<h2><SPAN name="IX" id="IX"></SPAN>IX</h2>
<p>"<span class="smcap">They</span> can't take this, at least," sighed McLaurin as they
retreated from Luna.</p>
<p>"I didn't think they could—right away. I'm wondering
though if they haven't something we haven't seen yet. Besides
which—give them time, give them time."</p>
<p>"Well, give us time, too," snapped McLaurin. "How are
you coming?"</p>
<p>Buck smiled. "I'm sure I don't know. I have a machine
but I haven't the slightest idea of whether or not it's any
good."</p>
<p>"Why not?"</p>
<p>"I can destroy—I hope—but I can't build up their ray.
I can't test the machine because I haven't their ray to test
it against."</p>
<p>"What can we do to test it?"</p>
<p>"The only thing I can see is to call for volunteers—and
send out a six-man cruiser. If the ship's too small, they may
not destroy it with the big crumbler rays. If it's too large—and
the machine didn't work—we'd lose too much."</p>
<p>Twelve hours later, the IP men at the Lunar Bank fort
were lined up. McLaurin stepped up on the platform, and
addressed the men briefly, told them what was needed. Six
volunteers were selected by a process of elimination, those
who were married, had dependents, officers, and others were
refused. Finally, six men of the IP were chosen, neither rookies
nor veterans, six average men. And one average six-man
cruiser, one hundred and eleven feet long, twenty-two in
diameter. It was the T-208, a sister ship of the T-247, the
first ship to be destroyed.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The T-208 started out from Luna, and with full acceleration,
sped out toward Phobos. Slowly she circled the
satellite, while distant scouts kept her under view. Lazily,
the Miran patrol on Phobos watched the T-208, indifferent
to her. The T-208 dove suddenly, after five fruitless circles
of the tiny world, and with her four-foot UV beam flaming,
stabbed angrily at a flight of Miran scouts berthed in the
very shadow of a great battle cruiser, one of the interstellar
ships stationed here on Phobos.</p>
<p>Four of the little ships slumped in incandescence. Angrily
the terrific sword of energy slashed at the frail little scouts.</p>
<p>Angrily the Miran interstellar ship shot herself abruptly
into action against this insolent cruiser. The cruiser launched
a flight of the mercury-torpedoes. Flashing, burning, ultra-violet
energy flooded the great ship, harmlessly, for the men
were, as usual, protected. The Miran answered with the
neutron beam, atomic and gamma bombs—and the crumbler
ray.</p>
<p>Gently, softly a halo of shimmering-violet luminescence
built up about the T-208. The UV beam continued to flare,
wavering slightly in its aim—then fell way off to one side.
The T-208 staggered suddenly, wandered from her course—whole,
but uncontrolled. For the men within the ship were
dead.</p>
<p>Majestically the Miran swung along beside the dead ship,
a great magnetic tow-cable shot out toward it, to shy off at
first, then slowly to be adjusted, and take hold in the magnetic
shield of the T-208. The pilots of the watching scout-ships
turned away. They knew what would happen.</p>
<p>It did. Five—ten—twenty seconds passed. Then the "dead-man"
took over the ship—and the stored power in the atostor
tanks blasted in a terrible flame that shattered the metal
hull to molecular fragments. The interstellar cruiser shuddered,
and rolled half over at the blasting pressure. Leaking
seams appeared in her plates.</p>
<p>The scouts raced back to Luna as the Miran settled heavily,
and a trifle clumsily to Phobos. Miran radio-beams were
forcing their way out toward the Miran station on Europa,<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></SPAN></span>
to be relayed to the headquarters on Jupiter, just as Solarian
radio beams were thrusting through space toward Luna.
Said the Miran messages: "Their ships no longer crumble."
Said the Solarian messages: "The ships no longer crumble—but
the men die."</p>
<hr class="hrhide" />
<p>His deep eyes burning tensely, Buck Kendall heard the
messages coming in, and rose slowly from his seat to pace
the floor. "I think I know why," he said at last. "I should
have thought. For that too can be prevented."</p>
<p>"Why—what in the name of the Planets?" asked McLaurin.
"It didn't kill the men in the forts—why does it kill
the men in the ships, when the ships are protected?"</p>
<p>"The protection kills them."</p>
<p>"But—but they had the protective oscillations on all the
way out!" protested the Commander.</p>
<p>"Think how it works though. Think, man. The enemy's
field is an electric-field oscillation. We combat it by setting up
a similar oscillating field in the metal of the hull ourselves.
