Fleet Against Planetoid
: TriplanetaryOne of the newest and fleetest of the Law Enforcement Vessels of the
Triplanetary League, the heavy cruiser Chicago, of the North American
Division of the Tellurian Contingent, plunged stolidly through
interplanetary vacuum. For five long weeks she had patrolled her
allotted volume of space. In another week she would report back to the
city whose name she bore, where her space-weary crew, worn by their long
"trick" in
enjoy to the full their fortnight of refreshing planetary leave.
She was performing certain routine tasks--charting meteorites, watching
for derelicts and other obstructions to navigation, checking in
constantly with all scheduled space-ships in case of need, and so
on--but primarily she was a warship. She was a mighty engine of
destruction, hunting for the unauthorized vessels of whatever power or
planet it was, that had not only defied the Triplanetary League, but
were evidently attempting to overthrow it; attempting to plunge the
Three Planets back into the ghastly sink of bloodshed and destruction
from which they had so recently emerged. Every space-ship within range
of her powerful detectors was represented by two brilliant, slowly
moving points of light; one upon a great micrometer screen, the other in
the "tank"--the immense, three-dimensional, minutely cubed model of the
entire Solar System.
A brilliantly intense red light flared upon a panel and a bell clanged
brazenly the furious signals of the sector alarm. Simultaneously a
speaker roared forth its message of a ship in dire peril.
"Sector alarm! N. A. T. Hyperion gassed with Vee-Two. Nothing
detectable in space, but...."
The half-uttered message was drowned out in a crackling roar of
meaningless noise, the orderly signals of the bell became a hideous
clamor, and the two points of light which had marked the location of the
liner disappeared in widely spreading flashes of the same high-powered
interference. Observers, navigators, and control officers were alike
dumfounded. Even the captain, in the shell-proof, shock-proof, and
doubly ray-proof retreat of his conning compartment, was equally at a
loss. No ship or thing could possibly be close enough to be sending
out interfering waves of such tremendous power--yet there they were!
"Maximum acceleration, straight for the point where the Hyperion was
when her tracers went out," the captain ordered, and through the fringe
of that widespread interference he drove a solid beam, reporting
concisely to G. H. Q. Almost instantly the emergency call-out came
roaring in--every vessel of the Sector, of whatever class or tonnage,
was to concentrate upon the point in space where the ill-fated liner had
last been known to be.
Hour after hour the great globe drove on at maximum acceleration,
captain and every control officer alert and at high tension. But in the
Quartermaster's Department, deep down below the generator rooms, no
thought was given to such minor matters as the disappearance of a
Hyperion. The inventory did not balance, and two Q. M. privates were
trying, profanely, and without much success, to find the discrepancy.
"Charged cells for model DF Lewistons, none requisitioned, on hand
eighteen thous...." The droning voice broke off short in the middle of a
word and the private stood rigid, in the act of reaching for another
slip, every faculty concentrated upon something, imperceptible to his
companion.
"Come on, Cleve--snap it up!" the second commanded, but was silenced by
a vicious wave of the listener's hand.
"What!" the rigid one exclaimed. "Reveal ourselves! Why, it's ... Oh,
all right.... Oh, that's it.... Uh-huh.... I see.... Yes, I've got it
solid. Maybe I'll see you again some time. If not, so long!"
The inventory sheets fell unheeded from his hand, and his fellow private
stared after him in amazement as he strode over to the desk of the
officer in charge. That officer also stared as the hitherto easy-going
and gold-bricking Cleve saluted briskly, showed him something flat in
the palm of his left hand, and spoke.
"I've just got some of the funniest orders ever put out,
Lieutenant"--his voice was low and intense--"but they came from 'way,
'way up. I'm to join the brass hats in the Center. You'll know about it
directly, I imagine. Cover me up as much as you can, will you?" And he
was gone.
Unchallenged he made his way to the control room, and his curt "urgent
report for the Captain" admitted him there without question. But when he
approached the sacred precincts of the Captain's own and inviolate room,
he was stopped in no uncertain fashion by no less a personage than the
Officer of the Day.
" ... and report yourself under arrest immediately!" the O. D. concluded
his brief but pointed speech.
"You were right in stopping me, of course," the intruder conceded,
unmoved. "I wanted to get in there without giving everything away, if
possible, but it seems that I can't. Well, I've been ordered by Virgil
Samms to report to the Captain, at once. See this? Touch it!" He held
out a flat, insulated disk, cover thrown back to reveal a tiny golden
meteor, at the sight of which the officer's truculent manner altered
markedly.
