actually called.”
He hooked a hand under her belt as the shocks came closer, and stood tense
and ready. The lancing plane cut through one end of their control room, and Stevens
leaped with his companion toward the new-made opening; while the air shrieked
outward into space and their suits bulged suddenly with the abrupt increase in pressure
differential. While they were in midflight the frightful blade of destruction cleaved its way
through the control board and through the spot upon which they had been standing a
moment before. As they passed the severed edge, en route into open space. Stevens
seized a projecting brace and clung there, every nerve taut.
“Something funny here, Nadia,” he said after a minute of strained waiting. “They
should have made one more cut, to make us absolutely blind and helpless. As it is
they’ve clipped off all our projectors, so we can’t move, but I think we’ve got the whole
control compartment of number two lifeboat untouched. If so, we can look around,
anyway. Let’s go!”
Floating effortlessly from fragment to fragment, they made their way toward the
as yet undamaged section of their cruiser. They found an airlock in working order, and
were soon in the second lifeboat, where Stevens hastily turned on a communicator and
peered out into space.
“There they are! There’s another stranger out there, too. They’re fighting with her,
now—that’s probably why they didn’t polish us off.” Steel-braced, clumsy helmets
touching, the two Terrestrials stared spell-bound into the plate; watching while the
insensately vicious intelligences within the sphere brought its every force to bear upon
another and larger sphere which was now so close as to be plainly visible. Like a
gigantic drop of quicksilver this second globe appeared—its smooth and highly-polished
surface one enormous spherical mirror. Watching tensely, they saw flash out that
frightful plane of seething energy, with the effects of which they were all too familiar, and
saw it strike full upon the dazzling ball.
“This is awful, ace!” Stevens groaned. “They haven’t got ray-screens, either, and
without them they don’t stand a chance. No possible substance can stand up under that
beam. When they get done and turn back to us, we’ll have to dive back there where we
were.”
But that brilliant mirror was not as vulnerable as Stevens had supposed. The
plane of force struck and clung, but could not penetrate it. Broken up into myriads of
scintillating crystals of light, intersecting, multi-colored rays, and cascading flares of
sparkling energy, the beam was reflected, thrown back, hurled away on all sides into
space in coruscating, blinding torrents. And neither was the monster globe inoffensive.
The straining watchers saw a port open suddenly, emit a flame-erupting something, and
close as rapidly as it had opened. That something was a projectile, its propelling rockets
fiercely aflame; as smoothly brilliant as its mother-ship and seemingly as impervious to
the lethal beams of the common foe. Detected almost instantly as it was, it received the
full power of the savage attack. The hitherto irresistible plane of force beat upon it; ultra-
violet, infra-red, and heat rays enveloped it; there were hurled against it all the forces
known to the monstrously scientific minds dwelling within that fiendishly destructive
sphere. Finally, only a scant few hundreds of yards from its goal, the protective mirror
was punctured and the freight of high explosive let go, with a silent, but nevertheless
terrific, detonation. But now another torpedo was on its way, and another, and another;
boring on ruthlessly toward the smaller sphere. Fighting simultaneously three torpedoes
and the giant globe, the enemy began dodging, darting hither and thither with a
stupendous acceleration; but the tiny pursuers could not be shaken off. At every dodge
and turn steering rockets burst into furious activity and the projectiles rushed ever
nearer. Knowing that she had at last encountered a superior force, the sphere turned in
mad flight; but, prodigious as was her acceleration, the torpedoes were faster and all
three of them struck her at once. There ensued an explosion veritably space-wracking
in its intensity; a flash of incandescent brilliance that seemed to fill all space, subsiding
into a vast volume of tenuous gas which, feebly glowing, flowed about and attached
itself to Cantrell’s Comet. And in the space where had been the enemy sphere there
was nothing.
A slow-creeping pale blue rod of tangible force reached out from the great
sphere, touched the wreckage of the Forlorn Hope, and pulled; gently but with
enormous power.
