The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ on their toes it simply wasn’t in the cards; and he had to assume that they would be alert.

      What, then, could pass those barriers? Prolonged consideration of every fact of the situation gave definite answer and marked out clearly the course he must take. Something admitted by the pirates themselves was the only thing that could get in. The vessel ahead of his was going in. Therefore he must and would enter that base within the pirate vessel itself. With that point decided there remained only the working out of a method, which proved to be almost ridiculously simple.

      Once inside the base, what should he—or rather, what could he—do? For days he made and discarded plans, but finally he tossed them all out of his mind. So much depended upon the location of the base, its personnel, its arrangement, and its routine, that he could develop not even the rough draft of a working plan. He knew what he wanted to do, but he had not even the remotest idea as to how he could go about doing it. Of the openings that appeared, he would have to choose the most feasible and fit his actions to whatever situation then and there obtained.

      So deciding, he shot his spy-ray toward the planet and studied it with care. It was indeed as he had remembered it, or worse. Bleakly, hotly arid, it had no soil whatever, its entire surface being composed of igneous rock, lava, and pumice. Stupendous ranges of mountains criss-crossed and intersected each other at random, each range a succession of dead volcanic peaks and blown-off craters. Mountainside and rocky plain, crater-wall and valley floor, alike and innumerably were pockmarked with sub-craters and with immensely yawning shell-holes, as though the whole planet had been throughout geologic ages the target of an incessant cosmic bombardment.

      Over its surface and through and through its volume he drove his spy-ray; finding nothing. He bored into its substance with his detectors and his tracers; with results completely negative. Of course, closer up, his electromagnetics would report iron—plenty of it—but that information would also be meaningless. Practically all planets had iron cores. As far as his instruments could tell—and he had given Aldebaran I a more thorough going-over by far than any ordinary surveying ship would have given it—there was no base of any kind upon or within the planet. Yet he knew that a base was there. So what?—maybe—Helmuth’s base might be inside the galaxy after all, protected from detection in the same way; probably by solid miles of iron or of iron ore. A second line upon that base had now become imperative. But they were approaching the system fast; he had better get ready.

      He belted on his personal equipment, including a nullifier, then inspected his armor, checking its supplies and apparatus carefully before he hooked it ready to his hand. Glancing into the plate, he noted with approval that his “chaser” was functioning perfectly. Pursued and pursuer were now both well inside the solar system of Aldebaran; and, as slowed the pirate so slowed the speedster. Finally the leader went inert in preparation for his spiral, but Kinnison was no longer following. Before he went inert he flashed down to within fifty thousand miles of the planet’s forbidding surface. He then cut his Bergenholm, threw the speedster into an almost circular orbit, well away from the landing orbit selected by the pirate, cut off all his power, and drifted. He stayed in the speedster, observing and computing, until he had so exactly defined its path that he could find it unerringly at any future instant. Then he went into the air-lock, stepped out into space, and, waiting only to be sure that the portal had snapped shut behind him, set his course toward the pirate’s spiral.

      Inert now, his progress was so slow as to seem imperceptible, but he had plenty of time. And it was only relatively that his speed was low. He was actually hurtling through space at the rate of well over two thousand miles an hour, and his powerful little driver was increasing that speed constantly by an acceleration of two Earth gravities.

      Soon the vessel crept up, beneath him now, and Kinnison, increasing his drive to five gravities, shot toward it in a long, slanting dive. This was the most ticklish minute of the trip, but the Lensman had assumed correctly that the ship’s officers would be looking ahead of them and down, not backward and up. They were, and he made his approach unseen. The approach itself, the boarding of an inert space-ship at its frightful landing-spiral velocity, was elementary to any competent space-man. There was not even a flare to bother him or to reveal him to sight, as the braking jets were now doing all the work. Matching course and velocity ever more closely, he crept up—flung his magnet—pulled up, hand over hand—opened the emergency inlet lock—and there he was.

      Unconcernedly he made his way along the sternway and into the now deserted quarters of the fighters. There he lay down in a hammock, snapped the acceleration straps, and shot his spy-ray into the control room. And there, in the pirate captain’s own visiplate, he observed the rugged and torn topography of the terrain below as the pilot fought his ship down, mile by mile. Tough going, this, Kinnison reflected, and the bird was doing a nice job, even if he was taking it the hard way, bringing her down straight on her nose instead of taking one more spiral around the planet and then sliding in on her under jets, which were designed and placed specifically for such work. But taking it the hard way he was, and his vessel was bucking, kicking, bouncing and spinning on the terrific blasts of her braking jets. Down she came, fast; and it was only after she was actually inside one of those stupendous craters, well below the level of its rim, that the pilot flattened her out and assumed normal landing position.

      They were still going too fast, Kinnison thought, but the pirate pilot knew what he was doing. Five miles the vessel dropped, straight down that Titanic shaft, before the bottom was reached. The shaft’s wall was studded with windows; in front of the craft loomed the outer gate of a gigantic air-lock. It opened, the ship was trundled inside, landing-cradle and all, and the massive gate closed behind it. This was the pirates’ base, and Kinnison was inside it!

      “Men, attention!” The pirate commander snapped then. “The air is deadly poison, so put on your armor and be sure your tanks are full. They have rooms for us, having good air, but don’t open your suits a crack until I tell you to. Assemble! All of you that are not here in this control room in five minutes will stay on board and take your own chances!”

      Kinnison decided instantly to assemble with the crew. He could do nothing in the ship, and it would be inspected, of course. He had plenty of air, but space-armor all looked alike, and his Lens would warn him in time of any unfriendly or suspicious thought. He had better go. If they called a roll . but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

      No roll was called; in fact, the captain paid no attention at all to his men. They would come along or not, just as they pleased. But since to stay in the ship meant death, every man was prompt. At the expiration of the five minutes the captain strode away, followed by the crowd. Through a doorway, left turn, and the captain was met by a creature whose shape Kinnison could not make out. A pause, a straggling forward, then a right turn.

      Kinnison decided that he would not take that turn. He would stay here, close to the shaft, where he could blast his way out if necessary, until he had studied the whole base thoroughly enough to map out a plan of campaign. He soon found an empty and apparently unused room, and assured himself that through its heavy, crystal-clear window he could indeed look out into the vastly cylindrical emptiness of a volcanic shaft.

      Then with his spy-ray he watched the pirates as they were escorted to the quarters prepared for them. Those might have been rooms of state, but it looked to Kinnison very much as though his former shipmates were being jailed ignominiously, and he was glad that he had taken leave of them. Shooting his ray here and there throughout the structure, he finally found what he was looking for; the communicator room. That room was fairly well lighted, and at what he saw there his jaw dropped in sheerest amazement.

      He had expected to see men, since Aldebaran II, the only inhabited planet in the system, had been colonized from Tellus and its people were as truly human and Caucasian as those of Chicago or of Paris. But there . . . these things . he had been around quite a bit, but he had never seen nor heard of their like. They were wheels, really. When they went anywhere they rolled. Heads where hubs ought to be СКАЧАТЬ