"I've heard of them, of course, but I never saw one before," and the
officer touched the shining symbol lightly with his finger, jerking
backward involuntarily as there shot through his whole body a thrilling
surge of power, shouting into his very bones an unpronounceable
syllable--the password of the Secret Service. "Genuine or not, it gets
you to the Captain. He'll know, and if it's a fake you'll be breathing
space in five minutes."
Projector at the ready, the Officer of the Day followed Cleve into the
Holy of Holies. There the grizzled four-striper touched the golden
meteor lightly, then drove his piercing gaze deep into the unflinching
eyes of the younger man. But that captain had won his high rank neither
by accident nor by "pull"--he understood at once.
"It must be an emergency," he growled, half-audibly, still staring at
his lowly Q. M. clerk, "to make Samms uncover his whole organization."
He turned and curtly dismissed the wondering O. D. Then: "All right! Out
with it!"
"Serious enough so that every one of us afloat has just received orders
to reveal himself to his commanding officer and to anyone else, if
necessary to reach that officer at once--orders never before issued. The
enemy have been located. They have built a base, and have ships better
than our best. Base and ships cannot be seen nor detected by any ether
wave. However, the Service has been experimenting for years with a new
type of communicator beam; and, while pretty crude yet, it was given to
us when the Dione went out without leaving a trace. One of our men was
in the Hyperion, managed to stay alive, and has been sending data. I
am instructed to attach my new phone set to one of the universal plates
in your conning room, and to see what I can find."
"Go to it!" The captain waved his hand and the operative bent to his
task.
"Commanders of all vessels of the Fleet!" The Headquarters speaker,
receiver sealed upon the wave-length of the Admiral of the Fleet, broke
the long silence. "All vessels, in sectors L to R, inclusive, will
interlock location signals. Some of you have received, or will receive
shortly, certain communications from sources which need not be
mentioned. Those commanders will at once send out red K4 screens.
Vessels so marked will act as temporary flagships. Unmarked vessels will
proceed at maximum to the nearest flagship, grouping about it in
regulation squadron cone in order of arrival. Squadrons most distant
from objective point designated by flagship observers will proceed
toward it at maximum; squadrons nearest it will decelerate or reverse
velocity--that point must not be approached until full Fleet formation
has been accomplished. Heavy and Light Cruisers of all other sectors
inside the orbit of Mars ..." the orders went on, directing the
mobilization of the stupendous forces of the League, so that they would
be in readiness in the highly improbable event of the failure of the
massed power of seven sectors to reduce the pirate base.
In those seven sectors perhaps a dozen vessels threw out enormous
spherical screens of intense red light, and as they did so their tracer
points upon all the interlocked lookout plates also became ringed about
with red. Toward those crimson markers the pilots of the unmarked
vessels directed their courses at their utmost power; and while the
white lights upon the lookout plates moved slowly toward and clustered
about the red ones--the ultra-instruments of the Secret Service
operatives were probing into space, sweeping the neighborhood of the
computed position of the pirate's stronghold.
But the object sought was so far away that the small spy-ray sets of the
Secret Service men, intended as they were for close-range work, were
unable to make contact with the invisible planetoid for which they were
seeking. In the captain's sanctum of the Chicago, the operative
studied his plate for only a minute or two, then shut off his power and
fell into a brown study, from which he was rudely aroused.
"Aren't you even going to try to find them?" demanded the captain.
"No," Cleve returned shortly. "No use--not half enough power or control.
I'm trying to think ... maybe ... say, Captain, will you please have the
Chief Electrician and a couple of radio men come in here?"
They came, and for hours, while the other ultra-wave men searched the
apparently empty ether with their ineffective beams, the three technical
experts and the erstwhile Quartermaster's clerk labored upon a huge and
complex ultra-wave projector--the three blindly and with doubtful
questions; the one with sure knowledge at least of what he was trying to
do. Finally the thing was done, the crude but efficient graduated
circles were set, and the tubes glowed redly as their solidly massed
output was driving into a tight beam of ultra-vibration. "There it is,
sir," Cleve reported, after some ten minutes of delicate manipulation,
and the vast structure of the miniature world flashed into being upon
his plate. "You may notify the fleet--co-ordinates H 11.62, RA
124-31-16, and Dx about 173.2."
