The Legion of Space by Jack Williamson

Author:Jack Williamson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Corsair Sun

Down upon the huge, expanding, yellow-red planet the Purple Dream was hurtling, rocket blasts thundering forward at full power to check her flight—if it could be checked short of catastrophe.

Jay Kalam watched, gravely anxious, as John Star swiftly took the readings from a score of instruments, set them up on the calculators, and snapped down another key.

“What do you find?”

“A close thing,” John Star said slowly, at last. “Much too close. At very nearly the same time, three things will happen. Our velocity will be braked, we’ll approach the planet, and the rockets will run out of fuel.

“But that dense red atmosphere hides the surface—I can’t tell just how far down it is. If it’s too near, we smash before our momentum is checked. If it’s too far, we’ll be falling again—with all the fuel gone. It has to be just right—or else!”

“Then,” Jay Kalam calmly observed, “we await the event. How long?”

“Two hours at full power will empty the tanks.”

Jay Kalam nodded his lean grave head, and turned silently back to his tele-periscope. After a moment he tensed suddenly, and turned to point out a new red spark that had crept unseen into the telltale screen.

“Another black flier,” he announced. “Out to see the fireworks when we hit, I imagine—they must have spotted us, running past their satellite-forts.”

John Star picked it up in his own instrument—a monstrous shape of gleaming black metal; wide vanes moving, strange and slow, about the huge black belly of its hull. Not far above them, it was merely keeping pace with their fall, making no hostile move.

“Waiting to see us smash!” he muttered. “Or to pick us off if we don’t!”

“I’m going to get Commander Ulnar,” Jay Kalam said abruptly. “I’m going to let him hail them. We’ve very little left to lose, and everything to gain. Perhaps we can ransom Aladoree. Whatever the Ulnars have offered, the System can afford to raise it—to save her and AKKA.”

John Star nodded—perhaps there was a chance. Jay Kalam brought Adam Ulnar to the bridge. The tall Commander was still white and shaken from their passage through the radiation-barrier, but his haggard face smiled faintly.

“Congratulations, John! I never thought you’d get us through.”

Jay Kalam told him in a hard, tight voice:

“I’m going to let you talk, Commander. I’ll give you a chance to save your life—and to save Aladoree Anthar and her secret for the Green Hall. I’ll leave the details to you. But I’m sure the Green Hall would approve any necessary ransom. And I promise you—if you can help us get Aladoree safely back to the System—I promise that you’ll go free.”

“Thank you, Kalam.” The white, distinguished head made him a slight and half-ironic bow. “Thank you for the very touching measure of your trust in me. But it’s true that I don’t want to die, and true that Eric has blundered very foolishly in his management of the enterprise I planned—for the girl should never have been brought here at all.

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