When _Skylark Three_ left Norlamin in pursuit of the fleeing vessel of
Ravindau, the Fenachrone scientist, the occasion had been made an event
of world-wide interest. From their tasks everywhere had come the mental
laborers to that stupendous event. To it had come also, practically en
masse, the "youngsters" from the Country of Youth; and even those who,
their life work done, had betaken themselves to the placid Nirvana of
the Country of Age returned briefly to the Country of Study to speed
upon its epoch-making way that stupendous messenger of civilization.
But in sharp contrast to the throngs of Norlaminians who had witnessed
the take-off of _Three_, Rovol alone was present when DuQuesne and
Loring wafted themselves into the control room of its gigantic
counterpart. DuQuesne had been in a hurry, and in the driving urge
of his haste to go to the rescue of his "friend" Seaton he had so
completely occupied the mind of Rovol that that aged scientist had had
no time to do anything except transfer to the brain of the Terrestrial
pirate the knowledge which he would so soon require.
Of the real reason for this overweening haste, however, Rovol
had not had the slightest inkling. DuQuesne well knew what the
ancient physicist did not even suspect--that if any one of several
Norlaminians, particularly one Drasnik, First of Psychology, should
become informed of the proposed flight, that flight would not
take place. For Drasnik, that profound student of the mind, would
not be satisfied with DuQuesne's story without a thorough mental
examination--an examination which, DuQuesne well knew, he could not
pass. Therefore Rovol alone saw them off, but what he lacked in numbers
he made up in sincerity.
"I am very sorry that the exigencies of the situation did not permit a
more seemly leave-taking," he said in parting, "but I can assure you of
the coöperation of every one of us whose brain can be of any use. We
shall watch you, and shall aid you in any way we can."
"Farewell to you, Rovol, my friend and my benefactor, and to all
Norlamin," DuQuesne replied solemnly. "I thank you from the bottom of
my heart for everything you have done for us and for Seaton, and for
what you may yet be called upon to do for all of us."
He touched a stud and in each of the many skins of the great cruiser a
heavy door drove silently shut, establishing a manifold seal.
His hand moved over the controls, and the gigantic vessel tilted
slowly upward until her narrow prow pointed almost directly into the
zenith. Then, easily as a wafted feather, the unimaginable mass of
the immense cruiser of space floated upward with gradually increasing
velocity. Faster and faster she flew, out beyond measurable atmospheric
pressure, out beyond the outermost limits of the Green System, swinging
slowly into a right line toward the point in space where Seaton, his
companions, and both their space ships had disappeared.
On and on she drove, now at high acceleration; the stars, so widely
spaced at first, crowding closer and closer together as her speed, long
since incomprehensible to any finite mind, mounted to a value almost
incalculable. Past the system of the Fenachrone she hurtled; past
the last outlying fringe of stars of our Galaxy; on and on into the
unexplored, awesome depths of free and absolute space.
Behind her the vast assemblage of stars comprising our island universe
dwindled to a huge, flaming lens, to a small but bright lenticular
nebula, and finally to a mere point of luminosity.
For days communication with Rovol had been difficult, since as the
limit of projection was approached it became impossible for the most
powerful forces at Rovol's command to hold a projection upon the flying
vessel. In order to communicate, Rovol had to send out a transmitting
and receiving projection.
As the distance grew still greater, DuQuesne had done the same thing.
Now it was becoming evident, by the wavering and fading of the signals,
that even the two projections, reaching out toward each other though
they were, would soon be out of touch, and DuQuesne sent out his last
message:
"There is no use in trying to keep in communication any longer, as our
beams are falling apart fast. I am on negative acceleration now, of an
amount calculated to bring us down to maneuvering velocity at the point
to which the inertia of _Skylark Two_ would have carried her, without
power, at the time when we shall arrive there. Please keep a listening
post established out this way as far as you can, and I will try to
reach it if I find out anything. If I fail--good-by!"
"The poor, dumb cluck!" DuQuesne sneered as he shut off his sender and
turned to Loring. "That was so easy that it was a shame to take it, but
we're certainly set to go now."
"I'll say so!" Loring agreed enthusiastically. "That was a nice touch,
chief, telling him to keep a lookout out here. He'll do it with forces,
of course, not in person; but at that it'll keep him from thinking
about the Earth until you're all set."
"You've got the idea, Doll. If they had any suspicion at all that we
were heading back for the Earth they could block us yet, easily enough;
but if we can get back inside the Solar System before they smell a rat
it will be too late for them to do anything."
He rotated his ship through an angle of ninety degrees upon her
longitudinal axis and applied enough downward acceleration to swing her
around in such an immense circle that she would approach the Galaxy
from the side opposite to that from which she had left it.
