"I ... I don't know. Matter itself might be different ... here."
Strykalski found himself at the port again, looking out into the vast
stretch of alien void. Terror was seeping like dampness through him,
stretching cold fingers into his heart and mind. He realized that
everyone on board must feel the same way. It was the old human devil
rising from the pit of the primeval past. Fear of the unknown, of the
strange. And there was loneliness. From the dark corners of his mind,
the terrible loneliness came stealing forth. Never had a group of human
beings been so frighteningly _apart_ from their kind. He felt rejected,
scorned and lost.
The others felt it, too. Ivy and Cob drew closer, until all three stood
touching each other; as though they could dispel the loneliness of the
unnatural environment by the warmth of human, animal contact. Celia
came into the bridge softly ... just to be near her friends.
It was only the fact that they could return at will to their own
space ... and the danger of the questing Eridans ... that kept one or
all from crying out in utter childish fear. Celia Graham whimpered
softly and slipped her hand into Cob's. He squeezed it to give her a
reassurance he did not feel.
Then Strike broke the spell. The effort was great, but it brushed away
the shadows that had risen to plague them from the tortured abyss of
racial memory. It brought them back to what they were: highly civilized
people, parts of an intricately technological culture. Their ship
was a part of that culture. The only part they could cling to. The
_Cleopatra_ demanded attention and service, and her demanding saved
them.
"Cob," Strike directed with forced briskness, "Take over Damage
Control. See what can be done about the second-order drive."
Cob pulled himself together, smiling as all the accustomed pieces
of his life began to fit together again. It didn't matter that they
were in an unknown cosmos. Damage Control was something he knew and
understood. He smiled thankfully and left the bridge.
"Maintain a continuous radar-watch, Celia. We can't tell what we may
encounter here."
"Yes, Captain," replied Celia gratefully.
Strykalski reached for the squawk-box and called Bayne.
"Astrogation here," came the shaky reply. In the exposed blisters the
agoraphobia must be more acute, reasoned Strike, and Bayne must have
been subconsciously stirred up by the disappearance of the familiar
stars that were his stock-in-trade.
"Plot us a course to 40 Eridani C, Bayne," Strykalski directed. "On
gyro-headings."
"What?" The astrogator sounded as though he thought Strike had lost his
mind. "Through _this_ space?"
"Certainly," Strykalski insisted quietly. "You're so proud of your
dead-reckoning. Here's a chance for you to do a real job. Get me an
orbit."
"I ... all right, Captain," grumbled Bayne.
Strike turned to Ivy Hendricks. "Well, Captain Hendricks, this is some
gadget you have dreamed up out of your Project Warp," he breathed
shakily. "At least the fat's out of the fire for the time being...."
Ivy looked out of the port and back with a shudder. "I hope so, Strike.
I hope so."
They fell silent, seeking comfort in each other's presence.
* * * * *
The second-order drive repaired, Old Aphrodisiac moved out through the
alien space toward the spot where 40 Eridani C existed on the other
side of the barrier.
The ship's tactical astrophysicist brought in some disturbing reports
on the stars that shone brightly all around her. They fitted the
accepted classifications in all particulars ... except one. And that
one had the scientist tearing his hair. The mass of every observable
body except the ship herself was practically non-existent. Even the two
planetary systems discovered by the electron telescope flouted their
impossible lack of mass.
Ivy suggested that since the _Cleopatra_ and her crew were no part of
this alien cosmos, no prime-space instruments could detect the errant
mass. Like a microscopic bull in a gargantuan china shop, the Tellurian
warship existed under a completely different set of physical laws than
did the heavenly bodies of this strange space.
It was pure conjecture, but it seemed well supported by the observable
facts. The hull continued to glow with its unnatural witchfire, and
soon disturbing reports were coming in from the Damage Control section
that the thickness of the outer hull was actually being reduced.
The rate was slow, and there was no immediate danger, but it was
nevertheless unnerving to realize that Lover-Girl was being dissolved
by _something_. Also, the outside Geigs recorded a phenomenal amount
of short radiation emanating _from the ship herself_. The insulation
kept most of it from penetrating, but tests showed that the strange
radiation's source was the glow that clung stubbornly to the spacer's
skin.
A tense week passed and then the ship neared the spot where a
change over to prime-space could be effected. According to Bayne's
calculations, 40 Eridani C would be within 40,000,000 miles of them
when the ship emerged from hyper space.
