WITH GALAXIES IN THE BALANCE
The _Thought_ arose from Venone after long hours, and at Arcot's
suggestion, they assumed an orbit about the world, at a distance of two
million miles, and all on board slept, save Torlos, the tireless
molecular motion machine of flesh and iron. He acted as guard, and as he
had slept but four days before, he explained there was really no reason
for him to sleep as yet.
But the terrestrians would feel the greatest strain of the coming
encounter, especially Arcot and Morey, for Morey was to help by
repairing any damage done, by working from the control board of the
_Banderlog_. The little tender had sufficient power to take care of any
damage that Thett might inflict, they felt sure.
For they had not learned of the triple ray.
It was hours later that, rested and refreshed, they started for Thett.
Following the great space-chart that they had been given by the
Venonians, a series of blocks of clear lux metal, with tiny points of
slowly disintegrating lux, such as had been used to illuminate the
letters of the _Thought_'s name representing suns, the colors and
relative intensity being shown. Then there was a more manageable guide
in the form of photographs, marked for route by constellations
formations as well, which would be their actual guide.
At the maximum speed of the time apparatus, for thus they could better
follow the constellations, the _Thought_ plunged along in the wake of
the tiny scout ship that had already landed on Thett. And, hours later,
they saw the giant red sun of Antseck, the star of Thett and its system.
"We're about there," said Arcot, a peculiar tenseness showing in his
thoughts. "Shall we barge right in, or wait and investigate?"
"We'll have to chance it. Where is their main fort here?"
"From the direction, I should say it was to the left and ahead of our
position," replied Zezdon Afthen.
The ship moved ahead, while about it the tremendous Thessian battlefleet
buzzed like flies, thousands of ships now, and more coming with each
second.
In a few moments the titanic ship had crossed a great plain, and came to
a region of bare, rocky hills several hundred feet high. Set in those
hills, surrounded by them, was a huge sphere, resting on the ground. As
though by magic the Thessian fleet cleared away from the _Thought_. The
last one had not left, when Arcot shot a terrific cosmic ray toward the
sphere. It was relux, and he knew it, but he knew what would happen when
that cosmic ray hit it. The solometer flickered and steadied at three as
that inconceivable ray flashed out.
Instantly there was a terrific explosion. The soil exploded into
hydrogen atoms, and expanded under heat that lashed it to more than a
million degrees in the tiniest fraction of a second. The terrific recoil
of the ray-pressure was taken by all space, for it was generated in
space itself, but the direct pressure struck the planet, and that
titanic planet reeled! A tremendous fissure opened, and the section that
had been struck by the ray smashed its way suddenly far into the planet,
and a geyser of fluid rock rolled over it, twenty miles deep in that
world. The relux sphere had been struck by the ray, and had turned it,
with the result that it was pushed doubly hard. The enormously thick
relux strained and dented, then shot down as a whole, into the
incandescent rock.
For miles the vaporized rock was boiling off. Then the fort sent out a
ray, and that ray blasted the rock that had flowed over it as Arcot's
titanic ray snapped out. In moments the fort was at the surface
again--and a molecular hit it. The molecular did not have the energy the
cosmic had carried, but it was a single concentrated beam of destruction
ten feet across. It struck the fort--and the fort recoiled under its
energy. The marvelous new tubes that ran its ray screen flashed
instantly to a temperature inconceivable, and, so long as the elements
embedded in the infusible relux remained the metals they were, those
tubes could not fail. But they were being lashed by the energy of half a
sun. The tubes failed. The elements heated to that enormous temperature
when elements cannot exist--and broke to other elements that did not
resist. The relux flashed into blinding iridescence--
And from the fort came a beam of pure silvery light. It struck the
_Thought_ just behind the bow, for the operator was aiming for the point
where he knew the control room and pilot must be. But Arcot had designed
the ship for mental control, which the enemy operator could not guess.
The beam was a flat beam, perhaps an inch thick, but it fanned out to
fifty feet width. And where it touched the _Thought_, there was a
terrific explosion, and inconceivably violent energy lashed out as the
cosmium instantaneously liberated its energy.
A hundred feet of the nose was torn off the ship, and the enormously
dense air of Thett rushed in. But that beam had cut through the very
edge of one of the ray projectors, or better, one of the ray feed
apparatus. And the ray feed released it without control; it released all
the energy it could suck in from space about it, as one single beam of
cosmic energy, somewhat lower than the regular cosmics, and it flashed
out in a beam as solid matter.
There was air about the ship, and the air instantly exploded into atoms
of a different sort, threw off their electrons, and were raised to the
temperature at which no atom can exist, and became protons and
electrons. But so rapidly was that coil sucking energy from space that
space tended to close in about it, and in enormous spurts the energy
flooded out. It was directed almost straight up, and but one ship was
caught in its beam. It was made of relux, but the relux was powdered
under the inconceivable blow that countless quintillions of cosmic ray
photons struck it. That ray was in fact, a solid mass of cosmium moving
with the velocity of light. And it was headed for that satellite of
Thett, which it would reach in a few hours time.