* * * * *
Then, during days that lengthened into weeks and months of dull and
monotonous flight, the two men occupied themselves, each in his
own individual fashion. There was no piloting to do and no need of
vigilance, for space to a distance of untold billions of miles was
absolutely and utterly empty.
Loring, unemotional and incurious, performed what simple routine
housekeeping there was to do, ate, slept, and smoked. During the
remainder of the time he simply sat still, stolidly doing nothing
whatever until the time should come when DuQuesne would tell him to
perform some specific act.
DuQuesne, on the other hand, dynamic and energetic to his ultimate
fiber, found not a single idle moment. His newly acquired knowledge
was so vast that he needs must explore and catalogue his own brain,
to be sure that he would be able instantly to call upon whatever
infinitesimal portion of it might be needed in some emergency.
The fifth-order projector, with its almost infinitely complicated
keyboard, must needs be studied until its every possible resource of
integration, permutation, and combination held from him no more secrets
than does his console from a master of the pipe organ. Thus it was that
the Galaxy loomed ahead, a stupendous lens of flame, before DuQuesne
had really realized that the long voyage was almost over.
To his present mentality, working with his newly acquired fifth-order
projector, the task of locating our Solar System was but the work of a
moment; and to the power and speed of his new space ship the distance
from the Galaxy's edge to the Earth was merely a longish jaunt.
When they approached the Earth it appeared as a softly shining,
greenish half moon. With fleecy wisps of cloud obscuring its surface
here and there, with gleaming ice caps making of its poles two
brilliant areas of white, it presented an arrestingly beautiful
spectacle indeed; but DuQuesne was not interested in beauty. Driving
down from the empty reaches of space north of the ecliptic, he observed
that Washington was in the morning zone, and soon his great vessel was
poised motionless, invisibly high above the city.
His first act was to throw out an ultra-powered detector screen, with
automatic trips and tighteners, around the entire Solar System; out
far beyond the outermost point of the orbit of Pluto. Its every part
remained unresponsive. No foreign radiation was present in all that
vast volume of space, and DuQuesne turned to his henchman with cold
satisfaction stamped upon his every hard lineament.
"No interference at all, Doll. No ships, no projections, no spy rays,
nothing," he said. "I can really get to work now. I won't be needing
you for a while, and I imagine that, after being out in space so long,
you would like to circulate around with the boys and girls for a couple
of weeks or so. How are you fixed for money?"
"Well, chief, I could do with a small binge and a few nights out among
'em, if it's all right with you," Loring admitted. "As for money,
I've got only a couple of hundred on me, but I can get some at the
office--we're quite a few pay days behind, you know."
"Never mind about going to the office. I don't know exactly how well
Brookings is going to like some of the things I'm going to tell him,
and you're working for _me_, you know, not for the office. I've got
plenty. Here's five thousand, and you can have three weeks to spend it
in. Three weeks from to-day I'll call you on your wireless phone and
tell you what to do. Until then, do as you please. Where do you want me
to set you down? Perhaps the Perkins roof will be clear at this hour."
"Good as any. Thanks, chief," and without even a glance to assure
himself that DuQuesne was at the controls Loring made his way through
the manifold airlocks and calmly stepped out into ten thousand feet of
empty air.
* * * * *
DuQuesne caught the falling man neatly with an attractor beam and
lowered him gently to the now-deserted roof of the Perkins Café--that
famous restaurant which had been planned and was maintained by the
World Steel Corporation as a blind for its underground activities.
He then seated himself at his console and drove his projection down
into the innermost private office of World Steel. He did not at first
thicken the pattern into visibility, but remained invisible, studying
Brookings, now president of that industrial octopus, the World Steel
Corporation.
The magnate was seated as of yore in a comfortably padded chair at his
massive and ornate desk, the focus and the center of a maze of secret
private communication bands and even more secret private wires. For
Steel was a growing octopus and its voraciously insatiable maw must be
fed.
Brookings had but one motto, one tenet--get it. By fair play at times,
although this method was employed but seldom; by bribery, corruption,
and sabotage as the usual thing; by murder, arson, mayhem, and all
other known forces of foul play if necessary or desirable--Steel got it.
To be found out was the only sin, and that was usually only venial
instead of cardinal; for it was because of that sometimes unavoidable
contingency that Steel not only retained the shrewdest legal minds in
the world, but also wielded certain subterranean forces sufficiently
powerful to sway even supposedly incorruptible courts of justice.
