Empire Part 30

The s.h.i.+p itself was plunging s.p.a.ceward, streaking like a runaway star for the depths of s.p.a.ce beyond the Solar System. And behind it, caught tight, gripped and held, Craven's s.h.i.+p trailed at the end of a tractor field that bound it to the s.p.a.ce-rocketing _Invincible_.

The acceleration compensator, functioning perfectly, had taken up the slack as the s.h.i.+p had plunged from a standing start into a speed that neared the pace of light. But it had never been built to stand such sudden, intense acceleration, and for an instant Russ and Greg seemed to be crushed by a mighty weight that struck at them. The sensation swiftly lifted as the compensator took up the load.

Greg shook his head, flinging the trickling perspiration from his eyes.

"I hope their compensator worked as well as ours," he said.

"If it didn't," declared Russ, "we're towing a s.h.i.+pload of dead men."

Russ glanced at the speed dial. They were almost touching the speed of light. "He hasn't cut down our speed yet."

"We threw him off his balance. His drive depends largely on the ma.s.s of some planet as a body to take up the reaction of his s.h.i.+p. Jupiter is the ideal body for that ... but he's leaving Jupiter behind. He has to do something soon or it'll be too late."

"He's getting less energy, too," said Russ. "We're retreating from his main sources of energy, the Sun and Jupiter. Almost the speed of light and that would cut down his energy intake terrifically. He has to use what he's got in his acc.u.mulators, and after that last blast at us, they must be nearly drained."

As Russ watched, the speed needle fell off slightly. Russ held his breath. It edged back slowly, creeping. The speed was being cut down.

"Craven is using whatever power he has," he said. "They're alive back there, all right. He's trying to catch hold of Jupiter and make its gravity work for him."

The _Invincible_ felt the strain of the other s.h.i.+p now. Felt it as Craven poured power into his drive, fighting to get free of the invisible hawser that had trapped him, fighting against being dragged into outer s.p.a.ce at the tail-end of a mighty craft heading s.p.a.ceward with frightening speed.

Girders groaned in the _Invincible_, the engines moaned and throbbed.

The speed needle fell back, creeping down the dial, slowly, unwillingly, resisting any drop in speed. But Craven was cutting it down. And as he cut it, he was able to absorb more energy with his collector lens. But he was fighting two things ... momentum and the steadily decreasing gravitational pull of Jupiter and the Sun. The Sun's pull was dwindling slowly, Jupiter's rapidly.

The needle still crept downward.

"What's his point of equality to us?" demanded Greg. "Will we make it?"

Russ shook his head. "Won't know for hours. He'll be able to slow us up ... maybe he'll even stop us or be able to jerk free, although I doubt that. But every minute takes him farther away from his main source of power, the Solar System's radiation. He could collect power anywhere in s.p.a.ce, you know, but the best place to collect it is near large radiant bodies."

Russ continued to crouch over the dial, begrudging every backward flicker of the needle.

This was the last play, the final hand. If they could drag Craven and his s.h.i.+p away from the Solar System, maroon him deep in s.p.a.ce, far removed from any source of radiation, they would win, for they could go back and finish the work of smas.h.i.+ng Interplanetary.

But if Craven won--if he could halt their mad dash for s.p.a.ce, if he could shake free--they'd never have another chance. He would be studying that field they had wrapped around him, be ready for it next time, might even develop one like it and use it on the _Invincible_. If Craven could win his way back to the Sun, he would be stronger than they were, could top them in power, shatter all their plans, and once again the worlds would bow to Interplanetary and Spencer Chambers.

Russ watched the meter. The speed was little more than ten miles a second now and dropping rapidly. He sat motionless, hunched, sucking at his dead pipe, listening to the thrumming of the generators.

"If we only had a margin," he groaned. "If we just had a few more horsepower. Just a few. But we're wide open. Every engine is developing everything it can!"

Greg tapped him on the shoulder, gently. Russ turned his head and looked into the face of his friend, a face as bleak as ever, but with a hint of smile in the corners of the eyes.

