 Chapter 7 of Space Hounds of IPC, by E. E. Doc Smith. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Space Hounds of IPC. Chapter 7. THE RETURN TO GANIMEED. MUST YOU GO BACK TO GANIMEED? Barkovis asked, slowly and thoughtfully. He was sitting upon a crystal bench beside the fountain, talking with Stevens, who, dressed in his bulging spacesuit, stood near an airlock of the Forlorn Hope. It seems a shame that you should face again those unknown monstrous creatures who so inexcusably attacked us both without provocation. I'm not so keen on it myself, but I can't see any other way out of it, the terrestrial replied. We left a lot of our equipment there, you know, and even if I should build duplicates here, it wouldn't do us any good. These ten-nineteens are the most powerful transmitting tubes known when we left Telus, but even their fields, dense as they are, can't hold an ultra-beam together much farther than about six astronomical units. So you see, we can't possibly reach our friends from here with this tube, and your system of beam transmission won't hold anything together even that far, and won't work on any wave shorter than Rosar's rays. We may run into some more of these little spheres, though, and I don't like the prospect. I wonder if we couldn't plate a layer of that mirror of yours upon the Hope and carry along a few of those bombs? By the way, what is that explosive, or is it something beyond Talurian chemistry? Its structure should be clear to you, although you probably could not prepare it upon Telus because of your high temperature. It is nothing but nitrogen, twenty-six atoms of nitrogen combined to form one molecule of what you would call N26. Wow! Stephen swissled. Crystalline pentavalent nitrogen. No wonder it's violent! We could, of course, cover your vessel with the mirror, but I'm afraid that it would prove of little value. The plates are so hot that it would soon volatilize. Not necessarily, argued Stevens. We could live in number one lifeboat, and shut off the heat everywhere else. The lifeboats are insulated from the structure proper, and the inner and outer walls of the structure are insulated from each other. With only the headquarters lifeboat warm, the outer wall could be held pretty close to zero absolute. That is true. The bombs, of course, are controlled by radio, and therefore may be attached to the outer wall of your vessel. We shall be glad to do these small things for you. The heaters of the Forlorn Hope were shut off, and as soon as the outer shell had cooled to titanium temperature, a core of mechanics set to work. A machine very like a concrete mixer was rolled up beside the steel vessel, and into its capacious maw were dumped boxes and barrels of dry ingredients and many cans of sparkling liquid. The resultant paste was pumped upon the steel plating in a sluggish, viscid stream, which spread out into a thick and uniform coating beneath the flying rollers of the skilled titanium workmen. As it hardened, the paste smoothed magically into the perfect mirror which covered the space vessels of the satellite, and a full dozen of the mere explosive bombs of this strange people were hung in the racks already provided. Once again I must caution you concerning those torpedoes, Barkovist warned Stevens. If you use them all very well, but do not try to take even one of them into any region where it is very hot, for it will explode and demolish your vessel. If you do not use them, destroy them before you descend into the hot atmosphere of Ganymede. The mirror will volatilize harmlessly at the temperature of melting mercury, but the torpedoes must be destroyed. Once more, Tillerians, we thank you for what you have done and wish you well. Thanks a lot for your help, we still owe you something, replied Stevens. If either of your power plants go sour on you again, or if you need any more built, be sure to let us know. You can come close enough to the inner planets now on your own beam to talk to us on the ultra-communicator. We'll be glad to help you any way we can, and we may call on you for help again. Good-bye, Barkovist, good-bye, all Titania. He made his way through the bitterly cold shop into the control room of their life boat, and while he was divesting himself of his heavy suit, Nadia lifted the forlorn hope into the blue-green sky of Titan, accompanied by an escort of the mirrored globes. Well clear of the atmosphere of the satellite, the terrestrial cruiser shot forward at normal acceleration, while the titanium vessels halted and wove a pattern of blue and golden rays in salute to the departing guests. Well, Nadia, we're off on a long trek, too. Had one long hop, the Chinese pillow, Nadia agreed. Sure everything's all X, big boy. To nineteen decimals, he declared. You couldn't squeeze another frank into our accumulators with a proof bar, and since they're sending us all the power we want to draw, we won't need to touch our batteries or tap our own beam until we're almost to Jupiter. To cap the climax, what it takes to make big medicine on those spherical friends of ours we've got. We're not sitting on top of the world, Ace. We've perched exactly at the apex of the entire universe. How long is it going to take? Don't know. Haven't figured it yet, but it'll be Bokoo days, and the two wanderers from far-distant earth settle down to the routine of a long and uneventful journey. They gave Saturn and its spectacular rings a wide berth and sped on, with ever-increasing velocity. Past the outer satellites, on and on, the good ship Forlorn Hope flew into the black and brilliant depths of interplanetary space. Saturn was an ever-diminishing disk beneath them. Of them was Jupiter's thin crescent, growing ever larger and more bright, and the monarch of the solar system, remaining almost stationary day after day, increasing steadily in apparent diameter and in brilliance. Although the voyage from Titan to Ganymede was long, it was not monotonous, for there was much work to be done in the designing and fabrication of the various units which were to comprise the ultra-radio transmitting station. In the various compartments of the Forlorn Hope there were sundry small motors, blowers, coils, condensers, force field generators, and other items which Stevens could use with little or no alteration, but for the most part he had to build everything himself. Thus it was that time passed quickly, so quickly that Jupiter loomed large and the Saturnian beam of power began to attenuate almost before the terrestrials realized that their journey was drawing to an end. Our beam's falling apart fast, Stevens read his meters carefully, then swung his communicator beam toward Jupiter. We aren't getting quite enough power to hold our acceleration at normal. Think I'll cut now, while we're still drawing enough to let the Titanians know we're off their beam. We've got lots of power of our own now, and we're getting pretty close to enemy territory, so they may locate that heavy beam. Have you found Ganymede yet? Yes, it will be on the other side of Jupiter by the time we get there. Shall I detour, or put on a little more negative and wait for it to come around to this side? Better wait, I think. The farther away we stay from Jupiter and the major satellites, the better. All X, it's on. Suppose we better start standing watches in case some of them show up? No use, he dissented. I've been afraid to put out our electromagnetic detectors, as they could surely trace them in use. Without them we couldn't spot an enemy ship even if we were looking right at it, except by accident. Since they won't be lighted up and it's awfully hard to see anything out here anyway, we probably won't know they're within a million kilometers until they put a beam on us. Markovis says that this mirror will reflect any beam they can use, and I've already got a set of photo cells in circuit to ring an alarm at the first flash off of our mirror plating. I'd like to get in the first licks myself, but I haven't been able to dope out any way of doing it. So you might as well sleep in your own room, as usual, and I'll camp here right under the panel until we get to Ganymede. There's a couple of little things I just thought of, though, that may help some, and I'm going to do them right now. Putting on his spacesuit, he picked up a power drill and went out into the bitter cold of the outer structure. There he attacked the inner wall of their vessel, and the carefully established inter-wall vacuum disappeared in a screaming hiss of air as the tempered point bit through plate after plate. What's the idea, Steve?" Nadia asked, when he had re-entered the control room. "'Now you'll have all that pumping to do over again.' "'Protection for the mirrors,' he explained. You see, they aren't perfect reflectors. There's a little absorption, so that some stuff comes through. Not much, of course, but enough to kill some of those titanians and almost enough to ruin their ship got through in about ten minutes, and only one enemy was dealing it out. We can stand more than they could, of course, but the mirror itself won't stand much more heat than it was absorbing then. But with air in those spaces, instead of vacuum, and with the whole mass of the hope, except this one lifeboat, as cold as it is, I figured that there'll be enough conduction and convection through them to keep the outer wall and the mirror cold, cool enough, at least, to hold the mirror on for an hour. If only one ship tackles us, it won't be bad. But I figure that if there's only one, we're lucky." Stephen's fears were only too well-grounded. For during the evening of the following day, while he was carefully scanning the heavens for some sign of enemy craft, the alarm bell over his head burst into its brazen clamor. Instantly