Lofty Patterson sauntered up to them. "Sure is a great place here," he commented in his typically high-pitched voice. "That is, if your enemy is going to sneak up on you on foot. Otherwise we're sitting ducks." He seemed to share their uneasiness. "Tell you what," he suggested, "I'm not too interested in the politics of this situation-so while you talk to the Azgon I'll do a little reconnoitring, just for security coverage."

Ron agreed to this and he and Larry returned to the aircar. They sat down in front of the low open hatch so that they could talk comfortably to the Azgon.

Ron came straight to the point. "Something very unusual has happened on Azgola in the past few years or months or weeks-we don't know for sure how long a time this has been going on. Are you able to explain anything about it?"

The Azgon shook his head in slow deliberation. "No, I can only describe the events as I experienced them or as they were reported to me. Let me start from the beginning. My name is Bladoor. In the government of His Majesty, I was a minister concerned with labour and public welfare. I'm telling you this so that you will understand that I had free access to all the information.

"Almost exactly 9 weeks ago we observed an alien s.p.a.cecraft as it approached our planet. It was comparatively a small ship. It landed on the continent we call Doorhadas where there are practically no settlements and of course no s.p.a.ceport facilities. It landed on a wide gra.s.sy plain without any attempt to request a landing permit. By the time the news of its arrival reached Timpik, it had long since taken off again, as we later found out. But some days later another ship came and landed in the same place-only this one was a veritable giant. As in the case of the first ship, n.o.body came out of it. The vessel simply sat there and we a.s.sume that in the meantime it has also taken off again and disappeared."

You a.s.sume that?" asked Ron, amazed. "You don't know for sure?"

"No," said Bladoor. "I see that you don't quite understand this. You have to consider our situation here. We still use sailing ships to cross the oceans. Although we live in an age of steam power we don't even have the fuel you people refer to as coal. If a ship has a steam engine to drive it we still can't load it with enough wood to burn so that it can cross the sea without extra help from sails. So a journey across the ocean in the area we're talking about would take 4 to 5 weeks. We received notice of the first ship's arrival about 4 weeks after the fact. It remained on Doorhadas for about 2 days and we didn't know it had taken off again until 4 days after we received the news of its arrival. And again 3 weeks later-or about 8 weeks after news of the first landing-we learned about the arrival of the s.p.a.ce giant. We waited for further reports but we heard nothing more."

"But something else happened. Suddenly we ceased to be hungry and with the pa.s.sage of time our satiety was complete. We not only felt full-we were full. Our weight increased, which affected all Azgons without exception. Daily increases of 5 to 7 pounds were not unusual. We didn't know what was causing it and we began to be frightened. But we couldn't help ourselves; we just grew fatter and heavier. The people could barely support themselves on their legs. Finally when they wanted to leave their houses they had to crawl on their hands and knees. At last they realized that they really didn't have to move about at all. By some mysterious means they received nourishment. They didn't have to worry anymore about earning money for food. There was no longer any need for leaving their houses. So they stayed home. The streets of the cities and villages became empty. All traffic ceased. What's more-all activity of any kind on Azgola died out entirely. Azgola is now a dead planet-at least in that sense-and n.o.body knows how much longer it will continue this way." He finally stopped because he was breathing hard. It had cost him a great effort to talk so much.

"Why is it," asked Ron, "that you are still this active? True, you're fatter than you ever were before but you're far from being the size of some of your people we've seen already. How were you protected from this plague?"

Bladoor waved his hands helplessly. "I don't know," he said uncertainly. "During those days when the calamity first began I was very much occupied with important work. I was isolated day and night in my office and took no heed of what was happening outside. I only became aware that something was wrong when one morning my ring for a servant went unanswered. So I went out and then I saw the whole mess. Misshapen and repulsive fat men were actually rolling in the halls of the government building. It was an effort for me to even recognize some of my colleagues. By the G.o.ds-how they had changed! I managed to get one of them to tell me the whole story. He told me more or less what I've described to you already. Naturally I was wondering how I had been spared from this plague of corpulence but I couldn't think of any reason for it. All I could conclude was that my office must be especially shielded somehow. And that's why I chose to remain there. I didn't have to worry about food because I felt satisfied all of the time-although perhaps not to the same extent as the others.

