When the Atoms Failed
By John W. Campbell, Jr.
_Our new author, who is a student at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, shows marvelous ability at combining science with
romance, evolving a piece of fiction of real scientific and
literary value. A careful perusal of this story should give the
reader not only keen enjoyment, but a considerable amount of
instruction, because most of our readers will want to confirm
their views of cosmic topics, of atoms, of energy--atomic and
material--and the other subjects that blend so well in the text of
this tale. A great deal of interesting material may be found on
these subjects in recent text books._
Illustrated by WESSO
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories January 1930.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Author's Foreword
When the events of which I am to tell took place all the world was
interested solely in their final outcome, but when that last awful day
was ended, and time enough had passed to give our world a chance to
find a way to apply and use the awful forces it had had forced upon it,
or, indeed, had even found how to control their immense energies, men
began to wonder about the true story of the Invasion.
I had always been a writer, first newspaper work, then a book or two.
Perhaps because of this the world expected that an account would soon
be presented. But had those millions seen that awful battle, seen
those mighty wrecks on the hot sands, even then might they understand
my dread of telling of that titanic conflict--a conflict in which
the weaker was a million times more powerful than any force man had
previously seen! It still burns in my memory, that awful scene in its
desolate setting--the vast rolling desert below, seared, blasted, fused
in great streaks where the intense, stabbing heat rays had cut it,
mighty craters blasted in its surface where the terrific explosions
of the shells had heaved thousands of tons of sand into great mounds,
and those ghastly wrecks that lay crushed and broken on the hot sands
below, bathed in the ruddy light of the sun of sunset, now slowly
sinking behind the distant purple hills, as the last of the Invaders
crashed on the packed sands below.
Two men of all Earth's billions saw that scene--but those two will
never forget--as Stephen Waterson and I can testify.
Ten years have passed, ten years of stupendous change, readjustment,
and cosmic conquest. Ten years in which a world has been added to man's
domain, yet still sharp and clear in my memory is the picture of those
shapeless masses, those lumps of glowing metal, that lay on the sands
beneath us, the sole vestiges of the mighty ships of Mars.
Never have I wanted to think long on that scene of titanic destruction,
destruction such as man never before knew, but friends have convinced
me that it is my duty as one who lived in closest contact with the
facts, and one of the two men who saw that last struggle, to tell the
story as it unrolled itself before me.
Brief it is. The entire event, for all its consequences, lasted but two
days--days that changed the history of a Universe!
But in this march of mighty events, I was but a spectator, and as
a spectator I shall tell it. And I shall try to depict for you the
character of the greatest man of all the System's history--Stephen
Waterson.
Waterson Laboratories
May, 1957
David Gale.
* * * * *
It was late afternoon in May, 1947, and the temperature had climbed
to unbelievable heights during the day. It seemed impossible to work
with that merciless sun beating down on the roof. It is odd that
a temperature of 95 in May should seem far higher than a similar
temperature in July. On the top floors of the great apartments it was
stifling. The great disadvantage of roof landings for planes had always
been the tendency of the roofs to absorb heat in summer, yet on the
top-most floors of those apartments people were living, and in one of
those apartments a man was trying to work. Heat was a great trouble,
but he found thoughts of hunger in the not too distant future an even
greater inspiration to work. The manuscript he was correcting was
lengthy, but this was the final revision, which was some comfort. Still
the low buzz of the telephone annunciator was a relief. It was so much
easier to talk. He took up the telephone.
"Gale speaking."
"Hello Dave, this is Steve. I hear you are having a bit of hot weather
in New York today. I have a suggestion for you--I'm coming to pick you
up in an hour and a half, and if you will be ready on your roof then,
in a camp suit, and with camp clothes for about a month packed, I can
guarantee you some fun, providing, of course, that you're still the man
I knew. But I can't guarantee to return you! Meet me on your roof in an
hour and a half."
"Well, I'll--now what's up? So he isn't sure I'll get back--and he
calls that a 'suggestion'! Anyhow it sounds interesting and I'll have
to hurry. I wish he'd get into the habit of warning a fellow when he
is going to start one of his expeditions! And I may not come back--I
wonder where on Earth he's going now--and where he was then. The only
reason he gives me an hour and a half is because it will take him that
long to get here. He would drop in on me without any notice otherwise.
In that case he must be about three hundred miles from here. But where?"
* * * * *
An hour and a half later he was on the roof, watching the darting
planes, there were a good many, but by far the larger part of the
world's business and pleasure was on the ground in those days. Still
the crimson and gray special of Waterson's ought to be easily visible.
He was late--unusual for Steve. Gale hadn't seen him in more than a
year--probably been working on one of his eternal experiments, he
decided.
