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Triplanetary

<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> <h3>The Meeting of the Giants</h3> "Check your blast, Fred, I think I hear something trying to come through!" Cleveland called out, sharply. For days the Boise had torn through the illimitable reaches of empty space, and now the long vigil of the keen-eared listeners was to be ended. Rodebush cut off his power, and through the deafening roar of tube-noise an almost inaudible voice made itself heard. " ... all the help you can give us. Samms--Cleveland--Rodebush--anybody of Triplanetary who can hear me, listen! This is Costigan, with Miss Marsden and Captain Bradley, heading for where we think the sun is, from right ascension about six hours, declination about plus fourteen degrees. Distance unknown, but probably hundreds of light-years. Trace my call. One Nevian ship is overhauling us slowly, another is coming toward us from the sun. We may or may not be able to dodge it, but we need all the help you can give us. Samms--Rodebush--Cleveland--anybody of Triplanetary...." Endlessly the faint, faint voice went on, but Rodebush and Cleveland were no longer listening. Sensitive ultra-loops had been swung, and along the indicated line shot Triplanetary's super-ship at a velocity which she had never before even approached; the utterly incomprehensible, almost incalculable velocity attained by inertialess matter, driven through an almost perfect vacuum by the Boise's maximum projector blast--a blast which would lift her stupendous normal tonnage against a gravity five times that of earth's! At the full frightful measure of that velocity the super-ship literally annihilated distance, while ahead of her the furiously driven, but scarcely faster spy-ray beam tore on in quest of the three Terrestrials who were calling for help. "Got any idea how fast we're going?" Rodebush demanded, glancing up for an instant from the observation plate. "We should be able to see him, since we could hear him, and our range is certainly as great as anything he can have." "No, can't figure velocity without any reliable data on how many atoms of matter exist per cubic meter out here." Cleveland was staring at the calculator. "It's constant, of course, at the value at which the friction of the medium is equal to our thrust. Incidentally, we can't hold it long. We're running a temperature, which shows that we're stepping along faster than anybody ever computed before. Taking Throckmorton's estimates it figures somewhere near the order of magnitude of ten to the twenty-seventh. Fast enough, anyway, so you'd better bend an eye on that plate. Even after you see him you won't know anything about where he really is, because we don't know any of the velocities involved--our own, his, or that of the beam--and we may be right on top of him." "Or, if we are outrunning the beam, we won't see him at all. That makes it nice piloting." "How are you going to handle things when we get there?" "Lock to them and take them aboard if we're in time. If not, if they are fighting already--there they are!" The picture of the speedster's control room flashed upon the plate and Costigan's voice greeted them from the speaker. "Hello, fellows, welcome to our city! Where are you?" "We don't know," Cleveland snapped back, "and we don't know where you are, either. Can't figure anything without data. I see you're still breathing air. Where are the Nevians? How much time we got yet?" "Not enough, I'm afraid. By the looks of things they will be within range of us in a couple of hours, and you're so far away yet that it took our voices four minutes and about fifty seconds to make the round trip, on the ultra! Play that on your calculator, Lyman! You haven't even touched our detector screen yet. I'm mighty glad to have seen you fellows again, though, anyway." "A couple of hours!" In his relief Cleveland almost shouted the words. "That's time to burn. We can be clear out of the Galaxy in less than...." He broke off at a yell from Rodebush. "Broadcast, Conway, broadcast!" that worthy had cried, as Costigan's image had disappeared utterly from his plate. Now he cut off the Boise's power, stopping her instantaneously in mid-space, but the connection had been broken. Costigan could not possibly have heard the orders to change his beam signal to a broadcast, so that they could pick it up; nor would it have done any good if he had heard and had obeyed. So immeasurably great had been their velocity that they had flashed past the speedster without seeing it, even upon the ultra-plates, and now they were unknown billions of miles beyond the fugitives they had come so far to help--far beyond the range of any possible broadcast. But Cleveland had understood instantly what had happened. He now had a little data upon which to work, and his fingers were flying over the keys of the calculator. "Back blast, maximum, seventeen seconds!" he directed, crisply. "Not exact, of course, but that'll put us close enough to find 'em with our detectors!" Then for the calculated seventeen seconds the super-ship retraced her path, at the same awful speed with which she had come so far. The blast expired and there, plainly limned upon the observation plates, was the Nevian speedster. "As a computer you're good," Rodebush applauded. "So close that we can't use the neutralizers to catch him. If we use a dyne of driving force we'll overshoot him a million kilometers before I can snap the switches out." "And