"So I waited and with the pa.s.sage of time I noticed that I too was gaining weight although not as rapidly as the others. From my window, hour by hour, I could see the streets becoming more deserted. I experienced many moments of desperation. But then I told myself that sometime or other someone would have to come to clear up this mystery. I continued to wait and finally you came!"

Ron pondered the information he had received. "What seems to me to be the main question is: in what way was your office different from that of the other minister you said you talked to?"

An idea had come to him which he took at first to be ridiculous but he finally decided that nothing could be overlooked until somebody came up with an explanation for this strange phenomenon. Could the air of the planet be filled with some kind of nourishing substance? Or was this whole thing due to some completely new and unknown effect? Did the 2 s.p.a.ceships that had been observed have something to do with it? Might there be places on Azgola where the plague-if that's what it was-had not yet struck and where the people were still normal?

Apparently the question Ron had put to him was not difficult for Bladoor to answer. "In the first place I'm very sensitive to sounds," he explained. "As soon as I hear the slightest strange sound it affects my power of concentration. So that's why I have quadruple doors in my office. Secondly I love fresh air but I'm allergic to dust. That's why the screens on my windows have an exceptionally fine mesh. Otherwise I believe the only other thing that's different is the office furniture but I suppose that's..."

Ron leapt to his feet excitedly. "No, that's not important! You're right-the extra doors and the fine-mesh screens are the important difference. That's how you blocked out the food substance... at least to some extent."

"Food substance?" inquired Bladoor, mystified.

Ron was still standing in front of him and staring at him. "Yes! Don't you understand? The stuff must be flying around in the air. Lord knows what it can be. But when your people breathed it in they lost all trace of their feelings of hunger. In fact they were saturated-overfed! That's why they fattened up so fast and became so heavy that they couldn't move."

Bladoor stared back in amazement. "Yes! Yes!" he stammered. "Now I understand! But how could the substance get into the air? You have to remember that there are more than 2 million inhabitants on Azgola. It would take a stupendous number of tons of this material if it were to be distributed in the atmosphere sufficiently to keep 2 million people continuously satiated!"

Ron smiled. "There are methods you have probably never heard about. If such a food substance exists then it certainly wouldn't be difficult for its manufacturer to inject a sufficient quant.i.ty into the atmosphere." He shook his head. "No, the big question is why. Could it be a new form of attack that's supposed to precede an invasion of the planet? Or is there some reason behind it that we haven't guessed so far? If anybody could answer me that one..."

He was interrupted as Lofty appeared from behind the pillared monument. "I don't know," he said gravely, "it's nothing definite but I think I may have seen some movement in one of the streets."

Ron nodded to him. "OK, Lofty-we're getting out of here as soon as possible. Just keep on the lookout."

When Lofty returned to his post, Ron queried the Azgon again. "Do you think it's possible to locate a seaworthy sailing ship?"

Bladoor shrugged. "The ship isn't the problem," he answered. "The harbour of Timpik is about 20 km southeast from here and you'd certainly find a great number of oceangoing ships there but finding a crew would be another matter. There are no able-bodied seamen available now."

"I think we can take care of that ourselves," said Ron. "We should be able to navigate a medium-sized sailing ship across the sea. Unfortunately the aircar here is not designed for long-range flights. We should have used a Quad instead of this vehicle and then we'd be better off."

"But don't forget one thing!" warned Bladoor.

"What's that?"

"This calamity can strike you as well as us. If the substance really is in the air, then you are breathing it in the same as we are. Within a few days you could be just as misshapen and helpless as my own people who have had to crawl into their houses."

Ron admitted that he hadn't thought of this. Of course there was such a danger. They might have to figure on also being incapacitated within a few days. But by that time they would have had to discover where this unusual stuff came from and who this raving enemy was who attacked them.

