Chapter III: In Control

He turned now, and saw a score of men on the roof, rapidly heading for the different booths, armoured like his with four-foot steel walls. He drew two of the protolectric pistols, adjusted them quickly for minimum power, and swept their brilliant beams quickly over the men. One after another suddenly jerked to rigidity, then slumped helplessly paralyzed. Before the first had reached the ground, the last was falling.

Barclay turned now to the powerful gun he had captured, and quickly spun it on the ship that had brought them--the only machine on this world powerful enough to break open the power-house.

Two enormous brilliant pipes of blue-green fire leaped out and spattered against the ship. Instantly it was wreathed with an aura of shooting flame from the waste energy of the beams. The four-foot armour of the ship was glowing white-hot in a fraction of a second. In a second it was bellying out in gusts of flaming gas; in five seconds a great hole was gaping in the ship's wall, and already the beams were at work on the great generators of the ship.

Taken by surprise, no effective defense was made till the last moment. Then two great beams shot from the ship, still spread as they had been to disable the _Vega_, and they struck the power-house wall. Instantly, as Barclay saw them swing toward him, he released the controls he had held, leaped to the middle of his tiny booth and stood on his toes. As he had expected there came the flaring corona about every sharp point of metal, the numbing, tingling shock as the current raced through the great building as it had raced through the great passenger liner--and every man in that building was helpless! Paralyzed as the passengers and crew of the _Vega_ had been.

But Barclay had been as far as possible from any metal object. His feet were encased in heavy rubber shoes, and his contact had been so poor that in the instant the ship's beams operated before, his own locked controls had driven their beam through the ship's generators, destroying them and extinguishing the rays. Yet he had not fallen.

For a moment he was numb, his muscles responded poorly, and his motions were jerky. But then he was himself again, and in a moment snapped that beam off. The ship was helpless.

He turned, stooped low, and ran along the parapet wall till he could dive across the intervening space to the trap. In it he went, diving down before any beams could reach him.

He caught a handrail, gripped and steadied himself, and came down the stairway in great leaps. Around him was the shrill whine of huge atomic generators, the dull hum of transformers, the whistle of converters, and the steady thunk-thunk-thunk of the huge air-purifiers that supplied this world with air. Before him, massed around the room's high walls, were the great switchboards, a maze of hopelessly confused signs, meters, wiring and giant switches.

One he spotted directly before him, inch-high letters cried out their message of emergency. "Gates."

"Ah--," Barclay grinned. "How helpful." He pulled the switch below the sign. Instantly there was a shrill, rising hum of powerful motors throughout the building. A moment later came the heavy, ringing clangor as huge gates were shut. The motors stopped automatically, the great ten-foot thick metal slabs in place.

He turned his attention now to the men who lay sprawled about on the floor, their arms and legs spread helplessly as the paralyzing electric current caught them. "How kind of that ship," muttered Barclay, catching up one man in each hand and starting for the lockers. "I never expected a break like that." In five minutes he had the entire crew in the locker-room, stripped of weapons, and was ready to give a last look about the room. Then the easily recognized snap and sputter of a beam in action called him. The great main door was being attacked, and already glowed a dull red!

He slammed shut the heavy locker-room door, and ran for the emergency switchboard. He felt sure the outside gun circuits would be controlled here. They were--and just as the inner side of the heavy door began to melt down, the ray was suddenly snapped off as all power was cut from it.

"Whew--that was a bit too close. I'd better make sure of these other things first!" thought Barclay grimly, looking at the heavy door. They'd have to be cut open now--they were welded shut.

Next he investigated the locker-room door, to make certain he wouldn't be attacked. He decided to weld it shut, as the safest way. His hand pistols did that quite quickly. "Now I wonder--they might have a secret, external gate-opening switch.

"If they did--well they won't be able to use it in a little while." Rapidly he dug some metal bars and with his hand pistols welded them solidly across the various gates. He himself could not open them now without first cutting those bars, and that could be done only from the inside.

