'Grab Sally before she hits the ground!' Jerry shouted.
'She might break!'
This was a real danger, frozen solid as she was, and the two men forgot everything to save the woman they loved and leaped and caught her and raised her gently in their arms while John stood behind them, his gun on full automatic, spraying screaming death to the howling hordes.
Yet still they came on, daggers raised for vengeance, and John flashed a brief look over his shoulder to see that Sally was safe. As soon as he saw this, he raised his gun and in a burst of bullets shot the whippers from their balconies. Their agonized cries ended in splats upon the floor, and with the whipping stopped, the cavern was once again plunged into stygian gloom.
'Ich mochte ein Einzelzimmer mit Bad im ersten Stock!'
['I spotted a door behind the throne, so grab onto me and we can escape that way.']
Jerry shouted this gutturally in German, knowing that the other two would understand this language, also knowing that the Titanians spoke English and would understand anything spoken in this language. And it worked! He threw Sally, frozen possibly for eternity in a position of stark fear, over one shoulder and felt Chuck seize her ankles and knew, despite the darkness, that John had his hand on Chuck's shoulder. Soundlessly he led them to the door and pushed it open, stepping into the black unknown beyond, fearlessly, preferring that to the certain death awaiting them in the throne room, from which there now emerged a great clashing and screaming.
'Well done,' John whispered. 'They're killing each other back there, thinking that we are still in their midst. I've closed the door and sealed it – so let's have some light.'
Jerry lit the welding torch, and they saw that they were in a roughly hewn tunnel that vanished into the darkness ahead.
'I'll take Sally now,' Chuck said, his deed as good as word, relieving Jerry of his precious frozen burden. 'Lead on and make tracks because my oxygen is almost gone.' And tracks they did make at a steady ground-eating jog of over seven mph, the only sound the thud of their feet and their hoarse breathing eating away at the diminishing oxygen supply. Suddenly, far ahead, they saw a light patch of darkness in which swam distant points of light.
'The end of the tunnel,' Jerry said, switching off the torch. 'And those look like stars or I'll eat my hat. Be alert because we have no idea what, or what thing, may be waiting out there.'
Silently and grimly they advanced, weapons ready, to burst suddenly out upon the icy plain. They were alone, close beside a cliff and not too distant from the 747, which rested solidly, windows glowing a warm welcome.
'Look,' Jerry pointed, drawing their attention to a white band of material in the cliff and to the chunks of the same white substance on the ground. 'I'll be darned if that's not oxygen – and old kingy had a private tunnel for a constant supply. . .'
'No' – gasp – 'oxygen!' John gasped, and they hurried quickly to the plane.
With new tanks snapped into place and a fresh supply of the life-giving substance filling their lungs, they were ready for anything, and it was Jerry who spoke, detailing a carefully worked-out plan.
'All the Titanians out there are dead – but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that there will be plenty of live ones along mighty soon. So we had better get ready and get out of here before they put a crimp in our plans – after all, we can't kill all of them.'
'Wish we could,' John growled, and the others growled instant agreement before Jerry went on.
'So here is what we do. We dig out the frozen oxygen and fill the forward hold with it, that's the job for you two. While you're doing that, I'll hook up feedpipes from this hold to all the engines and also rig an electric heater in the hold. When the hold is full, we seal it, turn on the heater, the solid oxygen sublimates to a gas, is piped to the engines, we turn on the fuel flow-'
'-and away we go!' Chuck enthused. 'Foolproof. But what about Sally?'
At his words their happy expressions faded, and they looked at the hapless girl, still frozen in an attitude of horror, who was leaning against the corner of the wall by the bar. It was John who cracked that frozen moment of gloom, clappng his chums upon the shoulder.
'Don't worry, I told you she would be all right, but no time to explain now. Let's put her in one of the johns with a hunk of frozen oxygen, and she'll keep OK.'
