The Black Galaxy

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Defeat

AT FIRST, it did seem that the battle would go Rod's way. The drone-ship went up into sunlit space from the cloudy covering of the second planet Hidden in the mist Rod had to interpret the look of things from the television-screen in the control-room.

In a very real sense the vision-screens were superior to eyesight. There was an adjustment of which the humans had not known by which the images could be enlarged. Any part of the transmitted scene could be chosen and examined under high magnification.

Small round men watched those screens, ready to rip off for later study the lasting image should an informative event occur. The images were in full color and of astoundingly fine definition. It was hard to believe that they were transmitted from space by tiny focused tractor and pressor-beams.

The first scenes were wholly peaceful. There was the yellow sun and there were the four planets in plain view. Beyond there were the cold lights of a million million suns of every color and degree of brightness.

As the pseudo-ship rose higher and higher from the cloud-banked globe Rod saw for the first time the actual picturesqueness of interplanetary space. Always, before, when he saw the stars beyond atmosphere, he had had immediate pressing problems of navigation or of survival.

But as a color-picture on a vision-screen its startling beauty and variety struck home. Which proved that Rod was wholly human in failing to notice beauty until a frame was put around it.

Of the enemy ships there was as yet no sign. The drone ship was two thousand miles out. Three. Five. Then warm hands touched Rod and musical notes in his ears formed themselves into words.

The enemy fleet was very close. The crews of its many ships were triumphant by anticipation.

Rod shot the Stellaris up to emptiness. For seconds, there seemed to be two Earth-ships in the void. They were identical to all outward appearance and to all seeming they were alone in space.

Suddenly, though, the real Stellaris winked out of being It had gone into the other-space and its only link with the cosmos of the yellow sun was the tenuous complex grid of focused tractor and pressor-beams which linked the drone-ship to the Stellaris, the Stellaris in turn to two planets of this solar system and to an unthinkably remote unknown object deep in the heart of the dark universe.

These three anchorages gave the Earthship leverage she needed to maneuver the drone. The television eyes in the drone gave what information was needed to maneuver the drone. The television eyes in the drone gave what information was needed for maneuvers and, of course, the hidden inner weapon began its ceaseless search for targets the instant the Stellaris vanished.

The tranquility of airless space remained. The drone-ship—a mere shell—moved like a pawn from another universe, seemed to come to a decision. It swung about in emptiness and headed steadily for the planet of the dead cities.

Its movement was smooth and even, which was in itself a proof that it was not a ship moving on normal drive. A ship under power would either be accelerating or slowing, certainly not coasting at the beginning of an interplanetary voyage.

The dummy space-craft moved on and on. And then something appeared magically, something else appeared magically, suddenly all of space seemed aglitter with shining metal shapes appearing eerily from nowhere.

The yellow sunlight gleamed on their sides, and the vision-screens showed them by myriads in all directions, from a colossal pyramid almost within arm's reach of the drone—it filled all of one television screen—to others and others dwindling through all sizes to the uncertainties of sixth-magnitude brightness.

Within a space of seconds the whole system of the yellow sun was filled with ships. There was no counting them. There were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them. The pyramid-race had massed such a fleet as Rod had not conceived of to crush the one small vessel which challenged its might and its privilege of assassination.

But the Stellaris did represent in fact as great a danger to the murder-race as the pyramid-ships to it. If left undestroyed the Stellaris could multiply.

In the dark universe Rod stared in amazement at the spectacle. He touched a single stud, and the drone-ship's weapon lashed out invisibly. But he was almost dazed by the instantaneous appearance of this monstrous fleet.

"They slowed from faster-than-light drive," he said blankly. "That must be it! They traveled in formation, faster than light! And they all slowed together and—here they are! They took my trick of jumping into their laps and twisted it to make their lap jump into me!"

The statement was exact. In the previous fleet-encounter, the Stellaris had leaped from extreme range instantly into the midst of the pyramid-ships. There it had done vast damage. Now the enemy fleet had appeared as if leaping from incredible distances, in a formation which could not but surround any space-ship near this sun, with every pyramid-vessel spouting deadly radiation from each of its five flat sides.

