We would receive no aid; we might be attacked, even, by miserable human wretches already insane from the red gas.
“We’d have to deal with their fleet, and the black fort on the Moon, from which they are shelling all the System with that red gas.
Eric says they dismantled all their gas plants here, months ago, and moved them to the Moon—that must be why the concentration of the gas is getting so weak in the air here.
“Already, John, we may be too late. We may be the sole survivors, with no chance of surviving very long, ourselves.
If we’re going to try at all, we’ve very little time.”
“I’ll trust you, Adam,” said John Star, striving to put down a lingering doubt.
He added swiftly: “We must pick up Aladoree and the others.
They’re down by the river, without shelter from the cold, or any real weapons.
They’d soon die in this night!”
“To move now with that black flier on guard,” protested Adam Ulnar, “would be suicide.
We must wait some opportunity———”
“We can’t wait!”
He was harsh with desperation.
“We’ve the proton gun.
If we took them by surprise———”
Adam Ulnar shook his head.
“They dismantled the needle, John.
Removed it.
The cruiser is unarmed.
They took even the racks of hand weapons.
Your thorn is the only weapon we have—against those suns they throw!”
John Star set his jaw.
“There’s one way!” he muttered grimly.
“A way to move so fast they’d have very little time to strike.”
“How’s that?”
“We can take off with the geodynes.”
“The geodynes!”
It was a startled cry.
“They can’t be used for a takeoff, John.
You know that.
They can’t be used safely in any atmosphere.
We’d fuse the hull with friction-heat!
Or crash into the ground like a meteor!”
“We’ll use the geodynes,” said John Star, harshly.
“I’m a pilot.
Can you run the generators?”
Adam Ulnar looked at him for a moment, strangely; then he smiled, took John Star’s hand, and squeezed it with a quick strong pressure.
“Very good, John.
I can operate the generators.
We shall take off with the geodynes… I wish you had been my nephew.”
John Star felt a responding emotion, checked by that little doubt which refused to die.
So many had trusted this tall commanding man; his treason had been so appalling!
They parted.
In the little bridge-room, John Star inspected the array of familiar instruments; he tested them swiftly, one by one.
All the iron, he saw, had been replaced by other metals.
But everything seemed to function as it should.
He peered through a tele-periscope.
The Medusae’s guarding flier lay beside them, one vast strange vane extending overhead.
Against the dim red glow lingering in the murky west, it loomed evil and gigantic; it looked more than ever like some hybrid spider-thing, swollen to Cyclopean dimensions.
The low, clear music of the geodyne generators became audible, and rose to a keening whine.