Occasionally, of course, the sin was cardinal; the transgression
irremediable: the court unreachable. In that case the octopus lost a
very minor tentacle; but the men really guilty had never been brought
to book.
Into the center of this web, then, DuQuesne drove his projection and
listened. For a whole long week he kept at Brookings' elbow, day and
night. He listened and spied, studied and planned, until his now
gigantic mentality not only had grasped every detail of everything that
had developed during his long absence and of everything that was then
going on, but also had planned meticulously the course which he would
pursue. Then, late one afternoon, he cut in his audio and spoke.
"I knew of course that you would try to double-cross me, Brookings, but
even I had no idea that you would make such an utter fool of yourself
as you have."
As he heard the sneering, cutting tone of the scientist's
well-remembered voice, the magnate seemed to shrink visibly; his face
turning a pasty gray as the blood receded from it.
"DuQuesne!" he gasped. "Where--are you?"
"I'm right beside you, and I have been for over a week." DuQuesne
thickened his image to full visibility and grinned sardonically as
the man at the desk reached hesitantly toward a button. "Go ahead and
push it--and see what happens. Surely even you are not dumb enough to
suppose that a man with my brain--even the brain I had when I left
here--would take any chances with such a rat as you have always shown
yourself to be?"
Brookings sank back into his chair, shaking visibly. "What are you,
anyway? You look like DuQuesne, and yet--" His voice died away.
"That's better, Brookings. Don't ever start anything that you can't
finish. You are and always were a physical coward. You're one of the
world's best at bossing dirty work from a distance, but as soon as it
gets close to you you fold up like an accordion.
"As to what this is that I am talking and seeing from, it is
technically known as a projection. You don't know enough to understand
it even if I should try to explain it to you, which I have no intention
of doing. It's enough for you to know that it is something that
has all the advantages of an appearance in person, and none of the
disadvantages. None of them--remember that word.
"Now I'll get down to business. When I left here I told you to hold
your cockeyed ideas in check--that I would be back in less than five
years, with enough stuff to do things in a big way. You didn't wait
five days, but started right in with your pussyfooting and gumshoeing
around, with the usual result--instead of cleaning up the mess, you
made it messier than ever. You see, I've got all the dope on you--I
even know that you were going to try to gyp me out of my back pay."
"Oh, no, doctor; you are mistaken, really," Brookings assured him. He
was fast regaining his usual poise, and his mind was again functioning
in its wonted devious fashion. "We have really been trying to carry on
until you got back, exactly as you told us to. And your salary has been
continued in full, of course--you can draw it all at any time."
"I know I can, in spite of you. However, I am no longer interested
in money. I never cared for it except for the power it gave, and I
have brought back with me power far beyond that of money. Also I have
learned that knowledge is even greater than power. I have also learned,
too, however, that in order to increase my present knowledge--yes, even
to protect that which I already have--I shall soon need a supply of
energy a million times greater than the present peak output of all the
generators of Earth. As a first step in my project I am taking control
of Steel right now, and I am going to do things the way they should be
done."
"But you can't do that, doctor!" protested Brookings volubly. "We will
give you anything you ask, of course, but--"
"But nothing!" interrupted DuQuesne. "I'm not asking a thing of you,
Brookings--I'm _telling_ you!"
"You think you are!" Brookings, goaded to action at last, pressed a
button savagely, while DuQuesne looked on in calm contempt.
* * * * *
Behind the desk, ports flashed open and rifles roared thunderously in
the confined space. Heavy bullets tore through the peculiar substance
of the projection and smashed into the plastered wall behind it, but
DuQuesne's contemptuous grin did not change. He moved slowly forward,
hands outthrust. Brookings screamed once--a scream that died away to a
gurgle as fingers of tremendous strength closed about his flabby neck.
There had been four riflemen on guard. Two of them threw down their
guns and fled in panic, amazed and terrified at the failure of their
bullets to take effect. Those guards died in their tracks as they ran.
The other two rushed upon DuQuesne with weapons clubbed. But steel
barrel and wooden stock alike rebounded harmlessly from that pattern of
force, fiercely driven knives penetrated it but left no wound, and the
utmost strength of the two brawny men could not even shift the position
of the weird being's inhumanly powerful fingers upon the throat of
their employer. Therefore they stopped their fruitless attempts at a
rescue and stood, dumfounded.
"Good work, boys," DuQuesne commended. "You've got nerve--that's
why I didn't bump you off. You can keep on guarding this idiot here
after I get done teaching him a thing or two. As for you, Brookings,"
he continued, loosening his grip sufficiently so that his victim
could retain consciousness, "I let you try that to show you the real
meaning of futility. I told you particularly to remember that this
projection has _none_ of the disadvantages of a personal appearance,
but apparently you didn't have enough brain power to grasp the thought.
