Spacehounds of IPC, E. E. Smith [best books to read for students TXT] 📗

All humanity of Callisto, the fourth major satellite of Jupiter, had for many years been waging a desperate and apparently hopeless defense against invading hordes of six-limbed beings. Every city and town had long since been reduced to level fields of lava by the rays of the invaders. Every building and every trace of human civilization had long since disappeared from the surface of the satellite. Far below the surface lay the city of Zbardk, the largest of the few remaining strongholds of the human race. At one portal of the city a torpedo-shaped, stubby-winged rocket plane rested in the carriage of a catapult. Near it the captain addressed briefly the six men normally composing his crew.

"Men, you already know that our cruise today is not an ordinary patrol. We are to go to One, there to destroy a base of the hexans. We have perhaps one chance in ten thousand of returning. Therefore I am taking only one man—barely enough to operate the plane. Volunteers step one pace forward."

The six stepped forward as one man, and a smile came over the worn face of their leader as he watched them draw lots for the privilege of accompanying him to probable death. The two men entered the body of the torpedo, sealed the openings and waited.

"Free exits?" snapped the Captain of the Portal, and twelve keen-eyed observers studied minutely screens and instrument panels connected to the powerful automatic lookout stations beneath the rims of the widely separated volcanic craters from which their craft could issue into Callisto's somber night.

"No hexan radiation can be detected from Exit Eight," came the report. The Captain of the Portal raised an arm in warning, threw in the guides, and the two passengers were hurled violently backward, deep into their cushioned seats, as the catapult shot their plane down the runway. As the catapult's force was spent automatic trips upon the undercarriage actuated the propelling rockets and mile after mile, with rapidly mounting velocity, the plane sped through the tube. As the exit was approached, the tunnel described a long vertical curve, so that when the opening into the shaft of the crater was reached and the undercarriage was automatically detached, the vessel was projected almost vertically upward. Such was its velocity and so powerful was the liquid propellant of its rocket motors, that the eye could not follow the flight of the warship as it tore through the thin layer of the atmosphere and hurled itself out into the depths of space.

"Did we get away?" asked the captain, hands upon his controls and eyes upon his moving chart of space.

"I believe so, sir," answered the other officer, at the screens of the six periscopic devices which covered the full sphere of vision. "No reports from the rim, and all screens blank." Once more a vessel had issued from the jealously secret city of Zbardk without betraying its existence to the hated and feared hexans.

For a time the terrific rocket motors continued the deafening roar of their continuous explosions, then, the desired velocity having been attained, they were cut out and for hours the good ship "Bzark" hurtled on through the void at an enormous but constant speed toward the distant world of One, which it was destined never to reach.

"Captain Czuv! Hexan radiation, coordinates twenty two, fourteen, area six!" cried the observer, and the commander swung his own telescopic finder into the indicated region. His hands played over course and distance plotters for a brief minute, and he stared at his results in astonishment.

"I never heard of a hexan traveling that way before," he frowned. "Constant negative acceleration and in a straight line. He must think that we have been cleared out of the ether. Almost parallel to us and not much faster—even at this long range, it is an easy kill unless he starts dodging, as usual."

As he spoke, he snapped a switch and from a port under the starboard wing there shot out into space a small package of concentrated destruction—a rocket-propelled, radio-controlled torpedo. The rockets of the tiny missile were flaming, but that flame was visible only from the rear and no radio beam was upon it. Czuv had given it precisely the direction and acceleration necessary to make it meet the hexan sphere in central impact, provided that sphere maintained its course and acceleration unchanged.

"Shall I direct the torpedo in the case the hexan shifts?" asked the officer.

"I think not. They can, of course, detect any wave at almost any distance, and at the first sign of radioactivity they would locate and destroy the bomb. They also, in all probability, would destroy us. I would not hesitate to attack them on that account alone, but we must remember that we are upon a more important mission than attacking one hexan ship. We are far out of range of their electromagnetic detectors, and our torpedo will have such a velocity that they will have no time to protect themselves against it after detection. Unless they shift in the next few seconds, they are lost. This is the most perfect shot I ever had at one of them, but one shot is all I dare risk—we must not betray ourselves."

Course, lookout, and rank forgotten, the little crew of two stared into the narrow field of vision, set at its maximum magnification. The instruments showed that the enemy vessel was staying upon its original course. Very soon the torpedo came within range of the detectors of the hexans. But as Captain Czuv had foretold, the detection was a fraction of a second too late, rapidly as their screens responded, and the two men of Zbardk uttered together a short, fierce cry of joy as a brilliant flash of light announced the annihilation of the hexan vessel.

"But hold!" The observer stared into his screen. "Upon that same line, but now at constant velocity, there is still a very faint radiation, of a pattern I have never seen before."

"I think ... I believe ..." the captain was studying the pattern, puzzled. "It must be low frequency, low-tension electricity, which is never used, so far as I know. It may be some new engine of destruction, which the hexan was towing at such a distance that the explosion of our torpedo did not destroy it. Since there are no signs of hexan activity and since it will not take much fuel, we shall investigate that radiation."

