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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Daughters of Doom, by Herbert B. Livingston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Daughters of Doom
+
+Author: Herbert B. Livingston
+
+Illustrator: Bill Terry
+
+Release Date: April 18, 2008 [EBook #25094]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAUGHTERS OF DOOM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Andrew Wainwright and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              DAUGHTERS
+
+                               OF DOOM
+
+
+                           By H. B. HICKEY
+
+
+    Deep in space lay a weird and threatening world. And it was
+    there that Ben Sessions found the evil daughters . . .
+
+Beyond Ventura B there was no life; there was nothing but one worn out sun
+after another, each with its retinue of cold planets and its trail of dark
+asteroids. At least that was what the books showed, and the books had been
+written by men who knew their business. Yet, despite the books and the men
+who had written them, Ben Sessions went past Ventura B, deliberately and
+all alone and knowing that the odds were against his returning alive.
+
+He went because of a file clerk's error. More correctly, he went as the
+final result of a chain of events which had begun with the clerk's mistake.
+
+The clerk's name was Gilbert Wayne and he worked at the Las Vegas
+Interplanetary Port. It was Wayne's job to put through the orders for
+routine overhaul of interplanetary rockets. Usually Wayne was quite
+efficient, but even efficient men have bad days, and on one of those days
+Wayne had removed from the active list the name of Astra instead of its
+sister ship, the Storan.
+
+The very next morning the Astra had been turned over to Maintenance.
+Maintenance asked no questions. It was that department's job to take the
+ship apart, fix what needed fixing, and put it. Ten minutes later Jacobs
+saw Armando Gomez was the mechanic detailed to check the rocket tubes.
+
+Gomez, who always got that job because he was small and slender, dutifully
+dropped his instruments into his overall pockets and crawled into the left
+firing tube. Half an hour later he stuck his head out of the tube and
+yelled to Jacobs, who was in charge of the job:
+
+"Amigo! How many hours this ship she got?"
+
+Jacobs ran his finger down a chart and discovered to his surprise that the
+Astra had only two hundred hours on its log since the last overhaul.
+Ordinarily a ship was checked each thousand hours. He scratched his head
+but decided that if Operations wanted the Astra tuned it was none of his
+business. So he told Gomez not to ask useless questions and to get back in
+the tube.
+
+Anyone else but Gomez would have obeyed orders and forgotten all about it.
+Ten minutes later Jacobs saw Armando's head appear.
+
+"Amigo!" Gomez shouted. "How many hours?"
+
+"Two hundred!" Jacobs shouted back, knowing he would have no peace until
+Gomez was answered. "Now get to work! We ain't got all year."
+
+But Gomez was out of the tube again in five minutes and yelling for the
+foreman.
+
+"What do you want now?" Jacobs demanded. He swung himself up on the catwalk
+beside Gomez.
+
+"Something very funny in here, amigo," Gomez replied. "One plate she is too
+clean."
+
+"Less work for you," Jacobs grunted. "So why complain?"
+
+Nevertheless he took a look at the plate, which was near the mouth of the
+tube. It should have been lightly encrusted with the oxides of rocket fuel.
+Instead, it was only beginning to dull, in strange contrast to its
+neighbors which were welded to it.
+
+"That is queer," Jacobs muttered.
+
+"_Si._ As you say, amigo. Queer."
+
+Once Jacob's interest was aroused he was also not one to let a matter drop;
+he told Gomez to work on another tube while he consulted the front office.
+The front office was not especially interested, but at Jacobs' insistence
+they called in a metallurgist. The metallurgist, whose name was Britton,
+was fortunately a thorough young man. He ordered the plate removed and sent
+to his laboratory for complete analysis.
+
+After that things happened fast. Britton scanned the analysis of the plate
+and without hesitation called in his superior who ordered a second test
+just to be safe, and then notified Washington. Washington turned it over to
+Interplanetary Intelligence, of which Carson was chief of staff.
