"He is Dr. Marc C. DuQuesne, of Earth."
"DuQuesne!" barked Dunark. "Why, I thought the Fenachrone killed him!
But we shall attend to it at once--when _I_ kill any one he _stays_
killed!"
"Just a moment, son," the image cautioned. "He has surrounded Earth
with defenses against which your every arm would be entirely impotent.
Come you to Norlamin, bringing each of you one hundred of his best men.
We shall have prepared for you certain equipment which, although it
may not enable you to emerge victorious from the engagement, will at
least insure your safe return. It might be well also to stop at Dasor,
which is not now far from your course of flight, and bring along Sacner
Carfon, who will be of great assistance, being a man both of action and
of learning."
"But _DuQuesne_!" raved Dunark, who realized immediately what must have
happened. "Why didn't you ray him on sight? Didn't you know what a liar
and a thief he is, by instinct and training?"
"We had no suspicion then who he was, thinking, as did you, that
DuQuesne had passed. He came under another name, as Seaton's friend. He
came as one possessing knowledge, with fair and plausible words. But of
that we shall inform you later. Come at once--we shall place upon your
controls forces which shall pilot you accurately and with speed."
Upon the aqueous world of Dasor they found its amphibious humanity
reveling in an activity which, although dreamed of for centuries, had
been impossible of realization until the _Skylark_ had brought to them
a supply of Rovolon, the metal of power. Now cities of metal were
arising here and there above her waves, airplanes and helicopters sped
through and hovered in her atmosphere, barges and pleasure craft sailed
the almost unbroken expanse of ocean which was her surface, immense
submarine freighters bored their serenely stolid ways through her
watery depths.
Sacner Carfon, the porpoiselike, hairless, naked Dasorian councilor,
heaved his six and a half feet of height and his five hundredweight of
mass into Dunark's vessel and greeted the Osnomian prince with a grave
and friendly courtesy.
"Yes, friend, everything is wonderfully well with Dasor," he answered
Dunark's query. "Now that our one lack, that of power, has been
supplied, our lives can at last be lived to the full, unhampered by the
limitations which we have hitherto been compelled to set upon them. But
this from Norlamin is terrible news indeed. What know you of it?"
During the trip to Norlamin the three leaders not only discussed and
planned among themselves, but also had many conferences with the
Advisory Five of the planet toward which they were speeding, so that
they arrived upon that ancient world with a complete knowledge of
what they were to attempt. There Rovol and Drasnik instructed them in
the use of fifth-order forces, each according to his personality and
ability.
To Sacner Carfon was given high command, and he was instructed minutely
in every detail of the power, equipment, and performance of the vessel
which was to carry the hope of civilization. To Tarnan, the best
balanced of his race, was given a more limited knowledge. Dunark and
Urvan, however, were informed only as to the actual operation of the
armament, with no underlying knowledge of its nature or construction.
"I trust that you will not resent this necessary caution," Drasnik
said carefully. "Your natures are as yet essentially savage and
bloodthirsty; your reason is all too easily clouded by passion. You
are, however, striving truly, and that is a great good. With a few
mental operations, which we shall be glad to give you at a later time,
you shall both be able to take your places as leaders in the march of
your peoples toward civilization."
* * * * *
Fodan, majestic chief of the Five, escorted the company of warriors to
their battleship of space, and what a ship she was! Fully twice the
size of _Skylark Three_ in every dimension she lay there, surcharged
with power and might, awaiting only her commander's touch to hurl
herself away toward distant and now inimical Earth.
But the vengeful expedition was too late by far. DuQuesne had long
since consolidated his position. His chain of interlinked power
stations encircled the globe. Governments were in name only. World
Steel now ruled the entire Earth and DuQuesne's power was absolute.
Nor was that rule as yet unduly onerous. The threat of war was gone,
the tyranny of gangsterism was done, everybody was working for high
wages--what was there to kick about? Some men of vision of course
perceived the truth and were telling it, but they were being howled
down by the very people they were trying to warn.
It was thus against an impregnably fortified world that Dunark and
Urvan directed every force with which their flying superdreadnought
was armed. Nor was she feeble, this monster of the skyways, but
DuQuesne had known well what form the attack would take and, having the
resources of the world upon which to draw, he had prepared to withstand
the amassed assault of a hundred such vessels--or a thousand.
Therefore the attack not only failed; it was repulsed crushingly. For
from his massed generators DuQuesne hurled out upon the Norlaminian
space ship a solid beam of such incredible intensity that in
neutralizing its terrific ardor her store of power-uranium dwindled
visibly, second by second. So rapidly did the metal disappear that
Sacner Carfon, after waging the unequal struggle for some twenty hours,
put on high acceleration and drove back toward the Central System,
despite the raging protests of Dunark and of his equally tempestuous
fellow lieutenant.
And in his private office, which was also a complete control room,
DuQuesne smiled at Brookings--a hard, thin smile. "Now you see," he
said coldly. "Suppose I hadn't spent all this time and money on my
defenses?"
