CHAPTER EIGHT
Howell threw the overdrive switch. The vision-screens faded. There were the usual symptoms accompanying entry into the isolated, twisted-space cocoon which was an overdrive-field. But again the symptoms were mild. They were almost unnoticeable. They were as much fainter than those usually felt as the speed of the Marintha was now less than the rate at which overdrive usually carried ships between the stars. The yacht, escaping murder-weapons in space, fled at the slowest of crawls.
For one instant the yacht seemed to be surrounded by a buzzing, whining fleet of unseen enemies. Bleatings and hootings had begun all about her, as the nearest murder-ships relayed the detailed information their instruments gave them. Deadly missiles of ball-lightning flashed toward her, any one of which would end her existence.
Then the place where the yacht had been was empty. Instantly other ships—slug-ships—flicked into seeming nothingness to pursue her.
But they drove on full-power. Before they could recover from the anguish all overdrive entries produce, they had flashed far past the place where the Marintha could be said to be. They went on and on, seeking her trail in nothingness, light-weeks and even light-months beyond this planetary system which the Marintha hadn’t left.
It was pure recklessness for Howell to use overdrive amidst all the celestial trash that gathers and floats around a sun. It was far from conservative. No skipper is anxious to find out really what will happen if, in overdrive, his ship rams into an asteroid or even the nucleus of a comet. But the Marintha had no choice. She had to take to overdrive or be blasted in mid-space, and overdrive meant plunging blindly to nowhere with an escort of chlorine-breathing monsters who might—who might!—be able to crack her field and force her back into cosmos where she was helpless. If they could trail a ship in overdrive, they might be able to do more.
In the Marintha the small-men babbled. They were bewildered. They made incredulous gestures to each other. The Marintha had plunged into the very centre of a war-fleet of the slug-creatures, and then plunged out again! They couldn’t understand it! If Howell could blow up a grounded slug-ship with a hand-weapon, and if he could disarm booby traps equipped with killer-fields, in his repaired and refurbished ship he should wreak vast destruction on an enemy-fleet! But he hadn’t. Why?
The man with the red vest went to the garbage disposal unit. He lifted its cover and gazed inside. He shook his head querulously.
“Karen,” said Howell grimly, “come up here and get set to talk. Since the small-folk aground must have detected the slug-fleet, they may be getting set to get away. I’ve got to break out to locate the planet they’re on—if they’re still there. If they are there, I’ll risk landing to put these small-men aboard their own ships. I’ll try to turn you over to your father, to get away with them. Then I’ll make sure the Marintha doesn’t become a source of information for the monsters who’re after us.”
She protested, “But you won’t—you won’t—”
“Get set to call!” ordered Howell grimly. “Never mind what I’m going to do!”
He made ready as she picked up the communicator and turned it on. He said, “Breakout coming!” and threw the switch. He then became wholly intent upon his instruments and what he could see in the vision-screens. The green world was a vividly visible disk. Karen began to speak: “Marintha calling! Marintha calling ground! Come in! Marintha calling ground.”
The all-wave receiver yielded whinings, faint and very many of them. They sounded not unlike the infuriated buzzings of a nest of hornets. But they were far away now. Very oddly, they were too near to use overdrive for travel, especially with debris to be found in such quantities as appear about a sun. But they were too far away to overtake the Marintha on solar-system drive.
The all-wave receiver brought in Breen’s voice.
“Karen! What happened? There’s a slug-ship fleet on the way!”
“I know,” said Karen unhappily. “We’re going to land the small-men if their ships will wait for them, and—”
“Ask if the small-men will take the three of you on board their ships,” ordered Howell. When she protested, he snapped, “Do as I say!”
She obeyed, but her voice wavered.
“Come to ground,” boomed Breen’s voice in the speaker. “The small-men are dancing! They’re celebrating! One of their ships went aloft some hours ago, and since it came back I can’t get any sense out of them! But they say come to ground!”
Howell nodded, his features set.
“I’ve got our overdrive set so low I can make another jump,” he observed. “It’ll save hours. Overdrive coming!”
The vision-screens faded. Howell counted minutes and seconds. Then he said, “Breakout coming!”
The screens lighted. To the left there was a monstrous mass of utter blackness, blotting out almost half the firmament. It was the night side of the green planet. Howell swung the yacht’s nose about and dived for the blackness’ edge. As he saw the situation, he was bound to lose Karen and his own life in any case. The only long-range good he could hope to do would develop indirectly through Breen and Ketch—if all went well. If they were accepted as guests of the small-man race, in time they might persuade their hosts to search for the civilization that had produced the Marintha. Such an encounter would give warning to the Earth-human race. They might prepare. They might arm. They might meet and smash the chlorine-breathing monsters who had smashed the cities and the civilization of humanity’s forefathers.
If that happened, it would justify Howell’s own reluctant mission, to be carried out when the others were gone from the green planet and before the slug-ships arrived. He meant to drive the Marintha straight down into the deepest chasm of the green world’s oceans, until the stout hull of the space-yacht collapsed. He’d do this so the slug-creatures couldn’t learn from her of the race of which Karen was a member.
The night side of the booby trap world blotted out half the stars. The Marintha plunged on. Presently a thin faint rim of reddish light appeared ahead. The Marintha raced onward toward the brightness. It was the dawn-line, where day began at this time on this planet. Howell dived. Normally a ship coming in for a landing will make at least one orbital turn to lose velocity. But Howell swung the Marintha about and used full solar-system drive to kill her speed.
He was almost exactly over the peninsula when the yacht’s rate of motion matched that of the ground. The space-yacht hovered for an instant, and then descended swiftly.
“Get your baggage set, Karen,” commanded Howell. “Pack up technical reference books too. Ketch and your father can translate them eventually.”
Karen said rebelliously, “I’m not going to go away with anybody while you sink the Marintha and you in it!”
There were creakings and crashings outside. Trees resisted the yacht’s landing. A tree trunk toppled and the Marintha touched ground. Howell strode to the exit-port and opened it The small-men who’d been his passengers went out in a subdued, bewildered fashion. Other small-men came running to meet them. There was eager, ecstatic exchange of news. There was wild hilarity. Those who’d been so disappointed because Howell in the Marintha inexplicably spared the ships of slug-creatures, and who just before landing had been quite bewildered—those same small-folk suddenly turned beaming faces back to him as he stood in the exit-port. They waved. They shouted. Those who’d come to meet them led the way back toward the globe-ships. But all the party turned to wave and shout joyously until they were out of sight.