The report made and the assistants out of the room, the captain turned
to the observer and saluted gravely.
"We have always known, sir, that the Service had men; but I had no
idea that any one man could possibly do, on the spur of the moment, what
you have just done--unless that man happened to be Lyman Cleveland."
"Oh, it doesn't ..." the observer began, but broke off, muttering
unintelligibly at intervals; then swung the visiray beam toward the
earth. Soon a face appeared upon the plate, the keen but careworn face
of Virgil Samms!
"Hello, Lyman." His voice came clearly from the speaker, and the Captain
gasped--his ultra-wave observer and sometime clerk was Lyman Cleveland
himself, probably the greatest living expert in beam transmission! "I
knew that you'd do something, if it could be done. How about it--can the
others install similar sets on their ships? I'm betting that they
can't."
"Probably not," Cleveland frowned in thought. "This is a patchwork
affair, made of gunny-sacks and hay-wire. I'm holding it together by
main strength and awkwardness, and even at that it's apt to go to pieces
any minute."
"Can you rig it up for photography?"
"I think so. Just a minute--yes, I can. Why?"
"Because there's something going on out there that neither we nor the
so-called pirates know anything about. The Admiralty seems to think that
it's the Jovians again, but we don't see how it can be--if it is, they
have developed a lot of stuff that none of our agents has even
suspected," and he recounted briefly what Costigan had reported to him,
concluding: "Then there was a burst of interference--on the
ultra-band, mind you--and I've heard nothing from him since. Therefore
I want you to stay out of the battle entirely. Stay as far away from it
as you can and still get good pictures of everything that happens. I
will see that orders are issued to the Chicago to that effect."
"But listen ..."
"Those are orders!" snapped Samms. "It is of the utmost importance that
we know every detail of what is going to happen. The answer is pictures.
The only possibility of obtaining pictures is that machine you have just
developed. If the fleet wins, nothing will be lost. If the fleet
loses--and I am not half as confident of success as the Admiral is--the
Chicago doesn't carry enough power to decide the issue, and we will
have the pictures to study, which is all-important. Besides, we've
probably lost Conway Costigan to-day, and we don't want to lose you,
too."
Cleveland remained silent, pondering this startling news, but the
grizzled Captain, veteran of the Fourth Jovian War that he was, was not
convinced.
"We'll blow them out of space, Mr. Samms!" he declared.
"You just think you will, Captain. I have suggested, as forcibly as
possible, that the general attack be withheld until after a thorough
investigation is made, but the Admiralty will not listen. They see the
advisability of withdrawing a camera ship, but that is as far as they
will go."
"And that's plenty far enough!" growled the Chicago's commander, as
the beam snapped off. "Mr. Cleveland, I don't like the idea of running
away under fire, and I won't do it without direct orders from the
Admiral."
"Of course you won't--that's why you are going...."
He was interrupted by a voice from the Headquarters speaker. The captain
stepped up to the plate and, upon being recognized, he received the
exact orders which had been requested by the Chief of the Secret
Service--now not as secret as it had been heretofore.
Thus it was that the Chicago reversed her acceleration, cut off her
red screen, and fell rapidly behind, while the vessels following her in
their loose cone formation shot away toward another crimson-flaring
leader. Farther and farther back she dropped, back to the limiting range
of the ultra-cameras upon which Cleveland and his highly trained
assistants were furiously and unremittingly at work. And during all this
time the forces of the seven sectors had been concentrating. The pilot
vessels, with their flaming red screens, each followed by a cone of
space-ships, drew closer and closer together, approaching the
Fearless--the British super-dreadnaught which was to be the flagship
of the Fleet--the mightiest and heaviest space-ship which had yet lifted
her stupendous mass into the ether.
Now, systematically and precisely, the great Cone of Battle was coming
into being; a formation developed during the Jovian Wars while the
forces of the Three Planets were fighting in space for their very
civilizations' existence, and one never used since the last space-fleets
of Jupiter's murderous hordes had been wiped out.
The mouth of that enormous hollow cone was a ring of scout patrols, the
smallest and most agile vessels of the fleet. Behind them came a
somewhat smaller ring of light cruisers, then rings of heavy cruisers
and of light battleships, and finally of heavy battleships. At the apex
of the cone, protected by all the other vessels of the formation and in
best position to direct the battle, was the flagship. In this formation
every vessel was free to use her every weapon, with a minimum of danger
to her sister ships; and yet, when the gigantic main projectors were
operated along the axis of the formation, from the entire vast circle of
the cone's mouth there flamed a cylindrical field of force of such
intolerable intensity that in it no conceivable substance could endure
for a moment!