"Well, why don't you go out and chase 'em? Give 'em a scare, anyway?"
"Because it would be useless," DuQuesne stated flatly. "That ship
carries more stuff than anything we have ready to take off at present.
Also, Dunark does not scare. You might kill him, but you can't scare
him--it isn't in the breed."
"Well, what is the answer, then? You have tried to take Norlamin with
everything you've got--bombs, automatic ships, and projectors--and you
haven't got to first base. You can't even get through their outside
screens. What are you going to do--let it go on as a stalemate?"
"Hardly!" DuQuesne smiled thinly. "While I do not make a practice
of divulging my plans, I am going to tell you a few things now, so
that you can go ahead with more understanding and hence with greater
confidence. Seaton is out of the picture, or he would have been back
here before this. The Fenachrone are all gone. Dunark and his people
are unimportant. Norlamin is the only known obstacle between me and the
mastery of the Galaxy, therefore Norlamin must either be conquered or
destroyed. Since the first alternative seems unduly difficult, I shall
destroy her."
"Destroy Norlamin--how?" The thought of wiping out that world, with all
its ancient culture, did not appall--did not even affect--Brookings'
callous mind. He was merely curious concerning the means to be employed.
"This whole job so far has been merely a preliminary toward that
destruction," DuQuesne informed him levelly. "I am now ready to go
ahead with the second step. The planet Pluto is, as you may or may not
know, very rich in uranium. The ships which we are now building are
to carry a few million tons of that metal to a large and practically
uninhabited planet not too far from Norlamin. I shall install driving
machinery upon that planet and, using it as a projectile which all
their forces cannot stop, I shall throw Norlamin into her own sun."
* * * * *
Raging but impotent, Dunark was borne back to Norlamin; and, more
subdued now but still bitterly humiliated, he accompanied Urvan, Sacner
Carfon, and the various Firsts to a consultation with the Five.
As they strolled along through the grounds, past fountains of flaming
color, past fantastically geometric hedges intricately and ornately
wrought of noble metal, past walls composed of self-luminous gems so
moving as to form fleeting, blending pictures of exquisite line and
color, Sacner Carfon eyed Drasnik in unobtrusive signal and the two
dropped gradually behind.
"I trust that you were successful in whatever it was you had in mind to
do while we set up the late diversion?" Carfon asked quietly, when they
were out of earshot.
Dunark and Urvan, his fierce and fiery aids, had taken everything that
had happened at its face value, but not so had the leader. Unlike his
lieutenants, the massive Dasorian had known at first blast that his
expedition against DuQuesne was hopeless. More, it had been clear to
him that the Norlaminians had known from the first that their vessel,
enormous as she was and superbly powerful, could not crush the defenses
of Earth.
"We knew, of course, that you would perceive the truth," the First
of Psychology replied as quietly. "We also knew that you would
appreciate our reasons for not taking you fully into our confidence
in advance. Tarnan of Osnome also had an inkling of it, and I have
already explained matters to him. Yes; we succeeded. While DuQuesne's
whole attention was taken up in resisting your forces and in returning
them in kind, we were able to learn much that we could not have
learned otherwise. Also, our young friends Dunark and Urvan, through
being chastened, have learned a very helpful lesson. They have seen
themselves in true perspective for the first time; and, having fought
side by side in a common and so far as they knew a losing cause, they
have become friends instead of enemies. Thus it will now be possible
to inaugurate upon those two backward planets a program leading toward
true civilization."
In the Hall of the Five the Norlaminian spokesman voiced thanks and
appreciation for the effort just made, concluding:
"While as a feat of arms the expedition may not have been a success,
in certain other respects it was far from being a failure. By its help
we were enabled to learn much, and I can assure you now that the foe
shall not be allowed to prevail--it is graven upon the sphere that
civilization is to go on."
"May I ask a question, sir?" Urvan was for the first time in his
bellicose career speaking diffidently. "Is there no way of landing a
real storming force upon Earth? Must we leave DuQuesne in possession
indefinitely?"
"We must wait, son, and work," the chief answered, with the fatalistic
calm of his race. "At present we can do nothing more, but in time--"
He was interrupted by a deafening blast of sound--the voice of Richard
Seaton, tremendously amplified.
"This is the _Skylark_ calling Rovol of Norlamin--_Skylark_ calling
Rovol of Norlamin--" it repeated over and over, rising to a roar and
diminishing to a whisper as Seaton's broadcaster oscillated violently
through space.
Rovol laid a beam to the nearest transmitter and spoke: "I am here,
son. What is it?"
"Fine! I'm away out here in--"
"Hold on a minute, Dick!" Dunark shouted. He had been humble and sober
enough since his return to Norlamin, realizing as he never had before
his own ignorance in comparison with the gigantic minds about him, the
powerlessness of his entire race in comparison with the energies he had
so recently seen in action. But now, as Seaton's voice came roaring in
and Rovol and his brain-brother were about to indulge so naïvely and so
publicly in a conversation which certainly should not reach DuQuesne's
ears, his spirits rose. Here was something he could do to help.
