VENONE
Up from Earth, out of its clear blue sky, and into the glare and dark of
space and near a sun the ship soared. They had been holding it
motionless over New York, and now as it rose, hundreds of tiny craft,
and a few large excursion ships followed it until it was out of Earth's
atmosphere. Then--it was gone. Gone across space, racing toward that far
Universe at a speed no other thing could equal. In minutes the great
disc of the Universe had taken form behind them, as they took their
route photographs to find their way back to Earth after the battle, if
still they could come.
Then into the stillness of the Intergalactic spaces.
"This will be our first opportunity to test the full speed of this ship.
We have never tried its velocity, and we should measure it now. Take a
sight on the diameter of the Island, as seen from here, Morey. Then we
will travel ten seconds, and look again."
Half a million light years from the center of the Island now, the great
disc spread out over the vast space behind them, apparently the size of
a dinner plate at about thirty inches distance, it was more than two
hundred and fifty thousand light years across. Checking carefully, Morey
read their distance as just shy of five hundred thousand light years.
"Hold on--here we go," called Arcot. Space was suddenly black, and
beside them ran the twin ghost ships that follow always when space is
closed to the smallest compass, for light leaving, goes around a space
whose radius is measured in miles, instead of light centuries and
returns. There was no sound, no slightest vibration, only Torlos' iron
bones felt a slight shock as the inconceivable currents flowed into the
gigantic space distortion coil from the storage fields, their shielded
magnetic flux leaking by in some slight degree.
For ten seconds that seemed minutes Arcot held the ship on the course
under the maximum combined powers of space distortion and time field
distortion. Then he released both simultaneously.
The velvet black of space was about them as before, but now the disc of
the Nebula was tiny behind them! So tiny was it, that these men, who
knew its magnitude, gasped in sudden wonder. None of them had been able
to conceive of such a velocity as this ship had shown! In seconds, Morey
announced a moment later, they had traveled _one million, one hundred
thousand light years_! Their velocity was six hundred and sixty
quadrillion miles per second!
"Then it will take us only a little over one thousand seconds to travel
the hundred and fifty million light years, at 110,000 light years per
second--that's about the radius of our galaxy, isn't it!" exclaimed
Wade.
They started on now, and one thousand and ten seconds, or a little more
than eighteen minutes later, they stopped again. So far behind them now
as to be almost lost in the far scattered universes, lay their own
Island, and carefully they photographed the Universe that now lay less
than twenty million light years ahead. Still, it was further, even after
crossing this enormous gulf, than are many of those nebulae we see from
Earth, many of which lie within that distance. They must proceed
cautiously now, for they did not know the exact distance to the Nebula.
Carefully, running forward in jumps of five million light years,
forty-five second drives, they worked nearer.
Then finally they entered the Island, and drove toward the denser
center.
"Good Lord, Arcot, look at those suns!" exclaimed Morey in amazement.
For the first time they were seeing the suns of this system at a range
that permitted observation, and Arcot had stopped to observe. The first
one they had chosen had been a blue-white giant of enormous mass, nearly
one hundred and fifty times as heavy as our own sun, and all the
enormous surface was radiating power into space at a rate of nearly
thirty thousand horsepower per square inch! No planets circled it,
however, in its journey through space.
"I've been noticing the number of giants here. Look around."
The _Thought_ moved on, on to other suns. They must find one that was
inhabited.
They stopped at last near a great orange giant, and examined it. It had
indeed planets, and as Arcot watched, he saw in the telectroscope a line
of gigantic freighters rise from the world, and whisk off to nothingness
as they exceeded the speed of light! Instantly he started the _Thought_
searching in time fields for the freighters. He found them, and followed
them as they raced across the void. He knew he was visible to them, and
as he suspected, they soon stopped, slowing down and signaling to him.
"Morey--take the _Thought_. I'm going to visit them in the _Banderlog_
as I think we shall name the tender," called Arcot, stripping off the
headset, and leaving the control seat. The other fleet of ships was now
less than a hundred thousand miles away, clearly visible in the
telectroscope. They were still signaling, and Arcot had set an automatic
signaling device flashing an enormously powerful searchlight toward them
in a succession of dots and dashes, an obvious signal, though also,
obviously unintelligible to those others.
"Is it safe, Arcot?" asked Torlos anxiously. To approach those enormous
ships in the relatively tiny _Banderlog_ seemed unwise.
"Far safer than they'll believe. Remember, only the _Thought_ could
stand up against such weapons as even the _Banderlog_ carries, run as
they are by cosmic energy," replied Arcot, diving down toward the little
tender.
In a moment it was out through the lock, and sped away from them like a
bullet, reaching the distant stranger fleet in less than ten seconds.