"Now to give them a little misery!" he smiled as he walked over to the switchboards again. He quickly investigated the various main switchboards, and in ten minutes had unearthed enough information for his purpose. First, the artificial sun was extinguished. Then every power circuit leading out of the plant was cut, save the electromagnetic circuits that held the mass of the artificial sun in place. They wouldn't dare to cut that for power, to do so would bring down the huge spheres of their sun.

* * * * *

Outside he could hear the mutter and roar of the guards over the hum of the generators. From the locker-room came pounding and roars of rage, the mutter of angry voices.

Barclay grinned, and went up a short flight of stairs to the radio room. He took off his lavender suspenders and the green sash, then he unrolled the sash. In it were a number of lengths of a greenish metal tape. From the suspenders came a number of strands of greenish metal wire. He quickly connected the tapes and the wires together in a very definite plan. Finally, from the heavy buckle of the sash, he extracted a tiny atomic generator, capable of generating several hundred horsepower. Next he took off the thick wrist-watch the stewards of the ship had remarked on, and began prying out several of the gems, as well as the face of the watch. Into the gem-sockets he inserted several leads from the atomic generator and from the greenish metal tapes.

At last he was ready. He now had set up, with the aid of the watch and atomic generator, a very serviceable, highly accurate gravitometer, based on the same principle of space fields as the McKinley space-discs. He proceeded to measure the gravitational fields of Jupiter and the sun, and get their angles.

Finally he set down his data on a slip of paper, gathered his apparatus together and sat down at the huge radio set. In a minute and a half he had the complex apparatus tuned correctly, and ready for transmission.

"Lieutenant Donald Barclay I.L.P. calling Commander Morrison," he repeated four times before his answer came. The receiving disc on his set suddenly glowed with flashing colors, and the image of his Commander appeared before him.

"Inside the planetoid G.C. 2759-h according to my gravitometer readings on sun and Jupiter as follows--J-2 53-45, 51 and S-747 -54.49. At present control power-house. Probably not long--come at once and you may be let in. Lock controls here. If necessary break in, the people will all be killed, but you can bring 'em to life again in ninety percent of the cases anyway--I'll take my chance.

"Data on protolectric gun--," Barclay talked rapidly, telling everything he could about the protolectric gun which he had disassembled. Morrison would be here with a dozen Patrol ships in three hours now.

Don went down to the power room. He threaded his way through great masses of high-piled apparatus, great hulking bulks that loomed like weird monsters above him, and purred and growled softly to themselves. The lone, tiny figure of the man strode on through the dim-lighted room.

In his ears echoed the eery music of the great generators humming about him, the sullen mutter of the crowd of men outside, and the mirthless, sodden chuckle of the great air apparatus. Barclay shivered--and wondered.

With sudden resolution he strode hastily to the lock controls. He drew down the outer lock control to the open position and watched the meter connected to it. Nothing happened. As he had feared, they had an over-control at the locks themselves. That meant that Morrison would have to blast his way in with the slow, atomic disintegrators, boring a shaft through the solid metal by transmuting the metal to some gas that would escape into space. Perhaps as much as a foot a minute--but they'd get there. Then all the air would vanish, and in the twinkling of an eye this would be a frozen, solid world, and every human in it would be a solid, frozen corpse. If they froze quickly enough the doctors would bring them to life again later, but if freezing was too slow, permanent death.

The rumbling noises in this reverberating place was working on even Barclay's iron nerves. Finally he returned to the wireless room and listened to the conversation of the various Patrol ships, even called to Morrison to say he could not work the locks.

He crept out on the roof, once each half hour, and looked carefully down. No signs of any disintegrators, they had no mines here, and no portable disintegrators that could eat through the metal walls.

He was sitting quietly, tensely listening to the banter of one patrol to another so he did not see the thing behind him, nor hear the slight swish as a long sharp knife drove through the supposedly solid three-foot wall at his back. The long slim blade came with the faintest rustle, then a slow swish as it cleaved down the length of a man through the armour-plate wall. A blue-clad arm came through, and opened the slit a bit for a face to peer in. Then, with a rush, a man leaped through the paper-thin metal wall and charged across the room. Behind him came another and another!