Against such a maneuver there could be no defense. It was perfectly designed to wipe out all life in a volume of space exceeding the gravitational field of a sun. Every world and every comet, every asteroid and even - every stray grain of meteoric matter—all would be sterilized instantly before a warning-device could operate or a single relay kick over. It was deadliness itself.

And it worked perfectly. The drone-ship was almost crashed by a monster pyramid as it slowed to visibility and ravening beams of push-pull killer-stuff raged through it That pyramid flung away, keeping formation at many miles a second. Other pyramid-ships flashed past each one pouring its deadly beams upon the robot vessel. The pseudo-Stellaris seemed to falter. Nothing living could survive what it had taken. Nothing could live within it. Nothing!

But the drone-ship fought on. It spun crazily and its beam licked out and licked out and licked out. It bit savagely into the enemy armada as it poured by, every ship flooding the defiant drone with ever-fresh murderousness. Pyramid-ships by dozens and by hundreds hurtled by and each one blasted it afresh.

And each one died. Because whether dead or not a complicated and inordinately powerful apparatus functioned in the robot too. Three separate generators—plus a power-supply unit of the enemy's own make—thrust energy eagerly into a push-pull generator which threw a tight aimed beam at every target its detectors disclosed.

That beam far outranged the enemy weapons, because they were practising saturation-beaming and that precluded concentration of their deadliness. So the little robot killed and killed and killed.

But its own lifelessness was certain. Its far-reading murderousness became known but the enemy ships beyond its range exulted in the destruction of the one small crew which was a danger to their race.

Those within range of its weapon, however, were past triumph. They were past everything. They were coffins hurtling onward senselessly.

In other-space, in the Stellaris' control-room, warm hands touched Rod. Twitterings became speech. "More! Kill more of them!"

Rod said grimly and with narrowed eyes, "I share your ambition. But this is bigger than I expected. They're regrouping now and they must know by this time that the beam that's killing them is working by itself. Every one in range is knocked off and the others are ducking."

Kit said, staring from one to another of the vision-screens, "A terrible lot of them must have been hit, Rod. Look at the way they—"

There's a terrible lot left," he said bitterly. "We've already knocked off more than were in the entire other fleet, and they know they've been hurt. But look how many are left! I'm worried!"

He sent the drone belligerently at the ships which now drew back from it. But in the space about the yellow sun a curiously dramatic picture formed. The fleet which had already made sure that no life remained on four worlds and the space about them was halting in its plunge.

Scurrying motions took place. Ships whose previous course would have taken them closer to the drone-ship now frantically scurried out of her way but not all of them succeeded.

Yet despite Rod's furious working of controls in other-space there presently developed a regrouping of the untold thousands of angular enemies. The pyramid-ships formed a titanic hollow sphere—and the drone-ship was in its very center.

The drone-ship plunged and spun and plunged again. It succeeded only in violent jerkings and the hollow sphere remained—remained beyond the farthest limit of the robot's range.

In other-space Rod scowled. "They've got pressors on it," he said savagely. "All the whole fleet. Massed pressors—as they massed their killer-beam before. They're holding it still and away from all of them. I haven't got power enough to push-pull it against all that! Looks bad!"

He kept the drone-ship trying frantically to break free but he watched the vision-screens. Time passed. Twitterings sounded behind him, warm hands touched him. The shrill became intelligible.

"They will try to tow it somewhere. Perhaps to their home planet."

"That," said Rod, "I would like to see! But I don't think they will. They build gadgets in their ships to destroy their star-maps when a ship goes dead. They might suspect us of something even more drastic. And if we'd thought of it we would have! I don't know what they'll try but things could look a lot better than they do."

Time passed. Any action among the ships of the hollow globe, of course, was invisible because of the distance. Rod waited grimly, keeping the robot still plunging as if unreasoning mechanism only were at work. But there was something still to be learned.