They went to work with a will. Working like maniacs, they dug and tore at the seam of oxygen, dragging the frozen chunks back on a sled improvised from a stretcher used by the football team. Nor was Jerry just sitting on his duff, for with the energy and skill of a mechanical genius, which he was, he had replumbed fuel lines and air ducts, rigged an electric heater from torn-out galley stoves and generally fixed the great engines to operate in an oxygenfree atmosphere. The hold was almost full, and they were trundling up the last load of oxygen when a shrill and alien wailing could be heard across the frozen plain.
'Here they come,' John said grimly. 'Load the oxy aboard and I'll hold them off until we're ready to go.' And this stalwart American, so long misled but now returned to his homeland, was as good as his word. He ran forward shouting a battle cry, whether it was 'Remember Pearl Harbor!' or 'Remember the Maine!' or whatever is not important; what is important is that one man faced that ravening alien horde with a smile upon his lips. Shot after well-placed shot rang out, each one bringing down at least three of the screeching, dagger-waving Titanians, and the attack was slowed. But their numbers pressed on, and by sheer weight they forced him back, step by reluctant step, until he was almost under the wing of the Pleasantville Eagle.
'This is my last clip,' he shouted back over his shoulder, pulling the trigger on the instant and exploding to green shreds the head of an importune enemy.
'There!' a welcome voice called out in reply, and three dark cylinders flew over his head. 'Put a bullet through each of those and get inside. We're ready to go!'
And he had just three bullets left. Only a superb marksman could have hit those small targets under the tricky light of Saturn, exhausted and faced by an attacking horde of monsters. But he did it, almost casually, a smile playing about his lips all the time. Three shots rang out, almost as one, and each container burst into coruscating flame. Wails of pain and anger broke out from the Titanians, who were forced back by the only thing they really feared. Heat! Taking advantage of the moment's respite, John dived for the doorway and slammed it shut behind him.
'Oxygen pressure up to two atmospheres and still rising,' Chuck called out, bent over a pressure gauge that had been rigged in the floor leading to the hold below.
'Then hold onto your hats because here we go!' Jerry called out jubilantly from the pilot's seat as he jammed the throttle home and fired up the outboard starboard engine. They held their breaths, unknowingly, as the engine whined over slowly, protesting at these strange conditions. Over and over it turned while the Titanians pressed close for the attack, whining and grumbling and not catching at all, slower and slower.
'The batteries are almost dead,' Jerry cried. 'Turn out all the lights, everything that draws electricity, even the monomatic toilets, so I can try again.'
Darkness fell instantly inside the plane as the switches were thrown, and they waited in hushed silence as Jerry threw the starting switch again.
'What were those bombs?' John asked. 'I didn't know we had any explosive aboard.'
'Just something I rigged out of used oxygen cylinders in case you needed some help. Filled with jet fuel and chunks of frozen oxygen. The fuel melted the oxygen, which pressurized the cylinders, which blew up when you shot them, and the inflammable mixture was ignited by your hot bullets.'
His words were interrupted by a sudden popping explosion from the engine, and they held their breaths while a cloud of smoke and flame was ejected from the exhaust. The popping slowed, almost stopped, picked up again; then the engine burst into the full-throated roar of full power, drowning out forever the screams of the incinerated Titanians who were blown away by the exhaust. His two companions pounded the pilot on the back as the other engines caught one after another until the great ship was vibrating with barely restrained power. Chuck slid into the copilot's seat and readied himself at the controls.
'I just had a thought,' he said as he reached to release the wheel brakes. 'Did you align the cheddite projector?'
'I thought you would never ask.' Jerry laughed. 'It was the first thing I did while the oxygen was warming up. She's now lined up to fourteen decimal points and A-OK and ready to go. And I've done all the settings and locked the controls. All we have to do is take this barge up to thirty thousand feet, aim the nose directly at Polaris, also called the North Star, point the starboard wing at the outermost point of Saturn's ring – and press the firing button! We'll appear at twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty feet over central Kansas, give or take a few feet.'
