DuQuesne did not find Seaton, nor did he quite comb the Galaxy star
by star, as he had declared that he would do in that event. He did,
however, try; he prolonged the vain search to distances of so many
light-years and through so many weeks of time that even the usually
complacent Loring was moved to protest.
"Pretty much like hunting the proverbial needle in the haystack, isn't
it, chief?" that worthy asked at last. "They could be clear back home
by this time, whoever they are. It looks as though maybe we could do
ourselves more good by doing something else."
"Yes; I probably am wasting time now, but I hate to give it up," the
scientist replied. "We have pretty well covered this section of the
Galaxy. I wonder if it really was Seaton, after all? If he could blow
up that planet through those screens he must have a lot more stuff than
I have ever thought possible--certainly a lot more than I have, even
now--and I would like very much to know how he did it. I couldn't have
done it, nor could the Fenachrone, and if he did it without coming
closer to it than a thousand light-years--"
"He may have been a lot closer than that," Loring interrupted. "He has
had lots of time to make his get-away, you know."
"Not so much as you think, unless he has an acceleration of the same
order of magnitude as ours, which I doubt," DuQuesne countered.
"Although it is of course possible, in the light of what we know must
have happened, that he may have an acceleration as large as ours, or
even larger. But the most vital question now is, where did he get his
dope? We'll have to consider the probabilities and make our own plans
accordingly."
"All right! That's your dish--you're the doctor."
"We shall have to assume that it was Seaton who did it, because if it
was any one else, we have nothing whatever to work on. Assuming Seaton,
we have four very definite leads. Our first lead is that it must have
been Seaton in the _Skylark_ and Dunark in the _Kondal_ that destroyed
the Fenachrone ship from the wreck of which he rescued the engineer. I
couldn't learn anything about the actual battle from his brains, since
he didn't know much except that it was a zone of force that did the
real damage, and that the two strange ships were small and spherical.
"The _Skylark_ and the _Kondal_ answer that description and, while
the evidence is far from conclusive, we shall assume as a working
hypothesis that the _Skylark_ and the _Kondal_ did in fact attack and
cut up a Fenachrone battleship fully as powerful as the one we are now
in. That, as I do not have to tell you, is a disquieting thought.
"If it is true, however, Seaton must have left the Earth shortly after
we did. That idea squares up, because he could very well have had an
object-compass on me--whose tracer, by the way, would have been cut by
the Fenachrone screens, so we needn't worry about it, even if he did
have it once.
"Our second lead lies in the fact that he must have got the dope on the
zone of force sometime between the time when we left the Earth and the
time when he cut up the battleship. He either worked it out himself on
Earth, got it en route, or else got it on Osnome, or at least somewhere
in the Green System. If my theory is correct, he worked it out by
himself, before he left the Earth. He certainly did not get it on
Osnome, because they did not have it.
"The third lead is the shortness of the period of time that elapsed
between his battle with the Fenachrone warship and the destruction of
their planet.
"The fourth lead is the great advancement in ability shown; going as he
did from the use of a zone of force as an offensive weapon, up to the
use of some weapon as yet unknown to us that works _through_ defensive
screens fully as powerful as any possible zone of force.
"Now, from the above hypotheses, we are justified in concluding that
Seaton succeeded in enlisting the help of some ultrapowerful allies in
the Green System, on some planet other than Osnome--"
"Why? I don't quite follow you there," put in Loring.
"He didn't have this new stuff, whatever it is, when he met the
battleship, or he would have used it instead of the dangerous, almost
hand-to-hand fighting entailed by the use of a zone of force," DuQuesne
declared flatly. "Therefore he got it some time after that, but before
the big explosion; and you can take it from me that no one man worked
out a thing that big in such a short space of time. It can't be done.
He had help, and high-class help at that.
"The time factor is also an argument in favor of the idea that he got
it somewhere in the Green System--he didn't have time to go anywhere
else. Also, the logical thing for him to do would be to explore the
Green System first, since it has a very large number of planets, many
of which undoubtedly are inhabited by highly advanced races. Does that
make it clearer?"
"I've got it straight so far," assented the aid.
