might happen to Khiv Five. If we can find out what it was, we'll take
steps so it won't happen again."
"Just leave us alone!" said the untidy woman fiercely. "We can get
along without men or Ades or anything else. Go away!"
3
_Dangerous Trip_
Dona plucked at Kim's arm. He turned, seething, and went out. Outside
he vented his bitterness.
"I thought men were crazy!" he said. "If she's the head of the planet
government, I pity the planet."
"She could talk to another woman quite rationally," Dona said with
satisfaction. "But she's had to persuade herself that she hates men,
and you had me with you, and I'm prettier than she is, Kim, and I have
you. So she couldn't talk to you."
"But she's unreasonable," Kim said stubbornly.
"We'll go back to the ship," said Dona brightly. "I'll lock you in it
and then go find out what we want to know."
She smiled comfortably all the way back to the _Starshine_. But
the staring women made Kim acutely uncomfortable. When he was safely
inside the ship, he wiped perspiration from his forehead.
"I wouldn't want to live on this planet!" he said feverishly.
"I wouldn't want you to," said Dona. "Stay inside, darling. You'd
better not even show yourself at a vision-port."
"Heaven forbid!" said Kim.
Dona went out. Kim paced up and down the living quarters of the ship.
There was something in the back of his mind that would not quite come
out. The disappearance of Ades was impossible. Men had conquered one
galaxy and now started on a second, but never yet had they destroyed
a planet. Never yet had they even moved one. But nevertheless, only
thirty-six hours ago the planet Ades had revolved about its sun and
men and women had strolled into its matter-transmitter with no hint of
danger, and between two seconds something had happened.
Even had the planet been shattered into dust, its remnants should have
been discoverable. And surely a device which could destroy a planet
would have had some preliminary testings and the Galaxy would have
heard of its existence! This thing that had happened was inconceivable!
On the basis of the photographs, Ades had not only been destroyed, but
the quintillions of tons of its substance had been removed so far that
sunlight shining upon them did not light them enough for photography.
Which simply could not be.
Kim wrestled with the problem while Dona went about in the world of
women. There was something odd about her in the eyes of women of Khiv
Five. Their faces were unlike the faces of the women of a normal world.
On a world with men and women, all women wear masks. Their thoughts are
unreadable. But where there are no men, masks are useless. The women of
Khiv Five saw plainly that Dona was unlike them, but they were willing
to talk to her.
She came back to the _Starshine_ as Kim reached a state of
complete bewilderment. Ades could not have been destroyed. But it had
vanished. Even if shattered, its fragments could not have been moved
so far or so fast that they could no longer be detected. But they
were undiscoverable. The thing was impossible on any scale of power
conceivable for humans to use. But it had happened.
So Kim paced back and forth and bit his nails until Dona returned.
"We can take off, Kim," she said quietly.
She locked the inner airlock door as if shutting out something. She
twisted the fastening extra tight. Her face was pale.
"What about Ades?" asked Kim.
"They had matter-transmission to it from here, too," said Dona. "You
remember, the original transmitter on Ades was one-way only. It would
receive but not send. Some new ones were built after the war with
Sinab, though. And this planet's communication with Ades cut off just
when ours did, thirty-six hours ago. None of the other twenty planets
had communication with it either. Something happened, and on the
instant everything stopped."
"What caused it?" Kim asked, but Dona paid no attention.
"Take off, Kim," she said. "Men are marching out of the
matter-transmitter. Marching, I said, Kim! Armed men, marching as
soldiers with machine-mounted heavy weapons. Somebody knows Ades can't
protect its own any more and invaders must be crowding in for the
spoils. I'm--afraid, Kim, that Ades has been destroyed and our planets
are part of a tyrant's empire now."
Later, the _Starshine_ swooped down from the blue toward the
matter-transmitter on Khiv Five. Serried ranks of marching figures were
tramping out of the transmitter's silvery, wavering film. In strict
geometric rows they marched, looking neither to the right nor to the
left. They were a glittering stream, moving rhythmically in unison,
proceeding to join an already-arrived mass of armed men already drawn
up in impressive array.
Racing toward the high arch of the transmitter with air screaming
about the _Starshine's_ hull, Kim saw grimly that the figures were
soldiers, as Dona had said. He had never before seen a soldier in
actual life, but pictures and histories had made them familiar enough.
