“Well, here’s hoping, anyway. Thanks again. See you again some time, maybe —
clear ether!”
Chief Pilot Henderson had, a few minutes since, changed the course of the
cruiser from right-line flight to fantastic, zig-zag leaps through space, and now he turned
frowningly to Kinnison.
“We’d better begin dumping them out pretty soon now, I think,” be suggested.
“We haven’t detected anything yet, but according to the figures it won’t be long now,
and after they get their traps set we’ll run out of time mighty quick.”
“Right,” and one after another, but even so several light-years apart in space,
eighteen of the small boats were launched into the void. In the control room there were
left only Henderson and Thorndyke with vanBuskirk and Kinnison, who were of course
to be the last to leave the vessel.
“All right, Hen, now we’ll try out your roulette-wheel director-by-chance,” Kinnison
said, then went on, in answer to Thorndyke’s questioning glance. “A bouncing ball on
an oscillating table. Every time the ball carroms off a pin it shifts the course through a
fairly large, but unpredictable angle. Pure chance — we thought it might cross them up a
little.”
Hairline beams were connected from panels to pins, and soon four interested
spectators looked on while, with no human guidance, the Brittania lurched and leaped
even more erratically than she had done under Henderson’s direction. Now, however,
the ever-changing vectors of her course were as unexpected and surprising to her
passengers as to any possible external observer.
One more lifeboat left the vessel, and only the Lensman and his giant aide
remained. While they were waiting the required few minutes before their own departure,
Kinnison spoke.
“Bus, there’s one more thing we ought to do, and I’ve just figured out how to do
it. We don’t want this ship to fall into the pirates’ hands intact, as there’s a lot of stuff in
her that would probably be as new to them as it was to us. They know we got the best
of that ship of theirs, but they don’t know what we did or how. On the other hand, we
want her to drive on as long as possible after we leave her — the farther away fron2 us
she gets, the better our chance of getting away. We should have something to touch off
those duodec torpedoes we have left — all seven at once — at the first touch of a spy
beam, both to keep them from studying her and to do a little damage if possible — they’ll
go inert and pull her up close as soon as they get a tracer on her. Of course we can’t do
it by stopping the spy-ray altogether, with a spyscreen, but I think I can establish an
R7TX7M field outside our regular screens that will interfere with a TX7 just enough —
say one-tenth of one percent — to actuate a relay in the field-supporting beam.”
“One-tenth of one percent of one milliwatt is one microwatt, isn’t it? Not much
power, I’d say, but that’s a little out of my line. Go ahead — IM observe while you’re
busy.”
Thus it came about that, a few minutes later, the immense sky-rover of the
Galactic Patrol darted along entirely untenanted. And it was her non-human helmsman,
operating solely by chance, that prolonged the chase far more than even the most
optimistic member of her crew could have hoped. For the pilots of the pirate pursuers
were Intelligent,.and assumed that their quarry also was directed by intelligence.
Therefore they aimed their vessels for points toward which the Brittania should logically
go, only and maddeningly to watch her go somewhere else. Senselessly she hurled
herself directly toward enormous suns, once grazing one so nearly that the harrying
pirates gasped at the foolhardiness of such exposure to lethal radiation. For no reason
at all she shot straight backward, almost into a cluster of pirate craft, only to dash off on
another unexpected tangent before the startled outlaws could lay a beam against her.
But finally she did it once too often. Flying between two vessels, she held her line
the merest fraction of a second too long. Two tractors lashed out and the three vessels
flashed together, zone to zone to zone. Then, instantly, the two pirate ships became
inert, to anchor in apace their wildly fleeing prey. Then spy-beams licked out, to explore
the Brittania’s interior.
At the touch of those beams, light and delicate as they were, the relay clicked
and the torpedoes let go. Those frightful shells were so designed and so charged that
one of them could demolish any inert structure known to man, what of seven? There
was an explosion to stagger the imagination and which must be left to the imagination,
since no words in any language of the galaxy can describe it adequately.
The Brittania, literally blown to bits, more-than-half fused and partially volatilized
by the inconceivable fury of the outburst, was hurled in all directions in streamers,
droplets, chunks, and masses, each component part urged away from the center of
pressure by the ragingly compressed gases of detonation. Furthermore, each
component was now of course inert and therefore capable of giving up its full measure
of kinetic energy to any inert object with which it should come in contact.
One mass of wreckage, so fiercely sped that its victim had time neither to dodge
nor become inertialess, crashed full against the side of the nearer attacker. Meteorite
screens flared brilliantly violet and went down. The full-driven wall-shield held, but so
terrific was the concussion that what few of the crew were not killed outright would take
no interest in current events for many hours to come.
The other, slightly more distant attacker was more fortunate. Her commander
had had time to render her inertialess, and as she rode lightly away, ahead of the
outermost, most tenuous fringe of vapor, he reported succinctly to his headquarters all
that had transpired. There was a brief interlude of silence, then a speaker gave tongue.
“Helmuth, speaking for Boskone,” snapped from it. “Your report is neither
complete nor conclusive. Find, study, photograph, and bring in to headquarters every
fragment and particle pertaining to the wreckage, paying particular attention to all
bodies or portions thereof.”
“Helmuth, speaking for Boskone!” roared from the general-wave unscrambler.
“Commanders of all vessels, of every class and tonnage, upon whatever mission
bound, attention! The vessel referred to in our previous message has been destroyed,
but it is feared that some or all of her personnel were allowed to escape. Every unit of
that personnel must be killed before he has opportunity to communicate with any Patrol
base. Therefore cancel your present orders, whatever they may be, and proceed at
maximum blast to the region previously designated. Scour that entire volume of space.
Beam out of existence every vessel whose papers do not account unquestionably for
every intelligent being aboard. Investigate every possible avenue of escape. More
detailed orders will be given each of you upon your nearer approach to the
neighborhood under search.”
CHAPTER 4
Escape
Space-suited complete except for helmets, and with those ready to hand, Kinnison and
vanBuskirk sat in the tiny control room of their lifeboat as it .drifted inert through inter-
stellar apace. Kinnison was poring over charts taken from the Brittania’s pilot room, the
sergeant was gazing idly into a detector plate.
“No clear ether yet, I don’t suppose,” the captain remarked, as he rolled up a
chart and tossed it aside.
“No let-up for a second, they’re not taking any chances at all. Found out where
we are? Alsakan ought to be hereabouts somewhere, hadn’t it?”
“Yeah. Not close, though, even for a ship-out of the question for us. Nothing
much inhabited around here, either, to say nothing of being civilized. Scarcely one to
the block. Don’t think I’ve ever been out here before, have you?”
“0ff my beat entirely. How long do you figure it’ll be before it’s safe for us to blast
off?”
“Can’t start blasting until your plates are clear. Anything we can detect can detect
us as soon as we start putting out power.”
“We may be in for a spell of waiting, then . . . . . ” VanBuskirk broke off suddenly
and his tone changed to one of tense excitement. “Help, Noshabkeming, help! Look at
that I”
“Blinding blue blazes!” Kinnison exclaimed, staring into the plate. “With all
macro-universal space and all eternity to play around in, why in all space’s hells did she
have to come back here and now?”
For there, right in their laps, not a hundred miles away, lay the Brittania and her
two pirate captors!
“Better go free,, hadn’t we?” whispered vanBuskirk.
“Damn!” Kinnison grunted. “At this range they’d spot us in a split second. Acting
like a hunk of loose metal’s our only chance. We’ll be able to dodge any flying chunks, I
think . . . . . there she goes!”