Lensman 01 Triplanetary by E. E. (Doc) Smith

Author:E. E. (Doc) Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Adventure
ISBN: 9781434401014
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-12-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter VII - The Hill

*

The heavy cruiser Chicago hung motionless in space, thousands of miles distant from the warring fleets of space-ships so viciously attacking and so stubbornly defending the planetoid of the enemy. In the captain's sanctum Lyman Cleveland crouched tensely above his ultra-cameras, his sensitive fingers touching lightly their micrometric dials. His body was rigid, his face was set and drawn. Only his eyes moved: flashing back and forth between the observation plates and smoothly-running rolls which were feeding into the cameras the hardened steel tapes upon which were being magnetically recorded the frightful scenes of carnage and destruction there revealed.

Silent and bitterly absorbed, though surrounded by staring officers, whose fervent, almost unconscious cursing was prayerful in its intensity, the visiray expert kept his ultra-instruments upon that awful struggle to its dire conclusion. Flawlessly those instruments noted every detail of the destruction of Roger's fleet, of the transformation of the armada of Triplanetary into an unknown fluid, and finally of the dissolution of the gigantic planetoid itself. Then furiously Cleveland drove his beams against the crimsonly opaque obscurity into which the peculiar, viscous stream of substance was disappearing. Time after time he applied his every watt of power, with no result. A vast volume of space, roughly ellipsodial in shape, was closed to him by forces entirely beyond his experience or comprehension. But suddenly, while his rays were still trying to pierce that impenetrable murk, it disappeared instantly and, without warning, the illimitable infinity of space once more lay revealed upon his plates and his beams flashed on and on through the void, unimpeded.

"Back to Tellus, sir?" The Chicago's captain broke the strained silence.

"I wouldn't say so, if I had the say." Cleveland, baffled and frustrate, straightened up and shut off his cameras. "We should report back as soon as possible, of course, but there seems to be a lot of wreckage out there yet, that we can't photograph in detail at this distance. A close study of it might help us a lot in understanding what they did and how they did it. I'd say that we should get close-ups of whatever is left, and do it right away, before it gets scattered all over space; but of course I can't give you orders."

"You can, though," the captain made surprising answer. "My orders are that you are in command of this vessel."

"In that case we will proceed at full emergency acceleration to investigate the wreckage," Cleveland replied, and the cruiser—sole survivor of Triplanetary's supposedly invincible force—shot away with every projector delivering its maximum blast.

As the scene of the disaster was approached there was revealed upon the plates a confused mass of debris; a mass whose individual units were apparently moving at random: yet which was as a whole still following the orbit of Roger's planetoid. Space was full of machine parts, structural members, furniture, flotsam of all kinds; and everywhere were the bodies of men. Some were encased in space-suits, and it was to these that the

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