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Skylark Three
_By_
Edward E. Smith,
Ph. D.
Sequel to
"The Skylark of Space"
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| _"All set," he reported crisply, and barked a series of |
| explosive syllables at Shiro, ending upon a rising note._ |
| |
| _The Tale of the Galactic Cruise Which Ushered in Universal |
| Civilization_ |
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[Illustration]
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| _For two years readers of_ AMAZING STORIES _have literally |
| clamored for a sequel to the famous story, "The Skylark of |
| Space," which appeared exactly two years ago. Except that |
| "Skylark Three" is more thrilling, more exciting and even |
| more chockful of science than the other. Dr. Smith tells |
| about the story in his author's note far better than we can |
| do._ |
| |
| Illustrated by WESSO |
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| Transcriber's Note |
| |
| This etext was produced from Amazing Stories August, |
| September and October 1930. Extensive research did not |
| uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this |
| publication was renewed. |
| |
| Other Transcriber Notes and Errata are given at the end of |
| the text. |
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AUTHOR'S NOTE:
To all profound thinkers in the realms of Science who may chance to read
SKYLARK THREE, greetings:
I have taken certain liberties with several more or less commonly
accepted theories, but I assure you that those theories have not been
violated altogether in ignorance. Some of them I myself believe sound,
others I consider unsound, still others are out of my line, so that I am
not well enough informed upon their basic mathematical foundations to
have come to any definite conclusion, one way or the other. Whether or
not I consider any theory sound, I did not hesitate to disregard it, if
its literal application would have interfered with the logical
development of the story. In "The Skylark of Space" Mrs. Garby and I
decided, after some discussion, to allow two mathematical
impossibilities to stand. One of these immediately became the target of
critics from Maine to California and, while no astronomer has as yet
called attention to the other, I would not be surprised to hear about
it, even at this late date.
While I do not wish it understood that I regard any of the major
features of this story as likely to become facts in the near
future--indeed, it has been my aim to portray the highly improbable--it
is my belief that there is no mathematical or scientific impossibility
to be found in "Skylark Three."
In fact, even though I have repeatedly violated theories in which I
myself believe, I have in every case taken great pains to make certain
that the most rigid mathematical analysis of which I am capable has
failed to show that I have violated any known and proven scientific
fact. By "fact" I do not mean the kind of reasoning, based upon
assumptions later shown to be fallacious, by which it was "proved" that
the transatlantic cable and the airplane were scientifically impossible.
I refer to definitely known phenomena which no possible future
development can change--I refer to mathematical proofs whose fundamental
equations and operations involve no assumptions and contain no
second-degree uncertainties.
Please bear in mind that we KNOW very little. It has been widely
believed that the velocity of light is the limiting velocity, and many
of our leading authorities hold this view--but it cannot be proved, and
is by no means universally held. In this connection, it would appear
that J. J. Thompson, in "Beyond the Electron" shows, to his own
satisfaction at least, that velocities vastly greater than that of light
are not only possible, but necessary to any comprehensive investigation
into the nature of the electron.
We do not know the nature of light. Neither the undulatory theory nor
the quantum theory are adequate to explain all observed phenomena, and
they seem to be mutually exclusive, since it would seem clear by
definition that no one thing can be at the same time continuous and
discontinuous. We know nothing of the ether--we do not even know whether
or not it exists, save as a concept of our own extremely limited
intelligence. We are in total ignorance of the ultimate structure of
matter, and of the arrangement and significance of those larger
aggregations of matter, the galaxies. We do not know nor understand, nor
can we define, even such fundamental necessities as time and space.
Why prate of "the impossible"?
Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D.
CHAPTER I
DuQuesne Goes Traveling
In the innermost private office of Steel, Brookings and DuQuesne stared
at each other across the massive desk. DuQuesne's voice was cold, his
black brows were drawn together.
"Get this, Brookings, and get it straight. I'm shoving off at twelve
o'clock tonight. My advice to you is to lay off Richard Seaton,
absolutely. Don't do a thing. _Nothing, hold everything._ Keep on
holding it until I get back, no matter how long that may be," DuQuesne
shot out in an icy tone.
"I am very much surprised at your change of front, Doctor. You are the
last man I would have expected to be scared off after one engagement."
"Don't be any more of a fool than you have to, Brookings. There's a lot
of difference between scared and knowing when you are simply wasting
effort. As you remember, I tried to abduct Mrs. Seaton by picking her
off with an attractor from a space-ship. I would have bet that nothing
could have stopped me. Well, when they located me--probably with an
automatic Osnomian ray-detector--and heated me red-hot while I was still
better than two hundred miles up, I knew then and there that they had us
stopped; that there was nothing we could do except go back to my plan,
abandon the abduction idea, and eventually kill them all. Since my plan
would take time, you objected to it, and sent an airplane to drop a
five-hundred-pound bomb on them. Airplane, bomb, and all simply
vanished. It didn't explode, you remember, just flashed into light and
disappeared, with scarcely any noise. Then you pulled several more of
your fool ideas, such as long-range bombardment, and so on. None of
them worked. Still you've got the nerve to think that you can get them
with ordinary gunmen! I've drawn you diagrams and shown you
figures--I've told you in great detail and in one-syllable words exactly
what we're up against. Now I tell you again that they've _got
something_. If you had the brains of a pinhead, you would know that
anything I can't do with a space-ship can't be done by a mob of ordinary
gangsters. I'm telling you, Brookings, that you can't do it. My way is
absolutely the only way that will work."
