"Sixteen-power projectors!" Fay whispered. "Oh, Steve, isn't there anything we can do? To have come through so much ... and now...."
Haller was silent, and his face took on the old living robot look. No escape! If only the dragging magnetism didn't hold them down! It would have been so simple to open the rockets, leap skyward. But the invisible field held them like a vise, as it had held so many helpless vessels on this Island of Lost Spaceships, never to leave!
A roar from the sub-men sounded outside. Beams of dazzling blue light had burst from the two projectors, had caught the ship in their focus, until it was like a bit of steel in the middle of a spark-gap. Heat ... searing, unbearable heat, swept the cabin.
"They're turning on the juice slowly," Barger muttered through clenched teeth. "Full power would blast the ship to atoms, but they're trying to force us to surrender! They don't want to destroy the food we got aboard!"
Haller nodded grimly. The heat within the cabin was becoming unbearable now, and the walls were beginning to turn a dull red. He shot a glance at Fay; paper-white, face drawn, the girl was gasping for breath. The veins in old Barger's neck were beginning to stand out apoplectically.
"Lie down!" Haller whispered. "Cooler ... on floor!"
Moment by moment the heat increased. The dull red of the hull was beginning to creep along the floorplates, until they were searing to the touch. Outside the howling of the sub-men was vulpine, frenzied, in mad triumph. Barger groaned, writhing in agony.
"Can't stand it!" he choked. "Being roasted alive!"
Fay turned tortured eyes toward Haller, touched his hand.
"Good fight, Steve!" she whispered. "Shame it has to end like this! Pray that ... fuel tanks blow up, end it quickly! I ... I...." She fell back, unconscious.
"Fuel tanks...." Haller repeated dully. There was something in his mind but he couldn't think. So hot. Hell--living hell. That something in his mind! Heat ... magnetism ... no escape.
"Magnetism ... heat...." Drunkenly Haller lurched to his feet. "Barger! Barger!" He dragged the groaning spaceman erect. "Heat destroys magnetism! You see? The bulk of the ship's interior bulkheads are aluminum alloy for lightness! It was the steel hull that dragged us down! And now it's hot ... red hot! No magnetism! Get down to those motors!"