The Invincible (13 page)

“KU-8 to ground station,” sounded the pilot’s voice, which seemed to have completely changed during the few seconds since the last communication. “Radar findings indicate a purely metallic obstacle. Over, please.”

“Ground station to KU-8. Switch radar screen image over onto television screen! Over!”

The screen grew dim, then totally dark, glowed briefly in a pale blue light, then turned green. Finally it became scattered all over by innumerable, brightly sparkling discharges.

“The cloud consists of iron,” said someone behind Rohan. It was like a sigh.

“Jazon!” shouted the astrogator. “Is Jazon here?”

“Yes, here I am.” The nuclear physicist stepped forward.

“Can we heat that up?” asked the astrogator, calmly pointing to the videoscreen. Everyone knew what he meant. Jazon hesitated. “KU-4 ought to be warned first to expand their protective energy field to its maximum.”

“Jazon! They are incommunicado.”

“Up to 7000° Fahrenheit… without great risk.”

“Thanks! Blaar, the microphone! Commander in chief to KU-8! Get the laser ready! Aim at the cloud bank! Up to one billierg into the epicenter! Nonstop bombardment along the azimuth!”

“KU-8. Nonstop bombardment up to one billierg,” answered at once the voice of the pilot. Nothing happened for one second. Then a flash, and the central cloud which filled the lower part of the screen changed color. At first, the cloud seemed to liquefy, then it turned red and finally began to boil. A funnel with glowing walls was formed; all the neighboring shreds of cloud were sucked into it as if into a maelstrom. Suddenly all movement ceased. The cloud was now in the shape of a huge ring; through this lumen could be seen many chaotically arranged groups of boulders and rocks. A fine black ash-like dust drifted in the air.

“Commander in chief to KU-8. Maximal fire power!”

The pilot repeated the order. A wildly flickering wall surrounded the hole as the cloud attempted to patch it, withdrawing its groping black arms whenever they were seized by the flaming inferno. All this lasted but a few minutes. The situation grew more and more critical. The astrogator did not dare shoot at the cloud with the full force of the laser-beam mortar, for the flying saucer with its pilot was still inside the cloud. Rohan instinctively knew Horpach was hoping that machine would fly out through this gap. But now as before, there was no trace of it. The KU-8 hovered almost motionless and pierced the bubbling rim of the black ring with its blinding laser beams. The sky was still quite light, but the shadows grew increasingly darker along the rocks. The sun was setting.

Suddenly, the gathering darkness in the valley began to glow eerily. The cloak of darkness that enveloped everything loomed a dull red, like the mouth of a volcano beneath a fiery cloud of ashes.

Now only dark shadows were visible. They kept merging, forming one continuous mass in whose center fiery flames hissed and boiled. The cloudy substance, whatever it was, had moved in to attack the missing aircraft, and fierce flames shot up wherever the black mass collided with the ship’s energy screen.

Rohan looked at the astrogator, on whose rigid, expressionless face was mirrored the wavering reflection of the blazing fire. The middle of the screen showed the black seething mass with the fiery nucleus that intermittently broke into sheaves of fire. In the distance a huge mountain was silhouetted against the cold purple of the last sun rays that at this very moment so much resembled their terrestrial counterpart. All the more incredible was the spectacle that took place inside the cloud.

Rohan stood by. The astrogator’s face was like a mask, giving no indication whether he would order the upper machine to come to the aid of the lower, or leave the latter to its fate and continue on a northeasterly course.

All of a sudden something horrendous happened. Either the pilot of the machine imprisoned by the cloud lost his head, or some catastrophe occurred aboard the aircraft—in any event, a bolt of lightning coursed through the black simmering mass, a blinding light marked the spot where the lightning had hit, and long swaths of the cloud that had been ripped apart by the explosion scattered rapidly in all directions. The shock wave was so violent that the whole picture began to oscillate, echoing the same crazy dance that the KU-8 performed as it was tossed about by the turbulence of the atmosphere. Then the screen was filled again by the black mass which grew denser and denser. Only black could be seen, nothing else.

“Ready the antiprotons! Full force ahead! Aim at the cloud! Nonstop bombardment!”

