“We’ve warned them,” said Tommy curtly. “They’ve got thermit-throwers mounted on their food supplies, too. And they’re desperate enough to keep Rahn off. They’re willing enough to let Yugna do the fighting, but they know what Rahn’s winning will mean.”
Smithers turned away, then turned back.
“Uh—Mr. Reames,” he said heavily, “these fellas’ve gone near crazy about governors an’ reducing valves an’ such. They’re inventin’ ways to use ’em on machines I don’t make head or tail of. We got three-four hundred men loose from machines already, an’ they’re turnin’ out these steam guns as soon as you check up. There’ll be more loose by night. I had ’em spray some castin’s for another Tube, too. Workin’ like they do, an’ with the tools they got, they make speed.”
Tommy responded impatiently: “There’s no steel, no iron for magnets.”
“I know,” admitted Smithers. “I’m tryin’ steam cylinders to—uh—energize the castin’s, instead o’ coils. It’ll be ready by mornin’. I wish you’d look it over, Mr. Reames. If Miss Evelyn gets safe into the city, we could send her down the Tube to Earth until the fightin’s over.”
“I’ll try to see it,” said Tommy impatiently. “I’ll try!”
He turned back to the set-up steam gun. A flexible pipe from a heavily insulated cylinder ran to it. A hopper dropped metallic balls down into a bored-out barrel, where they were sucked into the blast of superheated steam from the storage cylinder. At a touch of the trigger a monstrous cloud of steam poured out. It was six feet from the gun muzzle before it condensed enough to be visible. Then a huge white cloud developed; but the metal pellets went on with deadly force. Half an inch in diameter, they carried seven hundred yards at extreme elevation. Point-blank range was seventy-five yards. They would kill at three hundred, and stun or disable beyond that. At a hundred yards they would tear through a man’s body.
Tommy was promised a hundred of the weapons, with their boilers, in two days. He selected their emplacements. He directed that a disabling device be inserted, so if rushed they could not be turned against their owners. He inspected the gas masks being turned out by the women, who in this emergency worked like the men. Though helpless before machinery, it seemed, they could contrive a fabric device like a gas mask.
The second day the work went on more desperately still. But Smithers’ work in releasing men was telling. There were fifteen hundred governors, or reducing valves, or autocratic cut-outs in operation now. And fifteen hundred men were released from the machines, which had to be kept going to keep the city alive. With that many men, intelligent mechanics all, Tommy and Smithers worked wonders. Smithers drove them mercilessly, using profanity and mechanical drawings instead of speech. Denham withdrew twenty men and labored on top of one of the towers. Toward sunset of the second day, vast clouds of steam bellied out from it at odd, irregular intervals. Nothing else manifested itself. Those irregular belchings of steam continued until dark, but Tommy paid no attention to them. He was driving the gunners of the machine guns to practice. He was planning patrols, devising a reserve, mounting thermit-throwers, and arranging for the delivery of the promised ransom at the specified city gate. So far, there was no sign of anything unusual in Rahn. Messengers from Yugna saw the captive women regularly, once every three hours. The last to leave had reported them being loaded into great ground vehicles under a defending escort, to travel through the dark jungle roads to Yugna. A vast concourse of empty vehicles was trailing into the jungle after them, to bring back the food which would keep Rahn from starving, for a while. It all seemed wholly regular.