yet he's so far away and going so fast that if we keep our inertia on it'll take all day at full drive to overtake him." Cleveland was frankly puzzled. "What to do? Shunt in a potentiometer?" "No, we don't need it." Rodebush turned to the transmitter. "Costigan! We are going to take hold of you with a very light tractor. Don't cut it!" "A tractor--inertialess?" Cleveland wondered. "Why not?" Rodebush launched the tractor, set at its absolute minimum of power, and threw in his master switches. While hundreds of thousands of miles separating the two vessels and the tractor beam was exerting the least effort of which it was capable, yet the super-ship leaped toward the smaller craft at a pace which covered that distance in the twinkling of an eye. So rapidly were the objectives enlarging upon the plates that the automatic focusing devices could scarcely function rapidly enough to keep them in place. Cleveland flinched involuntarily and seized his arm-rests in a spasmodic clutch as he watched this, the first inertialess space-approach; and even Rodebush, who knew better than anyone else what to expect, held his breath and swallowed hard at the unbelievable rate at which the two vessels were rushing together. And if these two, who had rebuilt the space-flyer, could hardly control themselves, what of the three in the speedster, who knew nothing whatever of the super-ship's potentialities? Clio, staring into the plate with Costigan, uttered a piercing shriek, as she sank her fingers into his shoulders. Bradley swore a mighty deep-space oath and braced himself against certain annihilation. Costigan stared for an instant, unable to believe his eyes, then his hand darted to the contacts which would cut the beam. Too late. Before his flying fingers could reach the studs the Boise was upon them; had struck them in direct central impact. Moving at the full measure of her unthinkable velocity though the super-ship was at the moment 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 instantly 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 space-fleas!" 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!" "Hello, Conway!" "Clear ether, Conway!" The two scientists answered the hail of their fellow. "I didn't realize that an inertialess approach would be quite such a terrifying spectacle, or I would have warned you," Rodebush went on. "Yes, thanks to you, the super-ship works as she should, at last. But you had better put on your suits and transfer. You might get your things ready...." "'Things' is good!" Costigan laughed, and Clio giggled sunnily. "We've made so many transfers already that what you see us in is all we have," 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 Lyman 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 introduction 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 he's no light cruiser." "That's so, too," Costigan concurred. "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 Terrestrials; 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 cruiser. In vain. A light tractor was clamped on and the Boise flashed up to close range before Rodebush threw on 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. Punctured that last defense, 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 projectors, now unopposed, the metal of the Nevian vessel exploded instantly into a widely spreading cloud of vapor. Sparkling vapor, with perhaps here and there a droplet or two of material which had only been 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 Terrestrials. His analytical detectors had written down each detail of every weapon and of every screen employed; and even while prodigious streamers of red 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," replied Rodebush. "Would you, Lyman?" "Not yet," replied Cleveland, grimly, reading the thought of the other and agreeing with it. "Let him pilot us to Nevia; we might not be able to find it without a guide. While we're at it we want to so pulverize that crowd that if they never come near the Solarian system again they'll think it's twenty minutes too soon!" Thus it was that the Boise, under only a few dynes of propulsion, pursued the Nevian ship. Apparently exerting every effort, she never came quite within range of the fleeing raider; yet never was she so far behind that the Nevian space-ship was not in clear register upon her observation plates. Nor was Nerado alone in strengthening his vessel. Costigan knew well and respected highly the Nevian scientist-captain, and at his suggestion the entire time of the long and uneventful flight was spent in re-enforcing the super-ship's armament to the iron-driven limit of theoretical and mechanical possibility. Thus, when Nevia and her hot, blue sun appeared upon his plates Rodebush was ready for any emergency, and hurled his battleship upon the Nevian with every weapon aflame. But so was Nerado ready; and, unlike her sister-ship, his vessel was manned by scientists well versed in the fundamental theory of the weapons with which they fought. Beams, rods, and lances of energy flamed and flared; planes and pencils cut, slashed, and stabbed; defensive screens glowed redly or flashed suddenly into intensely brilliant, coruscating incandescence. Crimson opacity struggled sullenly against violet curtain of annihilation. Material projectiles and torpedoes were launched under full beam control; only to be exploded harmlessly in mid-space, to be rayed into nothingness, or to disappear innocuously