Taj Lamor gazed steadily down at the vast dim bulk of the ancient city
spread out beneath him. In the feeble light of the stars its mighty
masses of up-flung metal buildings loomed strangely, like the shells of
some vast race of crustacea, long extinct. Slowly he turned, gazing now
out across the great plaza, where rested long rows of slender, yet
mighty ships. Thoughtfully he stared at their dim, half-seen shapes.
Taj Lamor was not human. Though he was humanoid, Earth had never seen
creatures just like him. His seven foot high figure seemed a bit
ungainly by Terrestrial standards, and his strangely white, hairless
flesh, suggesting unbaked dough, somehow gave the impression of
near-transparency. His eyes were disproportionately large, and the black
disc of pupil in the white corneas was intensified by contrast. Yet
perhaps his race better deserved the designation _homo sapiens_ than
Terrestrians do, for it was wise with the accumulated wisdom of
uncounted eons.
He turned to the other man in the high, cylindrical, dimly lit tower
room overlooking the dark metropolis, a man far older than Taj Lamor,
his narrow shoulders bent, and his features grayed with his years. His
single short, tight-fitting garment of black plastic marked him as one
of the Elders. The voice of Taj Lamor was vibrant with feeling:
"Tordos Gar, at last we are ready to seek a new sun. Life for our race!"
A quiet, patient, imperturbable smile appeared on the Elder's face and
the heavy lids closed over his great eyes.
"Yes," he said sadly, "but at what cost in tranquility! The discord, the
unrest, the awakening of unnatural ambitions--a dreadful price to pay
for a questionable gain. Too great a price, I think." His eyes opened,
and he raised a thin hand to check the younger man's protest. "I know--I
know--in this we do not see as one. Yet perhaps some day you will learn
even as I have that to rest is better than to engage in an endless
struggle. Suns and planets die. Why should races seek to escape the
inevitable?" Tordos Gar turned slowly away and gazed fixedly into the
night sky.
Taj Lamor checked an impatient retort and sighed resignedly. It was this
attitude that had made his task so difficult. Decadence. A race on an
ages-long decline from vast heights of philosophical and scientific
learning. Their last external enemy had been defeated millennia in the
past; and through easy forgetfulness and lack of strife, ambition had
died. Adventure had become a meaningless word.
Strangely, during the last century a few men had felt the stirrings of
long-buried emotion, of ambition, of a craving for adventure. These were
throwbacks to those ancestors of the race whose science had built their
world. These men, a comparative handful, had been drawn to each other by
the unnatural ferment within them; and Taj Lamor had become their
leader. They had begun a mighty struggle against the inertia of ages of
slow decay, had begun a search for the lost secrets of a
hundred-million-year-old science.
Taj Lamor raised his eyes to the horizon. Through the leaping curve of
the crystal clear roof of their world glowed a blazing spot of yellow
fire. A star--the brightest object in a sky whose sun had lost its
light. A point of radiance that held the last hopes of an incredibly
ancient race.
The quiet voice of Tordos Gar came through the semidarkness of the
room, a pensive, dreamlike quality in its tones.
"You, Taj Lamor, and those young men who have joined you in this futile
expedition do not think deeply enough. Your vision is too narrow. You
lack perspective. In your youth you cannot think on a cosmic scale." He
paused as though in thought, and when he continued, it seemed almost as
though he were speaking to himself.
"In the far, dim past fifteen planets circled about a small, red sun.
They were dead worlds--or rather, worlds that had not yet lived. Perhaps
a million years passed before there moved about on three of them the
beginnings of life. Then a hundred million years passed, and those
first, crawling protoplasmic masses had become animals, and plants, and
intermediate growths. And they fought endlessly for survival. Then more
millions of years passed, and there appeared a creature which slowly
gained ascendancy over the other struggling life forms that fought for
the warmth of rays of the hot, red sun.
"That sun had been old, even as the age of a star is counted, before its
planets had been born, and many, many millions of years had passed
before those planets cooled, and then more eons sped by before life
appeared. Now, as life slowly forced its way upward, that sun was nearly
burned out. The animals fought, and bathed in the luxury of its rays,
for many millennia were required to produce any noticeable change in its
life-giving radiations.
"At last one animal gained the ascendancy. Our race. But though one
species now ruled, there was no peace. Age followed age while
semi-barbaric peoples fought among themselves. But even as they fought,
they learned.
"They moved from caves into structures of wood and stone--and
engineering had its beginning. With the buildings came little chemical
engines to destroy them; warfare was developing. Then came the first
crude flying-machines, using clumsy, inefficient engines. Chemical
engines! Engines so crude that one could watch the flow of their fuel!
One part in one hundred thousand million of the energy of their
propellents they released to run the engines, and they carried fuel in
such vast quantities that they staggered under its load as they left the
ground! And warfare became world-wide. After flight came other machines
and other ages. Other scientists began to have visions of the realms
beyond, and they sought to tap the vast reservoirs of Nature's energies,
the energies of matter.
"Other ages saw it done--a few thousand years later there passed out
into space a machine that forced its way across the void to another
planet! And the races of the three living worlds became as one--but
there was no peace.
"Swiftly now, science grew upon itself, building with ever faster steps,
like a crystal which, once started, forms with incalculable speed.
