Chapter IV

Captain Brooke tightened his safety belt thoughtfully, then his glance travelled slowly to where Lieutenant Jeffery sat, fingers poised over the gleaming bank of keys.

"I suppose we really should test this specimen first," the captain observed. "However, if we did, I doubt if we'd have enough left for fuel to smash Koerber." He flipped a tiny switch in the panel before him. The silver screen lighted, and Scotty's features appeared.

"Ready 'n waiting on the firing line Cap'n!"

"Switch over to relays and strap in, Scotty, I'll give you thirty seconds," Dennis grinned, then turned to Jeffery:

"Ready Lieutenant?"

Jeffery took one more look into the V-screen, made a last second check of his objective--the high peak about twenty miles down the valley. As soon as the peak was reached, the cruiser would be under full manual control and he would dart the swift sky-tiger from the heights down on Koerber's spacer, in a terrific power dive. He nodded satisfied, "Yes, sir, ready!"

"Take off!" The command whipped out and Jeffery's fingers flashed over the rows of keys with automatic precision. For the fraction of a second there was a muffled, rumbling thunder. Then, both Dennis Brooke and Jeffery were slammed back against their air-cushions as the astounding crescendo of acceleration hit them.

Twisting his head slowly, Captain Dennis looked at his navigator in astonishment. Tom Jeffery had always been the acme of dependability, his precision in plotting had practically become a legend in the I.S.P.

"Cruiser's running wild!" Jeffery gasped painfully. "The key bank must ... be out ... of order. I'd never ... never use that much speed on take-off!"

"Slack off...." Dennis gritted. He saw Jeffery struggle to get his long, supple hands back on the keys. Blood throbbed and pounded in surging waves at his temples, and he knew he'd black out in a matter of seconds if his Navigator didn't reach those keys.

Concentrating all his remaining energy, Jeffery reached and pushed one hand forward, but it was like pushing against an invisible wall. His hand refused to move any further, and then he felt the impenetrable blackness welling up inside his brain. Nervelessly the Navigator's hand dropped, but two fingers scraped over the key-bank and the flashing cruiser changed its course. The ship angled upward sharply and gradually reduced its speed. Like two punch-drunk mortals, Dennis and Jeffery shook their heads, doggedly trying to clear the clinging black webs from their brains.

They were not unnerved, for to these two, danger was too familiar a face, it was a constant shadow at their heels, the eternal companion at their table--without it, life would have seemed flat, without zest.

"Worse than a shot of Martian _Absytron_! Whew!" Jeffery exclaimed, startled out of his usually laconic state. "That mineral's terrific!"

"I was just thinking the same thing," Captain Brooke agreed quietly. "Which makes it doubly important that we settle scores with Koerber and leave this planetoid. If the reaction of this mineral's true, we've found a new type of fuel, far more powerful than anything known to us at present."

"Imagine if that space-rat gets hold of it," Jeffery concurred in awed tones. "He could rule the space-lanes, commit any crime and outpace any ship in the universe!"

"Besides," Dennis said ruminatively, "this mineral'd make Terra independent of Venus for her supply of radio-actives. It would usher in a new era, Jeffery!"

Suddenly it seemed to Dennis that there was even more at stake than the smashing of a dangerous outlaw, than the recovery of his former state in the I.S.P., or the avenging of Marla, if she were dead--the destiny of Terra was at stake too. As if one of those cross-roads of Life, at which an individual is sometimes poised by fate, had opened before his gaze, and history awaited being written in the invisible pages of space. He had come prepared to die to fulfill a mission--but now matters had changed. The need was not to die, but to live, that an unsuspecting world might rise to new heights of achievement on the incredibly radio-active marvel of this unknown planetoid. With a swift movement he threw on the panel switch, and his voice boomed out:

"All hands attention! Koerber has seen us, no doubt. But whether or not he's fore-warned, we attack as scheduled. Stand-by!"

The I.S.P. Cruiser swept back up the long valley, until it was almost opposite the Pirate's camp. Only the tremendous mountain range separated them. Glancing at the banks of keys, the instruments and dials under the V-Screen, Dennis issued orders:

"Scotty, give it everything you have!" He grinned as Scotty gave back one of his inimitable replies.

"Dallas!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Take the stern turret, and start firing when we pull out--angle thirty-eight, precision!" He again threw a quick glance at the panel.

"Randall! Take forward position, secondary turret. Hold fire till they open up, or until I give you the command. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," Randall's voice was tense.

It was then Captain Dennis turned to his Navigator. "I'll take the main forward turret myself, Jeffery! Now, use a thirty-five degree dive, pull out at five-hundred feet and use MA-24 to pull out and regain altitude." He grinned fleetingly at the startled Jeffery.

"But ... but you're going to man the forward turret--get the gunner, Cap'n ... I...." But Dennis silenced him with a swift gesture.

"Taking no chances, I want to be sure that spawn of Barrabas's smeared, if I have to do it myself!"

* * * * *

The long, gleaming cruiser was like the spear of the Angel Gabriel, unerring, fatal, as the skillful fingers of its navigator in the control room swept over the keys and the ship obediently canted downward. Suddenly it took the plunge in a supernal power-dive that sent it hurtling straight at the Pirate's camp below. All around the cruiser a rain of Genton-shells exploded in buffeting succession, as the cruiser quivered and strained holding the dizzying dive.

