But getting the speedster out of the now completely ruined hall proved to be much more of a task than driving it in had been, for scarcely had Costigan closed his locks than a section of the building collapsed behind them, cutting off their retreat.
Nevian submarines and airships were beginning to arrive upon the scene, and were beaming the building viciously in an attempt to entrap or to crush the foreigners in its ruins.
Costigan managed finally to blast his way out, but the Nevians had had time to assemble in force and he was met by a concentrated storm of beams and of metal from every inimical weapon within range.
But not for nothing had Conway Costigan selected for his dash for liberty the craft which, save only for the two immense interstellar cruisers, was the most powerful vessel ever built upon red Nevia. And not for nothing had he studied minutely and to the last, least detail every item of its controls and of its armament during wearily long days and nights of solitary imprisonment. He had studied it under test, in action, and at rest; studied it until he knew thoroughly its every possibility – and what a ship it was! The atomic-powered generators of his shielding screens handled with ease the terrific load of the Nevians’ assault, his polycyclic screens were proof against any material projectile, and the machines supplying his offensive weapons with power were more than equal to their tasks. Driven now at full rating those frightful beams lashed out against the Nevians’ blocking the way, and under their impacts her screens flared brilliantly through the spectrum and went down. And in the instant of their failure the enemy vessel was literally blown into nothingness – no unprotected metal, however resistant, could exist for a moment in the pathway of those iron-driven tornadoes of pure energy.
Ship after ship of the Nevians plunged toward the speedster in desperately suicidal attempts to ram her down, but each met the same flaming fate before it could reach its target. Then from the grouped submarines far below there reached up red rods of force, which seized the space-ship and began relentlessly to draw her down.
“What are they doing that for, Conway? They can’t fight us!”
“They don’t want to fight us. They want to hold us, but I know what to do about that, too,” and the powerful tractor rods snapped as a plane of pure force knifed through them. Upward now at the highest permissible velocity the speedster leaped, and past the few ships remaining above her she dodged; nothing now between her and the freedom of boundless space.
“You did it, Conway; you did it!” Clio exulted. “Oh. Conway, you’re just simply wonderful!”
“I haven’t done it yet,” Costigan cautioned her. “The worst is yet to come.
Nerado. He’s why they wanted to hold us back, and why I was in such a hurry to get away. That boat of his is bad medicine, girl, and we want to put plenty of kilometers behind us before he gets started.”
“But do you think he will chase us?
“Think so? I know so! The mere facts that we are rare specimens and that he told us that we were going to stay there all the rest of our lives would make him chase us clear to Lundmark’s Nebula. Besides that, we stepped on their toes pretty heavily before we left. We know altogether too much now to be let get back to Tellus; and finally, they’d all die of acute enlargement of the spleen if we get away with this prize ship of theirs. I hope to tell you they’ll chase us!”
He fell silent, devoting his whole attention to his piloting, driving his craft onward at such velocity that its outer plating held steadily at the highest point of temperature compatible with safety. Soon they were out in open space, hurtling toward the sun under the drive of every possible watt of power, and Costigan took off his armor and turned toward the helpless body of the captain.
“He looks so . . . so . . . so dead, Conway! Are you really sure that you can bring him to?”
“Absolutely. Lots of time yet. Just three simple squirts in the right places will do the trick.” He took from a locked compartment of his armor a small steel box, which housed a surgeon’s hypodermic and three vials. One, two, three, he injected small, but precisely measured amounts of the fluids into the three vital localities, then placed the inert form upon a deeply cushioned couch.
“There! That’ll take care of the gas in five or six hours. The paralysis will wear off long before that, so he’ll be all right when he wakes up; and we’re going away from here with everything we can put out. I’ve done everything I know how to do, for the present.”
Then only did Costigan turn and look down, directly into Clio’s eyes. Wide, eloquent blue eyes that gazed back up into his, tender and unafraid; eyes freighted with the oldest message of woman to chosen man. His hard young face softened wonderfully as he stared at her; there were two quick steps and they were in each other’s arms. Lips upon eager lips, blue eyes to gray, motionless they stood clasped in ecstasy; thinking nothing of the dreadful past, nothing of the fearful future, conscious only of the glorious, wonderful present.
“Clio mine . . . darling . . . girl, girl, how I love you!” Costigan’s deep voice was husky with emotion. “I haven’t kissed you for seven thousand years! I don’t rate you, by a million steps; but if I can just get you out of this mess, I swear by all the gods of interplanetary space . . “
“You needn’t, lover. Rate me? Good Heavens, Conway! It’s just the other way . .
.”
“Stop it!” he commanded in her ear. “I’m still dizzy at the idea of your loving me at all, to say nothing of loving me this way! But you do, and that’s all I ask, here or hereafter.”
“Love you? Love you!” Their mutual embrace tightened and her low voice thrilled brokenly as she went on: “Conway dearest . . . I can’t say a thing, but you know . . . Oh, Conway!”
After a time Clio drew a long and tremulous, but supremely happy breath as the realities of their predicament once more obtruded themselves upon her consciousness.
She released herself gently from Costigan’s arms.
“Do you really think that there is a chance of us getting back to the Earth, so that we can be together . . . always?”
“A chance, yes. A probability, no,” he replied, unequivocally. “It depends upon two things. First, how much of a start we got on Nerado. His ship is the biggest and fastest thing I ever saw, and if he strips her down and drives her – which he will – he’ll catch us long before we can make Tellus. On the other hand, I gave Rodebush a lot of data, and if he and Lyman Cleveland can add it to their own stuff and get that super- ship of ours rebuilt in time, they’ll be out here on the prowl; and they’ll have what it takes to give even Nerado plenty of argument. No use worrying about it, anyway. We won’t know anything until we can detect one or the other of them, and then will be the time to do something about it.
“If Nerado catches us, will you . . .” She paused.
“Rub you out? I will not. Even if he does catch us, and takes us back to Nevia, I won’t. There’s lots more time coming onto the clock. Nerado won’t hurt either of us badly enough to leave scars, either physical, mental, or moral. I’d kill you in a second if it were Roger; he’s dirty. He’s mean – he’s thoroughly bad. But Nerado’s a good enough old scout, in his way. He’s big and he’s clean. You know, I could really like that fish if I could meet him on terms of equality sometime?”
“I couldn’t!” she declared vigorously. “He’s crawly and scaly and snaky; and he smells so . . . so . . .”
“So rank and fishy?” Costigan laughed deeply. “Details, girl; mere details. I’ve seen people who looked like money in the bank and who smelled like a bouquet of violets that you couldn’t trust half the length of Nerado’s neck.”
“But look what he did to us!” she protested. “And they weren’t trying to recapture us back there; they were trying to kill us.”
“That was perfectly all right, what he did and what they did – what else could they have done?” he wanted to know. “And while you’re looking, look at what we did to them plenty, I’d say. But we all had it to do, and neither side will blame the other for doing it.