These were figures out of the unthinkably remote past. They wore
helmets of polished metal. They glittered with shining orichalc and
chromium. The bright small flashes of faceted corundum--synthetic
sapphire in all the shades from blue-white to ruby--shone from their
identical costumes and equipment. They were barbarous in their
splendor, and strange in the precision and unison of their movements,
which was like nothing so much as the antics of girl precision dancers,
without the extravagance of the dancers' gestures.
The _Starshine_ dipped lower. It shot along a canyon-like open way
between buildings. The matter-transmitter was upon a hill within the
city and the ship was now lower than the transmitter and the heads of
the soldiers who still tramped out of the archway in a scintillating
stream.
Kim raged. Soldiers were an absurdity on top of a catastrophe.
Something had erased the planet Ades from its orbit around a lonely
sun. That bespoke science and intelligence beyond anything dreamed
of hitherto. But soldiers marching like dancing-girls, bedecked with
jewels and polished metal like the women of the pleasure-world of Dite--
This military display was pure childishness!
"Our pressure-wave'll topple them," said Kim savagely. "At least we'll
smash the transmitter."
There was a monstrous roaring noise. The _Starshine_, which had
flashed through intergalactic space at speeds no science was yet able
to measure, roared between tall buildings in atmosphere. Wind whirled
and howled past its hull. It dived forward toward the soldiers.
There was one instant when the ship was barely yards above the gaping
faces of startled, barbarously accoutred troopers. The following
spreading pressure-wave of the ship's faster-than-sound movement
spread out on every side like a three-dimensional wake. It toppled
the soldiers as it hit. They went down in unison, in a wildly-waving,
light-flashing tangle of waving arms and legs and savage weapons.
But Kim saw, too, squat and bell-mouthed instruments on wheels, in the
act of swinging to bear upon him. One bore on the _Starshine_.
It was impossible to stop or swerve the ship. There was yet another
fraction of a second of kaleidoscopic confusion, of momentary glimpses
of incredibly antique and childish pomp.
And then anguish struck.
It was the hellish torment of a fighting-beam, more concentrated
and more horrible than any other agony known to mankind. For the
infinitesimal fraction of an instant Kim experienced it to the full.
Then there was nothingness.
There was no sound. There was no planet. There was no sunlight on tall
and stately structures built by men long murdered from the skies. The
vision-ports showed remote and peaceful suns and all the tranquil glory
of interstellar space. The _Starshine_ floated in emptiness.
It was, of course, the result of that very small device that Kim had
built into the _Starshine_ before even the invention of the
transmitter-drive. It was a relay which flung on faster-than-light
drive the instant fighting-beams struck any living body in the ship.
The _Starshine_ had been thrown into full interstellar drive while
still in atmosphere.
It had plunged upward--along the line of its aiming--through the air.
The result of its passage to Khiv Five could only be guessed at, but in
even the unthinkably minute part of a second it remained in air, the
ship's outside temperatures had risen two hundred degrees. Moving at
multiples of the speed of light, it must have created an instantaneous
flash of literally stellar heat by the mere compression of air before
it.
Kim was sick and shaken by the agony which would have killed him had it
lasted as long as the hundredth of a second. But Dona stared at him.
"Kim--what--Oh!"
She ran to him. The beam had not touched her. So close to the
projector, it had been narrow, no more than a yard across. It had
struck Kim and missed Dona.
"Oh, my poor Kim!"
He grimaced.
"Forget it," he said, breathing hard. "We've both had it before, but
not as bad as this. It was a mobile fighting-beam projector. I imagine
they'll think we burned up in a flash of lightning. I hope there were
X-rays for them to enjoy."
For a long time Kim Rendell sat still, with his eyes closed. The dosage
of the fighting-beam had been greater than they had ever experienced
together, though. It left him weak and sick.
"Funny," he said presently. "Barbarous enough to have soldiers with
decorative uniforms and shiny dingle-dangles on them, and modern enough
to have fighting-beam projectors, and a weapon that's wiped Ades out of
space. We've got to find out who they are, Dona, and where they came
from. They've something quite new."
"I wonder," said Dona. But she still looked at Kim with troubled eyes.
"Eh?"
