IMPROVEMENTS AND CALCULATIONS
"It is still incredible. But you have done it. It is certainly
successful!" said the Talsonian scientist with conviction.
Arcot shook his head. "Far from it--we have not realized a thousandth
part of the tremendous possibilities of this invention. We must work and
calculate and then invent.
"Think of the possibilities as a shield--naturally if we can make the
matter we should be able to control its properties in any way we like.
We should be able to make it opaque, transparent, or any color." Arcot
was speaking to Morey now. "Do you remember, when we were caught in that
cosmic ray field in space when we first left this universe, that I said
that I had an idea for energy so vast that it would be impossible to
describe its awful power?[1] I mentioned that I would attempt to
liberate it if ever there was need? The need exists. I want to find that
secret."
[Footnote 1: Islands of Space.]
Stel Felso Theu was looking out through the window at a group of men
excitedly beckoning. He called the attention of the others to them, and
himself went out. Arcot and Wade joined him in a moment.
"They tell me that Fellsheh, well to the poleward of here has used four
of its eight shots. They are still being attacked," explained the
Talsonian gravely.
"Well, get in," snapped Arcot as he ran back to the ship. Stel Felso
hastily followed, and the _Ancient Mariner_ shot into the air, and
darted away, poleward, to the Talsonian's directions. The ground fled
behind them at a speed that made the scientist grip the hand-rail with a
tenseness that showed his nervousness.
As they approached, a tremendous concussion and a great gout of light in
the sky informed them of the early demise of several Thessians. But a
real fleet was clustered about the city. Arcot approached low, and was
able to get quite close before detection. His ray screen was up and
Morey had charged the artificial matter apparatus, small as it was, for
operation. He created a ball of substance outside the _Ancient Mariner_,
and thrust it toward the nearest Thessian, just as a molecular hit the
_Ancient Mariner'_s ray screen.
The artificial matter instantly exploded with terrific violence,
slightly denting the tremendously strong lux metal walls. The pressure
of the light was so great that the inner relux walls were dented inward.
The ground below was suddenly, instantaneously fused.
"Lord--they won't pass a ray screen, obviously," Morey muttered, picking
himself from where he had fallen.
"Hey--easy there. You blinked off the ray screen, and our relux is
seriously weakened," called Arcot, a note of worry in his voice.
"No artificial matter with the ray screen up. I'll use the magnet,"
called Morey.
He quickly shut off the apparatus, and went to the huge magnet control.
The power room was crowded, and now that the battle was raging in truth,
with three ships attacking simultaneously, even the enormous power
capacity of the ship's generators was not sufficient, and the storage
coils had been thrown into the operation. Morey looked at the
instruments a moment. They were all up to capacity, save the ammeter
from the coils. That wasn't registering yet. Suddenly it flicked, and
the other instrument dropped to zero. They were in artificial space.
"Come here, will you, Morey," called Arcot. In a moment Morey joined his
much worried friend.
"That artificial matter control won't work through ray screens. The
Thessians never had to protect against moleculars here, and didn't have
them up--hence the destruction wrought. We can't take our screen down,
and we can't use our most deadly weapon with it up. If we had a big
outfit, we might throw a screen around the whole ship, and sail right
in. But we haven't.
"We can't stand ten seconds against that fleet. I'm going to find their
base, and make them yell for help." Arcot snapped a tiny switch one
notch further for the barest instant, then snapped it back. They were
several millions miles from the planet. "Quicker," he explained, "to
simply follow those ships back home--go back in time."
With the telectroscope, he took views at various distances, thus quickly
tracing them back to their base at the pole of the planet. Instantly
Arcot shot down, reaching the pole in less than a second, by carefully
maneuvering of the space device.
A gigantic dome of polished relux rose from rocky, icy plains. The thing
was nearly half a mile high, a mighty rounded roof that covered an area
almost three-quarters of a mile in diameter. Titanic--that was the only
word that described it. About it there was the peculiar shimmer of a
molecular ray screen.
Morey darted to the power room and set his apparatus into operation. He
created a ball of matter outside the ship and hurled it instantly at the
fort. It exploded with a terrific concussion as it hit the wall of the
ray screen. Almost instantly a second one followed. The concussion was
terrifically violent, the ground about was fused, and the ray screen was
opened for a moment. Arcot threw all his moleculars on the screen, as
Morey sent bomb after bomb at it. The coils supplied the energy, cracked
the rock beneath. Each energy release disrupted the ray-screen for a
moment, and the concentrated fury of the molecular beams poured through
the opened screen, and struck the relux behind. It glowed opalescent now
in a spot twenty feet across. But the relux was tremendously thick.
