Part 2

The NW and SE radiators sent out a steady N (dash-dot) in Morse code, the SW and NE a steady A (dot-dash). At thirty second intervals the identification letters of Pali-Vanyi [dot-dash-dash-dot dot-dot-dot-dash] were transmitted from all radiators. A ship coming in from the west, directly on course, heard both N and A simultaneously and with equal strength so that they interlocked and formed a steady dash. A swerve to the north of the course meant that the N signal would be predominant in the ship's receiver; to the south, that the A would be predominant. Rotating the goniometer counter-clockwise would so change the radio frequency in the four signal radiators as to cause all on-course signals to swing similarly, and ships on the beam would follow it blindly around, especially when their compasses were put awry by natural causes. A 90 degrees swing would completely reverse the so-called N and A quadrants; hence the beam would completely lie. WHAT would the destroyer's speed be? Probably twelve or fourteen hundred m.p.h. Twenty minutes or less to swing the beam. With one hand Silvy Ward began to rotate the goniometer, casting an eye at a nearby chronometer. Ninety degrees, say, in eighteen minutes. Five degrees per minute. Easy now! With a free hand Ward reached out and snapped on the shortwave transceiver which was used in communications when testing experimental equipment. He picked up the microphone and called:

"Portiz, are you in position?"

"Yes, sir!" the answer came promptly.

"Directions, pal. Cut in the glide path transmitter now and stick with it until further instructions so that nothing goes wrong."

"Yes, sir. But what's the idea, Silvy?"

"No time to explain now, Portiz! I've work to do!"

Ward snapped off, and immediately reached out for the televisorphone. He dialed Public Service and asked for his good friend Duka Dwane, Venusian utility magnate.

"Duka," he barked after credentialling his way past a Mr. Dwane's-in-conference operator, "this is Silvy Ward of the Authority. There's a Martian destroyer coming in with obvious intentions of bombing Pali. I want you to black out the city immediately."

"But, Silvy, think of the convention," Dwane protested. "I had to give them special fluorescent lighting; they'll be angry if I cut them off!"

"If you don't cut them off this time they'll never be cut off again. Kick that master switch over pronto. The Authority will take all responsibility!"

"Okay," lisped Dwane. "Okay, _sharnar_!"

Ward cut off wondering if that "_sharnar_" had meant "friend" or "bigshot"; it meant one thing in Pali and another in Vanyi, the city across the "tracks".

Four minutes gone. Twenty degrees. The destroyer should be almost west-south-west now.

"Wagner," Ward barked. "How are you coming?"

"It's the relay, right enough. I should have it clicking in a few mins."

"You've about twenty, so do it right! Buzz Control and tell them that we're going to cut off the landing beams on the south of the field and for them to light up all the eastern boundary lights."

"Yes, sir."

Six minutes gone. Thirty degrees.

IV

The spirit of the Leader rides with us, thought the destroyer's commander. The very force of his will has caused those fools below to leave their beam on. And they are members of the race that seeks to dictate terms to the Leader! So ignorant they are, so unenlightened. They are unfit to rule. By the great god Zabir--nay, not by that false god, but by the Leader, we are the only ones fit to rule and we shall!

"_Andrakalarn marsti virki!_" he shrilled into the intercommunication tube.

The moment of reckoning--in twelve minutes!

Meanwhile Charleston's spaceyacht was following the destroyer down the strange layer of wild winds in Venus' stratosphere. Some time before he had reached out a pudgy hand to turn on his infrared view-plates and the destroyer stood out sharply on the visual grid.

"Damn it!" the fat millionaire was thinking, "no state of war exists. Why should that Martian blast the patrol ship and tear away my broadcast antenna with a torp?"

The air was extremely rough. The yacht pitched and yawed, and with the pitching and yawing Charleston found his daughter Ginny at his side.

"Pater, what is wrong?" she queried in a post-deb voice.

"There's a des--" Jimmie started.

"Harrrrumph!" Charleston burst.

Jimmie was squelched.

"Just following another ship down which acts kind of peculiarly," explained the millionaire. "Wish I could report him to the Authority. Can't, though, a--er--meteor tore away the antenna!"

"Why are you swerving your course?" Unquestionably Ginny knew her rocketships.

"Winds are pretty bad. Seem to be coming full force from the southeast if you can trust the compass. Had to tack around to counteract their force." Charleston of course couldn't admit that his infrareds didn't allow for variable headwinds and compass deviations and therefor weren't as dependable as the Authority's beams.

But his daughter could.

"Why don't you switch onto the Authority frequency? The beam's on 65 megacycles in case you're interested."

Charleston harrrrumphed again but reached out to switch on the receiver.

Immediately he started receiving the steady hum of the on-course signal, broken at 30 second intervals by the keying of P V, identification signal of the base station. A minute later he heard the dash-dot signifying N, meaning that he was to the left (and in his case presumably to the north) of his course. Keying in the port jets he swung to the right and received the on-course signal again. He noticed with satisfaction that the destroyer had done likewise.

"Ginny," he admitted weakly, "this radio range business is quite _the_ business. Of course the Charleston infrareds--"

"_Of course!_" smiled the daughter.

It was Charleston's turn to be squelched.