From the main forward turret, a stream of fire scorched the surroundings below, starting great fires on the stacked supplies which had been removed from Koerber's ship to facilitate repairs. The atom-blast raised clouds of iridescent mineral as it peeled the ground like a gigantic knife. But the Genton-Shells prevented close aim, as the explosions buffeted the cruiser off her course. Captain Dennis finally came into the control room.

"They saw us, all right," he growled angrily. "I wasn't able to come closer than a hundred feet of Koerber's ship with the gun!"

"They've almost got us boxed in, sir. I can't hold her on much longer."

"All right then, Jeffery, pull out ... right bank ... that should throw them off long enough for us to break away. Give me a few seconds to adjust my sights, I'm going back to the turret!"

The great cruiser had reached its objective and swept like a stupendous bird of death over the Pirate camp spewing a rain of death. Two pirates caught behind mounds of supplies and provisions were blasted together with the boxes that protected them. The stern turret of the black Pirate cruiser was a melting, incandescent mass as Captain Brooke's atom-blast found its mark. Suddenly the meteor-like vessel canted to the right and zoomed upward at the same time, then with vertiginous speed flashed beyond the range of the Pirate's full fire-power, leaving Koerber cursing in impotent fury. The sound of wracking concussions died away; the unearthly ascending whine of the atom-blasts ceased, and the cruiser flashed back to base.

"At least we'll have a choice this time where to set the ship down," Lieutenant Jeffery said wryly, as he watched the changed scene on the V-screen before him.

Watching also, Dennis Brooke suddenly leaned forward with great interest, but abruptly the emergency thermo-bulb flashed on and off and a shrill buzzer sounded. Dennis threw the switch quickly.

"We'll have to set her down, Cap'n!" Scotty announced. "She's reached the danger mark."

"Hell!" Jeffery exclaimed succinctly.

"Set her down!" Dennis ordered, but the ship was already headed groundwards.

The air lock on the cruiser opened and the crew jumped to the ground. It was the same bizarre landscape, harsh, Dantesque, extreme.

"Since we've reached a temporary impasse," the Captain explained to them, "we may at least examine something I happened to see just prior to landing. I have a vague idea concerning this small world; it is just possible I may be right."

"What did you see, sir?" Randall, forever impulsive and emotional, asked, curiously apprehensive.

"You probably won't like the idea so much, Lieutenant," Captain Brooke said quietly, shifting the weight of his atom-blast on his hip. He smiled thinly, "We're going to investigate some of those playmates of yours--the spheres!"

Randall's face tightened with a peculiar expression. He started to speak, then noting Dallas' sardonic smile, he stopped.

"Just before we landed," the Captain continued, "I saw a large pit filled with the globes up in the plateau just ahead. I want to try an experiment. From what I saw happened with you Dallas, when you tried to blast that globe and then threw rocks at it and it went away, and yet, it pursued Randall ... well, I have a theory that I want to test. If it works, we may yet turn the tables on Koerber."

* * * * *

With perfect confidence, Captain Dennis turned and began to stride toward the plateau in the near distance. Without hesitation Dallas strode behind him, followed by Scotty and Jeffery, and a few other lesser members of the crew. Only Randall hesitated as if an awful premonition paralyzed his steps. He seemed to make an heroic effort, and hesitantly at first, then with greater confidence he began to follow the leaders.

At last they were standing at the rim of the vast pit; looking down, Dennis realized it must be all of a mile in width. It seemed filled with clusters of the globes which vibrated gently at the bottom.

"Millions of the damned things!" Dallas exclaimed.

The pit sloped down to a point at the center of the bottom, and there was the immense cluster of globes that Dennis had seen. From small ones, the size of thermo-bulbs, to gigantic spheres fully six feet in diameter, it was a pulsating, shimmering mass of changing opalescences, a seething cauldron of prismatic hues, dormant now, but ready to flame into living light.

Randall, the last to arrive, approached the edge and gazed down. The ethereal, ghostly seeming spheres with their pulsating auras sent an icy shiver of dread along his taut nerves. He shuddered and turned to the others. "Let's go," he said hoarsely. "Those demons might come floating up here!" There was a hysterical quality to his voice that did not pass unnoticed to Captain Dennis, who was observing him closely. "Let's go!" Randall cried again, his face contorted.

Suddenly there was a stream of movement below; from the central mass of globes, several detached themselves and floated silently upwards in swirls of living light.

Cold, unreasoning fear surged into Randall's mind. In his hysteria, the spheres were coming after him! His thin face with the wide, fear-stricken blue eyes was ashen while his lips twitched to form words that failed to come. At last he managed to scream: "Run! They're coming after us." And Randall was racing pell-mell back to the spacer.

Captain Dennis stood his ground, Dallas beside him. "Come here, you fool!" Dennis cried exasperated. But it was too late. With flashing speed two of the spheres outraced Randall and now hovered over him. They were whirling into a vortex of incredible light, lovely beyond description, and beneath them, convulsed with horror, Randall raced for his life.

"Action!" Dennis shouted. Instantly several atom-blasts spewed their deadly charge into the two pursuing globes. They drank in the awful energy charge and glowed supernally vivid, still unharmed, then, swooping downwards they charged Randall, and the boy was fighting them, flailing his arms wildly, haphazardly trying to fend them off. The other members of the party had now held their fire, for Randall was enmeshed in the luminous globes. And suddenly the globes seemed to become part of the boy's body, enveloping it in their translucent, fatal embrace.

Before their eyes, they saw the boyish form shrivel and fall crumpled to the ground as if all the energy had been absorbed in that unearthly embrace of living light. In an instant it was over.