* * * * *
"We must plan our course of action in detail before we leave this
spot," DuQuesne decided. "Then we will be ready to start back for the
Green System, to find out who Seaton's friends were and to persuade
them to give us all the dope they gave him. Now pin your ears back and
listen to this, every word of it.
"We are not nearly as ready nor as well equipped as I thought we
were--Seaton is about three laps ahead of us yet. Also, there is a lot
more to psychology than I ever thought there was before I read those
brains back there. Both of us had better get in training mentally to
meet Seaton's friends, whoever they may be, or else we probably will
not be able to get away with a thing.
"Both of us, you especially, want to clear our minds of every thought
inimical to Seaton in any way or in even the slightest degree. You and
I are, and always have been, two of the best friends Seaton ever had
on Earth--or anywhere else, for that matter. And of course I cannot
be Marc DuQuesne, for reasons that are self-evident. From now on I am
Stewart Vaneman, Dorothy's brother--No; forget all that--too dangerous.
They may know all about Seaton's friends and Mrs. Seaton's family.
Our best line is to be humble cogs in Seaton's great machine. We
worship him from afar as the world's greatest hero, but we are not of
sufficient importance for him to know personally."
"Isn't that carrying caution to extremes?"
"It is not. The only thing that we are certain of concerning these
postulated beings is that they know immensely more than we do;
therefore our story cannot have even the slightest flaw in it--it must
be bottle-tight. So I will be Stewart Donovan--fortunately I haven't
my name, initials, or monogram on anything I own--and I am one of
the engineers of the Seaton-Crane Co., working on the power-plant
installation.
"Seaton may have given them a mental picture of DuQuesne, but I will
grow a mustache and beard, and with this story they will never think
of connecting Donovan with DuQuesne. You can keep your own name, since
neither Seaton nor any of his crowd ever saw or heard of you. You are
also an engineer--my technical assistant at the works--and my buddy.
"We struck some highly technical stuff that nobody but Seaton could
handle, and nobody had heard anything from him for a long time, so we
came out to hunt him up and ask him some questions. You and I came
together because we are just like Damon and Pythias. That story will
hold water, I believe--do you see any flaws in it?"
"Perhaps not flaws, but one or two things you forgot to mention. How
about this ship? I suppose you could call her an improved model, but
suppose they are familiar with Fenachrone space-ship construction?"
"We shall not be in this ship. If, as we are assuming, Seaton and his
new friends were the star actors in the late drama, those friends
certainly have mentalities and apparatus of high caliber and they would
equally certainly recognize this vessel. I had that in mind when I
shoved the _Violet_ off."
"Then you will have the _Violet_ to explain--an Osnomian ship. However,
the company could have imported a few of them, for runabout work, since
Seaton left. It would be quicker than building them, at that, since
they already have all the special tools and stuff on Osnome."
"You're getting the idea. Anything else?"
"All this is built around the supposition that he will not be there
when we arrive. Suppose he _is_ there?"
"The chances are a thousand to one that he will be gone somewhere,
exploring--he never did like to stick around in any one place. And even
in the remote possibility that he should be on the planet, he certainly
will not be at the dock when we land, so the story is still good. If he
should be there, we shall simply have to arrange matters so that our
meeting him face to face is delayed until after we have got what we
want; that's all."
"All right; I've got it down solid."
"Be sure that you have. Above all, remember the mental attitude toward
Seaton--hero worship. He is not only the greatest man that Earth ever
produced; he is the king-pin of the entire Galaxy, and we rate him
just a hair below the Almighty. Think that thought with every cell
of your brain. Concentrate on it with all your mind. Feel it--act
it--really believe it until I tell you to quit."
"I'll do that. Now what?"
"Now we hunt up the _Violet_, transfer to her, and set this cruiser
adrift on a course toward Earth. And while I think of it, we want to be
sure not to use any more power than the _Skylark_ could, anywhere near
the Green System, and cover up anything that looks peculiar about the
power plant. We're not supposed to know anything about the five-light
drive of the Fenachrone, you know."
"But suppose that you can't find the _Violet_, or that she has been
destroyed?"