Still he searched the skies in vain. Only the regular planes, and one
dirigible--tiny in the distance--it seemed to be coming toward him--and
it certainly was coming rapidly--it couldn't be a dirigible--no gas bag
could go that fast--then he saw the crimson and the gray band around
it--it was Steve.
And now as it darted down and landed gracefully on the roof beside
him, he saw that the machine was but thirty-five feet long, and ten or
so in diameter. Suddenly a small round hatchway opened in its curved,
windowless side of polished metal, and a moment later Stephen Waterson
forced his way out. The door was certainly small, and forcing that
six-foot-two body in and out through it must have been a feat worthy of
a magician. Gale noticed that he would just about fit it, but the giant
Waterson must have intended to use it very infrequently to make it that
size.
"Hello, Dave--how do you like my new boat? But get in, we're going.
There, your bag's in already."
"Good Lord, Steve, what is this? I gather you invented it. Certainly I
never saw nor heard of it before," said Gale.
"Well Dave, I suppose you might say I invented it, but the truth is
that a machine invented it--or at least discovered the principles on
which it is based."
"A machine! A machine invented it? What do you mean? A machine can't
think, can it?"
"I'm not so sure they can't, Dave, but get in--I'll tell you later.
I promised Wright I would be back in three hours, and I've lost ten
minutes already. Also, this machine weighs three thousand tons--so
I don't want to leave it on this roof longer than is absolutely
necessary."
"But, Steve--let me look at it. Man, it is beautiful. What is that
metal?"
"Try the inside, Dave--there!"
Dave Gale was rather good sized--five feet ten, and weighing over
one hundred and sixty pounds, but Waterson was in perfect physical
condition, two hundred and ten pounds of solid muscle, and Gale had
been popped into the hatch like a bag of meal, so quickly was it done.
Now he turned to look at the tiny room in which he found himself. It
was evidently the pilot room, and around the front of the room there
ran a clear window, curved to fit the curve of the ship's walls, and
about three feet high, the center coming at about the level of the
eye of a person sitting in either of the two deeply cushioned chairs
directly facing it. The chairs were evidently an integral part of the
machine, and from the heavy straps attached to them it was obvious
that the passengers were expected to need some support. The arms of
each chair were fully two feet broad, and many small instruments and
controls were arranged on their polished black surfaces. Waterson had
seated himself in the right hand chair and strapped himself in. Gale
hastened to secure himself in the left chair.
"Take it easy Dave, and be prepared for a shock when we start."
"I'm ready Steve, let's go!"
Waterson moved his right hand a bit, and a tiny red bulb showed on
his left instrument panel; many of his instruments began to give
readings and several on Gale's board did so also. Another movement,
and there was a muffled hum of an air blower. Then Waterson looked
at Gale and turned a small vernier dial--Gale had been watching
intently--but suddenly the look left his face--and was replaced by a
look of astonished pain. The entire car had suddenly jerked a bit,
then that peculiarly unpleasant sensation connected most intimately
with a rapid elevator or helicopter starting from rest had made itself
unpleasantly pronounced. Gale's pained and somewhat sick expression
caused Waterson's smile to broaden.
"Whew--Steve--what is this--why don't you warn a fellow of what's
coming!"
"I did warn you, Dave," answered Waterson, "and if you will look out, I
think you will understand this."
* * * * *
The car was rising, at first slowly, but ever faster and faster, from
the roof, not as a helicopter rises, not as a dirigible rises, but
more as a heavy body falls, with high acceleration ever faster and
faster. Soon it was rising quite rapidly, straight up. Then another
tiny red bulb flashed into life on Waterson's switchboard, and the ship
suddenly tilted at an angle of thirty degrees. Then it shot forward,
and continually accelerated an already great speed, till New York lay
far behind, and then the sky became dark and black, and now the stars
were looking in at them, not the winking, blue stars of Earth, but the
blazing, steady stars of infinite space, and they were of every color,
dull reds, greenish, and blue. And now as they shot on across the
face of Earth far below, Gale watched in rapture the magnificent view
before him, seeking the old friends of Earth--Mars, Venus, Jupiter,
and the other familiar, gleaming points. Then he turned his gaze
toward the Sun, and cried out in astonishment, for the giant sphere
was a hard, electric blue, like some monster electric arc, and for
millions of miles there swept from it a great hazy, glowing cloud, the
zodiacal light, almost invisible from Earth, but here blazing out in
indescribable beauty.
"We're in space! But, Steve, look at the sun! What makes it look blue?
The glass of the window isn't blue, is it?" said Gale excitedly.
