Nor could she fight. She had conquered one first–class war–vessel of the public enemy, it was true, but at what awful cost! One fresh vessel could blast his crippled mount out of space, nor would there be only one. Within a space of minutes after the attachment of a tracer the Brittania would be surrounded by the cream of Boskone a fighters. There was only one chance, and slowly, thoughtfully, and finally grimly, young Lieutenant Kinnison—now and briefly Captain Kinnison—decided to take it.
"Listen, everybody!" he ordered. "We must get this information back to Base, and we can't do it in the Brittania. The pirates are bound to catch us, and our chance in an
other fight is exactly zero. We'll have to abandon ship and take to the lifeboats, in the hope that at least one will be able to get through.
"The technicians and specialists will take all the data they, got— information, descriptions, diagrams, pictures, everything—boil it down, and put it on a spool of tape.
They will make about a hundred copies of it. The crew and the Valerian privates will man boats starting with Number Twenty One and blast off as soon as you can get your tapes. Once away, use very little detectable power, or better yet no power at all, until you're sure the pirates have chased the Brittania a good many parsecs away from where you are.
"The rest of us—specialist and the Valerian non–coms—will go last. Twenty boats, two men to a boat, and each man will have a spool. We'll start launching when we're as far as it's safe to go. Each boat will be strictly on its own. Do it any way you can, but some way, any way, get your spool back to Base. There's no use in me trying to impress you with the importance of this stuff, you know what it means as well as I do.
"Boatmates will be drawn by lot. The quartermaster will write all our names—and his own, to make it forty even—on slips of paper and draw them out of a helmet two at a time. If two navigators, such as Henderson and I, are drawn together, both names go back into the pot. Get to work!"
Twice the name of "Kinnison" came out together with that of another skilled in astronautics and was replaced. The third time, however, it came out paired with "vanBuskirk," to the manifest joy of the giant Valerian and to the approval of the crowd as well.
"That was a break for me, Kim!" the sergeant called, over the cheers of his fellows. "I'm sure of getting back now!"
"That's throwing the off, big fellow—but I don't know of anybody I'd rather have at my back than you," Kinnison replied, with a boyish grin.
The pairings were made, DeLameters, spare batteries, and other equipment were checked and tested, the spools of tape were sealed in their corrosion–proof containers and distributed, and Kinnison sat talking with the Master Technician.
"So they've solved the problem of the really efficient reception and conversion of cosmic radiation!" Kinnison whistled softly through his teeth. "And a sun—even a small one—radiates the energy given off by the annihilation of one–to–several million tone of matter. per second! SOME power!"
"That's the story, Skipper, and it explains completely why their ships have been so much superior to ours. They could have installed faster drives even than the Brittania's—they probably will, now that it has become necessary. Also, if the bus–bars in that receptor–convertor had been a few square centimeters larger in cross–section, they could have held their wall– shield, even against our duodec bomb. Then what?…They had plenty of intake, but not quite enough distribution."
"Whey have atomic motors, the same as ours, just as big and just as efficient," Kinnison cogitated. "But those motors are all we have got, while they use them, and at full power, too, simply as first–stage exciters for the cosmic–energy screens. Blinding blue blazes, what power! Some of us have got to get back, Verne. If we don't, Boskone's got the whole galaxy by the tail, and civilization is sunk without a trace."
"I'll say so, but also I'll say this for those of us who doe t get back— it won't be for lack of trying. Well, better I go check my boat. If I don't see you again, Kim old man, clear ether!"
They shook hands briefly and Thorndyke strode away. Enroute, however, he paused beside the quartermaster and signaled to him to disconnect his communicator.
"Clever lad, Allerdyce!" Thorndyke whispered, with a grin. "Kinds loaded the dice a trifle once or twice, didn't you? I don't think anybody but me smelled a rat, though. Certainly neither the skipper nor Henderson did, or you'd've had it to do over again."
"At least one team has got to get through," Allerdyce replied, quietly and obliquely, "and the strongest teams we can muster will find the going none too easy. Any team made up of strength and weakness is a weak team. Kinnison, our only Lensman, is of course the best man aboard this buzz–buggy. Who would you pick for number two?"
"VanBuskirk, of course, the same as you did. I wasn't criticizing you, man, I was complimenting you, and thanking you, in a roundabout way, for giving me Henderson.
He's got plenty of what it takes, too."
"It wasn't vanBuskirk, of course, by any means," the quartermaster rejoined. "It's mighty hard to figure either you or Henderson third, to say nothing of fourth, in any kind of company, however fast–mentally and physically. However, it seemed to me that you fitted in better with the pilot. I could hand–pick only two teams without getting caught at it—you spotted me as it was—but I think I picked the two strongest teams possible. One of you will get through—if none of you four can make it, nobody could."
"Well, here's hoping, anyway. Thanks again. See you again some time, maybe—clear ether!"
Chief Pilot Henderson had, a few minutes since, changed the course of the cruiser from right–line flight to fantastic, zig–zag leaps through space, and now he turned frowningly to Kinnison.
"We'd better begin dumping them out pretty soon now, I think," be suggested. "We haven't detected anything yet, but according to the figures it won't be long now, and after they get their traps set we'll run out of time mighty quick."
"Right," and one after another, but even so several light–years apart in space, eighteen of the small boats were launched into the void. In the control room there were left only Henderson and Thorndyke with vanBuskirk and Kinnison, who were of course to be the last to leave the vessel.
"All right, Hen, now we'll try out your roulette–wheel director–by– chance," Kinnison said, then went on, in answer to Thorndyke's questioning glance. "A bouncing ball on an oscillating table. Every time the ball carroms off a pin it shifts the course through a fairly large, but unpredictable angle. Pure chance—we thought it might cross them up a little."
Hairline beams were connected from panels to pins, and soon four interested spectators looked on while, with no human guidance, the Brittania lurched and leaped even more erratically than she had done under Henderson's direction. Now, however, the ever–changing vectors of her course were as unexpected and surprising to her passengers as to any possible external observer.
One more lifeboat left the vessel, and only the Lensman and his giant aide remained. While they were waiting the required few minutes before their own departure, Kinnison spoke.
"Bus, there's one more thing we ought to do, and I've just figured out how to do it. We don't want this ship to fall into the pirates' hands intact, as there's a lot of stuff in her that would probably be as new to them as it was to us. They know we got the best of that ship of theirs, but they don't know what we did or how. On the other hand, we want her to drive on as long as possible after we leave her—the farther away fron2 us she gets, the better our chance of getting away. We should have something to touch off those duodec torpedoes we have left—all seven at once—at the first touch of a spy beam, both to keep them from studying her and to do a little damage if possible—they'll go inert and pull her up close as soon as they get a tracer on her. Of course we can't do it by stopping the spy–ray altogether, with a spyscreen, but I think I can establish an R7TX7M field outside our regular screens that will interfere with a TX7 just enough—say one–tenth of one percent—to actuate a relay in the field–supporting beam."