The artificial planet of metal was now close enough so that it was
visible to the ultra-vision of the Secret Service men, so plainly
visible that the warships of the pirates were seen issuing from the
enormous air-locks. As each vessel shot out into space it sped straight
for the approaching fleet without waiting to go into any formation--gray
Roger believed his structures invisible to Triplanetary eyes, thought
that the presence of the fleet was the result of mathematical
calculations, and was convinced that his mighty vessels of the void
would destroy even that vast fleet without themselves becoming known. He
was wrong. The foremost globes were allowed actually to enter the mouth
of that conical trap before an offensive move was made. Then the
vice-admiral in command of the fleet touched a button, and
simultaneously every generator in every Triplanetary vessel burst into
furious activity. Instantly the hollow volume of the immense cone became
a coruscating hell of resistless energy, an inferno which, with the
velocity of light, extended itself into a far-reaching cylinder of
rapacious destruction. Ether-waves they were, it is true, but vibrations
driven with such fierce intensity that the screens of deflection
surrounding the pirate vessels could not handle even a fraction of their
awful power. Invisibility lost, their defensive screens flared briefly;
but even the enormous force backing Roger's inventions, greater far than
that of any single Triplanetary vessel, could not hold off the
incredible violence of the massed attack of the hundreds of mighty
vessels composing the Fleet. Their defensive screens flared briefly,
then went down; their great spherical hulls first glowing red, then
shining white, then in a brief moment exploding into flying masses of
red hot, molten, and gaseous metal.
A full two-thirds of Roger's force was caught in that raging,
incandescent beam; caught and obliterated: but the remainder did not
retreat to the planetoid. Darting out around the edge of the cone at a
stupendous acceleration, they attacked its flanks and the engagement
became general. But now, since enough beams were kept upon each ship of
the enemy so that invisibility could not be restored, each Triplanetary
war vessel could attack with full efficiency. Magnesium flares and
star-shells illuminated space for a thousand miles, and from every unit
of both fleets was being hurled every item of solid, explosive, and
vibratory destruction known to the highly scientific warfare of that
age. Offensive beams, rods and daggers of frightful power struck and
were neutralized by defensive screens equally capable; the long range
and furious dodging made ordinary solid or high-explosive projectiles
useless; and both sides were filling all space with such a volume of
blanketing frequencies that such radio-dirigible torpedoes as were
launched could not be controlled, but darted madly and erratically
hither and thither, finally to be exploded harmlessly in mid-space by
the touch of some fiercely insistent, probing beam of force.
Individually, however, the pirate vessels were far more powerful than
those of the fleet, and that superiority soon began to make itself felt.
The power of the smaller ships began to fail as their accumulators
became discharged under the awful drain of the battle, and vessel after
vessel of the Triplanetary fleet was hurled into nothingness by the
concentrated blasts of the pirates' rays. But the Triplanetary forces
had one great advantage. In furious haste the Secret Service men had
been altering the controls of the radio-dirigible torpedoes, so that
they would respond to ultra-wave control; and, few in number though they
were, each was highly effective.
A hard-eyed observer, face almost against his plate and both hands and
both feet manipulating controls, hurled the first torpedo. Propelling
rockets viciously aflame, it twisted and looped around the incandescent
rods of destruction so thickly and starkly outlined, under perfect
control; unaffected by the hideous distortion of all ether-borne
signals. Through a pirate screen it went, and under the terrific blast
of its detonation one entire panel of the stricken battleship vanished,
crumpled and broken. It should have been out, cold--but, to the
amazement of the observers, it kept on fighting with scarcely lessened
power! Three more of the frightful space-bombs had to be exploded in
it--it had to be reduced to junk--before its terrible rays went out; Not
a man in that great fleet had even an inkling of the truth; that those
great vessels, those terrible engines of destruction, did not contain a
single living creature: that they were manned and fought by automatons;
robots controlled by keen-eyed, space-hardened veterans inside the
planetoid so distant by means of tight, interference-proof communicator
beams!