he shot out the detectors and ultralights and saw not one, but six of the deadly globes, almost upon them, at point-blank range. One was already playing a beam of force upon the Forlorn Hope, and the other five went into action immediately upon feeling the detector impulses and perceiving that the weapon of their sister ship had encountered an unusual resistance in the material of that peculiarly mirrored wedge. As those terrific forces strucker, the terrestrial cruiser became a vast pyrotechnic set-piece, a dazzling fountain of coruscant brilliance, for the mirror held. The enemy beam shot back upon themselves and rebounded in all directions, in the same spectacular exhibition of frenzied incandescents which had marked the resistance of the Titanian sphere to a similar attack. But Stephen's was not idle. In the instance of launching his detectors, as fast as he could work the trips, four of the frightful nitrogen bombs of Titan, all that he could handle at once, shot out into space, their rocket-tubes flaring viciously. The enemy detectors, of course, located the flying torpedoes immediately, but, contemptuous of material projectiles, the spheres made no attempt to dodge, but merely lashed out upon them with their revening rays. So close was the range that they had no time to avoid the radio directed bombs after discovering that their beams were useless against the unknown protective covering of those mirrored shells. There were four practically simultaneous detonations, silent but terrific explosions as the pent-up internal energy of solid pentavalent nitrogen was instantaneously released, and the four insensately murderous spheres disappeared into jagged fragments of wreckage, lying wildly away from the centers of explosion. One great mass of riven and twisted metal was blown directly upon the fifth globe, and Nadia stared in horrified fascination at the silent crash as the entire side of the ship crumpled inward like a shell of cardboard under the awful impact. That vessel was probably out of action, but Stephen's was taking no chances. As soon as he had clamped a pale blue tractor rod upon the sixth and last of the enemy fleet, he drove a torpedo through the gaping wall and into the interior of the helpless war vessel. There he exploded it, and the awful charge, detonated in that confined space, literally tore the globular spaceship to bits. "'We'll show these jaspers what kind of trees make shingles,' he ridded between clenched teeth, and his eyes, hard now as gray iron, fairly admitted sparks as he launched four torpedoes upon the sole remaining globe of the squadron of the void. I've had a lot of curiosity to know just what kind of unnatural monstrosities can possibly have such fiendish dispositions as they've got. But beasts, men, or devils, they'll find they've grabbed something this time they can't let go of, and fierce blasts of energy ripped from the exhaust as he drove his missiles at their highest possible acceleration toward the captive sphere, so savagely struggling at the extremity of his tractor beam. But that one remaining vessel was to prove no such easy victim as had its sister ships. Being six to one, and supposedly invincible, the squadron had been overconfident and had attacked carelessly, with only its crippling slicing beams instead of its more deadly weapons of total destruction. And so fierce and hard had been Stephen's counterattack that five of its numbers had been destroyed before they realized what powerful armament was mounted by that apparently crude, helpless and innocuous wedge. The sixth, however, was fully warned, and every resource at the command of its hellish crew was now being directed against the four-lorn hope. Fierce, cones, and gigantic rods of force flashed and crackled. Space was filled with silent, devastating tongues of flame. The four-lorn hope was dragged about erratically as the sphere tried to dodge those hurtling torpedoes. Tried to break away from the hauser of energy anchoring her so solidly to her opponent. But the linkage held, and closer and closer Stephen's drove the four-fold menace of his frightful dirigible bombs. Pressor beams beat upon them in vain. Hard driven as those pushers were, they could find no footing, but were reflected at many angles by that untouchable mirror and their utmost force scarcely impeded the progress of the rocket-propelled missiles. Comparatively small as the projectiles were, however, they soon felt the effects of the prodigious beams of heat enveloping them, and torpedo after torpedo exploded harmlessly in space as their mirrors warmed up and volatilized. But for each bomb that was lost Stephen's launched another, and each one came closer to its objective than had its predecessor. Made desperate by the failure of his every beam, the enemy commander thought to use material projectiles himself, weapons abandoned long since by his race as antiquated and inefficient, but a few of which were still carried by the older types of vessels. One such shell was found and launched, but in the instant of its launching Stephen's foremost bomb struck its mark and exploded. So close were the other three bombs that they also let go at the shock, and the war-like sphere hemmed in by four centers of explosions flew apart, literally pulverized. This projectile, so barely discharged, did not explode. It was loaded with material which could be detonated only by the warhead upon impact or by a radio signal. It was, however, deflected markedly from its course by the force of the blast, so that instead of striking the forlorn hope in direct central impact its head merely touched the apex of the mirror-plated wedge. That touch was enough. It was another appalling concussion, another blinding glare, and the entire front quarter of the terrestrial vessel had gone to join the shattered globes. Between the point of explosion and the lifeboats there had been many channels of insulation, many bulkheads, many airbrakes, and compartment after compartment of accumulator cells. These had borne the brunt of the explosion, so that the control room was unharmed, and Stephen swung his communicator rapidly through the damaged portions of the vessels. "'How badly are we hurt, Steve? Can we make it to Ganymede?' Nadia was quietly staring over his shoulder into the plate, studying with him the pictures of destruction there portrayed as he flashed the projector from compartment to compartment. "'We're hurt, no fooling, but it might have been a lot worse,' he replied, as he completed the survey. "'We've lost about all of our accumulators, but we can land on our own beam, and landing power is all we want, I think. You see, we're drifting straight for where Ganymede will be, and we better cut out every bit of power we're using, even the heaters, until we get there. This lifeboat will hold heat for quite a while, and I'd rather get pretty cold than meet any more of that gang. I figured eight hours just before they met us, and we were just about drifting then. I'd think it's safe to say, seven hours blind. But can't they detect us anyway? They may have sent out a call, you know. If we aren't using any power for anything, their electromagnetics are the only things we'll register on, and their mighty short-range finders. Even if they should get that close to us, they'll probably think we're meteoric, since we'll be dead to their other instruments. Luckily, we've got lots of air, so the chemical purifiers can handle it without power. I'll shut off everything, and we'll drift in. Couldn't do much of anything anyway, even our shop out there won't hold air. But we can have light. We've got a settling emergency lamps, you know, and we don't need to economize on oxygen. Perhaps we'd better run in the dark. Remember what you told me about their possible visorays, and that you've got only two bombs left. All X, that would be better. If I forget it, remind me to blow up those before we hit the atmosphere of Ganymede, will you? He opened all the power switches, and every source of ethereal vibrations cut off. The forlorn hope drifted slowly on, now appearing forlorn indeed. Seven hours dragged past. Seven age-long hours, during which the two sat tense, expecting they knew not what, talking only at intervals and in subdued tones. Stevens then snapped on the communicator beam just long enough to take an observation upon Ganymede. Several such brief glimpses were taken. Then, after a warning word to his companion, he set out and exploded the nitrogen bombs. He then threw on the power, and the vessel leaped toward the satellite under full acceleration. Close to the atmosphere, it slanted downward in a screaming fifteen hundred-mile drive, and soon the mangled wedge dropped down into the little canyon which, for so long, had been home. Well, Colonel, home again, Stevens exalted, as he neutralized the controls. There's that falls, our power plant, the catapults, and everything. Now, unless something interrupts us again, we'll run up our radio tower and give Brandon the long yell. How much more have you got to do before you can start sending? Not an awful lot. Everything built, all I've got to do is assemble it. I should be able to do it easily in a week. Hope nothing else happens. If I drag you into any more such messes as those we've just been getting out of by the skin of our teeth, I'll begin to wish that we had started out at first to drift it back to tell us in the hope. Let's see how much time we've got. We should start shooting one day after an eclipse, so that we'll have five days to send. You see, we don't want to point our beam too close to Jupiter, or to any of the large satellites, because the enemy might live there and might intercept it. We had an eclipse yesterday, so one week from today, at sunrise, I