Thirty bombs Morey hurled, while they held their position without
difficulty, pouring their bombs and rays at the fort.
Arcot threw the ship into space, moved, and reappeared suddenly nearly
three hundred yards further on. A snap of the eyes, and he saw that the
fleet was approaching now. He went again into space, and retreated.
Discretion was the better part of valor. But his plan had worked.
He waited half an hour, and returned. From a distance the telectroscope
told him that one lone ship was patrolling outside the fort. He moved
toward it, creeping up behind the icy mountains. His magnetic beam
reached out. The ship lurched and fell. The magnetic beam reached out
toward the fort, from which a molecular ray had flashed already, tearing
up the icy waste which had concealed him. The ray-screen stopped it,
while again Morey turned the magnetic beam on--this time against the
fort. The ray remained on! Arcot retreated hastily.
"They found the secret, all right. No use, Morey, come on up," called
the pilot. "They evidently put magnetic shielding around the apparatus.
That means the magnetic beam is no good to us any more. They will
certainly warn every other base, and have them install similar
protection."
"Why didn't you try the magnetic ray on our first attack?" asked Zezdon
Afthen.
"If it had worked, their sending apparatus would have been destroyed,
and no message could have been sent to call their attackers off
Fellsheh. By forcing them to recall their fleet I got results I couldn't
get by attacking the fleet," Arcot said.
"I think there is little more I can do here, Stel Felso Theu. I will
take you to Shesto, and there make final arrangements till my return,
with apparatus capable of overthrowing your enemies. If you wish to
accompany me--you may." He glanced around at the others of his party.
"And our next move will be to return to Earth with what we have. Then we
will investigate the Sirian planets, and learn anything they may have of
interest, thence--to the real outer space, the utter void of
intergalactic space, and an attempt to learn the secret of that enormous
power."
They returned to Shesto, and there Arcot arranged that the only
generator they could spare, the one already in their possession, might
be used till other terrestrian ships could bring more. They left for
Earth. Hour after hour they fled through the void, till at last old Sol
was growing swiftly ahead of them, and finally Earth itself was large on
the screens. They changed to a straight molecular drive, and dropped to
the Vermont field from which they had taken off.
During the long voyage, Morey and Arcot had both spent much of the time
working on the time-distortion field, which would give them a tremendous
control over time, either speeding or slowing their time rate
enormously. At last, this finished, they had worked on the artificial
matter theory, to the point where they could control the shape of the
matter perfectly, though as yet they could not control its exact nature.
The possibility of such control was, however, definitely proven by the
results the machines had given them. Arcot had been more immediately
interested in the control of form. He could control the nature as to
opacity or transparency to all vibrations that normal matter is opaque
or transparent to. Light would pass, or not as he chose, but cosmics he
could not stop nor would radio or moleculars be stopped by any present
shield he could make.
They had signaled, as soon as they slowed outside the atmosphere, and
when they settled to the field, Arcot's father and a number of very
important scientists had already arrived.
Arcot senior greeted his son very warmly, but he was tremendously
worried, as his son soon saw.
"What's happened, Dad--won't they believe your statements?"
"They doubted when I went to Luna for a session with the Interplanetary
Council, but before they could say much, they had plenty of proof of my
statements," the older man answered. "News came that a fleet of
Planetary Guard ships had been wiped out by a fleet of ships from outer
space. They were huge things--nearly half a mile in length. The Guard
ships went up to them--fifty of them--and tried to signal for a
conference. The white ship was instantly wiped out--we don't know how.
They didn't have ray screens, but that wasn't it. Whatever it
was--slightly luminous ray in space--it simply released the energy of
the lux metal and relux of the ship. Being composed of light energy
simply bound by photonic attraction, it let go with terrible energy.
They can do it almost instantly from a distance. The other Guards at
once let loose with all their moleculars and cosmics. The enemy shunted
off the moleculars, and wiped out the Guard almost instantly.
"Of course, I could explain the screen, but not the detonation ray. I am
inclined to believe from other casualties that the destruction, though
reported as an instantaneous explosion, was not that. Other ships have
been destroyed, and they seemed to catch fire, and burn, but with
terrific speed, more like gun powder than coal. It seems to start a
spreading decomposition, the ship lasts perhaps ten minutes. If it went
instantly, the shock of such a tremendous energy release would disrupt
the planet.
