But when he laid bare his reason for having them together, they were completely dumfounded. It was something that made them gasp. Chard spoke at some length. Surprise gave way to interest. Interest to avarice when he began to list the rewards that would follow. When Chard saw that he had won the majority over, he requested those who wished to withdraw to step away from the main crowd.
Some twenty men gathered together at one side of the huge underground chamber, expecting safe departure in return for a promise of secrecy. Chard calmly pulled out the hand weapon in his belt. A livid beam of exploding neutrons sprang toward the unlucky men, sprayed back and forth. In a minute a score of blackened bodies sprawled grotesquely. When the last screams of agony had died away, Chard sheathed his gun and turned to the silent group who had watched this wanton carnage.
“That,” he said ominously, “is to prove I mean business.”
The large armed force guarding the giant drome that had been built around the Cometoid was not prepared for the sudden, vicious onslaught that came out of the night sky. A half hundred silent ships dropped in their midst and sprayed fiery death. While this was going on, half the ships landed next to the drome and deposited small figures which scurried into the huge structure, blasting their way through metal walls with powerful heat-bolts.
Mason Chard himself was in the lead, closely followed by a dozen men who had been part of the crew of the Cometoid years before. With their knowledge, they showed the way to enter the ship and swarm up its miles of corridors, by railcar. Each of the dozen who knew the intricacies of the ship led a separate party in a separate direction.
An elevator took Chard and one other to the master control room. Quickly the other explained. Chard, veteran of space travel for a thousand years, soon had a working conception of the incredible craft’s controls. York’s amazing genius had reduced them to comparatively few. Then the ship’s local communication system was switched on. In a short time, various sections of the ship began reporting that the men had grasped their duties and were ready to execute them.
Chard snapped on the exterior vision screen and the all-seeing electric eye beyond the drome. The guard had been utterly routed. Then he saw a unit of Earth’s air police swoop down from the sky, answering an alarm. He watched as the half hundred well-armed ships staved off the more numerous attackers. The battle went on for long minutes. When reinforcements for the police arrived, the end was inevitable. But so, Chard had expected. It had all been timed to the last minute.
When his ships outside had been cut down to half under the blasting guns of the police, Chard received the final report from the last, remote corner of the huge ship. He barked orders. A steady, low throb rumbled in the bowels of the great vessel, and its walls began to vibrate from the birth of great energies.
When the last ten of his outside ships broke under the police onslaught, Chard grasped a lever with a sweaty, but confident hand, pulled it over. The mighty ship leaped from the ground, grinding the drome to shreds. Chard left his remaining ships to the mercy of the air police. He grinned sardonically to think they had believed he would bother to save any left after the battle.
The Cometoid, a juggernaut of space, rose from Earth, manned by a thousand unprincipled scoundrels, captained by a ruthless, immortal demon. He might have been a demon from the way his evil eyes gleamed redly in triumph as he directed the captured ship toward the barren reaches beyond Jupiter. Here, where passing ships were rare, the Cometoid hovered for a month, while its new masters familiarized themselves with it.
Chard had not slipped up on anything. He had known from spies that the ship was well-stocked and fuelled. He had known that its creator’s instructions on the full operation of the monster craft were stored in the helm room.
Chard was astounded at the full scope of powers at his disposal. Sweeping atomic rays that could eat their way to the heart of a planet. Giant plants that could produce millions of cubic feet of violent gases, given suitable raw material. Powerful force beams that could grip mighty Jupiter himself and yank him from his age-old orbit. Energy-conversion machines which could store the dynamite of cosmic radiation and the slow, infinite power of gravitation.
Chard realized he had a truly godlike instrument in his hands, one that could make him master of ten universes, if he wished.
Chard’s stentorian all-wave radio voice that burst into the broadcast channels of the Solar System carried the most startling message in all history:
“Mason Chard, the Immortal, speaks! I speak to all the Solar System, and to all of its so-called ruling element. My ship, the Invincible—formerly the Cometoid—hovers over the moon of Earth. You all know the illimitable powers of this ship, but I invite the eyes of Earth to watch the center of the moon, the mountain range known to astronomers, as the Apennines. Watch it for the next hour!”
Millions of eyes on the night side of Earth watched and saw a small spark blaze in the center of the lunar disc. It grew and widened until it was a fiery incandescent diamond, spewing out a shower of sparkles that spattered over the entire moon’s face. Some terrific holocaust of supernal fire, comparable to the Sun’s blazing furnace, was creating a deep, molten puddle on the moon!
Then the sparkles ceased and the voice continued: “This same beam of atom-fire can quite readily be focused on any city or spot on Earth, to reduce it to molten matter that will not cool for a week. Or on any planet in the Solar System! The Invincible has moved from the moon to Earth. It is now hovering over Sol City. Nothing can save it, if I decide to destroy this citadel of ruling power!”
To himself, Chard added: “Not even the once timely York, who is now trillions of miles beyond reach.”
After a suitable pause, to allow the poison of fear to invade their minds, Chard continued:
“Does the Supreme Council of Earth, doomed at the flick of my finger if I so will it, have anything to say?”
Chard laughed triumphantly—
“No, but I have!”
Mason Chard choked in his laugh. Had his ears tricked him? Surely that had not been the voice of—
“Anton York speaking!” continued the quiet voice, inexorable as the stars. “Chard, you’ve just signed your death warrant. I knew you would try this sort of thing again. Unknown to you, the Council and I arranged, before I left Earth, to leave the Cometoid reasonably open to capture. You went for it, like a bee for its hive. You’ve been tricked, like any stupid fool. But it was necessary, for I could not leave the Solar System knowing you were at large, scheming. I’ve been hovering just beyond Pluto for the past year, waiting to trap you. It would be best if you would just quietly land the Cometoid and surrender yourself.”
Chard’s emotions racked his body. Dismayed to the roots of his being, his mind reeled on the verge of madness, A bitter acid seemed to eat its way to his brain and dissolve it. His gigantic ego wilted as overgrown weeds wilt under a hot Sun.
His hand touched cold metal. It was a lever that could release, in one stellar blast, the awful power of tons of matter. Could York’s little ship withstand it?
Chard sneaked a hand to his vision screen and twisted its knob rapidly. While the Solar System held its breath at this battle of wills between gods, he searched for York’s ship. Presently, he found it, a ridiculous pebble alongside the super-ship. Chard whispered orders into the local phone system, careful that his radio transmitter was off. Down below men fed giant powers into huge engines. Up above, a flaming-eyed man waited for the final moment. When it came, he jerked his levers with a desperate finality.