And then the Radar section picked up the planetoids. Millions of them,
large and small, lay in a globular cluster dead ahead. They spread out
in all directions for more than half a parsec ... dull, rocky little
worlds without a gram of detectable mass.
All that waited for the _Cleopatra_ in her own cosmos was a hot
reception at the hands of the defenders of 40 Eridani C II, while here
was mystery at close range. Mystery that was not cosmic in scope ...
just a swarm of innocuous seeming planetoids ... the first explorable
worlds that they had neared in this universe. Strike decided to heave
to and examine their find. Ivy wanted samples and though no one said
it in so many words ... no one was anxious for another encounter
with the rapacious Eridans. With typically human adaptiveness they
had sublimated their fear of the unknown space in which they found
themselves. Curiosity took the place of fear and here was something
close at hand to probe. Anthropoid inquisitiveness prevailed.
* * * * *
The _Cleopatra_ slowed, stopped. Strike and Cob Whitley suited up and
armed themselves with spring-guns. In their clumsy space armor they
dropped through Lover-Girl's ventral valve into the void. The monitor's
glowing bulk retreated as they jetted toward the swarm of tiny worlds.
Their space suits, too, glowed with the witchfire, outlining them
against the eternal night.
Back in the monitor's Communications shack, Ivy Hendricks and Celia
Graham stood with Bayne and the other officers around the two way
communicator that linked the two explorers with the ship.
Out in space, Strike and Cob bound themselves together with a length of
thin cable. They dropped down under power toward the planetoid they had
selected to explore.
"What's it like?" Ivy's voice crackled in their headsets.
"Can't tell from this distance. We're still a good five miles away,"
replied Strykalski.
"Looks like any other planetoid to me," averred Whitley.
"Maybe you'd better fire a shot into the surface before you try
landing, Strike," Ivy suggested.
"Why?"
"Just a hunch." Her voice sounded worried.
"Okay, Ivy," Strike replied. "Cob, take a pot shot at it will you. You
should be able to hit it from here ... it's twenty miles wide."
Cob was disgusted. "And me the best shot in my class back at the
Academy!" He drew his spring-gun and snapped a solid steel slug at the
looming worldlet....
What happened next, they never knew exactly. On the dark surface of the
planetoid a blazing bubble of white incandescence appeared, expanding
within split seconds to all but obscure the whole bulk of the disk.
It churned and whirled and flashed, mushrooming out in a hellish
coruscation of destruction. The blaze of light outlined the two men
and the ship and the planetoids within a fifty mile circle and the
expanding shock wave fanned out. It struck the two space armored men
to send them spinning wildly. The glowing bulk of the monitor reeled
and bucked. Strike felt himself whipping up and down at the end of the
cable that bound him to Cob Whitley. He felt himself being buffeted and
burned by the dazzling flare of atomic fire. The merciful blackness
spread itself like a curtain over his tortured eyes....
* * * * *
Strykalski opened his eyes and stretched his battered body. His head
was bandaged, and he could feel the familiar tingle of paratannic
salve on his burns. Pain still throbbed in little red needles behind
his dazzled eyes. He drew a long rasping breath and looked around him.
He was in the _Cleopatra's_ infirmary. A Medic was standing near the
bulkhead. Cob lay on a bunk nearby. Ivy and Celia Graham were leaning
over him.
"Great Space!" he muttered, "What happened?"
"The shot Cob fired ... it ... it blew up," Celia said.
"That's putting it rather mildly. But why? And how did we get back
here?"
"Celia found you on the Radar," said Ivy, "And Bayne took a skeeterboat
out and picked you up after we got Lover-Girl back right side up."
"Cob?"
As though in answer to Strykalski's question, a low moan came from
the bandaged form of the Executive. "Ohhh.... Ye gods and ... little
catfish! I wish I ... had a Martini...."
Strike smiled through cut lips. Cob was all right. He looked up at Ivy
again. "But what happened?"
"Listen!" Ivy was saying excitedly, "I've got it! The answer! All the
answers, I think! The glowing of the ship ... the lack of mass for
everything native to this space ... the solid shot exploding!"
Things were becoming clear to Strykalski now. Of course! He sat up
painfully. It was really simple enough when one thought it through. In
negative space....