"But five years, Doctor!"
"I may be back in six months. But on a trip of this kind anything can
happen, so I am planning on being gone five years. Even that may not be
enough--I am carrying supplies for ten years, and that box of mine in
the vault is not to be opened until ten years from today."
"But surely we shall be able to remove the obstructions ourselves in a
few weeks. We always have."
"Oh, quit kidding yourself, Brookings! This is no time for idiocy! You
stand just as much chance of killing Seaton----"
"Please, Doctor, please don't talk like that!"
"Still squeamish, eh? Your pussyfooting always did give me an acute
pain. I'm for direct action, word and deed, first, last, and all the
time. I repeat, you have exactly as much chance of killing Richard
Seaton as a blind kitten has."
"How do you arrive at that conclusion, Doctor? You seem very fond of
belittling our abilities. Personally, I think that we shall be able to
attain our objectives within a few weeks--certainly long before you can
possibly return from such an extended trip as you have in mind. And
since you are so fond of frankness, I will say that I think that Seaton
has you buffaloed, as you call it. Nine-tenths of these wonderful
Osnomian things, I am assured by competent authorities, are
scientifically impossible, and I think that the other one-tenth exists
only in your own imagination. Seaton was lucky in that the airplane bomb
was defective and exploded prematurely; and your space-ship got hot
because of your injudicious speed through the atmosphere. We shall have
everything settled by the time you get back."
"If you have, I'll make you a present of the controlling interest in
Steel and buy myself a chair in some home for feeble-minded old women.
Your ignorance and unwillingness to believe any new idea do not change
the facts in any particular. Even before they went to Osnome, Seaton was
hard to get, as you found out. On that trip he learned so much new stuff
that it is now impossible to kill him by any ordinary means. You should
realize that fact when he kills every gangster you send against him. At
all events be very, _very_ careful not to kill his wife in any of your
attacks, even by accident, until after you have killed him."
"Such an event would be regrettable, certainly, in that it would remove
all possibility of the abduction."
"It would remove more than that. Remember the explosion in our
laboratory, that blew an entire mountain into impalpable dust? Draw in
your mind a nice, vivid picture of one ten times the size in each of our
plants and in this building. I know that you are fool enough to go ahead
with your own ideas, in spite of everything I've said; and, since I do
not yet actually control Steel, I can't forbid you to, officially. But
you should know that I know what I'm talking about, and I say again that
you're going to make an utter fool of yourself; just because you won't
believe anything possible, that hasn't been done every day for a hundred
years. I wish that I could make you understand that Seaton and Crane
have got something that we haven't--but for the good of our plants, and
incidentally for your own, please remember one thing, anyway; for if you
forget it, we won't have a plant left and you personally will be blown
into a fine red mist. Whatever you start, kill Seaton first, and be
absolutely certain that he is definitely, completely, finally and
totally dead before you touch one of Dorothy Seaton's red hairs. As long
as you only attack him personally he won't do anything but kill every
man you send against him. If you kill her while he's still alive,
though--Blooie!" and the saturnine scientist waved both hands in an
expressive pantomime of wholesale destruction.
"Probably you are right in that," Brookings paled slightly. "Yes, Seaton
would do just that. We shall be very careful, until after we succeed in
removing him."
"Don't worry--you won't succeed. I shall attend to that detail myself,
as soon as I get back. Seaton and Crane and their families, the
directors and employees of their plants, the banks that by any
possibility may harbor their notes or solutions--in short, every person
and everything standing between me and a monopoly of 'X'--all shall
disappear."
"That is a terrible program, Doctor. Wouldn't the late Perkins' plan of
an abduction, such as I have in mind, be better, safer and quicker?"
"Yes--except for the fact that it will not work. I've talked until I'm
blue in the face--I've proved to you over and over that you can't abduct
her now without first killing him, and that you can't even touch him. My
plan is the only one that will work. Seaton isn't the only one who
learned anything--I learned a lot myself. I learned one thing in
particular. Only four other inhabitants of either Earth or Osnome ever
had even an inkling of it, and they died, with their brains
disintegrated beyond reading. That thing is my ace in the hole. I'm
going after it. When I get it, and not until then, will I be ready to
take the offensive."
"You intend starting open war upon your return?"
"The war started when I tried to pick off the women with my attractor.
That is why I am leaving at midnight. He always goes to bed at
eleven-thirty, and I will be out of range of his object-compass before
he wakes up. Seaton and I understand each other perfectly. We both know
that the next time we meet one of us is going to be resolved into his
component atoms, perhaps into electrons. He doesn't know that he's going
to be the one, but I do. My final word to you is to lay off--if you
don't, you and your 'competent authorities' are going to learn a lot."
"You do not care to inform me more fully as to your destination or your
plans?"
"I do not. Goodbye."