"At any rate, the great fleet separated, twelve went to the North Pole
of Earth, twelve to the south, and similarly twelve to each pole of
Venus. Then one of them turned, and went back to wherever it had come
from, to report. Just turned and vanished. Similarly one from Venus
turned and vanished. That leaves twelve at each of the four poles, for,
as I said, there were an even fifty.
"They all followed the same tactics on landing, so I'll simply tell what
happened in Attica. In the North they had to pick one of the islands a
bit to the south of the pole. They melted about a hundred square miles
of ice to find one.
"The ships arranged themselves in a circle around the place, and
literally hundreds of men poured out of each and fell to work. In a
short time, they had set up a number of machines, the parts coming from
the ships. These machines at once set to work, and they built up a relux
wall. That wall was at least six feet thick; the floor was lined with
thick relux as well as the roof, which is simply a continuation of the
wall in a perfect dome. They had so many machines working on it, that
within twenty-four hours they had it finished.
"We attacked twice, once in practically our entire force, with some
ray-shield machines. The result was disastrous. The second attack was
made with ray shielded machines only, and little damage was done to
either side, though the enemy were somewhat impeded by masses of ice
hurled into their position. Their relux disintegration ray was
conspicuous by its absence.
"Yesterday--and it seems a lot longer than that, son--they started it
again. They'd been unloading it from the ship evidently. We had had
ray-shielded machines out, but they simply melted. They went down, and
Earth retreated. They're in their fortress now. We don't know how to
fight them. Now, for God's sake, tell us you have learned of some
weapon, son!"
The older man's face was lined. His iron gray head showed his fatigue
due to hours of concentration on his work.
"Some," replied Arcot briefly. He glanced around. Other men had arrived,
men whom he met in his work. But there were Venerians here, too, in
their protective suits, insulated against the cold of Earth, and against
its atmosphere.
"First, though, gentlemen, allow me to introduce Stel Felso Theu of the
planet Talso, one of our allies in this struggle, and Zezdon Afthen and
Fentes of Ortol, one of our other allies.
"As to progress, I can say only that it is in a more or less rudimentary
stage. We have the basis for great progress, a weapon of inestimable
value--but it is only the basis. It must be worked out. I am leaving
with you today the completed calculations and equations of the time
field, the system used by the Thessian invaders in propelling their
ships at a speed greater than that of light. Also, the uncompleted
calculations in regard to another matter, a weapon which our ally,
Talso, has given us, in exchange for the aid we gave in allowing them
the use of one of our generators. Unfortunately the ship could not spare
more than the single generator. I strongly advise rushing a number of
generators to Talso in intergalactic freighters. They badly need
power--power of respectable dimensions.
"I have stopped on Earth only temporarily, and I want to leave as soon
as possible. I intend, however, to attempt an attack on the Arctic base
of the Thessians, in strong hopes that they have not armored against one
weapon that the _Ancient Mariner_ carries--though I sadly fear that old
Earth herself has played us false here. I hope to use the magnetic beam,
but Earth's polar magnetism may have forced them to armor, and they may
have sufficiently heavy material to block the effects."
Morey already had a ground crew servicing the ship. He gave designs to
machinists on hand to make special control panels for the large
artificial matter machines. Arcot and Wade got some badly needed
equipment.
In six hours, Arcot had announced himself ready, and a squadron of
Planetary Guard ships were ready to accompany the refitted _Ancient
Mariner_.
They approached the pole cautiously, and were rewarded by the hiss and
roar of ice melting into water which burst into steam under a ray. It
was coming from an outpost of the camp, a tiny dome under a great mass
of ice. But the dome was of relux. A molecular reached down from a Guard
ship--and the Guard ship crumbled suddenly as dozens of moleculars from
the points hit it.
"They know how to fight this kind of a war. That's their biggest
advantage," muttered Arcot. Wade merely swore.
"Ray screens, no moleculars!" snapped Arcot into the transmitter. He was
not their leader, but they saw his wisdom, and the squadron commander
repeated the advice as an order. In the meantime, another ship had
fallen. The dome had its screen up, allowing the multitudes of hidden
stations outside to fight for it.
"Hmm--something to remember when terrestrians have to retire to forts.