"Why not let Jupiter help us?" he asked. "He could be a lot of help."

Russ stared for a moment, uncomprehending. Then with a sob of gladness he reached out a hand, shoved over a lever. Mirrors of anti-entropy s.h.i.+fted, a.s.sumed different angles, and the _Invincible_ sheered off.

They were no longer retreating directly from the Sun, but at an angle quartering off across the Solar System.

Greg grinned. "We're falling behind Jupiter now. Letting Jupiter run away from us as he circles his...o...b..t, following the Sun. Adds miles per second to our velocity of retreat, even if it doesn't show on the dial."

The cosmic tug of war went on, grimly--two s.h.i.+ps straining, fighting each other, one seeking to escape, the other straining to snake the second s.h.i.+p into the maw of open, hostile s.p.a.ce.

The speed was down to five miles a second, then a fraction lower. The needle was flickering now, impossible to decide whether it was dropping or not. And in the engine rooms, ten great generators howled in their attempt to make that needle move up the dial again.

Russ lit his pipe, his eyes not leaving the dial. The needle was creeping lower again. Down to three miles a second now.

He puffed clouds of smoke and considered. Saturn fortunately was ninety degrees around in his...o...b..t. On the present course, only Neptune remained between them and free s.p.a.ce. Pluto was far away, but even if it had been, it really wouldn't count, for it was small and had little attraction.

In a short while Ganymede and Callisto would be moving around on the far side of Jupiter and that might help. Everything counted so much now.

The dial was down to two miles a second and there it hung. Hung and stayed. Russ watched it with narrowed eyes. By this time Craven certainly would have given up much hope of help from Jupiter. If the big planet couldn't have helped him before, it certainly couldn't now. In another hour or two Earth would transit the Sun and that would cut down the radiant energy to some degree. But in the meantime Craven was loading his photo-cells and acc.u.mulators, was laying up a power reserve.

As a last desperate resort he would use that power, in a final attempt to break away from the _Invincible_.

Russ waited for that attempt. There was nothing that could be done about it. The engines were developing every watt of power that could be urged out of them. If Craven had the power to break away, he would break away ... that was all there would be to it.

An hour pa.s.sed and the needle crept up a fraction of a point. Russ was still watching the dial, his mind foggy with concentration.

Suddenly the _Invincible_ shuddered and seemed to totter in s.p.a.ce, as if something, some mighty force, had struck the s.h.i.+p a terrific blow. The needle swung swiftly backward, reached one mile a second, dipped to half a mile.

Russ sat bolt upright, holding his breath, his teeth clenched with death grip upon the pipe-stem.

Craven had blasted with everything he had! He had used every last trickle of power in the acc.u.mulators ... all the power he had been storing up.

Russ leaped from the chair and raced to the periscopic mirror.

Stooping, he stared into it. Far back in s.p.a.ce, like a silver bauble, swung Craven's s.h.i.+p. It swung back and forth in s.p.a.ce, like a mighty, cosmic pendulum. Breathlessly he watched. The s.h.i.+p was still in the grip of the s.p.a.ce field!

"Greg," he shouted, "we've got him!"

He raced back to the control panel, snapped a glance at the speed dial.

The needle was rising rapidly now, a full mile a second. Within another fifteen minutes, it had climbed to a mile and a half. The _Invincible_ was starting to go places!

The engines still howled, straining, shrieking, roaring their defiance.

In an hour the needle indicated the speed of four miles a second. Two hours later it was ten and rising visibly as Jupiter fell far behind and the Sun became little more than a glowing cinder.

Russ swung the controls to provide side acceleration and the two s.h.i.+ps swung far to the rear of Neptune. They would pa.s.s that ma.s.sive planet at the safe distance of a full hundred million miles.

"He won't even make a pa.s.s at it," said Greg. "He knows he's licked."

"Probably trying to store some more power," suggested Russ.

"Sweet chance he has to do that," declared Greg. "Look at that needle walk, will you? We'll hit the speed of light in a few more hours and after that he may just as well shut off his lens. There just won't be any radiation for him to catch."