall-screen had died Westfall's beam was trying to get through it, and

when the visiray revealed the interior of the heptagon the quiet and methodical physicist

was shaken from his habitual calm.

     "Why, they aren't the winged monsters at all—they're hexans!" he exclaimed.

     "Sure they are." Brandon did not even turn his heavily-goggled eyes from the

blazing blankness of his own screen. "That was my hunch. Those snakes went about

things in a business-like fashion. They didn't strike me as being folks who would pull off

such a wild stunt as trying to chase us clear out of the solar system, but a gang of

hexans would do just that. Some of them must have captured that ship and, already

having it in their cock-eyed brains that we were back of what happened on Callisto, they

decided to bump us off if it was the last thing they ever did. That's what I'd do myself, if I

were a hexan. Now I'll tell you what's happening back at the home power plant of that

ship and what's going to happen next. I'm kicking up a horrible row out there with my

interference, and a lot of instruments at the other end of that beam must be cutting up

all kinds of didoes, right now. They'll check up on that ship with the expedition, by radio

and whatnot, and when they find out that it's clear out here—chop! Didn't get to see

much, did you?"

     "No, they must have switched over to their accumulators almost instantly."

     "Yeah, but if they've got accumulator capacity enough to hold off our entire

cosmic intake and get back to Jupiter besides, I'm a polyp! We're going to take that

ship, fellows, and learn a lot of stuff we never dreamed of before. Ha! There goes his

beam—pay me the four, Quince."

     The dazzling wall of incandescence had blinked out without warning, and

Brandon's beam bored on through space, unimpeded. He shut it off and turned to his

fellows with a grin—a grin which disappeared instantly as a thought struck him and he

leaped back to his board.

     "Sound the high-acceleration warning quick, Perce!" he snapped, and drove in

switch after switch.

     "Cosmic intake's gone down to zero!" exclaimed Mac-Donald, as the Sirius

leaped away.

     "Had to cut it—they might shoot a jolt through that band. Just thought of

something. Maybe unnecessary, but no harm done if . . . it's necessary, all x—we're

taking a sweet kissing right now. You see, even though we're at pretty long range,

they've got some horrible projectors, and they were evidently mad enough to waste

some power taking a good, solid flash at us—and if we hadn't been expecting it, that

flash would have been a bountiful sufficiency, believe me—Great Cat! Look at that

meter—and I've had to throw in number ten shunt! The outer screen is drawing five

hundred and forty thousand!"

     They stared at the meter in amazement. It was incredible, even after they had

seen those heptagons in action, that at such extreme range any offensive beam could

be driven with such unthinkable power—power requiring for its neutralization almost the

full output of the prodigious batteries of accumulators carried by the Sirius! Yet for five,

ten, fifteen, twenty minutes that beam drove furiously against their straining screens,

and even Brandon's face grew tense and hard as that frightful attack continued. At the

end of twenty two minutes, however, the pointer of the meter snapped back to the pin

and every man there breathed an explosive sigh of relief — the almost unbearable

bombardment was over; the screen was drawing only its maintenance load.

     "Wow!" Brandon shouted. "I thought they were going to hang to us until we

cracked, even if it meant that they'd have to freeze to death out here themselves!"

     "It would have meant that, too, don't you think ?" asked Stevens.

     "I imagine so—don't see how they could possibly have enough power left to get

back to Jupiter if they shine that thing on us much longer. Of course, the more power

they waste on us the quicker we can take them; but I don't want much more of that

beam, I'll tell the world—I just about had heart failure before they cut off!"

     The massive heptagon was now drifting back toward Jupiter at constant velocity.

The hexans were apparently hoarding jealously their remaining power, for their wall

screens did not flash on at the touch of the visiray. Through unresisting metal the

probing Terrestrial beams sped, and the scientists studied minutely every detail of the

Vorkulian

     armament; while the regular observers began to make a detailed photographic

survey of every room and compartment of the great fortress. Much of the

instrumentation and machinery was familiar, but some of it was so strange that study

was useless—days of personal inspection and experiment, perhaps complete

dismantling, would be necessary to reveal the secrets hidden within those peculiar

mechanisms.

     "They're trying to save all the power they can—think I'll make them spend some

more," Brandon remarked, and directed against the heptagon a heavy destructive

beam. "We don't want them to get back to Jupiter until after we've boarded them and

found out everything we want to know. Come here, Quince—what do you make of this

?"