start shooting. But Earth's an evening star now, you can't see it in the morning. I'm not going to aim at tell us. I'm shooting at Brandon, and he's never there for more than a week or two at a stretch. They're prowling around out in space somewhere almost all the time. Then how can you possibly hope to hit them? It may be quite a job of hunting, but not as bad as you might think. They probably aren't much, if any, outside the orbit of Mars, and they usually stay within a couple of million kilometers or so of the ecliptic, so we'll start at the Sun and shoot our beam in a spiral to cover that field. We ought to be able to hit them inside of twelve hours, but if we don't, we'll widen our spiral and keep on trying until we do hit them. Steven, Steve, are you planning on telegraphing steadily for days at a time? Sure, but not by hand, of course. I'll have an automatic sender and automatic pointers. Steven's had at his command a very complete machine shop. He had an ample supply of power, and all that remained for him to do was to assemble the parts which he had built during the long journey from Titan to Ganymede. Before at sunrise of the designated day, he was ready, and with Nadia hanging breathless over his shoulder, he closed the switch. A toothed wheel engaged a delicate interrupter, and a light sounder began its strident shatter. Ganymede .047. Ganymede .047. Ganymede .047. Endlessly the message was poured out into the ether, carried by a tight beam of alter vibrations and driven by forces sufficient to propel it well beyond the opposite limits of the orbit of Mars. What does it say? I can't read code. Steven's translated the brief message, but Nadia remained unimpressed. But it doesn't say anything, she protested. It isn't addressed to anybody, it isn't signed. It doesn't tell anybody anything about anything. It's all there, Ace. You see, since the beam is moving side-wise very rapidly at that range, and we're shooting at a small target, the message has to be very short, or they won't get it all while the beam's on them. It isn't as though we were broadcasting. It doesn't need any address, because nobody but the Sirius can receive it, except possibly the Jovians. They'll know who's sending it without any signature. It tells them that Ganymede wants to receive a message on the Ultraband centering on 47 thousandths. Isn't that enough? Maybe. But suppose some of them live right here on Ganymede. You'll be shooting right through the ground all night, or suppose that even if they don't live here, that they can find our beam some way. Or suppose that Brandon hasn't got his machine built yet. Or suppose that it isn't turned on when our beam passes them. Or suppose they're asleep then. A lot of things might happen. Not so many, Ace. Your first objection is the only one that hasn't got more holes in it than a sieve, so I'll take it first. Since our beam is only a meter in diameter here, and doesn't spread much in the first few million kilometers, the chance of direct reception by the enemy, even if they do live here on Ganymede, is infinitesimally small. But I don't believe that they live here. At least they certainly didn't land on this satellite. As you suggest, however, it is conceivable that they may have detector screens delicate enough to locate our beam at a distance. But since, in all probability, that means a distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers, I think it's highly improbable. We've got to take the same risk anyway, no matter what we do, whenever we start to use any kind of driving power, so there's no use in worrying about it. As for your last two objections, I know Brandon and I know Westfall. Brandon will have receivers built that will take in any wave possible of propagation, and Westfall, the cautious old egg, will have them running twenty-four hours a day, with automatic recorders, finders, and everything else that Brandon can invent. And believe me, sweetheart, that's a lot of stuff. It's wonderful the way you three men are, replied Nadia thoughtfully, reading between the lines of Stephen's utterance. They knew that you were on the Arcturus, of course, and they knew that if you were alive you'd manage in some way to get in touch with them, and you, a way out here after all this time, are superbly confident that they are expecting a call from you. That I think is one of the finest things I ever heard of. They're two of the world's best, absolutely. Nadia looked at him surprised, for he had not seen anything complementary to himself in her remark. Wait until you meet them. They're men, Nadia, real men. And speaking of meeting them, please try to keep on loving me after you meet Norm Brandon, will you? Don't be a simp, her brown eyes met his steadily. You didn't mean that. You didn't even say it, did you? Back it comes, sweetheart. But knowing myself, and knowing those two, stop it. If Norman Brandon or Quincy Westfall had been here instead of you, or both of them together, we'd have been here from now on. He wouldn't even have gotten away from the Jovians. Now it's your turn to backwater, guy. Well, maybe, a little. If both of them were here, they ought to equal you in some things. Brandon says himself that he and Westfall together make one scientist. Dad says he says so. You don't want to believe everything you hear. Neither of them will admit that he knows anything, or can do anything. That's the way they are. Dad has told me a lot about them, how they've always been together ever since their undergraduate days, how they studied together all over the world, even after they've been given all the degrees loose, how they even went to the other planets to study, to Mars where they had to live in spacesuits all the time, and to Venus where they had to take ultraviolet treatments every day to keep alive, how they learned everything that everybody else knew and then went out into space to find out things that nobody else ever dreamed of, how you came to join them and what you three have done since. They're fine, of course, but they aren't you, she concluded passionately. No, thank heaven. I know you love me, Nadia, just as I love you. You know I never doubted it. But you'll like them, really. They're a wonderful team. He's a big brute, you know, fully five centimeters taller than I am, and he weighs close to a hundred kilograms, and no lard either. He's wild, impetuous, always jumping at conclusions and working out theories that seem absolutely ridiculous. But they're usually sound, even though we impractical. West falls the practical member. He makes Norm pipe down, pins him down to fax, and makes it impossible to put his hunches and wild flashes of genius into workable form. Quince is a, now you pipe down. I've heard you rave so much about those two. I'd lots rather rave about you, and with more reason. I wish that sounder would start sounding. Our first message hasn't gone half way yet. It takes about forty minutes for the impulse to get where I think they are, so that even if they got the first one, and answered it instantly, it would be eighty minutes before we'd get it. I sort of expect an answer late to-night, but I won't be disappointed if it takes a week to locate them. I will, declared the girl, and indeed very little work was done that day by either of the castaways. Slowly the day wore on, and the receiving sounder remained silent. Supper was eaten as the sun dropped low and disappeared, but they felt no desire to sleep. Instead, they went out in front of the steel wall, where Stevens built a small campfire. Leaning back against the wall of their vessel, they fell into companionable silence, which was suddenly broken by Stevens. Nadia, I just had a thought. I'll bet four dollars I've wasted a lot of time. They'll certainly have automatic relays on Telus to save me the trouble of hunting for them, but like an idiot I never thought of it until just this minute, in spite of the speech I made you about them. I'm going to change those directions right now. That's quite a job, isn't it? No, only a few minutes. Do it in the morning. You've done enough for one day. Maybe you've hit them already, anyway. They again became silent, watching Jupiter, an enormous moon some seven degrees in apparent diameter. Steve, I simply can't get used to such a prodigious moon. Look at the stripes, and look at that perfectly incredible... A gong sounded, and they both jumped to their feet and raced madly into the hope. The ultra-receiver had come to life, and the sounder was chattering insanely, some one was sending with terrific speed, but with perfect definition and spacing. That's Brandon's fist, I'd know his style anywhere, Stevens shouted, as he seized notebook and pencil. Tell me what it says, quick, Steve," Nadia implored. "'Can't talk, read it," Steven snapped. His hand was flying over the paper, racing to keep up with the screaming sounder. "'Emede all ex, Stevens Ganymede all ex, Stevens Ganymede all ex. Placing and will keep Sirius on plane between you and Telus, circle 1540 north, going Telus, first send full data spreading beam to cover circle 1540. Quince suggests possibility this message intercepted and translated. Personally I think such translation impossible, and that he is wilder than a hawk, but just in case they should be supernaturally intelligent.'" John stopped abruptly and stared at the vociferous sounder. "'Don't stop to listen, keep on writing,' commanded Nadia. "'Can't,' replied the puzzled mathematician. It doesn't make sense. It sounds intelligent, it's made up of real symbols of some kind or other, but they don't mean a thing to me." "'Oh, I see. He's sending mush on purpose. Read the last phrase.'" "'Oh, sure, mush is right.' And with no perceptible break the signals again became intelligible. If