"If it's new," said Dona. "If it's a weapon. Even if--if Ades is
destroyed."
Kim stared at her.
"Now, what do you mean by that?"
"I don't quite know," admitted Dona. "I say things, and you turn them
over in your head, and something quite new comes out. I told you a
story about a dust-grain, once, and you made the transmitter-drive
that took us to Ades in the first place and made everything else
possible afterward."
"_Hmmm_," said Kim meditatively. "If it's new. If it's a weapon.
If Ades is destroyed. Why did you think of those three things?"
"You said no planet had ever been destroyed," she told him. "If
anybody could think of a way to do such a thing, you could. And when
Sinab had to be fought, and there weren't any weapons, you worked out
a way to conquer them with things that certainly weren't weapons.
Just broadcasters of the disciplinary-circuit field. So I wondered if
what they used was a weapon. Of course if it wasn't a weapon, it was
probably something that had been used before for some other purpose,
and it wouldn't be new."
"I've got to think about that," said Kim. He cogitated for a moment.
"Yes, I definitely have to think about that."
Then he stood up.
"We'll try to identify these gentry first. Then we'll go to another of
the twenty-one planets."
4
_Despots Take Over_
He took his observations and swung the little ship about. He adjusted
the radiation-switch to throw off the transmitter-drive on near
approach to a sun. He aimed for the star Thom. Its fourth planet had
been subjugated to the Empire of Sinab ten years before, and freed by
the men of Ades six years since.
The _Starshine_ winked into being some twenty million miles
from it, and two hundred million from the star. Kim looked annoyed,
and then glanced at the relay and adjusted it again. He pointed
the _Starshine_ close to the planet's disk. He pressed the
transmitter-drive button. Instantly the ship was within mere thousands
of miles of the planet.
"Nice!" Kim was pleased. "Saves a lot of overdrive juggling. Those
horrible fighter-beams seem to make one think more clearly. Dona, get
us down to the night-side while I try to work something out. Don't
ground. Just drop into atmosphere enough to pick up any broadcasts."
She took his place at the controls. He got out his writing-materials
and a stylus and began busily to sketch and to calculate. Dona drove
the ship to atmosphere on the dark side of Thom Four, not too far from
the sunset's rim. In the earlier night hours, on a given continent, the
broadcasts should be greater in number.
Communicator-bands murmured in soprano. Thom Four was more than
ninety-five per cent female, too. Kim worked on. After a long time
a speaker suddenly emitted a blast of martial music. Until now the
broadcast programs had gone unheeded by both Kim and Dona, because
from each wave-band only women's voices had come out, and only women's
music. The sound of brazen horns was something new. Dona smiled at Kim
and turned up the volume.
A man's voice said pompously:
"To the People of Thom Four, greeting!
"Whereas His Most Gracious Majesty, Elim the Fortieth, of high and
noble lineage, has heard with distress of the misfortunes of the people
of the planet Thom Four, of the injuries they have suffered at the
hands of enemies, and of their present distressful state, and
"Whereas, His Most Gracious Majesty, Elim the Fortieth, of high and
noble lineage, is moved to extend his protection to all well-disposed
persons in need of a gallant and potent protector;
"Therefore His Most Gracious Majesty, Elim the Fortieth, of high and
noble lineage, has commanded his loyal and courageous troops to occupy
the said planet Thom Four, to defend it against all enemies whatsoever,
and to extend to its people all the benefits of his reign.
"Given at his Palace of Gornith, on the second day of the tenth month
of the sixteenth year of his reign, and signed by His Most Gracious
Majesty, Elim the Fortieth, of high and noble lineage."
The voice stopped. There was another blare of martial music. The
broadcast ended. Ten minutes later, on another wave-length, the same
proclamation was repeated. That broadcast stopped too. Five minutes
later came still another broadcast. And so on and so on. At long last
there was but a single wave-length coming into the communicators.
It was a broadcast of a drama with only female characters, and in
which there was no reference to the fact that the human race normally
includes two sexes. It was highly emotional and it was very strange
indeed.
Then a pompous male voice read the silly proclamation and the broadcast
cut off.
"The question," said Kim, "is whether I'd better try to catch a soldier
and make him tell us where Gornith is and what planet is ruled by Elim
the Fortieth of high and noble lineage. I think I'd better find out."
