Chapter 2

“By mining on Mercury. He does it regularly–sort of a commuter. Out
here his power bills eat it up. On Mercury he goes in for potassium, and
sells the power he collects in cooling his dome, of course. He’s a good
miner, and the old fool can make money down there.” Like any really
skilled operator, Cole had been sending Morse messages while he talked.
Now he sat quiet waiting for the reply, glancing at the chronometer.

“I take it he’s not after money–just after fun,” suggested Buck.

“Oh, no. He’s after money,” replied Cole gravely. “You ask him–he’s
going to make his eternal fortune yet by striking a real bed of jovium,
and then he’ll retire.”

“Oh, one of that kind.”

“They all are,” Cole laughed. “Eternal hope, and the rest of it.” He
listened a moment and went on. “But old Nichols is a first-grade
engineer. He wouldn’t be able to remake that bankroll every time if he
wasn’t. You’ll see his Dome out there on Pluto–it’s always the best on
the planet. Tip-top shape. And he’s a bit of an experimenter too.
Ah–he’s with us.”

Nichols’ ragged signals were coming through–or pounding through. They
were worse than usual, and at first Kendall and Cole couldn’t make them
out. Then finally they got them in bursts. The man was excited, and his
bad key-work made it worse. “–Randing stopped. They got him I think. He
said–th–ship as big–a–nsport. Said it wa–eaded my–ay. Neutrons–on
instruments–he’s coming over the horizon–it’s huge–war ship I
think–register–instru–neutrons–.” Abruptly the signals were blanked
out completely.

* * * * *

Cole and Kendall sat frozen and stiff. Each looked at the other abruptly,
then Kendall moved. From the receiver, he ripped out the recording coil,
and instantly jammed it into the analyzer. He started it through once,
then again, then again, at different tone settings, till he found a very
shrill whine that seemed to clear up most of Nichols’ bad key-work.
“T-247–T-247–Emergency. Emergency. Randing reports the–over his
horizon. Huge–ip–reign manufacture. Almost spherical. Randing’s stopped.
They got him I think. He said the ship was as big as a transport. Said
it was headed my way. Neutrons–ont–gister–instruments. I think–is
h–he’s coming over the horizon. It’s huge, and a war ship I
think–register–instruments–neutrons.”

Kendall’s finger stabbed out at a button. Instantly the noise of the
other men, wakened abruptly by the mild shocks, came from behind.
Kendall swung to the controls, and Cole raced back to the engine room.
The hundred-foot ship shot suddenly forward under the thrust of her tail
ion-rockets. A blue-red cloud formed slowly behind her and expanded.
Talbot appeared, and silently took her over from Kendall. “Stations,
men,” snapped Kendall. “Emergency call from a miner of Pluto reporting a
large armed vessel which attacked them.” Kendall swung back, and eased
himself against the thrusting acceleration of the over-powered little
ship, toward the engine room. Cole was bending over his apparatus,
making careful check-ups, closing weapon-circuits. No window gave view
of space here; on the left was the tiny tender’s pocket, on the right,
above and below the great water tanks that fed the ion-rockets, behind
the rockets themselves. The tungsten metal walls were cold and gray
under the ship lights; the hunched bulks of the apparatus crowded the
tiny room. Gigantic racked accumulators huddled in the corners. Martin
and Garnet swung into position in the fighting-tanks just ahead of the
power rooms; Canning slid rapidly through the engine room, oozed through
a tiny door, and took up his position in the stern-chamber, seated
half-over the great ion-rocket sheath.

“Ready in positions, Captain Kendall,” called the war-pilot as the
little green lights appeared on his board.

“Test discharges on maximum,” ordered Kendall. He turned to Cole. “You
start the automatic key?”

“Right, Captain.”

“All shipshape?”

“Right as can be. Accumulators at thirty-seven per cent, thanks to the
loaf out here. They ought to pick up our signal back on Jupiter, he’s
nearest now. The station on Europa will get it.”

“Talbot–we are only to investigate if the ship is as reported. Have you
seen any signs of her?”

“No sir, and the signals are blank.”

“I’ll work from here.” Kendall took his position at the commanding
control. Cole made way for him, and moved to the power board. One by one
he tested the automatic doors, the pressure bulkheads. Kendall watched
the instruments as one after another of the weapons were tested on
momentary full discharge–titanic flames of five million volt protons.
Then the ship thudded to the chatter of the Garnell rifles.

* * * * *

Tensely the men watched the planet ahead, white, yet barely visible in
the weak sunlight so far out. It was swimming slowly nearer as the tiny
ship gathered speed.

Kendall cast a glance over his detector-instruments. The radio network
was undisturbed, the magnetic and electric fields recognized only the
slight disturbances occasioned by the planet itself. There was nothing,
noth–

Five hundred miles away, a gigantic ship came into instantaneous being.
Simultaneously, and instantaneously, the various detector systems howled
their warnings. Kendall gasped as the thing appeared on his view screen,
with the scale-lines below. The scale must be cock-eyed. They said the
ship was fifteen hundred feet in diameter, and two thousand long!

“Retreat,” ordered Kendall, “at maximum acceleration.”

Talbot was already acting. The gyroscopes hummed in their castings, and
the motors creaked. The T-247 spun on her axis, and abruptly the
acceleration built up as the ion-rockets began to shudder. A faint smell
of “heat” began to creep out of the converter. Immense “weight” built
up, and pressed the men into their specially designed seats–