The pilot repeated the order. The technicians observed the side screen on which everything was visible that happened behind the machine. All of a sudden one of the technicians yelled: “Watch out, KU-8! Climb! Higher! Climb, keep climbing!”

A huge black whirling cloud came racing like a hurricane from the vacant air space in the west. A moment earlier the black tornado had still been part of the immense cloud bank. Now it became separated and rose vertically, whirling rapidly, dragging offshoots behind that soon split off due to the violent motion. The pilot noticed this phenomenon a fraction of a second before the warning call rang out. He pulled the machine upward in steep ascent. But the cloud pursued him, spewing black columns up into the sky. He attacked them systematically, shooting at one after the other. He made a frontal hit and one of the black clusters nearby started to divide and became darker. Suddenly the whole image began to shake.

As soon as part of the cloud bank reached the region of the radio waves, making radio communication from plane to ground increasingly difficult, the pilot apparently used the antimatter mortar for the first time. Abruptly the planet’s atmosphere changed into one immense sea of fire. The purple afterglow of the sunset vanished instantly. For several seconds the television observers in the command center could still perceive the cloud through the jagged horizontal pattern on the screen. Out of the cloud rose smoke columns that quickly oozed away, their color fading to a grayish white. Now a second explosion, far more terrible than the first, poured cascades of fire over the rocky chaos that had been almost enveloped by gases, haze and smoke. This was the last picture that was transmitted, for one second later the screen was filled with sparks and arcs of electrical discharges, and then vanished altogether. Only the empty, brightly lit screen glimmered in the darkened command center, illuminating the deathly pale faces of the assembled men.

Horpach ordered the radio crew to keep calling both machines. Then he went to the adjoining navigation cabin together with Rohan, Jazon and several others.

“What is the nature of this cloud? What is your opinion?” he asked without any introductory remarks.

“It is made up of tiny metal particles. A remote-controlled emulsion, as it were, with a uniform center,” answered Jazon.

“Gaarb?”

“I am of the same opinion.”

“Any suggestions? None? All the better. Which supercopter is in better shape, ours or the one from the
Condor
?” Horpach demanded of the chief engineer.

“Both are in perfect condition, astrogator. But I would prefer ours.”

“Excellent. Rohan, if I’m not mistaken you once expressed the desire to work outside the protective dome. Well, here’s your chance. You’ll get eighteen men, take along double the usual complement of automatic arms, vibration arc lasers and antiprotons. Anything else you could use?”

Nobody replied.

“All right, then. So far we haven’t invented anything more powerful than the antimatter. You’ll start at 4:31
A.M.
Sunrise. Proceed in a northeasterly direction and try to find the crater that Regnar mentioned in his last report. Shoot at everything on your way out there, but keep at a safe distance. Don’t waste any time waiting around or experimenting. And don’t spare the ammunition. If you lose contact with our base here, just carry on. As soon as you’ve located the crater, proceed to land, but be careful not to lower on to our men there. I suppose they’re somewhere around there—” He pointed at the map of Regis III that covered an entire wall. “Over in this area, cross-hatched in red. It’s just a rough guess, but that’s all we have so far.”

“What do we do after touchdown, astrogator? Shall I search for the men?”

“I leave that up to you. Use your own judgment. But please remember not to shoot at anything within a radius of thirty miles, because our men might be somewhere in there.”

“How about ground targets?”

“None whatsoever. Up to this point here”—the astrogator outlined the area with a sweeping motion of his hand—” you may deploy your annihilation weapons aggressively. But beyond this line you’re to defend yourselves only with your force field. Jazon, what is the limit for the field of such a supercopter?”

“Several million atmospheres per square inch.”

“ ‘Several million.’ What’s that supposed to mean? I asked you how many? Five million? Twenty million?”

Horpach’s voice sounded very quiet; but the effect of this studied calm was to strike chill in the hearts of the
Invincible
crew.

Jazon cleared his throat. “The field has been tested with twelve and a half.”

