THE POWER OF "_THE THOUGHT_"
But it seemed, or must have seemed to any infinite being capable of
watching it as it moved now, that the _Thought_ was a mad thought. With
the time control opened to the limit, and a touch of the space control,
it fled across the Universe at a velocity such as no other thing was
capable of.
One star--it flashed to a disc, loomed enormous--overpowering--then
suddenly they were flashing _through_ it! The enormous coils fed their
current into the space-coils and the time field, and the ship seemed to
twist and writhe in distorted space as the gravitational field of a
giant star, and a giant ship's space field fought for a fraction of time
so short as to be utterly below measurement. Then the ship was gone--and
behind it a star, the center of which had suddenly been hurled into
another space forever, as the counteracting, gravitational field of the
outer layers was removed for a moment, and only its own enormous density
affected space, writhed and collapsed upon itself, to explode into a
mighty sea of flames. Planets it formed, we know, by a process such as
can happen when only this man-made accident happens.
But the ship fled on, its great coils partly discharged, but still far
more charged than need be.
It was minutes to Talso where it had been hours with the _Ancient
Mariner_, but now they traveled with the speed of _Thought_!
Talso too was the scene of a battle, and more of a battle than Ortol had
been, for here where more powerful defensive forces had been active, the
Thessians had been more vengeful. All their remaining ships seemed
concentrated here. And the great molecular screen that terrestrian
engineers had flung up here had already fallen. Great holes had
opened in it, as two great forts, and a thousand ships, some mighty
battleships of the intergalactic spaces, some little scout cruisers,
had turned their rays on the struggling defensive machines. It had held
for hours, thanks to the tremendous tubes that Talso had in their
power-distribution stations, but in the end had fallen, but not before
many of their largest cities had been similarly defended, and the people
of the others had scattered broadcast.
True, wherever they might be, a diffused molecular would find them and
destroy all life save under the few screens, but if the Thessians once
diffused their rays, without entering the atmosphere, the broken screen
would once more be able to hold.
No fleet had kept the Thessian forces out of this atmosphere, but dozens
of more adequately powered artificial matter bomb stations had taught
Thett respect for Talso. But Talso's own ray screen had stopped their
bombs. They could only send their bombs as high as the screen. They did
not have Arcot's tremendous control power to maintain the matter without
difficulty even beyond a screen.
At last the screen had fallen, and the Thessian ships, a hole once made,
were able to move, and kept that hole always under them, though if it
once were closed, they would again have the struggle to open it.
Exploding matter bombs had twice caused such spatial strains and ionized
conditions as to come near closing it, but finally the Thessian fleet
had arranged a ring of ships about the hole, and opened a cylinder of
rays that reached down to the planet.
Like some gigantic plow the rays tore up mountains, oceans, glaciers and
land. Tremendous chasms opened in straight lines as it plowed along.
Unprotected cities flashed into fountains of rock and soil and steel
that leaped upwards as the rays touched, and were gone. Protected
cities, their screens blazing briefly under the enormous ray
concentrations as the ships moved on, unheeding, stood safe on islands
of safety amidst the destruction. Here in the lower air, where ions
would be so plentiful, Thett did not try to break down the screens, for
the air would aid the defenders.
Finally, as Thett's forces had planned, they came to one of the ionized
layer ray-screen stations that was still projecting its cone of
protective screening to the layer above. Every available ray was turned
on that station, and, designed as it was for protecting part of a world,
the station was itself protected, but slowly, slowly as its already
heated tubes weakened their electronic emission, the disc of ions
retreated more and more toward the station, as, like some splashing
stream, the Thessian rays played upon it forcing it back. A rapidly
accelerating retreat, faster and faster, as the disc changed from the
dull red of normal defense to the higher and bluer quanta of failing,
less complete defense, the disc of interference retreated.
Then, with a flash of light, and a roar as the soil below spouted up,
the station was gone. It had failed.