The pyramid-folk, probably for the first time in their history, had met intelligent and deadly opposition to their career of murder. The opposition had been costly. But they had learned from it Much too well and much too much! They'd englobed and now held helpless a much more deadly fighting-machine than the Stellaris had been only a few days since.

Rod drew in his breath sharply. A little knot of angular ships sped out from the massed armada.

It went swiftly toward the helplessly plunging little ship in the midst of all its enemies.

Warm hands. More twitterings. "More of them die?"

"Hardly," said Rod angrily. "They learn too quickly! They know nothing can be alive on our ship, though still it fights. So they've set up robot-controls on some of their ships and—we'll see what they do.

"They want to look at the dead crew they think is inside, so they can be sure to massacre the race that bred it. They'd also like to have that fighting-beam, which is better than theirs. And I don't want them to have it!"

Already he had multiplied the deadliness of the alien race by forcing them to devise this new saturation-beaming of a whole solar system. But if each of their ships, in addition, acquired a fighting-beam as deadly as the robot's that would be more serious still.

The moving remotely-controlled pyramid-ships took position on every side of the dummy craft. Its self-directing weapon flooded them with lethal push-pull radiation. It did not affect them. They arranged themselves in a geometric pattern about it. They swayed a little in their respective positions.

Rod, watching through the television eyes, said softly, "Ah-h-h! They've got pressors fanning out! They push against each other but mostly against our double. Now they'll move and take her where they please. But the fleet'll have to cut off its beams!"

He released the directional controls on the locked beams, so the little dummy ship could be moved where the enemy wished. It moved. Its robot escort set out for the nearest planet which was the world of dead cities.

"They'll ground it," said Rod, "and hold it against the ground and hammer it with another robot ship until they crack it and knock out its beam. Then they'll look it over. No!"

Another ship came streaking out of the spherical formation. It had taken longer, perhaps, to fit out with more accurate remote control. It swept in a great curve, matched speed and course with the small convoy, and went along with them for seconds. The dummy Earth-ship seemed to struggle mechanically.

Then there was a sudden flash of light. A thin, concentrated beam of pure flame darted across emptiness. It lanced through the hull of the Stellaris' substitute and on beyond for miles. The flame flashed again. Another puncture. A third.

In other-space, a television-screen went dead. There was a sudden crashing noise. A locked beam going from one universe to another went crazy as the object on which it was focused ceased to exist save as blue-white vapor. The robot fighting-ship, helpless now, was being systematically riddled with holes. The process would keep up until its weapon went off and examination by living things became possible.

"We're licked," said Rod coldly. "They're smarter than I thought. They've got us beaten."

He threw over one switch after another. The Stellaris surged forward in the dark space where stars were not.

"Rod," asked Kit anxiously. "You mean we can't do anything but run away?"

"Nothing else," he told her. "We simply can't handle that fleet. We can play heck with it—we have—but it's just too big for us. So we depart for new pastures."

Agitated twitterings came from all about him. There was one of the little folk touching Kit for the ability to understand what Rod said. He repeated the confession of defeat. The others made grief-stricken sounds.

"We're still safe ourselves," said Rod over his shoulder. "We're safer probably, than anybody else in the galaxy. And I'm not leaving our dummy for them to paw over. We've just got to start all over again in some new fashion. The only question is, what the heck can the other fashion be?"

He cut off the robot's weapon and watched the television screens. Suddenly, all the screens went black. There were flutelike wailings from the little folk.

"Tell 'em, Kit," said Rod. "Remember we made our force-fields take in a half-mile sphere of air outside the ship when we wanted to go over that other pyramid? And remember how I sprang the booby-trap before that by tying a string to my coat and pulling it into this space with a focused tractor? And how I sent you a note from the planet when you were in this space?"

"I remember," admitted Kit. "But I don't see—"

"A focused tractor can pull something out of normal space to this, if there's a force-field big enough to hold it. So I pulled our dummy-ship into the dark universe."

There was a resounding crash against the Stellaris' hull. "Here it is," said Rod. "Now we'll get to blazes away from here and figure out what next."