around as only a speedster or a flitter can whirl. Practically unconscious from the terrific resultant of the linear
and angular accelerations, he ejected the two smaller bombs. He did not care particularly where they lit, just so
they didn’t light in the crater or near the observatory, and he had already made certain of that. Then” without waiting
even to finish the whirl or to straighten her out in level flight, Cloud’s still-flying hand darted toward the switch
whose closing would energize the Bergenholm and make the flitter inertialess.
Too late. Hell was out for noon, with the little speedster still inert. Cloud had moved fast. too; trained mind and
trained body had been working at top speed and in perfect coordination. There just simply hadn’t been enough time.
If he could have got what he wanted, ten full seconds, or even nine, be could have made it, But. . . .
In spite of what happened, Cloud defended his action, then and thereafter. Damn it all, he had to take the
eight-pointthree second reading! Another tenth of a second and his bomb wouldn’t have fitted-he didn’t have the
five per cent leeway he wanted, remember. And no, he couldn’t wait for another match, either. His screens were
leaking like sieves, and if he had waited for another chance they would have picked him up fried to a greasy cinder
in his own lard!
The bomb sped truly and struck the target in direct central impact, exactly as scheduled. It penetrated perfectly. The
neocarballoy casing lasted just long enough that frightful charge of duodec exploded, if not exactly at the center of
the vortex, at least near enough to the center to do the work. In other words, Cloud’s figuring had been close-very
close. But the time had been altogether too short.
The flitter was not even out of the crater when the bomb went off. And not only the bomb. For Cloud’s vague fore-
bodings were materialized, and more; the staggeringly immense energy of the vortex merged with that of the de-
tonating duodec to form an utterly incomprehensible whole.
In part the hellish flood of boiling lava in that devil’s cauldron was beaten downward into a bowl by the sheer”
stupendous force of the blow; in part it was hurled abroad in masses, in gouts and streamers. And the raging wind of
the explosion’s front seized the fragments and tore and worried them to bits, hurling them still faster along their
paths of violence. And air, so densely compressed as to be to all intents and purposes a solid” smote the walls of
the crater. Smote them so that they crumbled, crushed outward through the hard-packed ground, broke up into
jaggedly irregular blocks which hurtled” screamingly, away through the atmosphere.
Also the concussion wave, or the explosion front, or flying fragments, or something, struck the two loose bombs,
so that they too exploded and added their contribution to the already stupendous concentration of force. They were
not close enough to the flitter to wreck it of themselves” but they were close enough so that they didn’t do her or
her pilot-a bit of good.
The first terrific wave buffeted the flitter while Cloud’s right hand was in the air, shooting across the panel to turn
on the Berg. The impact jerked the arm downward and sidewise, both bones of the forearm snapping as it struck the
ledge. The second one, an instant later, broke his left leg. Then the debris began to arrive.
Chunks of solid or semi-molten rock slammed against the hull, knocking off wings and control-surfaces. Gobs of
viscous slag slapped it liquidly, freezing into and clogging up jets and orifices. The little ship was hurled hither and
yon, in the grip of forces she could no more resist than can the floating leaf resist the waters of a cataract. And
Cloud’s brain was as addled as an egg by the vicious concussions which were hitting him from so many different
directions and so nearly all at once. Nevertheless with his one arm and his one leg and the few cells of his brain
that were still at work, the physicist was still in the fight.
By sheer force of will and nerve he forced his left hand across the -gyrating key-bank to the Bergenholm switch.
He snapped it, and in the instant of its closing a vast, calm peace descended, blanket-like. For, fortunately, the Berg
still worked; the flitter and al! her contents and appurtenances were inertialess. Nothing material could buffet her
or hurt her now; she would waft effortlessly away from a feather’s lightest possible touch.
Cloud wanted to faint then, but he didn’t-quite. Instead” foggily, he tried to look back at the crater. Nine-tenths of
his visiplates were out of commission, but he finally got a view. Good-it was out. He wasn’t surprised; he had been
quite confident that it would be. It wasn’t scattered around, either. It couldn’t be, for his only possibility of
smearing the shot was on the upper side, not the lower.
His next effort was to locate the secondary observatory, where he had to land, and in that too he was successful. He
had enough intelligence left to realize that, with practically all of his jets clogged and his wings and tail shot off, he
couldn’t land his little vessel inert. Therefore he would have to land her free.
And by dint of light and extremely unorthodox use of what jets he had left in usable shape he did land her free”
almost within the limits of the observatory’s field; and having landed, he inerted her.
But, as has been intimated, his brain was not working so well; he had held his ship inertialess quite a few seconds
longer than he thought” and he did not even think of the buffetings she had taken. As a result of these things, how-
ever, her intrinsic velocity did not match, anywhere near exactly, that of the ground upon which she lay. Thus, when
Cloud cut his Bergenholm, restoring thereby to the flitter the absolute velocity and inertia she had had before
going free, there resulted a distinctly anti-climactic crash.
There was a last terrific bump as the motionless vessel collided with the equally motionless ground; and “Storm”
Cloud, vortex blaster, went out like the proverbial light.
Help came, of course; and on the double. The pilot was unconscious and the flitter’s door could not be opened
from the outside, but those were not insuperable obstacles. A plate, already loose, was sheared away; the pilot was
carefully lifted out of his prison and rushed to Base Hospital in the “meat-can” already in attendance.
And later, in a private office of that hospital” the greyclad Chief of the Atomic Research Laboratory sat and
waited-but not patiently.
“How is he, Lacy?” he demanded, as the Surgeon-General entered the room. “He’s going to live” isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, Phil-definitely yes,” Lacy replied, briskly. “He has a good skeleton, very good indeed. The burns are
superficial and will yield quite readily to treatment. The deeper, delayed effects of the radiation to which he was
exposed can be neutralized entirely effectively. Thus he will not need even a Phillip’s treatment for the
replacement of damaged parts” except possibly for a few torn muscles and so on.”
“But he was smashed up pretty badly, wasn’t he? I know that he had a broken arm and a broken leg, at least.” “Simple
fractures only-entirely negligible.” Lady waved aside with an airy gesture such small ills as broken bones. “He’ll be
out in a few weeks.”
“How soon can I see him?” the Lensman-physicist asked. “There are some important things to take up with him, and
I’ve got a personal message for him that I must give him as soon as possible.”
Lacy pursed his lips. Then:
“You may see him now,” be decided. “He is conscious, and strong enough. Not too long, though, Phil-fifteen
minutes at most.”
“QX, and thanks,” and a nurse led the visiting Lensman to Cloud’s bedside.
“Hi, Stupe!” he boomed, cheerfully. “Stupe’ being short for stupendous, not ‘stupid.”‘
“Hi, Chief. Glad to see somebody. Sit down.”
“You’re the most-wanted man in the Galaxy,” the visitor informed the invalid, “not excepting even Kimball Kin-
nison. Look at this spool of tape, and it’s only the first one. I brought it along for you to read at your leisure. As
soon as any planet finds out that we’ve got a sure-enough vortex blower-outer, an expert who can really call his
shots-and the news travels mighty fast-that planet sends in a double urgent, Class A-Prime demand for first call
upon your services.
“Sirius IV got in first by a whisker, it seems, but Aldebaran II was so close a second that it was a photo finish” and
all the channels have been jammed ever since. Canopus, Vega, Rigel, Spica. They all want you. Everybody from
Alsakan to Vandemar and back. We told them right off that we would not receive personal delegations-we had to