Richard Arcot stepped into the open airlock of the _Ancient Mariner_ and
walked down the corridor to the library. There, he found Fuller and Wade
battling silently over a game of chess and Morey relaxed in a chair with
a book in his hands.
"What a bunch of loafers," Arcot said acidly. "Don't you ever _do_
anything?"
"Sure," said Fuller. "The three of us have entered into a lifelong pact
with each other to refrain from using a certain weapon which would make
this war impossible for all time."
"What war?" Arcot wondered. "And what weapon?"
"This war," Wade grinned, pointing at the chess board. "We have agreed
absolutely never to read each other's minds while playing chess."
Morey lowered his book and looked at Arcot. "And just what have you been
so busy about?"
"I've been investigating the weapon on board the Satorian ships we
captured," Arcot told them. "Quite an interesting effect. The Nansalian
scientists and I have been analyzing the equipment for the past three
days.
"The Satorians found a way to cut off and direct an electrostatic field.
The energy required was tremendous, but they evidently separated the
charges on Sator and carried them along on the ships.
"You can see what would happen if a ship were charged negatively and the
ship next to it were charged positively! The magnitude of electrostatic
forces is terrific! If you put two ounces of iron ions, with a positive
charge, on the north pole, and an equivalent amount of chlorine ions,
negatively charged, on the south pole, the attraction, even across that
distance, would be three hundred and sixty tons!
"They located the negative charges on one ship and the positive charges
on the one next to it. Their mutual attraction pulled them toward each
other. As they got closer, the charges arced across, heating and fusing
the two ships. But they still had enough motion toward each other to
crash.
"They were wrecked by less than a tenth of an ounce of ions which were
projected to the ship and held there by an automatic field until the
ships got close enough to arc through it.
"We still haven't been able to analyze that trick field, though."
"Well, now that we've gotten things straightened out," Fuller said,
"let's go home! I'm anxious to leave! We're all ready to go, aren't we?"
Arcot nodded. "All except for one thing. The Supreme Three want to see
us. We've got a meeting with them in an hour, so put on your best Sunday
pants."
In the Council of Three, Arcot was officially invited to remain with
them. The fleet of molecular motion ships was nearing completion--the
first one was to roll off the assembly line the next day--but they
wanted Arcot, Wade, Morey, and Fuller to remain on Nansal.
"We have a large world here," the Scientist thought at them. "Thanks to
you people, we can at last call it our own. We offer you, in the name of
the people, your choice of any spot in this world. And we give
you--this!" The Scientist came forward. He had a disc-shaped plaque,
perhaps three inches in diameter, made of a deep ruby-red metal. In the
exact center was a green stone which seemed to shine of its own accord,
with a pale, clear, green light; it was transparent and highly
refractive. Around it, at the three points of a triangle, were three
similar, but smaller stones. Engraved lines ran from each of the stones
to the center, and other lines connected the outer three in a triangle.
The effect was as though one were looking down at the apex of a regular
tetrahedron.
There were characters in Nansalese at each point of the tetrahedron, and
other characters engraved in a circle around it.
Arcot turned it in his hand. On the back was a representation of the
Nansalian planetary system. The center was a pale yellow, highly-faceted
stone which represented the sun. Around this were the orbits of planets,
and each of the eleven planets was marked by a different colored stone.
The Scientist was holding in the palm of his hand another such disc,
slightly smaller. On it, there were three green stones, one slightly
larger than the others.
"This is my badge of office as Scientist of the Three. The stone marked
Science is here larger. Your plaque is new. Henceforth, it shall be the
Three and a Coordinator!
"Your vote shall outweigh all but a unanimous vote of the Three. To you,
this world is answerable, for you have saved our civilization. And when
you return, as you have promised, you shall be Coordinator of this
system!"
Arcot stood silent for a moment. This was a thing he had never thought
of. He was a scientist, and he knew that his ability was limited to that
field.
At last, he smiled and replied: "It is a great honor, and it is a great
work. But I can not spend my time here always; I must return to my own
planet. I can not be fairly in contact with you.
"Therefore, I will make my first move in office now, and suggest that
this plaque signify, not the Coordinator, and first power of your
country, but Counselor and first friend in all things in which I can
serve you.