Ivy went on. "Strike, the ship glows because there is matter
everywhere ... even in interstellar space. Not much, but enough to
bombard the hull with tiny particles. The radiation the Geigs picked
up is caused by atomic _disintegration_! We've had fission and fusion
for two hundred years now ... but this is the complete transmutation of
matter to energy! The complete utilization of atomic energy! And the
thing that causes it is the reaction between our kind of matter and...."
"_Contraterrene matter!_" he exclaimed. "That's it, isn't it Ivy?"
The girl nodded. "The charges of the atomic components are reversed in
this space! You would have made yourself into a ... a _bomb_ if you had
touched that planetoid out there!" Her face paled. "Oh, Strike! You
almost killed yourself!"
Thoughts were boiling around in Strykalski's head now. An idea ... a
crazy, audacious idea was taking shape.
He swung his legs over the side of the bunk. "Listen, Ivy ... in this
space, _we_ are the unnatural form of matter, and here we are sort of
walking bombs. Right?"
She nodded, puzzled.
"Well, what if we should transport some contraterrene matter back into
prime-space ... a planetoid for example ... what then?"
The girl's face showed comprehension. "It would be the most devastating
bomb ever dreamed of. It would release every erg in its component atoms
the minute it came into contact with anything terrene!" She stopped
short, her eyes wide. "Strike!"
"Would it work, Ivy?" he pursued.
"Yes!" she gasped, "Yes, I think it would!"
"Can we do it?"
"I ... I think so. Lover-Girl has power to burn. And we could set up
the screens on two skeeterboats so that ... yes! By heaven, it will
work! All we have to do is make and set up the equipment!"
Cob sat up on his bunk and gave a low whistle. "Ye gods! No one can
ever accuse you two of having small ideas, that's for sure!"
"It will work!" Ivy insisted. Her eyes narrowed. She was all the
engineer now, working out a problem. "The explosion that almost killed
you and set Lover-Girl on her beam ends came from the annihilation of
one tiny slug of steel at a distance of five miles. Just think what the
destruction of a twenty mile planetoid will do when we...."
"How long will it take?" Strike interrupted.
"Give me six hours."
"Start now," he ordered, "And somebody hand Cob and me our pants. We've
got work to do!"
* * * * *
The next hours were a nightmare of feverish activity aboard the T.R.S.
_Cleopatra_. Two of her six skeeterboats were fitted with hyper
screens that were made in the machine shop under Ivy Hendricks' close
supervision. Power was shunted from the surge circuit generators and
run out through automatic spools to the screen bearing skeeterboats
to form the two poles of the hyper warp. Ivy was everywhere at once,
giving orders, overseeing construction. Strike and Cob co-ordinated the
efforts of the crew and workmen.
"We'll pick out our planetoid," Strike explained to them, "And line up
our skeeters on an arbitrary north-south axis. The spools will pay out
the power lines as the boats travel. When everything is aligned, we
turn on the juice and hope for the best."
"Then," interjected Bayne, "as the planetoid takes its place in prime
space without orbital velocity ... and only some 4,000,000 miles
from 40 Eridani C ... we clear out. Fast. 40 Eridani C is an M6
star ... surface temperature only about 3,000 Centigrade. It's
small ... smaller than Sol, because it has shrunk. But under its
semi-solid crust there are trillions of tons of matter that will burst
free as soon as anything cracks the surface tension. Our bomb should
act as a fuse to light one of the biggest fire-crackers ever imagined."
"One thing," said Ivy to Strike, "whoever pilots the skeeters ... and I
presume you intend to handle one yourself ... will have to be extremely
careful. As soon as our planetoid exists in prime-space it will have a
planetoid's mass and gravity. Don't be caught with your jets cold. I'd
miss you, Strike."
Celia Graham interrupted the conference to tell them that the equipment
was ready, and the ship in position. Strike looked around at the
suddenly tense faces of his companions. He didn't like to think what
failure might mean to them ... to Terra and the whole Solar Combine. He
rose to his feet purposefully.
"Let's go," he said.
The skeeterboat dove out of the valve trailing its cable. Strike
glanced back through the rear port to see the second shark-like shape
close behind. Even banged up as he was, Cob would let no one take the
second boat but himself. Strike's smile was broad. Good man to have
around, that Coburn Whitley.
