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Updated: June 3, 2025
This, her last resting place. She lay here, in her open tomb, shattered, broken, unbreathing. The lights on her were extinguished. The Erentz system had ceased to pulse the heart of the dying ship, for a while beating faintly, but now at rest. We left the two girls with some of Grantline's men at the admission port. Snap, Grantline and I, with three others, went inside.
Most of us wore our Erentz suits, with helmets ready, though I am sure there was not a man of us but who prayed he might not have to go out. At many of the windows our weakest points to withstand the rays insulated fabric sheets were hung like curtains. The brigand ship slowly advanced. It was soon over the opposite rim of our little crater. Its searchbeam swung about the rim and down the valley.
But it would blast an Erentz fabric suit, no doubt of that. Like a lightning bolt, it would kill its flashing free stream of electrons shocking the heart, bringing instant death. I whispered, "We must smash that before we leave! But first turn it on Miko, if he signals now." I was tensely watchful for that signal. The electronic projector obviously was not ready.
As my grip upon him made audiphone contact, his agonized scream rattled the diaphragms of my ear grids with horrible, deafening intensity. He lay writhing under me; then was still. His scream choked into silence. His suit deflated within my encircling grip. He was dead: my leaden, steel-tipped pellet had punctured the double surface of his Erentz fabric; penetrated his chest.
They locked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed that they would go over; then they surged back, momentarily out of sight. Grantline found his wits. "Stop them! I'll go out and stop them! What fools!" He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits. "Cut off that siren!" Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty man called from the window, "Still at it, the fools.
But they had normalized at once when the shot was past. The duty man's voice sounded from the grid in answer to Grantline's question: "Five degrees colder in your building. Can't you feel it?" The disturbed, weakened Erentz system had allowed the outer cold to radiate through a trifle. The walls had had a trifle extra explosive pressure from the air. A strain but that was all.
The exit ports would doubtless be repaired by now. I could get her inside. She had bounded away from me, leaped down some thirty feet into the broken gully, to cross it and then up on the other side. I stood for an instant watching her fantastic shape, with the great rounded, goggled, trunked helmet and the lump on her shoulders which held the little Erentz motors. Then I hurried after her.
Can't we repair it, Johnny?" "No. Would have to take that whole plaster section out, shut off the Erentz plant and exhaust the interior air of all this bulkhead. Day's job maybe more." And the crack would get worse, I knew. It would gradually spread and widen. The Erentz circulation would fail. All our power would be drained struggling to maintain it.
I decided that we had fooled him. Then I remarked the steely glitter of his eyes as he turned to me. "You were an officer of the Planetara?" The insignia of my rank was visible on my white jacket collar which showed beneath the Erentz suit now that my helmet was off. "Yes. I was supposed to be. But a year ago I embarked upon this adventure with Miko." He was leading us to his cabin.
I could see it amidships of the deck. It was already in place. Potan was there now, superintending the men who were connecting it. The most powerful weapon on the ship. It had, Potan said, an effective range of some ten miles. I wondered what it would do to a Grantline building! The Erentz double walls would withstand it for a time, I was sure.
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