they can translate that they are better scholars than we are, signing off until hear from you, Brandon." The sounder died abruptly into silence and Nadia sobbed convulsively as she threw herself into Stevens' arms. The long strain over, the terrible uncertainty at last dispelled, they were both incoherent for a minute. Nadia glorifying the exploits of her lover, Stevens crediting the girl herself and his two fellow scientists with whatever success had been achieved. A measure of self-control regained, Stevens cut off his automatic sender, changed the adjustments of his directors and cut in his manually operated sending key. "'What waves are you using, anyway?' asked Nadia curiously. They must be even more penetrating than Rosar's rays, to have such a range, and Rosar's rays go right through a planet without even slowing up. They're of the same order as Rosar's, that is, they're sub-electronic waves of the fourth order, but they're very much shorter, and hence more penetrating. In fact, they're the shortest waves yet known, so short that Rosar never even suspected their existence." "'Suppose there's a Jovian spaceship out there somewhere that intercepts our beams. Couldn't they locate us from it?' "'Maybe, and maybe not. We'll just have to take a chance on that. That goes right back to what we were talking about this morning. They might be anywhere, so the chance of hitting one is very small. It isn't like hitting the Sirius, because we knew within pretty narrow limits where to look for her, and even at that we had to hunt for her half a day before we hit her. We're probably safe, but even if they should have located us, we'll probably be able to hide somewhere until the Sirius gets here. Well, the quicker I get busy sending the dope, the sooner they can get started. Tell them to be sure and bring me all my clothes they can find, and a gallon of perfume, a barrel of powder, and a carload of Del Ray's fantasy chocolates. I've been a savage so long that I want to wallow in luxury for a while. I'll do that, and I want some real cigarettes." Stephen's first sent a terse but complete account of everything that had happened to the Arcturus, and a brief summary of what he and Nadia had done since the cutting up of the IPV. The narrative finished, he launched into a prolonged and detailed scientific discussion of the enemy and their offensive and defensive weapons. He dwelt precisely and at length upon the functioning of everything he had seen. Though during the long months of their isolation he had been too busy to do any actual work upon the weapons of the supposed Jovians, yet his keen mind had evolved many mathematical and physical deductions, hypotheses and theories, and these he sent out to the Sirius, concluding, "'There's all the dope I can give you. Figure it out, and don't come at all until you can come loaded for bear. They're bad medicine. Call us occasionally to keep us informed as to when to expect you, but don't call too often. We don't want them locating you, and if they should locate us through your ray or ours it would be just too bad.'" So long! Stephen's and Newton. Nadia had insisted upon staying up and had been brewing pot after pot of her substitutes for coffee while he sat at the key, and it was almost daylight when he finally shut off the power and arose, his right arm practically paralyzed from the unaccustomed strain of hours of telegraphing. "'Well, sweetheart, that's that," he exclaimed in relief. "'Brandon and Westfall are on the job. Nothing to do now, but wait, and study up on our own account on those Jovians' rays. This has been one long day for us, though, little Ace, and I suggest that we sleep for about a week.'" 8. Callisto to the Rescue. All humanity of Callisto, the fourth major satellite of Jupiter, had for many years been waging a desperate and apparently hopeless defense against the invading horrors of six limbed beings. Every city and town had long since been reduced to level fields of lava by the rays of the invaders. Every building and every trace of human civilization had long since disappeared from the surface of the satellite. Far below the surface lay the city of Zbarct, the largest of the few remaining strongholds of the human race. At one portal of the city a torpedo-shaped, stubby-winged rocket plane rested in the carriage of a catapult. Near it the captain addressed briefly the six men normally composing his crew. "'Men, you already know that our crew's today is not an ordinary patrol. We are to go to one, there to destroy a base of the Hexons. We have perhaps one chance in ten thousand of returning. Therefore I am taking only one man, barely enough to operate the plane. Volunteers, step one pace forward." The six stepped forward as one man, and a smile came over the worn face of their leader as he watched them draw lots for the privilege of accompanying him to the probable death. The two men entered the body of the torpedo, sealed the openings, and waited. Free exits snapped the captain of the portal, and twelve keen-eyed observers studied minutely screens and instrument panels connected to the powerful automatic lookout stations beneath the rims of the widely separated volcanic craters from which their craft could issue into Callisto somber night. "'No, Hexon radiation can be detected from exit eight,' came the report. The captain of the portal raised an arm in warning, threw in the guides, and the two passengers were hurled violently backward, deep into their cushioned seats as the catapult shot their plane down the runway. As the catapult's force was spent, automatic trips upon the undercarriage actuated the propelling rockets, and mile after mile, with rapidly mounting velocity, the plane sped through the tube. As the exit was approached, the tunnel described a long vertical curve, so that when the opening into the shaft of the crater was reached and the undercarriage was automatically detached, the vessel was projected almost vertically upward. Such was its velocity, and so powerful was the liquid propellant of its rocket-motors that the eye could not follow the flight of the warship as it tore through the thin layer of the atmosphere and hurled itself out into the depths of space. "'Did we get away?' asked the captain, hands upon his controls and eyes upon his moving chart of space. "'I do believe so, sir,' answered the other officer, at the screens of the six periscopic devices which covered the full sphere of his vision. "'No reports from the rim, and all screens blank.' Once more a vessel had issued from the jealously secret city of Zabarkt without betraying its existence to the hated and feared Hexans. For a time the terrific rocket-motors continued the deafening roar of their continuous explosions. Then, the desired velocity having been attained, they were cut out, and for hours the good ship Bazaarck hurled on through the void at an enormous but constant speed toward the distant world of one, which it was destined never to reach. "'Captain Kuzov, Hexan radiation coordinates twenty-two, fourteen, area six,' cried the observer, and the commander swung his own telescopic finder into the indicated region. His hands played over course and distance plotters for a brief minute, and he stared at his results in astonishment. "'I never heard of a Hexan traveling that way before,' he frowned, constant negative acceleration and in a straight line. He must think that we have been cleared out of the ether, almost parallel to us and not much faster, even at this long range. It is an easy kill unless he starts dodging as usual.' As he spoke he snapped a switch and from a port under the starboard wing there shot out into space a small package of concentrated destruction, a rocket-propelled, radio-controlled torpedo. The rockets of the tiny missile were flaming, but that flame was visible only from the rear, and no radio beam was upon it. Love had given it precisely the direction and acceleration necessary to make it meet the Hexan sphere in central impact, provided that sphere maintained its course and acceleration unchanged. "'Shall I direct the torpedo in case the Hexan shifts?' asked the officer. "'I think not. They can, of course, detect any wave at almost any distance. At the first sign of radioactivity they would locate and destroy the bomb. They also, in all probability, would destroy us. I would not hesitate to attack them on that account alone, but we must remember that we are upon a more important mission than attacking one Hexan ship. We are far out of range of their electromagnetic detectors, and our torpedo will have such a velocity that they will have no time to protect themselves against it after detection. Unless they shift in the next few seconds they are lost. This is the most perfect shot I ever had at one of them, but one shot is all I dare risk. We must not betray ourselves." Course, look out, and rank forgotten, the little crew of two stared into the narrow field of vision, said at its maximum magnification. The instrument showed that the enemy vessel was staying upon its original course. Very soon the torpedo came within range of the detectors of the Hexans. But as Captain Kuzov had foretold, the detection was a fraction of a second too late, rapidly as their screens responded, and the two men of Zabartk uttered together a short, fierce cry of joy as a brilliant flash of light announced the annihilation of the Hexan vessel. "'But hold!' the observer stared into his screen. Upon that same line, but now at constant velocity, there is still a very faint radiation of a pattern I have never seen before. I think, I believe,' the Captain was studying the pattern, puzzled. It must be low frequency, low tension electricity, which is never used so far as I know. It may be some new engine