Back at the pilot controls he threw the ship down in a long dive, straight over the transport. Passing directly over the ship the ray would slice it in two—halt further destruction of the domes. The ray machines on the smaller planes, he knew, were not large enough to touch the huge quartz structures.
With the speed indicator pressed against the pin, the machine flashed down, the ray streaming beneath it.
Tom brought the plane to an even keel and almost as the transport disappeared beneath the machine, he heard a faint click.
Beside the gun controls stood the Martian, his hand still upon the ray lever. He supported himself by gripping the iron railing which ran around the control board. The effects of the blow had not totally left him. He was evidently still dizzy, but the half smile on his repulsive features told Tom he had reached the controls in time to save the transport.
For a moment the two stood eye to eye, then Tom’s hand went back to the hilt of the sword and jerked the blade free. There was not a word spoken.
At the sight of the blade in Tom’s hand, the Martian seemed to come to life. He leaped away from the gun control and ran toward the end of the ship. The Terrestrial dived after him.
The ship tilted far to one side and both of the men lost their balance on the sloping floor. Tom, still clutching the sword, crashed solidly against the side of the hull.
One of the locker doors on the opposite side swung open and with a clatter a varied assortment of tools hit and slid across the floor.
Struggling to his feet, Tom worked his way up the slanting floor to the controls. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the Martian huddled in one corner of the cabin.
With his outstretched fingers almost touching the control lever, Tom turned again to look at the Martian.
What he saw brought a scream from his lips. On his knees before one of the ports, the Martian was aiming a heavy wrench at the quartz. If that quartz were broken it meant death for both of them. With a rush the air would leave the flier and both of them would fall in their tracks.
At the sound of the scream, the Martian turned his head and his aim was deflected. The wrench brought up with a metallic crash against the hull, missing the port by a scant inch.
Quickly the Martian poised the wrench again and as he did so Tom hurled the sword at him. End over end the weapon flew. Its point caught the man of Mars at the base of the skull and drove deep. The Martian rolled to one end and the wrench clattered to the plates of the floor.
Tom stared. He had not thought he would kill the man by merely throwing the weapon. It had been his intention to thwart the other in his act and then to settle with him in a hand-to-hand encounter. After all, it didn’t matter. Sooner or later one of them would have had to die. There was not room on the ship for both of them.
He fought his way up the inclining floor to the controls. The ship, he saw, had nosed upward and was tearing spaceward. He brought it on even keel and turned it down.
Far below him, he saw the surface of Mercury. He could plainly see the nine domed stations, but only six of the domes remained intact. To his right he could see the edge of the hot side of the planet, where molten ores bubbled eternally and lakes of melted lead sent up fumes that mingled with the low-lying gases that hung over the entire Sunward half of the planet.
Between the twilight belt and this seething cauldron ran a low lava ridge, which rose at varying heights over the level of the molten sea. At places, Tom could see, unusual activity in the sluggish liquid metal had sent streams of it coursing out into the twilight belt, where it ran slowly for several miles before congealing. He suspected that here lay the secret of the rocky ridges, beside which he had met the two Martians.
To his left he saw the stark frigidness of the cold side of the planet. There, chained forever as ice and frost, was the last vestige of the atmosphere and water of Mercury.
He glanced down toward the region where the domes lay and saw that ships were rapidly taking off from Station Three. The huge transport, slower in motion than the smaller planes, was far below him and to the right.
He grinned grimly. The planes were too low to attack him, and the transport, much too valuable for the Martians and Selenites to lose, was moving out of the way of chance rays.
He would see about that. It was plainly up to him to destroy the transport. It was too dangerous to leave it in the hands of the mutineers. With it, they could leave Mercury. It was the only space-going ship on the planet. It had arrived only a few hours before with supplies for the stations, consisting largely of explosives to be used in the mines. He wondered if it had been unloaded.
The planes were climbing swiftly toward him. He could see the Martian symbol, painted on the bow of the foremost, flashing in the sunlight. Behind the first plane trailed at least a dozen others.
They had gained too great an altitude for him now to attack the transport. He would have to fight his way through. He realized he must be cautious. He was fairly familiar with the operation of a ship, and in that one thing he had an advantage over the Martians and Selenites, who were rank amateurs. In all other things the enemy had the advantage. They were greater in number and each ship carried a gunner.
Sharply he swung the ship up and locked the controls. Leaving the pilot’s chair, he moved to the gun controls. Here he moved the ray nozzle to point slightly forward and down. The three rapid fire guns he aimed straight ahead and to each control lever tied a length of copper wire. He shoved the ray control clear over and locked it in position, and trailing the copper wires in his hand went back to the pilot’s seat.
Carefully he arranged the wires where he could grasp them at a second’s notice and then in a long loop turned the plane over and plunged down.
To the thirteen planes pursuing him had been added several others. Only then did Tom realize the true odds against him. With the vicious heat ray streaming from the nozzle under the machine he dived with reckless speed at the attackers. Like a plummet he dropped toward the lead plane. He could plainly see one of the rapid fire guns mounted on it quivering and knew that he was under fire. So far, however, none of the atomic pellets had found their mark and he doubted if they would at that distance. The distance was great even for an experienced gunner and the Martians were far from that.
Half a mile above the lead plane, he leveled off and went up in a great zoom to gain altitude. On altitude everything depended. So long as he could keep above his attackers, all was well; once he fell below them he was at their mercy.
Beneath him the lead plane, caught in the Allison ray, split in two and plunged toward the surface, a mass of smoking wreckage. Another plane, its right wing seared by the ray, tottered for a moment in midair and then side-slipped, falling faster and faster, defying all the frantic efforts of its pilot to right it.
With the rocket exhaust roaring like mad, Tom’s plane swung over on its back and nosed down again. Almost directly beneath him the Terrestrial saw three of the mutineers’ planes and jerked one of the copper wires. One of the rapid fire guns clattered viciously and one of the planes disappeared in a puff of white smoke. Tom’s hand jerked at a control and the plane protested with a groan of metal at a slight change in direction. Another plane, however, brought directly beneath the nose of the Terrestrial’s ship, also disappeared in a white cloud that slowly sifted downward.
As Tom leveled off, one of the Martian planes turned over on its back and from its underside a ray sliced upward, but missed the Terrestrial ship by a wide margin.
Off to the right and just over the edge of the ridge which separated the twilight belt from the hot side of the planet, Tom saw the transport hanging in all its silver bulkiness. There was not a single ship between it and him! With a catch in his breath he flung his ship down in a long dive. His heart sang exultantly as the machine screamed down on the transport.