He went to check on Lofty and found him crouched down by the steps of the pillar pedestal. He was still looking eastward intently.

"Anything new?" Ron asked him.

Lofty shook his head. "No but I have an uneasy feeling. Something isn't right over there."

Ron followed Lofty's gaze to where several streets converged into the plaza. He could see quite a distance without obstruction but the streets were empty. There was nothing anywhere of a suspicious nature to be seen.

"We're getting out of here, Lofty," he said. "Let's go!

Lofty sighed and got up. "Sounds like a good idea."

When they came around the monument to the aircar they found Larry already at the flight controls. Bladoor was leaning back exhausted in the seat beside him. Ron caught himself glancing around in search of Meech Hannigan but then he remembered that they had 'lost' him. Ron let Lofty get in first and the smaller and older man swung nimbly into the rear seat. As Ron started to follow him-it happened.

Suddenly the air was filled with the thunder of a mighty voice. It came as such a shock of surprise that Ron didn't catch the first few words: "...a force 15 times superior to yours. This is Garathon, Commander of s.p.a.ceship Garath 43. Surrender, Terrans, or you are lost!"

Now suddenly Ron had the whole picture as though someone had pulled a blindfold from his eyes. The unseen speaker spoke Arkonide. Considering that plus the fact that his name was Garathon and his ship was the Garath 43, only one conclusion could be drawn. He knew now who the unknown a.s.sailants were in the tower who had tried to finish them off. They were somewhat different in appearance than others of their kind he had seen before but they still had the same mode of operation as ever.

So that was it-the Springers had their hands in the action here on Azgola!

5/ THE RACE WITH DEATH.

Ron threw himself inside the aircar and the hatch closed automatically behind him. "Take off, Larry!" he yelled "As fast and low as you can!"

Larry had only been waiting for the order.

Meanwhile the amplified voice was still bellowing out across the plaza. Garathon announced that he had the whole area surrounded with a superior force and that his guns would destroy the Terran ship if it tried to escape. Ron well knew that he meant every word he said but too much was at stake here. At least he couldn't just throw up his hands on the basis of threats alone.

The small craft seemed to leap into the air. For what might have been a 10th of a second it poised motionlessly a few meters over the ground in the shadow of the pillared monument. Then Larry cut in his horizontal propulsion and the aircar picked up speed. At a high rate of acceleration it shot straight across the plaza and caused Bladoor to let out a choking gasp. The roofs of the small narrow houses came rushing toward them with frightening speed. It almost seemed as if Larry were determined to plough right into the midst of them. Ron winced instinctively and leaned to one side as though it might help him to avoid the crash but in the last second Larry pulled up hard. He grazed a rooftop and flew straight across one of the streets that Lofty had been watching.

When Ron glanced below he saw 2 things at once-the squat, ma.s.sive disintegrator the Springers had cleverly concealed behind an out-jutting house wall and the pale, greenish flash that suddenly enhaloed the thing's deadly muzzle. In the same instant the aircar reared at a crazy angle and the bucking motion threw Bladoor forward so that his head struck against the windshield. His excited gasping and wheezing ceased at the same moment because the impact knocked him senseless.

"Engine's gone!" shouted Larry. "Can't hold her up here now!"

Ron forced himself to be calm. He needed just a few seconds to let Frank Bell know what had happened. He knew that he must be holding the Victory somewhere in an orbit around Azgola.

He yelled out instructions to Larry. "Stretch out your descent as far as you can!" Then he sent the code signal over his micro-transceiver. There was no time to wait for acknowledgement. He gave a swift report of the events in Timpik and concluded with a few brief orders: "Call in the Vondar, Frank! See if you can bail us out of this and tell Gerry Montini to give you a hand. We have to get out of here as fast as possible or we'll be in worse trouble. That is all. No confirmation required."