"And while that science grew swiftly greater, other changes took place,
changes in our universe itself. Ten million years passed before the
first of those changes became important. But slowly, steadily our
atmosphere was drifting into space. Through ages this gradually became
apparent. Our worlds were losing their air and their water. One planet,
less favored than another, fought for its life, and space itself was
ablaze with the struggles of wars for survival.
"Again science helped us. Thousands of years before, men had learned how
to change the mass of matter into energy, but now at last the process
was reversed, and those ancestors of ours could change energy into
matter, any kind of matter they wished. Rock they took, and changed it
to energy, then that energy they transmuted to air, to water, to the
necessary metals. Their planets took a new lease of life!
"But even this could not continue forever. They must stop that loss of
air. The process they had developed for reformation of matter admitted
of a new use. Creation! They were now able to make new elements,
elements that had never existed in nature! They designed atoms as, long
before, their fathers had designed molecules. At last their problem was
solved. They made a new form of matter that was clearer than any
crystal, and yet stronger and tougher than any metal known. Since it
held out none of the sun's radiations, they could roof their worlds with
it and keep their air within!
"This was a task that could not be done in a year, nor a decade, but all
time stretched out unending before them. One by one the three planets
became tremendous, roofed-in cities. Only their vast powers, their
mighty machines made the task possible, but it was done."
The droning voice of Tordos Gar ceased. Taj Lamor, who had listened with
a mixture of amusement and impatience to the recital of a history he
knew as well as the aged, garrulous narrator, waited out of the inborn
respect which every man held for the Elders. At length he exclaimed: "I
see no point--"
"But you will when I finish--or, at least, I hope you will." Tordos
Gar's words and tone were gently reproving. He continued quietly:
"Slowly the ages drifted on, each marked by greater and greater triumphs
of science. But again and again there were wars. Some there were in
which the population of a world was halved, and all space for a billion
miles about was a vast cauldron of incandescent energy in which
tremendous fleets of space ships swirled and fused like ingredients in
some cosmic brew. Forces were loosed on the three planets that sent even
their mighty masses reeling drunkenly out of their orbits, and space
itself seemed to be torn by the awful play of energies.
"Always peace followed--a futile peace. A few brief centuries or a few
millennia, and again war would flame. It would end, and life would
continue.
"But slowly there crept into the struggle a new factor, a darkening
cloud, a change that came so gradually that only the records of
instruments, made during a period of thousands of years, could show it.
Our sun had changed from bright red to a deep, sullen crimson, and ever
less and less heat poured from it. It was waning!
"As the fires of life died down, the people of the three worlds joined
in a conflict with the common menace, death from the creeping cold of
space. There was no need for great haste; a sun dies slowly. Our
ancestors laid their plans and carried them out. The fifteen worlds were
encased in shells of crystal. Those that had no atmosphere were given
one. Mighty heating plants were built--furnaces that burned matter,
designed to warm a world! At last a state of stability had been reached,
for never could conditions change--it seemed. All external heat and
light came from far-off stars, the thousands of millions of suns that
would never fail.
"Under stress of the Great Change one scarcely noticed, yet almost
incredible, transformation had occurred. We had learned to live with
each other. We had learned to think, and enjoy thinking. As a species we
had passed from youth into maturity. Advancement did not stop; we went
on steadily toward the goal of all knowledge. At first there was an
underlying hope that we might some day, somehow, escape from these
darkened, artificial worlds of ours, but with the passing centuries this
grew very dim and at length was forgotten.
"Gradually as millennia passed, much ancient knowledge was also
forgotten. It was not needed. The world was unchanging, there was no
strife, and no need of strife. The fifteen worlds were warm, and
pleasant, and safe. Without fully realizing it, we had entered a period
of rest. And so the ages passed; and there were museums and libraries
and laboratories; and the machines of our ancestors did all necessary
work. So it was--until less than a generation ago. Our long lives were
pleasant, and death, when it came, was a sleep. And then--"
"And then," Taj Lamor interrupted, a sharp edge of impatience in his
tone, "some of us awakened from our stupor!"
The Elder sighed resignedly. "You cannot see--you cannot see. You would
start that struggle all over again!" His voice continued in what Taj
Lamor thought of as a senile drone, but the younger man paid scant
attention. His eyes and thoughts were centered on that brilliant yellow
star, the brightest object in the heavens. It was that star, noticeably
brighter within a few centuries, that had awakened a few men from their
mental slumbers.
They were throwbacks, men who had the divine gift of curiosity; and
sparked by their will to know, they had gone to the museums and looked
carefully at the ancient directions for the use of the telectroscope,
the mighty electrically amplified vision machine, had gazed through it.
They had seen a great sun that seemed to fill all the field of the
apparatus with blazing fire. A sun to envy! Further observation had
revealed that there circled about the sun a series of planets, five,
definitely; two more, probably; and possibly two others.
Taj Lamor had been with that group, a young man then, scarcely more than
forty, but they had found him a leader and they had followed him as he
set about his investigation of the ancient books on astronomy.
How many, many hours had he studied those ancient works! How many times
had he despaired of ever learning their truths, and gone out to the roof
of the museum to stand in silent thought looking out across the awful
void to the steady flame of the yellow star! Then quietly he had
returned to his self-set task.