"We're in space all right--but it isn't glass you're looking through;
it is fused quartz. Glass that thick would crack in a moment under the
stress of temperature change it has to undergo. The sun looks blue
because, for the first time in your life, you are seeing it without
having more than half its light screened off. The atmosphere won't pass
blue light completely and it cuts off the ultra-violet transmission
very shortly after we leave the visible region of the spectrum. The
reason the sun has always looked yellow is that you could never see
that blue portion of its spectrum. Remember, a thing gets bluer and
bluer as it gets hotter. First we have red hot, bright red, yellow,
white, then the electric arc is so hot that it gives blue light. But
the sun is nearly two thousand degrees centigrade hotter than the
electric arc. Naturally it is blue. Also, I'll bet you haven't found
Mars, have you?"
"No, Steve, I haven't. Where is it?"
"Right over there. See it?"
"But that can't be Mars. It's green, green as the Earth."
"But it is Mars. The reason Mars looks red from Earth is that the light
that reaches us from Mars has had to go through both its own atmosphere
and through ours, and by the time it reaches us, it is reddened, just
as a distant plane beacon is. You know how a light in the distance
looks red. That is what makes Mars look red."
"Mars is green. Then it is possible that the life on Mars may be the
same as that of Earth!"
"Right, Dave. It probably is. Remember that the chlorophyll that gives
the planets their color is also the material that can convert sunlight
energy into fixed energy of starches and sugars for the plant, and
probably the same material is serving in that capacity all over the
universe, for carbon is the only element of the more than a hundred
that there are that can possibly permit life's infinitely complicated
processes to progress."
"But I thought there were only ninety-two elements."
* * * * *
"There are ninety-two different types of atoms, but if you have half a
dozen men all doing exactly the same thing, can you call them 'a man'?
They have found more than six different kinds of lead, two different
kinds of chlorine, several different kinds of argon, and many of the
other elements are really averages of several kinds of atoms, all of
which do exactly the same thing, but have different weights. They are
called isotopes. We say the atomic weight of chlorine is 35.457, but
really there is no atom that has that weight. They have weights of 35
and 37, and are jumbled together so that the average is 35.457. Really
there are over a hundred different kinds of atoms. In my work on this
ship I found it made quite a difference which kind of chlorine atom I
had."
"Well, how does this machine work, and what do you mean by saying that
a machine invented it?"
"Dave, you know that for a number of years the greatest advances in
physics have been made along the lines of mathematical work in atomic
structure. Einstein was the greatest of the mathematicians, and so the
greatest of the atomicists. Now as you well know, I never was too good
at mathematics but I did love atomic structure, and I had some ideas,
but I needed someone to work out the mathematics of the theory for me.
"You remember that back in 1929 in the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology they had a machine they called the integraph, an electrical
machine that could do calculus too complex for Einstein himself to work
out, and problems it would take Einstein months to solve, the machine
could solve in a few minutes. It could actually do mathematics beyond
the scope of the human brain. The calculus is a wonderful tool with
which man can dig out knowledge, but he has to keep making his shovel
bigger and bigger to dig deeper and deeper into the field of science.
Toward the end of this decade, things got so the tail was wagging
the dog to a considerable extent, the shovel was bigger than the
man--we couldn't handle the tool. When that happened in the world once
before they made a still bigger shovel, and hitched it to an electric
motor. All the integraph did was to hitch the calculus to an electric
motor--and then things began to happen.
"I developed that machine further in my laboratory, and carried it far
beyond the original plans. I can do with it a type of mathematics that
was never before possible, and that mathematics, on that machine, has
done something no man ever did. It has found the secret of the atom,
and released for us atomic energy. But that wasn't all, the machine
kept working at those great long equations, reducing the number of
variables, changing, differentiating, integrating, and then I saw
where it was leading! I was scared when I saw what those equations
meant. I was afraid that the machine had made an error, I was deathly
afraid to test that last equation, the equation which the machine was
absolutely unable to change. _It had been working with the equations
of matter, and now it had reached the ultimate, definitive equation
of all matter!_ This final equation gave explicit instructions to the
understanding; it told just how to _completely destroy matter_! It
told how to release such terrific energy, I was afraid to try it. The
equations of atomic energy I had tested and found good, I had succeeded
in releasing the energy of atoms.
"But the energy of matter has been known for many years; simple
arithmetic can calculate the energy in one gram of matter. One gram
is the equivalent of about ten drops of water and that much matter
contains 900,000,000,000,000,000,000 ergs of energy, all this in ten
drops of water! Mass is just as truly a measure of energy as ergs, as
foot-pounds or as kilo-watt hours. You might buy your electricity by
the pound. If you had five hundred million dollars or so, you could buy
a pound. You have heard of atomic energy, of how terrifically powerful
it is. It is just about one million times as great as the energy of
coal. But that titanic energy is as little compared to the energy of
matter itself, as the strength of an ant is compared to my strength.
Material energy is ten thousand million times as great as the energy
of coal. Perhaps now you can see why I was afraid to try out those
equations. One gram of matter could explode as violently as seven
thousand tons of dynamite!
