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

in the instant of impact, yet the most delicate recording instruments of the speedster could not detect the slightest shock as the enormous globe struck the comparatively tiny torpedo and clung to it; accommodating instantaneously and effortlessly her own terrific pace to that of the smaller and infinitely slower craft. Clio sobbed in relief and Costigan, one arm around her, sighed hugely.

“Hey, you spacelugs!” he cried. “Glad to see you, and all that, but you might as well kill a man outright as scare him to death! So that’s the super-ship, huh? Some ship!”

“Hi-ya, Murf! Hi, Spud!” came from the speaker.

“Murf? Spud? How come?” Clio, practically recovered now, glanced upward questioningly. It was plain that she did not quite know whether or not to like the nicknames which the rescuers were calling her Conway.

“My middle name is Murphy, so they’ve called me things like that ever since I was so high.” Costigan indicated a length of approximately twelve inches. “And now you’ll probably live long enough⁠—I hope⁠—to hear me called a lot worse stuff than that.”

“Don’t talk that way⁠—we’re safe now, Con⁠ ⁠… Spud? It’s nice that they like you so much⁠—but they would, of course.” She snuggled even closer, and both listened to what Rodebush was saying.

“… realize myself that it would look so bad; it scared me as much as it did anybody. Yes, this is it. She really works⁠—thanks more than somewhat to Conway Costigan, by the way. But you had better transfer. If you’ll get your things.⁠ ⁠…”

“ ‘Things’ is good!” Costigan laughed, and Clio giggled sunnily.

“We’ve made so many transfers already that what you see is all we’ve got,” Bradley explained. “We’ll bring ourselves, and we’ll hurry. That Nevian is coming up fast.”

“Is there anything on this ship you fellows want?” Costigan asked.

“There may be, but we haven’t any locks big enough to let her inside and we haven’t time to study her now. You might leave her controls in neutral, so that we can calculate her position if we should want her later on.”

“All right.” The three armor-clad figures stepped into the Boise’s open lock, the tractor beam was cut off, and the speedster flashed away from the now stationary super-ship.

“Better let formalities go for a while,” Captain Bradley interrupted the general introductions taking place. “I was scared out of nine years’ growth when I saw you coming at us, and maybe I’ve still got the humps; but that Nevian is coming up fast, and if you don’t already know it I can tell you that she’s no light cruiser.”

“That’s so, too,” Costigan agreed. “Have you fellows got enough stuff so that you think you can take him? You’ve got the legs on him, anyway⁠—you can certainly run if you want to!”

“Run?” Cleveland laughed. “We have a bone of our own to pick with that ship. We licked her to a standstill once, until we burned out a set of generators, and since we got them fixed we’ve been chasing her all over space. We were chasing her when we picked up your call. See there? She’s doing the running.”

The Nevian was running, in truth. Her commander had seen and had recognized the great vessel which had flashed out of nowhere to the rescue of the three fugitives from Nevia; and, having once been at grips with that vengeful super-dreadnaught, he had little stomach for another encounter. Therefore his side-thrust was now being exerted in the opposite direction; he was frankly trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and Triplanetary’s formidable warship. In vain. A light tractor was clamped on and the Boise flashed up to close range before Rodebush restored her inertia and Cleveland brought the two vessels relatively to rest by increasing gradually his tractor’s pull. And this time the Nevian could not cut the tractor. Again that shearing plane of force bit into it and tore at it, but it neither yielded nor broke. The rebuilt generators of Number Four were designed to carry the load, and they carried it. And again Triplanetary’s every mighty weapon was brought into play.

The “cans” were thrown, ultra- and infra-beams were driven, the furious macro-beam gnawed hungrily at the Nevian’s defenses; and one by one those defenses went down. In desperation the enemy commander threw his every generator behind a polycyclic screen; only to see Cleveland’s even more powerful drill bore relentlessly through it. After that puncturing, the end came soon. A secondary SX7 beam was now in place on mighty Ten’s inner rings, and one fierce blast blew a hole completely through the Nevian cruiser. Into that hole entered Adlington’s terrific bombs and their gruesome fellows, and where they entered, life departed. All defenses vanished, and under the blasts of the Boise’s batteries, now unopposed, the metal of the Nevian vessel exploded into a widely spreading cloud of vapor. Sparkling vapor, with perhaps here and there a droplet or two of material which had been only liquefied.

So passed the sister-ship, and Rodebush turned his plates upon the vessel of Nerado. But that highly intelligent amphibian had seen all that had occurred. He had long since given over the pursuit of the speedster, and he did not rush in to do hopeless battle beside his fellow Nevians against the Tellurians. His analytical detectors had written down each detail of every weapon and of every screen employed; and even while prodigious streamers of force were raving out from his vessel, braking her terrific progress and swinging her around in an immense circle back toward far Nevia, his scientists and mechanics were doubling and redoubling the power of his already Titanic installations, to match and if possible to overmatch those of Triplanetary’s super-dreadnaught.

“Do we kill him now or do we let him suffer a while longer?” Costigan demanded.

“I don’t think so, yet,” Rodebush replied. “Would you, Cleve?”

“Not yet,” said Cleveland, grimly, reading the other’s thought and agreeing with it. “Let him pilot us to Nevia; we might not be able to find it without a