Suddenly the range signals were interrupted by the beam operator's voice:

"PV, Pali-Vanyi. Notice to all spacemen. Due to the unusually adverse weather conditions at surface, the north-south landing beams will be left on permanently until further notice. PV, Pali-Vanyi."

Ten minutes had passed since Ward had begun rotating the goniometer. Ten minutes and Charleston and the destroyer were fifty degrees off the true course. Almost south-south-west of the field now and gradually bearing more to the south.

But Charleston did not know and he was praising the facilities of the Authority and remarking about how wonderfully his infrareds would work in conjunction with said facilities. The future of his invention (well, he had backed it!) took on a rosy hue. He would revolutionize interplanetary travel; he would simply make it easier.

V

Slowly Silvy Ward rotated the flat, indexed dial of the goniometer. Eighty-nine degrees gone. One more degree. The destroyer should be at the south of the field now, coming in unknowingly over the blacked-out metropolis. Soon he should hear the thunder of its rockets. Were his computations wrong? Did the destroyer have improved compasses and other directional finding instruments which it was using instead of relying on the beam? If not, why did he not hear it coming out of--

A chill swept over him. What was that far, thin thunder throbbing across the night? The destroyer! And that other, higher pitched roar? The Patrol had said that there were two unlisted ships coming in! Who was in that other ship? If he could only warn them without the destroyer catching the signal! But, dear God, he couldn't!

Zero-one-two-zero! Over against the Hump Portiz was attending the portable landing beam transmitter. An ultra-high frequency beam was shooting up uni-directionally at the glide angle of a ship coming in for a landing from the west. A normal landing was to the south where the main runways lay; this descent--no landing there!--must be to the east and the five thousand foot Hump along whose base the boundary lights were ablaze in the dense fog. From the air they would present the aspect of an illumined city....

Ward cried out to Wagner:

"The destroyer is overhead. They're getting the station location marker signal. Listen--"

They could hear the blasting of jets as the ship swerved around to the east, to the direction which its occupants doubtless thought was south. It would be catching the glide path beam now and dropping down toward what appeared to be the city!

The second ship was coming in over the range station. It, too, was swerving....

"That must be the ship out of Earth," Wagner cried.

"If we could only warn them!" Ward said hopelessly. "We don't even know whose ship it is. It may be the Director coming to the convention."

Yes, the Director of Earth might be up there dropping toward certain doom.

Ward leaped to the shortwave transceiver. Simultaneously, it burst into life.

"Portiz calling Ward."

"Yes?"

"Sounds as if there's a large ship dropping in towards the mountain. What're your orders?"

"Leave the beam on and get to hell out of there. You've only got about two minutes!"

Silence. Sixty seconds of silence broken only by the receding thunder of the two ships.

* * * * *

Underjets flaring redly, making rosy-hued the fog, the destroyer eased down toward the lights which told its commander that here lay Pali-Vanyi. Down, down on the glide path beam.

Commands spat from the commander's fleshless mouth.

"Ready at the bomb racks--_Unload!_"

Keying in the rear underjets he zoomed the ship.

The concussion of the unleashed bombs tore across the night, shattering ten thousand windows in nearby Pali-Vanyi. Martians in dehydrated chambers drowned as the heavy fog poured in; Earthmen choked and grew ecstatically oxy-drunk; Venusians leaped in hordes out into their natural element to see the flames licking against the Hump.

"We have destroyed the city!" the Martian commander cried, for in the churning chaos of atomic bomb explosions no details can be seen. "The Leader will bless us. He will--

"_Oh, Zabir, Holy Father of the Deserts, what looms ahead? A mountain here? Oh, Zabir, no! Blast all underjets! Blast!_

"Zabir, Blessed Father--"

The great destroyer's jets flamed futilely. It ground in against the Hump, splitting like a pod. From its halved entrails flames roared forth to further bloody the swirling tortured fog. The sound of the crash reverberated against the range station.

Simultaneously Ward cut in the microphone and screamed over the beam frequency:

"_Climb, ship of Earth, climb. You're on the Hump!_"

Peering out into the crimson-hued fog to the east, Ward saw spitting jet flames swerving upward, sweeping up and over in an Immelmann turn to safety.

"Ship of Earth," Ward continued, "proceed about fifteen miles west, make a one-hundred-eighty degree turn and come in for a normal landing. The beam courses were reversed because of an emergency; we are now correcting the variations."

Ward cut the microphone in again.

"PV, Pali-Vanyi. Notice to all spacemen: Due to an emergency the range was rotated ninety degrees counter-clockwise during the past half hour. Any ships following the western leg into PV should be on the southern leg. Come into the field from the south and swing around for normal landings in accordance with regulations. The beam is now in normal operation."

Silvy Ward arose, began to stretch his tired, slender body, and then he glimpsed the chronometer. It was within seconds of zero-one-three-zero.

"Wagner, have you got that keyer fixed?"

"Watch!" Wagner grinned at him.

There was a whir. The interlock cam relay in the device started to turn, keying out its message across some fifty million miles of space, a message which beyond a shadow of a doubt was crackling some moments later in the receivers of the two earth cruisers at perihelion, telling them that they were on their trajectory course and all was well.

The televisorphone buzzed urgently. Quickly Ward snapped it on.

Portiz' face appeared on the grid.

"Everything under control?"

"Yes. And where in the devil are you?"

"Gasuki's. I needed a drink after those bombs landed on my tail."