fabric. When they were close to it—but carefully not touching it—they could see a fair amount of the rocky terrain around them.
Bob slid over beside Jakes and touched helmets with him, not trusting the use of radio, which might carry far enough for the black ships to detect. “We could leave one man outside here to keep guard. And leave the outer seal of the air lock open. Then if things happen, he could make a dash for it, perhaps bang on the inner lock and let the others know it was time to do something. You could take off while I was getting through the inner lock.”
“And you could get squashed flat under the acceleration pressure,” Simon answered.
“Nope. But we might let the air out of the ship, and keep our space suits on. Then we could keep both seals of the lock open.”
This seemed like the best idea. Bob ducked his head down and looked out again.
For a second, his heart seemed to explode. Coming down gently as a feather and almost touching the surface was the hull of a great black ship! As he swiveled his gaze, he saw another—and beyond that a third. They were arranged together at the side of the mock-up, and there was no question but what they were coming with a full knowledge of where the Icarius was hidden!
He touched Jakes and pointed, unable to speak. The older boy glimpsed the ship and jerked. “Back,” he said hoarsely. He began scrambling backward over the ground, too startled to think of turning around or getting to his feet. Bob yanked him up, and they scrambled as swiftly as they could toward the lock.
Simon was the logical one to go through first, and he made no protests as Bob gave him a push. The lock moved through its cycle slowly. Then Bob was in it, and finally emerging.
Jakes’s white face was already free of his helmet. “Strip,” he said in a whisper that was as natural as it was ridiculous. “Work the ship better without the suit.”
He left the suit lying where it was, Bob following his example. Now there was no reason for not using the radar. Juan had it turned on, and it showed the three ships among the boulders, mixed with the skeletal framework of the mock-up. Radar never gave a completely clear picture, but something was apparently opening on one of the ships, as if a landing party was in progress.
“Ready,” Jakes said. He glanced back, and then set his controls carefully before releasing the lock that kept them inactive.
Bob was getting used to taking off at the full power of the jets. But this had the added flavor of a high scream from the bottom of the ship as it slid over the rough ground, and the view of waiting rocks just ahead, which they barely missed; but the rocks were far behind before this realization struck home. The ship came upward slowly, straightened, and then leaped out into space.
“Where?” Simon asked.
“Outpost,” Bob decided instantly. It was the nearest place and the safest. They might have thrown off some pursuit by twisting around and heading down toward Neptune, but that lay millions of miles away, and the aliens obviously had some means of detecting them.
“If they’re putting out landing parties, we have some chance,” he decided. “It may take a few minutes for them to realize what is going on and get all their men— or whatever they are—back.”
Then he saw that his hopes were futile. On the screen, he spotted one of the big ships lifting easily. As he watched, the other two also rose toward them. They were already a fair distance away but that wouldn’t mean much if these ships could travel as the other aliens had done.
At first, it didn’t seem probable, since they came up from the surface at a leisurely clip, and seemed to be moving about in an aimless fashion. “Looking for us,” Jakes guessed. “Either that or making sure we didn’t
leave someone behind.”
It looked more like the latter. The Icarius continued to gain distance, while the black ships moved about over the surface, as if directing some type of searching beam downward. Then they all clumped together, and began moving straight upward, toward the Icarius.
Jakes groaned and tried to nurse another bit of speed out of his straining jets. But they were already at maximum, and nothing more could be done.
The black ships seemed to be thinking things over for a moment more. Then one of them leaped into an acceleration about twice what the Icarius could pull, others seconding the move. The distance began to narrow, more and more rapidly.
They were still less than a fifth of the way to Outpost, and their chances were growing slimmer every second. There was no way to outrun the ships. There was no basis for comparison—it was something like a snail trying to outrun an eagle.
Again the black ships increased their acceleration, until it must have been nearly fifty gravities. Bob hadn’t quite believed his memory of the other tunes, but he believed this. He didn’t want to, but there was no way to deny it. The ships were moving toward the Icarius at a rate which made the result a matter of a minute or less.
Jakes cut his acceleration. The black ships came up behind and matched course and speed instantly. Two of them spread out, and the third suddenly leaped ahead of the Icarius and again matched course. The position of the Planet X ships was an equilateral triangle, with the Icarius dead center.
Jakes hit the controls, and shot downward abruptly, curving off to the side as he did so. The other ships were delayed a split second in following him, but a second later they repeated their maneuver of putting him in the center. Then he tried going up. This time the triangle they formed was smaller.
It grew smaller with each maneuver, until the ships were almost touching the Icarius. Seen through one of the ports, they were huge, without a sign of a break in their smooth hulls.
There were no portholes, though radar had really made these needless for any ships. And there was no evidence of any driving mechanism. They blasted their way through space.
Somehow, they simply moved.
The next time Simon tried to move, he found that nothing happened. One of the big ships was touching the Icarius, and it seemed to be locking them down, though no mechanical contact of magnetic or hooked grapple had been tried.
The leading ship swung over slowly, until the bottom of one end was in line with the Icarius. It began backing up smoothly, while a hatch, twice big enough to engulf the little ship completely, opened in it.
Jakes waited until the sides of the huge opening were at the port, and then cut on his braking rockets. They shot out of the nose of the Icarius, with a blast that should have shriveled anything they touched. But nothing happened. The great ship went on backing around them, until they were completely engulfed.
In the viewing screen from the rear, the boys saw the big doors began to shut again. Bob knew now how Jonah had felt when the whale had swallowed him. This looked exactly like such a huge mouth closing down over them.
Then something seemed to suck them sharply downward and they landed with a shrill clang of metal against what was probably the floor of the huge chamber that had swallowed them.
Jakes cut on the lights of the ship trying to make out something of the place where they had been swallowed. But it seemed to be nothing but a room ten times the size of the whole Icarius, built of black metal, and without any other features.
The jets of the Icarius had obviously been running all along, since Jakes suddenly cut them off. But it made no difference. Then a feeling of weight began to press at their bodies, rising until it had reached about Earth- normal. It stayed there.
“Here we go, bound for Planet X,” Jakes muttered. “And right now, since we can’t do anything, I’m going to sleep. I’m dead.”
He touched the button that turned the seat into a rough couch, and lay back. Bob tried the same, and found it more comfortable than most of the beds in which he had slept. He was surprised to find his own eyes heavy. It didn’t seem possible that he could actually fall asleep. But somehow, after the long flight, the fact that there was now nothing at all they could do seemed to leave him dulled and drowsy.
His last thought was a sudden wonder about what would happen to them if the alien ship ever tried jumping up to her top gravity of acceleration. But there was nothing he could do about that either!