"But the machine was right. I succeeded in releasing that awful energy.
I happened to release it as a heat ray, and the apparatus had been
pointed in the direction of an open window luckily. Beyond that was
just sand. The window was volatilized instantly, and the sand was
melted to a great mass of fused quartz. It is there, and will be there
for centuries, a two-mile streak of melted sand fifty feet broad! It
makes a wonderful road of six foot thick glass! The machine showed me
a thousand ways to apply it. I am driving this ship by means of an
interesting bit of apparatus that the calculating machine designed. You
remember Einstein's general relativity theory said that mass, gravity,
bent space; but as it didn't fall in, as it would if attracted and not
resisting, it must be that it is elastic. The field theory that he
brought out back in 1929 showed that gravity and electrostatic fields
were at least similar. I found, with the aid of my machine, that they
were very closely related. I charge the walls of my ship strongly
negative, then I have a piece of apparatus here that will distort that
electrostatic field so it cuts off gravity--and the ship has no weight.
The propulsion is simple also. I told you that space was elastic. I
have a projector, or series of projectors all around the ship which
will throw a beam of a ray which tends to bend space toward it. The
space resists, and since the mountain won't come to Mahomet, Mahomet
goes to the mountain--and the ship sails along nicely.
"The only theoretical limit to my speed is, of course, the velocity
of light. At that speed any body would have infinite mass, and as you
can't produce an infinite force, you certainly can't go any faster,
and you can't go that fast in fact. If I accelerated one of the little
five gram bullets I use in that machine gun to the speed of an alpha
particle such as radium shoots off, not a very high speed in space, it
would require as much energy to get it up to that speed, 10,000 miles
a second, as five thousand fast freights, each a thousand tons apiece,
would require to get up a speed of a mile a minute. You see that there
is no possibility of getting up any speed like that even with material
energy--it is too expensive even with that cheap energy--for it costs
just as much to slow down again!
"The interesting thing about this energy is that scientists have known
about it for a good many years, and while hundreds of people told about
atomic energy, no one outside of the scientists ever spoke of the far
greater energy of matter. The scientists said that the sun used that
energy to maintain its heat--forty million degrees on the interior of
the sun. They said man could never duplicate that temperature nor that
pressure that prevails at the interior of the sun. They therefore said
that man would never be able to release that energy. But the sun had to
raise thousands of tons of water, and blow that vapor many miles, and
do a lot of other complicated things before there was any lightning.
Man would never be able to reproduce those conditions, and he would
never be able to make lightning. Besides, if he did, what good would
his electricity do him; it would be so wild, and so useless.
"But man discovered other ways of releasing his energies and converting
it into electricity in a way that did not exist in nature. Manifestly
it is possible to do the same with the energy of matter, and I have
done it.
"The object of this trip, Dave, is exploration. I am going to the other
planets, and I want you to come along. I believe I am prepared for
any trouble we may meet there. That machine gun shoots bullets loaded
with a bit of matter that will explode on impact. There is only a dust
grain of it there, but it is as violent as ten tons of dynamite. If
I exploded the entire shell, remember I would get the equivalent of
thirty-five thousand tons of dynamite--which is manifestly unsafe.
There are also a series of projectors around the car that project
heat rays. These rays are capable of volatilizing anything that will
absorb them. The projectors of all the rays have a separate generator
unit directly connected. The unit is built right into the projector,
but controlled from here. They are small, but tremendously more
powerful than any power plant the Earth has ever seen before--each
one can far outdo the great million and a half horse power station in
San Francisco. They can develop in the neighborhood of fifty million
horsepower each!"
"Lord, Steve, I'm no scientist, and when you speak glibly of power
sources millions, billions of times more powerful than coal, I'm
not only lost, I'm scared. And you have a couple dozen of those
fifty-million-horse-power-generators around this ship. What would
happen if they got short-circuited or something?"
"If they did, which I don't believe they will, they would either
explode the entire ship, and incidentally make the Earth at least
stagger in its orbit, or fuse it instantaneously and so destroy
themselves. I might add that we would not survive the calamity."
"No, I rather guessed that. But, Steve, here in the utter cold and
utter vacuum of space I should think that it would be hard to heat the
ship. How do you do it?"
"The first thing to do in any explanation is to point out that space
is neither empty nor cold. In the second place, a vacuum couldn't
be either hot or cold. Temperature is a condition of matter, and if
there is no matter, there can be no temperature. But space is quite
full--about one atom per cubic inch. There is so much matter between
us and the fixed stars that we can actually detect the spectrum of
space superposed on the spectrum of the star. The light that the stars
send us across the intervening spaces comes to us laden with a message
of the contents of space--and tells of millions of tons of calcium
and sodium. Even the tiny volume of our solar system contains in its
free space about 125,000,000,000 grams of matter. That doesn't mean
much to an astronomer--but when you remember that every gram of that
can furnish as much energy as 10,000,000,000 grams of coal, we see
that it isn't so little! And as space does have matter, it can have a
temperature, and does. It has a temperature of about 15,000 degrees.