+
+One week later Ben Sessions stood before Carson's desk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sessions was only thirty-five, but in his few years with "Two Eyes," as the
+organization was known, he had rung up an enviable record. Tall, lithe,
+darkly handsome, he was well liked by the men who worked with him. At the
+moment there was a puzzled frown on his face, lengthening the line made by
+a scar which ran from his forehead down the side of his nose. The scar was
+the result of a crash landing on Neptune.
+
+"I don't get it, sir," he said. "A single plate from a rocket tube . . . So
+what if it didn't oxidize?"
+
+"That makes me feel much better." Carson smiled, an inner bitterness making
+the smile wry. "I didn't get it either," he went on. "A mechanic named
+Gomez got it; a foreman named Jacobs got it; a lab man named Britton got
+it; but the chief of "Two Eyes" missed the boat. I feel swell about that."
+He rose suddenly and hammered his fist on the desk. "Every one of us in
+Intelligence ought to be cashiered!"
+
+"Take it easy," Ben cautioned. "All because of that plate?"
+
+Carson slumped back into his chair. "Yes. And because we have failed in our
+duty. Our only hope is that we may have time to make it up. I'll give you
+the facts:
+
+"Those tubes are made of Virium, but even Virium develops scale. After next
+week it will develop even more, because next week we make the changeover to
+the new fuel. If Wayne had made his mistake two weeks later there would
+have been so much deposit in the tubes that Gomez would not have noticed
+the difference.
+
+"Now, Virium is one of the most standardized products in the world. So
+Gomez was rightly astonished that the tube didn't oxidize evenly. Jacobs
+saw further. Virium is the toughest metal we know of; if this piece was
+tougher it might be a discovery of major importance. So Britton analyzed
+the plate."
+
+"Now we get to the point," Sessions grinned.
+
+Carson stabbed a finger at him. "Right. And the point is that this one
+section of plate is not Virium! In fact, it is a substance which we are
+positive does not exist in our system!"
+
+"Wait a second. What do you mean by 'system'?"
+
+"I mean every single bit of matter that lies between here and Ventura B."
+
+"Maybe it's not a natural substance. Not an element."
+
+"We thought of that. It's an element, and one we know nothing of."
+
+"Do you mind if I sit down, sir?" Ben asked suddenly.
+
+The enormity of the thing had struck him, almost dazzling him with its
+implications. Carson laughed bitterly and waved him to a chair, then went
+on talking.
+
+"Precisely, Ben. The question is: How did this strange substance get into
+the tube of an Interplanetary rocket called the Astra? To answer that we
+checked on the ship. The Astra is one of the few ships which have ever gone
+beyond Ventura B!"
+
+"I almost expected to hear that," Sessions said.
+
+"It adds up, all right, doesn't it? A foreign substance, a foreign system.
+But this substance had been made into a plate. That means the work of
+intelligent beings."
+
+"Who took the Astra on that trip?" Sessions asked, his body tense.
+
+"A licensed space explorer named Murchison. Two others went with him but he
+returned alone. Claims they fell into a chasm."
+
+"But no explorer has reported life beyond Ventura B," Sessions said, taking
+up the thread of thought. He whistled softly. "You must have been busy this
+last week."
+
+"Busy is no word for it. It's only three years since anyone has been
+allowed to go outside our system. For the purpose of science Interstellar
+Flight granted permits to six licensed explorers. All returned with charts
+showing only a desolate waste. In our own quiet way we have checked on each
+of these six men, including Murchison, in the last week."
+
+"And . . . ?"
+
+"And we discovered something very interesting. The six who returned from
+beyond Ventura B were not the same six who went! They are identical in
+every facial, bodily, and mental characteristic, identical enough to fool
+even the families of the lost explorers. But when we secretly photographed
+them with infra-red light we found that their skins contained elements
+foreign to our system!"
+
+Ventura A and its sister star were the twin beacons that marked the last
+outposts of the Earth System. Past them was only a trackless waste of
+inter-stellar space. Ben Sessions knew that the charts he carried were
+probably worse than useless, were likely downright traps.
+
+He and Carson had planned the trip. Carson had wanted to send a fighting
+fleet but Ben had opposed the idea. Wayne's mistake had led them to the
+uncovering of a gigantic hoax, a hoax which could have only a sinister
+purpose. Somewhere in the void ahead were sentient beings. To send a fleet
+would be to let them know that their existence was suspected.