Barclay was up, and whirled about in an instant, his taut muscles delighting suddenly in the thrill of action against the solid bodies, instead of the phantoms that had been oppressing his waiting mind. The solid thud of fist on flesh, the heave and wrench that tore the long knife from his attacker's arm, the sudden jerk that threw him headlong down the stair. Then he was bouncing about the room like an animated rubber ball, moving with a speed impossible to these slow terrestrials.

* * * * *

But more came--and more! In seconds the room was so crowded he could not dodge, and it was only a question of wrestling, and sheer brute strength--and time. Barclay fought with the strength of five--but there were nearer five score against him. Eventually a stout wooden piece connected with his skull, and he went down.

He came to consciousness in a corner of the room, his wrists and ankles securely bound with wire. Directly before him were the radio-places, with their operators.

"All ships called in for immediate defense against I.L.P. Secret agent escaped in planet and called Patrol. All speed required. Beware Patrol ships on nearing," droned one after another as he picked up one of the nearly two-score E.R.C. ships.

That would not be so good, decided Barclay. He had to do something more.

He turned, looking about for some means of escape. The wire on his wrists was far too strong to break, even though no one was watching him directly.

He could see the wall that had been his downfall now, it had been hollowed out to a mere shell by the work of a disintegrator. He had locked those men in there with a disintegrator! He hadn't had a chance to search the room, and they had simply set it up and cautiously run a hole through the wall, masked by the noise of the generators.

They hadn't given him any disintegrator, that was obvious. And they had very thoroughly searched him now. He looked about at the hard, smooth floor, and the hard, smooth walls, and the equally hard weld that joined them. His eyes lighted in sudden triumph--for that was not smooth! It was merely puddled metal, with the usual slightly rough surface--than which no more perfect file could be imagined!

Barclay started to work, writhing and complaining. "These wires are cutting off circulation--don't have to pull 'em so tight! I even left you a disintegrator, you might at least keep these from cuttin' my wrists off," he grunted. He moved his body about, trying to ease them.

He gave a little louder grunt--to cover the low snap as the weakened wire broke. He had filed it half through (and felt sure his wrist was half filed through too), but now he was able to work on his ankle wires.

It was nearly a quarter of an hour before he had loosened the stiff, tough wire. Cautiously he wriggled his feet into position.

Then, like some mechanical leaping toy, he was on his feet, and before the dozen or so men in the room could move to stop him he was rushing for the stair head. A man leaped in his path--and flew head over heels backward as a terrific fist caught him on the chest, while a hand like a striking snake's head plucked free his ray pistol.

Barclay leaped--he didn't trouble to use the stair to descend the thirty feet to the floor below. He leaped and darted at once to the great switchboard, running along it while the startled cries of men drowned out the powerful hum of the generators. Running feet behind him--before him--at his side, shouted orders to fire, and cautions to hold fire. He was running in front of irreplaceable control panels, where a ray would mean instant destruction to the planet as the giant powers of the generators would be released explosively.

Men appeared before him like phantoms, and like phantoms disappeared as he seemed to brush them aside. His mind was concentrated on one objective. He found it--pulled a switch. The power-house was suddenly black as every light snapped out.

Instantly his carefully mapped course swung. With a series of leaps he was hidden behind a huge mass of apparatus before the next man could restore the switch, and the daylight tubes came on again.

Barclay was hidden amongst the great mass of apparatus that fed the power to the defense stations on the outer surface of the planet, the huge snaking cables of the protolectric guns. They had to search for him, and they couldn't use their rays, it was too dangerous. But then, neither could Barclay, so they came in after him. It took ten minutes to dislodge him. The men that came after him were promptly and quietly put out of business for half an hour or so. Finally one man coming around one way attracted Barclay's attention, and he was reaching up for him, when an unseen opponent with a ray pistol brought it down on the back of his head.