     Both men stared at the heptagon, frankly puzzled; for the screens of the strange

vessel did not radiate, nor did the material of the walls yield under the terrible force of

the beam. The destructive ray simply struck that dull green surface and

vanished—disappeared without a trace, as a tiny stream of water disappears into a

partially-soaked sponge.

     "Do you know what you are doing?" asked Westfall, after a few minutes' thought.

"I believe that you are charging their accumulators at the rate of," he glanced at a meter,

"exactly thirty one thousand five hundred kilofranks."

     "Great Cat!" Brandon's hand flashed to a switch and the beam expired. "But they

can't just simply grab it and store it, Quince—it's impossible!"

     "The word 'impossible' in that connection, coming from you, has a queer sound,"

Westfall said, pointedly, and Brandon actually blushed.

     "That's right, too—we have got pretty much the same idea in our cosmic intake

fields, but we didn't carry things as far as they have done. Huh! They're flashing us

again . . . but those thin little beams don't mean anything. They're just trying to make us

feed them some more, I guess. But we've got to hold them back some way—wonder if

they can absorb a tractor field?"

     The hexans had lashed out a few times with their lighter weapons, but, finding

the Sirius unresponsive, had soon shut them off and were stolidly plunging along toward

Jupiter. Brandon flung out a tractor rod and threw the mass of his cruiser upon it as it

locked into those sullen green walls. But. as soon as the enemy felt its drag their

screens flared white, and the massive Terrestrial space-ship quivered in every member

as that terrific cable of force was snapped.

     "They apparently cannot store up the energy of a tractor," commented Westfall,

"but you will observe that they have no difficulty in radiating when they care to."

     "Yeah, those two ideas didn't pan out so heavy. There's lots of things not tried

yet, though. Our next best bet is to get around in front of him and push back. If they can

wiggle away from more than fifty percent of a pressor, they're really good."

     The pilot maneuvered the Sirius into line, directly between Jupiter and the

pentagon; and as the driving projectors went into action Brandon drove a mighty

pressor field along their axis, squarely into the center of mass of the Vorkulian fortress.

For a moment it held solidly, then, as the screens of the enemy went into action, it

rebounded and glanced off in sparkling, cascading torrents. But the hexans, with all

their twisting and turning, could not present to that prodigious beam of force any angle

sufficiently obtuse to rob it of half its power, and the driving projectors of the pentagon

again burst into activity as the backward-pushing mass of the Sirius made itself felt. In a

short time, however, the wall-screens were again cut off—apparently more power was

required to drive them than they were able to deflect.

     Although even the enormous tonnage of the Terrestrial cruiser was insignificant

in comparison with the veritable mountain of metal to which she was opposed, so that

the fiercest thrust of her driving projectors did not greatly affect the monster's progress;

yet Brandon and his cohorts were well content.

     "It's a long trip back to where they came from, and since they wanted to drift all

the way, I think they'll be out of power before they get there," Brandon summed up the

situation. "We aren't losing any power, either, since we are using only a part of our

cosmic intake."

     In a few hours the struggle had settled down to a routine matter—the Sirius being

pushed backward steadily against the full drive of her every projector, contesting

stubbornly every mile of space traversed. Assured that the regular pilots and lookouts

were fully capable of handling the vessel, the scientists were about to resume their

interrupted tasks when one of the photographers called them over to look at something

he had discovered in one of the lowermost and smallest compartments of the heptagon.

They crowded around the screens, and saw pictured there the winged, snake-like form

of one of the original crew of the Vorkulian vessel!

     "Dead?" Brandon asked.

     "Not yet," replied the photographer. "He is twitching a little once in a while, but

you see he's pretty badly cut up."

     "I see he is . . . he must have a lot of vitality to have lasted this long—maybe he'll

live through it yet. Hold him on the plate, and get his exact measurements." He turned to

the communicator. "Doctor von Steiffel? Can you come down to the control room a

minute ? We may want you to operate upon one of these South Jovians after while."

     "Himmel! Es ist der . . ." The great surgeon, bearded and massive, stared into the

plate, and in his surprise started to speak in his native German. He paused, his long,

powerful fingers tracing the likeness of the Vorkul upon the plate, then went on: "I would

like very much to operate, but, not understanding our intentions, he would of course

struggle. And when that body struggles — schrecklichkeit!" and he waved his arms in a

pantomime of wholesale destruction.