of destruction, which the Hexan was towing at such a distance that the explosion of our torpedo did not destroy it. Since there are no signs of Hexan activity, and since it will not take much fuel, we shall investigate that radiation. Tail and port side rockets burst into roaring activity, and soon the plane was cautiously approaching the mass of wreckage, which had been the IPV Arcturus. "'Human beings, although of some foreign species,' exclaimed the Captain, as his vision ray swept through the undamaged upper portion of the great liner, and came to rest upon Captain King at his desk. Although the upper ultralights of the terrestrial vessel had been cut away by the Hexan plane of force, jury lights had been rigged, and the two commanders were soon trying to communicate with each other. Intelligible conversation was, of course, impossible, but King soon realized that the visitors were not enemies. At their pantomime suggestion he put on a space suit and wafted himself over to the airlock of the Calistonian Warplane. Inside the central compartment the strangers placed over his helmet a heavily wired harness, and he found himself instantly in full mental communication with the Calistonian commander. For several minutes they stood silent, exchanging thoughts with a rapidity impossible in any language. Then dressed in spacesuits both leaped lightly across the narrow gap into the still-open outer lock of the terrestrial liner. King watched Khazov narrowly after the pressure began to collapse his suit, but the stranger made no sign of distress. He had been right in his assurance that the extra pressure would scarcely inconvenience him. King tore off his helmet, issued a brief order, and soon every speaker in the arcturus announced. All passengers and all members of the crew, except lookouts on duty, all assemble immediately in saloon three to discuss a possible immediate rescue. The subject being one of paramount interest it was a matter of minutes until the full complement of two hundred men and women were in the main saloon, clinging to hastily rigged hand lines, closely packed before the raised platform upon which were King and Khazov, wired together with the peculiar Calistonian harness. To most of the passengers, familiar with the humanity of three planets, the appearance of the stranger brought no surprise, but many of them stared in undisguised amazement at his childish body, his pale, almost colorless skin, his small weak legs and arms, and his massive head. Ladies and gentlemen, Captain King opened the meeting. I introduce to you Captain Khazov, of the scout cruiser Bazarfk, of the only human race now living upon the fourth large satellite of Jupiter, which satellite we know as Callisto. I am avoiding their own names as much as possible, because they are almost unpronounceable in English or interplanetarian. This device that you see connecting us is a Calistonian thought transformer, by means of which any two intelligent beings can converse without language. Our situation is peculiar, and in order that you may understand fully what lies ahead of us, the Captain will now speak to you, through me. That is, what follows will be spoken by Captain Khazov of the Bazarfk, but he will be using my vocal organs. Friends from distant Telus. King's voice went on, almost without a break. I greet you. I am glad, for your sake, as well as our own, that your vessel was able to destroy the Hexen ship holding you captive, and whose crew would have killed you all as soon as they had landed your vessel and had read your minds. I regret bitterly that we can do so little for you, for only the representatives of a human civilization being exterminated by a race of highly intelligent monsters can fully realize how desirable it is for all the various races of humanity to assist and support each other. In order that you may understand the situation, it is necessary that I delve at some length into ancient history, but we have ample time. In about, he broke off, realizing that the two races had no thought in common in the measure of time. One half time of rotation of great planet upon axis, flashed from Khazov's brain, about five hours, King's mind flashed back. It will be about five hours before any steps can be taken, so that I feel justified in using a brief period for explanation. In the evolution of the various forms of life upon Callisto, two genera developed intelligence far ahead of all others. One genus was the human, as you and I. The other, the Hexen. This creature, happily unknown to you of the planets near our common sun, is the product of an entirely different evolution. It is a six-limbed animal, with a brain equal to our own, one perhaps in some ways superior to our own. They have nothing in common with humanity, however. They have few of our traits and fewer of our mental processes. Even we, who have fought them so long, can scarcely comprehend the chambers of horror that are their minds. Even were I able to paint a sufficiently vivid picture with words, you of earth could not begin to understand their utter ruthlessness and inhumanity, even among themselves. You would believe that I was lying, or that my viewpoint was warped. I can say only that I hope most sincerely that none of you will ever get better acquainted with them. Ages ago then the human and the Hexen developed upon all four of the major satellites of the great planet, which you know as Jupiter, and upon the north polar region of Jupiter itself. But what means the two races came into being upon worlds so widely separated in space we know not. We only know it to be a fact. Human life, however, could not long endure upon Jupiter. The various human races, after many attempts to meet conditions of life there by variations in type, fell before the Hexens, who, although very small in size upon the planet, thrived there amazingly. Upon the three outer satellites, humanity triumphed, and many hundreds of cycles ago the Hexens of those satellites were wiped out, say for an occasional tribe of savages of low intelligence, who lived in various undesirable portions upon the three worlds. For ages then there was peace upon Callisto. Here is the picture at that time. Upon Jupiter the Hexens. Upon Io, Hexens and humans, waging a ceaseless and relentless war of mutual extermination. Upon the three outer satellites, humanity in undisturbed and unthreatened peace. Five worlds, each ignorant of life upon any other. As I have said, the Hexens of Jupiter were, and are, diabolically intelligent. Driven probably by their desire to see what lay beyond their atmosphere of eternal cloud, to the penetration of which their eyesight was attuned, they developed the spaceship, and affected a safe landing first upon the barren, airless moonlet nearest them, and then upon fruitful Io. There they made common cause with the Hexens against the humans, and in space of time Ionian humanity ceased to exist. Much traffic and interbreeding followed between the Hexens of Jupiter and those of Io, resulting in time in a race intermediate in size between the parent stocks and equally at home in the widely variant air pressures and gravities of planet and satellite. Soon their astronomical instruments revealed the cities of Europa to their gaze, and as soon as they discovered that the civilisation of Europa was human they destroyed it utterly, with the insatiable bloodlust that is their heritage. In the meantime the human civilisations of Ganymede and Callisto had also developed instruments of power. Observing the cities upon the other satellites, many scientists studied intensively the problem of space navigation, and finally there was some commerce between the two outer satellites at favourable times. Yesterday vessels were also sent to Io and to Europa, but none of them returned. Knowing then what to expect Ganymede and Callisto joined forces and prepared for war. But our science, so long attuned to the arts of peace, had fallen behind lamentably in the devising of more and ever more deadly instruments of destruction. Ganymede fell, and in her fall we read our own doom. During our cities we built a new underground. Profiting from lessons learned full bloodily upon Ganymede we resolved to prolong the existence of the human race as long as possible. The Hexons were, and are, masters of the physical science. They command the spectrum in a way undreamed of. Their detectors reveal etheric disturbances at unbelievable distances, and they have at their beck and call forces of staggering magnitude. Therefore in our cities is no electricity save that which is wired, shielded, and grounded. No broadcast radio, no source whatever of etheric disturbances save light, and our walls are fields of force which we believe to be impenetrable to any searching frequency capable of being generated. Now I am able to picture to you the present. We are the last representatives of the human race in the Jovian planetary system. Our every trace upon the surface has been obliterated. We are hiding in our holes in the ground, coming out at night by stealth so that our burrow shall not be revealed to the Hexons. We are fighting for time in which our scientists may learn the secrets of power, and fearing each new day that the enemy may have so perfected their systems of rays that they will be able to detect us and destroy us, even in our underground and heavily shielded retreats, by means of forces even more incomprehensible than those they are now employing. Therefore friends, you see how little we are able to do for you. We, a race fighting for our very existence, and doom to extinction say for a miracle. We cannot take you to Callisto, for it is besieged by the Hexons, and the driving forces of your lifeboats, practically broadcast as they are, would be