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As Connel and Tom watched tensely, the space torpedo loomed large and menacing on the scanner, and then, as they held their breaths, it whistled past the silvery hull of the ship, with less than two feet to spare! Sighing deeply, Tom brought the ship back to level flight. "We're O.K. now, sir," he said. "Her gyros are out. She won't come back." "By the craters of Luna!" Connel suddenly exploded.
Miller, who had been at the scanner searching over the alien ship at close range, reeled out of his seat, clutching at his eyes. "My God, I'm blinded," he shouted. Mannion called, "Captain, my receivers blew. I think every tube in the shack exploded!" I jumped to the direct viewer. The alien hung there, turning away from us in a leisurely curve.
"There she is, right there, sir," said Roger, placing a finger on a circular white blip on the scanner. "But the magnascope shows pretty rugged country. I think we'd better take a look on the opposite side. Maybe we can find a better place to touch down." "Very well, Manning," replied Connel. "Do what you think best. Tell Tom to land as soon as possible." "Aye, aye, sir," replied Roger.
Fastened to his shoulder there was a tiny scanner and microphone, which would relay everything he saw and heard back to the radar room and to Diane. She watched tensely as he went inside the Plumie ship. Other screens relayed the image and his voice to other places on the Niccola. He was gone a long time. From the beginning, of course, there were surprises.
"Relay it down here to control-deck scanner, Manning," ordered Strong. "Ummmh!" murmured the captain when the screen began to glow. "I'm pretty sure that's her. Here's that assumed position Roger worked up, Tom. Check it against this one here on the scanner." Tom quickly computed the position of the object on the scanner and compared it to the position Roger had given them previously.
"We'll see you on Mars!" Tom stood beside the crystal port on the control deck and watched the rocket cruiser Polaris' stern glow red from her jets, and then quickly disappear into the vastness of space, visible only as a white blip on the radar scanner. "Get me a course to Mars, Roger," said Tom.
Then the sea was below them and they were still rising. The scanner showed the sea receding. They were looking down at a segment of a curved world. Far away was land, and Odin saw two dark specks in the distance which he thought were Galveston and Houston. The world below them became half of a sphere that filled the viewer. And then it was a turning globe, growing smaller and smaller.
Suddenly the ship trembled violently and then shot forward as, far below, the jet exhausts screamed under the full thrust of all the atomic reactors. Tom rode the controls hard and kept his eye on the scanner screen. "It's a magnetic gyrofish!" he cried as he saw the torpedo curve after them. "Roger, can you plot her for me?" "Working on it now, Tom!" yelled Roger over the intercom.
He turned to the radar scanner and saw the white evenly spaced blips that represented Squadron B enveloping the three enemy ships. The bulky converted cruiser was maneuvering frantically to get away. But there was no escape. In a perfectly co-ordinated action the Solar Guard ships fired their space torpedoes simultaneously. The three Nationalist ships exploded in a deadly flash of fire.
Then he set down, got the toolbox and the long-handled contragravity lifter, and climbed to the ground where he opened the box, put on gloves and an eyescreen and got out a microray scanner and a vibrohammer. The first chunk he cracked off had nothing in it; the scanner gave the uninterrupted pattern of homogenous structure. Picking it up with the lifter, he swung it and threw it into the stream.
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