+
+Sessions let the automatic controls take over while he examined the charts
+once more. They showed the constellation which lay directly ahead, the one
+after that, and then nothing for hundreds of millions of miles. Those first
+two reflected a tiny amount of light from Ventura B and were visible
+through telescopes, therefore it would have created suspicion to falsify
+their position. Past them, however, the blackness was too intense to
+penetrate.
+
+The speed of the rocket ship increased. Atomic blasts replaced those of the
+regular fuel. Sessions knew that an Earth measurement would have shown the
+ship to have shrunk to half its size. Only light and the radona beam which
+protected the ship from collisions could travel faster.
+
+From now on it was just a matter of luck. Someone had pulled those six
+explorers out of space and Sessions was hoping the same thing would happen
+to him. On the third day it happened.
+
+He was sitting in the pilot's chair, watching the radona chart before him.
+Most of the chart was blank, only the upper right hand corner showing a
+mass of black dots which indicated a planetary dispersal about a dead star.
+Sessions waited for the radona beam to swing the ship leftward.
+
+Instead, the ship was curving in the direction of the dots! Ben's first
+thought was that the beam had gone out of order, and he switched to manual
+controls. No use. Despite all his efforts he was being carried toward those
+planets.
+
+Habit made him shut off the tubes. Why waste fuel? A tight smile froze on
+his lips as his speed dropped to twenty million miles then lifted again as
+the ship by-passed a planet. With calm deliberation Ben switched on the
+camera he had installed before the flight and let it record his course as
+shown on the radona chart.
+
+Only one dot remained on the chart. It grew larger and larger until it
+filled the entire screen. There was no longer any doubt as to the ship's
+destination, and as if to add further proof its speed dropped sharply. Ben
+clicked the switch on the camera and removed a tiny roll of microfilm. The
+roll fit snugly into the hollow cap which covered the stub of one of his
+molars.
+
+The altitude indicator went on automatically, showed fifty thousand feet,
+then forty thousand, went down to hundreds. Ahead there was only blackness.
+Ben held his breath and waited for the crash. It never came. Long after the
+altimeter showed zero the ship still moved. Ben could think of only one
+explanation: he was below the surface of the dark planet! And then he could
+think no more; the blackness seemed to filter into the ship and into his
+mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"He awakens," a voice said. It was a pleasant voice, a feminine one, silky
+and soothing.
+
+Ben Sessions sat up and said, "Huh?"
+
+The first thing he noticed was the light. No more darkness, but a light
+that came from nowhere and yet was everywhere. He was on some sort of
+couch, in a huge room with a vaulted ceiling. Shaking his head groggily,
+Ben looked for the source of the silken voice. He was alone in the room.
+
+His eyes ran down the length of his body. The flash gun was gone from his
+belt. That was hardly unexpected. But the belt was gone too. So were his
+clothes. He was clad in a loose robe of shimmering white cloth.
+
+That meant he had been unconscious for some time. How long? Ben would have
+given much to know. Suddenly he let out an unearthly moan, threw his arms
+wide and rolled off the couch. He lay still.
+
+The silken voice was raised again and added to it was another, more
+masculine. Then a door opened and two people stepped into the room. Ben sat
+up and grinned at them, especially at the woman.
+
+"I thought that would get you," he said. "It's not hospitable to hide from
+your guest."
+
+"Resourceful, isn't he?" The woman raised her eyebrows in mock admiration.
+Her companion growled a reply which Ben couldn't quite catch.
+
+They were an odd pair, the woman towering well above ten feet but perfectly
+formed, her skin the color of pink marble; the man more beast than human.
+The women of Saturn were as tall as she, Ben had time to think, but not
+nearly as beautiful.
+
+"Welcome to Teris, Ben Sessions," she said. Her smile was the smile of the
+serpent of Eden.
+
+"You're pretty resourceful yourself," Ben grinned.
+
+He had carried no papers except a blanket permit from Interstellar Flight.
+He wondered if the precaution he and Carson had taken would prove to be in
+vain. The woman spoke again.