"They are communicating by thought!" announced Zezdon Afthen presently.
"But I cannot understand them, for the impulses are too weak to be
intelligently received."
For nearly an hour the _Banderlog_ hung beside the fleet, then it turned
about, and raced once more to the _Thought_. Inside the lock, and a
moment later Arcot appeared again on the threshold of the door. He
looked immensely relieved.
"Well, I have some good news," he said and smiled, sitting down. "Follow
that bunch, Morey, and I'll tell you about it. Set it and she'll hold
nicely. We have a long way to go, and those are slow freighters,
accompanied by one Cruiser.
"Those men," he began, "are men of Venone. You remember Thett's records
said something of the Mighty Warless Ones of Venone? Those are they.
They inhabit most of this universe, leaving the Thessians but four
planets of a minor sun, way off in one corner. It seems the Thessians
are their undesirable exiles, those who have, from generation to
generation, been either forced to go there, or who wanted to go there.
"They did not like the easier and more effective method of disposing of
undesirables, the instantaneous death chamber they now use. Thett was
their prison world. No one ever returned and his family could go with
him if they desired, but if they did not, they were carefully watched
for outcroppings of undesirable traits--murder, crime of any sort, any
habitual tendency to injustice.
"About six hundred years ago of our time, Thett revolted. There were
scientists there, and their scientists had discovered a thing that they
had been seeking for generations--the Twin-ray. I don't know what it is,
and the Venonians don't either. It is the ray that destroys relux and
lux, however, and can be carried only on a machine the size of their
forts, due to some limitations. Just what those limitations are the
Venonians don't know. Other than that ray they had no new weapons.
"But it was enough. Their guard ships which had circled the worlds of
the prison system, Antseck, were suddenly destroyed, so suddenly that
Venone received no word of it till a consignment ship, bringing
prisoners, discovered their absence. The consignment ship returned
without landing. Thett was now independent. But they were bound to their
system, for although they had the molecular ships, they had never been
permitted to have time apparatus, nor to see it, nor was any one who
knew its principles ever consigned there. The result was that they were
as isolated as ever.
"This was for two centuries. Two centuries later it was worked out by
one of their scientists, and the Warless Ones had a War of defense.
Their small fleet of cruisers, designed for rescue work and for clearing
space lanes of wrecks and asteroids, was destroyed instantly, their
world was protected only by the ray screen, which the Thessians did not
have, and by the fact that they could build more cruisers. In less than
a year Thett was defeated, and beaten back to her world, though Venone
could not overcome Thett, now, for around their planets they had so many
forts projecting the deadly rays, that no ship could approach.
"Then Thett learned how to make the screen, and came again. Venone had
planetoid stations, that projected molecular rays of an intensity I
wonder at, with their system of projecting. It seems these people have
force-power feeds that operate through space, by which an entire solar
system can tie in for power, and they fed these stations in that way.
Lord only knows what tubes they had, but the Thessians couldn't get the
power to fight.
"They've been let alone since then, they did not know why. I told them
what their dear friends had been doing in that time, and the Venonians
were immensely surprised, and very evidently sorry. They begged my
pardon for letting loose such a menace, quite sincerely feeling that it
was their fault. They offered any help they could give, and I told them
that a chart of this system would be of the greatest use. They are going
now to Venone, and we are to go with them, and see what they have to
offer. Also, they want a demonstration of this 'remarkable ship that can
defeat whole fleets of Thessians, and destroy or make planets at will,'"
concluded Arcot.
"I do not in the least blame them for wanting to see this ship in
operation, Arcot, but they are, very evidently, a much older race than
yours," said Torlos, his thoughts coming clear and sharp, as those of a
man who has thought over what he says carefully. "Are you not running
danger that their minds may be more powerful than yours, that this story
they have told you is but a ruse to get this ship on their world where
thousand, millions can concentrate their will against you and capture
the ship by mind where they cannot capture it by force?"
"That," agreed Arcot, "is where 'the rub' comes in as an ancient poet of
Earth put it. I don't know and I did not have a chance to see. Wherefore
I am about to do some work. Let me have the controls, Morey, will you?"
Arcot made a new ship. It was made entirely, perforce, of cosmium, lux
and relux, for those were the only forms of matter he could create in
space permanently from energy. It was equipped with gravity drive, and
time distortion speed apparatus, and his far better trained mind
finished this smaller ship with his titanic tools in less than the two
days that it took them to reach Venone. In the meantime, the Venonian
cruiser had drawn close, and watched in amazement as the ship was
fashioned from the energy of space, became a thing of glistening matter,
materializing from the absolute void of space, and forming under titanic
tools such as the commander could not visualize.