Most of the atoms of that space have escaped from the surface of stars
and have a temperature about the same as that of the surface of the
stars. So you see that space utterly cold--is hotter than anything
on Earth! The only difficulty is that it takes a whale of a lot of
space to contain enough atoms to weigh a gram, and so the average
concentration of heat is so low that we can say that space is cold.
Similarly a block of ice may contain far more heat than a piece of
red-hot iron. Nevertheless; I would prefer to sit on the ice."
"Quite so, I see your point, and I believe I'd prefer the ice myself.
But that's interesting! Space isn't empty, it's not cold, in fact it is
unusually hot!"
"Now we've started this let's finish it, Dave. It is hot, but not
unusually hot--if anything it is unusually cold! The usual, or
average temperature of all the matter in the universe is about one
million degrees, so space at 15,000 is really far below the average,
and so we can say that it is unusually cold. The temperature of the
interior of the stars is uniformly forty million degrees, which
brings the average up. But it is the unthinkably great quantities of
matter in interstellar space that brings the average down. Remember
that the nearest star is four and a half light years from us, and
between the stars there is such a vast space in which the matter is
thinly distributed that the few pinpoint concentrations of matter
have to be extremely hot if they are to bring the average up any
appreciable amount. But here and there in this vast space there are
a few tiny bits of matter that have cooled down to terrifically
frigid temperatures--temperatures within a few degrees of absolute
zero, only two or three hundred degrees above; spots of matter so cold
that hydrogen and oxygen can unite; so cold that this compound can
even condense to a liquid; so cold that life can exist. We call those
pinpoints planets.
"In the interstellar range of temperatures we have everywhere from
absolute zero to forty million above. Life can exist between the
temperatures absolute, of about two hundred and three hundred and
twenty--a range of one hundred degrees in a range of forty million.
That means that the temperature of this planet must be maintained with
an allowable inaccuracy of one part in four hundred thousand! Do you
see what the chances of a planet's having a 'habitable' temperature are?
"But we are near my laboratory now, Dave, and I want to introduce
you to Wright, my laboratory assistant, a brilliant student, and
an uncannily clever artisan. He made Bartholemew, as I call the
mathematics machine, and most of the parts of this ship. He had heat
rays to work with, and had iridium metal as his material, and plenty
of any element. He had a fine time working out the best alloy, and the
best treatment. The shell of the car is made of an alloy of tungsten,
iridium and cobalt. It is exceedingly tough, very strong, and very
hard. It will scratch glass, is stronger than steel, and is as ductile
and malleable as copper--if you have sufficient force. Iridium used
to sell for about 250 dollars an ounce, but these powers allow me to
transmute it, which renders it cheap for me. After this, sodium metal
will be cheaper than sodium compounds!"
"I wish that that trip had not been so short, Steve. There were a
lot of things I wanted to ask you. Where are we now? I don't seem to
recognize this country."
"We are over Arizona--see there is the laboratory now--off there."
"What, Arizona! How fast were we going?"
"We were going slowly, considering we were in space, but considering
our proximity to the Earth we are going rapidly. The actual speed is
difficult to determine--remember we had cut loose all ties of gravity,
and I had to follow the Earth in its orbit, and the whole solar system
along through space. From here to New York City is about three thousand
miles, and as we made the trip in just under one hundred minutes, we
traveled at a speed of thirty miles a minute, or half a mile a second."
"Well, the airplane speed record was about four hundred and twenty,
wasn't it--I mean an hour--you have to specify now! You set a new
record, I guess!"
* * * * *
They were slanting down through the atmosphere toward the distant low
building that had seen the construction of that first of Earth's space
cruisers. The long gentle glide slowly flattened out and the car at
last glided slowly, gently through the open hangar doors. Wright was
there to greet them, but Waterson called out that he would stay in the
ship a few minutes to show Gale around.
"Steve, you sure picked a desolate place to work in. Why did you go way
out here?"
"For two reasons. First I wanted a place that was quiet; and second
I wanted a place where I could safely work with atomic energy--where
explosions, premeditated or accidental, would not blow up an entire
city. Did you notice that crater off to one side as we came in? That
is where I tried out my first bullet. I hadn't gotten a small enough
charge in it. I had nearly a milligram--a hundredth of a drop of water.
But come, I guess you saw the pilot room. I'll show you how to run the
ship tomorrow."
He led the way to the rear end of the pilot room, where a small door
opened in the smooth, windowless metal partition. It too gleamed with
that strangely iridescent beauty of metallic iridium.
