Stutsman!'
Manning had taken Scorio and his gangsters one by one and sent them to far corners of the Solar System. One out to the dreaded Vulcan fleet, one to the Outpost, one to the Titan prison, and one to the hell-hole on Vesta, while Scorio had gone to a little mountain set in a Venus swamp. They hadn't a chance. They had been locked within a force shell and shunted through millions of miles of space. No trial, no hearing… nothing. Just terrible, unrelenting judgment.
'I promise you that we'll take care of Stutsman!'
'CRAVEN'S only a few billion miles ahead now,” said Gregory Manning. “With our margin of speed, we should overhaul him in a few more hours. He is still short on power, but he's remedying that rapidly. He's getting nearer to that sun every minute. Running in toward it as he is, he tends to sweep up outpouring radiations. That helps him collect a whole lot more than he would under ordinary circumstances.'
Russ, sitting before the controls, pipe clenched in his teeth, watching the dials, nodded soberly.
'All I'm afraid of,” he said, “is that he'll get too close to that sun before we catch up with him. If he gets close enough so he can fill those accumulators, he'll pack a bigger wallop than we do. It'll all be in one bolt, of course, for his power isn't continuous like ours. He has to collect it slowly. But when he's really loaded, he can give us aces and still win. I'd hate to take everything he could pack into those accumulators.'
Greg shuddered. “So would I.'
The Invincible was exceeding the speed of light, was enveloped in the mysterious darkness that characterized the speed. They could see nothing outside the ship, for there was nothing to see. But the tiny mechanical shadow, occupying a place of honor on the navigation board, kept them informed of the position and the distance of the Interplanetarian.
Greg lolled in his chair, watching Russ.
'I don't think we need to worry about him throwing the entire load of the accumulators at us,” he said. “He wouldn't dare load those accumulators to peak capacity. He's got to leave enough carrying capacity in the cells to handle any jolts we send him and he knows we can send him plenty. He has to keep that handling margin at all times, over and above what he takes in for power, because his absorption screen is also a defensive screen. And he has to use some power to keep our television apparatus out.'
Russ chuckled. “I suppose, at that, we have him plenty worried.'
The thunder of the engines filled the control room. For days now that thunder had been in their ears. They had grown accustomed to it, now hardly noticed it. Ten mighty engines, driving the Invincible at a pace no other ship had ever obtained, except, possibly, the Interplanetarian, although lack of power should have held Craven's ship down to a lower speed. Craven wouldn't have dared to build up the acceleration they had now attained, for he would have drained his banks and been unable to charge them again.
'Maybe he won't fight,” said Russ. “Maybe he's figured out by this time that he's heading for the wrong star. He may be glad to see us and follow us back to the Solar System.'
'No chance of that. Craven and Chambers wont pass up a chance for a fight. They'll give us a few wallops if only for the appearance of things.'
'We're crawling up all the time.” said Russ. “If we can catch him within four or five billion miles of the star, he won't be too tough to handle. Be getting plenty of radiations even then, but not quite as much as he would like to have.'
'He'll have to start decelerating pretty soon,” Greg declared. “He can't run the chance of smashing into the planetary system at the speed he's going. He won't want to waste too much power using his field as a brake, because he must know by this time that we're after him and he'll want what power he has to throw at us.'
Hours passed. The Invincible crept nearer and nearer, suddenly seemed to leap ahead as the Interplanetarian began deceleration.
'Keep giving her all you got,” Greg urged Russ. “We've got plenty of power for braking. We can overhaul him and stop in a fraction of the time he does.'
Russ nodded grimly. The distance indicator needle on the mechanical shadow slipped off rapidly. Greg, leaping from his chair, hung over it, breathlessly.
'I think,” he said, “we better slow down now. If we don't, we'll be inside the planetary system.'
'How far out is Craven?” asked Russ.
'Not far enough,” Greg replied unhappily. “He can't be more than three billion miles from the star and that star's hot. A class G, all right, but a good deal younger than old Sol.'
WE'LL let them know we've arrived,” grinned Greg. He sent a stabbing beam of half a billion horsepower slashing at the Interplanetarian.
The other ship staggered but steadied itself.
'They know,” said Russ cryptically from his position in front of the vision plate. “We shook them up a bit.'
They waited. Nothing happened.
Greg scratched his head. “Maybe you were right. Maybe they don't want to fight.'
Together they watched the Interplanetarian. It was still moving in toward the distant sun, as if nothing had happened.
'We'll see,” said Greg.
Back at the controls he threw out a gigantic tractor beam, catching the other ship in a net of forces that visibly cut its speed.
Space suddenly vomited lashing flame that slapped back and licked and crawled in living streamers over the surface of the Invincible. The engines moaned in their valiant battle to keep up the outer screen. The pungent odor of ozone filtered into the control room. The whole ship was bucking and vibrating, creaking, as if it were being pulled apart.
'So they don't want to fight, eh?” hooted Russ.
Greg gritted his teeth. “They snapped the tractor beam.'
'They have power there,” Russ declared.
'Too much,” said Greg. “More power than they have any right to have.'
His hand went out to the lever on the board and pulled it back. A beam smashed out, with the engines’ screaming drive behind it, billions of horsepower driving with unleashed ferocity at the other ship.
Greg's hand spun a dial, while the generators roared thunderous defiance.
'I'm giving them the radiation scale,” said Greg.
The Interplanetarian was staggering under the terrific bombardment, but its screen was handling every ounce of the power that Greg was pouring into it.
'Their photo-cells can't handle that,” cried Russ. “No photo-cell would handle all that stuff you're shooting at them. Unless…'
'Unless what?'
'Unless Craven has improved on them.'
'We'll have to find out. Get the televisor.'
Russ leaped for the television machine.
A moment later he lifted a haggard face.
'I can't get through,” he said. “Craven's got our beams stopped and now he has our television blocked out.'
Greg nodded. “We might have expected that. When he could scramble our televisors back in the Jovian worlds, he certainly ought to be able to screen his ship against them.'
He shoved the lever clear over, slamming the extreme limit of power into the beam. The engines screamed like demented things, howling and shrieking. Instantly a tremendoussheet of solid flame spun a fiery web around the Interplanetarian, turning it into a blazing inferno of lapping, leaping fire.
A dozen terrific beams, billions of horsepower in each, stabbed back at the Invincible as the Interplanetarian shunted the terrific energy influx from the over-charged accumulators to the various automatic energy discharges.
The Invincible's screen flared in defense and the ten great engines wailed in utter agony. More stabbing flame shot from the Interplanetarian in slow explosions.
The temperature in the Invincible's control room was rising. The ozone was sharp enough to make their eyes