"DuQuesne is alive, has Earth completely fortified, and is holding it
against everything we can give him," Dunark went on rapidly. "He's got
everything we have, maybe more, and he's undoubtedly listening to every
word we're saying. Talk Mardonalian--I know for a fact that DuQuesne
can't understand that. They've got an educator here and I'll give it to
Rovol right now--all right, go ahead."
"I'm clear out of the Galaxy," Seaton's voice went on, now speaking the
language of the Osnomian race which had so recently been destroyed. "So
many Galaxies away that none of you except Orlon could understand the
distance. The speed of transmission is due to the fact that we have
perfected and I am using a sixth-order projector, not a fifth. Have you
a ship fit for really long-distance flight--as big as _Three_ was, or
bigger?"
"Yes; we have a vessel twice her size."
"Fine! Load her up and start. Head for the Great Nebula in
Andromeda--Orlon knows what and where that is. That isn't very close to
my line, but it will do until you get some apparatus set up. I've got
to have Rovol, Drasnik, and Orlon, and I would like to have Fodan; you
can bring along anybody else that wants to come. I'll sign on again in
an hour--you should be started by then."
* * * * *
Besides the four Norlaminians mentioned, Caslor, First of Mechanism,
and Astron, First of Energy, also elected to make the stupendous
flight, as did also many "youngsters" from the Country of Youth. Dunark
would not be left behind, nor would adventurous Urvan. And lastly there
was Sacner Carfon the Dasorian, who remarked that he "would have to go
along to make the boys behave and to steer the ship in case the old
professors forgot to." The space ship was well on its way when at the
end of the hour Seaton's voice again was heard.
"All right, put me on a recorder and I'll give you the dope," he
instructed, when he had made sure that his signal was received.
"DuQuesne has been trying to put a ray on us and he may try to follow
us," Dunark put in.
"Let him," Seaton shot back grimly, then spoke in English: "DuQuesne,
Dunark says that you're listening in. You have my urgent, if not
cordial, invitation to follow this Norlaminian ship. If you follow it
far enough, you'll take a long, long ride, believe me!"
Again addressing the voyagers, he recounted briefly everything that had
occurred since the abandonment of _Skylark Three_, then dived abruptly
into the fundamental theory and practical technique of sixth-order
phenomena and forces.
Of that ultramathematical dissertation Dunark understood not even the
first sentence; Sacner Carfon perhaps grasped dimly a concept here and
there. The Norlaminians, however, sat back in their seats, relaxed and
smiling, their prodigious mentalities not only absorbing greedily but
assimilating completely the enormous doses of mathematical and physical
science being thrust upon them so rapidly. And when that epoch-making,
that almost unbelievable, tale was done, not one of the aged scientists
even referred to the tape of the recorder.
"Oh, wonderful--wonderful!" exclaimed Rovol in ecstasy, his
transcendental imperturbability broken at last. "Think of it! Our
knowledge extended one whole order farther in each direction, both into
the small and into the large. Magnificent! And by one brain, and that
of a youth. Extraordinary! And we may now traverse universal space
in ordinary time, because that brain has harnessed the practically
infinite power of cosmic radiation, a power which exhausted the store
of uranium carried by _Skylark Three_ in forty hours. Phenomenal!
Stupendous!"
"But do not forget that the brain of that youth is a composite of
many," said Fodan thoughtfully, "and that in it, among others,
were yours and Dunark's. Seaton himself ascribes to that peculiar
combination his successful solution of the problem of the sixth order.
You know, of course, that I am in no sense belittling the native power
of that brain. I am merely suggesting that perhaps other noteworthy
discoveries may be made by superimposing brains in other, but equally
widely divergent, fields of thought."
"An interesting idea, truly, and one which may be fruitful of result,"
assented Orlon, the First of Astronomy, "but I would suggest that we
waste no more time. I, for one, am eager to behold with my own inner
consciousness the vistas of the Galaxies."
Agreeing, the five white-bearded scientists seated themselves at the
multiplex console of their fifth-order installation and set happily to
work. Their gigantic minds were undaunted by the task they faced--they
were only thrilled with interest at the opportunity of working with
magnitudes, distances, forces, objects, and events at the very
contemplation of which any ordinary human mind would quail.
Steadily and contentedly they worked on, while at the behest of their
nimble and unerring fingers there came into being the forces which were
to build into their own vessel a duplicate of the mechano-electrical
brain which actuated and controlled the structure, almost of planetary
proportions, in which Seaton was even then hurtling toward them.
Hurtling with a velocity rapidly mounting to a value incalculable;
driven by the power liberated by the disintegrating matter of all the
suns of all the Galaxies of all the universes of cosmic space!