Nord Holber laughed again. "That's what he thinks! Mike, there's high frequency current in that cable."
He shot their battered fighter aside—to port—as the fiery beam flashed upward. The slack cable passed under and over the pirate's ship. Nord sent the Patrol vessel down, then to starboard and up again, as Kadine's fiery pencil of destruction whipped toward them.
"He doesn't suspect a thing," Holber said tensely. "It looks like fancy dodging we're doing. But look at the cable, partner! A couple more times around—"
The plastic ship was weaving an intricate course, dodging, yet feinting downward, only to dance upward and away—and the insulated cable was wound loosely around the enemy craft.
"O.K., Mike," Nord said at last. "Reverse that winch, and pull the cable out."
Doren, understanding breaking at last into his flaming blue eyes, pressed the stud, and stared into the lower screen. "A high frequency current," he whispered, "flowing through a coil around a metal core—Kadine's steel hull!"
Within the metal hull of Dhain Kadine's spacer induced electrical current lashed a torrent of irresistible energy against sluggish electro-magnetic potentialities. Resistance of the steel produced heat—heat more intense than Mike Doren's beam could create. Despite the bulk of the outlaw ship within those few turns of cable, the induced current, surging through the steel drove the temperature higher—higher—toward the melting point itself! And, in the inner-hull, it was the same—rising temperature, heat radiating, warming the air within the cabin—
"An induction furnace," said Nord Holber quietly. "It must be pretty warm inside there now!"
Before him, the visaphone jangled suddenly. The screen glowed as he snapped it on. In it the dark, hawklike face of Dhain Kadine, was a blurred, flickering, terror-white, blob. His voice shouted hoarse unintelligible words—rose almost to a shriek. Sweat drenched his clothes—poured from every pore of his skin, flashed dancing highlights on the screen.
Nord Holber's fist and arm gestured in unmistakable pantomime—jump!