With him as teacher, others had learned, and before he was seventy there
were many men who had become true scientists, astronomers. There was
much of the ancient knowledge that these men could not understand, for
the science of a million centuries is not to be learned in a few brief
decades, but they mastered a vast amount of the forgotten lore.
They knew now that the young, live sun, out there in space, was speeding
toward them, their combined velocities equalling more than 100 miles
each second. And they knew that there were not seven, but nine planets
circling about that sun. There were other facts they discovered; they
found that the new sun was far larger than theirs had ever been; indeed,
it was a sun well above average in size and brilliance. There were
planets, a hot sun--a home! Could they get there?
When their ancestors had tried to solve the problem of escape they had
concentrated their work on the problem of going at speeds greater than
that of light. This should be an impossibility, but the fact that the
ancients had tried it, seemed proof enough to their descendants that it
was possible, at least in theory. In the distant past they had needed
speeds exceeding that of light, for they must travel light years; but
now this sun was coming toward them, and already was less than two
hundred and fifty billion miles away!
They would pass that other star in about seventy years. That was
scarcely more than a third of a man's lifetime. They could make the
journey with conceivable speeds--but in that brief period they must
prepare to move!
The swift agitation for action had met with terrific resistance. They
were satisfied; why move?
But, while some men had devoted their time to arousing the people to
help, others had begun doing work that had not been done for a long,
long time. The laboratories were reopened, and workshops began humming
again. They were making things that were new once more, not merely
copying old designs.
Their search had been divided into sections, search for weapons with
which to defend themselves in case they were attacked, and search for
the basic principles underlying the operation of their space ships. They
had machines which they could imitate, but they did not understand them.
Success had been theirs on these quests. The third section had been less
successful. They had also been searching for secrets of the apparatus
their forefathers had used to swing the planets in their orbits, to move
worlds about at will. They had wanted to be able to take not only their
space ships, but their planets as well, when they went to settle on
these other worlds and in this other solar system.
But the search for this secret had remained unrewarded. The secret of
the spaceships they learned readily, and Taj Lamor had designed these
mighty ships below there with that knowledge. Their search for weapons
had been satisfied; they had found one weapon, one of the deadliest that
their ancestors had ever invented. But the one secret in which they were
most interested, the mighty force barrage that could swing a world in
its flight through space, was lost. They could not find it.
They knew the principles of the driving apparatus of their ships, and it
would seem but a matter of enlargement to drive a planet as a ship, but
they knew this was impossible; the terrific forces needed would easily
be produced by their apparatus, but there was no way to apply them to a
world. If applied in any spot, the planet would be torn asunder by the
incalculable strain. They must apply the force equally to the entire
planet. Their problem was one of application of power. The rotation of
the planet made it impossible to use a series of driving apparatus, even
could these be anchored, but again the sheer immensity of the task made
it impossible.
Taj Lamor gazed down again at the great ships in the plaza below. Their
mighty bulks seemed to dwarf even the huge buildings about them. Yet
these ships were his--for he had learned their secrets and designed
them, and now he was to command them as they flew out across space in
that flight to the distant star.
He turned briefly to the Elder, Tordos Gar. "Soon we leave," he said, a
faint edge of triumph in his voice. "We will prove that our way is
right."
The old man shook his head. "You will learn--" he began, but Taj Lamor
did not want to hear.
He turned, passed through a doorway, and stepped into a little
torpedo-shaped car that rested on the metal roof behind him. A moment
later the little ship rose, and then slanted smoothly down over the edge
of the roof, straight for the largest of the ships below. This was the
flagship. Nearly a hundred feet greater was its diameter, and its mile
and a quarter length of gleaming metal hull gave it nearly three hundred
feet greater length than that of the ships of the line.
This expedition was an expedition of exploration. They were prepared to
meet any conditions on those other worlds--no atmosphere, no water, no
heat, or even an atmosphere of poisonous gases they could rectify, for
their transmutation apparatus would permit them to change those gases,
or modify them; they knew well how to supply heat, but they knew too,
that that sun would warm some of its planets sufficiently for their
purposes.
Taj Lamor sent his little machine darting through the great airlock in
the side of the gigantic interstellar ship and lowered it gently to the
floor. A man stepped forward, opened the door for the leader, saluting
him briskly as he stepped out; then the car was run swiftly aside, to be
placed with thousands of others like it. Each of these cars was to be
used by a separate investigator when they reached those other worlds,
and there were men aboard who would use them.
Taj Lamor made his way to a door in the side of a great metal tube that
threaded the length of the huge ship. Opening the door he sat down in
another little car that shot swiftly forward as the double door shut
softly, with a low hiss of escaping air. For moments the car sped
through the tube, then gently it slowed and came to rest opposite
another door. Again came the hissing of gas as the twin doors opened,
and Taj Lamor stepped out, now well up in the nose of the cruiser. As he
stepped out of the car the outer and inner doors closed, and, ready now
for other calls, the car remained at this station. On a ship so long,
some means of communication faster than walking was essential. This
little pneumatic railway was the solution.
As Taj Lamor stepped out of the tube, a half-dozen men, who had been
talking among themselves, snapped quickly to attention. Following the
plans of the long-gone armies of their ancestors, the men of the
expedition had been trained to strict discipline; and Taj Lamor was
their technical leader and the nominal Commander-in-Chief, although
another man, Kornal Sorul, was their actual commander.
