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Wandl the Invader (version 2)

<h2>6</h2> "But there's something wrong, Drac." "We've got grade five acceleration." Grantline had joined us in the control turret. "How far would you say, at a rough guess, that ship is from us now?" "Thirty thousand miles; about that." Drac scanned his page of calculations. "Impossible to gauge with any exactness; they change their pace so often and I can't figure out how large the damn thing is." "Say they've got a forty thousand velocity; added to our ten, that's fifty." "And we're accelerating. In half an hour we'll be within range." "But there's something wrong," I persisted. For several minutes now I had been aware that the Cometara was acting strangely. A sluggish response to the controls, I thought, but when I called engine chief Franklin, he had not noticed it. Yet I was certain. Grantline stared at me. "Something wrong?" "Yes. Drac, try orienting us. I did it ten minutes ago." I shoved him at my equations, giving the angles with the Sun, Earth and Moon which we should now have. "There's our flight course as it ought to be. Measure how we're heading, actual position. If it's what it ought to be, with the plate-combinations I'm using, then I'm crazy." "Oh, you're just naturally apprehensive," Grantline said. But we were not where we should be. The Cometara was off her predetermined course. And then I realized the factor of error. There was a gravitational force here for which I was[52] not allowing. The error was not within the Cometara; she was responding perfectly. But there was a force upon her, and not that of the Sun, Earth, Moon or the distant starfield. I had calculated all of these. It was something else. Some gravitational pull, so that we were not upon the course of flight we should have been on. "But what could be wrong?" Grantline demanded. It was Drac who guessed it. "That radiance from the enemy's bow?" It was that, we felt certain. Even at this thirty thousand mile distance, the bow-beacon seemed streaming upon us. We could not see that it illumined the Cometara, nor could our instruments measure any added illumination. Our flight-orbit, if held, would carry us with a swing some ten thousand miles above the South Pole of the Moon. It would cross diagonally in front of the trajectory that the enemy vessel was maintaining. But we were off our predetermined course, with a side-drift toward the enemy. That bow-beacon radiance was exerting a force upon us, a strange gravitational pull. Grantline gasped when Drac said it. "If it's that now, what will it be when we get closer?" The minutes were passing. The thirty thousand miles between us and the enemy was cut to ten thousand; to five. The ship was soon visible to the naked eye. Its visual movement, for all this time measurable only as a drift upon the amplified images of our instruments, now was obvious. We could see it plunging forward, could see that probably we would cross its bow. Within fifty miles? We hoped and guessed that would be the result, so that with this first passing we could use our weapons. Fifty miles of distance at combined speeds of some fifty thousand miles an hour: that would be something like three seconds from a collision. The danger of a collision, which both ships would do anything to avert, was negligible; in the immensity of space two objects so small could not strike each other, even with intention, once in a million times. We could not calculate the passing so closely, but suddenly it seemed that perhaps the enemy could. The bow-beacon radiance, so obviously a miniature of the weird light-beams streaming from Earth, Mars and Venus, now swung away from us and was extinguished. Whatever alteration of our course[53] the enemy had made, they seemed to be satisfied. The passing would be to their liking. Would it be to ours? Grantline had left the turret. He was down on the deck, ready with his men. The weapons were ready. We had long since advanced beyond the possibility of mathematical calculations keeping pace with our changing position in relation to the enemy, but it seemed that the passing would be within fifty miles. Grantline's weapons would carry their bolt that far. It was barely two thousand miles away now. Two minutes of time before the passing. I stared at it, a long, low ship of dark metal, red where the moonlight struck upon it. I estimated its size to be about that of the Cometara, but it was much more nearly globular. Upon its top, seeming to project from the terraced dome, was an up-pointing funnel, like the smokestack of an old-fashioned surface steam vessel; or like a great black muzzle of an old-fashioned gun. And in a row along the bulging middle of the hull there was a series of little discs. The vessel was still a tiny blob, but every instant it was enlarging, doubling its visual size. Drac said tensely, "Fifteen hundred miles! We'll pass in a minute and a half." I turned the angle of the stern rocket-streams. The firmament slowly began swinging; the enemy ship seemed swaying up over us. I was turning our top to it, so that Grantline might fire directly upward from both sides almost simultaneously. It might be possible, if I could roll us over at just the proper seconds. But the enemy anticipated us. As they observed our roll, again the bow-beacon flashed on. It visibly struck us, bathed all our length in its spreading opalescent radiance. It seemed for an instant to do nothing. Our dome did not crack; there was no shock. But our side-roll slowed. The heavens stopped their swing, and then swung back! We were upon an even keel again, the enemy level with our bow. Against the force of my turning rocket-streams this radiation had righted us. It clung a few seconds more, and again vanished. Grantline's deck audiphone rang with his startled voice: "Gregg, roll us over! Quick! I can only fire from one side." "I can't."