“Tractor beams again!” exclaimed Stevens, still at the plate. “Everybody’s got ’em
but us, it seems.”
“And we can’t fight a bit any more, can we ?”
“Not a chance—bows and arrows wouldn’t do us much good. However, we may
not need ’em. Since they fought that other crew, and haven’t blown us up, they aren’t
active enemies of ours, and may be friendly. I haven’t any idea who or what they are,
since even our communicator ray can’t get through that mirror, but it looks as though
our best bet is to act peaceable and see if we can’t talk to them in some way. Right?”
“Right.” They stepped out into the airlock, from which they saw that the great
sphere had halted only a few yards from them, and that an indistinct figure stood in an
open door, waving to them an unmistakable invitation to enter the strange vessel.
“Shall we, Steve?”
“Might as well. They’ve got us foul, and can take us if they want us. Anyway, we’ll
need at least a week to fix us up any kind of driving power, so we can’t run — and we
probably couldn’t get away from those folks if we had all our power. They haven’t blown
us up, and they could have done it easily enough. Besides, they act friendly, so we’d
better meet them half way. Dive!”
Floating toward the open doorway, they were met by another rod of force,
brought gently into the airlock, and supported upright beside the being who had invited
them to visit him. Apparently an empty space-suit stood there; a peculiarly-fitted suit of
some partially transparent, flexible, glass-like material; towering fully a foot over the
head of the tall Terrestrial. Closer inspection, however, revealed that there was
something inside that suit — a shadowy, weirdly-transparent being, staring at them with
large, black eyes. The door clanged shut behind them, they heard the faint hiss of
inrushing air, and the inner door opened; but their enveloping suits remained stretched
almost as tightly as ever. They felt the floor lurch beneath their feet, and a little weight
was granted them as the space-ship got under way. Stevens waved his arms vigorously
at the stranger, pointing backward toward where he supposed their own craft to be. The
latter waved an arm reassuringly, pressed a contact, and a section of the wall suddenly
became transparent. Through it Stevens saw with satisfaction that the Forlorn Hope
was not being abandoned; in the grip of powerful, tractor beams, every fragment of the
wreckage was following close behind them in their flight through space.
Stevens and Nadia followed their guide along a corridor, through several doors,
and into a large room, which at first glance seemed empty, but in which several of the
peculiarly transparent people of the craft were lying about upon cushions. They were
undoubtedly human—but what humans! Tall and reedy they were, with enormous barrel
chests, topped by heads which, though really large, appeared insignificant because of
the prodigious chests and because of the huge, sail-like, flapping ears. Their skins were
a peculiarly, lividly pale blue, absolutely devoid of hair; and their lidless eyes, without a
sign of iris, were chillingly horrible in their stark contrast of enormous, glaring black pupil
and ghastly transparent blue eyeball. As the two Terrestrials entered the room, the
beings struggled to their feet and hurried laboriously away. Soon one of them returned,
dressed in an insulating suit, and carrying three sets of head harnesses, connected by
multiplex cables to a large box which he placed upon the floor. He handed the headsets
to the first officer, who in turn placed two of them at the feet of the Terrestrials,
indicating to them that they were to follow his example in placing them upon their heads,
outside the helmets. They did so, and even through the almost perfect insulation and in
spite of the powerful heaters of their suits they felt a touch of frightful cold. The stranger
turned a dial, and the two wanderers from Earth were instantly in full mental
communication with Barkovis, the commander of a space-ship of Titan, the sixth
satellite of Saturn!
“Well, I’ll be . . . say, what is this, anyway?” Steve exclaimed involuntarily, and
Nadia smiled as Barkovis answered with a thought clearer than any spoken words could
have been.
“It is a thought-exchanger. I do not know its fundamental mechanism, since we
did not invent it and since I have had little time to study it. The apparatus, practically as