Taj Lamor proceeded at once to the Staff Cabin in the very nose of the
great ship. Just above him there was another room, walled on all sides
by that clear, glass-like material, the control cabin. Here the pilot
sat, directing the motions of the mighty ship of space.
Taj Lamor pushed a small button on his desk and in a moment a gray disc
before him glowed dimly, then flashed into life and full, natural color.
As though looking through a glass porthole, Taj Lamor saw the interior
of the Communications Room. The Communications Officer was gazing at a
similar disc in which Taj Lamor's features appeared.
"Have they reported from Ohmur, Lorsand, and Throlus, yet, Morlus Tal?"
asked the commander.
"They are reporting now, Taj Lamor, and we will be ready within two and
one half minutes. The plans are as before; we are to proceed directly
toward the Yellow Star, meeting at Point 71?"
"The plans are as before. Start when ready."
The disc faded, the colors died, and it was gray again. Taj Lamor pulled
another small lever on the panel before him, and the disc changed,
glowed, and was steady; and now he saw the preparations for departure,
as from an eye on the top of the great ship. Men streamed swiftly in
ordered columns all about and into the huge vessels. In an incredibly
short time they were in, and the great doors closed behind them.
Suddenly there came a low, dull hum through the disc, and the sound
mounted quickly, till all the world seemed humming to that dull note.
The warning!
Abruptly the city around him seemed to blaze in a riot of colored light!
The mighty towering bulks of the huge metal buildings were polished and
bright, and now, as the millions of lights, every color of the spectrum,
flashed over all the city from small machines in the air, on the ground,
in windows, their great metal walls glistening with a riot of flowing
color. Then there was a trembling through all the frame of the mighty
ship. In a moment it was gone, and the titanic mass of glistening metal
rose smoothly, quickly to the great roof of their world above them. On
an even keel it climbed straight up, then suddenly it leaped forward
like some great bird of prey sighting its victim. The ground beneath
sped swiftly away, and behind it there came a long line of ships,
quickly finding their position in the formation. They were heading
toward the giant airlock that would let them out into space. There was
but one lock large enough to permit so huge a ship to pass out, and they
must circle half their world to reach it.
On three other worlds there were other giant ships racing thus to meet
beyond their solar system. There were fifty ships coming from each
planet; two hundred mighty ships in all made up this Armada of Space,
two hundred gargantuan interstellar cruisers.
One by one the giant ships passed through the airlock and out into
space. Here they quickly reformed as they moved off together, each ship
falling into its place in the mighty cone formation, with the flagship
of Taj Lamor at the head. On they rushed through space, their speed ever
mounting. Suddenly there seemed to leap out of nowhere another mass of
shining machines that flew swiftly beside them. Like some strange,
shining ghosts, these ships seemed to materialize instantly beside and
behind their fleet. They fell in quickly in their allotted position
behind the Flagship's squadron. One--two more fleets appeared thus
suddenly in the dark, and together the ships were flashing on through
space to their goal of glowing fire ahead!
Hour after hour, day after day the ships flashed on through the awful
void, the utter silence relieved by the communications between
themselves and the slowly weakening communications from the far-off home
planets.
But as those signals from home grew steadily weaker, the sun before them
grew steadily larger. At last the men began to feel the heat of those
rays, to realize the energy that that mighty sea of flame poured forth
into space, and steadily they watched it grow nearer.
Then came a day when they could make out clearly the dim bulk of a
planet before them, and for long hours they slowed down the flying speed
of the ships. They had mapped the system they were approaching; there
were nine planets of varying sizes, some on the near and some on the
far side of the sun. There were but three on the near side; one that
seemed the outermost of the planets, about 35,000 miles in diameter, was
directly in their path, while there were two more much nearer the sun,
about 100,000,000 and 70,000,000 miles distant from it, each about seven
to eight thousand miles in diameter, but they were on opposite sides of
the sun. These more inviting and more accessible worlds were numbers two
and three of the planetary system. It was decided to split the
expedition into two parts; one part was to go to planet two, and the
other to three. Taj Lamor was to lead his group of a hundred ships to
the nearer planet at once.
In a very brief time the great ships slanted down over what seemed to be
a mighty globe of water. They were well in the northern hemisphere, and
they had come near the planet first over a vast stretch of rolling
ocean. The men had looked in wonder at such vast quantities of the
fluid. To them it was a precious liquid, that must be made artificially,
and was to be conserved, yet here they saw such vast quantities of
natural water as seemed impossible. Still, their ancient books had told
of such things, and of other strange things, things that must have been
wondrously beautiful, though they were so old now, these records, that
they were regarded largely as myths.
Yet here were the strange proofs! They saw great masses of fleecy water
vapor, huge billowy things that seemed solid, but were blown lightly in
the wind. And natural air! The atmosphere extended for hundreds of miles
off into space; and now, as they came closer to the surface of this
world the air was dense, and the sky above them was a beautiful blue,
not black, even where there were stars. The great sun, so brilliantly
incandescent when seen from space, and now a glowing globe of
reddish-yellow.