Now, are you going to work with me the way I want you to or not?"
"Yes, yes--I'll do anything you say," Brookings promised.
"All right, then." DuQuesne resumed his former position in front of
the desk. "You are wondering why I didn't finish choking you to death,
since you know that I am not at all squeamish about such things. I'll
tell you. I didn't kill you because I may be able to use you. I am
going to make World Steel the real government of the Earth, and its
president will therefore be dictator of the world. I do not want the
job myself because I will be too busy extending and consolidating
my authority, and with other things, to bother about the details of
governing the planet. As I have said before, you are probably the best
manager alive to-day; but when it comes to formulating policies you're
a complete bust. I am giving you the job of world dictator under one
condition--that you run it _exactly_ as I tell you to."
"Ah, a wonderful opportunity, doctor! I assure you that--"
"Just a minute, Brookings! I can read your mind like an open book. You
are still thinking that you can slip one over on me. Know now, once
and for all, that it can't be done. I am keeping on you continuously
automatic devices that are recording every order that you give, every
message that you receive or send, and every thought that you think.
The first time that you try any more of your funny work on me I will
come back here and finish up the job I started a few minutes ago. Play
along with me and you can run the Earth as you please, subject only to
my direction in broad matters of policy; try to double-cross me and you
pass out of the picture. Get me?"
"I understand you thoroughly." Brookings' agile mind flashed over
the possibilities of DuQuesne's stupendous plan. His eyes sparkled
as he thought of his own place in that plan, and he became his usual
blandly alert self. "As world dictator, I would of course be in a
higher place than any that World Steel, as at present organized, could
possibly offer. Therefore I will be glad to accept your offer, without
reservations. Now, if you will go ahead and give me an outline of what
you propose. I will admit that I did harbor a few mental reservations
at first, but you have convinced me that you actually can deliver the
goods."
"That's better. I will show you very shortly whether I can deliver.
I have prepared full plans for the rebuilding of all our stations
and Seaton's into my new type of power plant for the erection of a
new plant at every strategic point throughout the world, and for
interlocking all these stations into one system. Here they are." A
bound volume of data and a mass of blue prints materialized in the air
and dropped upon the desk. "As soon as I have gone you can call in the
chiefs of the engineering staff and put them to work."
"I perceive what seem to me to be obstacles," Brookings remarked, after
his practiced eye had run over the salient points of the project and
he had leafed over the pile of blue prints. "We have not been able to
do anything with Seaton's plants because of their enormous reserves of
power, and his number one plant is to be the key station of our new
network. Also, there simply are not men enough to do this work. These
are slack times, I know, but even if we could get every unemployed man
we still would not have enough. And, by the way, what became of Seaton?
He apparently has not been around for some time."
"You needn't worry about Seaton's plants--I'll line them up for you
myself. As for Seaton, he was chased into the fourth dimension. He
hasn't got back yet, and he probably won't; as I will explain to his
crowd when I take them over. As for men, we shall have the combined
personnel of all the armies and navies of the world. You think that
even that force won't be enough, but it will. As you go over those
plans in detail, you will see that by the proper use of dirigible
forces we shall have plenty of man power."
"How do you intend to subdue the armies and navies of the world?"
"It would take too long to go into detail. Turn on that radio there
and listen, however, and you'll get it all--in fact, being on the
inside, you'll be able to do a lot of reading between the lines that no
one else will. Also, what I am going to do next will settle the doubt
that is still in your mind as to whether I've really got the stuff."
* * * * *
The projection vanished, and in a few minutes every radio receiving
set throughout the world burst into stentorian voice. DuQuesne was
broadcasting simultaneously upon every channel from five meters
to five thousand, using a wave of such tremendous power that even
two-million-watt stations were smothered at the very bases of their own
transmitting towers.
"People of Earth, attention!" the speakers blared. "I am speaking
for the World Steel Corporation. From this time on the governments
of all nations of the Earth will be advised and guided by the World
Steel Corporation. For a long time I have sought some method of doing
away with the stupidities of the present national governments. I have
studied the possibilities of doing away with war and its attendant
horrors. I have considered all feasible methods of correcting your
present economic system, under which you have had constantly recurring
cycles of boom and panic.
"Most of you have thought for years that something should be done
about all these things. You are not only unorganized, however; you are
and always have been racially distrustful and hence easily exploited
by every self-seeking demagogue who has arisen to proclaim the dawn
of a new day. Thus you have been able to do nothing to improve world
conditions.
"It was not difficult to solve the problem of the welfare of mankind.
