Hunters Out of Space Read online

  CHAPTER 13

  The dust-cloud was farther away than Ato had guessed. Long before theyreached it, his instruments began to waver.

  He looked at a star-map. Meanwhile, Nea fed rows of figures into a hummingcalculator.

  "We'll never make it this way," Ato said. "Not even the emergency storagewould help us. Here," he pointed to a pinpoint of light upon the map. "Awhite star. We can reach it, I think."

  Nea sighed. "That dust-cloud is beyond our calculations. We shouldbe nearly there, but it's still far-off. I think it is shrinking andexpanding. At the same time it's dashing off into space at a terrificrate of speed. You'll have to swing toward that star, Ato. I'll try toprobe the cloud some more. My father would have liked this problem--"

  "I don't like the problem at all--" Gunnar complained. "Just where is GrimHagen?"

  "He must be having as much trouble beating his way to that dust-cloud as weare," Ato assured him. And then, doubtfully, he added. "But he has moreenergy. The Old Space Ship was sitting there below Aldebaran for years andyears. He surely took advantage of the time to replenish his fuel. All thewhile, we were using ours up in an effort to find him."

  * * * * *

  Jack Odin's science did not go far enough to pursue the conversation. Heknew that their power was something like a solar battery. When in gear, thecurrent that went through the "frame" of the hour-glass-shaped craft turnedit into a huge blob of plasma, a miniature nebula, and hurled it intospace. As for the Fourth Drive, he hadn't the slightest idea how it worked.Ato had said that the scientists who developed it were not sure--just asmen had developed generators long before they knew the laws that governedthem. Ato had a theory that the Fourth Gear slid the ship from plane toplane. If a bug were crawling along a million mile spiral of wire, he mightgo on until he died before getting anywhere--but if he simply lumberedacross the intervening space to the next coil, would he have traveled ashort distance, or a million miles? Ato had also told Odin that the shiptook energy from the gravitational field that it created when traveling attremendous speeds, so that the motors were 99% efficient.

  Ato set a course for the distant star, and in a short while it was loomingupon the screen with sheets of atomic flame leaping out like the teeth ofa circular saw. One huge explosion flicked a long tongue of heat at them.The corona of the sun gleamed and writhed like a thin band of quicksilver.

  "We're going in there," Ato decided. "It's the quickest way."

  Warnings were sounded all through the ship. The screens were turned offnow, as no eye could have survived the sight of that flaming ball whichwas rushing toward them at such extraordinary speed.

  The ship groaned as it hit the corona. Vast whirlwinds of flame shook it.The motors coughed and spat. Then the gyroscopes took over. It steadieditself and went through. Like a moth fluttering through a candle-flame,The Nebula drew away from the star. But this moth was unharmed--and amillion cells had drunk so much energy that the ship reeled with its power.

  * * * * *

  On and on. In zig-zag pursuit of Grim Hagen, they crashed throughTrans-Space. The dust-cloud loomed larger now upon their screens. Itwas still no larger than a baseball, though it must have been millionsof miles across.

  Three times they had to sweep from their course to renew their energyfrom straggling suns that seemed to be farther and farther apart. Thefirst was a tiny blue sun that burned its way through the emptiness.The second was a huge nebula that pulsed and spouted flame and proteanworlds into space--enveloped them again as it breathed, scared them, andcast them out once more. And Odin wondered if in such a furnace and suchtorment his own world had been born. He had now seen as much of spaceas any man, with the exception of Grim Hagen, and so far it had been atumultuous creation that he had watched. Nothing was still. The forgesof space were white-hot. As they sped toward this sun, they passed twoplanets, perilously close together, pelting each other with splashinggobs and spears of flame and slag. The third was a red sun with lonelyburned-out planets circling wearily about it. As they skimmed above itssurface Odin slid a dark plate over the screen and watched. Here weremolten lakes of metal rimmed by red flames that looked like writhingtrees. The surface was splitting and bubbling. A mountain of moltenooze swiftly grew to a height of thirty miles. Then it burst into redflame from its own weight and came toppling down.

  As they hurled away from the red star, Ato turned to Odin and Gunnar andsaid: "I'm afraid that will be the last. Even the stars are behind us--"

  The screens now showed nothing but the dust-cloud, with specks of light andcoils of darkness threaded through it. It loomed larger and larger until itfilled the screen.

  "Ragnarok," Gunnar growled in his throat. He adjusted the shoulder strapthat harnessed his broadsword to his back and looked at Odin curiously.

  "You should have rest, Nors-King. You look gaunt and tired--but strongertoo. I wonder if I have changed as much as you since we started this trip.Eh, Nors-King," he chuckled, "if you had but one eye, I would swear thatyou were old Odin himself, rushing out to the edge of space to start thatlast bonfire of suns."

  "Quiet," Nea pleaded as she worked with the calculator. "So far this hasdefied computation. It's unstable, Ato. Before I can identify it, a factoris added or taken away."

  "Grim Hagen went in there," Ato replied as he studied his instruments. "Ifhe can, we can."

  "Perhaps," she answered. "But space out there is curdling in his wake." Sheshivered. Nea's shoulders were beautifully shaped, and Odin found himselfthinking that they were made for a man's arms instead of bending overcalculators and machines.

  "Oh, well!" he thought. "They are not for my arms, but why doesn't Ato wakeup and claim her? Then there wouldn't be distractions like this--"

  With one warning blare, The Nebula plunged into the fringe of thedust-cloud.

  The boat rocked. A spattering sound like the falling of heavy sleet filledthe control room. Needles jumped and wheeled. Dials turned madly, spun backand forth, and jammed.

