Triplanetary - E. E. Smith (phonics reader TXT) 📗

of iron apiece, you know, and we couldn’t get halfway back to Tellus on that, even with smooth going; and we may have to fight. With this much to go on, though, we could go to Andromeda, fighting all the way. Well, we’d better break away.”

Costigan watched his plate closely; and, when the maneuvering of the great vessel brought his exit port as far away as possible from the Third City and the warring tanks, he shot the little cruiser out and away. Straight out into the ocean it sped, through the murky red veil, and darted upward toward the surface. The three wanderers sat tense, hardly daring to breathe, staring into the plates⁠—Clio and Bradley pushing at mental levers and stepping down hard upon mental brakes in unconscious efforts to help Costigan dodge the beams and rods of death flashing so appallingly close upon all sides. Out of the water and into the air the darting, dodging lifeboat flashed in safety; but in the air, supposedly free from menace, came disaster. There was a crunching, grating shock and the vessel was thrown into a dizzy spiral, from which Costigan finally leveled it into headlong flight away from the scene of battle. Watching the pyrometers which recorded the temperature of the outer shell, he drove the lifeboat ahead at the highest safe atmospheric speed while Bradley went to inspect the damage.

“Pretty bad, but better than I thought,” the captain reported. “Outer and inner plates broken away on a seam. We wouldn’t hold cotton waste, let alone air. Any tools aboard?”

“Some⁠—and what we haven’t got we’ll make,” Costigan declared. “We’ll put a lot of distance behind us, then we’ll fix her up and get away from here.”

“What are those fish, anyway, Conway?” Clio asked, as the lifeboat tore along. “The Nevians are bad enough, Heaven knows, but the very idea of intelligent and educated fish is enough to drive one mad!”

“You know Nerado mentioned several times the ‘semicivilized fishes of the greater deeps’?” he reminded her. “I gather that there are at least three intelligent races here. We know two⁠—the Nevians, who are amphibians, and the fishes of the greater deeps. The fishes of the lesser deeps are also intelligent. As I get it, the Nevian cities were originally built in very shallow water, or perhaps were upon islands. The development of machinery and tools gave them a big edge on the fish; and those living in the shallow seas, nearest the Islands, gradually became tributary nations, if not actually slaves. Those fish not only serve as food, but work in the mines, hatcheries, and plantations, and do all kinds of work for the Nevians. Those so-called ‘lesser deeps’ were conquered first, of course, and all their races of fish are docile enough now. But the deep-sea breeds, who live in water so deep that the Nevians can hardly stand the pressure down there, were more intelligent to start with, and more stubborn besides. But the most valuable metals here are deep down⁠—this planet is very light for its size, you know⁠—so the Nevians kept at it until they conquered some of the deep-sea fish, too, and put ’em to work. But those high-pressure boys were nobody’s fools. They realized that as time went on the amphibians would get further and further ahead of them in development, so they let themselves be conquered, learned how to use the Nevians’ tools and everything else they could get hold of, developed a lot of new stuff of their own, and now they’re out to wipe the amphibians off the map completely, before they get too far ahead of them to handle.”

“And the Nevians are afraid of them, and want to kill them all, as fast as they possibly can,” guessed Clio.

“That would be the logical thing, of course,” commented Bradley. “Got pretty nearly enough distance now, Costigan?”

“There isn’t enough distance on the planet to suit me,” Costigan replied. “We’ll need all we can get. A full diameter away from that crew of amphibians is too close for comfort⁠—their detectors are keen.”

“Then they can detect us?” Clio asked. “Oh, I wish they hadn’t hit us⁠—we’d have been away from here long ago.”

“So do I,” Costigan agreed, feelingly. “But they did⁠—no use squawking. We can rivet and weld those seams, and things could be a lot worse⁠—we are still breathing air!”

In silence the lifeboat flashed onward, and half of Nevia’s mighty globe was traversed before it was brought to a halt. Then in furious haste the two officers set to work, again to make their small craft sound and spaceworthy.

XII Worm, Submarine, and Freedom

Since both Costigan and Bradley had often watched their captors at work during the long voyage from the Solar System to Nevia, they were quite familiar with the machine tools of the amphibians. Their stolen lifeboat, being an emergency craft, of course carried full repair equipment; and to such good purpose did the two officers labor that even before their air-tanks were fully charged, all the damage had been repaired.

The lifeboat lay motionless upon the mirror-smooth surface of the ocean. Captain Bradley had opened the upper port and the three stood in the opening, gazing in silence toward the incredibly distant horizon, while powerful pumps were forcing the last possible ounces of air into the storage cylinders. Mile upon strangely flat mile stretched that waveless, unbroken expanse of water, merging finally into the violent redness of the Nevian sky. The sun was setting; a vast ball of purple flame dropping rapidly toward the horizon. Darkness came suddenly as that seething ball disappeared, and the air became bitterly cold, in sharp contrast to the pleasant warmth of a moment before. And as suddenly clouds appeared in blackly banked masses and a cold, driving rain began to beat down.

“Br-r-r, it’s cold! Let’s go in⁠—Oh! Shut the door!” Clio shrieked, and leaped wildly down into the compartment below, out of Costigan’s way, for he and Bradley had also seen slithering toward