Empire Part 35

"I have no doubt of it," Craven replied. "I don't know how he does it, but I'm convinced he can. Probably, however, he'll find that we are lost and get rid of us that way."

"No," said Chambers, "you're wrong there. Manning wouldn't do that.

He'll come to get us."

"I don't know why he should," snapped Craven.

"Because he's that sort of man," declared Chambers.

"What you going to do when he does get out here?" demanded Stutsman.

"Fall on his neck and kiss him?"

Chambers smiled, stroked his mustache. "Why, no," he said. "I imagine we'll fight. We'll give him everything we've got and he'll do the same.

It wouldn't seem natural if we didn't."

"You're d.a.m.ned right we will," growled Stutsman. "Because I'm running this show. You seem to keep forgetting that. We have power enough, when we get those acc.u.mulators filled, to wipe him out. And that is exactly what I'm going to do."

"Fine," said Craven, mockingly, "just fine. There's just one thing you forget. Manning is the only man who can lead us back to the Solar System."

"h.e.l.l," stormed Stutsman, "that doesn't make any difference. I'll find my way back there some way."

"You're afraid of Manning," Chambers challenged.

Stutsman's hand went down to the heat pistol's grip. His eyes glazed and his face twisted itself into utter hatred. "I don't know why I keep on letting you live. Craven is valuable to me. I can't kill him. But you aren't. You aren't worth a d.a.m.n to anyone."

Chambers matched his stare. Stutsman's hand dropped from the pistol and he slouched to his feet, walked from the room.

Afraid of Manning! He laughed, a hollow, gurgling laugh. Afraid of Manning!

But he was.

Within his brain hammered a single sentence. Words he had heard Manning speak as he watched over the television set at Manning's mocking invitation. Words that beat into his brain and seared his reason and made his soul shrivel and grow small.

Manning talking to Scorio. Talking to him matter-of-factly, but grimly: "_I promise you that we'll take care of 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 t.i.tan prison, and one to the h.e.l.l-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 sh.e.l.l and shunted through millions of miles of s.p.a.ce. 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 circ.u.mstances."

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 acc.u.mulators, 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 acc.u.mulators."

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 s.h.i.+p, 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 acc.u.mulators at us," he said. "He wouldn't dare load those acc.u.mulators 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 s.h.i.+p had ever obtained, except, possibly, the _Interplanetarian_, although lack of power should have held Craven's s.h.i.+p 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 won't pa.s.s 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 smas.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed. 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 cla.s.s 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 slas.h.i.+ng at the _Interplanetarian_.

The other s.h.i.+p 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.