The _Thought_, due to the spatial strains of the wounded coil, was
constantly rushing away to an almost infinite distance, as the ship
approached that other space toward which the coil tended with its load,
and rushing back, as the coil, reaching a spatial condition which
supplied no energy, fell back. In a hundredth of a second it had reached
equilibrium, and they were in a weirdly, terribly distorted space. But
the triple-ray of the Thessians seemed to sheer off, and miss, no matter
how it was directed. And it was painfully weak, for the coil sucked up
the energy of whatsoever matter disintegrated in the neighborhood.
Then suddenly the performance was over. And they plunged into artificial
space that was black and clean, and not a thing of wavering, struggling
energies. Morey, from his control in the _Banderlog_, had succeeded in
getting sufficient energy, by using his space distortion coils, to
destroy the great projector mechanism. Instantly Arcot, now able to
create the artificial space without the destruction of the coils by the
struggling ray-feed coil, had thrown them to comparative safety.
Space writhed before they could so much as turn from the instruments.
The Thessians had located their artificial space, and reached it with an
attraction ray. They already had been withstanding the drain of the
enormous fields of the giant planet and the giant sun; the attractive
ray was an added strain. Arcot looked at his instruments, and with a
grim smile set a single dial. The space about them became black again.
"Pulling our energy--merely let 'em pull. They're pulling on an ocean,
not a lake this time. I don't think they'll drain those coils very
quickly." He looked at his instruments. "Good for two and a half hours
at this rate.
"Morey, you sure did your job then. I was helpless. The controls
wouldn't answer, of course, with that titanic thing flopping its wings,
so to speak. What are we going to do?"
Morey stood in the doorway, and from his pocket drew a cigarette, handed
it to Arcot, another to each of the others who smoked, and lit them, and
his own. "Smoke," he said, and puffed. "Smoke and think. From our last
experience with a minor tragedy, it helps."
"But--this is no minor tragedy, they have burst open the wall of this
invulnerable ship, destroyed one of those enormous coils, and can do it
again," exclaimed Zezdon Afthen, exceedingly nervous, so nervous that
the normal courage of the man was gone. His too-psychic breeding was
against him as a warrior.
"Afthen," replied Stel Felso Theu calmly, "when our friends have smoked,
and thought, the _Thought_ will be repaired perfectly, and it will be
made invulnerable to that weapon."
"I hope so, Stel Felso Theu," smiled Arcot. He was feeling better
already. "But do you know what that weapon is, Morey?"
"Got some readings on it with the _Banderlog_'s instruments, and I think
I do. Twin-ray is right," replied Morey.
"Hm-hm--so I think. It's a super-photon. What they do is to use a field
somewhat similar to the field we use in making cosmium, except that in
theirs, instead of the photons lying side by side, they slide into one
another, compounding. They evidently get three photons to go into one.
Now, as we know, that size photon doesn't exist for the excellent reason
that it can't in this space. Space closes in about it. Therefore they
have a projected field to accompany it that tends to open out space--and
they are using that, not the attractive ray, on us now. The result is
that for a distance not too great, the triple-ray exists in normal
space--then goes into another. Now the question is how can we stop it? I
have an idea--have you any?"
"Yes, but my idea can't exist in this space either," grinned Morey.
"I think it can. If it's what I think, remember it will have a terrific
electric field."
"It's what you think, then. Come on." Arcot and Morey went to the
calculating room, while Wade took over the ship. But one of the
ray-feeds had been destroyed, and they had three more in action, as well
as their most important weapon, artificial matter. Wade threw on the
time field, and started the emergency lead burner working to recharge
the coils that the Thessians were constantly draining. Being in their
own peculiar space, they could not draw energy from the stars, and Arcot
didn't want to return to normal space to discharge them, unless
necessary.
"How's the air pressure in the rest of the ship?" asked Wade.
"Triple normal," replied Morey. "The Thessian atmosphere leaked in and
sent it up terrifically, but when we went into our own space, at the
halfway point, a lot leaked out. But the ship is full of water now. It
was a bit difficult coming up from the _Banderlog_, and I didn't want to
breathe the air I wasn't sure of. But let's work."
They worked. For eight hours of the time they were now in they continued
to work. The supply of lead metal gave out before the end of the fourth
hour, and the coils were nearing the end of their resistance. It would
soon be necessary for Arcot to return to normal space. So they stopped,
their calculations very nearly complete. Throwing all the remaining
energy into the coils, they a little more than held the space about
them, and moved away from Thett at a speed of about twice that of light.