"The tetrahedron you have chosen; so let it be. The apex is out of the
plane of the other points, and I am out of this galaxy. But there is a
relationship between the apex and the points of the base, and these
lines will exist forever.
"We have been too busy to think of anything else as yet, but our worlds
are large, and your worlds are large. Commerce can develop across the
ten million light years of space as readily as it now exists across the
little space of our own system. It is a journey of but five days, and
later machines will make it in less! Commerce will come, and with it
will come close communication.
"I will accept this plaque with the understanding that I am but your
friend and advisor. Too much power in the hands of one man is bad. Even
though you trust me completely, there might be an unscrupulous
successor.
"And I must return to my world.
"Your first ship will be ready tomorrow, and when it is completed, my
friends and I will leave your planet.
"We will return, though. We are ten million light years apart, but the
universe is not to be measured in space anymore, but in time. We are
five days apart. I will be nearer to you at all times than is Sator!
"If you wish, others of my race shall come, too. But if you do not want
them to come, they will not. I alone have Tharlano's photographs of the
route, and I can lose them."
For a moment, the Three spoke together, then the Scientist was again
thinking at Arcot.
"Perhaps you are right. It is obvious your people know more than we.
They have the molecular ray, and they know no wars; they do not destroy
each other. They must be a good race, and we have seen excellent
examples in you.
"We can realize your desire to return home, but we ask you to come
again. We will remember that you are not ten million light years, but
five days, from our planet."
When the conference was ended, Arcot and his friends returned to their
ship. Torlos was waiting for them outside the airlock.
"Abaout haow saon you laive?" he asked in English.
"Why--tomorrow," Arcot said, in surprise. "Have you been practicing our
language?"
Torlos reverted to telepathy. "Yes, but that is not what I came to talk
to you about. Arcot--can a man of Nansal visit Earth?" Anxiously,
hopefully, and hesitatingly, he asked. "I could come back on one of your
commercial vessels, or come back when you return. And--and I'm sure I
could earn my living on your world! I'm not hard to feed, you know!" He
half smiled, but he was too much in earnest to make a perfect success.
Arcot was amazed that he should ask. It was an idea he would very much
like to see fulfilled. The idea of metal-boned men with tremendous
strength and strange molecular-motion muscles would inspire no
friendship, no feeling of kinship, in the people of Earth. But the man
himself--a pleasant, kindly, sincere, intelligent giant--would be a far
greater argument for the world of Nansal that the most vivid orator
would ever be.
Arcot asked the others, and the vote was unanimous--let him come!
The next day, amid great ceremony, the first of the new Nansalian ships
came from the factories. When the celebration was over, the four
Earthmen and the giant Torlos entered the _Ancient Mariner_.
"Ready to go, Torlos?" Arcot grinned.
"Pearfactly, Ahcut. Tse soonah tse bettah!" he said in his oddly
accented English.
Five hours saw them out of the galaxy. Twelve hours more, and they were
heading for home at full speed, well out in space.
The Home Galaxy was looming large when they next stopped for
observation. Old Tharlano had guided them correctly!
They were going home!
CLASSICS OF GREAT SCIENCE-FICTION
from ACE BOOKS
G-547 (50 cents) THE BLIND SPOT
by Austin Hall and H. E. Flint
F-318 (40 cents) THE SPOT OF LIFE
by Austin Hall
F-319 (40 cents) CRASHING SUNS
by Edmond Hamilton
F-327 (40 cents) THE DARK WORLD
by Henry Kuttner
F-343 (40 cents) THE EXILE OF TIME
by Ray Cummings
F-344 (40 cents) THE WELL OF THE WORLDS
by Henry Kuttner
F-345 (40 cents) THE LORD OF DEATH
by Homer Eon Flint
F-346 (40 cents) THE BLACK STAR PASSES
by John W. Campbell
F-355 (40 cents) THE DEVOLUTIONIST
by Homer Eon Flint
F-356 (40 cents) THE TIME AXIS
by Henry Kuttner
F-363 (40 cents) TAMA OF THE LIGHT COUNTRY
by Ray Cummings
F-364 (40 cents) THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE
by John W. Campbell
M-132 (45 cents) THE KING IN YELLOW
by Robert W. Chambers
F-372 (40 cents) SPACEHOUNDS OF IPC
by Edward E. Smith