“That sounds much better. Did you get that, Rohan? Whenever this cloud bank reaches this limit of your force field, you get the hell out of there. Climb up, that would be the best escape route. Well, of course it’s impossible to predict everything that might happen…” He looked at his watch. “Eight hours after you leave here I’ll have you called over every wave length. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try to establish communication via satellites or direct optical contact We’ll send laser signals using Morse code. That’s always worked up to now; at least I’ve never heard anything to the contrary. But just in case the laser beam signals should fail to get the message to you, wait another three hours and then start back to the base. If I’m not there—”

“Do you plan to take off?”

“Don’t interrupt me, Rohan! No, I don’t plan to, but things don’t entirely depend on us. If we’re gone, you’re to go into orbit around the planet. Have you ever done that with a supercopter?”

“Yes, twice, in the delta of the Lyre constellation.”

“Fine. Then you’re aware that it’s somewhat complicated, but not impossible. Your orbit must be stationary. Stroem will give you the exact data before you start. Once in orbit, you will wait for me for thirty-six hours. If I haven’t reached you by then, you’ll simply return to the surface of Regis III and land near the
Condor.
Try to get it in shape to take off from here. I know what this advice sounds like, but you’ll have no alternative. Once you’ve engineered this miracle, report back to Earth with the
Condor.
Any questions?”

“Yes. May I establish contact with these … with this center that directs the cloud, if I should succeed in locating it?”

“I’ll leave that up to you also. But make sure that the risk remains within the limits of reason. Of course, I am totally ignorant, but I don’t think you’ll find any master brain on the surface of Regis III. If a center evens exists.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We’ve been scanning the entire electro-magnetic spectrum. If anyone were steering this cloud with the help of rays, our instruments would have registered the corresponding signals.”

“The center might be hidden in the middle of the cloud.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Jazon, can you conceive of a means of telecommunication independent of electromagnetic waves?”

“Completely out of the question, if you want my opinion.”

“What do you think I asked for?”

“The extent of my knowledge is not the same as what exists or might exist. We don’t know any other type of communication. That’s all.”

“How about telepathy?” came a voice from the background.

“No comment,” replied Jazon curtly. “Nothing of the kind has ever been detected, as far as I know. Not in any part of the universe explored by man, at least.”

“Let’s not waste our time with useless discussions. Get your men together, Rohan, and make the supercopter ready for takeoff. Details about the ecliptical orbit will be in your hands within the hour, Stroem will work it out for you. Stroem, please calculate a constant orbit with an apogee of 150 miles.”

“Will do, Astrogator.”

The astrogator opened the door leading to the command center.

“How are things going, Terner? Nothing yet?”

“Nothing. Just a lot of static, that’s all.”

“No trace of emission spectrum?”

“Not a trace.”

That means that neither of the two machines is using any of their weapons. They’ve stopped fighting, thought Rohan. If they’d gone on to use laser fire or induction emitters, the instruments aboard the
Invincible
would register such activity at a distance of several hundred miles.

Rohan was far too, gripped by excitement to worry about the mission he had been ordered to carry out—and far too busy to indulge in the luxury of anxiety. There was no time for sleep that night. The supercopter had to be checked out, additional fuel had to be taken aboard, provisions and weapons had to be loaded. The men worked hard to finish all the necessary preparations in time. The instant the red disk of the sun peered above the horizon, the two-storey-high craft, weighing seventy tons, lifted off into the air. Heavy dust clouds whirled around the launching pad. The copter flew in a straight line toward the northeast. Rohan quickly gained an altitude of almost ten miles. He could travel at maximum speed within the stratosphere. There was also less danger of an encounter with the black cloud, or so he reasoned.

Whether he was right in his assumption, or whether it was just luck, preparations were met for landing hardly one hour later. The sun’s slanting rays fell on the supercoper as it descended, while the sandy crater below still lay in the gray light of dawn. Even before huge fountains of sand gushed up to meet the downward blast of hot gas jets, the video technicians alarmed the men in the command center that they had sighted something suspicious in the northern part of the crater. The heavy craft interrupted its descent and hovered, trembling slightly as if poised on an invisible tensioned spring. From a height of 500 yards they made a thorough inspection of the spot.