"This bunk room should appeal to an apartment house addict. I had about
eleven feet I could use to make it, and it is just a bit crowded."
Considering Waterson's six-feet-two, a room eleven feet long, ten
feet high, and about as wide, would certainly be crowded if there was
anything or anyone else in the room. As the bunk room was also dining
room, gallery, and chart room, it was decidedly crowded. One thing that
particularly interested Gale was a small screen on which were a series
of small lights, projected from the rear.
"What is that, Steve?" he inquired.
"That is my chart. It is the only kind of a chart you could well expect
on board a space ship. The lights are really moving and maintain the
relative positions of the planets. I think we will go to Mars first,
because it is now as close as it will be for some time. I want to go to
Venus soon, but that is on the other side of the sun. I will find that
there are detours even in space when I go there!"
"That's quite a chart! I suppose you have more accurate ones too?"
"No, I have no need of more accurate ones. I start for my objective,
and it is so big I can't miss it!"
"That's true too! But I haven't seen any apparatus for taking care of
your air. I suspect that door over there hides something."
"It does. It leads to the store room and the apparatus room. There are
all the tools I carry, the air purifier and water renewer. Remember
that the break-up of the atomic energy gives me unlimited amounts of
electricity, so I have all the electric power I can use. I find that
there is a way to electrolyse carbon dioxide to carbon and oxygen. In
this manner I recover the oxygen for the air--at least part of the
necessary oxygen--and at the same time remove the menace of the CO_{2}.
There is considerable oxygen fixed as H_{2}O, however, so I installed
an electrolyser to take care of that. The moisture of the air is in
this way kept down to a comfortable maximum. The same apparatus is
useful for reducing the water. All the water I have I must carry in
tanks, which require space. I am able to make them considerably smaller
by taking the water, passing it through this electrolyser, reducing it
to hydrogen and oxygen, burning them to water again, and thus getting
pure H_{2}O. The one difficulty is in getting rid of the heat. Remember
that all the heat I lose I must lose by radiation. But the sun is
radiating to me. I receive heat at exactly the same rate the Earth
does and I have no protective atmosphere, so the tendency is to reach
a super-tropical temperature. The easiest solution of this problem is
to go with the ship at such an angle to the sun that the shadow of
the exposed surface shades the greater portion of the ship, then by
adjusting the angle of the ship, I can adjust the ratio of radiating to
receiving area to any value I wish, and get almost any temperature I
need."
"That is an idea, I never heard of electrolysing carbon dioxide,
though. Tell me--how do you do it?"
"That is a process I developed. It requires considerable explaining.
However, I am doubtful whether it wouldn't have been easier to convert
the stuff directly to oxygen by transmutation."
"Steve, I notice you have plenty of light, but why not have windows?"
* * * * *
"I have no windows except in the main pilot room. The trouble with
windows is that they reduce the strength of the shell. Also, as this
is a sleeping room, and there will be no night in space, why not have
it this way? I need considerable strength in the walls of the ship,
because the accelerations that I use in starting and turning and
stopping are really rather a strain on any material. The outer wall
is a six-inch iridio-tungsten alloy shell, with two openings in it,
the window, and the door. The rest is absolutely seamless, one solid
casting. The window is so designed, in connection with the placement of
the ray projectors that it doesn't weaken the shell. There is no frame
work, but the two partitions across the ship are each six inches thick,
and act as braces. The inner wall is a thin one-inch layer of metal,
supported by the outer shell, and separated from it by small braces
about two inches high. This intervening space has been evacuated by
the simple process of going out into space and opening a valve, then
closing it before returning to Earth."
"That one-inch layer of metal of yours is bothering me. There is
something strange about it, and all the trim and mouldings in here.
The green I suppose is to relieve eye strain, but it is not the color
itself that seems strange. It is the impression I have that the metal
itself is of that beautiful leaf green shade, and that it is the metal
in the chairs, table, and racks that gives them that color."
"Quite right Dave, it is."
"But Steve, I thought that there were no more elements to be
discovered. In the collection at the Museum in New York they had all
ninety-two, and I saw no colored metals."
"In the first place, remember I told you there really were more than
ninety-two elements, if we treat the isotopes as elements, and I don't
believe they had all the ninety-two there, for there are several
elements that disintegrate inside of a few days. They couldn't keep
those. But these metals are compounds."
"Compounds! Do you mean alloys?"
"No, chemical compounds, just as truly as salt or sulphuric acid. They
are related to tetra ethyl stibine, Sb(C_{2}H_{5})_{4}, which is a
compound that acts like a metal physically and chemically. It is too
soft to be any good, but there are hundreds of these organic compounds
of carbon. There are red ones, green ones, blue ones, and a thousand
different ones, soft, brittle, liquid, solid; some are even gaseous."
