“They’ve given us plenty,” DuQuesne said, admiringly. “Light, ultra and visible; sound, infra- or sub-sound; and solid jolts of high-tension electricity. They haven’t yet used X-rays, accelerated particles, Hertzian waves, infra-red heat . . .”
“That’s it—heat!” Seaton exclaimed. “They project a wave that sets up induced currents in arenak. They can melt armor that way—given time enough.”
“Our refrigerators can handle a lot of heat,” Crane said.
“They certainly can . . . the limit being the amount of water on board . . . and when we run out of water we can hop over to the ocean and cool the shell off. Are we ready?”
They were, and soon the Skylark was again dealing out death and destruction to the enemy vessels, who again turned from the devastation of the helpless city to destroy this tiny, but incredibly powerful antagonist. And DuQuesne, considerably the faster of the two gunners, was now shooting Mark Tens and in the starkly incomprehensible violence of those earthshaking blasts ten or twelve battleships usually went into their component atoms instead of only two or three.
After only a few minutes the Skylark’s armor began to heat up and Seaton turned the refrigerators, already operating at full rating, up to the absolute top of fifty per cent overload. Even that was not enough. Although the interior of the ship stayed comfortably cool, the armor was so thick that it simply could not conduct heat fast enough. The outer layers grew hotter and hotter—red, cherry red, white. The ends of the rifle barrels, set flush with the surfaces of the arenak globes holding them, began to soften and to melt, so that firing became impossible. The copper repellors began to melt and to drip away in flaming droplets, so that exploding shells and missiles came closer and closer.
“Well, it looks as though they have us stopped for the moment,” DuQuesne said calmly, with no thought of quitting apparent in either voice or manner. “Let’s go dope out something else.”
They again went up out of range, but had only started discussing ways and means when a call came, uncoded and on the general wave.
“Karfedix Seaton—Karfedix Seaton—acknowledge, please Karfedix Seaton—Karfed — . . . . . .”
“Seaton acknowledging!”
“This is Karfedelix Depar, commanding four task-forces. The Karbix Taman has ordered me to report . . .”
“He has broken radio silence, then?” Seaton demanded.
“I have.” The karbix did not go on to explain, either that it was necessary or that it was now safe to do so. Seaton knew both of those facts.
“Good!” and Seaton went on to explain to both commander-in-chief and commander the nature and deadliness of Mardonale’s new weapon. “Karfedelix Depar, continue your report.”
“The Karbix Taman ordered me to report to you for orders. There is a Mardonalian fleet approaching from the east. Have I your permission, sir, to attack it?”
“Can you insulate, against twenty kilovolts, all the iridium your men must touch?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Thinking so isn’t enough. If you can’t, land and get insulation before engaging with any Mardonalian vessel. Are any more of our task forces en route?”
“Yes, sir. Four within the quarter-hour, three more in one, two, and three hours respectively, sir.”
“Report acknowledged. Stand by.” Seaton frowned in thought. He had to appoint an admiral; but he certainly did not want to ask, with every living Kondalian listening, whether or not this Depar was a big enough man for the job.
“Karbix Taman, sir,” he said.
“Taman acknowledging.”
“Sir, which of your officers now in the air is best fitted to command the defense fleet now assembling?”
“Sir, the Karfedelix Depar.”
“Sir, thank you. Karfedelix Depar, I give you authority to handle and responsibility for handling correctly the forthcoming engagement. Take command!”
“Thank you, sir.”
Seaton dropped his microphone. “I’ve got it doped,” he told Crane and DuQuesne. “The Skylark’s faster than any shell ever fired, and has infinitely more mass. She’s got four feet of arenak, they have only an inch. Arenak doesn’t begin to soften until it’s radiating high in the ultra-violet. Strap down solid—this is going to be a rough party from now on.”
Again the Skylark went down. Instead of standing still, however, she darted directly at the nearest warship under twenty notches of power. She crashed straight through it without even slowing down. Torn wide open by the forty-foot projectile, its engines wrecked and its helicopter-screws and propellers useless, the helpless hulk plunged through two miles of air to the ground.
Darting here and there, the spaceship tore through vessel after vessel of the Mardonalian fleet. Here indeed was a guided missile: an irresistible projectile housing a human brain, the brain of Richard Seaton, keyed up to highest pitch and fighting the fight of his life.
As the repellors dripped off, the silent waves of sound came in stronger and stronger. He was battered by the terrific impacts, nauseated and almost blacked out by the frightful lurches of his hairpin turns. Nevertheless, with teeth tight-locked and with eyes gray and hard as the fracture of high-carbon steel, Richard Seaton fought on. Projectile and brain were, and remained, one.
Although it was impossible for the eye to follow the flight of the spaceship, the mechanical sighting devices of the Mardonalians kept her in fair focus and the projectors continued to hurl into her a considerable fraction of their death-dealing output. Enemy guns were still emitting streams of shells; but, unlike the waves, the shells moved so slowly compared to their target that very few found their mark. Many of the great vessels fell to the ground, riddled by the shells of their sister-ships.
Seaton glanced at his pyrometer. The needle had stopped climbing, well short of the red line marking the fusion-point of arenak. Even as he looked, it began, very slowly, to recede. There weren’t enough Mardonalian ships left to maintain such a temperature. He felt much better, too; the sub-sound was still pretty bad, but it was bearable.
In another minute the battle was over; the few remaining battleships were driving at top speed for home. But even in flight they continued to destroy; the path of their retreat was a swath of destruction. Half-inclined at first to let them escape, Seaton’s mind was changed as he saw what they were doing to the countryside beneath them. He shot after them, and not until the last vessel had been destroyed did he drop the Skylark into the area of ruins which had once been the palace grounds, beside the Kondal, which was still lying as it had fallen.
After several attempts to steady their whirling senses the three men were able to walk. They opened the lock and leaped out, through the still white-hot wall. Seaton’s first act was to call Dorothy, who told him that the royal party would come up as soon as engineers could clear the way. The men then removed their helmets revealing pale and drawn faces, and turned to the Kondal.
“There’s no way of getting into this thing. . . . Oh, fine! They’re coming to!”
Dunark opened the lock and stumbled out. “I have to thank you for more than my life, this time,” he said, his voice shaken as much by emotion as by the shock of his experience as he grasped the hands of all three men. “I was conscious most of the time and saw most of what happened. You have saved all Kondal.”
“Oh, it’s not that had,” Seaton said, uncomfortably. “Both nations have been invaded before.”
“Yes, but not with anything like this. This would have been final. But I must hurry. If you will relinquish command to me, Dick, please, I will restore it to the karbix. The Kondal will of course be his flagship.”
Seaton snapped to attention and saluted. “Kofedix Dunark, sir, I relinquish to you my command.”
“Karfedix Seaton, sir, with thanks for what you have done, I accept your command.”
Dunark hurried away, talking as he went with surviving officers of the grounded Kondalian warships.
In a few minutes the emperor and his party rounded a heap of boulders. Dorothy and Margaret screamed in unison as they saw the haggard faces of their husbands and saw their suits dripping with red. Seaton dodged as Dorothy reached him, and tore off his suit.
“Nothing but red paint,” he assured her, as he lifted her off the ground.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Kondalians staring in open-mouthed amazement at the Skylark. He turned. She was a huge ball of frost and snow!
As Seaton came back to the girls from shutting off the refrigerators, Roban came up and gave the Earthmen thanks in the name of his nation for what they had done.
“Has it yet occurred to you, Karfedix Roban,” Margaret said, diffidently, “that, had it not been for your rigid adherence to your Code, none of us Tellurians would have been on Osnome or near it when the Mardonalians attacked you?”