Tail and port-side rockets burst into roaring activity and soon the plane was cautiously approaching the mass of wreckage, which had been the IPV Arcturus.

"Human beings, although of some foreign species!" exclaimed the captain, as his vision-ray swept through the undamaged upper portion of the great liner and came to rest upon Captain King at his desk.

Although the upper ultra-lights of the Terrestrial vessel had been cut away by the hexan plane of force, jury lights had been rigged, and the two commanders were soon trying to communicate with each other. Intelligible conversation was, of course, impossible, but King soon realized that the visitors were not enemies. At their pantomimed suggestion he put on a space-suit and wafted himself over to the airlock of the Callistonian warplane. Inside the central compartment, the strangers placed over his helmet a heavily wired harness, and he found himself instantly in full mental communication with the Callistonian commander. For several minutes they stood silent, exchanging thoughts with a rapidity impossible in any language; then, dressed in space-suits, both leaped lightly across the narrow gap into the still open outer lock of the terrestrial liner. King watched Czuv narrowly after the pressure began to collapse his suit, but the stranger made no sign of distress. He had been right in his assurance that the extra pressure would scarcely inconvenience him. King tore off his helmet, issued a brief order, and soon every speaker in the Arcturus announced:

"All passengers and all members of the crew except lookouts on duty will assemble immediately in Saloon Three to discuss a possible immediate rescue."

The subject being one of paramount interest, it was a matter of minutes until the full complement of two hundred men and women were in the main saloon, clinging to hastily rigged hand lines, closely packed before the raised platform upon which were King and Czuv, wired together with the peculiar Callistonian harness. To most of the passengers, familiar with the humanity of three planets, the appearance of the stranger brought no surprise; but many of them stared in undisguised amazement at his childish body, his pale, almost colorless skin, his small, weak legs and arms, and his massive head.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Captain King opened the meeting. "I introduce to you Captain Czuv, of the scout cruiser Bzarvk, of the only human race now living upon the fourth large satellite of Jupiter, which satellite we know as Callisto. I am avoiding their own names as much as possible, because they are almost unpronounceable in English or Interplanetarian. This device that you see connecting us is a Callistonian thought transformer, by means of which any two intelligent beings can converse without language. Our situation is peculiar, and in order that you may understand fully what lies ahead of us, the captain will now speak to you, through me—that is, what follows will be spoken by Captain Czuv, of the Bzarvk, but he will be using my vocal organs."

"Friends from distant Tellus," King's voice went on, almost without a break, "I greet you. I am glad, for your sake as well as our own, that your vessel was able to destroy the hexan ship holding you captive, and whose crew would have killed you all as soon as they had landed your vessel and had read your minds. I regret bitterly that we can do so little for you, for only the representatives of a human civilization being exterminated by a race of highly intelligent monsters can fully realize how desirable it is for all the various races of humanity to assist and support each other. In order that you may understand the situation, it is necessary that I delve at some length into ancient history, but we have ample time. In about ..." he broke off, realizing that the two races had no thought in common in the measure of time.

"One-half time of rotation of Great Planet upon axis?" flashed from Czuv's brain, and "About five hours," King's mind flashed back.

"It will be about five hours before any steps can be taken, so that I feel justified in using a brief period for explanation. In the evolution of the various forms of life upon Callisto, two genera developed intelligence far ahead of all others. One genus was the human, as you and I; the other the hexan. This creature, happily unknown to you of the planets nearer our common sun, is the product of an entirely different evolution. It is a six-limbed animal, with a brain equal to our own—one perhaps in some ways superior to our own. They have nothing in common with humanity, however; they have few of our traits and fewer of our mental processes. Even we who have fought them so long can scarcely comprehend the chambers of horror that are their minds. Even were I able to paint a sufficiently vivid picture with words, you of Earth could not begin to understand their utter ruthlessness and inhumanity, even among themselves. You would believe that I was lying, or that my viewpoint was warped. I can say only that I hope most sincerely that none of you will ever get better acquainted with them."

"Ages ago, then, the human and the hexan developed upon all four of the major satellites of the Great Planet, which you know as Jupiter, and upon the north polar region of Jupiter itself. By what means the two races came into being upon worlds so widely separated in space we know not—we only know it to be the fact. Human life, however, could not long endure upon Jupiter. The various human races, after many attempts to meet conditions of life there by variations in type fell before the hexans; who, although very small in size upon the planet, thrived there amazingly. Upon the three outer satellites humanity triumphed, and many hundreds of cycles ago the hexans of those satellites were wiped out, save for an occasional tribe of savages of low intelligence who lived in various undesirable portions of the three worlds. For ages then there was peace upon Callisto. Here is the picture at that time—upon Jupiter the hexans; upon Io hexans and humans, waging a ceaseless and relentless war