“Both—out!” Dalgre was the first to speak. “Overload and it blasted them both. One ship took the other with it.”
“But the third—it is still intact—” Zicti pointed out.
That was true. The battle had wiped out two ships, but the third dot still moved—the one which the Patrol ship had died to save. It was on course—toward Sol and Terra!
The clicking sound changed, made another series of coded calls. Smitt listened and read them aloud for his companions.
“Patrol—auxiliary—personnel ship—2210—calling nearest Patrol ship or station. Come in, please—come in. Survivors of Patrol Base CC4—calling nearest Patrol ship or station—off known courses—need guide call—come in please—”
“Survivors of Patrol Base CC4,” Rolth repeated. “But that was a Ranger Station! What in the name of Space—!”
“Pirate raid, maybe—” suggested Zinga.
“Pirates don’t tangle with the Patrol—” began Dalgre.
“You mean—pirates didn’t! We’ve been out of circulation and off the maps for some time. A coalition of pirate forces can do a lot of damage,” Zinga observed.
“Note also,” Zicti added to that, “this ship now flies from the more populated sections of the galaxy. It heads out toward the unknown which it would not do if there were not some barrier between it and more familiar routes.”
“Personnel survivor ship—families of Patrolmen.” Dalgre was visibly shaken. “Why, the base must be utterly gone!”
The clicking of the code still filled the musty air of the hall. And on the map the dot moved, on the board before Smitt the tiny bulb still blazed. Then, as suddenly, it snapped off and a second went on in turn in the block next to it. Kartr glanced from that new light to the screen. Yes, the dot was appreciably closer to the system of Sol.
Smitt’s fingers hovered over the board. He licked his lips as if his mouth was dry.
“Is there any chance of guiding her in here?” Kartr asked the question he knew was tormenting the other.
“I don’t know—” Smitt snarled like a tortured animal.
His finger went down and pressed the button below the second light. And then he jumped back, as did Kartr, for out of the edge of the table sprang a thin black stalk ending in a round bulb. The com-techneer laughed almost wildly and clutched at the thing.
Then he began to speak into it, not in code but in the common tongue of Central Control.
“Terra calling! Terra calling! Terra calling!”
They were frozen, silent, listening to the chatter of the code filling the air. Kartr sagged. It hadn’t worked after all. And then came a break in the ship’s broadcast. He had forgotten about the time lag.
“Terra calling.” Smitt was cool, calm again. To that statement he began to add a series of code words and clicks. Three times he repeated the message and then leaned back to await reply.
Again the wait seemed too long—tearing at their ragged nerves. But at last an answer came. Smitt translated it for them all.
“Do not entirely understand. But think can ride in on message beam—keep talking if you have no signal. What—where is Terra?”
So they talked. First Smitt, until his voice was but a husky whisper issuing from a raw throat, and then Kartr, using ordinary speech and the old formula, Terra calling—then Dalgre and Rolth—
There was sunshine lighting the space around them and then it grew dark again and still they crouched in turn on the bench before the sky map and talked. And the red dot crept on, now on a straight course for Terra. It was when it had drawn almost even with the outermost planet of Sol’s system that Zor pointed out to the half-dazed Kartr on duty, the newcomer. Another dot—already past the point where the battle had been fought—and on a line after the personnel ship! Enemy or friend?
Kartr shook Zor’s shoulder and pushed him toward the outer hall with the message to bring Smitt. The com-techneer, rubbing sleep-heavy eyes, half reeled in. But when Kartr showed him the dot he was thoroughly awake. He shoved the sergeant away from the microphone and took over with a sharp question in code.
After lagging minutes it was answered:
“Undoubtedly enemy ship. Pirate signals have been picked up during last quarter hour—”
To Kartr’s sick eyes the enemy ship was darting across space. It was now a race, a race in which the Patrol ship might already be the loser. And, even as he thought that, there was a flash of light on the control board. The enemy was now within hailing distance. Smitt turned a grim face to him.
“Get one of the Zacathans and Fylh. If they can talk in their own language it will be better than using control speech or the code as a guide. There are few Bemmys in pirate crews. All the ship needs is a steady sound to center her finder on—”
But he spoke his last words to empty air. Kartr was already on his way to rout out the others. Seconds later Zinga slipped into Smitt’s place, hooked his talons around the stem of the phone and unloosed a series of hissed sounds which certainly bore no resemblance to human speech. When he tired, Fylh was ready and then twittering and fluting broke across space to talk the ship in. But ever relentlessly behind it came that other dot, seeming to leap across great expanses of space as if such stretches were nothing.
Zora brought in a canteen of water and they all drank feverishly. They ate after a fashion, too, of whatever was thrust into their hands, unknowing and untasting.
The Patrol ship passed more planets. Then a third light snapped on the board. Zor came running in.
“There is a big light—reaching into the sky!” he shouted shrilly.
Kartr jumped to his feet to see that for himself when a sound of ship’s code stopped him.
“Pulse beam picked up. We can ride it in. If we still have time—”
Zinga let go of the phone and as one they hurried out into the open. Zor was right. From the end of the roof directly over the control table a beam of light speared into the evening sky.
“How did that—?” Kartr began.
“Who knows?” Dalgre replied. “They were master techneers in their day. That must pulse strongly enough to be picked up by a ship approaching this planet within a certain distance. At least we can now stop talking.”
In the end they drifted back to the map—to watch the ship and its pursuer. The gap between those two was narrowing—too quickly. A last light flashed on the control board—it was warning red.
“Ship’s entered the atmosphere,” Smitt guessed. “Get everybody inside here. It may not land on the field and the power wash will be brutal—”
So they waited inside the ancient Hall of Leave-Taking and they heard rather than saw a ship land on a field which had not felt the bite of spaceship’s fire for at least a thousand years. But it was a good landing.
Smitt remained at the board. “The other is still coming—” His warning rang out to hasten the others.
Still coming! They might lose even now, Kartr thought, as he watched the exit bridge swing out from the side of the rusty old tub perched in the field. All the enemy would have to do would be to hover and blast them with missiles. He wouldn’t have to land, but when he pulled out again he would leave nothing behind but a blackened and lifeless waste.
If they could get the refugees into the hall they might have a chance to survive that—a very thin one. The sergeant ran to the edge of the smoking landing area and waved at the figure who had appeared on the bridge.
“Get your people off and into the hall!” he shouted. “The pirate’s coming and he can try for a burn-off!”
He saw the jerk of an assenting nod and heard orders. The passengers filed down the bridge at the double quick. They were mostly women, some carrying or leading children. The rangers and the Zacathans stood ready to act as guides. Kartr half hauled, half carried the strangers to the precarious safety of the old building. Then when the flow of refugees ceased he hurried back to the bridge.
“All out?”
“All out,” the officer replied. “And what course is the pirate on—can you tell—?”
Zinga came running toward them. “Pirate coming in on the same course—”
The officer turned and went inside the ship. Kartr drummed nervous fingers on the guard rail of the bridge. What in the name of Space was the fellow waiting for?
Then the sergeant was almost bowled over as five men flung themselves out of the hatchway and ran for the hall, taking both rangers with them. They had just reached the protection of the doorway when the Patrol ship took off.