"In that case we'll go to Osnome and steal another one just like her.
But I'll find her--I know her exact course and velocity, we have
ultrarange detectors, and her automatic instruments and machinery make
her destructionproof."
* * * * *
DuQuesne's chronometers were accurate, his computations were sound,
and his detectors were sensitive enough to have revealed the presence
of a smaller body than the _Violet_ at a distance vastly greater than
the few millions of miles which constituted the unavoidable error.
Therefore the Osnomian cruiser was found without trouble and the
transfer was effected without untoward incident.
Then for days the _Violet_ was hurled at full acceleration toward
the center of the Galaxy. Long before the Green System was reached,
however, the globular cruiser was swung off her course and, mad
acceleration reversed, was put into a great circle, so that she would
approach her destination from the direction of our own solar system.
Slower and slower she drove onward, the bright green star about which
she was circling resolving itself first into a group of bright-green
points and finally into widely spaced, tiny green suns.
Although facing the completely unknown and about to do battle, with
their wits certainly, and with their every weapon possibly, against
overwhelming odds, neither man showed or felt either nervousness or
disorganization. Loring was a fatalist. It was DuQuesne's party; he was
merely the hired help. He would do his best when the time came to do
something; until that time came there was nothing to worry about.
DuQuesne, on the other hand, was the repose of conscious power. He had
laid his plans as best he could with the information then at hand. If
conditions changed he would change those plans; otherwise he would
drive through with them ruthlessly, as was his wont. In the meantime he
awaited he knew not what, poised, cool, and confident.
Since both men were really expecting the unexpected, neither betrayed
surprise when something that was apparently a man materialized
before them in the air of the control room. His skin was green, as
was that of all the inhabitants of the Green System. He was tall and
well-proportioned, according to Earthly standards, except for his
head, which was overlarge and particularly massive above the eyes and
backward from the ears. He was evidently of advanced years, for his
face was seamed and wrinkled, and both his long, heavy hair and his
yard-long, square-cut beard were a snowy white, only faintly tinged
with green.
The Norlaminian projection thickened instantly, with none of the
oscillation and "hunting" which had been so noticeable in the one
which had visited _Skylark Two_ a few months earlier, for at that
comparatively short range the fifth-order keyboard handling it
could hold a point, however moving, as accurately as a Terrestrial
photographic telescope holds a star. And in the moment of
materialization of his projection the aged Norlaminian spoke.
[Illustration: _"I welcome you to Norlamin, Terrestrials," spoke the
projection. "I suppose that you are close friends of Seaton and Crane,
and that you come to learn why they have not communicated with you?"_]
"I welcome you to Norlamin, Terrestrials," he greeted the two marauders
with the untroubled serenity and calm courtesy of his race. "Since you
are quite evidently of the same racial stock as our very good friends
the doctors Seaton and Crane, and since you are traveling in a ship
built by the Osnomians, I assume that you speak and understand the
English language which I am employing. I suppose that you are close
friends of Seaton and Crane and that you have come to learn why they
have not communicated with you of late?"
* * * * *
Self-contained as DuQuesne was, this statement almost took his breath
away, squaring almost perfectly as it did with the tale he had so
carefully prepared. He did not show his amazed gratification, however,
but spoke as gravely and as courteously as the other had done:
"We are very glad indeed to see you, sir; particularly since we know
neither the name nor the location of the planet for which we are
searching. Your assumptions are correct in every particular save one--"
[Illustration: _Self-contained as DuQuesne was, this statement almost
took his breath away, squaring almost perfectly as it did with the tale
he had so carefully prepared._]
"You do not know even the name of Norlamin?" the Green scientist
interrupted. "How can that be? Did not Dr. Seaton send the projections
of all his party to you upon Earth, and did he not discuss matters with
you?"
"I was about to explain that." DuQuesne lied instantly, boldly, and
convincingly. "We heard that he had sent a talking, three-dimensional
picture of his group to Earth, but after it had vanished all the real
information that any one seemed to have obtained was that they were
here in the Green System somewhere, but not upon Osnome, and that they
had been taught much of science. Mrs. Seaton did most of the talking,
I gather, which may account for the dearth of pertinent details.