     "I thought of that—that's why I am talking to you now instead of when we get to

him, two or three days from now. We'll give you his exact measurements, and a crew of

mechanics will, under your direction, sink holes in the steel floor and install steel bands

heavy enough to hold him rigid, from tail-fins to wing-tips. We'll hold him there until we

can make him understand that we're friends. It is of the utmost importance to save that

creature's life if possible; because we do not want one of their fortresses launched

against us— and in any event, it will not do us any harm to have a friend in the City of

the South."

     "Right. I will also have prepared some kind of a space-suit in which he can be

brought from his vessel to ours," and the surgeon took the measurements and went to

see that the "operating table" and suit were made ready for Kromodeor, the sorely

wounded Vorkul.

     It was not long until the projectors of the heptagon went out and she lay inert in

space, power completely exhausted. Knowing that the screens of the enemy would

absorb any ordinary ray, the scientists had calculated the most condensed beam they

could possibly project, a beam which, their figures showed, should be able to puncture

those screens by sheer mass action — puncture them practically instantaneously,

before the absorbers could react. To that end they had arranged their circuits to hurl

seven hundred sixty five thousand kilofranks—the entire power of their massed

accumulators and their highest possible cosmic intake—in one tiny bar of superlative

density, less than one meter in diameter! Everything ready, Brandon shot in the

prodigious switches that launched that bolt—a bolt so vehement, so inconceivably

intense that it seemed fairly to blast the very ether out of existence as it tore its way

along its carefully predetermined line. The intention was to destroy all the control panels

of the absorber screens; parts so vital that without them the great vessel would be

helpless, and yet items which the Terrestrials could reconstruct quite readily from their

photographs and drawings.

     As that irresistible bolt touched the Vorkulian wall-screen the spot of contact

flared instantaneously through the spectrum and into the black beyond the violet as that

screen overloaded locally. Fast as it responded and highly conductive though it was, it

could not handle that frightfully concentrated load. In the same fleeting instant of time

every molecule of substance in that beam's path flashed into tenuous vapor — no

conceivable material could resist or impede that stabbing stiletto of energy—and the

main control panel of the Vorkulian wall-screen system vanished. Time after time, as

rapidly as he could sight his beam and operate his switches, Brandon drove his needle

of annihilation through the fortress, destroying the secondary controls. Then, the walls

unresisting, he cut in the vastly larger, but infinitely less powerful, I-P ray, and with it

systematically riddled the immense heptagon. Out through the gaping holes in the outer

walls rushed the dense atmosphere of Jupiter, and the hexans in their massed

hundreds died.

     The Sirius was brought up beside the heptagon, so that her main air-lock was

against one of the yawning holes in the green metal wall of the enemy. There she was

anchored by tractor beams, and the two hundred picked men of the I-P police, in full

space equipment, prepared to board the gigantic fortress of the void. Brandon sat tense

at his controls, ready to send his beam ahead of the troopers against any hexans that

might survive in some as yet unpunctured compartment. General Crowninshield sat

beside the physicist at an auxiliary board, phones at ears and four infra-red visiray

plates banked in front of him; ready through light or darkness to direct and oversee the

attack, no matter where it might lead or how widely separated the platoons might

become before the citadel was taken.

     The space-line men—the engineers of weightless combat —led the van,

protected by the projectors of their fellows. Theirs the task to set up ways of rope, along

which the others could advance. Power drills bit savagely into metal, making holes to

receive the expanding eyebolts; grappling hooks seized fast every protuberance and

corner; and at intervals were strung beam-fed lanterns, illuminating brilliantly the line of

march. Through compartments and down corridors they went, bridging the many gaps

in the metal through which Brandon's beams had blasted their way; guided by

Crowninshield along the shortest feasible path toward the little projector room in which

Kromodeor, the wounded Vorkul, lay. There were so many chambers and

compartments in the heptagon that it had of course been impossible to puncture them

all, and in some of the tight rooms were groups of hexans, anxious to do battle. But the

general's eye led his men, and if such a room lay before them Brandon's frightful beam

entered it first—and where that beam entered, life departed.

