“Good work, Seaton,” DuQuesne said. “I’ve often wished there was some way of getting platinum out of jewelry and into laboratories and production, and your scheme will do it. I don’t think much of your judgment in passing up the chance to make a million bucks or so, but I’ll be glad to see jewelers drop platinum. I wonder how they’ll put it across that platinum isn’t the thing for jewelry any more?”
“Oh, they can keep on using it, all they want of it,” Seaton said, innocently, “at exactly the same price as stainless steel.”
“Who do you think you’re kidding?” DuQuesne’s reply was not a question, but a sneer.
On the following “morning”, immediately after “breakfast”, enough bars were ready to supply both vessels. The Skylark was fueled first, then the Kondal. Both ships hopped across plain and city and, timed to the split second, landed as one upon the palace dock. Both crews disembarked and stood at half-attention, the three Americans dressed in their whites, the twenty Kondalian high officers wearing their robes of state.
“This stuff is for the birds.” Seaton’s lips scarcely moved, only Crane could hear him. “We stand here for exactly so many seconds, to give the natives a treat” His eyes flicked upward at the aircraft filling the air. “Then we come to full attention as the grand moguls and high panjandrums appear, escorting our wives, and the battleships salute, and—blast such flummery!”
“But think of how the girls are enjoying it.” Crane said, using Seaton’s own technique. “And you are going to do it, so why gripe about it?”
“I’d like to do more than pop off—I’d like to call Dot and tell her to shake a leg—but I won’t. With Dunark what he is I have to play ball, but I don’t have to like it.”
Chapter 21
SUDDENLY THE silence was shattered. Bells rang, sirens shrieked, whistles screamed, every radio and visiset and communicator in or near the city of Kondalek began to clamor. All were giving the same dire warning, the alarm extraordinary of invasion, of imminent and catastrophic danger from the air. Seaton leaped toward the nearest elevator, but whirled back toward the Skylark even before Dunark spoke.
“Don’t try it, Dick—you can’t possibly make it. Everyone will have time to reach the bomb-proofs. They’ll be safe—if we can keep the Mardonalians from landing.”
“They won’t land—except in hell.” The three sprang into the Skylark; Seaton going to the board, Crane and DuQuesne to the guns. Crane picked up his microphone.
“Send in English, and tell the girls not to answer,” Seaton directed. “They can locate calls to a foot. Just tell ’em we’re safe and to sit tight while we wipe out this gang of highbinders that’s coming.”
DuQuesne was breaking out box after box of belts of ammunition. “What do you want first, Seaton? There’s not enough of any one load to fight much of a battle.”
“Start with Mark Fives and go up to Tens. That ought to be enough. If not, follow up with Fours and so on down.”
“Fives to Tens; Fours and down. Check.”
There was a crescendo whine of enormous propellers, followed by a concussion of sound as one wing of the palace disappeared in a cloud of dust and debris.
The air was full of Mardonalian warships. They were huge vessels, each mounting hundreds of guns; and a rain of high-explosive shells was reducing the city to ruins.
“Hold it!” Seaton’s hand, already on the lever, was checked. “Look at the Kondal—something’s up!”
Dunark sat at his board and every man of his crew was at his station; but all were writhing in agony, completely unable to control their movements. As Seaton finished speaking the Kondalians ceased their agonized struggling and hung, unconscious or dead, from whatever each was holding.
“They’ve got to them some way—let’s go!” Seaton yelled.
The dock beneath them fell apart and all three men thought the end of the world had come as a stream of shells struck the Skylark and exploded. But that four-foot armor of arenak was impregnable and Seaton lifted his ship upward, directly into the Mardonalian fleet. DuQuesne and Crane fired carefully; as rapidly as each could, consistent with making every bullet count; and as each bullet struck a warship disappeared and there erupted a blast of noise in which the explosions of the Mardonalian shells, violent as they were, were completely inaudible.
“You haven’t got the repellors on, Dick!” Crane snapped.
