The Early Williamson by Jack Williamson

Author:Jack Williamson [Williamson, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sphere Books Limited
Published: 1978-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

TWELVE HOURS TO LIVE!

Wearily, Captain David Grant paced the bridge, pausing at intervals to peer out with heavy-lidded eyes at the star-studded blackness of interplanetary space, beyond the small round observation ports.

For three days the Queen of Night, Grant’s rocket liner, had been pursued by the implacable vandal of the interstellar void, the Black Hawk.

For three days Captain Grant had kept his great space-liner, with her rich cargo of uranium salts from the mines on the outer satellite of Neptune and her hundreds of passengers, ahead of the questing disintegrator rays of the Black Hawk only by burning his full battery of reaction-motors at their maximum power.

And the fuel was almost gone—word had just come from the rocket rooms that the last chest of the radioactive protonite had been opened. In a few minutes the great liner would be at the questionable mercy of the Black Hawk.

Slowly the vibrant humming of the motors, which had filled the great ship with a vital under-current of sound, died away.

The black pointer which indicated reaction-pressure crept back across its dial toward zero.

The Queen of Night was no longer accelerating her speed.

Watching keenly with tired eyes, Grant saw a vague pink glow come into being in the jet, star-sprinkled sky behind. ‘Done for!’ he groaned.

The glow, he knew, was a fluorescent, electronic discharge in the radioactive gases jetting from the rockets of a racing ship. The Black Hawk was swiftly overtaking them!

‘Man the rays!’

The Captain spoke the order into the black mouthpiece below the television screen. He tried in vain to keep hopelessness from his voice. For what chance had the two feeble ray tubes of the Queen of Night, against the powerful armament of the Black Hawk.

His mate’s square face appeared on the screen.

‘Man the rays it is, sir,’ came his voice.

Captain Grant turned quickly away, for he heard a light footstep and a snatch of gay song from beyond the bridge-room’s entrance.

The oval metal door swung open suddenly, and a gay, laughing sprite danced through.

‘Nell! Nell! Darling -‘ the captain cried and his voice suddenly choked.

The radiant being ran across to him; in a moment his face was buried in a fragrant mass of gleaming red-gold hair.

It was Captain Grant’s lovely bride, whom he had married just before the beginning of the voyage. He had not told her of the vandal pursuing them—it had seemed to him a crime to blast her joyous happiness with helpless anxiety.

‘What’s the matter, Dave dear?’ came her voice, half smothered in his embrace. ‘You seem worried lately—and you’ve been busy in here for three days and nights. You must sleep!’

‘Look!’ the Captain said, and pointed out through a port.

A thin sword of green stabbed across the blackness of the sky, darting like a wicked blade toward the liner.

‘Oh, it’s lovely!’ she cried. ‘What is it, a comet?’

His face grew white, his jaws set, lambent flame glowed in his blue eyes. His arms tightened fiercely about her.

‘Nell, darling!’ he cried.

He looked away, swallowed. In a moment he went on.

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