     But the hexans were really intelligent, as has been said. They had had time to

prepare for what they knew awaited them, and they were rendered utterly desperate by

the knowledge that, no matter what might happen, their course was run. Their power

was gone, and even if the present enemy should be driven off, they would float idly in

space until they died of cold; or, more probably, hurtling toward Jupiter as they were,

they would plunge to certain death upon its surface as soon as they came within its

powerful gravitational field. Therefore some fifty of the creatures, who had had space

experience in their spherical vessels, had spent the preceding days in manufacturing

space equipment. Let the weight-fiends plan upon detonating magazines of explosives,

upon laying mines calculated to destroy the invaders, even the vessel itself and all

within it. Let them plan upon any other such idle schemes, which were certain to be

foreseen and guarded against by the space-hardened veterans who undoubtedly

manned that all-powerful and vengeful football of scarred gray metal. Space-fighters

were they, and as space-fighters would they die; taking with them to their own inevitable

death a full quota of the enemy.

     Thus it came about that the head of the column of police had scarcely passed a

certain door when in the room behind it there began to assemble the half-hundred

space-hounds of the hexans. When the vanguard had approached that room

Crowninshield had inspected it thoroughly with his infra-red beams. He had found it

punctured and airless, devoid of life or of lethal devices, and had passed on. But now

the space-suited warriors of the horde, guided in their hiding by their own visirays, were

massing there. When the center of the I-P column reached that door it burst open.

There boiled out into the corridor, into the very midst of the police, fifty demoniacal

hexans, fighting with berserk fury, ruled by but one impulse—to kill.

     Hand-weapons flashed viciously, tearing at steel armor and at bulging space-

suits. Space-hooks bit and tore. Pikes and lances were driven with the full power of

brawny arms. Here and there could be seen trooper and hexan, locked together in

fierce embrace far from any hand-line — six limbs against four, all ten plied with

abandon in mortal, hand-to-hand, foot-to-foot combat.

     "Give way!" yelled Crowninshield into the ears of his men. "Epstein, back!

LeFevre, advance! Get out of block ten—give us a chance to use a beam!"

     As the police fell back out of the designated section of the corridor Brandon's

beam tore through it, filling it from floor to ceiling with a volume of intolerable energy. In

that energy walls, doorway, and space-lines, as well as most of the hexans, vanished

utterly. But the beam could not be used again. Every surviving enemy had hurled

himself frantically into the thickest ranks of the police and the battle raged fiercer than

ever. It did not last long. The ends of the column had already closed in. The police filled

the corridor and overflowed into the yawning chasm cut by the annihilating ray.

Outnumbered, surrounded upon all sides, above, and below by the Terrestrials, the

hexans fought with mad desperation to the last man—and to the last man died. And

even though in lieu of their own highly efficient space-armor they had fought in weak,

crude, and hastily improvised space-suits which were pitifully inferior to the ray-

resistant, heavy steel armor of the I-P forces, nevertheless the enormous strength and

utter savagery of the hexans had taken toll; and when the advance was resumed it was

with extra lookouts scanning the entire neighborhood of the line of march.

     Since the troops had entered the fortress as close to their goal as possible, it was

not long until the leading platoon reached the door behind which Kromodeor lay. Tools

and cylinders of air were brought up, and the engineers quickly fitted pressure

bulkheads across the corridor. There was a screaming hiss from the valves, the

atmosphere in that walled-off space became dense, and mechanics attacked with their

power drills the door of the projector room. It opened, and four husky orderlies rapidly

but gently encased the long body of the Vorkul in the space-suit built especially to

receive it. As that monstrous form in its weirdly bulging envelope was guided through

the air-locks into the Sirius, Crowninshield barked orders into his transmitter and the

police reformed. They would now systematically scour the fortress, to wipe out any

hexans that might still be in hiding; to discover and destroy any possible traps or infernal

machines which the enemy might have planted for their undoing.

     Assured that the real danger to the Sirius was over and that his presence was no

longer necessary, Brandon turned his controls over to an assistant and went up to the

Venerian rooms, where von Steiffel and his staff were to operate upon the Vorkul.

There, in the dense, hot air, but little different now from the atmosphere of Jupiter,

Kromodeor lay; bolted down to the solid steel of the floor by means of padded steel

straps. So heavy were the bands that he could not possibly break even one of them; so

closely were they spaced that he could scarcely have moved a muscle had he tried. But

he did not try—so near death was he that his mighty muscles did not even quiver at the

trenchant bite of the surgeon's tools. Von Steiffel and his aides, meticulously covered

with sterile gowns, hoods, and gloves, worked in most rigidly aseptic style; deftly and

rapidly closing the ghastly wounds inflicted by the weapons of the hexans.