And as they came near land, they looked in wonder at mighty masses of
rock and soil that threw their shaggy heads high above the surrounding
terrain, huge masses that rose high, like waves in the water, till they
towered in solemn grandeur miles into the air! What a sight for these
men of a world so old that age long erosion had washed away the last
traces of hills, and filled in all of the valleys!
In awe they looked down at the mighty rock masses, as they swung low
over the mountains, gazing in wonder at the green masses of the strange
vegetation; strange, indeed, for they for uncounted ages had grown only
mushroom-like cellulose products, and these mainly for ornament, for all
their food was artificially made in huge factories.
Then they came over a little mountain lake, a body of water scarcely
large enough to berth one of their huge ships, but high in the clear air
of the mountains, fed by the melting of eternal snows. It was a
magnificent sapphire in a setting green as emerald, a sparkling lake of
clear water, deep as the sea, high in a cleft in the mountains.
In wonder the men looked down at these strange sights. What a marvelous
home!
Steadily the great machines proceeded, and at last the end of the giant
mountain was reached, and they came to a great plain. But that plain was
strangely marked off with squares, as regularly as though plotted with a
draftsman's square. This world must be inhabited by intelligent beings!
Suddenly Taj Lamor saw strange specks off in the far horizon to the
south, specks that seemed to grow in size with terrific velocity; these
must be ships, the ships of these people, coming to defend their home.
The strangely pallid face of Taj Lamor tightened into lines of grim
resolution. This was a moment he had foreseen and had dreaded. Was he to
withdraw and leave these people unmolested, or was he to stand and fight
for this world, this wonderfully beautiful home, a home that his race
could live in for millions of years to come? He had debated this
question many times before in his mind, and he had decided. There would
never, never be another chance for his people to gain a new home. They
must fight.
Swiftly he gave his orders. If resistance came, if an attack were made,
they were to fight back at once, with every weapon at their disposal.
The strangers' ships had grown swiftly larger to the eye, but still,
though near now, they seemed too small to be dangerous. These giant
interstellar cruisers were certainly invulnerable to ships so small;
their mere size would give them protection! These ships were scarcely as
long as the diameter of the smaller of the interstellar ships--a bare
two hundred and fifty feet for the largest.
The interstellar cruisers halted in their course, and waited for the
little ships to approach. They were fast, for they drew alongside
quickly, and raced to the front of the flagship. There was one small one
that was painted white, and on it there was a large white banner,
flapping in the wind of its passage. The rest of the ships drew off as
this came forward, and stopped, hanging motionless before the control
room of the giant machine. There were men inside--three strange men,
short and oddly pink-skinned--but they were gesturing now, motioning
that the giant machine settle to the ground beneath. Taj Lamor was
considering whether or not to thus parley with the strangers, when
suddenly there leaped from the white craft a beam of clear white--a beam
that was directed toward the ground, then swung up toward the great
cruiser in a swift arc!
As one, a dozen swift beams of pale red flared out from the giant and
bathed the pigmy craft. As they reached it, the white ray that had been
sweeping up suddenly vanished, and for an instant the ship hung poised
in the air; then it began to swing crazily, like the pendulum of a
clock--swung completely over--and with a sickening lurch sped swiftly
for the plain nearly five miles below. In moments there came a brief
flare, then there remained only a little crater in the soft soil.
But the red beams had not stopped with the little ship; they had darted
out to the other machines, trying to reach them before they could bring
those strange white rays into play. The cruisers obviously must win, for
they carried dozens of projectors, but they might be damaged, their
flight delayed. They must defeat those strangers quickly. The rays of
Taj Lamor's ship lashed out swiftly, but almost before they had
started, all the other ships, a full hundred, were in action, and the
flagship was darting swiftly up and away from the battle. Below, those
pale red rays were taking a swift toll of the little ships, and nearly
twenty of them rolled suddenly over, and dashed to destruction far
below.
But now the little ships were in swift darting motion. Because of their
small size, they were able to avoid the rays of the larger interstellar
cruisers, and as their torpedo-shaped hulls flashed about with
bewildering speed, they began to fight back. They had been taken utterly
by surprise, but now they went into action with an abandon and swiftness
that took the initiative away from the gigantic interstellar liners.
They were in a dozen places at once, dodging and twisting, unharmed, out
of the way of the deadly red beams, and were as hard to hit as so many
dancing feathers suspended over an air jet.
And if the pilots were skillful in avoiding enemy rays, their ray men
were as accurate in placing theirs. But then, with a target of such vast
size, not so much skill was necessary.
These smaller vessels were the ships of Earth. The people of the dark
star had entered the solar system quite unannounced, except that they
had been seen in passing the orbit of Mars, for a ship had been out
there in space, moving steadily out toward Neptune, and the great
interstellar cruisers, flashing in across space, away from that frigid
planet, had not seen the tiny wanderer. But he had seen those mighty
hulks, and had sent his message of danger out on the ether, warning the
men of Earth. They had relayed it to Venus, and the ships that had gone
there had received an equally warm reception, and were even now finding
their time fully occupied trying to beat off the Interplanetary Patrol.
The battle ended as swiftly as it began, for Taj Lamor, in his machine
high above, saw that they were outclassed, and ordered them to withdraw
at once. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed, yet they had lost twenty-two
of their giant ships.
The expedition that had gone to Venus reported a similarly active
greeting. It was decided at once that they should proceed cautiously to
the other planets, to determine which were inhabited and which were not,
and to determine the chemical and physical conditions on each.
