The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith
had already learned that the atmosphere of Delgon, while not as wholesome for them as that in their suits, would for a time at least support human life—and wrought diligently with pliers, screw-drivers, and other tools of the electrician. Soon their exhausted batteries were upon the floor beneath the instrument panel, absorbing greedily the electrical fluid from the bus-bars of the Delgonians.
“Now, while they’re getting filled up, let’s see what these people use for guns. Lead on, Worsel!”
CHAPTER 7
The Passing of the Overlords
With Worsel in the lead, the three interlopers hastened along a corridor, past branching and intersecting hallways, to a distant wing of the structure. There, it was evident, manufacturing of weapons was carried on; but a quick study of the queer-looking devices and mechanisms upon the benches and inside the storage racks lining the walls convinced Kinnison that the room could yield them nothing of permanent benefit. There were high-powered beam-projectors, it was true; but they were so heavy that they were not even semi-portable. There were also hand-weapons of various peculiar patterns, but without exception they were ridiculously inferior to the DeLameters of the Patrol in every respect of power, range, controllability, and storage capacity. Nevertheless, after testing them out sufficiently to make certain of the above findings, he selected an armful of the most powerful models and turned to his companions.
“Let’s go back to the power room,” he urged. “I’m nervous as a cat. I feel stark naked without my batteries; and if anyone should happen to drop in there and do away with them, we’d be sunk without a trace.”
Loaded down with Delgonian weapons they hurried back the way they had come. Much to Kinnison’s relief he found that his forebodings had been groundless; the batteries were still there, still absorbing myriawatt-hour after myriawatt-hour from the Delgonian generators. Staring fixedly at the innocuous-looking containers, he frowned in thought.
“Better we insulate those leads a little heavier and put the cans back in our armor,” he suggested finally. “They’ll charge just as well in place, and it doesn’t stand to reason that this drain of power can go on for the rest of the night without somebody noticing it. And when that happens those Overlords are bound to take plenty of steps—none of which we have any idea what are going to be.”
“You must have power enough now so that we can all fly away from any possible trouble,” Worsel suggested.
“But that’s just exactly what we’re not going to do!” Kinnison declared, with finality. “Now that we’ve found a good charger, we aren’t going to leave it until our accumulators are chock-a-block. It’s coming in faster than full draft will take it out, and we’re going to get a full-charge if we have to stand off all the vermin of Delgon to do it.”
Far longer than Kinnison had thought possible they were unmolested, but finally a couple of Delgonian engineers came to investigate the unprecedented shortage in the output of their completely automatic generators. At the entrance they were stopped, for no ordinary tools could force the barricade vanBuskirk had erected behind that portal. With leveled weapons the Patrolmen stood, awaiting the expected attack, but none developed. Hour by hour the long night wore away, uneventfully. At daybreak, however, a storming party appeared and massive battering rams were brought into play.
As the dull, heavy concussions reverberated throughout the building the Patrolmen each picked up two of the weapons piled before them and Kinnison addressed the Velantian.
“Drag a couple of those metal benches across that corner and coil up behind them,” he directed. “They’ll be enough to ground any stray charges—if they can’t see you they won’t know you’re here, so probably nothing much will come your way direct.”
The Velantian demurred, declaring that he would not hide while his two companions were fighting his battle, but Kinnison silenced him fiercely.
“Don’t be a fool!” the Lensman snapped. “One of these beams would fry you to a crisp in ten seconds, but the defensive fields of our armor could neutralize a thousand of them, from now on. Do as I say, and do it quick, or I’ll shock you unconscious and toss you in there myself!”
Realizing that Kinnison meant exactly what he said, and knowing that, unarmored as he was, he was utterly unable to resist either the Tellurian or their common foe, Worsel unwillingly erected his metallic barrier and coiled his sinuous length behind it. He hid himself just in time.
The outer barricade had fallen, and now a wave of reptilian forms flooded into the control room. Nor was this any ordinary investigation. The Overlords had studied the situation from afar, and this wave was one of heavily-armed—for Delgon—soldiery. On they came, projectors fiercely aflame; confident in their belief that nothing could stand before their blasts. But how wrong they were! The two repulsively erect bipeds before them neither burned nor fell. Beams, no matter how powerful, did not reach them at all, but spent themselves in crackingly incandescent fury, inches from their marks. Nor were these outlandish beings inoffensive. Utterly careless of the service-life of the pitifully weak Delgonian projectors, they were using them at maximum drain and at extreme aperture—and in the resultant beams the Delgonian soldier-slaves fell in scorched and smoking heaps. On came reserves, platoon after platoon, only and continuously to meet the same fate; for as soon as one projector weakened the invincibly armored man would toss it aside and pick up another. But finally the last commandeered weapon was exhausted and the beleaguered pair brought their own DeLameters—the most powerful portable weapons known to the military scientists of the Galactic Patrol—into play.
And what a difference! In those beams the attacking reptiles did not smoke or burn. They simply vanished in a blaze of flaming light, as did also the nearby walls and a good share of the building beyond! The Delgonian hordes having disappeared, vanBuskirk shut off his projector. Kinnison, however, left his on, angling its beam sharply upward; blasting into fiery vapor the ceiling and roof over their heads; remarking:
“While we’re at it we might as well fix things so that we can make a quick get-away if we want to.”
Then they waited. Waited, watching the needles of their meters creep ever closer to the “full-charge” marks; waited while, as they suspected, the distant, cowardly-hiding Overlords planned some other, more promising line of physical attack.
Nor was it long in developing. Another small army appeared, armored this time; or, more accurately, advancing behind metallic shields. Knowing what to expect, Kinnison was not surprised when the beam of his DeLameter not only failed to pierce one of those shields, but did not in any way impede the progress of the Delgonian column.
“Well, we’re all done here, anyway, as far as I’m concerned,” Kinnison grinned at the Dutchman as he spoke. “My cans’ve been showing full back pressure for the last two minutes. How about yours?”
“Same here,” vanBuskirk reported, and the two leaped lightly into the Velantian’s refuge. Then, inertialess all, the three shot into the air at such a pace that to the slow senses of the Delgonian slaves they simply disappeared. Indeed, it was not until the barrier had been blasted away and every room, nook, and cranny of the immense structure had been literally and minutely combed that the Delgonians—and through their enslaved minds the Overlords—became convinced that their prey had in some uncanny and unknown fashion eluded them.
Now high in air, the three allies traversed in a matter of minutes the same distance that had cost them so much time and strife the day before. Over the monster-infested forest they sped, over the deceptively peaceful green lushness of the jungle, to slant down toward Worsel’s thought-proof tent. Inside that refuge they snapped off their thought screens and Kinnison yawned prodigiously.
“Working days and nights both is all right for a while, but it gets monotonous in time. Since this seems to be the only really safe spot on the planet, I suggest that we take a day or so off and catch up on our eats and sleeps.”
They