“No, dammit—what a brain!” He snapped them on, then, as the unbearable din subsided almost to a murmur, he shouted, “Hey! They must be repelling even most of the air!”
The Skylark was now being attacked by every ship of the Mardonalian fleet, every unit having been diverted from its mission of destruction to the task of wiping out this appallingly deadly, appallingly invulnerable midget.
From every point of the compass, from above and below, came torrents of shells. Nor were there shells alone. There came also guided missiles—tight-beam-radio-steered airplane-torpedoes—carrying warheads of fantastic power. But none of them struck arenak. Instead, they all struck an immaterial wall of pure force and exploded a hundred feet off target, creating an almost continuous glare of fury and flame.
And Crane and DuQuesne kept on firing. Half of the invading fleet had been destroyed and they were now using Mark Sixes and Mark Sevens—and anything struck by a Seven was not merely blown to bits. It was comminuted—disintegrated—volatilized—almost dematerialized.
Suddenly the shelling stopped and the Skylark was enveloped in a blinding glare from a thousand projectors; an intense, searching, violet light that would burn flesh and sear its way through eyelids and eyeballs into the very brain.
“Shut your eyes!” Season yelled as he shoved the lever forward. “Turn your heads!”
Then they were out in space. “That’s pretty nearly atomic-bomb flash,” DuQuesne said, incredulously. “How can they generate that kind of stuff here?”
“I don’t know,” Seaton said, “But that isn’t the question. What can we do about it?”
The three talked briefly, then put on space-suits, which they smeared liberally with thick red paint. Under their helmets they wore extra-heavy welding goggles, so dark in color as to be almost black.
“This’ll stop that kind of monkey business,” Seaton exulted, as he again threw the Skylark into the Mardonalian fleet.
It took about fifteen seconds for the enemy to get their projectors focused, during which time some twenty battleships were volatilized; but this time the killing light was not alone.
The men heard, or rather felt, a low, intense vibration, like a silent wave of sound, a vibration which smote upon the eardrums as no possible sound could smite, a vibration that racked the joints and tortured the nerves as though the whole body were being disintegrated. So sudden and terrible was the effect that Seaton uttered an involuntary yelp of surprise and pain as he once more fled to the safety of space.
“What the devil was that?” DuQuesne demanded. “Can they generate and project infra-sound?”
“Yes.” Seaton replied. “They can do a lot of things that we can’t.”
“If we had some fur suits . . .” Crane began, then paused. “Put on all the clothes we can, and use ear-plugs?”
“We can do better than that, I think.” Seaton studied his board. “I’ll short out this resistor, so as to put more juice through the repellors. I can get a pretty good vacuum that way; certainly good enough to stop any wave propagated through air.”
Back within range of the enemy, DuQuesne, reaching for his gun, leaped away from it with a yell. “Beat it!”
Once more at a safe distance, DuQuesne explained.
“That gun had voltage, and plenty of it. It’s lucky that I’m so used to handling hot stuff that I never really make contact with anything at first touch. That’s easy, though. Thick, dry gloves and rubber shields is all we need. It’s a good thing for all of us that you have those fancy handles on your levers, Seaton.”
“That must have been how they got Dunark and his crew. But why didn’t they get you two then? Oh, I see. They had it tuned to iridium. They don’t know anything about steel—unless they chipped a sample off somewhere—so it took them until now to tune to it.”
“You recognize everything that happens,” Crane said. “Can you tell what they’re going to do next?”
“Not quite everything. This last one was new—it must be the big new one Dunark was worrying about. The others, yes; but the defenses against them are purely Kondalian in technique and material, so we have to roll our own as we go. As to what’s coming next . . .” He paused in thought, then went on, “I wish I knew. You see, I got too many new things at once, so most of them are like dimly-remembered things that flash into real knowledge only when they happen. But maybe mentioning something would do the trick. Let’s see . . . what have they given us so far?”