"Neither my friend Loring, here, nor I--I am Stewart Donovan, by the
way--saw the picture, or rather, projection. You assumed that we are
Seaton's close friends. We are engineers in his company, but we have
not the honor of his personal acquaintance. His scientific knowledge
was needed so urgently that it was decided that we should come out here
after him, since the chief of construction had heard nothing from him
for so long."
"I see." A shadow passed over the seamed green face. "I am very sorry
indeed at what I have to tell you. We did not report anything of it to
Earth because of the panic that would have ensued. We shall of course
send the whole story as soon as we can learn what actually did take
place and can deduce therefrom the probable sequence of events yet to
occur."
"What's that--an accident? Something happened to Seaton?" DuQuesne
snapped. His heart leaped in joy and relief, but his face showed only
strained anxiety and deep concern. "He isn't here now? Surely nothing
serious could have happened to him."
"Alas, young friend, none of us knows yet what really occurred. It
is highly probable, however, that their vessel was destroyed in
intergalactic space by forces about which we have as yet been able
to learn nothing; forces directed by some intelligence as yet to us
unknown. There is a possibility that Seaton and his companions escaped
in the vessel you knew as _Skylark Two_, but so far we have not been
able to find them.
"But enough of talking; you are strained and weary and you must rest.
As soon as your vessel was detected the beam was transferred to me--the
student Rovol, perhaps the closest to Seaton of any of my race--so that
I could give you this assurance. With your permission I shall direct
upon your controls certain forces which shall so govern your flight
that you shall alight safely upon the grounds of my laboratory in a
few minutes more than twelve hours of your time, without any further
attention or effort upon your part.
"Further explanations can wait until we meet in the flesh. Until that
time, my friends, do nothing save rest. Eat and sleep without care
or fear, for your flight and your landing shall be controlled with
precision. Farewell!"
The projection vanished instantaneously, and Loring expelled his
pent-up breath in an explosive sigh.
"Whew! But what a break, chief, what a--"
He was interrupted by DuQuesne, who spoke calmly and quietly, yet
insistently: "Yes, it is a singularly fortunate circumstance that the
Norlaminians detected us and recognized us; it probably would have
required weeks for us to have found their planet unaided." DuQuesne's
lightning mind found a way of covering up his companion's betraying
exclamation and sought some way of warning him that could not be
overheard. "Our visitor was right in saying that we need food and rest
badly, but before we eat let us put on the headsets and bring the
record of our flight up to date--it will take only a minute or two."
"What's biting you, chief?" thought Loring as soon as the power was on.
"We didn't have any--"
"Plenty!" DuQuesne interrupted him viciously. "Don't you realize that
they can probably hear every word we say, and that they can see every
move we make, even in the dark? In fact, they may be able to read
thoughts, for all I know; so _think straight_ from now on, if you never
did before! Now let's finish up this record."
He then impressed upon a tape the record of everything that had
just happened. They ate. Then they slept soundly--the first really
untroubled sleep they had enjoyed for weeks. And at last, exactly as
the projection had foretold, the _Violet_ landed without a jar upon the
spacious grounds beside the laboratory of Rovol, the foremost physicist
of Norlamin.
* * * * *
When the door of the space ship opened, Rovol in person was standing
before it, waiting to welcome the voyagers and to escort them to
his dwelling. But DuQuesne, pretending a vast impatience, would not
be dissuaded from the object of his search merely to satisfy the
Norlaminian amenities of hospitality and courtesy. He poured forth his
prepared story in a breath, concluding with a flat demand that Rovol
tell him everything he knew about Seaton, and that he tell it at once.
"It would take far too long to tell you anything in words," the ancient
scientist replied placidly. "In the laboratory, however, I can and
will inform you fully in a few minutes concerning everything that has
happened."
Utter stranger himself to deception in any form, as was his whole race,
Rovol was easily and completely deceived by the consummate acting, both
physical and mental, of DuQuesne and Loring. Therefore, as soon as the
three had donned the headsets of the wonderfully efficient Norlaminian
educator, Rovol gave to the Terrestrial adventurers without reserve his
every mental image and his every stored fact concerning Seaton and his
supposedly ill-fated last voyage.