Instantly the ring of ships expanded as the great screen was weakened by
the withdrawal of this support. Wider was the path of destruction now as
the forces moved on.
But high, high in the sky, far out of sight of the naked eye, was a tiny
spot that was in reality a giant ship. It was flashing forward, and in
moments it was visible. Then, as another deserted city vanished, it was
above the Thessian fleet.
Their rays were directed downward through a hole that was even larger. A
second station had gone with that city. But, as by magic, the hole
closed up, and chopped their rays off with a decisiveness that startled
them. The interference was so sharp now that not even the dullest of
reds showed where their beams touched. The close interference was giving
off only radio! In amazement they looked for this new station of such
enormous power that their combined rays did not noticeably affect it. A
world had been fighting their rays unsuccessfully. What single station
could do this, if the many stations of the world could not? There was
but one they knew of, and they turned now to search for the ship they
knew must be there.
"No horrors this time; just clean, burning energy," muttered Arcot.
It was clean, and it was burning. In an instant one of the forts was a
mass of opalescence that shifted so swiftly it was purest white, then
rocketed away, lifeless, and no longer relux.
The other fort had its screen up, though its power, designed to
withstand the attack of a fleet of enormous intergalactic,
matter-driven, fighting ships lasted but an instant under the driving
power of half a million million suns, concentrated in one enormous ray
of energy. The sheer energy of the ray itself, molecular ray though it
was, heated the material it struck to blinding incandescence even as it
hurled it at a velocity close to that of light into outer space. With
little sparkling flashes battleships of the void after giant cruisers
flashed into lux, and vanished under the ray.
A tremendous combined ray of magnetism and cosmic ray energy replaced
the molecular, and the ships exploded into a dust as fine as the
primeval gas from which came all matter.
Sweeping energy, so enormous that the defenses of the ships did not even
operate against it, shattered ship after ship, till the few that
remained turned, and, faster than the pursuing energies could race
through space, faster than light, headed for their base.
"That was fair fight; energy against energy," said Arcot delightedly,
for his new toy, which made playthings of suns and fed on the cosmic
energy of a universe, was behaving nicely, "and as I said, Stel Felso
Theu, at the beginning of this war, the greater Power wins, always. And
in our island here, I have five hundred thousand million separate power
plants, each generating at the rate of decillions of ergs a second,
backing this ship.
"Your world will be safe now, and we will head for our last embattled
ally, Sirius." The titanic ship turned, and disappeared from the view of
the madly rejoicing billions of Talso below, as it sped, far faster than
light, across a universe to relieve another sorely tried civilization.
Knowing their cause was lost, hopeless in the knowledge that nothing
known to them could battle that enormous force concentrated in one ship,
the _Thought_, the Thessians had but one aim now, to do all the damage
in their power before leaving.
Already their tremendous, unarmed and unarmored transports were
departing with their hundreds of thousands from that base system for the
far-off Island of Space from which they had come. Their battlefleets
were engaged in destroying all the cities of the allies, and those other
helpless races of our system that they could. Those other inhabited
worlds, many of which were completely wiped out because Arcot had no
knowledge of them, were relieved only when the general call for retreat
to protect the mother planet was sent out.
But Sirius was looming enormous before them. And its planets, heavily
defended now by the combined Sirian, Terrestrial and Venerian fleets and
great ray screens as well as a few matter-bomb stations, were suffering
losses none the less. For the old Sixth of Negra, the Third here, had
fallen. Slipping in on the night side of the planet, all power off, and
so sending forth no warning impulses till it actually fell through the
ray screen, a small fleet of scouts had entered. Falling still under
simple gravity, they had been missed by the rays till they had fallen to
so small a distance, that no humans or men of our allied systems could
have stopped, but only their enormous iron boned strength permitted them
to resist the acceleration they used to avert collision with the planet.
Then scattering swiftly, they had blasted the great protective screen
stations by attacking on the sides, where the ray screen projectors were
not mounted. Designed to protect above, they had no side armor, and the
Sixth was opened to attack.