"Colored metals! What a boon to artists! Think what fun they will have
working in that stuff!"
"Yes, but it is also useful for decorative purposes, although the large
molecule makes it too soft to be used as a wearing surface."
"Well Steve, you sure have a mighty fine little ship! What do you call
it? You said that you called the mathematics machine 'Bartholemew.'
What do you call this?"
"As yet it has not been named. I wanted you to suggest some name for
it."
"That's a sudden order, Steve. What have you thought of?"
"Well, I thought of calling it fluorine, for the chemical element which
is so active that it can not be displaced by any other, but will, on
the other hand, force any other non-metal out of its compound. Then I
thought of Niña, the name of Columbus' ship which first touched a new
world, and Wright reminded me that Eric, the Red's son Lief landed here
in about 1000 and suggested Eric as a name."
"Well, that's a good assortment. Why pick on me?"
"We thought you ought to be good at inventing names, since you had
written several books."
"That is a fine excuse! I get mine from old magazines! But I might
suggest 'The Electron.' It sounds well, and I remember that you said
that you charged it negatively to cut out the gravity of the Earth and
an electron--or is it a proton that has a negative charge?"
"'The Electron'--sounds good--and the idea is good. An electron has
a negative charge. Wright also suggested the 'Terrestrian,' as it
would be the first ship of Earth to visit other worlds. It is between
'Electron' and 'Terrestrian' now. Which do you like better?"
"I prefer 'Terrestrian.' It has more meaning."
"Well, we'll tell Wright about it. In the mean time, come in to the
laboratory and meet Bartholemew."
* * * * *
Bartholemew was at the moment engaged in tracing a very complicated
curve, the integral of a half dozen or so other curves. Wright was
carefully watching the thin line left by the pencil. There was a
low steady humming coming from the machine, and a bank of small
transformers on the other side of the room connected to it. Wright
turned off the machine as they entered, and after greeting Waterson,
and meeting Gale, proceeded at once with an enthusiastic description
of the machine. He was obviously proud of the machine, and of the
man who had developed it. The entire machine had been enclosed in a
metal case when Gale entered, but now Wright opened this, and Gale was
decidedly surprised to see the interior. He really had had no reason to
form any opinion of the machine, but he had expected a maze of gears,
shafts, levers, chains and every sort of mechanical apparatus. Somehow
the mention of a machine for doing mathematics conveyed to him that
impression. The actual machine seemed quite simple--merely a small
cable leading from the separate "graph interpreters," as Wright called
them, to the central integrater, and hence a small motor carried the
integrated result into practice and put it on paper.
This machine made possible a type of mathematics hitherto unknown.
This new calculus was to the previous integration what integration
was to addition. Integration is an infinite summation of very small
terms, and this new mathematics was an integration in an infinite
number of dimensions. The beginner first learns to integrate in two
dimensions. Then come three. Einstein had carried his mathematics to
four. The machine seemed to work in an infinite number of dimensions,
but the conditions of the problem really chose the four out of infinity
that were under discussion. An infinite number of dimensions has no
physical meaning. It might be put this way, Wright said: there are
an infinite number of solutions to the equation x=2+y, and as such
it has no meaning. But if for example you say also that 2y=x, then
auto-mathematically you choose two of an infinite number of values
that fit the problem in hand. A man might have done all this machine
did, had he lived long enough and been patient enough. This machine
could do in an hour a problem that would have taken a man a lifetime.
Thus it had been able to develop the true mathematical picture of the
atom.
* * * * *
Over the supper table that night they had a final discussion as to the
name of the ship. It was decided that the name should be "Terrestrian,"
and plans were made to christen it in as scientific a manner as
possible. Considering that the shell was made of iridium, and therefore
highly inert to chemical action, they decided on a bottle of aqua
regia which dissolves gold and platinum, and does not attack iridium.
A bottle was prepared, and they were ready for the christening in the
morning. Just as they decided to call the day done, the telephone rang.
It was Dr. Wilkins of Mt. Wilson calling Waterson. The conversation
was rather lengthy, and Wright, who had answered, told Gale that Dr.
Wilkins had called before, about two months ago, on a question in
astro-physics, and Waterson had been able to give the answer. This
time however, Dr. Wilkins, it seemed, was greatly agitated. Just then
Waterson returned.
"Gale, it seems we chose our name well. Also I am lucky in having you
here. I must go to Mt. Wilson at once, I'll be back about dawn, and
I'll tell you two all about it then. I've got to hurry. So long."
A moment later the two men heard the hum of the motor as the hangar
doors were opened. Another moment and the entire countryside was
flooded with a blaze of bluish white light, that illuminated the
desolate dry desert for miles, and for all those weary miles it was an
unending, rolling surface of sand. In the glow of sudden light, great
strange shadows which started up by the buildings gave weird effects on
the sand, but with it all there was a rugged and compelling beauty to
the little world which the light had cut from the darkness. There was a
sudden whistle of air, and the light faded as the car shot off toward
Mt. Wilson.