For an hour more Arcot worked, while the ship plowed on. Then they were
ready.
As Arcot took over the controls, space reeled once more, and they were
alone, far from Thett. The suns of this space were flashing and glowing
about them, and the unlimited energy of a universe was at Arcot's
command. But all the remaining atmosphere in the ship had either gone
instantaneously in the vacuum, or solidified as the chill of expansion
froze it.
To the amazement of the extra-terrestrians, Arcot's first move was to
create a titanic plane of artificial matter, and neatly bisect the
_Thought_ at the middle! He had thrown all of the controls thus
interrupted into neutral, and in the little more than half of the ship
which contained the control cabin, was also the artificial matter
control. It was busy now. With bewildering speed, with the speed of
thought trained to construct, enormous masses of cosmium were appearing
beside them in space as Arcot created them from pure energy. Cosmium,
relux and some clear cosmium-like lux metal. Ordinary cosmium was
reflective, and he wanted something with cosmium's strength, and the
clearness of lux.
In seconds, under Arcot's flying thought manipulation, a great tube had
been welded to the original hull, and the already gigantic ship
lengthened by more than five hundred feet! Immediately great artificial
matter tools gripped the broken nose-section, clamped it into place, and
welded it with cosmium flowing under the inconceivable pressure till it
was again a single great hull.
Then the Thessian fleet found them. The coils were charged now, and they
could have escaped, but Arcot had to work. The Thessians were attacked
with moleculars, cosmics, and a great twin-ray. Arcot could not use his
magnet, for it had been among those things severed from the control. He
had two ray feeds, and the artificial matter. There were nearly three
thousand ships attacking him with a barrage of energy that was
inconceivably great, but the cosmium walls merely turned it aside. It
took Arcot less than ten seconds to wipe out that fleet of ships! He
created a wall of artificial matter at twenty feet from the ship--and
another at twenty thousand miles. It was thin, yet it was utterly
impenetrable. He swept the two walls together, and forced them against
each other until his instruments told him only free energy remained
between them. Then he released the outer wall, and a terrific flood of
energy swept out.
"I don't think we'll be attacked again," said Morey softly. They were
not. Thett had only one other fleet, and had no intention of losing the
powers of their generators at this time when they so badly needed them.
The strange ship had retired for repairs--very well, they could attack
again--and maybe--
Arcot was busy. In the great empty space that had been left, he
installed a second collector coil as gigantic as the main artificial
matter generator. Then he repaired the broken ray feed, and it, and the
companion coil which, with it, had been in the severed nose section,
were now in the same relative position to the new collector coil that
they had had with relation to the artificial matter coil. Next Arcot
built two more ray feeds. Now in the gigantic central power room there
loomed two tremendous power collectors, and six smaller ray feed
collectors.
His next work was to reconnect the severed connectors and controls. Then
he began work on the really new apparatus. Nothing he had constructed so
far was more than a duplicate of existing apparatus, and he had been
able to do it almost instantly, from memory. Now he must vision
something new to his experience, and something that was forced to exist
in part in this space, and partly in another. He tried four times before
the apparatus had been completed correctly, and the work occupied ten
hours. But at last it was done. The _Thought_ was ready now for the
battle.
"Got it right at last?" asked Wade. "I hope so."
"It's right--tried it a little. I don't think you noticed it. I'm going
down now to give them a nice little dose," said Arcot grimly. His ship
was repaired--but they had caused him plenty of trouble.
"How long have we been out here, their time?" asked Wade.
"About an hour and a half." The _Thought_ had been on the time field at
all times save when the Thessian fleet attacked.
"I think, Earthman, that you are tired, and should rest, lest you make a
tired thought and do great harm," suggested Zezdon Afthen.
"I want to finish it!" replied Arcot, sharply. He was tired.
In seconds the _Thought_ was once more over that fortified station in
the mountains--and the triple-ray reached out--and suddenly, about the
ship, was a wall of absolute, utter blackness. The triple-ray touched
it, and exploded into coruscating, blinding energy. It could not
penetrate it. More energy lashed at the wall of blackness as the
operators within the sphere-fort turned in the energy of all the
generators under their control. The ground about the fort was a great
lake of dazzling lava as far as the eye could see, for the triple-ray
was releasing its energy, and the wall of black was releasing an equal,
and opposing energy!
"Stopped!" cried Arcot happily. "Now here is where we give them
something to think about. The magnet and the heat!"
He turned the two enormous forces simultaneously on the point where he
knew the fort was, though it was invisible behind the wall of black that
protected him. From his side, the energy of the spot where all the
system of Thett was throwing its forces, was invisible.