Two and one-half billion people lost their lives painlessly and
instantaneously as tremendous diffused moleculars played on the
revolving planet.
Arcot arrived soon after this catastrophe. The Thessians left almost
immediately, after the loss of three hundred or more ships. One hundred
and fifty wrecks were found. The rest were so blasted by the forces
which attacked them, that no traces could be found, and no count made.
But as those ships fled back to their base, Arcot, with the wonderfully
delicate mental control of his ship, was able to watch them, and follow
them; for, invisible under normal conditions, by twisting space in the
same manner that they did he was able to see them flee, and follow.
Light year after light year they raced toward the distant base. They
reached it in two hours, and Arcot saw them from a distance sink to the
various worlds. There were twelve gigantic worlds, each far larger than
Jupiter of Sol, and larger than Stwall of Talso's sun, Renl.
"I think," said Arcot as he stopped the ship at a third of a light year,
"that we had best destroy those planets. We may kill many men, and
innocent non-combatants, but they have killed many of our races, and it
is necessary. There are, no doubt, other worlds of this Universe here
that we do not know of that have felt the vengeance of Thett, and if we
can cause such trouble to them by destroying these worlds, and putting
the fear of our attacking their mother world into them, they will call
off those other fleets. I could have been invisible to Thett's ships as
we followed them here, and for the greater part of the way I was, for I
was sufficiently out of their time-rate, so that they were visible only
by the short ultra-violet, which would have put in their infra-red, and,
no photo-electric cell will work on quanta of such low energy. When at
last I was sure of the sun for which they were heading, I let them see
us, and they know we are aware of their base, and that we can follow
them.
"I will destroy one of these worlds, and follow a fleet as it starts for
their home nebula. Gradually, as they run, I will fade into
invisibility, and they will not know that I have dropped back here to
complete the work, but will think I am still following. Probably they
will run to some other nebula in an effort to throw me off, but they
will most certainly send back a ship to call the fleets here to the
defense of Thett.
"I think that is the best plan. Do you agree?"
"Arcot," asked Morey slowly, "if this race attempts to settle another
Universe, what would that indicate of their own?"
"Hmmm--that it was either populated by their own race or that another
race held the parts they did not, and that the other race was stronger,"
replied Arcot. "The thought idea in their minds has always been a single
world, single solar system as their home, however."
"And single solar systems cannot originate in this Space," replied
Morey, referring to the fact that in the primeval gas from which all
matter in this Universe and all others came, no condensation of mass
less than thousands of millions of times that of a sun could form and
continue.
"We can only investigate--and hope that they do not inhabit the whole
system, for I am determined that, unpleasant as the idea may be, there
is one race that we cannot afford to have visiting us, and it is going
to be permanently restrained in one way or another. I will first have a
conference with their leaders and if they will not be peaceful--the
_Thought_ can destroy or make a Universe! But I think that a second race
holds part of that Universe, for several times we have read in their
minds the thought of the 'Mighty Warless Ones of Venone.'"
"And how do you plan to destroy so large a planet as these are?" asked
Morey, indicating the telectroscope screen.
"Watch and see!" said Arcot.
They shot suddenly toward the distant sun, and as it expanded, planets
came into view. Moving ever slower on the time control, Arcot drove the
ship toward a gigantic planet at a distance of approximately 300,000,000
miles from its primary, the sun of this system.
Arcot fell into step with the planet as it moved about in its orbit, and
watched the speed indicator carefully.
"What's the orbital speed, Morey?" asked Arcot.
"About twelve and a half miles per second," replied the somewhat
mystified Morey.
"Excellent, my dear Watson," replied Arcot. "And now does my dear friend
know the average molecular velocity of ordinary air?"
"Why, about one-third of a mile a second, average."
"And if that planet as a whole should stop moving, and the individual
molecules be given the entire energy, what would their average velocity
be? And what temperature would that represent?" asked Arcot.
