Chapter V

Slowly Silvy Ward rotated the flat, indexed dial of the goniometer. Eighty-nine degrees gone. One more degree. The destroyer should be at the south of the field now, coming in unknowingly over the blacked-out metropolis. Soon he should hear the thunder of its rockets. Were his computations wrong? Did the destroyer have improved compasses and other directional finding instruments which it was using instead of relying on the beam? If not, why did he not hear it coming out of--

A chill swept over him. What was that far, thin thunder throbbing across the night? The destroyer! And that other, higher pitched roar? The Patrol had said that there were two unlisted ships coming in! Who was in that other ship? If he could only warn them without the destroyer catching the signal! But, dear God, he couldn't!

Zero-one-two-zero! Over against the Hump Portiz was attending the portable landing beam transmitter. An ultra-high frequency beam was shooting up uni-directionally at the glide angle of a ship coming in for a landing from the west. A normal landing was to the south where the main runways lay; this descent--no landing there!--must be to the east and the five thousand foot Hump along whose base the boundary lights were ablaze in the dense fog. From the air they would present the aspect of an illumined city....

Ward cried out to Wagner:

"The destroyer is overhead. They're getting the station location marker signal. Listen--"

They could hear the blasting of jets as the ship swerved around to the east, to the direction which its occupants doubtless thought was south. It would be catching the glide path beam now and dropping down toward what appeared to be the city!

The second ship was coming in over the range station. It, too, was swerving....

"That must be the ship out of Earth," Wagner cried.

"If we could only warn them!" Ward said hopelessly. "We don't even know whose ship it is. It may be the Director coming to the convention."

Yes, the Director of Earth might be up there dropping toward certain doom.

Ward leaped to the shortwave transceiver. Simultaneously, it burst into life.

"Portiz calling Ward."

"Yes?"

"Sounds as if there's a large ship dropping in towards the mountain. What're your orders?"

"Leave the beam on and get to hell out of there. You've only got about two minutes!"

Silence. Sixty seconds of silence broken only by the receding thunder of the two ships.

* * * * *

Underjets flaring redly, making rosy-hued the fog, the destroyer eased down toward the lights which told its commander that here lay Pali-Vanyi. Down, down on the glide path beam.

Commands spat from the commander's fleshless mouth.

"Ready at the bomb racks--_Unload!_"

Keying in the rear underjets he zoomed the ship.

The concussion of the unleashed bombs tore across the night, shattering ten thousand windows in nearby Pali-Vanyi. Martians in dehydrated chambers drowned as the heavy fog poured in; Earthmen choked and grew ecstatically oxy-drunk; Venusians leaped in hordes out into their natural element to see the flames licking against the Hump.

"We have destroyed the city!" the Martian commander cried, for in the churning chaos of atomic bomb explosions no details can be seen. "The Leader will bless us. He will--

"_Oh, Zabir, Holy Father of the Deserts, what looms ahead? A mountain here? Oh, Zabir, no! Blast all underjets! Blast!_

"Zabir, Blessed Father--"

The great destroyer's jets flamed futilely. It ground in against the Hump, splitting like a pod. From its halved entrails flames roared forth to further bloody the swirling tortured fog. The sound of the crash reverberated against the range station.

Simultaneously Ward cut in the microphone and screamed over the beam frequency:

"_Climb, ship of Earth, climb. You're on the Hump!_"

Peering out into the crimson-hued fog to the east, Ward saw spitting jet flames swerving upward, sweeping up and over in an Immelmann turn to safety.

"Ship of Earth," Ward continued, "proceed about fifteen miles west, make a one-hundred-eighty degree turn and come in for a normal landing. The beam courses were reversed because of an emergency; we are now correcting the variations."

Ward cut the microphone in again.

"PV, Pali-Vanyi. Notice to all spacemen: Due to an emergency the range was rotated ninety degrees counter-clockwise during the past half hour. Any ships following the western leg into PV should be on the southern leg. Come into the field from the south and swing around for normal landings in accordance with regulations. The beam is now in normal operation."

Silvy Ward arose, began to stretch his tired, slender body, and then he glimpsed the chronometer. It was within seconds of zero-one-three-zero.

"Wagner, have you got that keyer fixed?"

"Watch!" Wagner grinned at him.

There was a whir. The interlock cam relay in the device started to turn, keying out its message across some fifty million miles of space, a message which beyond a shadow of a doubt was crackling some moments later in the receivers of the two earth cruisers at perihelion, telling them that they were on their trajectory course and all was well.

The televisorphone buzzed urgently. Quickly Ward snapped it on.

Portiz' face appeared on the grid.

"Everything under control?"

"Yes. And where in the devil are you?"

"Gasuki's. I needed a drink after those bombs landed on my tail."