Larry could not hold their present alt.i.tude and the aircar began to drop. The disintegrator had reduced the propulsion section to powder. The only reason the craft was still airborne instead of dropping like a stone was its favourable aerodynamic design. He kept it on a straight course along the street and the rooftops seemed to rush toward him and past him and then to rise above him. For a few moments he could see into little windows to his right and left. He wasn't quite sure yet whether or not he had bypa.s.sed the Springers' blockade ring but the street was empty. He had long since left the disintegrator and its crew behind him.

"OK, put us down here!" ordered Ron.

Larry tried to nurse the craft down carefully. The windows to the right and left of him blurred into a blinking streak and it seemed for a moment that the ship was being responsive to the controls. But then there was something-a heavy updraft followed by an air pocket.

Larry cried out a warning. Ron grabbed his knees. The world around him turned into a crashing wave of thundering impact and shrieking metal. He was catapulted forward and struck his head against something hard. A searing pain shot through him and then everything went black.

The Victory was...o...b..ting Azgola at an alt.i.tude of 2500 km when Ron Landry's distress call came through Frank Bell took action at once and Gerry Montini on board the Vondar was informed of the situation almost in a matter of seconds. Since there was no further contact with Ron, this pa.s.sed the command to Gerry. He decided to have the Victory wait until the Vondar could join it, inasmuch as his own vessel was standing off from Azgola at a distance of 8 light-hours. He prepared for a transition and soon jumped the great gap in seconds.

Frank saw the shimmering speck of the Vondar emerge from the void and before he could turn to speak to one of his officers the s.p.a.cecom came to life. It was Gerry Montini. "Vondar here," he said curtly. "Send me your orbit coordinates, Frank. We'll get going below as soon as possible."

The course data were already stored in the positronic registers of the astrogation section. All Frank Bell had to do was press a few b.u.t.tons, which instructed the computer to code the data and beam the information across. A few seconds later, when Montini interrogated his Nav Section to see if all necessary data were present for continuing the flight, he received a green signal.

He had no sooner joined the other ship in orbit than he began to move on. Without needing to be told, Frank Bell understood that he was to follow. He kept a distance of 30 km as the swift descent began. As the 2 ships shot toward the surface of the small planet their heat shields and collision screens glowed brightly due to an ionization of the molecules of the Azgola atmosphere. Then they caught sight of the coastline-the landma.s.s on whose eastern perimeter the most important city of Timpik was located.

From Frank Bell's previous report Gerry Montini knew that the Springers had a heavy a.r.s.enal of remote-controlled missiles at their disposal. He did not make the mistake of immobilizing himself by making a landing first. He maintained an alt.i.tude of 10 km while holding a velocity of Mach 5, darting over Timpik with the Victory in tight formation behind him. Automatic cameras were photographing the entire area. Within fractions of seconds the terrain pictures were re-translated into the positronic sensors which had been programmed beforehand with regard to what was being sought. The scanning a.n.a.lysis system processed more than 10,000 photos in half a minute.

Then Gerry heard the computer's response: "Nothing of an unusual nature. Everything quiet."

He hadn't counted on that. No more than 15 minutes had pa.s.sed since Ron Landry's distress call and some kind of trace must have been left of the conflict that had occurred there. He repeated his question to the sensor computer and received the same answer.

Gerry turned in his chair and got up. The officers in the Control Central interrupted their activities to stare at him.

"Something smells, gentlemen!" he declared in his hard, high-pitched voice. "The Springers have dispersed so completely that even the sensor can't find a trace of them. They must have been pretty much in a hurry and that means just one thing: they're afraid that Ron and his men didn't come here alone-so they're expecting us."

"Double the crews at all gun positions! Tell the Victory to do the same thing and give them the status of the situation. Everything depends on our being prepared for any kind of trouble-which can happen any minute!"

As he turned back to his place he left behind him a murmur of voices as his officers transmitted the orders while their small intercom screens flickered busily. Gerry slipped into his seat, leaned back and observed the wide, glowing pan.o.b screens. The broad circle of the city lay peacefully beneath the ship and no movement was discernible.