+
+"Ben Sessions, graduate of Neptune School of Rockets; born in Taos, New
+Mexico, Earth; third of four children; unmarried, unattached at present;
+first position, co-pilot Earth-Vega Express . . ."
+
+She seemed to be choosing items at random from a memorized list. The
+exhibition was intended to impress Ben and it was succeeding. More than
+that, however, it was frightening. He held his breath as she neared the
+end.
+
+". . . two years with Interstellar Communications; presently a licensed
+space explorer, non-affiliated."
+
+"Pretty good," Ben said.
+
+It was better than that. It was perfect. Only the end was wrong. He and
+Carson had worked that out with the psychoanalyst. The two of them had
+wanted to falsify the entire biography, but the analyst had convinced them
+he was right.
+
+"One lie I might attempt to pound into your very subconscious by hypnotism;
+a dozen would be spread too thin. We would leave holes. Under the type of
+electroanalysis you seem to think might be used on you I can't even promise
+one lie will hold up."
+
+Ben reminded himself to recommend the man for honors if he ever got back to
+Earth. He had certainly known his business; but then, if he hadn't he would
+not be working for "Two Eyes."
+
+"Now that you've told me all about myself maybe you'll tell me what's going
+on," Ben said.
+
+"One of your compatriots can do that," the woman told him. Her interest
+seemed suddenly to have waned.
+
+She said a few words in a strange tongue to the man who stood at her side.
+He grunted, bowed, and advanced toward Ben. Long arms, covered with thick
+black hair, reached out. Ben dodged.
+
+"You'll be sorry if you make him use force," the woman said.
+
+"Nothing like trying," Ben told her. He avoided another grab and stepped in
+and smashed his fist to the hairy man's jaw.
+
+[Illustration: The ape-like figure rushed forward and Ben's head was thrown
+back by a mighty blow . . .]
+
+He might as well have hit a wall. Before Ben could strike another blow he
+was lifted from his feet by an upward slap that threatened to tear loose
+one side of his face. Too dazed to resist, he felt both his wrists
+encircled by a tremendous hand. The woman's voice rose sharply in a tone of
+command.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The corridor through which Ben Sessions was being led was thronged with
+people. There seemed to be three classes: rosy-skinned giantesses like his
+escort; men of his own size, but also with pink complexions; and the squat,
+hairy men who appeared to be nothing more than slaves.
+
+It was plain that women dominated this society, and from them Ben received
+curious but contemptuous glances. Any one of these Amazons would have been
+considered a beauty on Earth, so regular were their features, but they
+lacked an air of feminine softness. Instead, cruelty lay thinly masked
+beneath the surface.
+
+At the end of the long corridor a huge door swung open and Ben was led
+through it into an immense room. At the far end of the room was a throne,
+and on it a woman. Ben blinked. As well proportioned as the others he had
+seen, she was half again as tall, twice as beautiful. He could not contain
+a gasp of appreciation.
+
+Thick violet hair fell almost to her shoulders, her skin was luminous and
+flawless, her body breathtaking, more revealed than concealed by a
+clinging gown of some filmy material. At her breast, flashed a single
+violet jewel larger by far than the famed sapphires of Uranus.
+
+"I brought him as soon as he awakened," said the woman with Ben.
+
+A malevolent stare from the woman on the throne rested on Ben. "It was
+unnecessary," she said. "We have no further need of him. Take him to the
+field."
+
+"Wait a minute," Ben snapped.
+
+"You are addressing Arndis, Queen of Teris," he heard his escort say.
+
+"I don't give a hoot . . ." He never finished the sentence. From behind the
+hairy slave seized him, lifted him and flung him bodily toward the doors.
+The interview was over.
+
+They went for a while along the same corridor, then turned off and followed
+a side passage for a way. It led steadily downward to an arched opening and
+through that out of the building. Here too the light was diffused, but much
+brighter. Ben had to blink several times before he became adjusted to it.
+
+They were standing in the center of a vast level plain, apparently endless
+and roofless, for overhead there was no sky, only an increasing intensity
+of light. Ranged in rows on the plain were thousands of space ships. Ben
+turned once as they approached the first line of ships and saw behind him
+the building from which he had just come. It rose upward, a single block of
+shining stone, for almost a mile. Alongside it were other buildings of the
+same material, but none so large.