The ships formed again out in space, on the other side of the sun,
however, and started at once in compact formation for Mercury.
Their observations were completed without further mishap, and they set
out for their distant home, their number depleted by forty-one ships,
for nineteen had fallen on Venus.
I
The Terrestrian and Venerian governments had met in conference, a grim,
businesslike discussion with few wasted words. Obviously, this was to be
a war of science, a war on a scale never before known on either world.
Agreements were immediately drawn up between the two worlds for a
concerted, cooperative effort. A fleet of new and vastly more powerful
ships must be constructed--but first they must have a complete report on
the huge invading craft that had fallen in western Canada, and on Venus,
for they might conceivably make their secrets their own.
They called for the scientists whose work had made possible their
successful resistance of the marauders: Arcot, Morey and Wade. They
found them working in the Arcot Laboratories.
"Wade," called Arcot tensely as he snapped the switch of the
televisophone, "bring Morey and meet me at the machine on the roof at
once. That was a call from Washington. I'll explain as soon as you get
there."
On the roof Arcot opened the hangar doors, and entered the
five-passenger molecular motion ship inside. Its sleek, streamlined
sides spoke of power and speed. This was a special research model,
designed for their experiments, and carrying mechanisms not found in
commercial crafts. Among these were automatic controls still in the
laboratory stage, but permitting higher speed, for no human being could
control the ship as accurately as these.
It took the trio a little less than a quarter of an hour to make the
5,000 mile trip from New York to the battlefield of Canada. As they sped
through the air, Arcot told them what had transpired. The three were
passed through the lines at once, and they settled to the ground beside
one of the huge ships that lay half buried in the ground. The force of
the impact had splashed the solid soil as a stone will splash soft mud,
and around the ship there was a massive ridge of earth. Arcot looked at
the titanic proportions of this ship from space, and turned to his
friends:
"We can investigate that wreck on foot, but I think it'll be far more
sensible to see what we can do with the car. This monster is certainly a
mile or more long, and we'd spend more time in walking than in
investigation. I suggest, we see if there isn't room for the car inside.
This beats even those huge Kaxorian planes for size." Arcot paused, then
grinned. "I sure would have liked to mix in the fight they must have had
here--nice little things to play with, aren't they?"
"It would make a nice toy," agreed Wade as he looked at the rows of
wicked-looking projectors along the sides of the metal hull, "and I
wonder if there might not be some of the crew alive in there? If there
are, the size of the ship would prevent their showing themselves very
quickly, and since they can't move the ship, it seems to me that they'll
let us know shortly that they're around. Probably, with the engines
stopped, their main weapons are useless, but they would doubtless have
some sort of guns. I'm highly in favor of using the car. We carry a
molecular director ray, so if the way is blocked, we can make a new
one."
Wade's attention was caught by a sudden flare of light a few miles
across the plain. "Look over there--that ship is still flaming--reddish,
but almost colorless. Looks like a gas flame, with a bit of calcium in
it. Almost as if the air in the ship were combustible. If we should do
any exploring in this baby, I suggest we use altitude suits--they can't
do any harm in any case."
Three or four of the great wrecks, spread over a wide area, were burning
now, hurling forth long tongues of colorless, intensely hot flame.
Several of the ships had been only slightly damaged; one had been
brought down by a beam that had torn free the entire tail of the ship,
leaving the bow in good condition. Apparently this machine had not
fallen far; perhaps the pilot had retained partial control of the ship,
his power failing when he was only a comparatively short distance from
Earth. This was rather well to one side of the plain, however, and they
decided to investigate it later.
The ship nearest them had crashed nose first, the point being crushed
and shattered. Arcot maneuvered his craft cautiously toward the great
hole at the nose of the ship, and they entered the mighty vessel slowly,
a powerful spotlight illuminating the interior. Tremendous girders,
twisted and broken by the force of impact, thrust up about them. It soon
became evident that there was little to fear from any living enemies,
and they proceeded more rapidly. Certainly no creature could live after
the shock that had broken these huge girders! Several times metal beams
blocked their path, and they were forced to use the molecular director
ray to bend them out of the way.
"Man," said Arcot as they stopped a moment to clear away a huge member
that was bent across their path, "but those beams do look as if they
were built permanently! I'd hate to ram into one of them! Look at that
one--if that has anywhere near the strength of steel, just think of the
force it took to bend it!"
At last they had penetrated to the long tube that led through the length
of the ship, the communication tube. This admitted the small ship
easily, and they moved swiftly along till they came to what they
believed to be about the center of the invader. Here Arcot proposed that
they step out and see what there was to be seen.
The others agreed, and they at once put on their altitude suits of heavy
rubberized canvas, designed to be worn outside the ship when at high
altitude, or even in space. They were supplied with oxygen tanks that
would keep the wearer alive for about six hours. Unless the atmosphere
remaining in the alien ship was excessively corrosive, they would be
safe. After a brief discussion, they decided that all would go, for if
they met opposition, there would be strength in numbers.
They met their first difficulty in opening the door leading out of the
communication tube. It was an automatic door, and resisted their every
effort--until finally they were forced to tear it out with a ray. It was
impossible to move it in any other way. The door was in what was now the
floor, since the ship seemed to have landed on one side rather than on
its keel.