"What a mass of sand there is around here! It would seem almost like a
dried up ocean bed," said Gale.
"I suppose there is a lot of sand in the world--there should be though,
it is the direct compound of the two most abundant elements on Earth,
silicon and oxygen."
"Wright, I've often wondered why it is that oxygen, which combines with
almost anything, should be found free in nature. Why is it?"
"I don't know, I'm sure. At that I suppose one reason is that there is
so much of it. Just a very small fraction less than half of the Earth's
surface layers is oxygen. It forms over forty-nine per cent of it to
a depth of ten miles at least. It is the second most active element
on Earth--in the universe for that matter, and of the active elements
there is only one with which it can't combine, namely, fluorine. Of
course it can't combine with the inert gases, so I say the active
elements. I suppose it is left free principally because there was
nothing else to do. Apparently there weren't enough partners to go
around. At that it did a mighty good job of it! Forty-seven per cent.
of the solid crust is oxygen, 85% of the water is oxygen, and 20% of
the air is free oxygen. Well, let's not look so favorable a gift horse
in the mouth. If it hadn't been left free, where would we be?"
The discussion soon died down and the men retired for the night, each
wondering what it was that had called Waterson away so suddenly, and
each determined to be on hand when he returned in the morning.
The coming of the light of dawn had, perforce, put an end to the
activities at Mt. Wilson, so it was shortly after sunrise that the two
men heard the hangar doors open. And it was very shortly after sunrise
that they had dressed and gone down to greet Waterson. The worried look
on his face told a great deal, for both men knew him well, and when
Waterson looked worried there was something of tremendous import under
way.
"Hello. Had a good night Dave? I have something that is going to
interest you--and two and a half billion other human beings. They have
discovered something at the Mt. Wilson observatory that is going to
change our plans quite a bit. We had intended going to other planets
to visit the inhabitants, but we won't have to go. They are coming
to us; furthermore, twenty ships are coming, and I have an idea
they are good sized ships. But Wright, I think you had better start
breakfast. We can discuss it at the table. I'm going to wash, and if
you will help Wright, Dave, I think we will be at work pretty soon."
Waterson left the room, and the two men looked at his retreating
figure with astonishment and wonder. An announcement that our planet
was to be invaded from space is a bit hard to take in all at once, and
particularly when it is given in the matter of fact way that Waterson
had presented it, for he had known it now for over ten hours, and had
been working on it during all that time.
* * * * *
At the table the explanation was resumed.
"The ships were first sighted in the big telescope when they turned
it toward Mars last night. You remember that Mars is at its closest
now, and they are taking a good many pictures of it. When they saw
these spots of light on the disc of Mars they were at once excited and
started immediate spectroscopic and radiometric observations. The fact
that they showed against the disc of Mars meant that they were nearer
than the planet, and by measuring the amount of energy coming from them
they tried to calculate their size. The results at once proved that
they could not be light because of reflection, for the energy that they
emitted would require a surface of visible dimensions, and these were
points. Their temperature was too low to be incandescent, so they were
violating all the laws of astro-physics. By this time they had shifted
sufficiently to make some estimate of their distance, shifted because
of the movement of the Earth in its orbit, Dave, and so they were
covering a different spot on the disc of Mars. Allowing that they were
going in a straight line, they were some ten and a half million miles
away. The spectroscope showed by displacement of one of the spectral
lines that they were coming toward us at about 100 miles a second. The
line of their flight was such that they would intercept the Earth in
its orbit in about thirty hours. That means that we have about twenty
to work in.
"It doesn't take any alarmist to guess that this means trouble. They
would not be coming in twenty ships if they were coming on a peaceful
mission. Also considering that they come in only twenty ships it shows
that they have considerable confidence in those twenty. Since they
are coming here without first sending a scouting party of one or two
ships, I suspect that they already know that the conditions of Earth
are suitable to them. To determine our conditions would require
exceedingly powerful telescopes, but they are helped by the thin air
of their planet. I believe that they can actually see our machines
and weapons, and that they know just about what we have. I think that
they are counting on cleaning up the world very easily--as indeed they
would but for one factor, for they have atomic energy. Wright, do you
remember that we decided to use electronic rockets to drive the car,
once we discovered atomic energy? And that having discovered material
energy, we naturally decided not to? Well, they have electronic
rockets. This makes me feel sure that that means that they have atomic
energy, but have no material energy."
"Fine Steve. Your reasoning is most admirable--but will you please
translate 'electronic rocket' and a few of those other terms into
English? And otherwise make yourself clear to the layman?"