Even more clearly than as if he himself had seen them all happen,
DuQuesne beheld and understood Seaton's visit to Norlamin, the story
of the Fenachrone peril, the building of the fifth-order projector,
the demolition of Fenor's space fleet, the revenge-purposed flight
of Ravindau the scientist, and the complete volatilization of the
Fenachrone planet.
He saw Seaton's gigantic space cruiser _Skylark Three_ come into being
and, uranium-driven, speed out into the awesome void of intergalactic
space in pursuit of the last survivors of the Fenachrone race. He
watched the mighty _Three_ overtake the fleeing vessel, and understood
every detail of the epic engagement that ensued, clear to its
cataclysmic end. He watched the victorious battleship speed on and
on, deeper and deeper into the intergalactic void, until she began
to approach the limiting range of even the stupendous fifty-order
projector by means of which he knew the watching had been done.
Then, at the tantalizing limit of visibility, something began to
happen; something at the very incomprehensibility of which DuQuesne
strained both mind and eye, exactly as had Rovol when it had taken
place so long before. The immense bulk of the _Skylark_ disappeared
behind zone after impenetrable zone of force, and it became
increasingly evident that from behind those supposedly impervious and
impregnable shields Seaton was waging a terrific battle against some
unknown opponent, some foe invisible even to fifth-order vision.
For nothing was visible--nothing, that is, save the released energies
which, leaping through level after level, reached at last even to the
visible spectrum. Yet forces of such unthinkable magnitude were warring
there that space itself was being deformed visibly, moment by moment.
For a long time the space strains grew more and more intense, then
they disappeared instantly. Simultaneously the _Skylark's_ screens of
force went down and she was for an instant starkly visible before she
exploded into a vast ball of appallingly radiant, flaming vapor.
* * * * *
In that instant of clear visibility, however, Rovol's mighty mind had
photographed every salient visible feature of the great cruiser of the
void. Being almost at the limit of range of the projector, details were
of course none too plain; but certain things were evident. The human
beings were no longer aboard; the little lifeboat that was _Skylark
Two_ was no longer in her spherical berth; and there were unmistakable
signs of a purposeful and deliberate departure.
"And," Rovol spoke aloud as he removed the headset, "although we
searched minutely and most carefully all the surrounding space we could
find nothing tangible. From these observations it is all too plain that
Seaton was attacked by some intelligence wielding dirigible forces of
the sixth order; that he was able to set up a defensive pattern; that
his supply of power-uranium was insufficient to cope with the attacking
forces; and that he took the last desperate means of escaping from his
foes by rotating _Skylark Two_ into the unknown region of the fourth
dimension."
DuQuesne's stunned mind groped for a moment in an amazement akin to
stupefaction, but he recovered quickly and decided upon his course.
"Well, what are you doing about it?" he snapped.
"We have done and are doing everything possible for us, in our present
state of knowledge and advancement, to do," Rovol replied placidly. "We
sent out forces, as I told you, which obtained and recorded all the
phenomena to which they were sensitive. It is true that a great deal of
data escaped them, because the primary impulses originated in a level
beyond our present knowledge, but the fact that we cannot understand it
has only intensified our interest in the problem. It shall be solved.
After its solution we shall know what steps to take and those steps
shall then be taken."
"Have you any idea how long it will take to solve the problem?"
"Not the slightest. Perhaps one lifetime, perhaps many--who knows?
However, rest assured that it shall be solved, and that the condition
shall be dealt with in the manner which shall best serve the interest
of humanity as a whole."
"But good heavens!" exclaimed DuQuesne. "In the meantime, what of
Seaton and Crane?" He was now speaking his true thoughts. Upon this,
his first encounter, he could in nowise understand the deep, calm,
timeless trend of mind of the Norlaminians; not even dimly could he
grasp or appreciate the seemingly slow but inexorably certain method
in which they pursued relentlessly any given line of research to its
ultimate conclusion.