Because the metal conducts the strains, they meet,
and oppose. It is not a shield—a shield is impossible, as
I have said, because of energy concentration factors. If their
beam carried a hundred thousand horsepower in a ten-foot
square beam, in every ten square feet of our shield, we'd
have to have one hundred thousand horsepower. In other
words, hundreds of times as much energy would be needed
in the shield, as they used in their beam. We can't afford
that. We had to let the beams oppose our oscillations in
the metal, where, because the metal conducts, they meet on
an equal basis. But—when two oscillations of slightly different
frequency meet, what is the result?"</p>
<p>"In this case, a heterodyne frequency of a lower, and
harmless frequency."</p>
<p>"So I thought. I was partly right. It does <i>not</i> harm the
metal. But it kills the men. It is super-sonic. The terrible,
shrill sounds destroy the cells of the men's bodies. Then,
when their dead hands release the controls, the automatic
switches blow up the ship."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"God! We stop one menace—and it is like the Hydra.
For every head we lop off, two spring up."</p>
<p>"Ah—but they are lesser heads. Look, what is the fundamental
difference between sound and light?"</p>
<p>"One is a vibration of matter and the—ah—eliminate the
material contact!"</p>
<p>"Exactly! All we need to do is to let the ships operate
airless, the men in space suits. Then the air cannot carry
the sounds to them. And by putting special damping materials
in their suits, we can stop the vibrations that would
reach them through their feet and hands. Another six-man
ship must go out—but this ship will come back!"</p>
<p>And with the order for another experimental ship, went the
orders for commercial supplies of this new apparatus. Every
IP ship must be equipped to resist it.</p>
<p>Buck Kendall sailed on the six-man scout that went out
this time. Again they swooped once at Phobos, again Miran
scout-ships crumbled under the attack of the vicious UV
beams. The Mirans were not waiting contemptuously this
time. In an instant the great interstellar ship rose from its
berth, its weapons working angrily. The crumbler ray snapped
out at the T-253.</p>
<p>Kendall stared into the periscope visor intently. Clumsily
his padded hands worked at the specially adapted controls.
The soft hiss of the oxygen release into his suit disturbed him
slightly. The radio-phones in his helmet carried all the conversations
in the ship to him with equal clarity. He watched
as the great ship angled angrily up—</p>
<p>His vision was momentarily obscured by a violet glow
that built up and reached out gently from every point of
metal in the ship. The instant Kendall saw that, the T-253
was fleeing under his hands. The test had been made. Now all
he desired was safety again. The ion-rockets flared recklessly
as, crushed under an acceleration of four Earth-gravities,
he sank heavily into his seat. Grimly the Miran ship
was pursuing them, easily keeping up with the fleeing midget.
The crumbler became more intense, the violet glow more
vivid.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The UV beam was reaching out directly behind now. The—</p>
<p>With a cry of agony, Kendall ripped the radio-phone
connection out of his suit. A soft hiss of leaking air warned
him of too great violence only minutes later. For his ears
had been deafened by the sudden shriek of a tremendous
signal from outside!</p>
<p>Instantly Kendall knew what that meant. And he could
not communicate with his men! There was no metal in these
special suits, even the oxygen tanks were made of synthetic
plastics of tremendous strength. No scrap of vibrating metal
was permissible. The padded gloves and boots protected him—but
there was a new and different type of crackle and
haze from the metal points now. It was almost invisible in
the practically airless ship, but Kendall saw it.</p>
<p>Presently he felt it, as he desperately increased his acceleration.
Slow creeping heat was attacking him. The heat
was increasing rapidly now. Desperately he was working at
the crumbler-protection controls—but immediately set them
back as they were. He had to have the crumbler protection
as well—!</p>
<hr class="hrhide" />
<p>Grimly the great Miran ship hung right beside them.
