The gigantic ship across the way turned slowly, and seemed to stare at
the T-247. Then it darted toward them at incredible speed till the poor
little T-247 seemed to be standing still, as sailors say. The stranger
was so gigantic now, the screens could not show all of him.

“God, Buck–he’s going to take us!”

Simultaneously, the T-247 rolled, and from her broke every possible
stream of destruction. The ion-rocket flames swirled abruptly toward
her, the proton-guns whined their song of death in their housings, and
the heavy pounding shudder of the Garnell guns racked the ship.

Strangely, Kendall suddenly noticed, there was a stillness in the ship.
The guns and the rays were still going–but the little human sounds
seemed abruptly gone.

“Talbot–Garnet–” Only silence answered him. Cole looked across at him
in sudden white-faced amazement.

“They’re gone–” gasped Cole.

Kendall stood paralyzed for thirty seconds. Then suddenly he seemed to
come to life. “Neutrons! Neutrons–and water tanks! Old Nichols was
right–” He turned to his friend. “Cole–the tender–quick.” He darted a
glance at the screen. The giant ship still lay alongside. A wash of ions
was curling around her, splitting, and passing on. The pinprick
explosions of the Garnell shells dotted space around her–but never on
her.

Cole was already racing for the tender lock. In an instant Kendall piled
in after him. The tiny ship, scarcely ten feet long, was powered for
flights of only two hours acceleration, and had oxygen for but
twenty-four hours for six men, seventy-two hours for two men–maybe. The
heavy door was slammed shut behind them, as Cole seated himself at the
panel. He depressed a lever, and a sudden smooth push shot them away
from the T-247.

“DON’T!” called Kendall sharply as Cole reached for the ion-rocket
control. “Douse those lights!” The ship was dark in dark space. The
lighted hull of the T-247 drifted away from the little tender–further
and further till the giant ship on the far side became visible.

“Not a light–not a sign of fields in operation.” Kendall said,
unconsciously speaking softly. “This thing is so tiny, that it may
escape their observation in the fields of the T-247 and Pluto down
there. It’s our only hope.”

“What happened? How in the name of the planets did they kill those men
without a sound, without a flash, and without even warning us, or
injuring us?”

“Neutrons–don’t you see?”

“Frankly, I don’t. I’m no scientist–merely a technician. Neutrons
aren’t used in any process I’ve run across.”

“Well, remember they’re uncharged, tiny things. Small as protons, but
without electric field. The result is they pass right through an
ordinary atom without being stopped unless they make a direct hit.
Tungsten, while it has a beautifully high melting point, is mostly open
space, and a neutron just sails right through it, or any heavy atom.
Light atoms stop neutrons better–there’s less open space in ’em.
Hydrogen is best. Well–a man is made up mostly of light elements, and a
man stops those neutrons–it isn’t surprising it killed those other
fellows invisibly, and without a sound.”

“You mean they bathed that ship in neutrons?”

“Shot it full of ’em. Just like our proton guns, only sending neutrons.”

“Well, why weren’t we killed too?”

“‘Water stops neutrons,’ I said. Figure it out.”

“The rocket-water tanks–all around us! Great masses of water–” gasped
Cole. “That saved us?”

“Right. I wonder if they’ve spotted us.”

* * * * *

The stranger ship was moving slowly in relation to the T-247. Suddenly
the motion changed, the stranger spun–and a giant lock appeared in her
side, opened. The T-247 began to move, floated more and more rapidly
straight for the lock. Her various weapons had stopped operating now,
the hoppers of the Garnell guns exhausted, the charge of the
accumulators aboard the ship down so low the proton guns had died out.

“Lord–they’re taking the whole ship!”

“Say–Cole, is that any ship you ever heard of before? _I don’t think
that’s just a pirate!_”

“Not a pirate–what then?”

“How’d he get inside our detector screens so fast? Watch–he’ll either
leave, or come after us–” The T-247 had settled inside the lock now,
and the great metal door closed after it. The whole patrol ship had been
swallowed by a giant. Kendall was sketching swiftly on a notebook,
watching the vast ship closely, putting down a record of its lines, and
formation. He glanced up at it, and then down for a few more lines, and
up at it–

The stranger ship abruptly dwindled. It dwindled with incredible speed,
rushing off along the line of sight at an impossible velocity, and
abruptly clicking out of sight, like an image on a movie-film that has
been cut, and repaired after the scene that showed the final
disappearance.

“Cole–Cole–did you get that? Did you see–do you understand what
happened?” Kendall was excitedly shouting now.

“He missed us,” Cole sighed. “It’s a wonder–hanging out here in space,
with the protector of the T-247’s fields gone.”

“No, no, you asteroid–that’s not it. _He went off faster than light
itself!_”

“Eh–what? Faster than _light_? That can’t be done–“

“He did it, I know he did. That’s how he got inside our screens. He came
inside faster than the warning message could relay back the information.
Didn’t you see him accelerate to an impossible speed in an impossible
time? Didn’t you see how he just vanished as he exceeded the speed of
light, and stopped reflecting it? _That ship was no ship of this solar
system!_”

“Where did he come from then?”

“God only knows, but it’s a long, long way off.”

The IP-M-122 picked them up. The M-122 got out there two days later, in
response to the calls the T-247 had sent out. As soon as she got within
ten million miles of the little tender, she began getting Cole’s
signals, and within twelve hours had reached the tiny thing, located it,
and picked it up.