+
+Then Ben and his two escorts were past the first rows of ships. His eyes
+roved over them, trying to discover what armament they carried. None was
+visible. Their firing tubes were much the same as those of Earth design,
+but slightly smaller.
+
+His attention was diverted from his study by a sudden disturbance aboard
+the closest ship. The sound of an angry feminine voice came clearly through
+an open porthole, and mingled with it was a pleading, deeper tone. An
+instant later a door was flung open and out of it came hurtling one of the
+men of Teris. He hit the ground, rolled over, and came to his knees facing
+the open door and the giant woman who stood framed in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That the man was pleading for his very life was obvious to Ben, but it was
+equally plain that his pleas were having no effect. The woman on the ship
+uttered a single contemptuous word that cut the pleas short. On her face
+was a sadistic anticipation such as Ben had never before seen. Slowly she
+raised a cylinder in her hand and pointed it at the man on the ground.
+
+From the cylinder came a violet light, weak at first, but growing in
+intensity as she pressed some sort of trigger. The man shrieked in agony as
+the light played on him. Then the smell of burning flesh came to Ben's
+nostrils, and the shriek became a single high pitched scream which choked
+off suddenly.
+
+Ben's escort laughed with ghoulish enjoyment, said something to the woman
+in the doorway, and gestured at the charred body on the ground. The violet
+light grew to blinding intensity. A puff of smoke and the body was gone.
+
+"What was that for?" Ben gasped.
+
+His escort smiled indulgently and shot a question at the other woman. The
+reply was a shrug of shoulders and a few short syllables.
+
+"He did something that displeased her," she told Ben. At his look of horror
+she laughed again, apparently pleased to have shocked him.
+
+He noticed, as they went along, that the space ships decreased in size.
+Those in the first rows had been comparable to Earth's battle cruisers,
+those in the last were one or two man jobs. His own ship, the _Rapier_, was
+at the very end of the last line.
+
+Beyond was a vast army of men, both rosy skinned and hairy, at work on a
+gigantic excavation project. Great power shovels scooped load after load of
+earth. But most of the work was being done by the men who labored with
+primitive pick and shovel.
+
+Above the sound of digging rose the sharp voices of the giant women of
+Teris, each with a battalion under her command. As far as Ben's eyes could
+reach men were digging at the ground.
+
+He was hustling along to a point where a dirt spattered group struggled
+with a metallic lining for the half-mile hole it had excavated. At that
+point his escort turned him over to the woman who bossed that crew. Ben saw
+in the hand of the overseer one of the violet ray cylinders.
+
+"Down there," she said curtly, pointing to where a small knot of men worked
+on a terrace fifty feet below. "They will tell you what to do."
+
+Ben had found nothing strange in the fact that his escort had spoken
+English fluently. She had been present at his electroanalysis. But he
+doubted that all the women of Teris could have the same command of the
+language. Nevertheless he said nothing and clambered down the ladder to the
+terrace beneath. Ben's unasked question was answered when he saw the five
+faces turned up toward him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Earth men! Even the grime that covered them could not hide that. And there
+was added proof in their widening eyes. They were sorry to see another
+Earth man captive, yet happy at sight of one of their own kind. Willing
+hands helped Ben down from the bottom rung of the ladder.
+
+"We'd heard they had picked up another ship," one of the men said. "But we
+weren't sure the rumor was true."
+
+"True enough, as you can see. I'm Ben Sessions."
+
+His outstretched hand was grasped and shaken cordially. Names were flung at
+him. Murchison, Davies, Kennard, Bannon, Murchison.
+
+"Wait a second," Ben said. "I thought I heard Murchison twice."
+
+"You did," said the big, rawboned man at whom he was staring. "The first is
+my daughter Sally."
+
+It was only then that Ben noticed how small and slender was the figure of
+the one next to Murchison. Even the girl's loose robe, similar to that of
+the men, could not quite conceal her femininity. Her hair was cut short,
+her hands toil hardened.