  The lights flickered on and off. For a time they were in darkness. Then thelights came back, but continued their flickering. The screens were dark.

  Nea worked with the instruments. When power enough was available she beganprobing the dust-cloud as though nothing had happened. Then she fed morefigures into the calculator and handed the result to Ato.

  "Try this," she said in a tremulous voice. "It may work."

  Ato took the tape from her hands and set the controls accordingly.

  The lights dimmed again--came on--and remained steady. The expanses of dimyellow light through which coils and ellipses of darkness crawled likeblack worms.

  Odin knew that such a feeling was impossible out here, but it seemed to himthat The Nebula leaped forward.

  Ato cried out in triumph. "I've got another fix on Grim Hagen. He's muchnearer now."

  "Hurry, Ato. Hurry," Nea was pleading.

  They drove on and on. The screens remained as before. Yellow light andcrawling shadows. Then, suddenly, the screens were filled with dancingcircles of flame. They blazed brightly, and thrust out little fiery armsand took their neighbors' hands. They danced. They gleamed and glistened.They became circles of flame. They grew toward each other and ran togetherinto little puddles of light.

  "Ato. Hurry," Nea screamed. One of her instruments melted as she staredinto it and she jumped back, her hands to her eyes--

  Then they were out of the cloud, and space lay empty and free before them,with only one tiny sun in view.

  * * * * *

  Jack Odin twisted the controls to take a look at what was happening backthere in the cloud.

  Just as he got it in view, the moiling space out there coalesced into onesmoldering ember. Crushed by the awful weight, that single giant of flamesuddenly burst into a thousand pieces. Comets streaked away. Dripping sunsstreamed across the mad sky. Worlds spewed out--and moons dripped tears oflight as they followed after their mothers
. They crashed and wheeled. Theymerged in gigantic splashes of fire. Pinwheels rushed across the screen.Rockets flashed. And fountains of flame spilled sun after sun into thesparkling void. Odin stood transfixed by the sight.

  Then, momentarily, the holocaust of flame was over. New suns and newworlds drifted calmly, with only a few erratic meteors and some settlingdust-clouds left to tell of the explosion that had shaped them.

  * * * * *

  All was as bright and calm out there as the day after creation. But onlyfor a while. For a very short time the new suns sparkled clean and fresh.Then one by one they guttered and winked out. They drew closer together asthough afraid of the dark. Then smoldered and flickered. Then they weregone. And all that was left was one dark cloud that slowly drifted away.

  "It was an artificial explosion," Nea murmured in a puzzled voice. "GrimHagen's ship and ours destroyed the balance and caused a premature burst.There must be some law--some time and weight factor that governs thesethings. I would judge that the explosion was not violent enough."

  "Not violent enough," Odin exclaimed. "How violent can an explosion be?"

  Her eyes were still wide and creamy with wonder when she replied. "I don'tknow. Something went wrong. Relatively speaking, it may have been a mildexplosion. At any rate, that new galaxy was unstable. I wish we had timeto go back and make some tests--"

  Gunnar shivered. "Not back there. I have seen enough. Now, Ato, what liesahead?"

  Ato shrugged his lean shoulders. "I still have a fix on Grim Hagen. Andthere seems to be but one place for him to go."

  He turned a dial and the screens picked up one lone red sun far away. Onetiny black dot slowly circled it.

  That was all. Space itself was wrapped in primeval darkness. And the sablewings of nothingness spanned the void. Odin's eyes ached at sight of theawful emptiness. His heart felt heavy as the weight of dread distancespressed upon him. Could space itself reach some limit and curve wearilyback upon itself? Like folds of black silk, the emptiness out thereshimmered and flowed away--

  One other speck now appeared upon the screen. A pinpoint of light thatcrawled toward the lone sun and its single huge planet.

  Grim Hagen and the Old Ship!

  * * * * *

  Time, if time existed at all, went slowly by. They ate and slept. Nea andher workers were busy with the Kalis, as she called them. Four were nowfinished. A fifth had been fashioned, but Nea had sent it through thelocks into space and it had been lost. It had simply sailed out there anddisappeared.

  "Sunk from sight," were Gunnar's words, and this explained thedisappearance as well as anything. It was as though they had been ona boat and the thing had dived overboard.

  Nea, who had been trained to scientific thinking since she was knee-high,had to think up an answer. Her explanation was that it had slid down aplane into three-dimensional space. Even now, it might be on some planet,puzzling and worrying the natives. For the Kalis were almost like livingthings--and almost like gods.

  That was like Nea, Odin thought. A scientist, always. Anythingunexplainable must be immediately attached to a theory--whether thetheory were right or wrong. Just as long as there was an explanationto hang upon a phenomenon she was happy enough. She might blithely thinkup a new theory tomorrow and throw the old one away, but that was of noconsequence. Odin had grown skeptical of such thinking when he was amedical student. Each doctor had his own pet diagnosis--and too manytried to fit the patient to the cure instead of working out a cure forthe patient. Oh, well, that was far away and long ago.

  How far away and how long ago!

  * * * * *

  Meanwhile, the red sun and its planet were looming large upon the screen.The shining light that was the Old Ship was crawling nearer to them. TwiceGrim Hagen had hurled sheets of flame at them. And once he contacted TheNebula on the speaker--and cursed everyone fluently in three languages. Heassured them that he now had a fighting crew and would soon join up withothers. He had a dozen new weapons. So why didn't they simply get lost?

  Sleep after sleep went by and still the two ships crawled toward that lastport on the edge of space.

  Until, finally, they saw the Old Ship leave Trans-Space and glide down tothe huge planet. And with a last burst of speed, Ato came in behind it.