Angrily the two four-foot UV beams flashed back—seeking
some weak spot. There were none. At her absolute maximum
of acceleration the little ship plunged on. Gamma and atomic
bombs were washing her in flame. The heavy blocks of paraffin
between her walls were long since melted, retained
only by the presence of the metal walls. Smoke was beginning
to filter out now, and Kendall recognized a new,
and deadlier menace! Heat—quantities of heat were being
poured into the little ship, and the neutron guns were doing
their best to add to it. The paraffin was confined in there—and
like any substance, it could be volatilized, and as
a vapor, develop pressure—explosive pressure!</p>
<p>The Miran seemed satisfied in his tactics so far—and
changed them. Forty-seven million miles from Earth, the
Miran simply accelerated a bit more, and crowded the Solarian
ship a bit. White-faced, Buck Kendall was forced to<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></SPAN></span>
turn a bit aside. The Miran turned also. Kendall turned a
bit more—</p>
<p>Flashing across his range of vision at an incredible speed,
a tiny thing, no more than twenty feet long and five in
diameter, a scout-ship appeared. Its tiny nose ultra-violet
beam was blasting a solid cylinder of violet incandescence
a foot across in the hull of the Miran—and, to the Miran,
angling swiftly across his range of vision. Its magnetic field
clashed for a thousandth of a second with the T-253, instantly
meeting, and absorbing the fringing edges. Then—it
swept through the Miran's magnetic shield as easily. The delicate
instruments of the scout instantaneously adjusted its
own magnetic field as much as possible. There was resistance,
enormous resistance—the ship crumpled in on itself, the tail
vanished in dust as a sweeping crumbler beam caught it at
last—and the remaining portion of the ship plowed into
the nose of the Miran.</p>
<p>The Miran's force-control-room was wrecked. For perhaps
a minute and a half, the ship was without control, then the
control was re-established—and in vain the telescopes and
instruments searched for the T-253. Lightless, her rockets out
now, her fields damped down to extinction, the T-253 was lost
in the pulsing, gyrating fields of half a dozen scout-ships.</p>
<p>Kendall looked grimly at the crushed spot on the nose of
the Miran. His ship was drifting slowly away from the
greater ship. Presently, however, the Miran put on speed in
the direction of Earth, and the T-253 fell far behind. The
Miran was not seriously injured. But that scout pilot, in
sacrificing life, had thrown dust in their eyes for just those
few moments Kendall had needed to lose a lightless ship
in lightless space—lightless—for the Mirans at any rate. The
IP ships had been covered with a black paint, and in no
time at all, Kendall had gotten his ship into a position where
the energy radiations of the sun made him undetectable from
the Miran's position, since the radiation of his own ship,
even in the heat range, was mingled with the direct radiation
of the sun. The sun was in the Miran's "eyes," both
actual and instrumental.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>An hour later the Miran returned, passed the still-lightless
ship at a distance of five million miles, and settled to
Phobos for the slight repairs needed.</p>
<p>Twelve hours later, the T-253 settled to Luna, for the
many rearrangements she would need.</p>
<p>"I rather knew it was coming," Kendall admitted sadly,
"but danged if I didn't forget all about it. And—cost the
life of one of the finest men in the system. Jehnson's family
get a permanent pension just twice his salary, McLaurin.
In the meantime—"</p>
<p>"What was it? Pure heat, but how?"</p>
<p>"Pure radio. Nothing but short-wave radio directed at
us. They probably had the apparatus, knew how to make
it, but that's not a good type of heat ray, because a radio
tube is generally less than eighty percent efficient, which is
a whale of a loss when you're working in a battle, and
a whale of an inconvenience. We were heated only four
times as much as the Miran. He had to pump that heat into
a heat-reservoir—a water tank probably—to protect himself.
Highly inefficient and ineffective against a large ship.
Also, he had to hold his beam on us nearly ten minutes
before it would have become unbearable. He was again,
trying to kill the men, and not the ship. The men are the
weakest point, obviously."</p>
<p>"Can you overcome that?"</p>
<p>"Obviously, no. The thing works on pure energy. I'd have
to match his energy to neutralize it. You knew it's an old
proposition, that if you could take a beam of pure, monochromatic
light and divide it exactly in half, and then recombine
it in perfect interference, you'd have annihilation of
energy. Cancellation to extinction. The trouble is, you never
do get that. You can't get monochromatic light, because
light can't be monochromatic. That's due to the Heisenberg
Uncertainty—my pet bug-bear. The atom that radiates the
light, must be moving. If it isn't, the emission of the light
itself gives it a kick that moves it. Now, no matter what the
quantum <i>might</i> have been, it loses energy in kicking the
atom. That changes the situation instantly, and incidentally<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></SPAN></span>
the 'color' of the light. Then, since all the radiating atoms
won't be moving alike, etc., the mass of light can't be
monochromatic. Therefore perfect interference is impossible.</p>
<p>"The way that relates to the problem in hand, is that we
can't possibly destroy his energy. We can, as we do in the
crumbler stunt, change it. He can't, I suspect, put too
much power behind his crumbler, or he'd have crumbling
going on at home. We get a slight heating from it, anyway.