+
+"Carson didn't tell me," Ben muttered. He grinned at Murchison. "I expected
+to find you and two assistants, but I didn't know one would be your
+daughter."
+
+"Expected--?" Hope glinted in five pairs of eyes. Above them there was a
+shouted command to get to work, and a cylinder was waved threateningly.
+
+"I'll explain as we go along," Ben said hastily. "Show me what to do."
+
+Bannon, a short, thickset man with a mop of unruly black hair shoved a pair
+of tongs into Ben's hands and quickly explained how to hold the rivets with
+which the group was working. In effect they were constructing a huge
+cylinder. Looking down, Ben saw that it descended into the bowels of Teris.
+
+The others were pressing Ben for his explanation but he insisted that they
+tell their stories first. The same thing had happened to them as to him.
+Within some thousands of miles of Teris they had felt a force pull them
+toward it. Then they had passed out and awakened to find themselves
+prisoners.
+
+"I know all that," Ben said. "But in all the time you've been here you must
+have found out a good deal. What goes on here? Why are they taking prisoner
+every one who approaches the planet? Why do they conceal its existence from
+our system?"
+
+Murchison paused between blows of his hammer, as though to wipe sweat from
+his brow.
+
+"Since you seem in a hurry," he said, "I will tell it in brief. You are in
+the center of a planet whose evil people are engaged in one enterprise: the
+conquering and subjugating of our universe."
+
+"I thought that might be it," Ben nodded. "But subjugating billions of
+people may prove tougher than they think."
+
+"Their intention is to reduce our population so it can be easily handled.
+And I can assure you that these women are perfectly capable of slaughtering
+as many people as they think necessary. They have both the means and the
+contempt for human life that such an undertaking requires."
+
+Ben hazarded a guess. "This project is part of their preparation?"
+
+"The final part. Since the surface of Teris has a temperature of absolute
+zero it can only be reached from here through a series of locks. What they
+are building now are new locks big enough to handle their largest ships. As
+soon as that's done they plan to attack."
+
+"Any idea when that will be?"
+
+"About a week, Earth time." Murchison's shoulders sagged with despair.
+"We've been wracking our brains for a way to stop them, but it's no use.
+They're as clever as they are evil. They've even sent doubles of each of us
+men to Earth to pave the way for the attack. I suppose you've seen your
+double."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then they haven't made one. You have to be awake while it's being done. I
+suppose they didn't think it necessary now that there's so little time
+left."
+
+"Less time than I thought," Ben grunted. "I'd better get moving." He tilted
+his head back and shouted to the woman above.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a second time Ben stood before Arndis, queen of Teris. Her eyes probed
+at him, trying to divine his thoughts. There was anger in those eyes. If
+she detected a single flaw in his story it would mean Ben's death. More
+than that, it would mean disaster for Earth. He talked fast.
+
+"When we found that plate in the firing tube of Murchison's ship we knew he
+was lying. We figured he'd discovered valuable deposits out here and was
+trying to keep them secret."
+
+"That was all?"
+
+"It's enough, isn't it? Enough for Interplanetary Intelligence to send me
+on this mission. Those false papers I carried are proof that we suspected
+something. And if I'm not back in the time we allowed they'll have our
+entire battle fleet out looking for me."
+
+"Very clever," Arndis smiled. "But if you are trying to frighten us you are
+failing. The women of Teris had a high civilization before your Earth was
+born. We can do things you never dreamed of."
+
+At her command Ben's arms were seized and bound behind him. He was carried
+swiftly into a room nearby, a room filled with a maze of scientific
+apparatus. On what appeared to be an operating table was a transparent
+shell, and beneath this Ben was strapped.
+
+Through the shell he saw one of the men of Teris brought into the room and
+placed in a similar position on another table. Wires were strung between
+the two shells and somewhere a machine began to hum. The shells filled with
+a white vapor that lingered a moment and then was gone.
+
+Although he had known what was to happen Ben could not control his
+amazement. For the man who came out of the other shell was an exact replica
+of himself! Within minutes he saw the other dressed in his own flying suit.