It was quite another matter, however, to find a way of enforcing
that solution. At last I have found it. I have developed a power
sufficiently great to compel world-wide disarmament and to inaugurate
productive employment of all men now bearing arms, as well as all
persons now unemployed, at shorter hours and larger wages than any
heretofore known. I have also developed means whereby I can trace
with absolute certainty the perpetrators of any known crime, past or
present; and I have both the power and the will to deal summarily with
habitual criminals.
"The revolution which I am accomplishing will harm no one except
parasites upon the body politic. National boundaries and customs shall
remain as they now are. Governments will be overruled only when and as
they impede the progress of civilization. War, however, will not be
tolerated. I shall prevent it, not by killing the soldiers who would do
the actual fighting, but by putting out of existence every person who
attempts to foment strife. Those schemers I shall kill without mercy,
long before their plans shall have matured.
"Trade shall be encouraged, and industry. Prosperity shall be
world-wide and continuous, because of the high level of employment and
remuneration. I do not ask you to believe all this, I am merely telling
you. Wait and see--it will come true in less than thirty days.
"I shall now demonstrate my power by rendering the navy of the United
States helpless, without taking a single life. I am now poised low over
the city of Washington. I invite the Seventieth Bombing Squadron, which
I see has already taken to the air, to drop their heaviest bombs upon
me. I shall move out over the Potomac, so that the fragments will do
no damage, and I shall not retaliate. I could wipe out that squadron
without effort, but I have no desire to destroy brave men who are only
obeying blindly the dictates of an outworn system."
* * * * *
The space ship, which had extended across the city from Chevy Chase
to Anacostia, moved out over the river, followed by the relatively
tiny bombers. After a time the entire countryside was shaken by the
detonations of the world's heaviest projectiles, but DuQuesne's cold,
clear voice went on:
"The bombers have done their best, but they have not even marred the
outer plating of my ship. I will now show you what I can do if I should
decide to do it. There is an obsolete battleship anchored off the Cape,
which was to have been sunk by naval gunfire. I direct a force upon
it--it is gone; volatilized almost instantly.
"I am now over Sandy Hook. I am not destroying the coast-defense
guns, as I cannot do so without killing men. Therefore I am simply
uprooting them and am depositing them gently upon the mud flats of the
Mississippi River, at St. Louis, Missouri. Now I am sending out a force
to each armed vessel of the United States navy, wheresoever situated
upon the face of the globe.
"At such speed as is compatible with the safety of the personnel, I am
transporting those vessels through the air toward Salt Lake City, Utah.
To-morrow morning every unit of the American navy will float in Great
Salt Lake. If you do not believe that I am doing this, read in your own
newspaper to-morrow that I have done it.
[Illustration: _"To-morrow morning," the cold, clear voice went on,
"every unit of the American navy will float in Great Salt Lake."_]
"To-morrow I shall treat similarly the navies of Great Britain, France,
Italy, Japan, and the other maritime nations. I shall deal then with
the naval bases of the world and with the military forces and their
fortifications.
"I have already taken steps to abate the nuisance of certain widely
known criminals and racketeers who have been conducting, quite openly
and flagrantly, a reign of terror for profit. Seven of those men have
already died, and ten more are to die to-night. Your homes shall
be safe from the kidnaper; your businesses shall be safe from the
extortioner and his skulking aid, the dynamiter.
"In conclusion, I tell you that the often-promised new era is here; not
in words, but in actuality. Good-by until to-morrow."
DuQuesne flashed his projection down into Brookings' office. "Well,
Brookings, that's the start. You understand now what I am going to do,
and you know that I can do it."
"Yes. You undoubtedly have immense power, and you have taken exactly
the right course to give us the support of a great number of people who
would ordinarily be bitterly opposed to anything we do. But that talk
of wiping out gangsters and racketeers sounded funny, coming from you."
"Why should it? We are now beyond that stage. And, while public opinion
is not absolutely necessary to our success it is always a potent force.
No program of despotism, however benevolent, can expect to be welcomed
unanimously; but the course I have outlined will at least divide the
opposition."
DuQuesne cut off his forces and sat back at the controls, relaxed,
his black eyes staring into infinity. Earth was his, to do with as
he wished; and he would soon have it so armed that he could hold it
against the universe. Master of Earth! His highest ambition had been
attained--or had it? The world, after all, was small--merely a mote in
space. Why not be master of the entire Galaxy? There was Norlamin to be
considered, of course--
Norlamin!
Norlamin would not like the idea and would have to be pacified.
As soon as he got the Earth straightened out he would have to see what
could be done about Norlamin.