Spacehounds of IPC

ius Tak

iptic plane. In the control room, which had been transformed into a bewilderingly complete laboratory, Norman Brandon strode up and

rom cosmic radiation, which is lots more than we'll ever need. We haven't drawn a frank from a plant in a month, and we've had to cut our field strength down to a whisper to keep from burning out our accumulators. We can hunt as far as Neptune easy-we can go to Alpha Centauri if we want t

finally wrenched from the

ngths as to suggest a disruption of the partnership; and Westfall, knowing that Brand

ystem of vision is crude, to say the least, and many other things are still in the experimental stage. We have not the slightest idea whom or what we may encounter. It is all too probable that we would simply be throwing away uselessly the lives of more good men. It is also foolish from a general viewpoint, for as you already know, we and our assistants happen to be in better positio

he reached it when a series of dots and dashes roared from an amplifier. Both men leaped for the receiver which had so unexpecte

ganymede point

on. "Nobody else could build

or direction. Ganymede is the t

ver thought of that. Dope e

ded, and soon Brandon's answer was flying toward the distant satellite. He then started to cal

while, Norman. In a few hours

rings and from the current issue of the "Ephemeris" the time at which Stevens' reply should be received. Two minute

ce, get busy!

e," he added hastily at a stormy glance from hot black eyes, "since we received that message direct, instead of through one of our relay stations, Stevens probably has

he code signals they had been expecting. As soon as the story had been told, and while Brandon was a

lined features of the director showed upon the communicator screen, and the careworn countenance smoothed magic

clothes, powder, perfume, and candy. Therefore we need not worry about them. The fate of the others is still unknown, but there seems to be a slight possibility that some of them may yet b

ures and equations, snapped off the power of the receiver and turned to his bench. Gone was the storming,

g or tractor rays-two things I've been trying to dope out and that you've been giving me the Bronx cheer on. The Titanians have had a tractor ray for ages-he sent me complete dope on it-and the Jovians have got them both. We'll have them in three days, and it ought to be fairly simple to dope out the opposite of a tractor, too-a pusher or presser beam. Say, round up the gang, wil

of Alcantro and Fedanzo, the foremost force-field experts of three planets; and was assured in no uncertain terms that those rulers of rays were ready and anxious to follow wherever Brandon and Westfall might lead. Thence to Venus, where Dol Kenor, the electrical wizard, and Pyraz Amonar, the master of mechanism, also readily agreed to accompany the expedition

ld envisage, he went over to Brandon's desk and sat down, smoking cont

s of force, set up from data 27 to 43, it will be possible actually to project a pure force of such a nature that it will react to de-heterodyne the blanketing frequency at any predetermined distance. T

any solution at all possible you have assumed cosine squared theta negligible. Mathematically, it is of course vanishingly small compared to the first power of the cosine,

squared theta minus one equal to z sub four. That giv

ries had come into being. Yard after yard of calculator paper was filled with equations and computations. Weirdly shaped curves were drawn, with arguments at every point-arguments hot and violent from Brandon, from

atical and physical improvisations, which no one not inspired by sheer genius could have evolved. Westfall, seated quietly at the calculator, mercilessly shredded Brandon's theories to ribbons, pointing out their many flaws with his cold, incisive reasoning and with rapid calculations of the many factors involved. Then Brandon would find a remedy for each weakness in turn and, when Westfall could no longe

zlingly gold-plated queen of the fleet, waited unattended and disregarded on minus time while the entire force of the Interplanetary Corporation concentrated upon the battle-scarred old hulk of the Sirius. Brandon was surprised when he saw the

fferent outfits-volunteers for specia

e selection, so we picked the highest ratings from the whole Service. If

'us'? You aren't

mes of all five of us I-G's wer

hat," Brandon conceded. "And here'

two scientists. "Your Martians and Venerians are in Lounge Fifteen. I suppose that you have a lot of th

long, too?"

eclared. "I may take advice from you on some things a

d Westfall went to join their fellow-scientist

milar evolution-science has not, even yet, decided the question definitely. Their minds were very much alike, but their resp

om searing heat to bitter cold: from blinding light to almost impenetrable darkness. Eight feet tall and correspondingly massive, they could barely stand against t

randon suggested in the common Interplanetarian tongue. "

t and which prevent absolutely the evaporation of the precious moisture of the body. For the same reasons their huge and cat-like eyes are never exposed, but look through sealed, clear windows of membrane, over which may be drawn at will one or all of four pairs of lids-lids transparent, insensible, non-freezable, air-spaced insulators. Even the air they exhale carries from their bodies a minimum of the all-important heat and moisture, for the passages of their nostrils do not lead directly to the lungs, as do ours. Th

nk?" Westfall made sure that they had been

and it was not really necessary, for

should endure. For the atmosphere of Venus is more than twice as dense as ours, is practically saturated with water-vapor, carries an extremely high concentration of carbon dioxide, and in their suits and rooms is held at a temperature of one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit. The lenses of their helmets were of heavy, yello

er and outlined the situation facing them. Brandon then handed around folios of papers, upon which the Venerians turned the invisible