+
+"You see how simply we solve the problem?" Arndis asked. "Ben Sessions will
+return to Earth and there will be no search. He will report that he found
+nothing and request that he be allowed to try again. By that time we shall
+be ready to attack."
+
+Ben's arms had been untied, and now he put his hand to his face, as though
+to rub some tender spot. The move attracted no undue attention. An instant
+later he had two fingers inside his mouth and was working loose the cap
+over his tooth.
+
+His next move took them completely by surprise. With a leap he was half way
+across the room and lunging for his double. Ben brought the man down with a
+flying tackle and for seconds they wrestled on the floor. Then a hairy hand
+tore Ben loose and he was hauled to his feet. He had done little harm to
+the other.
+
+"Not quite fast enough," Arndis said. "Within minutes he will be aboard the
+Rapier and on his way." Her voice rose. "Take this one back to the locks."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Doesn't it ever get dark here?" Ben asked.
+
+He and Murchison and the others had been allowed to come out of the tube
+after what seemed hours of toil. They sat now in a tiny cell into which air
+came through slits in the wall.
+
+"No," Murchison said. "But Bannon has a good watch and we're able to keep
+track of time. It's exactly six days and three hours since you were put to
+work."
+
+Ben nodded thoughtfully. There was not much time left. Work on the locks
+went on endlessly, and sooner than he could have believed possible they
+were being completed. Given enough slaves, he thought, anything could be
+accomplished.
+
+Gluing his eyes to one of the slits, he peered out. The last of the giant
+gates was being installed. Their own crew would have only one more shift
+before the job was finished.
+
+Beyond the excavation Ben could see the tower from which the locks were
+controlled. Bannon, who had been in Teris longest and who had managed to
+garner some information, had explained their operation to Ben.
+
+"I worked on the new controls when they were being installed," he said,
+ranging himself alongside Ben. "They're fully automatic. There are five
+locks in each tube between the interior and the surface of Teris."
+
+"How many ships did you say were kept at the tower?" Ben asked.
+
+"About ten. They make inspection flights each day, although nothing has
+ever gone wrong that I've heard of. But the tubes and the locks are the
+only outlets to the surface and they watch them carefully."
+
+"What are our chances of getting to the tower?"
+
+"Zero, I should say. Only the women are allowed to enter it, or a small
+crew under their supervision."
+
+"Willing to make a try?" Ben asked. He swung around to face them all. Until
+now he had not taken them into his confidence, given them no inkling of
+what was in his mind.
+
+"We've talked about it before," Murchison answered. "But there's so little
+chance we gave up the idea. Better to stay alive and hope for a rescue."
+
+"I can't tell you how I know," Ben told them, "but there isn't going to be
+any rescue." He kept his eyes on the girl. "How about you, Sally? Willing
+to trust me?"
+
+She nodded and Ben heaved a sigh of relief. Rather than leave her behind he
+would have stayed with her. Gathering them about him he outlined his plans.
+The men were more than skeptical but no one had any suggestions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ben and Davies were the last to finish their work, and as they fastened the
+last rivet to the last hinge Ben looked up and shook his head. To the giant
+woman who stood watching him it seemed only that he was tired. She failed
+to notice that Sally had drifted off to one side and was coming up behind
+her.
+
+Sally's foot suddenly caught the overseer just behind one knee and knocked
+her off balance. At the same instant Ben stepped in close and wrenched the
+violet ray cylinder from the woman's hand. The others screened them from
+sight. Ben looked around and saw that the slight flurry of activity had
+gone unnoticed by others of the giant women who were nearby.
+
+"We're going to walk to the control tower," he told the woman grimly. "If
+anyone asks you're to say we have to do some work there. I'm going to have
+this ray gun trained on you under my robe, so don't try any tricks.
+Understand?"
+
+She understood all too well. A flicker of fear in her eyes told Ben that
+she knew he would blast her without mercy. They fell in behind her.
+
+When they reached the doors of the tower a pair of women barred their way.
+
+"We have received no notice of work to be done," one of them said. Ben saw
+her eyes narrow with sudden suspicion, and then her hand darted for the
+cylinder at her side.
