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

humiliated by his losing one speeding vessel from his plates in Radio Center, he was now ready for any emergency. Therefore as the Nevian fled Randolph’s spy-ray held her, automatically behind it as there was the full output of twelve special banks of iron-driven power tubes; and thus it was that the vengeful Earthmen flashed immediately along the Nevians’ line of flight. Inertialess now, pausing briefly from time to time to enable the crew to accustom themselves to the new sensations, Triplanetary’s super-ship pursued the invader; hurtling through the void with a velocity unthinkable.

“He was easier to take than I thought he would be,” Cleveland grunted, staring into the plate.

“I thought he had more stuff, too,” Rodebush assented, “but I guess Costigan got almost everything they had. If so, with all our own stuff and most of theirs besides, we should be able to take them. Conway’s data indicated that they have only partial neutralization of inertia⁠—if it’s one hundred percent we’ll never catch them⁠—but it isn’t⁠—there they are!”

“And this time I’m going to hold her or burn out all our generators trying,” Cleveland declared, grimly. “Are you fellows down there able to handle yourselves yet? Fine! Start throwing out your cans!”

Space-hardened veterans, all, the other Tellurian officers had fought off the horrible nausea of inertialessness, just as Rodebush and Cleveland had done. Again the ravening green macro-beams tore at the flying cruiser, again the mighty frames of the two spaceships shuddered sickeningly as Cleveland clamped on his tractor rod, again the highly dirigible torpedoes dashed out with their freights of death and destruction. And again the Nevian shear-plane of force slashed at the Boise’s tractor beam; but this time the mighty puller did not give way. Sparkling and spitting high-tension sparks, the plane bit deeply into the stubborn rod of energy. Brighter, thicker, and longer grew the discharges as the gnawing plane drew more and more power; but in direct ratio to that power the rod grew larger, denser, and ever harder to cut. More and more vivid became the pyrotechnic display, until suddenly the entire tractor rod disappeared. At the same instant a blast of intolerable flame erupted from the Boise’s flank and the whole enormous fabric of her shook and quivered under the force of a terrific detonation.

“Randolph! I don’t see them! Are they attacking or running?” Rodebush demanded. He was the first to realize what had happened.

“Running⁠—fast!”

“Just as well, perhaps, but get their line. Adlington!”

“Here!”

“Good! Was afraid you were gone⁠—that was one of your bombs, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Well launched, just inside the screens. Don’t see how it could have detonated unless something hot and hard struck it in the tube; it would need about that much time to explode. Good thing it didn’t go off any sooner, or none of us would have been here. As it is, Area Six is pretty well done in, but the bulkheads held the damage to Six. What happened?”

“We don’t know, exactly. Both generators on the tractor beam went out. At first, I thought that was all, but my neutralizers are dead and I don’t know what else. When the G-4’s went out the fusion must have shorted the neutralizers. They would make a mess; it must have burned a hole down into number six tube. Cleveland and I will come down, and we’ll all look around.”

Donning spacesuits, the scientists let themselves into the damaged compartment through the emergency airlocks, and what a sight they saw! Both outer and inner walls of alloy armor had been blown away by the awful force of the explosion. Jagged plates hung awry; bent, twisted and broken. The great torpedo tube, with all its intricate automatic machinery, had been driven violently backward and lay piled in hideous confusion against the backing bulkheads. Practically nothing remained whole in the entire compartment.

“Nothing much we can do here,” Rodebush said finally, through his transmitter. “Let’s go see what number four generator looks like.”

That room, although not affected by the explosion from without, had been quite as effectively wrecked from within. It was still stiflingly hot; its air was still reeking with the stench of burning lubricant, insulation, and metal; its floor was half covered by a semi-molten mass of what had once been vital machinery. For with the burning out of the generator bars the energy of the disintegrating allotropic iron had had no outlet, and had built up until it had broken through its insulation and in an irresistible flood of power had torn through all obstacles in its path to neutralization.

“Hm⁠ ⁠… m⁠ ⁠… m. Should have had an automatic shut-off⁠—one detail we overlooked,” Rodebush mused. “The electricians can rebuild this stuff here, though⁠—that hole in the hull is something else again.”

“I’ll say it’s something else,” the grizzled Chief Engineer agreed. “She’s lost all her spherical strength⁠—anchoring a tractor with this ship now would turn her inside out. Back to the nearest Triplanetary shop for us, I would say.”

“Come again, Chief!” Cleveland advised the engineer. “None of us would live long enough to get there. We can’t travel inertialess until the repairs are made, so if they can’t be made without very much traveling, it’s just too bad.”

“I don’t see how we could support our jacks⁠ ⁠…” the engineer paused, then went on: “If you can’t give me Mars or Tellus, how about some other planet? I don’t care about atmosphere, or about anything but mass. I can stiffen her up in three or four days if I can sit down on something heavy enough to hold our jacks and presses; but if we have to rig up space-cradles around the ship herself it’ll take a long time⁠—months, probably. Haven’t got a spare planet on hand, have you?”

“We might have, at that,” Rodebush made surprising answer. “A couple of seconds before we engaged we were heading toward a sun with at least two planets. I was just getting ready to dodge them when we cut the neutralizers, so they should be fairly close somewhere⁠—yes, there’s the