Then he released them. Instantly there was a terrific gout of light on
that wall of blackness. The ship trembled, and space turned gray about
them. The black wall dissolved into grayness in one spot, as a flood of
energy beyond comprehension exploded from it. The enormously strong
cosmium wall dented as the pressure of the escaping radiation struck it,
and turned X-ray hot under the minute percentage it absorbed. The
triple-ray bent away, and faded to black as the cosmic force playing
about it, actually twisted space beyond all power of its mechanism to
overcome. Then, in the tiniest fraction of a second it was over, and
again there was blackness and only the brilliant, blinding blue of the
cosmium wall testified to its enormous temperature, cooling now far more
slowly through green to red.
"Lord--you're right, Zezdon Afthen. I'm going to sleep," called Arcot.
And the ship was suddenly far, far away from Thett. Morey took over, and
Arcot slept. First Morey straightened the uninjured wall and ironed out
the dents.
"What, Morey, is the wall of Blackness?" asked Stel Felso Theu.
"It's solid matter. A thing that you never saw before. That wall of
matter is made of a double layer of protons lying one against the other.
It absorbs absolutely every and all radiation, and because it is solid
matter, not tiny sprinklings of matter in empty space, as is the matter
of even the densest star, it stops the triple-ray. That matter is
nothing but protons; there are no electrons there, and the positive
electrical field is inconceivably great, but it is artificial matter,
and that electrical field exerts its strain not in pulling and
electrifying other bodies, but in holding space open, in keeping it from
closing in about that concentrated matter, just as it does about a
single proton, except that here the entire field energy is so absorbed.
"Arcot was tired, and forgot. He turned his magnet and his heat against
it. The heat fought the solid matter with the same energy that created
it, and with an energy that had resources as great. The magnet curved
space about it, and about us. The result was the terrific energy release
you saw, and the hole in the wall. All Thett couldn't make any
impression on it. One of the rays blasted a hole in it," said Morey with
a laugh. For he, too, loved this mighty thing, the almost living ideas
of his friend's brain.
"But it is as bad as the space defense. It works both ways. We can't
send through it but neither can they. Any thing we use that attacks
them, attacks it, and so destroys it--and it fights."
"We're worse off than ever!" said Morey gloomily.
"My friend, you, too, are tired. Sleep, sleep soundly, sleep till I
call--sleep!" And Morey slept under Zezdon Afthen's will, till Torlos
carried him gently to his room. Then Afthen let the sleep relax to a
natural one. Wade decided he might as well follow under his own power,
for now he knew he was tired, and could not overcome Zezdon Afthen, who
was not.
* * * * *
On Thett, the fort was undestroyed, and now floating on its power units
in a sea of blazing lava. Within, men were working quickly to install a
second set of the new tubes in the molecular motion ray screen, and
other men were transmitting the orders of the Sthanto who had come here
as the place of actually greatest safety.
"Order all battleships to the nearest power-feed station, and command
that all power available be transmitted to the station attacked. I
believe it will be this one. There is no limit on the power transmission
lines, and we need all possible power," he commanded his son, now in
charge of all land and spatial forces.
"And Ranstud, what happened to that molecular ray screen?"
"I do not know. I cannot understand such power.
"But what most worries me is his wall of darkness," said Ranstud
seriously.
"But he was forced to retire for all his wall of darkness, as you saw.
"He can maintain it but a short time, and it was full of holes when he
fled."
"Old Sthanto is much too confident, I believe," said an assistant
working at one of the great boards in the enemy's fort, to one of his
friends. "And I think he has lost his science-knowledge. Any power-man
could tell what happened. They tried to use their own big rays against
us, and their screen stopped them from going out, just as it stopped
ours on the way in. Ours had been working at it for seconds, and hadn't
bothered them. Then for a bare instant their ray touched it--and they
retired. That shield of blackness is absolutely new."
"They have many men on that ship of theirs," replied his friend, helping
to lift the three hundred ton load of a vacuum tube into place, "for it
is evident that they built new apparatus, and it is evident their ship
was increased in size to contain it. Also the nose was repaired. They
probably worked under a time field, for they accomplished an impossible
amount of work in the period they were gone."
Ranstud had come up behind them, and overheard the later part of this
conversation. "And what," he asked suddenly, "did your meters tell you
when our ray opened his ship?"
"Councilor of Science-wisdom, they told us that our power diminished,
and our generators gave off but little power when his power was
exceedingly little, we still had much."
"Have you heard the myth of the source of his power, in the story that
he gets it from all the stars of the Island?"
"We have, Great Councilor. And I for one believe it, for he sucked the
power from our generators. So might he suck the power from the
inconceivably greater generators of the Suns. I believe that we should
treat with them, for if they be like the peace-loving fools of Venone,
we might win a respite in which to learn their secret."
Ranstud walked away slowly. He agreed, in his heart, but he loved life
too well to tell the Sthanto what to do, and he had no intention of
sacrificing himself for the possible good of the race.
So they prepared for another attack of the _Thought_, and waited.