"Darling," said Dona, "I'm afraid of soldiers bothering you, but I
certainly won't let you venture out on a planet full of women. And
there's something else."
"What?"
"There are twenty-one planets which Ades used to protect. What
planetary ruler could send troops to occupy twenty-one other planets?
Do you think this King Elim the Fortieth has tried to seize all of
them, or do you think he arranged a coöperative steal with the rulers
of other planets, and an arrangement for them all to help protect each
other? Hadn't we better make sure?"
Kim looked up at her from the desk where he worked.
"You're an uncomfortably brainy woman, Dona," he said drily. "Do you
think you could find Sinab? Sinab Two was the capital planet of the
Empire we had to take over."
Dona looked carefully on a star-chart. Kim went back to his task.
He had drawn, very carefully, an electronic circuit. Now he began
to simplify it. He frowned from time to time, however, and by his
expression was thinking of something else than the meticulous placing
of symbols on paper.
It was symptomatic of his confidence in Dona, though, that he remained
absorbed while she worked the ship. Presently there were mutterings in
the speakers. Dona had navigated to another solar system and entered
the atmosphere of another planet.
"Listen, Kim!" she said suddenly.
From a communicator blared a heavy male voice.
"People of Sinab Two!" the voice said. "You are freed from the tyranny
of the criminals of Ades.
"From this time forth, Sinab Two is under the protection of the Dynast
of Tabor, whose mercy to the meek, justice to the just, and wrath
toward the evil-doer is known among all men.
"People of Sinab Two! The soldiers now pouring in to defend you are to
be received submissively. You will honor all requisitions for food,
lodgings, and supplies. Such persons as have hitherto exercised public
office will surrender their authority to the officials appointed by the
Dynast to replace them.
"For your protection, absolute obedience is essential. Persons seeking
to prevent the protection of Sinab Two by the troops of the Dynast of
Tabor will be summarily dealt with. They can expect no mercy.
"People of Sinab Two! You are freed from the tyranny of the criminals
of Ades!"
"So Elim the Fortieth, of high and noble lineage, has a competitor,"
Kim said grimly. "The Dynast of Tabor, eh? But there are twenty-one
planets that used to belong to Sinab. I'm afraid we'll have to check
further."
They did. While Kim scowlingly labored over the drawing of a new
device, Dona drove the _Starshine_ to six worlds in succession.
And four of the six worlds had been taken over by the Sardathian
League, by King Ulbert of Arth, by the Emperor and Council of the
Republic of Sind--which was a remarkable item--and by the Imperator
of Donet. On the last two worlds there was confusion. On one the
population was sternly told by one set of voices that it now owed
allegiance to Queen Amritha of Megar, and by another set that King Jan
of Pirn would shortly throw out the Megarian invaders and protect them
forever. On the sixth planet there were four armies proclaiming the
exclusive nobility of their intentions.
"That's enough, Dona," Kim said in a tired voice. "Ades vanished or was
destroyed, and instantly thereafter gracious majesties and dynasts and
imperators and such vultures pounced on the planets we'd freed. But I'd
like to know how they made sure it was safe to pounce!"
Dona punched buttons on the _Starshine's_ control-board. The ship
lifted. The great black mass which was the night-side of the last
planet faded behind and the _Starshine_ drove on into space. And
Dona turned back to Kim from her post at the controls.
"Now what?"
Kim stared at nothing, his features sombre.
"It's bad," he said sourly. "There's the gang on Terranova. They're
fair game if they land on any planet in the whole First Galaxy--and
Terranova isn't self-sustaining yet. They'll starve if they stay
isolated. There are the people on Ades. Sixteen millions of them. Not
a big population for a planet, but a lot of people to be murdered so a
few princelings can feast on the leavings of Sinab's Empire.
"There are all the people who'd started to dream because Ades had come
to mean hope. And there are all the people in generations to come who'd
like to dream of hope and now won't be able to, and there are all the
nasty little surprise-attacks and treacheries which will be carried out
by matter-transmitters, now that these gentry of high and noble lineage
have been able to snatch some loot for themselves. It's pretty much of
a mess, Dona."
Dona gave an impatient toss of her head.
"You're not responsible for it, Kim," she protested.