against impenetrable polycyclic screens. Both vessels were equipped completely with iron-driven mechanisms; both were manned by scientists capable of wringing the last possible watt of power from their sources. They were approximately equal in size, and each ship now wielded the theoretical ultimate of power for her mass; therefore neither could harm the other, furiously though each was trying. And more and more nearly they were approaching the red atmosphere of the world of the amphibians. Down into that crimson blanket the two warring space-ships dropped, down toward a city which Costigan recognized as that in which Nerado made his headquarters. "Better hold off a bit," Costigan cautioned. "If I know that bird at all, he's cooking up something," and even as he spoke there shot upward from the city a multitude of flashing balls. The Nevians had mastered the secret of the explosive of the fishes of the greater deeps and were launching it in a veritable storm against the Terrestrial visitor. "Those?" asked Rodebush, calmly. The detonating balls of destruction were literally annihilating even the atmosphere beyond the polycyclic screen, but that barrier was scarcely affected. "No, that," pointing out a hemispherical dome which, redly translucent, surrounded a group of buildings towering high above their neighbors. "Neither those high towers nor those screens were there the last time I was in this town. They're stalling for time down there, that's all those fireballs are for. Good sign, too--maybe they aren't ready for us yet. If not, you'd better take 'em while the taking's good; and if they are ready for us, we'd better get out of here while we're all in one piece." And in fact Nerado had been in touch with the scientists of his city; had been instructing them in the construction of converters and generators of such weight and power that they could crush even the defenses of the super-ship. They were not, however, quite done; the entirely unsuspected possibilities of speed inherent in absolute inertialessness had not entered into Nerado's calculations. "Better drop a few cans down on that dome, fellows, before they make trouble for us," suggested Rodebush to his gunners. "We can't," came Adlington's instant reply. "We've been trying it, but that's a polycyclic screen. Can you drill it? If you can, I've got a real bomb here--that special we built--that will do the trick if you can protect it from their beams until it gets down into the water." "I'll try it," Cleveland answered, at a nod from the physicist. "I couldn't drill Nerado's polycyclics, but I couldn't use any momentum on him. Couldn't ram him--he fell back with my thrust. But that screen down there can't back off, so maybe I can work on it. Get your special ready, and hang on, everybody!" The Boise looped upward, and from an altitude of miles dove downward through a storm of force-balls, rays, and shells; a dive checked abruptly as the hollow tube of energy, which was Cleveland's drill, snarled savagely down ahead of her and struck the shielding hemisphere with a grinding, lightning-splitting shock. As it struck, backed by all the enormous momentum of the plunging space-ship and driven by the full power of her mightiest generators, it bored in, clawing and gouging viciously through the tissue of that rigid and unyielding barrier of pure energy. Then, mighty drill and plunging mass against iron-driven wall, eye-tearing and furiously spectacular warfare was waged. Well it was for Triplanetary, that day, that its super ship carried ample supply of allotropic iron; well it was that her originally Gargantuan converters and generators had been doubled and quadrupled in power on the long Nevian way! For that oven-girdled fortress was powered to withstand any conceivable assault; but the Boise's power and momentum were now inconceivable, and every watt and every dyne was solidly behind that hellishly flaming, that voraciously tearing, that irresistibly ravening cylinder of energy incredible! Through the Nevian shield that cylinder gnawed its frightful way, and down its protecting length there drove Adlington's "Special" bomb. "Special" it was indeed; so great of girth that it could barely pass through the central orifice of Ten's mighty projector, so heavily charged with sensitized atomic iron that its detonation upon any planet would not have been considered for an instant if that planet's integrity meant anything to its attackers. Down the shielding pipe of force the "Special" screamed under full propulsion, and beneath the surface of Nevia's ocean it plunged. "Cut!" yelled Adlington, and as the scintillating drill expired, the bomber snapped his detonating switch. For a moment the effect of the explosion seemed unimportant. A dull, low rumble was all that was to be heard of a concussion that jarred red Nevia to her very center; and all that could be seen was a slow heaving of the water. But that heaving did not cease. Slowly, so slowly it seemed to the observers now high in the heavens, the waters rose up and parted; revealing a vast chasm blown deep into the ocean's rocky bed. Higher and higher the lazy, mountains of water reared; effortlessly to pick up, to smash, to grind into fragments, and finally to toss aside every building, every structure, every scrap of material substance pertaining to the whole Nevian city. Flattened out, driven backward for miles the tortured waters were urged, leaving exposed bare ground and broken rock where once had been the ocean's busy