Now, this move was partly the reason for this construction, for while
the Venonian was busy, absorbed in watching the miraculous construction,
his mind was not shielded, and it was open for observation of two such
wonderfully trained minds as those of Zezdon Afthen and Zezdon Inthel.
With their instruments and wonderfully developed mind-science, aided at
times by Morey's less skillful, but more powerful mind of his older
race, and powerful too, both because of long concentration and training,
and because of his individual inheritance, they examined the minds of
many of the officers of the ship without their awareness.
As a final test, Arcot, having finished the ship, suggested that the
Venonian officer and one of the men of his ship have a trial of mental
powers.
Zezdon Afthen tried first, and between the two ships, racing along side
by side at a speed unthinkable, the two men struggled with those forces
of will.
Quickly Zezdon Afthen told Arcot what he had learned.
The sun of Venone was close, now, and Arcot prepared to use as he
intended the little space machine he had made. Morey took it, and went
away from the _Thought_ flying on its time field. The ship had been
stocked with lead fuel for its matter-burning generators from the supply
that had been brought on the _Thought_ for emergencies, and the air had
come from the _Thought_'s great tanks. Morey was going to Venone ahead
of the _Thought_ to scout--"to see many of the important men of Venone
and find out from them what I can of the relationship between Venone and
Thett."
Hours later Morey returned with a favorable report. He had seen many of
the important men of Venone, and conversed with them mentally from the
safety of his ship, where the specially installed gravity apparatus had
protected him and the ship against the enormous gravity of this gigantic
world. He did not describe Venone; he wanted them to see it as he had
first seen it.
So the little ship, which had served its purpose now, was destroyed,
nearly a light year from Venone, and left a crushed wreck when two
plates of artificial matter had closed upon it, destroying the
apparatus, lest some unwelcome finder use it. There was little about it,
the gravity apparatus alone perhaps, that might have been of use to
Thett, and Thett already had the ray--but why take needless risk?
Then once more they were racing toward Venone. Soon the giant star of
which it was a planet loomed enormous. Then, at Morey's direction, they
swung, and before them loomed a planet. Large as Thett, near a half
million miles in diameter, its mass was very closely equal to that of
our sun. Yet it was but the burned-out sweepings of the outermost
photospheric layers of this giant sun, and the radioactive atoms that
made a sun active were not here; it was a cold planet. But its density
was far, far higher than that of our sun, for our sun is but slightly
denser than ordinary sea water. This world was dense as copper, for with
the deeper sweepings of the tidal strains that had formed it, more of
the heavier atoms had gone into its making, and its core was denser than
that of Earth.
About it swept two gigantic satellite Worlds, each larger than Jupiter,
but satellites of a satellite here! And Venone itself was inhabited by
countless millions, yet their low, green tile and metal cities were
invisible in the aspect of rolling lands with tiny hillocks, dwarfed by
gigantic bulbous trees that floated their enormous weight in the
water-dense atmosphere.
Here, too, there were no seas, for the temperature was above the
critical temperature of water, and only in the self-cooling bodies of
these men and in the trees which similarly cooled themselves, could
there be liquid.
The sun of the world was another of the giant red stars, close to three
hundred and fifty times the mass of our sun. It was circled by but three
giant planets. Its enormous disc was almost invisible from the surface
of the world as the _Thought_ sank slowly through fifteen thousand miles
of air, due to the screening effect on light passing through so much
air. Earth could have rested on this planet and not extended beyond its
atmosphere! Had Earth been situated at this planet's center, the Moon
could have revolved about it, and would not have been beyond the
planet's surface!
In silent wonder the terrestrians watched the titanic world as they
sank, and their friends looked on amazed, comprehending even less of the
significance of what they saw. Already within the titanic gravitational
field, they could see that indescribable effects were being produced on
them, and on the ship. Arcot alone could know the enormous gravitation,
and his accelerometer told him now that he was subject to a
gravitational acceleration of three thousand four hundred and
eighty-seven feet per second, or almost exactly one hundred and nine
times Earth's pull.
"The _Thought_ weighs one billion, two hundred and six million, five
hundred thousand tons, with tender, on Earth. Here it weighs
approximately one hundred and twenty-one billion tons," said Arcot
softly.
"Can you set it down? It may crush under this load if the gravity drive
isn't supporting it," asked Torlos anxiously.
"Eight inches cosmium, and everything else supported by cosmium. I made
this thing to stand any conceivable strain. Watch--if the planet's
surface will take the load," replied Arcot.
They were still sinking, and now a number of small marvelously
streamlined ships were clustered around the slowly settling giant. In a
few moments more people, hundreds, thousands of men were flying through
the air up to the ship.
