power reduced the effigies to two small piles of gray ash. Immediately thereafter a beam
of force from the patrollin cruiser neutralized the attractors bearing upon the captive and,
after donning his space suit, he was transferred to the Fenachrome vessel.
Motionless inside his cubby, DuQuesne waited until the airlocks of the Fenachrome
vessel had closed behind his erstwhile prisoner; waited until that luckless monster had
told his story to Fenor, his emperor, and to Fenimol, his general in command; waited until
the communicator circuit had been broken and the hypnotized, drugged, and already
dying creature had turned as though to engage his fellows in conversation. Then only did
the saturnine scientist act. His finger closed a circuit, and in the Fenachrome vessel,
inside the front protector flap of the discarded space suit, the flat case fell apart
noiselessly and from it there gushed forth volume upon volume of colorless and odorless,
but intensely lethal, vapor.
“Just like killing goldfish in a bowl.” Callous, hard, and cold, DuQuesne exhibited no
emotion whatever; neither pity for the vanquished foe not elation at the perfect working
out of his plans. “Just in case some of them might have been wearing suits for
emergencies, I had some explosive copper ready to detonate, but this makes it much
better-the explosion might have damaged something we want.”
And aboard the vessel of the Fenachrone, DuQuesne’s deadly gas diffused with extreme
rapidity, and as it diffused, the hellish crew to the last man dropped in their tracks. They
died not knowing what had happened to them; died with no thought of even attempting to
send out an alarm; died not even knowing that they died.
2 PLAN XB 218
Can you open the airlocks of that scout ship from the outside, doctor?” asked Loring, as
the two adventurers came out of the armory into the control room, where DuQuesne, by
means of the attractors, began to bring the two vessels together.
“Yes. I know everything that the engineer of a first-class battleship knew. To him, one of
these little scouts was almost beneath notice, but he did know that much about them –
the outside controls of all Fenachrome ships work the same way.”
Under the urge of the attractors the two ships of space were soon door to door.
DuQuesne set the mighty beams to lock the craft immovably together and both men
stepped into the Violet’s airlock. Pumping back the air, DuQuesne opened the outer door,
then opened both outer and inner doors of the scout.
As he opened the inner door the poisoned atmosphere of the vessel screamed out into
space, and as soon as the frigid gale had subsided the raiders entered the control room
of the enemy craft. Hardened and conscienceless killer though Loring was, the four
bloated, ghastly objects that had once been men gave him momentary pause.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have let the air out so fast,” he suggested, tearing his gaze away
from the grisly sight.
“The brains aren’t hurt, and that’s all I care about.” Unmoved, DuQuesne opened the air
valves wide, and not until the roaring blast had scoured every trace of the noxious vapor
from the whole ship did he close the airlock doors and allow the atmosphere to come
again to normal pressure and temperature.
“Which ship are you going to use-theirs or our own?” asked Loring, as he began to
remove his cumbersome armor.
“I don’t know yet. That depends largely upon what I find out from the brain of the
lieutenant in charge of this patrol boat. There are two methods .by which we can capture
a battleship; one requiring the use of the Violet, the other the use of this scout. The
information which I am about to acquire will enable me to determine which of the two
plans entails the lesser amount of risk.
“There is a third method of procedure, of course; that is, to go back to Earth and
duplicate one of their battleships ourselves, from the knowledge I shall have gained from
their various brains concerning the apparatus, mechanisms, materials, and weapons of
the Fenachrone. But that would take a long time and would be far from certain of
success, because there would almost certainly be some essential facts that I would not
have secured. Besides, I came out here to get one of their first-line space ships, and I
intend to do it.”
With no sign of distaste DuQuesne coupled his brain to that of the dead lieutenant of the
Fenachrone through the mechanical educator, and quite as casually as though he were
merely giving Loring another lesson in Fenachrone matters did he begin systematically to
explore the intricate convolutions of that fearsome brain. But after only ten minutes’ study
he was interrupted by the brazen clang of the emergency alarm. He flipped off the power
of the educator, discarded his headset, acknowledged the call, and watched the
recorder as it rapped out its short, insistent message.
“Something is going on here that was not on my program,” he announced to the alert but
quiescent Loring. “One should always be prepared for the unexpected, but this may run
into something cataclysmic. The Fenachrone are being attacked from space, and all
armed forces have been called into a defensive formation-Invasion Plan XB218, whatever
that is. I’ll have to look it up in the code.”
The desk of the commanding officer was a low, heavily built cabinet of metal. DuQuesne
strode over to it, operated rapidly the levers and dials of its combination lock, and took
from one of the compartments the “Code”-a polygonal framework of engraved metal
bars and sliders, resembling somewhat an Earthly multiplex squirrel-cage slide rule.
“X-B-Two-One-Eight.” Although DuQuesne had never before seen such an instrument,
the knowledge taken from the brains of the dead officers rendered him perfectly familiar
with it, and his long and powerful fingers set up the indicated defense plan as rapidly and
as surely as those of any Fenachrone could have done it. He revolved the mechanism in
his hands, studying every plane surface, scowling blackly in concentration.
“Munition plants-shall-so-and-so-We don’t care about that. Reserves-zones-ordnance-
commissary-defensive screens . . . Oh, here we are! Scout ships. Instead of patrolling a
certain volume of space, each scout ship takes up a fixed post just inside the outer
detector zone. Twenty times as many on duty, too-enough so that they will be only about
ten thousand miles apart-and each ship is to lock high-power detector screens and
visiplate and recorder beams with all its neighbors.
“Also, there is to be a first-class battleship acting as mother ship, protector, and reserve
for each twenty-five scouts. The nearest one is to be-Let’s see, from here that would be
only about twenty thousand miles over that way and about a hundred thousand miles
down.”
“Does that change your plans, chief?”
“Since my plans were not made, I cannot say that it does -it changes the background,
however, and introduces an element of danger that did not previously exist. It makes it
impossible to go out through the detector zone-but it was practically impossible before,
and we have no intention of going out, anyway, until we possess a vessel powerful
enough to go through any barrage they can lay down. On the other hand, there is bound
to be a certain amount of confusion in placing so many vessels, and that fact will operate
to make the capture of our battleship much easier than it would have been otherwise.”
“What danger exists that wasn’t there before?” demanded Loring.
“The danger that the whole planet may be blown up,” DuQuesne returned bluntly. “Any
nation or race attacking from space would of course have atomic power, and any one
with that power, could volatilize any planet by simply dropping a bomb on it from open
space. They might want to colonize it, of course, in which -case they wouldn’t destroy it,
but it is always safest to plan for the worst possible contingencies.”
“How do you figure on doing us any good if the whole world explodes?” Loring lighted a
cigarette, his hand steady and his face pinkly unruffled. “If she goes up, it looks as if we
go out, like that-pul!” And he blew out the match.
“Not at all, Doll,” DuQuesne reassured him. “An atomic explosion starting on the surface
and propagating downward would hardly develop enough power to drive anything
material much, if any, faster than light, and no explosion wave, however violent, can
exceed that velocity. The Violet, as you know, although not to be compared with even
this scout as a fighter, has an acceleration of five times that, so that we could outrun the
explosion in her. However, if we stay in our own ship, we shall certainly be found and
blown out of space as soon as this defensive formation is completed.
“On the other hand, this ship carries full Fenachrone power of offense and defense, and
we should be safe enough from detection in it, at least for as long a time as we shall