detected and we should all be destroyed long before we could reach safety. Captain King and I have pondered long, and have been able to see only one course of action. We are drifting at constant velocity, using no power, and with all save the most vitally necessary machinery at rest. Thus only may we hope to avoid detection during the next two hours. Our present course will take us very close to Europa, which the Hexons believe to be like Ganymede, entirely devoid of civilized life. Its original humanity was totally destroyed, and all its civilized Hexons are finding shelter from our torpedoes upon Jupiter, until we of Callisto shall likewise have been annihilated. The temperature of Europa will suit you. Its atmosphere, while less dense than that to which you are accustomed, will adequately support your life. If we are not detected in the course of the next few hours, we can probably land upon Europa in safety, since its neighbourhood is guarded but loosely. In fact, we have a city there, as yet unsuspected by the Hexons, in which our scientists will continue to labour after Callisto's civilization shall have disappeared. We think that it will be safe to use your power for the short time necessary to affect a landing. We shall land in a cavern, in a crater already in communication with our city. In that cavern, instructed and aided by some of us, you will build a rocket vessel. No rays can be used because of the Hexons, in which you will be able to travel to a region close enough to your earth so that you can call for help. You will not be able to carry enough fuel to land there. In fact, nearly all the journey will have to be made without power, travelling freely in a highly elongated orbit around the sun. But if you escape the Hexons, you should be able to reach home safely, in time. It is for the consideration of this plan that this meeting has been called. Just one question, Breckenridge spoke. The Hexons are intelligent. Why are they leaving Europa and Ganymede so unguarded that human beings can move back there and that we can land there all undetected? I will answer that question myself, replied King. Captain Kuzov did not quite do justice to his own people. It is true that they are being conquered, but for every human life that is taken a thousand Hexons die, and for every human ship that is lost twenty Hexon vessels are annihilated in return. While the Hexons are masters of rays, the humans are equally masters of explosives and of mechanisms. They can hit a perfect score upon any target in free space, whose course and acceleration can be determined, at any range up to five thousand kilometers, and they have explosives thousands of times as powerful as any known to us. Ray screens are effective only against rays, and the Hexons cannot destroy anything they cannot see before it strikes them. So it is that all the Hexon vessels, except those necessary to protect their own strongholds, are being concentrated against Callisto. They cannot spare vessels to guard uselessly the abandoned satellites. Because of the enormously high gravity of Jupiter, the Hexons there are safe from human attack, safe for ineffectual long-range bombardment. But Io is being attacked constantly, and it is probable that in a few more years Io also will be an abandoned world. Some of you may have received the impressions that the Hexons are to triumph immediately, but such an idea is wrong. The humans can and will hold out for a hundred years or more, unless the enemy perfects a destructive ray of the type referred to. Even then, I think that our human cousins will hold out a long time. They are able men, fighters all, and their underground cities are beautifully protected. There was little argument. Most of the auditors could understand that the suggested course was the best one possible. The remainder were so stunned by the unbelievable events of the attack that they had no initiative, but were willing to follow wherever the more valiant spirits led. It was decided that no attempt should be made to salvage any portion of the Arcturus, since any such attempt would be fraught with danger and since the wreckage would be of little value. The new vessel was to be rocket-driven and was to be built of calisthenics and alloys. Personal belongings were moved into lifeboats, doors were closed, and there ensued a painful period of waiting and suspense. The stated hour was reached without event. No Hexons scout had come close enough to them to detect the low tension radiation of the vital machinery of the Arcturus, cut as it was to the irreducible minimum and quite effectively grounded as it was by the enormous mass of their shielding armor. At a signal from Captain Kuzov, the pilot of each lifeboat shot his tiny craft out into space and took his allotted place in the formation following closely behind the Bazarfk, flying toward Europa, now so large in the field of vision that she resembled more a world than a moon. Captain King, in the Calisthenian vessel, transmitted to Breckenridge the route and flight data given him by the navigator of the winged craft. The chief pilot, flying point in turn, relayed more detailed instructions to the less experienced pilots of the other lifeboats. Soon, the surface of Europa lay beneath them, a rugged, cratered and torn topography of mighty ranges of volcanic mountains. Most of the craters were cold and lifeless. But here and there a plume of smoke and steam betrayed the presence of vast, quiescent forces. Straight down one of those gigantic lifeless shafts the fleet of spacecraft dropped, straight down a full two miles before the landing signal was given. At the bottom of the shaft a section of the rocky wall swung aside, revealing the yawning black mouth of a horizontal tunnel. At intervals upon its roof were winked into being almost invisible points of light. Along that line of lights the lifeboats felt their way, coming finally into a huge cavern, against one sheer metal wall of which they parked in an orderly row. Roll was called, and the terrestrials walked, as well as they could in the feeble gravity of the satellite, across the vast chamber and into a conveyance somewhat resembling a railway coach, which darted away as soon as the doors were shut. For hundreds of miles that strange tunnel extended, and as the car shot along, door after door of natural rock opened before it, and closed as soon as it had sped through. In spite of the high velocity of the vehicle it required almost two hours to complete the journey. Finally however it slowed to a halt, and the terrestrial visitors disembarked at a portal of the European city of the Calistonians. Attention, barked Captain King. The name of this city, as nearly as I can come to it in English, is Rusk. Rusk comes fairly close to it, and is easier to pronounce. We must finish our trip in small cars, holding ten persons each. We shall assemble again in the building in which we have been assigned quarters. The driver of each car will lead his passengers to the council room in which we shall meet. Oh, what's the use? This is horrible. Horrible! We might as well die!" A nervous woman shrieked and fainted. Such a feeling is perhaps natural, King went on, after the woman had been revived and quiet had been restored. But please control it as much as possible. We are alive and well, and will be able to return to tell us eventually. Please remember that these people are putting themselves to much trouble and inconvenience to help us, desperate as their own situation is, and conduct yourselves accordingly. The rebuke had its effect, and with no further protest the company bordered the small cars which shot through an opening in the wall and into a street of that strange subterranean city. Breckenridge, in the last car to leave the portal, studied his surroundings with interest as his conveyance darted through the gateway. More or less a fatalist by nature, and an adventurer, of course, since no other type existed among the older spacehounds of the IPC, he was intensely interested in every new phase of their experience, and was no wit dismayed or frightened. He found himself seated in a narrow canoe of metal, immediately behind the pilot who sat at a small control panel in the bow, propelled by electromagnetic fields above a single rail upon lightly touching and noiseless wheels. The terrestrial pilot saw with keen appreciation the manner in which switch after switch ahead of them obeyed the impulse of sent ahead from the speeding car. The streets were narrow and filled with monorails. Pedestrians pursued their courses upon walks attached to the walls of the buildings, far above the level of the streets. The walls were themselves peculiar, rising as they did, stark, broken, windowless expanses of metal, merging into and supporting a massive roof of the same silvery metal. Walls and roof alike reflected a soft, yet intense, white light. Soon, a sliding switch ahead of them shot in, and simultaneously, an opening appeared in the blank metal wall of a building. Through the opening the street car flew, and as the pilot slowed the canoe to a halt, the door slid smoothly shut behind them. Parking the car beside a row of its fellows, the Calestonian driver indicated that the terrestrials were to follow him and let the way into a large hall. There, the others from the Arcturus were assembled, facing Captain King, who was standing upon a table. Fellow travelers, King addressed them. Our course of action has been decided. There are two hundred three of us. There will be twenty sections of ten persons, each section being in charge of one of the officers of the Arcturus. Dr. Penfield, our surgeon, a man whose intelligence, fairness, and integrity are unquestioned, will be in supreme command. His power and