A cruiser had appeared, and was very evidently intent on leading them
somewhere, and Arcot followed it as it streaked through the dense air.
"No wonder they streamline," he muttered as he saw the enormous force it
took to drive the gigantic ship through this air. The air pressure
outside their ship now was so great, that the sheer crushing effect of
the air pressure alone was enormous. The pressure was well over nine
tons to the square inch, on the surface of that enormous ship!
They landed approximately fifty miles from a large city which was the
capital. The land seemed absolutely level, and the horizon faded off in
distance in an atmosphere absolutely clear. There was no dust in the air
at their height of nearly three hundred feet, for dust was too heavy on
this world. There were no clouds. The mountains of this enormous world
were not large, could not be large, for their sheer weight would tear
them down, but what mountains there were were jagged, tortured rock,
exceedingly sharp in outline.
"No rain--no temperature change to break them down," said Wade looking
at them. "The zone of fracture can't be deep here."
"What, Wade, is the zone of fracture?" asked Torles.
"Rock has weight. Any substance, no matter how brittle, will flow if
sufficient pressure is brought to bear from all sides. A thing which can
flow will not break or fracture. You can't imagine the pressure to which
the rock three hundred feet down is subject to. There is the enormous
mass of atmosphere, the tremendous mass of rock above, and all forced
down by this gravitation. By the time you get down half a mile, the rock
is under such an inconceivably great pressure that it will flow like
mud. The rock there cannot break; it merely flows under pressure. Above,
the rock can break, instead of flowing. That is the zone of fracture. On
Earth the zone of fracture is ten miles deep. Here it must be of the
order of only five hundred feet! And the planetary blocks that made a
planet's surface float on the zone of flowage--they determine the zone
of fracture."
The gigantic ship had been sinking, and now, suddenly it gave a very
unexpected demonstration of Wade's words. It had landed, and Arcot shut
off the power. There was a roaring, and the giant ship trembled, rocked,
and rolled along a bit. Instantly Arcot drove it into the air.
"Whoa--can't do it. The ship will stand it, and won't bend under the
load--but the planet won't. We caused a Venone-quake. One of those
planetary blocks Wade was talking about slipped under the added strain."
Quickly Wade explained that all the planetary blocks were floating,
truly floating, and in equilibrium just as a boat must be. The added
load had been sufficiently great, so that, with an already extant
overload on this particular planetary block, this "boat" had sunk a bit
further into the flowage zone, till it was once more at rest and
balanced.
"They wish us to come out that they may see us, strangers and friends
from another Island," interrupted Zezdon Afthen.
"Tell them they'd have to scrape us up off the ground, if we attempted
it. We come from a world where we weigh about as much as a pebble here,"
said Wade, grinning at the thought of terrestrians trying to walk on
this world.
"Don't--tell them we'll be right out," said Arcot sharply. "All of us."
Morey and the others all stared at Arcot in amazement. It was utterly
impossible!
But Zezdon Afthen did as Arcot had asked. Almost immediately, another
Morey stepped out of the airlock wearing what was obviously a pressure
suit. Behind him came another Wade, Torlos, Stel Felso Theu, and indeed
all the members of their party save Arcot himself! The Galactians stared
in wonder--then comprehended and laughed together. Arcot had sent
artificial matter images of them all!
Their images stepped out, and the Venonian crowd which had collected,
stared in wonder at the giants, looming twice their height above them.
"You see not us, but images of us. We cannot withstand your gravity nor
your air pressure, save in the protection of our ship. But these images
are true images of us."
For some time then they communicated, and finally Arcot agreed to give a
demonstration of their power. At the suggestion of the cruiser commander
who had seen the construction of a spaceship from the emptiness of
space, Arcot rapidly constructed a small, very simple, molecular drive
machine of pure cosmium, making it entirely from energy. It required but
minutes, and the Venonians stared in wonder as Arcot's unbelievable
tools created the machine before their eyes. The completed ship Arcot
gave to an official of the city who had appeared. The Venonian looked at
the thing skeptically, and half expecting it to vanish like the tools
that made it, gingerly entered the port. Powered as it was by lead
burning cosmic ray generators, the lead alone having been made by
transmutation of natural matter, it was powerful, and speedy. The
official entered it, and finding it still existing, tried it out. Much
to his amazement it flew, and operated perfectly.
Nearly ten hours Arcot and his friends stayed at Venone, and before they
left, the Venonians, for all their vast differences of structure, had
proven themselves true, kindly honest men, and a race that our Alliance
has since found every reason to respect and honor. Our commerce with
them, though carried on under difficulties, is none the less a bond of
genuine friendship.