"Good--Why, they would have to have the same kinetic energy as
individuals as they now have as a whole, and that would be an average
molecular velocity in random motion of 12.5 miles a second--giving
about--about--about--twelve thousand degrees centigrade!" exclaimed
Morey in surprise. "That would put it in the far blue-white region!"
"Perfect. Now watch." Arcot donned the headpiece he had removed, and
once more took charge. He was very far from the planet, as distances go,
and they could not see his ship. But he wanted to be seen. So he moved
closer, and hung off to the sunward side of the planet, then moved to
the night side, but stayed in the light. In seconds, a battlefleet was
out attempting to destroy him.
Surrounding the ship with a wall of artificial matter, lest they annoy
him, he set to work.
Directly in the orbit of the planet, a faint mistiness appeared, and
rapidly solidified to a titanic cup, directly in the path of the planet.
Arcot was pouring energy into the making of that matter at such a rate
that space was twisted now about them. The meter before them, which had
not registered previously, was registering now, and had moved over to
three. Three sols--and was still climbing. It stopped when ten were
reached. Ten times the energy of our sun was pouring into that
condensation, and it solidified quickly.
The Thessians had seen the danger now. It was less than ten minutes away
from their planet, and now great numbers of ships of all sorts started
up from the planet, swarming out like rats from a sinking vessel.
Majestically the great world moved on in its orbit toward the thin wall
of infinite strength and infinite toughness. Already Thessian
battleships were tearing at that wall with rays of all types, and the
wall sputtered back little gouts of light, and remained. The meters on
the _Thought_ were no longer registering. The wall was built, and now
Arcot had all the giant power of the ship holding it there. Any attempt
to move it or destroy it, and all the energy of the Universe would rush
to its defense!
The atmosphere of the planet reached the wall. Instantly, as the
pressure of that enormous mass of air touched it, the wall fought, and
burst into a blaze of energy. It was fighting now, and the meter that
measured sun-powers ran steadily, swiftly up the scale. But the men were
not watching the meter; they were watching the awesome sight of Man
stopping a world in its course! Turning a world from its path!
But the meter climbed suddenly, and the world was suddenly a tremendous
blaze of light. The solid rock had struck the giant cup, 110,000 miles
in diameter. It was silent, as a world pitted its enormous kinetic
energy against the combined forces of a universe. Soundless--and as
hopeless. Its strength was nothing, its energy pitted unnoticed against
the energy of five hundred thousand million suns--as vain as those
futile attempts of the Thessian battleships on the invulnerable walls of
the _Thought_.
What use is there to attempt description of that scene as
2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons of rock and metal and matter
crashed against a wall of energy, immovable and inconceivable. The
planet crumpled, and split wide. A thousand pieces, and suddenly there
was a further mistiness about it, and the whole enormous mass, seeming
but a toy, as it was from this distance in space, and as it was in this
ship, was enclosed in that same, immovable, unalterable wall of energy.
The ship was as quiet and noiseless, as without indication of strain as
when it hummed its way through empty space. But the planet crumpled and
twirled, and great seas of energy flashed about it.
The world, seeming tiny, was dashed helpless against a wall that stopped
it, but the wall flared into equal and opposite energy, so that matter
was raised not to the twelve thousand Morey had estimated but nearer
twenty-four thousand degrees. It was over in less than half an hour, and
a broken, misshapen mass of blue incandescence floated in space. It
would fall now, toward the sun, and it would, because it was motionless
and the sun moved, take an eccentric orbit about that sun. Eventually,
perhaps, it would wipe out the four inferior planets, or perhaps it
would be broken as it came within the Roches limit of that sun. But the
planet was now a miniature sun, and not so very small, at that.
And from every planet of the system was pouring an assorted stream of
ships, great and small, and they all set panic-stricken across the void
in the same direction. They had seen the power of the _Thought_, and did
not contest any longer its right to this system.