authority will be absolute, limited only by the Calestonian Council. He will work in harmony with the engineer, who is to direct the entire project of building the new vessel. Each of you will be expected to do whatever he can. The work you will be asked to do will be well within your powers, and you will each have ample leisure for recreation, study, and amusement, of all of which you will find unsuspected stores in this underground community. You will each be registered and studied by physicians, surgeons, and psychologists, and each of you will have prescribed for him the exact diet that is necessary for his best development. You will find this diet somewhat monotonous, compared to our normal fare of natural products, since it is wholly synthetic. But that is one of the minor drawbacks that must be endured. Chief pilot Breckenridge and I will not be with you. In some small and partial recompense for what they are doing for us all, he and I are going with Captain Kazov to Callisto, there to see whether or not we can aid them in any way in the fight against the Hexons. One last word. Dr. Penfield's rulings will be the products of his own well-ordered mind, after consultation and agreement with the Council of this city, and will be for the best good of all. I do not anticipate any refusal to cooperate with him. If however such refusal should occur, please remember that he is a despot with absolute power, and that anyone obstructing the program by refusing to follow his suggestions will spend the rest of his time here in confinement, and will go back to Tellis in Irons, if at all. In case Chief Pilot Breckenridge and I should not see you again, we bid you good-bye and wish you a safe voyage. But we expect to go back with you. Brief farewells were said, and Captain and Pilot accompanied Kuzov to one of the little street-cars. Out of the building it dashed and down the crowded but noiseless thoroughfare to the portal. Signal lights flashed briefly there, and they did not stop, but tore on through the portal and the tunnel with increasing speed. Don't have to transfer to a big car, then? asked Breckenridge. No, King made answer. Small cars can travel these tubes as well as the large ones, but on much less power. In the city the wheels touch the rails lightly, not for support, but to make contacts through which traffic signals are sent and received. In the tunnels the wheels do not touch at all, as signaling is unnecessary. The tunnel is being used infrequently and by but one vehicle at a time. No trolleys, tracks or wires are visible, you notice. Everything is hidden from any possible visoray of the Hexons. All about their power. I don't understand it very well, hardly at all, in fact. It is quite simple, to the surprise of both terrestrials, Kuzov was speaking English, but with a strong and very peculiar accent, sliding all the vowels and accenting heavily the consonant sounds. The car no longer requires my attention, so I am now free to converse. You are surprised at my knowing your language. You will speak mine after a few more applications of the Thought Exchanger. I am speaking with a vile accent, of course, and that is merely because my vocal organs are not accustomed to making vowel sounds. Our power is obtained by the combustion of gases in highly efficient turbines. It is transmitted and used as a direct current. Our generator and motors being so constructed that they can produce no etheric disturbances capable of penetrating the shielding walls of our city. The city was built close to deposits of coal, oil, and gas of sufficient amount to support our life for thousands of years. For from these deposits come power, food, clothing, and all the other necessities and luxuries of our lives. Young fans draw air from various extinct craters, force it through ventilating ducts into every room and recess of the city, and exhaust it into the shaft of a quiescent volcano, in whose gaseous outflow any trace of our activities is, of course, imperceptible. For obvious reasons no rockets or combustion motors are used in the city proper. Thus Captain Kazov explained to the terrestrials his own mode of life, and received from them, in turn, full information concerning earthly life, activity, and science. Long they talked, and it was almost time to slow down for the journey's end when the Calestonian brought the conversation back to their immediate concerns. My lieutenant and I were on a mission of some importance, but it is more important to take you to Calisto, for there may be many things in which you can help us. Not in rays, we know all the vibrations you have mentioned and several others. The enemy, however, is supreme in that field, and until our scientists have succeeded in developing ray screens, such as are used by the Hexons, it would be suicidal to use rays at all. Such screens necessitate the projection of pure yet dirigible forces. You do not have them upon your planet? No, and so far as I know such screens are also unknown upon Mars and Venus, with whose inhabitants we are friendly. The inhabitants of all the planets should be friendly. The solar system should be linked together in intercourse for common advancement. But that is not to be. The Hexons will eventually triumph here, and a Jovian system peopled by Hexons will have no intercourse with any human civilization save that of internecine war. We of Calisto have only one hope, or is it really a hope? In the South Polar Country of Jupiter there dwells a race of beings implacably hostile to the Hexons. They seem to invade the country of the Hexons frequently, even though they are apparently repulsed each time. Our emissaries to the South Polar Country, however, have never returned. Those beings, whatever they are, if not actively inimical, certainly are not friendly toward us. You know nothing of their nature? Nothing, since our electrical instruments are not sufficiently sensitive to give us more than a general idea of what is transpiring there, and vision is practically useless in that eternal fog. We know, however, that they are far advanced in science, and we are thankful indeed that none of their frightful flying fortresses have been launched against us. They apparently are not interested in the satellites, and it is no doubt due to their unintentional assistance that we have survived as long as we have. In the Cavern at last the three men boarded the Calistonian space plane and were shot up the crater's shaft. The voyage to Calisto was uneventful, even uninteresting, save at its termination. The Bazarf, coated every inch as it was with a dull, dead black, completely absorptive outer coating, entered the thin layer of Calisto's atmosphere in darkest night, with all rockets dead, with not a light showing, and with no apparatus of any kind functioning. Only invisible and undetectable she dove downward, and not until she was well below the crater's rim did the forward rockets burst into furious life. Then the terrestrials understood another reason for the immense depth of those shafts other than that of protection from the detectors of the enemy. All that distance was necessary to overcome the velocity of their freefall, without employing a negative acceleration greater than the frail Calistonian bodies could endure. From the Cavern at the foot of the shaft a regulation tunnel extended to the Calistonian city of Zabart. Portal and city were very like Rusk upon distant Europa, and soon the terrestrial captain and pilot were in conference with the Council of Calisto. Months of earthly time dragged slowly past. Months during which King and Breckenridge studied intensively the offensive and defensive systems of Calisto, without finding any particular in which they could improve them to any considerable degree. Captain Kuzov and his war plane still survived, and it was while the Calistonian commander was visiting his terrestrial guests that King voiced the discontent that had long affected both men. We're both tired of doing nothing, Kuzov. We have been of little real benefit, and we have decided that your ideas of us are all wrong. We are convinced that our personal horsepower can be a vastly more used to you than our brain power, which doesn't amount to much. Your whole present policy is one of hiding and sniping. I think that I know why, but I want to be sure. Your vessels carried lots of fuel. Why can the Hexons outrun you? Thus did King put his problem. They can stand enormously higher accelerations than we can. The very strongest of us loses consciousness at an acceleration of twenty-five meters per second per second, no matter how he is braced, and that is only a little greater than the normal gravity of our enemies upon Jupiter. Their vessels at highest power develop an acceleration of thirty-five meters, and the Hexons themselves can stand much more than even that high figure, replied Kuzov. I thought so. Assume that you traveled at forty-five. Would it disable you permanently, or would you recover as soon as it was lowered? We would recover promptly, unless the exposure had been unduly prolonged. Why? Because, said King, I can stand an acceleration of fifty-four meters for two hours, and Breckenridge here tests fifty-two meters. I can navigate anything, and Breckenridge can observe as well as any of your own men. Build a plane to accelerate at forty-five meters, and we will blow those Hexons out of the aether. You will have to revive and do the shooting, however. Your gunnery is entirely beyond us. That is an idea of promise, and one that had not occurred to any of us, Kuzov replied, and work was begun at once upon the new flyer. When the Superplane was ready for its maiden voyage, its crew of three studied it as it lay in the catapult at the portal. Dead black as were all the war