They let themselves through the narrow opening one at a time, and landed
on the sloping wall of the corridor beyond.
"Lucky this wasn't a big room, or we'd have had a nice drop to the far
wall!" commented Wade. The suits were equipped with a thin vibrating
diaphragm that made speech easy, but Wade's voice came through with a
queerly metallic ring.
Arcot agreed somewhat absently, his attention directed toward their
surroundings. His hand light pierced the blackness, finally halting at a
gaping opening, apparently the entrance to a corridor. As they examined
it, they saw that it slanted steeply downward.
"It seems to be quite a drop," said Wade as he turned his light into it,
"but the surface seems to be rather rough. I think we can do it. I
notice that you brought a rope, Morey; I think it'll help. I'll go
first, unless someone else wants the honor."
"You go first?" Arcot hesitated briefly. "But I don't know--if we're
all going, I guess you had better, at that. It would take two ordinary
men to lower a big bulk like you. On the other hand, if anybody is going
to stay, you're delegated as elevator boy!
"Hold everything," continued Arcot. "I have an idea. I think none of us
will need to hold the weight of the others with the rope. Wade, will you
get three fairly good-sized pieces of metal, something we can tie a rope
to? I think we can get down here without the help of anyone else. Morey,
will you cut the rope in three equal pieces while I help Wade tear loose
that girder?"
Arcot refused to reveal his idea till his preparations were complete,
but worked quickly and efficiently. With the aid of Wade, he soon had
three short members, and taking the rope that Morey had prepared, he
tied lengths of cord to the pieces of metal, leaving twenty foot lengths
hanging from each. Now he carefully tested his handiwork to make sure
the knots would not slip.
"Now, let's see what we can do." Arcot put a small loop in one end of a
cord, thrust his left wrist through this, and grasped the rope firmly
with his hand. Then he drew his ray pistol, and adjusted it carefully
for direction of action. The trigger gave him control over power.
Finally he turned the ray on the block of metal at the other end of the
rope. At once the metal pulled vigorously, drawing the rope taut, and as
Arcot increased the power, he was dragged slowly across the floor.
"Ah--it works." He grinned broadly over his shoulder. "Come on, boys,
hitch your wagon to a star, and we'll go on with the investigation. This
is a new, double action parachute. It lets you down easy, and pulls you
up easier! I think we can go where we want now." After a pause he added,
"I don't have to tell you that too much power will be very bad!"
With Arcot's simple brake, they lowered themselves into the corridor
below, descending one at a time, to avoid any contact with the ray,
since the touch of the beam was fatal.
The scene that lay before them was one of colossal destruction. They had
evidently stumbled upon the engine room. They could not hope to
illuminate its vast expanse with their little hand lights, but they
could gain some idea of its magnitude, and of its original layout. The
floor, now tilted at a steep angle, was torn up in many places, showing
great, massive beams, buckled and twisted like so many wires, while the
heavy floor plates were crumpled like so much foil. Everywhere the room
seemed covered with a film of white silvery metal; it was silver, they
decided after a brief examination, spattered broadcast over the walls of
the room.
Suddenly Morey pointed ceilingward with his light. "That's where the
silver came from!" he exclaimed. A network of heavy bars ran across the
roof, great bars of solid silver fully three feet thick. In one section
gaped a ragged hole, suggesting the work of a disintegration ray, a hole
that went into the metal roof above, one which had plainly been fused,
as had the great silver bars.
Arcot looked in wonder at the heavy metal bars. "Lord--bus bars three
feet thick! What engines they must have! Look at the way those were
blown out! They were short circuited by the crash, just before the
generator went out, and they were volatilized! Some juice!"
With the aid of their improvised elevators, the three men attempted to
explore the tremendous chamber. They had scarcely begun, when Wade
exclaimed:
"Bodies!"
They crowded around his gruesome find and caught their first glimpse of
the invaders from space. Anatomical details could not be distinguished
since the bodies had been caught under a rain of crushing beams, but
they saw that they were not too different from both Terrestrians and
Venerians--though their blood seemed strangely pallid, and their skin
was of a ghastly whiteness. Evidently they had been assembled before an
unfamiliar sort of instrument panel when catastrophe struck; Morey
indicated the dials and keys.
"Nice to know what you're fighting," Arcot observed. "I've a hunch that
we'll see some of these critters alive--but not in this ship!"
They turned away and resumed their examination of the shattered
mechanisms.
A careful examination was impossible; they were wrecks, but Arcot did
see that they seemed mainly to be giant electrical machines of standard
types, though on a gargantuan scale. There were titanic masses of
wrecked metal, iron and silver, for with these men silver seemed to
replace copper, though nothing could replace iron and its magnetic uses.
"They are just electrical machines, I guess," said Arcot at last. "But
what size! Have you seen anything really revolutionary, Wade?"
Wade frowned and answered. "There are just two things that bother me.
Come here." As Arcot jumped over, nearly suspended by his ray pistol,
Wade directed his light on a small machine that had fallen in between
the cracks in the giant mass of broken generators. It was a little
thing, apparently housed in a glass case. There was only one objection
to that assumption. The base of a large generator lay on it, metal fully
two feet thick, and that metal was cracked where it rested on the case,
and the case, made of material an inch and a half thick, was not dented!
