Triplanetary

Triplanetary, by Edward Elmer
Smith

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Title: Triplanetary
Author: Edward Elmer Smith
Release Date: March 8, 2007 [EBook #20782]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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TRIPLANETARY ***

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[Transcriber's note:

Typographical errors have been corrected.
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories January, February,
March and April 1934. Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Triplanetary
By EDWARD E. SMITH, Ph.D.
We are sure that our readers will be highly pleased to have us give the
first installment of a story by Dr. Smith. It will continue for several
numbers and is a worthy follower of the "Skylark" stories which were
so much appreciated by our readers. We think that they will find this
story superior to the earlier ones. Dr. Smith certainly has the narrative
power, and that, joined with his scientific position, makes him an ideal
author for our columns.
Illustrated by MOREY
CHAPTER I
Pirates of Space
Apparently motionless to her passengers and crew, the Interplanetary
liner Hyperion bored serenely onward through space at normal
acceleration. In the railed-off sanctum in one corner of the control room
a bell tinkled, a smothered whirr was heard, and Captain Bradley
frowned as he studied the brief message upon the tape of the
recorder--a message flashed to his desk from the operator's panel. He
beckoned, and the second officer, whose watch it now was, read aloud:
"Reports of scout patrols still negative."
"Still negative." The officer scowled in thought. "They've already
searched beyond the widest possible location of the wreckage, too. Two
unexplained disappearances inside a month--first the Dione, then the

Rhea--and not a plate nor a lifeboat recovered. Looks bad, sir. One
might be an accident; two might possibly be a coincidence...." His
voice died away. What might that coincidence mean?
"But at three it would get to be a habit," the captain finished the thought.
"And whatever happened, happened quick. Neither of them had time to
say a word--their location recorders simply went dead. But of course
they didn't have our detector screens nor our armament. According to
the observatories we're in clear ether, but I wouldn't trust them from
Tellus to Luna. You have given the new orders, of course?"
"Yes, sir. Detectors full out, all three courses of defensive screen on the
trips, projectors manned, suits on the hooks. Every object detected in
the outer space to be investigated immediately--if vessels, they are to
be warned to stay beyond extreme range. Anything entering the fourth
zone is to be rayed."
"Right--we are going through!"
"But no known type of vessel could have made away with them without
detection," the second officer argued. "I wonder if there isn't something
in those wild rumors we've been hearing lately?"
[Illustration:
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.]
"Bah! Of course not!" snorted the captain. "Pirates in ships faster than
light--fifth order rays--nullification of gravity--mass without
inertia--ridiculous! Proved impossible, over and over again. No, sir, if
pirates are operating in space--and it looks very much like it--they
won't get far against a good big battery full of kilowatt-hours behind
three courses of heavy screen, and a good solid set of multiplex rays.
Properly used, they're good enough for anybody. Pirates, Neptunians,
angels, or devils--in ships or on sunbeams--if they tackle the Hyperion
we'll burn them out of the ether!"

Leaving the captain's desk, the watch officer resumed his tour of duty.
The six great lookout plates into which the alert observers peered were
blank, their far-flung ultra-sensitive detector screens encountering no
obstacle--the ether was empty for thousands upon thousands of
kilometers. The signal lamps upon the pilot's panel were dark, its
warning bells were silent. A brilliant point of white in the center of the
pilot's closely ruled micrometer grating, exactly upon the cross-hairs of
his directors, showed that the immense vessel was precisely upon the
calculated course, as laid down by the automatic integrating
course-plotters. Everything was quiet and in order.
"All's well, sir," he reported briefly to Captain Bradley--but all was not
well.
* * * * *
Danger--more