+
+Ben's ray gun spouted violet death and the charred bodies of three women
+lay in the doorway. Ben scooped up their guns and thrust them at Bannon and
+Murchison.
+
+"We'll give you five minutes before we take off," he shouted as they ran
+past him for the control room.
+
+Behind him and Davies and Sally there were shouts as the two men went into
+action. But they had their own job to do. The closest inspection ship was
+several hundred feet away and already women were running to cut them off.
+Ben cut loose with his cylinder before they had a chance to use theirs.
+
+Then he and Davies were lifting Sally into the ship. While they covered the
+open door Ben ran for the controls. Somewhere an alarm was wailing and as
+he swung the ship about Ben saw other ships being boarded. But Bannon and
+Murchison had not failed. Just beyond the tower a lock swung open.
+
+Ben skimmed along the ground, figuring to pick up the two men as they came
+out of the tower. Then he saw Murchison wave him on. He had planted himself
+in the doorway and was refusing to budge. Ben saw why as Murchison blasted
+away at a group of giant women who were trying to rush the tower.
+
+There was no more time. Already other ships were taking off. Another wasted
+minute and they would beat him to the lock. Ben yelled to Davies to close
+the hatch as he turned on the power.
+
+A moment later they were in the blackness of the tube. Davies ran forward
+to the controls. "There's a light on the ship," he said. He found the
+switch and threw it in time for them to see the next lock open for them.
+
+"Three to go," Ben muttered. "Looks like we're going to make it."
+
+"Maybe not." Davies tapped his shoulder and pointed to the rear of the
+ship. Looking back through a porthole, Ben could see other ships behind
+them.
+
+"As long as we're in the tube they won't fire," Davies said. "But neither
+can we get very far ahead!"
+
+While he spoke the ship had gone through another lock with the others still
+directly behind. It looked like Davies was right. But Ben was not yet ready
+to concede defeat. The fourth lock loomed ahead and he watched it swing
+open. Just a few minutes more and they would go through the last one. It
+was still hundreds of miles ahead but at the rate they were travelling they
+would be on it soon.
+
+He waited until the last possible second and then cut his speed sharply.
+Behind them the other ships were forced to use their retarding rockets for
+fear of ramming them. It was just what Ben had expected. As the last lock
+opened he threw the accelerator all the way forward and felt the ship leap
+ahead.
+
+That alone would not have been enough, but as the ship roared out of the
+tube above the surface of Teris he cut sharply to the right. Had their ship
+been faster it might have worked. But it was not fast enough. Through the
+blackness of space the exhausts of their pursuers flamed closer. Ben's
+teeth clamped down on his lips.
+
+"I guess we're out of luck."
+
+There was nothing more to say. It was only a matter of minutes before the
+guns of the ships behind them would blast them to pieces. They held their
+breath and waited, watching the exhausts come through the darkness.
+
+And then suddenly there was no more darkness. A light as bright as the noon
+sun flared. Ben let out a shout, for beyond the light were lined the battle
+cruisers of Earth. His pursuers turned tail and ran.
+
+"Where the devil did those ships come from?" Davies gasped.
+
+"I sent for them," Ben told him. "We had it all arranged. When I tackled
+that double I managed to slip a microfilm capsule into his pocket. It had a
+complete picture of my radona chart. As soon as the double reached Earth,
+Intelligence grabbed him. All they had to do was follow my chart to Teris."
+
+They were passing the flagship of the Earth fleet, and Ben dipped the nose
+of his ship in salute. Then he turned to see what was going on.
+
+There was going to be no attempt to invade Teris. Instead, its surface was
+illuminated with more of the flares. A moment later Teris was gone, blasted
+by the guns of a thousand cruisers. And for the strange women who would
+have enslaved a universe, Ben felt no pity.
+
+
+                               THE END
+
+
+
+
+                         TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+
+The sentence on Page 61: "It was that department's job to take the ship
+apart, fix what needed fixing, and put it." is exactly as it appears in
+the original.
+
+On Page 62, in "Once Jacobs' interest was aroused he was also not one to
+let a matter drop;" the original had "Jacob's".
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Daughters of Doom, by Herbert B. Livingston
+
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