United States or Mauritius ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was practically weightless, though it would fall slowly if left to itself, for the mass of the Ancient Mariner and the front end of the Thessian ship made a considerable attractive field. But it was clumsy, and needed guiding here in the ship. Wade took it into the airlock, and a moment later into space with him.
Thett's men stared in horror as they recognized that thing in his hand a Thessian body! He grinned happily and reached for a battleship a ray burned him. He howled, and leaped into their midst. Then the Thessians went mad. All fought, and they fought each other, rays of all sorts, their moleculars and their cosmics, while in their midst the Giant howled his glee, and laughed and laughed
Whether this protection would stop the Thessian beam that was so deadly to lux and relux was not, of course, known. But Arcot hoped it would, and, if that beam was radiant energy, or material particles, it would. "We'll destroy our station here now, and leave the Ancient Mariner where it is.
Its straining screen had been overworked and it failed. Arcot's magnetic beam went into action. The Thessian ray did not go out it flickered, dimmed, but was apparently as deadly as ever. "Shielded write off the magnet, Morey. That is one asset we lose." Arcot, protected in space, was thinking swiftly. Moleculars useless. They had to keep their own screens up.
A molecular reached down from somewhere in space, hit the ray screen of Ortol, which the Thessians had attacked for hours, and the screen flashed into sudden brilliance, and disappeared. The ray struck the Thessian fort, and the fort burst into tremendous opalescence, while the invisible barrier the ray had struck was suddenly a great sheet of flaming light.
The ship moved ahead, while about it the tremendous Thessian battlefleet buzzed like flies, thousands of ships now, and more coming with each second. In a few moments the titanic ship had crossed a great plain, and came to a region of bare, rocky hills several hundred feet high. Set in those hills, surrounded by them, was a huge sphere, resting on the ground.
They fell and were dead in an instant as the air disappeared. In another instant they were solid blocks of ice, for the temperature was below the freezing point of carbon dioxide. The giant tamper set to work. The Thessian ships went first. They were all crumpled, battered wrecks in a few seconds of work of the terrible disc. The dome was destroyed. Arcot tried something else.
The induction ray disappeared, and the heat, light and cannons stopped. "Worked again," grinned Arcot. A new set of eyes was inserted automatically, and the screen again lighted. The Thessian ship was spinning end over end toward the ground. It landed with a tremendous crash.
A ship glowed with the ray, the opalescence of relux under moleculars visible on its walls. It simply searched for its opponent while its relux slowly yielded. It found it in time, and the terrestrial ship put up its screen. The terrestrial fleet set to work, everything they had flying at the Thessian giants, but the Thessians had heavier ships, and heavier tubes. More power was winning for them.
Then came this blue light, as they reached the X-ray spectrum of Sirius, and saw X-rays as normal light shielded, tremendously shielded by the atmosphere, but the enormous amplification of the eyes made up for it. The remaining Thessians seemed to get the idea simultaneously, and started for Arcot in his own time field. The Thessian ship appeared to be actually leaping at him.
Word Of The Day