Ahead lay the tiny world that had been selected for annihilation. It
was a black blot on the star-spangled darkness of space. A thirty mile
sphere, it floated serenely along its orbit ... an innocuous chunk of
matter that _here_ was just that ... and elsewhere would be the most
fearful bomb ever guided by the hand of man.
Strike looked back at the glowing shape of Old Aphrodisiac. She
lured him like a familiar scene, a friendly voice. In all this alien
vastness, only his beloved ship was safety.
He looked around for Cob's skeeter. It was barely visible now, some
twenty miles away as it fanned out to take up its position at the south
pole of the planetoid.
The tiny world drew near, and Strike veered to find his own station.
Jockeying the skeeterboat carefully, he found the proper spot marked by
the beacons that fanned out from the _Cleopatra's_ prow and stern.
Cob signalled from the opposite pole that he, too, was ready. This, as
they said in the flicks, was _it_.
He called Ivy on the radiophone.
"All right, Strike," her voice came back, "We'll all go through
together. Ten seconds."
"Check."
"Remember to be ready to blast away from that chunk of rock, you two.
As soon as it hits prime-space it will have plenty of gravity."
"Right, Ivy," Cob's voice came metallically.
"Six seconds....
"Five seconds....
"Four seconds ... three ... two ... NOW!"
Strike was dazzled by the sudden shift of lighting. The planetoid was
aglow with the dancing, swirling witchfire! The skeeterboat sank toward
the bright surface with a sickening lurch. Strike shoved the throttle
forward and looked fearfully for a flare of fire at the south pole.
There was none. Cob had gotten clear, too. The power cable snapped, but
it didn't matter now. Its work was done.
The _Cleopatra_ lay ahead now, the fire gone from her hull. Behind her
blazed the familiar beacon of Achernar. Off to the right Sirius A and
B dominated the sky. And near at hand below, the turbulent, smoky red
surface of 40 Eridani C smouldered against the familiar backdrop of the
Milky Way. Already the contraterrene planetoid was plunging toward that
sullen sphere. There wasn't much time to get clear.
Strike flung his skeeter through the open hatch close on the exhaust of
Cob's boat. Valves hissed shut and Lover-Girl flashed away--homeward.
* * * * *
One week later, and just off Sirius B, Old Aphrodisiac met the Eridan
fleet again, but with a difference....
This time the black ships made no move to stop her. Their actions were
incoherent, insane. They milled about in a swirling cluster, colliding
with their fellows or careening off into the void.
They floundered erratically, their co-ordination shattered. Even any
evidence of intelligent guidance was missing.
The _Cleopatra_ flashed by, not even deigning to fire a shot at them.
Strike shuddered as he watched them in the scanners. In his mind he
could see the senseless, churning masses of flesh that lived mindlessly
within the black hulls. His thoughts flew far afield to an icy world
that had turned suddenly into an uninhabitable desert with temperatures
soaring past the melting point of lead. He saw a dull red sun pulsating
in cosmic agony, blossoming out into a menacing ball of white flame
as its internal fires leaped to freedom through its shattered crust.
He saw a star spending its failing substance prodigally in one bright
carnival of destruction. And he saw its planets writhing as the sudden
blast of heat speeded molecular velocities to the speed of escape and
sent great clouds of superheated chlorine hissing into the void.
But best of all, he imagined the horrible death of a _thing_ that was
the sole co-ordinator and reasoning agent for a race of ugly tentacled
creatures. Strykalski saw the death of the Eridan group-mind....
Old Aphrodisiac settled herself wearily onto the ramp of the Hamilton
Field Spaceport. Her valves opened with a sighing sound. It was as
though the ship herself had given voice to her contentment. She was
home.
The lights of the Administration building glittered against the dark
backdrop of the California hills, and the field lights flamed against
the stillness of the night.
Strike and Ivy stood near the open port. "It's all over, Ivy," he said,
"We're safe now."
Ivy raised her eyes to the sky where the stars flecked the night. Below
Orion hung the jewelled thread of Eridanus.
The girl drew a shuddering breath. "It's a terrible thing to ... to
murder a star."
Strike remained silent. There was nothing to say.
It would take tardy light more than fifteen years to bring news of the
sudden flare of reckless life in that small star ... an orgy that would
sap its last reserves of strength and leave it a dark and frigid ember
in the lonely void.