[54] It was too late now. A few hundred miles of distance! Drac stood clutching me, staring through the port. And I stared, breathless, awaiting the results of these next few seconds. The ships passed like crossing, speeding meteors. A few seconds of final approach; I saw the enemy vessel as an elongated, flattened globe, with a triple-terraced dome and terraced decks beneath it. That queer stack on top! The round discs, like ten-foot eyes, gleamed along the equator of the bulging hull. One of Grantline's weapons fired a silent flash. Still out of range. The spit of our electrons leaped from our side. The enemy was untouched. The thought stabbed at me: Anita! Not killed by that one. Another shot from Grantline. No result. It seemed that I saw the bolt strike. There was a reddening, a flash upon that bulging hull, but nothing more. I was aware again of the enemy bow-beam swinging upon us. The beam was pressing us over again so that in a moment we would be hull-bottom to the enemy and Grantline could not fire. He anticipated it. The ship was broadside to us. In the split second of that passing I saw that it was not fifty miles away, hardly ten. Grantline flung his remaining bolts. The enemy was a streaked blur going by; and all in that second it was past, reddening in the distance. Untouched by our bolts? It seemed so. The bow radiance darted ahead of it. The globular shape, unharmed, dwindled in the distance behind us. And it had done nothing to us! The control levers were in my hands. I would shift the gravity-plates, and make the quickest turn we could. We would go around the Moon, probably, and come back within an hour or two. Perhaps our adversary would also turn to encounter us again. At that second I had not seen the little discs, but I saw them now! They came sailing in a line, ten foot, flat, circular discs of a dark metal; they gleamed reddish where the sunlight painted them. They had been fastened outside the enemy vessel and in our passing they had been discharged. They sailed now like whirling plates. There seemed perhaps twenty of them, heading in a curve toward us.[55] Grantline's voice came again from the deck audiphone. "Missed them, Gregg. That's what I thought but at least two of our bolts must have struck. But it didn't hurt them." "No," I replied. "It seemed not. They must have a defensive barrage." Drac was pulling at me. "Those things out there, those discs...." Grantline demanded, "Yes, what in hell are they?" We could not tell. It seemed that their curve would take them behind our stern. Grantline added: "Will you try going back after that ship?" "Yes." But I did not. To the naked eye the enemy ship had already disappeared; but with the 'scopes we saw that it seemed to be turning. I did not attempt to turn us, for we were afraid of those oncoming discs which took all our attention. They passed within five miles astern of us, but in a great curve they swung and now seemed heading across our bow. With what tremendous velocity they had been endowed by their firing mechanisms! Their elliptical curve swung them a mile or so ahead of us. They were circling us like tiny satellites in a narrowing spiral ellipse. Our attraction, the normal gravity of our close bulk, was drawing them to us. The men on the Cometara's deck stood gazing, surprised but not yet alarmed. The lookout calls sounded with routine notification each time the discs passed across our bow and stern. In the helio cubby, Waters was still trying to raise an Earth station. Grantline came running to the control turret. "If those cursed things, should strike us, Gregg!" I had set the gravity-plates into new combinations, turning our course downward, trying to swing us under the plane of the discs' orbit. But they swung downward with us; they were no more than two thousand feet away now. Grantline said, "At the next broadside passing I'll fire at them." Drac looked up from his calculating instruments. "Look! A circular rotation: Horribly swift. But I've caught a picture. Look!"[56] He had a still image of one of the discs. It had saw-teeth at its thin knife-like outer circumference. Whirling at tremendous speed, these saw-toothed metal discs might cut into our dome, or some other part of our ship. At the next round, Grantline fired. The discs reddened a little, but came on unharmed. From the other side, he fired again. Three of the discs seemed to have been caught full. His bolts, sustained for their fullest ten seconds of duration at this close, thousand-foot range, took effect. The three discs seemed to crumble with a puff of queerly-radiant vacuum spark-glows, then were gone. But the others came closing in. The Cometara rang now with the excitement and alarm of the men. Grantline could not set his gauges fast enough to fire at every round. I had a sudden thought. With the rear rockets, I rolled us over. For a moment we were hull-down to the passing discs. From our hull gravity-plates I flung a full repulsion. Would it stave them off, bend their orbit outward? It did not. Their course was unaltered. Again Grantline was shouting at me, "Roll us back! I must fire!" It had been an error, that rolling; Grantline lost several shots because of it. I swung us level. The discs passed within a hundred feet; half a dozen of them were still closer. Gleaming, whirling circles, thin as knife-blades; they passed close under our stern, came broadside. These were tense, horrible seconds. The discs skimmed our bow; one seemed to miss our dome by inches. Grantline's volley annihilated four more, but there were still eight of them. They swung in at our stern. I was aware of confusion throughout the Cometara. The crew and stewards were running up to the bow quarter-deck. My second officer stood there, stricken. The stern lookout screamed his futile warning. Useless! I saw one of the discs strike our stern dome, then another. Still others. They were silent blows, but it seemed that I could feel them cutting into the dome-plates. The dome was cracking! Then, after that horrible instant, came the sound: crunch, a rumble; the grind of crushed and[57] breaking metal; then the puff and surge of the outward explosion. I saw the whole tip of the stern dome cracking, bursting outward, forced by our interior air pressure. And over all the Cometara the outgoing air was sucking and whining with a growing rush of wind. I shouted, "Drac! Close the stern bulkhead!" I set the word-buttons for the distress siren, and pulled the lever. Its voice screamed over the uproar. "Keep forward! Take the space-suits! Prepare to abandon ship!" <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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