"If it should be graven upon the sphere that they shall pass they
may--and will--pass in all tranquility, for they know full well that it
was not in idle gesture that the massed intellect of Norlamin assured
them that their passing should not be in vain. You, however, youths of
an unusually youthful and turbulent race, could not be expected to view
the passing of such a one as Seaton from our own mature viewpoint."
"I'll tell the universe that I don't look at things the way you do!"
barked DuQuesne scathingly. "When I go back to Earth--if I go--I shall
at least have tried. I've got a life-sized picture of myself standing
idly by while some one else tries for seven hundred years to decipher
the indecipherable!"
"There speaks the impetuousness of youth," the old man chided. "I have
told you that we have proved that at present we can do nothing whatever
for the occupants of _Skylark Two_. Be warned, my rash young friend; do
not tamper with powers entirely beyond your comprehension."
"Warning be damned!" DuQuesne snorted. "We're shoving off. Come on,
Loring--the quicker we get started the better our chance of getting
something done. You'll be willing to give me the exact bearing and the
distance, won't you, Rovol?"
"We shall do more than that, son," the Green patriarch replied, while
a shadow came over his wrinkled visage. "Your life is your own, to do
with as you see fit. You have chosen to go in search of your friends,
scorning the odds against you. But before I tell you what I have in
mind, I must try once more to make you see that the courage which
dictates the useless sacrifice of a life ceases to be courage at all,
but becomes sheerest folly.
"Since we have had sufficient power several of our youths have been
studying the fourth dimension. They rotated many inanimate objects into
that region, but could recover none of them. Instead of waiting until
they had derived the fundamental equations governing such phenomena
they rashly visited that region in person, in a vain attempt to achieve
a short cut to knowledge. Not one of them has come back.
"Now I declare to you in all solemnity that the quest you wish to
undertake, involving as it does not only that entirely unknown region
but also the equally unknown sixth order of vibrations, is to you at
present utterly impossible. Do you still insist upon going?"
"We certainly do. You may as well save your breath."
"Very well; so be it. Frankly, I had but little hope of swerving you
from your purpose by reason. But before you go we shall supply you
with every resource at our command which may in any way operate to
increase your infinitesimal chance of success. We shall build for you a
duplicate of Seaton's own _Skylark Three_, equipped with every device
known to our science, and we shall instruct you fully in the use of
those devices before you set out."
"But the time--" DuQuesne began to object.
"A matter of hours only," Rovol silenced him. "True, it took us some
little time to build _Skylark Three_, but that was because it had
not been done before. Every force employed in her construction was
of course recorded, and to reproduce her in every detail, without
attention or supervision, it is necessary only to thread this
tape, thus, into the integrator of my master keyboard. The actual
construction will of course take place in the area of experiment, but
you may watch it, if you wish, in this visiplate. I must make a short
series of observations at this time. I will return in ample time to
instruct you in the operation of the vessel and of everything in it."
In stunned amazement the two men stared into the visiplate, so
engrossed in what they saw there that they scarcely noticed the
departure of the aged scientist. For before their eyes there had
already sprung into being an enormous structure of laced and latticed
members of purple metal, stretching over two miles of level plain.
While it was very narrow for its length, yet its fifteen hundred feet
of diameter dwarfed into insignificance the many outlandish structures
near by, and under their staring eyes the vessel continued to take
form with unbelievable rapidity. Gigantic girders appeared in place as
though by magic; skin after skin of thick, purple inoson was welded
on; all without the touch of a hand, without the thought of a brain,
without the application of any visible force.
"Now you can say it, Doll; there's no spy ray on us here. What a
break--what a break!" exulted DuQuesne. "The old fossil swallowed it
bodily, hook, line, and sinker!"
"It may not be so good, though, at that, chief, in one way. He's
going to watch us, to help us out if we get into a jam, and with that
infernal telescope, or whatever it is, the Earth is right under his
nose."
"Simpler than taking milk away from a blind kitten," the saturnine
chemist gloated. "We'll go out to where Seaton went, only farther--out
beyond the reach of his projector. There, completely out of touch with
him, we'll circle around the Galaxy back to Earth and do our stuff.
Easier than dynamiting fish in a bucket--the old sap's handing me
everything I want, right on a silver platter!"