"Whewww--that's a nice kind of glass to have!" Morey commented. "I'd
like to have a specimen for examination. Oh--I wonder--yes, it must be!
There's a window in the side up there toward what was the bow that
seemed to me to be the same stuff. It's buried about three feet in solid
earth, so I imagine it must be."
The three made their way at once to where they had seen the window. The
frame appeared to be steel, or some such alloy, and it was twisted and
bent under the blow, for this was evidently the outer wall, and the
impact of landing had flattened the rounded side. But that "glass"
window was quite undisturbed! There was, as a further proof, a large
granite boulder lying against it on the outside--or what had been a
boulder, though it had been shattered by the impact.
"Say--that's some building material!" Arcot indicated the transparent
sheet. "Just look at that granite rock--smashed into sand! Yet the
window isn't even scratched! Look how the frame that held it is
torn--just torn, not broken. I wonder if we can tear it loose
altogether?" He stepped forward, raising his pistol. There was a thud as
his metal bar crashed down when the ray was shut off. Then, as the
others got out of the way, he stepped toward the window and directed his
beam toward it. Gradually he increased the power, till suddenly there
was a rending crash, and they saw only a leaping column of earth and
sand and broken granite flying up through the hole in the steel shell.
There was a sudden violent crash, then a moment later a second equally
violent crash as the window, having flown up to the ceiling, came
thumping back to the floor.
After the dust had settled they came forward, looking for the window.
They found it, somewhat buried by the rubbish, lying off to one side.
Arcot bent down to tilt it and sweep off the dirt; he grasped it with
one hand, and pulled. The window remained where it was. He grasped it
with both hands and pulled harder. The window remained where it was.
"Uh--say, lend a hand will you, Wade." Together the two men pulled, but
without results. That window was about three feet by two feet by one
inch, making the total volume about one-half a cubic foot, but it
certainly was heavy. They could not begin to move it. An equal volume of
lead would have weighed about four hundred pounds, but this was
decidedly more than four hundred pounds. Indeed, the combined strength
of the three men did not do more than rock it.
"Well--it certainly is no kind of matter we know of!" observed Morey.
"Osmium, the heaviest known metal, has a density of twenty-two and a
half, which would weigh about 730 pounds. I think we could lift that, so
this is heavier than anything we know. At least that's proof of a new
system. Between Venus and Earth we have found every element that occurs
in the sun. These people must have come from another star!"
"Either that," returned Arcot, "or proof of an amazing degree of
technological advancement. It's only a guess, of course--but I have an
idea where this kind of matter exists in the solar system. I think you
have already seen it--in the gaseous state. You remember, of course,
that the Kaxorians had great reservoirs for storing light-energy in a
bound state in their giant planes. They had bound light, light held by
the gravitational attraction for itself, after condensing it in their
apparatus, but they had what amounted to a gas--gaseous light. Now
suppose that someone makes a light condenser even more powerful than the
one the Kaxorians used, a condenser that forces the light so close to
itself, increases its density, till the photons hold each other
permanently, and the substance becomes solid. It will be matter, matter
made of light--light matter--and let us call it a metal. You know that
ordinary matter is electricity matter, and electricity matter metals
conduct electricity readily. Now why shouldn't our 'light matter' metal
conduct light? It would be a wonderful substance for windows."
"But now comes the question of moving it," Wade interposed. "We can't
lift it, and we certainly want to examine it. That means we must take it
to the laboratory. I believe we're about through here--the place is
clearly quite permanently demolished. I think we had better return to
the ship and start to that other machine we saw that didn't appear to be
so badly damaged. But--how can we move this?"
"I think a ray may do the trick." Arcot drew his ray pistol, and stepped
back a bit, holding the weapon so the ray would direct the plate
straight up. Slowly he applied the power, and as he gradually increased
it, the plate stirred, then moved into the air.
"It works! Now you can use your pistol, Morey, and direct it toward the
corridor. I'll send it up, and let it fall outside, where we can pick it
up later." Morey stepped forward, and while Arcot held it in the air
with his ray, Morey propelled it slowly with his, till it was directly
under the corridor leading upward. Then Arcot gave a sudden increase in
power, and the plate moved swiftly upward, sailing out of sight. Arcot
shut off his ray, and there came to their ears a sudden crash as the
plate fell to the floor above.
The three men regained their ropes and "double action parachutes" as
Arcot called them, and floated up to the next floor. Again they started
the process of moving the plate. All went well till they came to the
little car itself. They could not use the ray on the car, for fear of
damaging the machinery. They had to use some purely mechanical method of
hoisting it in.
Finally they solved the problem by using the molecular director ray to
swing a heavy beam into the air, then one man pulled on the far end of
it with a rope, and swung it till it was resting on the door of the ship
on one end, and the other rested in a hole they had torn in the lining
of the tube.
Now they maneuvered the heavy plate till it was resting on that beam;
then they released the plate, and watched it slide down the incline,
shooting through the open doorway of the car. In moments the job was
done. The plate at last safely stowed, the three men climbed into the
car, and prepared to leave.
The little machine glided swiftly down the tube through the mighty ship,
finally coming out through the opening that had admitted them. They rose
quickly into the air, and headed for the headquarters of the government
ships.