planes, its body was twice as large as that of the ordinary vessel. Its wings were even more stubby, and its accommodations had been cut to a minimum to make room for the enormous stores of fuel necessary to drive the greatly increased battery of rocket motors, and for the extra supply of torpedoes carried. Waving to the group of soldiers and citizens gathered to witness the take-off of the new dreadnought of space, the three men entered the cramped operating compartment, strapped themselves into their seats, and were shot away. As usual the driving rockets were cut off well below the rim of the shaft, and the vessel rose in a long and graceful curve, invisible in the night. Such was its initial velocity, and so slight was the force of gravity upon the satellite that they were many hundreds of miles from the exit before they began to descend, and Breckenridge studied his screens narrowly for signs of hexanactivity. "'Do you want to try one of your long-range shots when we find one of them?' the pilot asked Kuzov. "'No, it would be useless. When deflection by air currents and the dodging of the enemy vessels, our effective range is shortened to a few kilometers, and their beams are deadly at that distance. No, our best course is to follow the original plan, to lure them out into space at uniform acceleration, where we can destroy them easily.' "'Right!' and Breckenridge turned to King, who was frowning at his controls. "'How does she work on a dead stick, Chief?' "'Manoeuvrability about minus ten at this speed and in this air. She'd have to have at least fifteen hundred kilometers an hour to be responsive out here. See anything yet?' "'Not yet. Wait a minute. Yes. There's one now. P-12 on area five. Give us all the X-10 and W-27 you can, without using power. She went to edge over close enough, so that she can't help but see us when we start the rockets.' "'Be sure and stay well out of range. I'm giving her all she can take, but she won't take much. With these wings she has the gliding angle of a kitchen sink. All X, I'm watching the range close. Wish we had instruments like these on the IPVs. We'll have to install some when we get back. All X, give her the gun, level and dead ahead!' Half of the battery of rockets burst into their stuttering explosive roar of power, and the vessel darted away in headlong flight. He sees us, and is after us, turn her straight up. A searing, coruscating finger of flame leaped toward them, but their calculations had been sound. The Hexen was harmless at that extreme range. Hexen, under the pilot's direction, kept the plane at a safe distance from the sphere, while the satellite grew smaller and smaller behind them, and Kazov lapsed quietly into unconsciousness. "'He's been out for quite a while. Far enough?' asked King. "'All X now, I guess. Don't believe they can see the flash from here. Cut!' The rockets died abruptly, and a blast from the side-ports threw the plane out of the beam, and once out of it, beyond range of the electromagnetic detectors as they were, their coating of absolute black rendered the craft safe from observation. One dirigible rocket remained in action, its exhaust hidden from the enemy by the body of the vessel, and Captain Kazov soon recovered his senses. "'Wonderful, gentlemen!' he exclaimed, as he manipulated the delicate controls of his gunnery panel. This is the first time in history that a Calestonian vessel has escaped from a Hexen by speed alone. An instantaneously extinguished flare of incandescence marked the passing of the Hexen's sphere into nothingness, and the cruiser shot back toward Callisto in search of more prey. It was all too plentiful, and twenty times the drama was re-enacted before approaching day made it necessary for Kazov to take the controls and dive the vessel into the westernmost landing-shaft of Zabarkt. A rousing and enthusiastic welcome awaited them, and joy spread rapidly when their success became known. "'Now we know what to do, and we had better do it immediately before they get our system figured out and increase their own power,' King reported to the Council. You might send a couple of ships to Europa and bring back as many of the Tullurian officers as want to come and can be spared from the work there. They all test above forty-five meters, and they can learn this stuff in short order. While they're coming, your engineers can be building more ships like this one. The new vessel did not make another voyage until nine sister ships were ready and manned, each with two terrestrial officers and one calestonian gunner. All ten took to the aether at once, and the Hexen fleet melted away like frost crystals before a summer sun. A few weeks of carnage and destruction and not a Hexen was within range of the detectors of Callisto. They were gone. This is the first time in years that Callisto's air has been free of the Hexens, Kazov said thoughtfully. With your help we have reduced their strength to a fraction of what it was, but they have not given up. They will return, with a higher acceleration than even you terrestrials powerful as you are, can stand. Certainly they will, but you will be no worse off than you were before. You can return to your own highly effective tactics. We are infinitely better off for your help. You have given us a new lease on life. He broke off as a flaring light sprang into being upon the portal board, and the observer of Exit One made his report. There was a Hexen vessel in the air, location 425 over VJ 42. There's one left. Let us get him. No, he's ours! Confused shouts arose from the bullpen. But the original superplane was at the top of the callboard, and accordingly King, Breckenridge, and Kazov embarked upon an expedition more hazard as far than they had supposed, an expedition whose every feature was relayed to those in the portal by the automatic lookouts upon the rims, and which was ended before a single supporting calisthenian plane could be launched. From the enemy vessel was not the last of the low-powered Hexen vessels, as everyone had supposed, it was the first of the high-powered craft, arriving long before its appearance was expected. Before its terrific acceleration and savage onslaught, the superplane might as well have been stationary and unarmed. After his long dive downward, King could not even leave the atmosphere. The Hexen was upon them within a few seconds, even though the stupendous battery of rockets, full-driven, had roared almost instantly into desperate action. Bomb after bomb Breckenridge hurled, with full radio-control, fighting with every resource at his command, but in vain. The frightful torpedoes were annihilated in mid-flight, and nose, tail-assembly, and wings were sheared neatly from the warplane by a sizzling plane of force. Side rockets and torpedo tubes were likewise sliced away, and the helpless body of the Calestonian cruiser, falling like a plummet, was caught and held by a tractor-ray. Captor and captive settled toward the ground. "'This is a signal honor,' observed Captain Kuzov when he had revived. "'It has been many, many cycles since they have taken Calestonian's captive. They kill us at every opportunity. Is it your custom to destroy yourselves in a situation such as this? It is not. While we live, there is hope. Not ours. Unless they have made enormous strides in psychological mechanisms, they cannot tear from our minds any secrets we really wish to keep. That is useless,' he went on, as King lifted a hand-weapon. "'You will have no opportunity, whatever, to use it.'" And he was right. A searing beam of energy drove them out of the vessel. Then electromagnetic waves burned every metallic object out of their possession. Burning rays herded them into the Hexen Sphere and into a small room, whose door clang shut behind them. "'Ah, two are humans of a strange breed!' A snarling voice barked from the wall in the Calestonian language. "'Our deductions were accurate, as usual. It is to the humans of Planet Three, whose bodies are a trifle less puny than those of the humanity of the satellites that we owe our recent reverses. However, those reverses were merely temporary. Humanity, no matter what its breed, shall very shortly disappear from the satellites. "'Now, you scum of the solar system, you shall be permitted to witness an entrancing spectacle on the way to our headquarters, where all your knowledge is to be taken from you before you die, lingeringly and horribly. "'There is a strange space vessel nearing us, probably searching for the one we took, and which you dogs of Calisto must have been fortunate enough to take from us before we could study and kill its human cargo. Watch its destruction and cringe, and know, in your suffering, that the more you suffer, the greater shall be our enjoyment.'" "'I believe that,' King acknowledged, as all three prisoners stared at the wall-screen, upon which was pictured a huge football of scarred grey steel, Kuzov was amazed to see the faces of Breckenridge and King light up with fierce smiles of pleasure and anticipation. "'You dissembled well,' remarked the Calistonian. "'That will rob them of much pleasure.'" "'They'll get robbed of more than that,' King returned. "'This is too good to keep, and since they cannot understand English, I'll tell you something. "'I told you about Stevens. He apparently wasn't killed, as we thought. He must have escaped. And there is the result. That ship there is far from innocent. Her being so far out of range of any of our power plants proves that. That vessel is the Sirius, the research laboratory of the IPC, the Interplanetary Corporation. It carries the greatest scientific minds of three of the Interplanets, and it is loaded with pure poison, or it wouldn't be here. Oh, you Hexans, what you have got coming to you!"