But they were to receive an inkling of it. As ship after ship of the
pirate fleet was blown to pieces, Roger realized that his navy was
beaten, and forthwith all his surviving vessels darted toward the apex
of the cone, where the heaviest battleships were stationed. There each
hurled itself upon a Triplanetary warship, crashing to its own
destruction, but in that destruction insuring the loss of one of the
heaviest vessels of the enemy. Thus passed the Fearless, and twenty of
the finest space-ships of the fleet as well. But the ranking officer
assumed command, the war-cone was re-formed, and, yawning maw to the
fore, the great formation shot toward the pirate stronghold, now near at
hand. It again launched its stupendous cylinder of annihilation, but
even as the mighty defensive screens of the planetoid flared into
incandescently furious defense, the battle was interrupted and pirates
and Triplanetarians learned alike that they were not alone in the ether.
Space became suffused with a redly impenetrable opacity, and through
that indescribable pall there came reaching huge arms of force
incredible; writhing, coruscating beams of power which glowed a baleful,
although almost imperceptible, red. A vessel of unheard-of armament and
power, hailing from a distant solar system of the Galaxy, had come to
rest in that space. For months her commander had been investigating sun
after sun in quest of one precious substance. Now his detectors had
found it; and, feeling neither fear of Triplanetarian weapons nor
reluctance to sacrifice those thousands of Triplanetarian lives, he was
about to take it!
More
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One question remained yet to be decided; it was necessary to choose a favorable spot for the experiment. According to the advice of the Observatory of Cambridge, the gun must be fired perpendicularly to the plane of the horizon, that is to say, ... Flying Visits Via Projection
"Well, what to do?" asked Seaton as he and Rovol entered the laboratory, "Tear down this fourth-order projector and tackle the big job? I see the lens is here, on schedule, so we can hop right into it." "We shall have further use for this mechan... Foes
WHEN we had been several hours upon our hot, tedious journey there arose a quarrel out of a practical joke played by one native upon the man walking before him. Quick, hasty words led to blows being exchanged. Both men were walking immediately i... For A Breath Of Air
They could hardly realize it, yet the depth-gage told the story. It registered a distance below the surface of the ocean of five thousand seven hundred feet--a little over a mile. The Advance had actually come to rest on the bottom of the Atlantic... For Aurora
Felix now began to find out for himself the ancient truth, that difficulties always confront man. Success only changes them, and increases their number. Difficulties faced him in every direction; at home it had seemed impossible for him to do anyt... Force A Remedy
"Get me out of this, I am stifled--ill," Miss Metford said, in a low voice to me. As we were hurrying from the room, Brande and his sister, who had joined him, met us. The fire had died out of his eyes. His voice had returned to its ordinary ke... Foul Weather
At the moment when that pyramid of fire rose to a prodigious height into the air, the glare of flame lit up the whole of Florida; and for a moment day superseded night over a considerable extent of the country. This immense canopy of fire was pe... Four Dead Mahars
A MOMENT LATER I WAS STANDING BEFORE A DOZEN Mahars--the social investigators of Phutra. They asked me many questions, through a Sagoth interpreter. I answered them all truthfully. They seemed particularly interested in my account of the outer ... Four Thousand Leagues Under The Pacific
The next morning, the 18th of November, I had quite recovered from my fatigues of the day before, and I went up on to the platform, just as the second lieutenant was uttering his daily phrase. I was admiring the magnificent aspect of the ocean whe... Freedom
ONCE OUT OF THE DIRECT PATH OF THE ANIMAL, fear of it left me, but another emotion as quickly gripped me--hope of escape that the demoralized condition of the guards made possible for the instant. I thought of Perry, but for the hope that I migh... Friday Night
The most extraordinary thing to my mind, of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to t... Friendship And Treachery
The Sari proved a most erratic craft. She might have done well enough upon a park lagoon if safely anchored, but upon the bosom of a mighty ocean she left much to be desired. Sailing with the wind she did her best; but in quarter-ing or when clo... From 10 Pm To 10 46' 40''
The moment that the great clock belonging to the works at Stony Hill had struck ten, Barbican, Ardan and M'Nicholl began to take their last farewells of the numerous friends surrounding them. The two dogs intended to accompany them had been alread... From Cape Horn To The Amazon
How I got on to the platform, I have no idea; perhaps the Canadian had carried me there. But I breathed, I inhaled the vivifying sea-air. My two companions were getting drunk with the fresh particles. The other unhappy men had been so long withou... From Joy To Death
