"Shall we open upon them at will, or upon orders, sir?" asked Correy.
"Upon orders," I said. "And you'll get your orders as soon as they're in range; I have a feeling we're in for trouble."
"I hope so, sir!" grinned Correy from the door.
Hendricks followed him silently, but I saw there was a deep, thoughtful frown between his brows.
"I think," commented Kincaide quietly, "that Hendricks is likely to be more useful to us in this matter than Correy."
I nodded, and bent over the television disk. The things were perceptibly nearer; the hurtling group nearly filled the disk, now.
There was something horribly eager, horribly malignant, in the way they shone, so palely red, and in the fashion in which their blunt tentacles reached out toward the Ertak.
I glanced up at the Earth clock on the wall.
"The next hour," I said soberly, "cannot pass too quickly for me!"
We had decelerated steadily during the hour, but we were still above maximum atmospheric speed when at last I gave the order to open the invaders with disintegrator rays. They were close, but of course the rays are not as effective in space as when operating in a more favorable medium, and I wished to make sure of our prey.
I pressed the attention signal to Correy's post, and he answered instantly.
"Ready, Mr. Correy?"
"Ready, sir!"
"Then commence action!"
Before I could repeat the command to Hendricks, I heard the deepening note of the atomic generators, and knew Correy had already begun operations.
Together, and silently, Kincaide and I bent over the television disk. We watched for a moment, and then, with one accord, lifted our heads and looked into each other's eyes.
"No go, sir," said Kincaide quietly.
I nodded. It was evident the disintegrator rays were useless here. When they struck into the horde of crescent-shaped things coming so hungrily toward us, the things changed from red to a sickly, yellowish pink, and seemed to writhe, as though in some discomfort, but that was all.
"Perhaps at closer range...?" ventured Kincaide.
"I think not. If Mr. Hendricks is correct--and I believe he is--these things aren't material; they're not matter, as we comprehend the word. And so, they can't be disintegrated."
"Then, sir, how are to best them?"
"First, we'll have to know more about them. For one thing, their mode of attack. We should know very soon. Please recall Mr. Hendricks, and then order all hands to their posts. We may be in for it."
Hendricks came rushing in breathlessly.
"The rays are useless, sir," he said. "They'll be on us in a few minutes. Any further orders?"
"Not yet. Have you any ideas as to their mode of attack? What they can do to us?"
"No, sir. That is, no reasonable idea."
"What's your unreasonable theory, then, Mr. Hendricks?"
"I'd prefer, sir, to make further observation first," he replied. "They're close enough now, I think, to watch through the ports. Have I your permission to unshutter one of the ports?"
"Certainly, sir." The Ertak, like all Special Patrol ships of the period, had but few ports, and these were kept heavily shuttered. Her hull was double; she was really two ships, one inside the other, the two skins being separated and braced by innumerable trusses. Between the outer and the inner skin the air pressure was kept about one half of normal, thus distributing the strain of the pressure equally between the two hulls.
In order to arrange for a port or an exit, it was necessary to bring these two skins close together at the desired point, and strengthen this weak point with many braces. As a further protection against an emergency--and a fighting ship must be prepared against all emergencies--the ports were all shuttered with massive doors of solid metal, hermetically fitted. I am explaining this so much in detail for the benefit of those not familiar with the ships of my day, and because this information is necessary that one may have a complete understanding of subsequent events.
Hendricks, upon receiving my permission, sprang to one of the two ports in the navigating room and unshuttered it.
"The lights, please?" he asked, over his shoulder. Kincaide nodded, and switched off the ethon tubes which illuminated the room. The three of us crowded around the recessed port.
The things were not only close: they were veritably upon us! Even as we looked, one of them swept by the port so close that, save for the thick crystal, one might have reached out into space and touched it.
The television disk had represented them very accurately. They were, in their greatest dimension, perhaps twice the height of a man, and at close range their reddish color was more brilliant than I had imagined; in the thickest portion of the crescent, which seemed to be the nucleus, the radiance of the thing was almost blinding.
It was obvious that they were not material bodies. There were no definite boundaries to their bodies; they faded off into nothingness in a sort of fringe, almost like a dim halo.
An attention signal sounded sharply, and Kincaide groped his way swiftly to answer it.
"It's Correy, sir," he said. "He reports his rays are utterly useless, and asks for further orders."
"Tell him to cease action, and report here immediately." I turned to Hendricks, staring out the port beside me. "Well, what do you make of them now?"
Before he could reply, Kincaide called out sharply.
"Come here, sir! The charts are out of commission. We've gone blind."
It was true. The charts were no more than twin rectangles of lambent red flame, with a yellow spark glowing dimly in the center of each, the fine black lines ruled in the surface showing clearly against the wavering red fire.
"Mr. Hendricks!" I snapped. "Let's have your theory--reasonable or otherwise."
Hendricks, his face pressed at an angle against one side of the port, turned toward me, and swung the shutter into place. Kincaide snapped on the lights.
"It's no longer a theory, sir," he said in a choked, hushed voice, "although it's still unreasonable. These things--are eating us!"
"Eating us?" Correy's voice joined Kincaide's and mine in the exclamation of amazement. He had just entered the navigating room in response to my order.
"Eroding us, absorbing us--whatever you want to call it. There's one at work close enough to the port so that I could see it. It is feeding upon our hull as an electric arc feeds upon its electrodes!"
"Farewell Ertak!" said Correy grimly. "Anything the rays can't lick--wins!"
"Not yet!" I contradicted him. "Kincaide, what's the nearest body upon which we can set down?"
"N-127, sir," he replied promptly. "Just logged her a few minutes ago." He poured hastily through a dog-eared index. "Here it is: 'N-127, atmosphere unbreathable; largely nitrogen, oxygen insufficient to support human life; no animal life reported; insects, large but reported non-poisonous; vegetation heroic in size, probably with edible fruits, although reports are incomplete on this score; water unfit for drinking purpose unless distilled; land area approximately--'"
"That's enough," I interrupted. "Mr. Correy, set a course for N-127 by the readings of the television instrument. Mr. Kincaide, accelerate to maximum space speed, and set us down on dry land as quickly as emergency speed can put us there. And you, Mr. Hendricks, please tell us all you know--or guess--about the enemy."
Hendricks waited, moodily silent, until the ship was coming around on her course, picking up speed every instant. Kincaide had gradually increased the pull of the gravity pads to about twice normal, so that we found it barely possible to move about. The Ertak was an old-timer, but she could pick up speed when she had to that would have thrown us all headlong were it not for the artificial gravity anchorage of the pads.
"It's all guess-work," began Hendricks slowly, "so I hope you won't place too much reliance in my theories, sir. I'll just give you my line of reasoning, and you can evaluate it for yourself.
"These things are creatures of space. No form of life, as we know it, can live in space. Therefore, they are not material; they are not matter, like ourselves.