They will, too, before this war is over. That way the main fort doesn't
have to lower its ray screen to fight," commented Arcot. He was watching
intensely as a tiny ship swung away from one of the larger machines, and
a tremendously powerful molecular started biting at the fort's ray
screen. The ship seemed nothing but a flying ray projector, which was
what it was.
As they had hoped, the deadly new ray stabbed out from somewhere on the
side of the fort. It was not within the fort.
"Which means," pointed out Morey, "that they can't make stuff to stand
that. Probably the projector would be vulnerable."
But a barrage of heat rays which immediately followed had no apparent
effect. The little radio-controlled molecular beam projector lay on the
rock under the melted ice, blazing incandescent with the rapidly
released energy of the relux.
"Now to try the real test we came here for," Morey clambered back to the
power room, and turned on the controls of the magnetic beam. The ship
was aligned, and then he threw the last switch. The great mass of the
machine jerked violently, and plunged forward as the beam attracted the
magnetic core of the Earth.
Morey could not see it, but almost instantly the shimmer of the
molecular screen on the fort died out. The deadly ray sprang out from
the Thessian projector--and went dead. Frantically the Thessians tried
weapon after weapon, and found them dead almost as soon as they were
turned on--which was the natural result in the terrific magnetic field.
And these men had iron bones, their very bones were attracted by the
beam; they plunged upward toward the ship as the beam touched them, but,
accustomed to the enormous gravitation accelerations of an enormous
world, most of them were not killed.
"Ah--!" exclaimed Arcot. He picked up the transmitter and spoke again to
the Squadron Commander. "Squadron Commander Tharnton, what relux
thickness does your ship carry?"
"Inch and a quarter," replied the surprised voice of the commander.
"Any of the other ships carry heavier?"
"Yes, the special solar investigator carries five inches. What shall we
do?"
"Tell him to lower his screen, and let loose at once on all operating
forts. His relux will stand for the time needed to shut them down for
their own screens, unless some genius decides to fight it out. As soon
as the other ships can lower their screens, tell them to do so, and tell
them to join in. I'll be able to help then. My relux has been burned,
and I'm afraid to lower the screen. It's mighty thin already."
The squadron commander was smiling joyously as he relayed the advice as
a command.
Almost at once a single ship, blunt, an almost perfect cylinder, lowered
its screen. In an instant the opalescence of the transformation showed
on it, but its dozen ray projectors were at work. Fort after fort glowed
opalescent, then flashed into protective ionization of screening.
Quickly other ships lowered their screens, and joined in. In a moment
more, the forts had been forced to raise their screens for protection.
A disc of artificial matter ten feet across suddenly appeared beside the
_Ancient Mariner_. It advanced with terrific speed, struck the great
dome of the fort, and the dome caved, bent in, bent still more--but
would not puncture. The disc retreated, became a sharp cone, and drove
in again. This time the point smashed through the relux, and made a
small hole. The cone seemed to change gradually, melting into a cylinder
of twenty foot diameter, and the hole simply expanded. It continued to
expand as the cylinder became a huge disc, a hundred feet across, set in
the wall.
Suddenly it simply dissolved. There was a terrific roar, and a mighty
column of white rushed out of the gaping hole. Figures of Thessians
caught by the terrific current came rocketing out. The inside was at
last visible. The terrific pressure was hurling the outside line of
ships about like thistledown. The _Ancient Mariner_ reeled back under
the tremendous blast of expanding gas. The snow that fell to the boiling
water below was not water, _in toto_; some was carbon dioxide--and some
oxygen chilled in the expansion of the gas. It was snowing within the
dome. The falling forms of Thessians were robbed of the life-giving air
pressure to which they were accustomed. But all this was visible for but
an instant.
Then a small, thin sheet of artificial matter formed beside the fort,
and advanced on the dome. Like a knife cutting open an orange, it simply
went around the dome's edge, the great dome lifted like the lid of a
teapot under the enormous gas pressure remaining--then dropped under its
own weight.
The artificial matter was again a huge disc. It settled over the exact
center of the dome--and went down. The dome caved in. It was crushed
under a load utterly inestimable. Then the great disc, like some
monstrous tamper, tamped the entire works of the Thessians into the
bed-rock of the island. Every ship, every miniature fort, every man was
caught under it--and annihilated.
The disc dissolved. A terrific barrage of heat beams played over the
island, and the rock melted, flowed over the ruins, and left only the
spumes of steam from the Arctic ice rising from a red-hot: mass of rock,
contained a boiling pool.
The Battle of the Arctic was done.