water and nostrils burn. The vision glass was blanked out by the lapping flames that crawled and writhed over the screen outside the glass.
Russ tore his collar open, wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. “Try a pure magnetic!'
Greg, his face set and bleak as a wall of stone, grunted agreement. His fingers danced over the control manual.
Suddenly the stars outside twisted and danced, like stars gone mad, as if they were dancing a riotous jig in space, some uproariously hopping up and down while others were applauding the show that was being provided for their unblinking eyes.
The magnetic field was tightening now, twisting the light from those distant stars and bending it straight again. The Interplanetarian reeled like a drunken thing and the great arcs of electric flame looped madly and plunged straight for the field's very heart.
The stars danced weirdly in faroff space again as the Interplanetarian's accumulators lashed out with tremendous force to oppose the energy of the field.
The field glowed softly and disappeared.
'They have us stopped at every turn,” groaned Russ. “There must be some way, something we can do.” He looked at Greg. Greg grinned without humor, wiping his face. “There is something we can do,” said Russ grimly. “We should have thought of it long ago.'
He strode to the desk, reached out one hand and drew a calculator near.
'You keep them busy,” he snapped. “I'll have this thing figured out in just a while.'
From the engine rooms came the roar and hum of the laboring units and the Invincible shuddered once again as Greg grimly hurled one beam after another, at the Interplanetarian.
The Interplanetarian struck back, using radio frequency that flamed fiercely against the Invincible's outer screen. Simultaneously the Interplanetarian leaped forward with a sudden surge of accumulated energy, driving at the star that lay not more than three billion miles away.
Greg worked desperately, cursing under his breath. He pulled down the outer screen that was fighting directly against the radio frequency, energy for energy, and allowed the beam to strike squarely on the second screen, the inversion field that shunted the major portion of the energy impacting against it through 90 degrees into another space.
The engines moaned softly and settled into a quieter rumble as the necessity of supplying the first screen was eliminated. But they screamed once again as Greg sent out a tractor beam that seized and held, dragged the Interplanetarian to a standstill. Craven's ship had gained millions of miles, though, and established a tremendous advantage by fighting nearer to its source of energy.
'Russ,” gasped Greg, “if you don't get that scheme of yours figured out pretty soon, we're done for. They've stopped everything we've got. They're nearer the sun. We won't stand a chance if they make another break like that.'
Russ glanced up to answer, but his mouth fell open in amazement and he did not speak. A streak of terrible light was striking at them from the Interplanetarian, blinding white light, and along that highway of light swarmed a horde of little green figures, like squirming green amebas. Swarming toward the Invincible, stretching out hungry, pale-green pseudopods toward the inversion barrier… and eating through it!
Wherever they touched, holes appeared. They drifted through the inversion screen easily and began drilling into the inner screen of anti-entropy. Eating their way into the anti-entropy… into a state of matter which Russ and Greg had thought would resist all change!
For seconds both men stood transfixed, unable to believe the evidence of their eyes. But the ameba things came on in ever-increasing throngs, creatures that gnawed and slobbered at the anti-entropy, eating into it, flaking it away, drilling their way through it.
When they pierced the anti-entropy, they would cut through the steel plates of the Invincible like so much paper! And more were coming. More and more!
With a grunt of amazement, Greg slammed a beam straight into the heart of the amebas. They ate the beam and vanished as mistily as before, little glowing things that ate and died. But there were always more to take their place. They overwhelmed the beam and ate back along its length, attacked the screen again.
They ate through walls of force and walls of metal, and a rush of hissing air began to flame into ions in the terrific battle of energies outside the Invincible.
Russ was crouching over the manual of the televisor board. His breath moaned in his throat as his fingers flew.
'I have to have power, Greg,” he said. “Lots of power.'
'Take it.” Greg replied. “I haven't been able to do anything with it. It isn't any use to me.'
Russ's thumb reached out and tripped the activating lever. The giant engines shrieked and yowled.
Something was happening on the television screen… something terrifying. Craven's ship seemed to retreat suddenly for millions of miles… and as suddenly the Invincible appeared on the screen. For a single flashing instant, the view held; then it was gone in blank grayness. For seconds nothing happened on the screen, unnerving seconds while the two men held their breath.
The screen's grayness fled and they looked into the control room of the Interplanetarian. Craven was hunched in a chair, intent upon a series of controls. Behind him and to one side stood Stutsman, a heat pistol dangled from his hand, his face twisted into a sneer of triumph. There was no sign of Chambers.
'You damn fool,” Craven was snapping at Stutsman. “You're cheating us out of the only chance we ever had of getting home.'
'SHUT up,” snarled Stutsman, the pistol jerking in his hand. “Have you got that apparatus on full power?'
'It's been on full power for minutes now,” said Craven. “It must be eating holes straight through Manning's ship.'
'See you keep it that way. I really don't need you any more, anyhow. I've watched and I know all the tricks. I could carry on this battle single-handed.'
Craven did not reply, merely hunched closer over the controls, eyes watching flickering dials.
Greg jogged Russ’ elbow. “That must be the apparatus over there, in the corner of the room. That triangular affair. A condenser of some sort. That stuff they're throwing at us must be super-saturated force fields and they'd need a space field condensor for that.'
Russ nodded. “We'll take care of that.'
His fingers moved swiftly and a transport beam whipped out, riding the television beam. Bands of force wrapped around the triangular machine and wrenched viciously. In the screen the apparatus disappeared… simply was gone. It now lay within the Invincible's control room, jerked there by the tele-transport.
The flood of dazzling light reaching out from the Interplanetarian snapped off and the little green ameba things were gone. The shrill whistle of escaping air stopped as the eaten screens clamped down again, sealing in the atmosphere despite the holes bored through the metal plates.
In the television screen, Craven leaped from his chair, was staring with Stutsman at the place where the concentrator had stood. The machine had been ripped from a welded base and jagged, bright, torn metal gleamed in the control room lights. Snapped cables and broken busbars lay piled about the room.
'What happened?” Stutsman was screaming. They heard Craven laugh at the terror in the other's voice. “Manning just walked in and grabbed it away from us.'
'But he couldn't! We had the screen up! He couldn't get through!'
Craven shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know how he did it, but he did. Probably he could clean out the whole place if he wanted to.'
'That's a good idea,” said Russ, judiciously.
He stripped bank after bank of the other ship's photo-cells from their moorings, wrecked the force field controls, ripped cables from the engines and left the ship without means of collecting power, without means of using power, without means of movement, of offense or defense.
He leaned back in his chair and regarded the screen with deep satisfaction.
'That.” he decided, “should hold them for a while.'
He hauled the pipe out of his pocket and filled it from the battered leather pouch.
Greg regarded him with a quizzical stare. “You sent the televisor back in time. You got it inside the Interplanetarian before Craven had run up his screen and then you brought it forward.'
