The Aliens

filled with frantic rage that itcracked as he spoke. But the problem at hand was the fulfillment of allhis psychopathic urges. He commanded the starboard-side rocket-battery toawait special orders. Meanwhile the port-side battery would fire tworockets on widely divergent courses, curving to join at the Plumie ship.They'd be seized. They were to be detonated and another port-side rocketfired instantly, followed by a second hidden in the rocket-trail thefirst would leave behind. Then the starboard side--

  "I'm afraid Taine's our only chance," said Baird reluctantly. "If hewins, we'll have time to ... talk as people do who like each other. If itdoesn't work--"

  Diane said quietly:

  "Anyhow ... I'm glad you ... wanted me to know. I ... wanted you to know,too."

  She smiled at him, yearningly.

  * * * * *

  _There was the crump-crump_ of two rockets going out together. Then theradar told what happened. The Plumie ship was no more than six milesaway, dancing somehow deftly in the light of a yellow sun, with all thecosmos spread out as shining pin points of colored light behind it. Theradar reported the dash and the death of the two rockets, after theirstruggle with invisible things that gripped them. They died when theyheaded reluctantly back to the _Niccola_--and detonated two miles fromtheir parent ship. The skipper's voice came:

  "_Mr. Taine! After your next salvo I shall head for the Plumie at fulldrive, to cut down the distance and the time they have to work in. Beready!_"

  The rocket tubes went _crump-crump_ again, with a fifth of a secondinterval. The radar showed two tiny specks speeding through space towardthe weaving, shifting speck which was the Plumie.

  Outside, in emptiness, there was a filmy haze. It was the rocket-fumesand explosive gases spreading with incredible speed. It was thin asgossamer. The Plumie ship undoubtedly spotted the rockets, but it did nottry to turn them. It somehow seized them and deflected them, and dartedpast them toward the _Niccola_.

  "They see the trick," said Diane, dry-throated. "If they can get in closeenough, they can turn it against us!"

  There were noises inside the _Niccola_, now. Taine fairly howled anorder. There were yells of defiance and excitement. There were more ofthose inadequate noises as rockets went out--every tube on the starboardside emptied itself in a series of savage grunts--and the _Niccola's_magnetronic drive roared at full flux density.

  The two ships were less than a mile apart when the _Niccola_ let go herfull double broadside of missiles. And then it seemed that the Plumieship was doomed. There were simply too many rockets to be seized andhandled before at least one struck. But there was a new condition. ThePlumie ship weaved and dodged its way through them. The new condition wasthat the rockets were just beginning their run. They had not achieved theterrific velocity they would accumulate in ten miles of no-gravity. Theywere new-launched; logy: clumsy: not the streaking, flashingdeath-and-destruction they would become with thirty more seconds ofacceleration.

  So the Plumie ship dodged them with a skill and daring past belief. Withan incredible agility it got inside them, nearer to the _Niccola_ thanthey. And then it hurled itself at the human ship as if bent upon asuicidal crash which would destroy both ships together. But Baird, in theradar room, and the skipper in navigation, knew that it would plungebrilliantly past at the last instant--

  And then they knew that it would not. Because, very suddenly and veryabruptly, there was something the matter with the Plumie ship. The lifewent out of it. It ceased to accelerate or decelerate. It ceased tosteer. It began to turn slowly on an axis somewhere amidships. Its noseswung to one side, with no change in the direction of its motion. Itfloated onward. It was broadside to its line of travel. It continued toturn. It hurtled stern-first toward the _Niccola_. It did not swerve. Itdid not dance. It was a lifeless hulk: a derelict in space.

  And it would hit the _Niccola_ amidships with no possible result butdestruction for both vessels.

  * * * * *

  The _Niccola's_ skipper bellowed orders, as if shouting would somehowgive them more effect. The magnetronic drive roared. He'd demanded amiracle of it, and he almost got one. The drive strained itsthrust-members. It hopelessly overloaded its coils. The _Niccola's_cobalt-steel hull became more than saturated with the drive-field, and itleaped madly upon an evasion course--

  And it very nearly got away. It was swinging clear when the Plumie shipdrifted within fathoms. It was turning aside when the Plumie ship waswithin yards. And it was almost safe when the golden hull of thePlumie--shadowed now by the _Niccola_ itself--barely scraped a side-keel.

