Chapter XXVI

Farradyne set the drive for Terra and then sat there, tense and waiting. The radar wiggled into its warning trace, almost dead ahead.

They moved to intercept him, but Farradyne raised the drive to four gravities and plunged on. The starship grew, and behind it Terra grew. The radio burst into sound and Farradyne grabbed the microphone and said, "Come and get me, fellows!"

"Stop," came the demand, "or we fire!"

"I've been fired at by experts," said Farradyne. "Start a shooting-match out here and you'll have all of Terra wondering why the fireworks."

"Stop!"

Farradyne touched a lever. "Maybe you'd like to polish a few rivets?"

The Lancaster turned ever so slightly until the starship was directly on the point-of-drive. His other hand touched the drive and the acceleration increased a bit. Caustically, Farradyne said, "Go ahead and shoot! You'll find your own living room full of by-products if you do!"

He was right. The Lancaster was on collision course with the starship and if the Lancaster was blasted at this moment, shards and fragments of the spacecraft would spread like a shotgun charge. If the starship escaped being hit with a rather uncomfortably large mass of jagged metal it would be sheer luck.

"Veer off!" came the strident cry.

The starship moved aside. Farradyne's hands levered his handles with a velvet touch and the starship of the enemy returned to the cross-hairs.

"Veer off!"

"I'm going to ram, goddam you!" roared Farradyne.

The starship flared at its tail and at the same time a torpedo-port winked as a missile blasted-off. Farradyne gauged the missile and the starship and kept his nose on the starship's lead. Gritting his teeth, he watched the missile come at him; and at the last moment the missile veered aside, obviously controlled. It was a war of nerves; the enemy did not dare hit him at this moment and on this course, but they hoped to scare him.

The starship loomed big in the astrodome and Farradyne aimed the Lancaster amidships. The interstellar monster grew rapidly until the individual plates could be seen; then with a silent, dark flicker that was as shocking as a loud blast and a searing flare of light might have been, the starship ceased to exist as an obstacle in front of them. The enemy had resorted to the ultradrive. The sky was clear--

Except for the missile, seeking them and with no control to stop it.

It had curved in a vast circle behind them and was now closing in on a curving course.

Dead ahead was Terra, looming huge; the tactic of the enemy was clear. In order to escape the missile Farradyne would have to drive hard and long, which would carry him far beyond Terra and into the hands of another enemy ship on the other side of home. To turn and attempt a landing would be to invite atomic death in the depths of space far above the planet.

He chuckled, and Norma looked at him wonderingly.

"Get set for some terrific acceleration," he said. "Hunker down in the seat!"

* * * * *

His hands ran across the board. The Lancaster turned slightly and the drive went up and up. The flare brightened and lengthened behind them, aimed at the missile below.

The missile followed its homing gear and came speeding up the reaction-flare. The Lancaster drive was a reaction motor, a rocket with a reaction mass of water heated by the atomic pile to an energy that cracked the water down to sheer gamma and particle radiation and tossed it rearward into a condition where the word 'heat' has no meaning unless there is some body able to absorb the ravening energy.

The missile absorbed the energy.

Its nose melted and its homing circuits mingled with the flare of the Lancaster's drive; then there was a minute puff as the missile was consumed before its atomics could be joined in fission.

Farradyne cut the drive and took a deep breath; but his relief didn't last long. Terra was before him, a monstrous blue-green globe just to one side--close--close--

Beyond, the enemy ship was waiting.

The thin scream of atmosphere cried at their ears and there came a braking pressure that threw them against their seat straps. The accelerometer went crazy, reaching for the peg-stop on the left.

The blood rushed to their heads and Farradyne fought the pressure that tried to raise his arms.

Then the screaming stopped as the Lancaster passed beyond the atmosphere into space again. Farradyne hit the drive hard again.

But if the enemy was expecting him to come past on a line-course, they were wrong. The touch of the upper air, thin as it was, had deflected the Lancaster's course into a long ellipse and hurled the ship far to one side of the expected line of flight. The course wound out and around and back and plunged the ship into the upper air again. Terra rotated madly below and then dropped beneath the level of the edge of the control room dome as the Lancaster speared out into space once more. Again they went out and around and down into the upper air, and this time they went around in a tight ellipse with the air screaming at them all the way. Four times around Terra they went, and then Farradyne turned the tail of the Lancaster straight down and started to drop like a plummet.

He was kept busy checking the controls and the autopilot and the computing radar altimeter as he aimed the Lancaster for the southern edge of Lake Superior; they came down in a screaming fall like a meteorite.

The flare parted the waters of the lake and sent up a billow of steam for about a hundredth of a second. Then the autopilot cut the drive and the violence ceased as the Lancaster sank into the deep cool waters, to stop, to come rising buoyantly towards the surface again.

* * * * *

Farradyne hit the switch that opened the scuttlebutt of the water tanks and the lake waters rushed in, killing buoyancy.

The astrodome porpoised once, gently, and then the Lancaster sank very slowly. Farradyne waited until the ship was resting tail down on the bottom; then he turned it slightly to one side and opened the drive by a bare fraction. Water churned below them and the ship moved loggily sidewise, towards the shore. He spent an hour testing and trying the depth along the shore until he found a place that was just deep enough to let the Lancaster stand upright with its dome an inch or two below the surface.

A small fish goggled hungrily at the shining metal.

Farradyne stretched and said, "We got this far anyway!"

Norma looked at him dizzily. "How?"

"My pappy used to tell me about this sort of come-in," he said. "Seems as how he once knew a gent who had piloted one of the old chemical rockets that used braking ellipses for landings. That was a heck of a long time ago, before we had power to burn. Anyway, it wasn't expected, because we succeeded."

"Now what?"

Farradyne tuned the radio to a local broadcast station, and waited, relaxing in his seat, until the music stopped and the latest news flashes came on. Then the announcer said, "The system-wide hunt for Charles Farradyne, the notorious love-lotus operator, still goes on. The search has been narrowed down to North America because of several reports, some official and some unofficial, of activity a-space in this region.

"Farradyne is also to be charged with complicity in the disappearance of Howard Clevis, high undercover operative for the Sand Office. It is believed in some circles that Farradyne may be much higher in the love-lotus ring than a mere handler or distributor. Some officials have indicated that Farradyne may be Mister Big, himself.

"An early interception and arrest is anticipated. Keep tuned to this station for the latest news."

The music returned.