     "Hi, Brandon," the surgeon grunted as he straightened up, the work completed. "I

did not use much antiseptic on him. Because of possible differences in blood chemistry

and in ignorance of his native bacteria, I depended almost wholly upon asepsis and his

natural resistance. It is a good thing that we did not have to use an anaesthetic. He is in

bad shape, but if we can feed him successfully, he may pull through."

     "Feed him ? I never thought of that. What d'you suppose he eats ?"

     "I have an idea that it is something highly concentrated, from his anatomy. I shall

try giving him sugar, milk chocolate, something of the kind. First I shall try maple syrup.

Being a liquid it is easily administered, and its penetrating odor also may be a help."

     A can of the liquid was brought in and to the amazement of the Terrestrials the

long, delicate antennae of the Vorkul began to twitch as soon as the can was opened.

Motioning hastily for silence, von Steiffel filled a bowl and placed it upon the floor

beneath Kromodeor's grotesque nose. The twitching increased, until finally one dull,

glazed eye brightened somewhat and curled slowly out upon its slender pedicle, toward

the dish. His mouth opened sluggishly and a long, red tongue reached out, but as his

perceptions quickened he became conscious of the strangers near him. The mouth

snapped shut, the eye retracted, and heaving, rippling surges traversed that powerful

body as he struggled madly against the unbreakable shackles of steel binding him to

the floor.

     "Ach, kindlein!" The surgeon bent anxiously over that grotesque but frightened

head; soothing, polysyllabic German crooning from his bearded lips.

     "Here, let's try this—I'm good on it," Stevens suggested, bringing up the

Callistonian thought exchanger. All three men donned headsets, and sent wave after

wave of friendly and soothing thoughts toward that frantic and terrified brain.

     "He's got his brain shut up like a clam!" Brandon snorted. "Open up, guy—we

ain't going to hurt you! We're the best friends you've got on Earth, if you only knew it!"

     "Himmel, und he iss himself killing!" moaned von Steiffel.

     "One more chance that might work," and Brandon stepped over to the

communicator, demanding that Verna Pickering be brought at once. She came in as

soon as the air-locks would permit, and the physicist welcomed her eagerly.

     "This fellow's fighting so he's tearing himself to pieces. We can't make him

receive a thought, and von Steiffel's afraid to use an anaesthetic. Now it's barely

possible that he may understand hexan. I thought you wasted time learning any of it, but

maybe you didn't—see if you can make him understand that we're friends."

     The girl flinched and shrank back involuntarily but forced herself to approach that

awful head. Bending over, she repeated over and over one harsh, barking syllable. The

effect of that word was magical. Instantly Kromodeor ceased struggling, an eye curled

out, and that long, supple tongue flashed down and into the syrup. Not until the last

sticky trace had been licked from the bowl did his attention wander from the food. Then

the eye, sparkling brightly now, was raised toward the girl. Simultaneously four other

eyes arose, one directed at each of the men and the other surveying his bonds and the

room in which he was. Then the Vorkul spoke, but his whistling, hissing manner of

speech so garbled the barking sounds of the hexan words he was attempting to utter

that Verna's slight knowledge of the language was of no use. She therefore put on one

of the headsets, motioning the men to do the same, and approached Kromodeor with

the other, repeating the hexan word of friendly import. This time the Vorkul's brain was

not sealed against the visitors and thoughts began to flow.

     "You've used those things a lot," Brandon turned to Stevens in a quick aside.

"Can you hide your thoughts ?"

     "Sure—why?"

     "All I can think of is that power system of theirs, and he'd know what we were

going to do, sure. And I'd better be getting at it anyway. So you can wipe that off your

mind with a clear conscience—the rest of us will get everything they've got there. Your

job's to get everything you can out of this bird's brain. All x?"

     "All x."

     "Why, you didn't put yours on!" Verna exclaimed.

     "No, I don't think I'll have time. If I get started talking to him now, I'd be here from

now on, and I've got a lot of work to do. Steve can talk to him for me — see you later,"

and Brandon was gone.

     He went directly to the Vorkulian fortress, bare now of hexan life and devoid of

hexan snares and traps. There he and his fellows labored day after day learning every

secret of every item of armament and equipment aboard the heptagon.

     "Did you finish up today, Norm?" asked Stevens one evening. "Kromodeor's

coming to life fast. He's able to wiggle around a little now, and is insisting that we take

off the one chain we keep on him and let him use a plate, to call his people."