Behind him the low-ceilinged chamber of the Control Central had become silent again. All orders had been issued and the crews of both ships were on combat standby. But nothing happened. A quarter of an hour went by without even a hint of any movement on Azgola. The only event was the call from Frank Bell at the end of 15 minutes. He was asking permission to make a landing but Gerry held off. He ordered another 15-minute waiting period. If nothing happened by then, both ships would make a simultaneous landing at the Timpik s.p.a.ceport.

His own uneasiness grew as the minutes pa.s.sed. The quarter hour was not completed before he agreed to land. In still closer formation the 2 ships moved away from the city in a northern direction. Beyond the town they lowered their alt.i.tude and approached the big empty s.p.a.ceport at a glide angle. As far as any hostile activity was concerned, the positronic photo-sensors were completely quiet. No trace of the Springers was detected. Gerry Montini considered it to be purposeless to continue under such a tight mode of security so the auto-positronic nav-system was instructed to set the Vondar down on the field as quickly as possible.

Air-search scouting vehicles were readied at the exit locks. Gerry didn't want to lose any time. No one knew what had happened to Ron Landry. However, the Victory had made a plus-or-minus 2-km error in tracking the spot where his last message had come from. It was somewhere in the middle of the city and Gerry was sure he could find some clues if he took a close enough look around.

The Vondar came to earth, followed closely by the Victory, approximately in the same location where the latter vessel had been when the invisible enemy struck. Gerry put out an order that the ships' engines were to be kept on a takeoff readiness standby during the whole time of the mission on Azgola.

Which was a fortunate decision.

Because the warning system only picked up the swarm of long-range missiles after they had come over the far edge of the s.p.a.ceport. The enemy had been clever enough to make an early warning impossible. The rockets had been guided low above the houses of the city so that they were far inside the critical range of the tracking equipment by the time they came onto the radar horizon.

It meant that the Victory and the Vondar would have to take the first volley. And if their defence screens managed to hold up under it they might be able to take off before the next group hit. Gerry Montini grasped the situation immediately and hit the telecom switch that gave him a contact with the Victory.

"All hands. .h.i.t the deck-take cover!" his voice shrilled over multiple speaker systems. "Grab anything that's solid!"

Behind him was a creaking of chairs, the sound of hasty footsteps. Then everything was quiet. Seven out of 12 seconds allowed by the warning system had ticked away. Gerry made a quick inspection of his surroundings and saw that his men were in secure positions. He braced his feet against the flight console, knowing that his pilot's chair was solidly mounted to the deck. As long as he kept his weight against the adjustable backrest of his chair he would be secure enough. Involuntarily he held his breath.

Then the missiles struck, far too swiftly to be seen optically on the pan.o.b screens. One-half second before impact the warning system emitted a short shrill howl and even before it finished the panoramic view gallery flared up with a blinding white light as the first impact sent a vicious jolt through the ship.

As far as the stability of his position was concerned, Montini was in for a surprise. His legs were simply knocked to one side and something lifted him out of his chair as though gravity had stopped. He had a split-second clear impression of equipment cabinets and consoles standing motionlessly below and around him as if he were suspended in the air. Then a second jolt slammed him to the deck where he struck his head hard against metal plates. For one long moment the rapid succession of explosions came to him only faintly as if through a long and narrow tunnel. The roaring inside his skull was drowning out everything else.

After that Gerry's vision cleared-in fact brilliantly. This was because the light gleaming from the big viewscreens flooded the Control Central with an almost blinding intensity. While supporting himself on his hands and knees, he looked around him and saw each individual dust mote starkly outlined across the deck.

A new explosion knocked the Vondar on its side and Gerry was jerked in the direction of the fall but he managed to remain on his hands and knees. When he saw the sudden red glow outside he knew that the defence screens were loading up to the limit of their capacity. If the bombardment didn't stop soon...