For ten days the hordes of Thark and their wild allies were feasted and entertained, and, then, loaded with costly presents and escorted by ten thousand soldiers of Helium commanded by Mors Kajak, they started on the return journey to their own la... From Latitude 47 Deg 24' To Longitude 17 Deg 28'
In consequence of the storm, we had been thrown eastward once more. All hope of escape on the shores of New York or St. Lawrence had faded away; and poor Ned, in despair, had isolated himself like Captain Nemo. Conseil and I, however, never left eac... From Plight To Plight
I have never been much of a runner; I hate running. But if ever a sprinter broke into smithereens all world's records it was I that day when I fled before those hideous beasts along the narrow spit of rocky cliff between two narrow fiords toward th... From The Crow's Nest
And so after strange delays and through an avenue of doubt and battle, this man from the nineteenth century came at last to his position at the head of that complex world. At first when he rose from the long deep sleep that followed his rescu... Fugitive
Meanwhile a child of five--all unconscious that his quiet refusal to participate in the making and breaking of reputations was temporarily a matter of considerable annoyance to a Fellow of the Royal Society--ran through a well-kept index of the bo... Futile Attacks
There seemed to be no pursuit. In a few moments I was clear of the camp and hidden in the darkness of the desert. I ran perhaps half a mile, then I slowed down to a walk, completely winded. Turning, I could see behind me the lights of the camp. I ... Gallia Weighed
A quarter of an hour later, the visitors to the Hansa had reassembled in the common hall of Nina's Hive. "Now, gentlemen, we can proceed," said the professor. "May I request that this table may be cleared?" Ben Zoof removed the various articl... Gallia's Governor General
The Spaniards who had arrived on board the Hansa consisted of nine men and a lad of twelve years of age, named Pablo. They all received Captain Servadac, whom Ben Zoof introduced as the governor general, with due respect, and returned quickly to t... Geological Studies In Situ
Next day, Tuesday, June 30, at 6 a.m., the descent began again. We were still following the gallery of lava, a real natural staircase, and as gently sloping as those inclined planes which in some old houses are still found instead of flights of st... George Delany Deceased
"It is a good thing to be alive," Natalie Brande repeated slowly, gazing, as it were, far off through her half-closed eyelids. Then turning to me and looking at me full, wide-eyed, she asked: "A good thing for how many?" "For all; for everythin... Get Out Of Our Skies!
On the first cloudy day in November, Tom Blacker, the shining light of Ostreich and Company, Public Relations Counsellors, placed a call to a shirtsleeved man on the rooftop of the Cannon Building in New York City. His message brought an i... Getting Into The Corner
The doctor's new official position carried with it the use of a spacious, rambling dwelling, situated just inside the gate where we had met Miss Blank. It was thus conveniently located for the doctor's duties at the observatories on the plateau. A... Ghek Plays Pranks
While Tara of Helium was being led to The Towers of Jetan, Ghek was escorted to the pits beneath the palace where he was imprisoned in a dimly-lighted chamber. Here he found a bench and a table standing upon the dirt floor near the wall, and set in ... Glimpses At The Invisible
In spite of the dreadful condition in which the three friends now found themselves, and the still more dreadful future that awaited them, it must be acknowledged that Ardan bravely kept up his spirits. And his companions were just as cheerful. The... Gods In Exile
February, and a full three months since Constans had come to Doom. And yet he was virtually at his starting-point, so little had he been able to accomplish along the line of his purpose. A dozen times indeed he might have planted an arrow between ... Gore And Dreams
It was a two-masted felucca with lateen sails! The craft was long and low. In it were more than fifty men, twenty or thirty of whom were at oars with which the craft was being propelled from the lee of the land. I was dumbfounded. Could it be th... Graham Remembers
She came upon him at last in a little gallery that ran from the Wind Vane Offices toward his state apartments. The gallery was long and narrow, with a series of recesses, each with an arched fenestration that looked upon a court of palms. He cam... Grave Questions
But the projectile had passed the enceinte of Tycho, and Barbicane and his two companions watched with scrupulous attention the brilliant rays which the celebrated mountain shed so curiously over the horizon. What was this radiant glory? What ... Green Men And White Apes
A Torquasian sword smote a glancing blow across the forehead of Carthoris. He had a fleeting vision of soft arms about his neck, and warm lips close to his before he lost consciousness. How long he lay there senseless he could not guess; but wh...