     "All done. Guess I'll go in and talk to him—you all say he's such an egg. With this

stuff off my mind I can hide it well enough. By the way, what does he eat ?" as the two

friends set out for the Venetian rooms.

     "Anything that's sweet, apparently, with enough milk to furnish protein. Won't eat

meat or vegetables at all—von Steiffel says they haven't got much of a digestive tract,

and I know that they haven't got any teeth. He's already eaten most all the syrup we had

on board, all of the milk chocolate, and a lot of sugar. But none of us can get any kind of

a raise out of him at all—not even Nadia, when she fed him a whole box of chocolates."

     "No, I mean what does he eat when he's home ?"

     "It seems to be a sort of syrup, made from the juices of jungle plants, which they

drag in on automatic conveyors and process on automatic machinery. But he's a funny

mutt —hard to get. Some of his thoughts are lucid enough, but others we can't make out

at all—they are so foreign to all human nature that they simply do not register as

thoughts at all. One funny thing, he isn't the least bit curious about anything. He doesn't

want to examine anything, doesn't ask us any questions, and won't tell us anything

about anything, so that all we know about him we found out purely by accident. For

instance, they like games and sports, and seem to have families. They also have love,

liking, and respect for others of their own race—but they seem to have no emotions

whatever for outsiders. They're utterly inhuman—I can't describe it—you'll have to get it

for yourself."

     "Did you find out about the Callistonians who went to see them ?" , "Negatively,

yes. They never arrived. They probably couldn't see in the fog, and must have missed

the city. If they tried to land in that jungle, it was simply just too bad."

     "That would account for everything. So they're strictly neutral, eh? Well, I'll tell

him 'hi', anyway." Now in the sick-room, Brandon picked up the headset and sent out a

wave of cheery greeting.

     To his amazement the mind of the Vorkul was utterly unresponsive to his

thoughts. Not disdainful, not inimical; not appreciative, nor friendly—simply indifferent to

a degree unknown and incomprehensible to any human mind. He sent Brandon only

one message, which came clear and coldly emotionless.

     "I do not want to talk to you. Tell the hairy doctor that I am now strong enough to

be allowed to go to the communicator screen. That is all." The Vorkul's mind again

became an oblivious maze of unintelligible thoughts. Not deliberately were Kromodeor's

thoughts hidden; he was constitutionally unable to interest himself in the thoughts or

things of any alien intelligence.

     "All x, pal." A puzzled, thoughtful look came over Brandon's face as he called von

Steiffel. "A queer duck, if there ever was one. However, their ships will never bother us,

that's one good thing; and I think we've got about everything of theirs that we want,

anyway."

     The surgeon, after a careful examination of his patient, unlocked the heavy collar

with which he had been restraining the over-anxious Vorkul, and supported him lightly at

the communicator panel. As surely as though he had used those controls for years

Kromodeor shot the visiray beam out into space. One hand upon each of the several

dials and one eye upon each meter, it was a matter only of seconds for him to get in

touch with Vorkulia. To the Terrestrials the screen was a gray and foggy blank; but the

manifest excitement shrieking and whistling from the speaker in response to

Kromodeor's signals made it plain that his message was being received with

enthusiasm.

     "They are coming," the Vorkul thought, and lay back, exhausted.

     "Just as well that they're coming out here, at that," Brandon commented. "We

couldn't begin to handle that structure anywhere near Jupiter—in fact, we wouldn't want

to get very close ourselves, with passengers aboard."

     Such was the power of the Vorkulian vessels that in less than twenty hours

another heptagon slowed to a halt beside the Sirius and two of its crew were wafted

aboard.

     They were ushered into the Venerian room, where they talked briefly with their

wounded fellow before they dressed him in a space-suit, which they filled with air to

their own pressure. Then all three were lifted lightly into the air, and without a word or a

sign were borne through the air-locks of the vessel, and into an opening in the wall of

the rescuing heptagon. A green tractor beam reached out, seizing the derelict, and both

structures darted away at such a pace that in a few minutes they had disappeared in the

black depths of space.

     "Well—that, as I may have remarked before, is indisputably and conclusively

that." Brandon broke the surprised, almost stunned, silence that followed the

unceremonious departure of the visitors. "I don't know whether to feel relieved at the

knowledge that they won't bother us, or whether to get mad because they won't have

anything to do with us."

     He sent the "All x" signal to the pilot, and the Sirius, once more at the

acceleration of Terrestrial gravity, again bored on through space.