"I'm a motor-oiler if we didn't. Come on; got to get out of this.
They're after us! We wrecked the whole damn place, Venza. Wandl's a
normal planet now. No more of this accursed dislocation of Earth."
We learned later that our hope and our assumption that we had
irretrievably wrecked the entire gravity control system of Wandl was
proven to be a fact. Wandl was, in effect, a normal celestial body
now. The beams planted in Greater New York, Ferrok-Shahn and Grebhar
still streamed across space. But there was no giant beam from Wandl to
seize them, and Wandl now could not move through space of her own
volition. Like Earth, and all other known planets, satellites, comets
and asteroids, she was subject now to all the normal natural laws of
celestial mechanics. We had done a thorough job of it.
Now I shoved at Snap. "No time to talk. You tow the girls; I'll take
Molo. Got to get to the _Star-Streak_."
I lunged over and seized Molo. "We did it. Now for your vessel! It
will be ill for you if she is not where you say she is."
"She will be there, Gregg Haljan."
He docilely put himself in position for me to hook my forearm under
his crossed, bound wrists and carry him. Snap rose up past us, towing
the girls. Over the nearby cauldron a figure mounted to gaze and see
the nature of this strange attacking enemy, and then sank back.
With Molo hanging to me, I mounted with my ray, following Snap and the
girls into the starlight, with the turmoil of the cauldron receding
until in a moment or so it was gone behind our horizon.
We headed now, not toward Wor, whence we had come, but over at an
angle to the side. Our great bounding arcs soon left the mountains
behind. We crossed the river, another portion of the forest, and came
over undulating lowlands.
It was a flight of under half an hour. The pursuit, if indeed anyone
followed us, remained below our little segment of curving horizon.
Everywhere there was evidence of the storm; the forest trees were laid
flat, strewn like driftwood over the area. The river had in several
places lashed over its banks. The lowlands were dotted thick with
globe-dwellings. Some were hanging awry on their stems; others were
pulled from their place, cracked and piled into a litter.
We kept well aloft. The surface scenes were only glimpses of wreckage,
moving lights and people. And there were areas which the wind had
seemingly spared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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