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—"