XV
THE RESCUE
The small flying platform, with the girls prone upon its fur covering, sailed up from Sonya’s home and over the city. The stars were obscured by gathering black clouds, a threatening storm, but it did not break. Sonya headed the birds for the Virgins’ Island.
They passed a thousand feet above it where a barge drawn by swimming sea animals below was bringing the women and children back to Kalima. Sonya had only the general direction of where she wanted to go, the length of the Warm Sea toward the distant mountains and caves. The Nameless Horror had been seen always in that direction.
The girls lay silent. Sonya was in constant, though sometimes vague communication with Altho. She knew the captives were in a cave; then she got the thoughts clearer, and got Ren’s thoughts also. But suddenly all the thoughts were broken.
The threatening storm passed. The moon was below the horizon. But the stars came out clear and bright. The girls were calmer now, grim with purpose. Sonya began connecting their scientific apparatus, explaining it as well as she could.
The electronic needle pipe was a foot-long metallic pipe with a diameter the size of a small human finger. It had a large, round-metallic base, to be operated by two hands.
It projected a very small stream of electrons, which carried with them a tiny, sharp-pointed fragment of metal, like a needle. The needle flew with nearly the speed of light, expanding. But when it struck it solidified.
There was a range finder for aiming, and a device for curving the electronic stream, so that the beam could be sent to almost any degree of curvature. In her heart, though she did not confess it even to herself, Sonya was dubious of her ability to use the weapon.
She knew she could not aim it with any degree of skill. And she did not know its range. This needle pipe was a very small size projector, with a range, she thought, effective only a few hundred feet.
The girls were now beyond the Warm Sea, flying over a broken, mountainous country, black and desolate looking in the starlight. Altho’s thoughts were with Sonya again. They had never been as clear as this before. A fight, an escape, a dark ledge with a valley below it. There were lights in the valley.