Into the bargain, his radio was after us, and his neutrons
naturally carried energy. Now, no matter what we do, we've
got that to handle. When we fight his crumbler, we actually
add heat-energy to it, ourselves, and make the heating effect
just twice as bad. If we try to heterodyne his radio—presto—it
has twice the heat energy anyway, though we might
reduce it to a frequency that penetrated the ship instead of
all staying in it. But by the proposition, we have to use as
much energy, and in fact, remember the 80% rule. We've
got to take it and like it."</p>
<p>"But," objected McLaurin, "we <i>don't</i> like it."</p>
<p>"Then build ships as big as his, and he'll quit trying to
roast you. Particularly if the inner walls are synthetic plastics.
Did you know I used them in the 'S Doradus' and 'Cepheid'?"</p>
<p>"Yes. Were you thinking of that?"</p>
<p>"No—just luck—and the fact that they're light, strong as
steel almost, and can be manufactured in forms much more
quickly. Only the outer hull is tungsten-beryllium. The advantage
in this will be that nearly all the energy will be
absorbed outside, and we'll radiate pretty fast, particularly
as that tungsten-beryllium has a high radiation-factor in the
long heat range."</p>
<p>"What does that mean?"</p>
<p>"Well, ordinary polished silver is a mighty poor radiator.
Homely example: Try waiting for your coffee to cool if it's
in a polished silver pot. Then try it in a tungsten-beryllium
pot. No matter how you polish that tungsten-beryllium,
the stuff WILL radiate heat. That's why an IP ship is
always so blamed cold. You know the passenger ships use<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></SPAN></span>
polished aluminum outer walls. The big help is, that the
tungsten-beryllium will throw off the energy pretty fast, and
in a big ship, with a whale of a lot of matter to heat, the
Strangers will simply give up the idea."</p>
<p>"Yes, but only two ships in the system compare with them
in size."</p>
<p>"Sorry—but I didn't build the IP fleet, and there are
lots of tungsten and beryllium on Earth. Enough anyway."</p>
<p>"Will they use that beam on the fort? And can't we use
the thing on them?"</p>
<p>"They won't and we won't—though we could. A bank
of those new million watt tubes—perhaps a hundred of
them—and we'd have a pretty effective heater—but an
awful waste of power. I've got something better."</p>
<p>"New?"</p>
<p>"Somewhat. I've found out how to make the mirror field
in a plate of metal, instead of a block. Come on to the lab,
and I'll show you."</p>
<p>"What's the advantage? Oh—weight saved, and silver
metal saved."</p>
<p>"A lot more than that, Mac. Watch."</p>
<hr class="hrhide" />
<p>At the laboratory, the new apparatus looked immensely
lighter and simpler than the old. The atostor, the ionizer, and
the twin ion-projectors were as before, great, rigid, metal
structures that would maintain the meeting point of the ions
with inflexible exactitude under any acceleration strains.
But now, instead of the heavy silver block in which a mirror
was figured, the mirror consisted of a polished silver
plate, parabolic to be sure, but little more than a half-inch
in thickness. It was mounted in a framework of complex,
stout metal braces.</p>
<p>Kendall started the ion-flame at low intensity, so the UV
beam was little more than a spotlight.</p>
<p>"You missed the point, Mac. Now—watch that tungsten-beryllium
plate. I'll hold the power steady. It's an eighteen-inch
beam—and now the energy is just sufficient to heat
that tungsten plate to bright red. But—"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Kendall turned over a small rheostat control—and abruptly
the eighteen-inch diameter spot on the tungsten-beryllium
plate began contracting; it contracted till it was a blazing,
sparkling spot of molten incandescence less than an inch
across!</p>
<p>"That's the advantage of focus. At this distance of a few
hundred feet with a small beam I can do that. With a
twenty-foot beam, I can get a two-foot spot at a distance of
nearly ten miles! That means that the receiving end will have
the pleasure of handling <i>one hundred times the energy concentration</i>.
That would punch a hole through most anything.
All you have to do is focus it. The trouble being, if it's out
of focus the advantage is more than lost. So if there's any
question about getting the focus, we'll get along without
it."</p>
<p>"A real help, if you do. That would punch a hole before
the Stranger ship could turn away as they do now."</p>
<p>Kendall nodded. "That's what I was after. It is mainly
for the forts, though. We'll have to signal the dope to the
Mars Center and Deenmor stations. They can fix it up,
themselves. In the meantime—all we can do is hold on
and hunt, and let's hope better than the Strangers do."</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></SPAN></span></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />