should realize that most of those escaping Narodny’s broadcasts were far too clever to be caught by any human
mob.
“Secondly, I can prove to you mathematically that more of them must have escaped from any possible vibrator than
have been accounted for. In this connection, I can tell you that if Narodny’s method of extermination could have
been made efficient I would have wiped them out myself years ago. But I believed then, and it has since been
proved, that the survivors of such an attack” while comparatively few in number, would be far more dangerous to
humanity than were all their former hordes.
“Thirdly, I have here a list of three hundred and seventeen airships; all of which were stolen during the week
following the destruction of the automatons’ factories. Not one of these ships has as yet been found, in whole or in
part. If I am either insane or mistaken, who stole them, and for what purpose?
“Three hundred seventeen-in a week? Why was no attention paid to such a thing? I never heard of it.” “Because they
were stolen singly and all over the world. Expecting some such move, I looked for these items and tabulated them.”
“Then-Good Lord! They may be listening to us, right how!”
“Don’t worry about that,” Stone spoke calmly. “This instrument upon my wrist is not a watch, but the generator of a
spherical screen through which no robot beam or ray can operate without my knowledge. Certain of its rays also
caused your guards to fall asleep.”
“I believe you,” Martin almost groaned. “If only half of what you say is really true I cannot say how sorry I am that
you had to force your way in to me, nor how glad I am that you did so. Go ahead-I am listening.”
Stone talked without interruption for half an hour, concluding:
“You understand now why I can no longer play a lone hand. Even though I cannot find them with my limited
apparatus I know that they are hiding somewhere” waiting and preparing. They dare not make any overt move while
this enormously powerful Fleet is here; nor in the time that it is expected to be gone can they hope to construct
works heavy enough to cope with it.
“Therefore, they must be so arranging matters that the Fleet shall not return. Since the Fleet is threatened I must
accompany it, and you must give me a laboratory aboard the flagship. I know that these vessels are all identical, but
I must be aboard the same ship you are, since you alone are to know what I am doing.”
“But what could they do?” protested Martin. “And, if they should do anything, what could you do about it?”
“I don’t know”” the physicist admitted. Gone now was the calm certainty with which he had been speaking. “That is
our weakest point. I have studied that question from every possible viewpoint, and I do not know of anything they
can do that promises them success. But you must remember that no human being really understands a robot’s mind.
“We have never even studied one of their brains” you know” as they disintegrate upon the instant of cessation of
normal functioning. But just as surely as you and I are sitting here, Admiral Martin, they will do something
something very efficient and exceedingly deadly. I have no idea what it will be. It may be mental” or physical” or
both: they may be hidden away in some of our own ships already. . . .
Martin scoffed. “Impossible!” he exclaimed. “Why, those ships have been inspected to the very skin, time and time
again!”
“Nevertheless, they may be there,” Stone went on, unmoved. “I am definitely certain of only one thing-if you install
a laboratory to my instructions, you will have one man” at least” whom nothing that the robots can do will take by
surprise. Will you do it?”
“I am convinced, really almost against my will.” Martin frowned in thought. “However” convincing anyone else may
prove difficult, especially as you insist upon secrecy.”
“Don’t try to convince anybody!” exclaimed the scientist. “Tell them that I’m building a communicator-tell them I’m
an inventor working on a new ray-projector-tell them anything except the truth!”
“All right. I have sufficient authority to see that your requests are granted, I think.”
And thus it came about that when the immense Terrestrial Contingent lifted itself into the air Ferdinand Stone was
in his private laboratory in the flagship” surrounded by apparatus and equipment of his own designing, much of
which was connected to special generators by leads heavy enough to carry their full output.
Earth some thirty hours beneath them, Stone felt himself become weightless. His ready suspicions blazed. He
pressed Martin’s combination upon his visiphone panel.
“What’s the matter?” he rasped. “What’re they down for?”
“It’s nothing serious,” the admiral assured him. They’re just waiting for additional instructions about our course in
the maneuvers.”
“Not serious, huh?” Stone grunted. “I’m not so sure of that. I want to talk to you, and this room’s the only place I
know where we’ll be safe. Can you come down here right away?”
“Why, certainly,” Martin assented.
“I never paid any attention to our course,” the physicist snapped as his visitor entered the laboratory. “What was it?”
“Take-off exactly at midnight of June nineteenth,” Martin recited, watching Stone draw a diagram upon a
scratch-pad. “Rise vertically at one and one-half gravities until a velocity of one kilometer per second has been
attained, then continue vertical rise at constant velocity. At 6:30.29 A.M. of June twenty-first head directly for the
star Regulus at an acceleration of exactly nine hundred eighty centimeters per second. Hold this course for one
hour, forty-two minutes, and thirty-five seconds; then drift. Further directions will be supplied as soon thereafter
as the courses of the other fleets can be checked.”
“Has anybody computed it?”
“Undoubtedly the navigators have-why? That is the course Dos-Tev gave us and it must be followed, since he is
Admiral-in-Chief of our side, the Blues. One slip may ruin the whole plan, give the Reds, our supposed enemy in
these maneuvers, a victory, and get us all disrated.”
“Regardless” we’d better check on our course,” Stone growled, unimpressed. “We’ll compute it roughly, right here,
and see where following these directions has put us.” Taking up a slide-rule and a book of logarithms he set to
work.
“That initial rise doesn’t mean a thing,” he commented after a while, “except to get us far enough away from Earth
so that the gravity is small” and to conceal from the casual observer that the effective take-off is still exactly at
midnight.”
Stone busied himself with calculations for many minutes. He stroked his forehead and scowled.
“My figures are very rough” of course,” he said puzzledly at last, “but they show that we’ve got no more tangential
velocity with respect to the sun than a hen has teeth. And you can’t tell me that it wasn’t planned that way purposely
-and not by Dos-Tev, either. On the other hand, our radial velocity, directly toward the sun, which is the only
velocity we have, amounted to something over fifty-two kilometers per second when we shut off power and is
increasing geometrically under the gravitational pull of the sun. That course smells to high heaven” Martin! DosTev
never sent out any such a mess as that. The robots crossed him up, just as sure as hell’s a man-trap! We’re heading
into the sun-and destruction!”
Without reply Martin called the navigating room. “What do you think of this course, Henderson?” he asked.
“I do not like it, sir,” the officer replied. “Relative to the sun we have a tangenital velocity of only one point three
centimeters per second, while our radial velocity toward it is very nearly fifty-three thousand meters per second.
We will not be in any real danger for several days, but it should be borne in mind that we have no tangible velocity.”
“You see” Stone” we are in no present danger,” Martin pointed out, “and I am sure that Dos-Tev will send us addi-
tional instructions long before our situation becomes acute.”
“I’m not,” the pessimistic scientist grunted. “Anyway, I would advise calling some of the other Blue fleets on your
scrambled wave, for a checkup.”
“There would be no harm in that.” Martin called the Communications Officer, and soon:
“Communications Officers of all the Blue fleets of the Inner Planets, attention!” the message was hurled out into
space by the full power of the flagship’s mighty transmitter. “Flagship Washington of the Terrestrial Contingent
calling all Blue flagships. We have reason to suspect that the course which has been given us is false. We advise
you to check your courses with care and to return to your bases if you disc. . . .”
Chapter III
Battle in Space
In the middle of the word the radio man’s clear, precisely spaced enunciation became a hideous drooling, a