In their drunken orgy of devastation, the umpires had broken the leads feeding the motor field coils, and the gyros were running away — but at unequal rates, probably due to the inequalities of their own bearing frictions. Bullard knew, of course, that he could cut off the armature current, but if he did that the acceleration would shortly be reversed. Should the gyros be slowed rapidly, their rotational momentum would be transferred to the ship and force it into a dizzy whirling, a condition the crew could not endure. Bullard had scant hope of being able to restore the field current. Finding the breaks among the tangle of wreckage would take hours, whereas he had only minutes available, and not many of those.
"Send me a man and plenty of stray cable," he called to Benton, "and I want juice up to the gyro housing from the batteries."
Bullard was looking at the steel columns that held the bearings of the gyro axles — six of them, in pairs, each pair at right angles to the others. What he could not do by electrical resistance he would do by friction. If he could regulate the bearing thrust, he could keep the speed of the gyros under control. It had looked hopeless to him at first, for there was no way to insert the huge jacks they had on board, but he had thought of a way that was at least worth a trial.
"Throw the end of that cable around there," he directed, "and make a coil — a helix — around that bearing column. I intend to magnetize it."
The man — one of Fraser's — did as he was told, but the unbelief in his face was easy to read. What difference did it make whether the thrust columns were magnetic or not?
"That's well!" shouted Bullard, when the last of the six had been wound. Then he ordered current — a weak current, but under his instant control by means of the rheostats he had had inserted in the lines. It had been a tough job, getting that far, for all the while they had been flung this way and that as the whirling masses of metal fought to take charge of the battered cruiser. But Bullard and his helpers had hung on, and now was to come the test.
He was rewarded, after a little, by the halting of the steadily rising crescendo of the motor wail. At least he had stopped the acceleration. Now all he had to do was bring the three into harmony.
"You've got the idea," he said to the principal electrician who had been helping him. "Keep monkeying with them until they are all together. The bearings will get hot, but we can't help that. Flood 'em with oil, and if that don't do it, send down for some liquid air. Whatever you do, don't let 'em freeze, or we'll be flung clear out of the System."
"Aye, aye, sir," said the man, "but how did we do it?"
"Magnetostriction," Bullard explained, as he prepared to slip from the compartment. "A little magnetism makes steel expand, that's all. If your bearings get too tight, give 'em either more juice or less, and you'll shorten those columns."
Bullard slid out of the housing and picked his way aft. He wondered where they were by now and whether they would win their fight with Jupiter. He could feel the surge of the ship as the six flaming tubes drove it, and knew from his sense of weight that they were pulling out — but how fast?
Benton looked worried. His tubes were behaving wonderfully, but they lacked power for the job imposed. The Pollux was checked in her fall, and that was all. She needed more kick to escape, and Benton did not dare apply it. Bullard came and looked.
"Can't be helped," he muttered, "give 'er the works."
"They'll melt," warned Benton.
"Let 'em," said the youthful acting captain, with grim finality. "We can't be any worse off."
Benton shrugged, and began the doubling of his fuel lines. Others of his men scurried off to storerooms and presently came back, lugging spare injectors. Those, after a few minutes of frenzied work, were coupled with improvised super-chargers and inserted into the new fuel into the laboring tubes, the Pollux's wake bloomed from a mere meteoric streak of ruddy fire to the whitely dazzling fan of a Grade A comet. Her determined masters piled gravity after gravity onto her acceleration, building her up until her men could stand no more, despite copious injections of gravonol. Harried hospital corpsmen had been pulled off their work of salvaging the unhappy "dead" and the Castorian umpires long enough to administer those precautionary shots.
Presently a sobered and grave-faced chief umpire — Captain Allyn of the Castor — staggered into the tube room, supported by two of his junior officers. All of them looked the worse for wear, bruised and cut as they were and only partially bandaged, but at least they had managed to get onto their feet. Like everyone else, while still woozy from the effects of the gas they had been badly flung about during the bout with the rebellious gyros.
"The admiral says," Captain Allyn announced, "that all imposed casualties are rescinded. Cease present exercises and return to base."
"Like hell he does!" snorted Bullard, flaring with resentment. "You tell the admiral he lacks authority to rescind the casualties I'm contending with. You can tell him that I'll get out of here how, when, and if I can: and that it will be time enough after that to talk about ceasing something and returning somewhere. In the meantime, kindly get out of that man's way. He has real work to do."
Captain Allyn opened his one good eye in blank astonishment, but he stepped to one side and let the burdened tube man pass with his armful of fresh spare parts. The skipper of the Castor looked from the angry young man in his soiled and torn uniform to the chaotic tube room about him, and then back again. He had not realized what a pass things had come to. There were no instruments of any kind in working order, either astragational or engineering. These sweating, strained-looking men could only guess at the pressures, voltages, amperages and the rest that they were dealing with. Now, if ever, a man had to have the feel of a ship — and this one had an awkward feel, a terrible feel. It was the sickening feeling of doom.
"There goes the first one," remarked Benton calmly, as the ship shuddered and gave a little jump. They felt, rather than heard, the increased roar outside, and a white-faced man sitting astride the smoking supercharger in No. 4 tube feed-line frantically fought to close the valve beneath him. The first of the overtaxed liners had reached the ultimate temperature — had been volatilized and sneezed out into Jupiter's face. Benton's voice was quiet and the lines about his chin unquavering, but there was anxiety in his eyes.
"Hang on," said Bullard. "We can't ease off now. The others may be tougher. We're going uphill now — if they'll only last half an hour we'll be over the hump."
Captain Allyn and his two aids discreetly withdrew to a corner of the tube room. He was too competent an officer to meddle, now that he had some understanding of the situation, and he could see that this dirty-faced lad knew what he was about. He contented himself with putting a few additional entries into his already crowded notebook.
It was nearly twenty minutes before the next tube collapsed to be hurled into the wake as a cloud of vividly incandescent vapor. That was No. 3, and five minutes later went No. 1 — and almost simultaneously with it, No. 6. But the other two held out until they reached the crest, and beyond. The critical point was passed, judging by the feel of things, and the order was on Bullard's lips to cut the blasts by twenty percent when one of the remaining tubes let go, too. That left but one, all the motive power the ship had, and that woefully inadequate, but at least they were moving outward into the clean, dark depths of the ether. Bullard cut its output hastily until it was down to normal, wondering hopefully as he did, whether they were out of the woods yet.
He left the oppressively hot tube room to Benton and his gang and went out into the disordered ship in search of an altiscope. For minutes he struggled through cluttered passages and choked trunks, looking into the now