om Sheet 1, we can already draw any amount of po

pped from the sending disk upon th

esult of intra-atomic reactions. The fields of force of our hosts merely intercept these radiations, as a water-driven turbine intercepts the water. We merely use a portion of their energy bef

plex, since there are some nine thousand forcebands of the order in which we are working, each differing from all the others as much as torque differs from tension, or as much as red differs from green. Therefore we have appealed to you for help, knowing that we could do but little alone. Alcantro and Fedanzo will supervise the construction of the generators of the various fields from

ruiser of the void became endowed with an offensive and defensive armament incredible. An armament conceived in the fertile and daring brain of a sheer genius, guided only by the knowledge that such things were already in existence somewhere; reduced to working theory by a precise, mathematical logician; translated into fields of force by the greatest known experts; powered by the indefatigable efforts of an electrical wizard; made possible by the artful mech

direct carrier beam toward sun we can detect it

verything here, all x glad to se

el down to within a mile or two of the point of origin of Stevens' carrie

ok like we're going to get any action for our money a-tall. 'Sa sham

he world that it had encountered a dangerous frequency. The new ultra-lights flared instantly along the line automatically laid down by the detector, and upon

tioned, of c

nes at his ears and microphone at his lip

, but you can't always tell. If they get

ll

. Switch after switch drove home, and one after another those frightful fields of force, those products of the mightiest minds of three planets, were hurled out against the tiny Jovian sphere. Driven as they were by the millions upon millions of horsepower stored in the accumulators of the Sirius they formed a coruscating spherical shell of intolerable energy all around the enemy vessel, but even their prodigious force was held at bay by the powerful defensive screens of the smaller space-ship. But attack the Jovian could not, every resour

be getting nowhere fast. How much power we us

ks," replied MacDonald, the first ass

ck up a little extra from that blaze out there. Drive 'em full out or up to sixty-five, whichever comes first. Can't seem to crush his screens, so I guess we'll hav

Use that only as a last resort, a

ssary yet. He must have an open slit somewhere to work th

dyning the new visiray upo

nice, too.... I think we can do it, too. Watch

tus and the controls of his board. There was a fierce violet-white glare from the plate as

rks, all x, to the queen's taste," as he donn

relay circuits, he slowly shifted that frightful rod of energy from frequency to frequency, staring into the brilliant blankness of his micrometer screen as he did so. After a few minutes of search the screen darkened somewhat, revealing the image of the Jovian globe. Brandon instantl

as it was, had not been fatal and the enemy countered instantly. Now that the crushing force of the full-coverage attack was lessened for a moment, through another slit there poured a beam of energy equal to the Terrestrials' own-a beam of such intense power that the outer screen

rking slit-if they had pushed that stuff through our open channel, we'd have gotten frizzled up some around the edges. A

emy had apparently retired into a tightly closed shell of energy. The small v

e is, that we can outlast him and will get him some time, since he's bound to run out of power before we do. I don't believe he can receiv

sis of a radio-active element of very high atomic weight would theoretically yield an almost perfect accumulator-one many thousands of times as efficient as

intra-atomic energy is just about as impossible as anything can well be. It has been shown pretty conclusively that all ordinary matter is already in its most stable state, so that work must be done upon any ordinary atom to decompose i

do about it?"

ere's a dozen things I want to do that I can't because we haven't got the stuff. Don't say 'I told yo

er

nd? We lose too much time feeling around anyhow, and we're too apt to take one on the chin while we're doi

assive Martian as he replied, stepp

y-he's crawled into a hole and pulled the hole

practicability could have been foreseen in the ligh

his way or we'll get our hair singed. We'll hav

h the time for emergenc

g on the cente

best frequency to use

ore we go to work on him-so we don't have so far to fall if anyth

as yet untried weapon. Instantly released, the full seven hundred thousand kilofranks of their stupendous batteries of accumulators drove into the middle frequency of the attacking band, and Brandon's heart was in his mouth as he stared into the plate to see what would happen. He saw! Everything in the Sirius held fast

w there figures, one or two of which were moving weakly. As he looked, one of these feebly attempted to raise a peculiar, tubular somethi

ous prisoner. Rapidly, but carefully, he was brought through the double airlock and into the control

ith that beam?" demanded Brandon, intensely, as s

hief pilot replied, weakly and with great effort in every word. "Don't believe that you hit anyb

wn, give me

This is my job and I'll do it myself. You

on this, too," Brandon protested, bu

since no one else can handle it the

and held the Sirius upright, with her needle-s

le demonstrations ensued, scaling ladders were quickly placed and with weapons at the alert the police boarded the hemispheres, manacled the still helpless beings visible, and, after laying down a fog of stup

x, Crown

were Breckenridge and those you saw. The things in the other rooms were about ready to fight, so we

he Sirius, the service doors clanged

Perce and Miss Newton. We'd better get them abo

xploring beam of his communicator, the

fellows! Welcome to Ganymede! You are in our valley-we're upstream from

Come on out where we can pick you up. We've

nd Brandon swung mighty tractor beams upon the severed halves of the Jovian vessel, then extended a coupl