  There was a touch, seemingly deliberate and gentle. But the _Niccola_shuddered horribly. Then the vision screens flared from such a light asmight herald the crack of doom. There was a brightness greater than thebrilliance of the sun. And then there was a wrenching, heaving shock.Then there was blackness. Baird was flung across the radar room, andDiane cried out, and he careened against a wall and heard glass shatter.He called:

  "Diane!"

  He clutched crazily at anything, and called her name again. The_Niccola's_ internal gravity was cut off, and his head spun, and he heardcollision-doors closing everywhere, but before they closed completely heheard the rasping sound of giant arcs leaping in the engine room. Thenthere was silence.

  "Diane!" cried Baird fiercely. "Diane!"

  "I'm ... here," she panted. "I'm dizzy, but I ... think I'm all right--"

  The battery-powered emergency light came on. It was faint, but he saw herclinging to a bank of instruments where she'd been thrown by thecollision. He moved to go to her, and found himself floating in midair.But he drifted to a side wall and worked his way to her.

  She clung to him, shivering.

  "I ... think," she said unsteadily, "that we're going to die. Aren't we?"

  "We'll see," he told her. "Hold on to me."

  Guided by the emergency light, he scrambled to the bank ofcommunicator-buttons. What had been the floor was now a side wall. Heclimbed it and thumbed the navigation-room switch.

  "Radar room reporting," he said curtly. "Power out, gravity off, noreports from outside from power failure. No great physical damage."

  He began to hear other voices. There had never been an actualspace-collision in the memory of man, but reports came crisply, and thecut-in speakers in the radar room repeated them. Ship-gravity was out allover the ship. Emergency lights were functioning, and were all the lightsthere were. There was a slight, unexplained gravity-drift toward what hadbeen the ship's port side. But damage-control reported no loss ofpressure in the _Niccola's_ inner hull, though four areas between innerand outer hulls had lost air pressure to space.

  "_Mr. Baird_," rasped the skipper. "_We're blind! Forget everything elseand give us eyes to see with!_"

  "We'll try battery power to the vision plates," Baird told Diane. "Nofull resolution, but better than nothing--"

  They worked together, feverishly. They were dizzy. Something close tonausea came upon them from pure giddiness. What had been the floor wasnow a wall, and they had to climb to reach the instruments that had beenon a wall and now were on the ceiling. But their weight was ounces only.Baird said abruptly:

  "I know what's the matter! We're spinning! The whole ship's spinning!That's why we're giddy and why we have even a trace of weight.Centrifugal force! Ready for the current?"

  There was a tiny click, and the battery light dimmed. But a vision screenlighted faintly. The stars it showed were moving specks of light. The sunpassed deliberately across the screen. Baird switched to other outsidescanners. There was power for only one screen at a time. But he saw thestarkly impossible. He pressed the navigation-room button.

  "Radar room reporting," he said urgently. "The Plumie ship is fast to us,in contact with our hull! Both ships are spinning together!" He wastrying yet other scanners as he spoke, and now he said: "Got it! Thereare no lines connecting us to the Plumie, but it looks ... yes! Thatflash when the ships came together was a flash-over of high poten
tial.We're welded to them along twenty feet of our hull!"

  The skipper:

  "_Damnation! Any sign of intention to board us?_"

  "Not yet, sir--"

  Taine burst in, his voice high-pitched and thick with hatred:

  "_Damage-control parties attention! Arm yourselves and assemble atstarboard air lock! Rocket crews get into suits and prepare to board thisPlumie--_"

  "_Countermand!_" bellowed the skipper from the speaker beside Baird'sear. "_Those orders are canceled! Dammit, if we were successfully boardedwe'd blow ourselves to bits! Those are our orders! D'you think thePlumies will let their ship be taken? And wouldn't we blow up with them?Mr. Taine, you will take no offensive action