"X—B—Two—One—Eight." Although DuQuesne had never before seen such an instrument, the knowledge taken from the brains of the dead officers rendered him perfectly familiar with it, and his long and powerful fingers set up the indicated defense plan as rapidly and as surely as those of any Fenachrone could have done. He revolved the mechanism in his hands, studying every plane surface, scowling blackly in concentration.
"Munition plants—shall—so-and-so—We don't care about that. Reserves—zones—ordnance—commissary—defensive screens—Oh, here we are! Scout ships. Instead of patrolling a certain volume of space, each scout ship takes up a fixed post just inside the outer detector zone. Twenty times as many on duty, too—enough so that they will be only about ten thousand miles apart—and each ship is to lock high-power detector screens and visiplate and recorder beams with all its neighbors.
"Also, there is to be a first-class battleship acting as mother ship, protector, and reserve for each twenty-five scouts. The nearest one is to be—Let's see, from here that would be only about twenty thousand miles over that way and about a hundred thousand miles down."
"Does that change your plans, chief?"
"Since my plans were not made, I cannot say that it does—it changes the background, however, and introduces an element of danger that did not previously exist. It makes it impossible to go out through the detector zone—but it was practically impossible before, and we have no intention of going out, anyway, until we possess a vessel powerful enough to go through any barrage they can lay down. On the other hand, there is bound to be a certain amount of confusion in placing so many vessels, and that fact will operate to make the capture of our battleship much easier than it would have been otherwise."
"What danger exists that wasn't there before?" demanded Loring.
"The danger that the whole planet may be blown up," DuQuesne returned bluntly. "Any nation or race attacking from space would of course have atomic power, and any one with that power could volatilize any planet by simply dropping a bomb on it from open space. They might want to colonize it, of course, in which case they wouldn't destroy it, but it is always safest to plan for the worst possible contingencies."
"How do you figure on doing us any good if the whole world explodes?" Loring lighted a cigarette, his hand steady and his face pinkly unruffled. "If she goes up, it looks as if we go out, like that—puff!" And he blew out the match.
"Not at all, Doll," DuQuesne reassured him. "An atomic explosion starting on the surface and propagating downward would hardly develop enough power to drive anything material much, if any, faster than light, and no explosion wave, however violent, can exceed that velocity. The Violet, as you know, although not to be compared with even this scout as a fighter, has an acceleration of five times that, so that we could outrun the explosion in her. However, if we stay in our own ship, we shall certainly be found and blown out of space as soon as this defensive formation is completed.
"On the other hand, this ship carries full Fenachrone power of offense and defense, and we should be safe enough from detection in it, at least for as long a time as we shall need it. Since these small ships are designed for purely local scout work, though, they are comparatively slow and would certainly be destroyed in any such cosmic explosion as is manifestly a possibility. That possibility is very remote, it is true, but it should be taken into consideration."