“Different combination over here!” he barked. “Got to cut you out – lie down in that far corner!”
His hands flashed over the panel, and as Clio fell prone without hesitation or question a heavy beam literally blasted away a large portion of the roof of the structure.
The speedster shot into the air and dropped down until she rested upon the tops of opposite walls; walls still glowing, semi-molten. The girl piled a stool upon the table and stood upon it, reached upward and seized the mailed hands extended downward toward her. Costigan heaved her up into the vessel with a powerful jerk, slammed the door shut, leaped to the controls, and the speedster darted away.
“Your armor’s in that bundle there. Better put it on, and check your Lewistons and pistols – no telling what kind of jams we’ll get into,” he snapped, without turning.
“Bradley, start talking . . . all right, I’ve got your line. Better get your wet rags ready and get organized generally – every second will count by the time we get there. We’re coming so fast that our outer plating’s white hot, but it may not be fast enough, at that.”
“It isn’t fast enough, quite,” Bradley announced, calmly. “They’re coming out after me now.”
“Don’t fight them and probably they won’t paralyze you.
Keep on talking, so that I can find out where they take you.”
“No good, Costigan.” The voice of the old spacehound did not reveal a sign of emotion as he made his dread announcement. “They have it all figured out. They’re not taking any chances at all – they’re going to paral . . .” His voice broke off in the middle of the word.
With a bitter imprecation Costigan flashed on the powerful ultra-beam projector of the speedster and focused the plate upon Bradley’s prison; careless now of detection, since the Nevians were already warned. Upon that plate he watched the Nevians carry the helpless body of the captain into a small boat, and continued to watch as they bore it into one of the largest buildings of the city. Up a series of ramps they took the still form, placing it finally upon a soft couch in an enormous and heavily guarded central hall. Costigan turned to his companion, and even through the helmets she could see plainly the white agony of his expression. He moistened his lips and tried twice to speak – tried and failed; but he made no move either to cut off their power or to change their direction.
“Of course,” she approved steadily. “We are going through. I know that you want to run with me, but if you actually did it I would never want to see you or hear of you again, and you would hate me forever.”
“Hardly that.” The anguish did not leave his eyes and his voice was hoarse and strained, but his hands did not vary the course of the speedster by so much as a hair’s breadth. “You’re the finest little fellow that ever waved a plume, and I would love you no matter what happened. I’d trade my immortal soul to the devil if it would get you out of this mess, but we’re both in it up to our necks and we can’t back out now. 1f they kill him we beat it – he and I both knew that it was on the chance of that happening that I took you first – but as long as all three of us are alive it’s all three or none.”
“Of course,” she said again, as steadily, thrilled this time to the depths of her being by the sheer manhood of him who had thus simply voiced his Code; a man of such fiber that neither love of life nor his infinitely greater love for her could make him lower its high standard. “We are going through. Forget that I am a woman. We are three human beings, fighting a world full of monsters. I am simply one of us three. I will steer your ship, fire your projectors, or throw your bombs. What can I do best?”
“Throw bombs,” he directed, briefly. He knew what must be done were they to have even the slightest chance of winning clear. “I’m going to blast a hole down into that auditorium, and when I do you stand by that port and start dropping bottles of perfume. Throw a couple of big ones right down the shaft I make, and the rest of them most anywhere, after I cut the wall open. They’ll do good wherever they hit, land or water.”
“But Captain Bradley – he’ll be gassed, too.” Her fine eyes were troubled.
“Can’t be helped. I’ve got the antidote, and it’ll work any time under an hour.
That’ll be lots of time – if we aren’t gone in less than ten minutes we’ll be staying here.
They’re bringing in platoons of militia in full armor, and if we don’t beat those boys to it we’re in for plenty of grief. All right – start throwing!”
The speedster had come to a halt directly over the imposing edifice within which Bradley was incarcerated, and a mighty beam had flared downward, digging a fiery well through floor after floor of stubborn metal. The ceiling of the amphitheater was pierced.
The beam expired. Down into that assembly hall there dropped two canisters of Vee- Two, to crash and to fill its atmosphere with imperceptible death. Then the beam flashed on again, this time at maximum power, and with it Costigan burned away half of the entire building. Burned it away until room above room gaped open, shelf-like, to outer atmosphere; the great hall now resembling a over-size pigeon-hole surrounded by smaller ones. Into that largest pigeon-hole the speedster darted, and cushioned desks and benches crashed down; crushed flat under its enormous weight as it came to rest upon the floor.
Every available guard had been thrown into that room, regardless of customary occupation or of equipment. Most of them had been ordinary watchmen, not even wearing masks, and all such were already down. Many, however, were masked, and a few were dressed in full armor. But no portable armor could mount defenses of sufficient power to withstand the awful force of the speedster’s weapons, and one flashing swing of a projector swept the hall almost clear of life.
“Can’t shoot very close to Bradley with this big beam, but I’ll mop up on the rest of them by hand. Stay here and cover me, Clio!” Costigan ordered, and went to open the port.
“I can’t – I won’t!” Clio replied instantly. “I don’t know the controls well enough. I’d kill you or Captain Bradley, sure; but I can shoot, and I’m going to!” and she leaped out, close upon his heels.
Thus, flaming Lewiston in one hand and barking automatic in the other, the two mailed figures advanced toward Bradley, now doubly helpless; paralyzed by his enemies and gassed by his friends. For a time the Nevians melted away before them, but as they approached more nearly the couch upon which the captain was they encountered six figures encased in armor fully as capable as their own. The beams of the Lewistons rebounded from that armor in futile pyrotechnics, the bullets of the automatics spattered and exploded impotently against it. And behind that single line of armored guards were massed perhaps twenty unarmored, but masked, soldiers; and scuttling up the ramps leading into the hall were coming the platoons of heavily armored figures which Costigan had previously seen.
Decision instantly made, Costigan ran back toward the speedster, but he was not deserting his companions. “Keep the good work up!” he instructed the girl as he ran. “I’ll pick those jaspers off with a pencil and then stand off the bunch that’s coming while you rub out the rest of that crew there and drag Bradley back here.”
Back at the control panel, he trained a narrow, but intensely dense beam – quasi- solid lightning – and one by one the six armored figures fell. Then, knowing that Clio could handle the remaining opposition, he devoted his attention to the reenforcements so rapidly approaching from the sides. Again and again the heavy beam lashed out, now upon this side, now upon that, and in its flaming path Nevians disappeared. And not only Nevians – in the incredible energy of that beam’s blast floor, walls, ramps, and every material thing vanished in clouds of thick and brilliant vapor. The room temporarily clear of foes, he sprang again to Clio’s assistance, but her task was nearly done. She had “rubbed out” all opposition and, tugging lustily at Bradley’s feet, had already dragged him almost to the side of the speedster.
“That-a-girl, Clio!” cheered Costigan, as he picked up the burly captain and tossed him through the doorway. “Highly useful, girl of my dreams, as well as ornamental. In with you, and we’ll go places!”