"Maybe I should simply concentrate on finding a solution for Terranova,
eh? Let decency as something to fight for go by the board and be
strictly practical?"
"You shouldn't try to take all the problems of two galaxies on your
shoulders," said Dona.
Kim shook his head impatiently.
"Look!" he said in vexation. "There's some way out of the mess! I just
contrived a way to make a very desirable change in all the governments
of the First Galaxy, given time. It was one of those problems that seem
too big to handle, but it worked out very easily. But I absolutely
can't think of the ghost of an idea of how to find a friendly world for
Terranova!"
Dona waited.
"It occurs to me that I haven't slept for forty hours," Kim said. "I
doubt that you've done any better. I think we should go to bed. There's
one puzzle on which all the rest is based, and it's got me. What the
devil happened to Ades? There's a whole planet, seven thousand miles in
diameter, vanished as if it had never been. Maybe after some sleep I'll
be able to work it out. Let's go to sleep!"
The space-ship _Starshine_ drove on through emptiness at mere
interplanetary speed, its meteor-repellers ceaselessly searching space
for any sign of danger. But there was no danger. In the midst of space,
between the stars, there was safety. Only where men were was there
death.
The ship swam in the void, no lights showing in any of its ports.
Then, in the midst of the darkness inside, Kim sat up in his bunk.
"But hang it, Ades _couldn't_ be destroyed," he cried, in
exasperation.
5
_Industrial World_
Planet Spicus Five was an industrial world. According to the prevailing
opinion in the best circles, its prosperity was due to an ample
and adequate supply of raw materials, plus a skilled and thrifty
population. There were sixteen matter-transmitters on the planet, and
their silvery films were never still.
From abecedaria for infants to zyolites (synthetic) for industrial use,
its products ran in endless streams to the transmitters, and the other
products and raw materials obtained in exchange came out in streams no
less continuous. The industrial area covered a continent of sprawling
rectangular buildings designed for the ultimate of efficiency, with
living-areas for the workmen spreading out between.
The _Starshine_ descended through morning sunlight. Kim, newly
shaved and rested, forgot to yawn as he stared through the vision-ports
at the endless vista of structures made with a deliberate lack of
grace. From a hundred-mile height they could be seen everywhere to
north and south, to the eastward where it was already close to midday,
and to where shadows beyond the dawn hid them. Even from that altitude
they were no mere specks between the cloud masses. They were definite
shapes, each one a unit.
The ship went down and down and down. Kim felt uncomfortable and
realized why. He spoke drily.
"I don't suppose we'll ever land on any new planet without being
ready to wince from a fighting-beam and find ourselves snatched to
hell-and-gone away."
Dona did not answer. She gazed at the industrial plants as they swelled
in size with the _Starshine's_ descent. Buildings two miles to a
side were commonplace. Great rectangles three and even four miles long
showed here and there. And there were at least half a dozen buildings,
plainly factory units, which were more than ten miles in extent on each
of their ground dimensions. When the _Starshine_ was below the
clouds, Dona focused the electron telescope on one of them and gestured
to call Kim's attention to the sight.
This factory building enclosed great quadrangles, with gigantic
courtyards to allow--perhaps--of light. And within the courtyards were
dwelling-units for workmen. The telescope showed them plainly. Workmen
in factories like this would have no need and little opportunity ever
to go beyond the limits of their place of employment. The factory in
which they labored would confront them on every hand, at every instant
of their life from birth until death.
"That's something I don't like, without even asking questions about
it," said Kim.
He took the controls. The _Starshine_ dived. He remembered to
flick on the communicators. A droning filled the interior of the
space-ship. Dona looked puzzled and tuned in. A male voice mumbled
swiftly and without intonation through a long series of numerals and
initial letters. It paused. Another voice said tensely, "_Tip._"
The first voice droned again. The second voice said, "_Tip._" The
first voice droned.
Dona looked blank. She turned up another wave-length. A voice barked
hysterically. The words ran so swiftly together that they were almost
indistinguishable, but certain syllables came out in patterns.
"It's something about commerce," said Kim. "Arranging for some material
to be routed on a matter-transmitter."
None of the wavelengths carried music. All carried voices, and all
babbled swiftly, without expression, with a nerve-racking haste.