The next explosion caught Gerry in the middle of such thoughts and he was simply picked up and slammed back flat on the deck again. His breath went out of him while coloured rings danced in front of his eyes. There was a strobe-like flickering of reddish light in the Control Central. Streaks and bands of red-glowing brilliance danced from the viewscreens.

Gerry leapt to his feet, not caring whether he was holding onto something or not. Feeling somewhat dizzy he staggered to his seat again. The telecom was still on but the little video-receiver had tipped over. When he hastily set it upright again the screen was grey and lifeless. The video portion of contact with Frank Bell had been knocked out.

"Vondar calling Victory!" he shouted hoa.r.s.ely. "Vondar calling..."

"This is the Victory," answered a voice that didn't sound any steadier than his. "Frank Bell here. How does it look over there with you?"

Gerry sighed in relief. If that was Frank's only worry then things must not have gone so badly for the Victory. "Still here," he answered. "We can still take off. Are you ready over there?"

"Any time," was Frank's prompt reply.

"Then let's go!" yelled Gerry. "It won't be more than a minute or minute and a half till the next salvo. You'll have to dig out on full power!"

"I read you, sir."

As the contact was cut off the speaker crackled noisily. Behind Gerry, the First Officer had already given the order for takeoff. The light hum of the engines which had permeated the ship before now grew to a vibrating thunder. The pan.o.b screens were still 'blind' because dust clouds raised by the explosions still obscured the field of vision. Gerry only knew that they had left the ground when the shrill takeoff warning sounded.

It was not any too rea.s.suring because he didn't know yet how much damage the last enemy rockets had caused. The engines seemed to be normal but it could be that they were not delivering their former maximum power. Which was what the Vondar needed in order to escape the next attack. The dust curtain began to thin out and Gerry could see outlines of the barracks buildings on the southern edge of the field. A few moments later the outlines of the city of Timpik appeared in the distance. In an opposite direction was the spherical hull of the Victory, which was ascending at the same speed as the Vondar.

Again Gerry Montini breathed a sigh of relief. The speed with which the swirling dust ma.s.ses disappeared along with the wide stretch of the s.p.a.ceport and the outlines of the city below was gratifying. The engines didn't appear to have suffered greatly under the bombardment.

Then he saw the next batch of rockets rise above the city. Now everything depended on just one question: which had the greater acceleration capacity, the 2 s.p.a.ceships or the jet-propelled enemy missiles? The latter had the highest initial velocity but if the Vondar and the Victory could reach that speed before the impact, all would be saved.

The men in the Control Central waited for Gerry's orders but he only stood there motionlessly and watched the screen. There was nothing to say. All they could do was wait. The hostile missiles were approaching with agonizing slowness. The surrounding sky lost its milky-blue brilliance and turned to a deeper violet. Stars began to appear. The deep blackness of outer s.p.a.ce finally replaced the last trace of colour.

At an alt.i.tude of 80 km above the surface of Azgola the Vondar was steadily picking up speed. Close by, the Victory held the same pace. The rocket swarm was still 132 km away. But its velocity was greater so far and it had not yet been decided whose propulsion system would win the race.

Then came the moment in which the positronicon reported that the rate of closure was lessening. The rockets were still approaching but whereas before their rate of closure had been 200 m/sec it had now dropped to 180 m/sec. And it continued to decrease.

Gerry tightened his grip on the edge of the flight console. This still didn't mean salvation. If the missiles only had an approach rate of 1 m/sec they could still reach their targets. Just now they were mere tiny light-points in the depths of the void-a full swarm of them, more than their screens could handle even if they had been intact.

170 m/sec... 150...

Time dragged like a sluggish fluid. Tension grew in the Control Central. The distance was now only 67 km!

Then the positronicon was heard from once more. Out of the speakers came a long-drawn sharp buzzing sound. Gerry whirled around, realizing what had happened before the computer announced it.

"Approach rate negative!"

The words sounded flat and impersonal as one might expect from a soulless machine-but they indicated that the two Terran ships had won the race with death. The Springer rockets were falling back. Their jets couldn't match the engines of the Vondar and the Victory.