floor; while tremendous blasts of incandescent gas raved upward, buffeting even the enormous masses of the two space-ships, poised by their breathless crews so high above the site of the explosion. Then the displaced millions of tons of water rushed back into that newly rived pit, seeming to seek in that mad rush to make even more complete the already total destruction of the city. The raging torrents poured into that yawning cavern, filled it, and piled mountainously above it; receding and piling up, again and again, causing tidal waves which swept a full half of Nevia's mighty, watery globe. The city forever silenced, Rodebush again directed his weapons upon Nerado's vessel, but the Nevian was no longer fighting. For the first time in that long and bitter engagement, not a Nevian beam was in operation. His screens, however, were as capable as ever, and after a few fruitless attempts to make an impression upon them, Rodebush cut off his own offensive and turned to Costigan. "What do you make of it, Conway? You know these people better than we do; what are they up to?" "I wish to talk to you," Nerado's voice came from the speaker, "and I could not do so while the beams were operating. You are, I now perceive, a much higher form of life than any of us had thought possible; a form perhaps as high in evolution as our own. It is a pity that we did not meet you when we first neared your planet, so that much life, both Tellurian and Nevian, might have been spared. But what is past cannot be recalled. As reasoning beings, however, you will see the futility of continuing a contest in which neither of us is capable of injuring the other. You may, of course, destroy more of our Nevian cities, in which case I should be compelled to go and destroy similarly upon your earth; but, to reasoning minds, such a course of procedure is sheerest folly." Rodebush cut the communicator beam. "Does he mean it?" he demanded of Costigan. "It sounds reasonable, but...." "But fishy," broke in Cleveland. "Altogether too reasonable for a...." "Yes, he means it; every word of it," interrupted Costigan in turn. "That's the way they are. Reasonable, passionless. Funny--they lack a lot of things we have, but they've got a lot of things that I wish more of us Tellurians had too. Give me the plate--I'll talk for Triplanetary," and the beam was restored. "Captain Nerado." he greeted the Nevian commander. "Having been with you and among your people, I know that you mean what you say and that you speak for your race. Similarly, I believe that I can speak for the Triplanetary Council--the government of three of the planets of our solar system--in saying that there need be no more conflict between our peoples. I also was compelled by circumstances to do certain things which I now wish could be undone; but as you have said, the past is past. Our two races have much to gain from each other by friendly exchanges of materials and of ideas, while we can expect nothing except mutual extermination, if we elect to continue this warfare. I offer you the friendship of Triplanetary. Will you release your screens and come aboard to sign a treaty?" "I will come; my screens are down." Rodebush likewise cut off his power, although somewhat apprehensively, and a Nevian lifeboat entered the main airlock of the Boise. Then, at a table in the control room of Triplanetary's first super-ship, there was written the first Inter-Systemic Treaty. Upon one side the three Nevians; amphibious, cone-headed, loop-necked, scale-bodies, four-legged things to us monstrosities: upon the other the three humans, air-breathing, rounded-headed, shortnecked, smooth-bodied, two-legged creatures equally monstrous to the fastidious Nevians. Yet each of these representatives, of two races so different, felt respect for the other race increase within him minute by minute as the conversation went on. The Nevians had destroyed Pittsburgh, but Adlington's bomb had blown an equally populous Nevian city out of existence. One Nevian vessel had wiped out an entire unit of Triplanetary's fleet; but Costigan, practically unaided, had depopulated one Nevian city and had seriously damaged another. He had also beamed down many Nevian ships. Therefore loss of life and material could be balanced. The Solarian system was rich in iron, to which the Nevians were welcome; red Nevia possessed abundant stores of substances which upon earth were extremely rare and of vital importance. Therefore commerce was to be encouraged. The Nevians had knowledges and skills unknown to earthly science, but were entirely ignorant of many things, to us commonplace. Therefore interchange of students and of books was highly desirable. And so on. Thus was signed the Triplanetario-Nevian Treaty of Eternal Peace. Nerado and his two companions were escorted ceremoniously to their vessel, and the Boise took off in an inertialess dash toward earth, bearing the good news that the Nevian menace was no more. Clio, now a hardened space-flea, immune even to the horrible nausea of inertialessness, wriggled lithely in the curve of Costigan's arm and laughed up at him. "You can talk all you want to, Conway, but I don't like them a bit. They give me the purple jitters! I suppose that they are really estimable folks; talented, cultured, and everything; but just the same I'll bet that it will be a long, long time before anybody on earth will really, truly like them!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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