Buck Kendall with a slow smile, looked out of the port in the thick
metal wall. The magnetic shield of the Lunar Fort was washed constantly
with the fires of exploding magnetic bombs. The smile spread broader.
"My friends," he said softly, "you can pull from now till doomsday as
far as I'm concerned, and you won't even disturb us now." He looked back
over his shoulder into the power room. A hunched bulk, beautifully
designed and carefully finished, the apparatus that created 'Uncertainty
of the Fourth Degree' was destroying matter, and creating by its
destruction terrific electric fields. These fields were feeding the
magnetic shield now. Under the present drain, the machine was not
noticeably working. In fact, Kendall was a bit annoyed. He had tested
out the energy generating properties of this machine, trying to find a
limit. He had found there was no limit. The great copper conductors,
charged with the same atostor force that was used in the mercury fuel,
were perfect conductors, they had not heated. But the eleven thousand
tons of discharged mercury metal had been completely charged in just a
bit better than eleven minutes. The pumps wouldn't force it through the
charging apparatus any faster than that.
Two weeks more had passed, while the "S Doradus" and the "Cepheid" were
fitted out with the new apparatus Buck had designed. They were almost
ready to start now.
McLaurin came down the corridor, and stopped near Kendall. He too smiled
at the Miran's attempts. "They've got a long way to go, Buck."
"They're going a long way. Clear back home--and we'll be right along. I
don't think they can outdistance us."
"I still don't see why you couldn't use one of those Uncertainty
conditions--the First Degree perhaps, and annihilate our inertia."
"You can't control Uncertainty. By its essential character it's beyond
control."
"What's that Fourth Degree machine of yours--the material energy--if it
isn't controlled and utilized Uncertainty?"
"It's utter and utterly uncontrolled Uncertainty. The matter within that
field breaks down to absolutely nothing. Within, no law whatsoever
applies, but fortunately, outside the old laws of physics apply--and we
can gather and use the energy which is released outside, though nothing
can be done inside. Why, think, man, if I could control that
Uncertainty, I could do anything at all, absolutely anything. It would
be a world as unreasonable as a bad dream. Think how unreasonable those
manifestations we first got were!"
"But can't you get any control at all?"
"Very little. Anyway, if I could get inertialess conditions at will, I'd
be afraid of them. They'd make chemical reactions impossible in all
probability--and life is chemical. Two atoms must come into more or less
violent contact before a union takes place, and cannot if they have
neither momentum nor inertia.
"Anyway--why worry. I can't do it, because I can't control this thing.
And we have the extra-space drive."
"How does that darned thing work? Can't you drop the math and tell me
about it?"
Kendall smiled. "Not too readily. Remember first, as to the driving
system, that it works on the fabric of space. Space is, in the physical
sense, a fabric woven of the threads of lines of force from every body
in the universe, made up of fields and forces. It is elastic, and can
transmit strains. But anything that can transmit strains, can be
strained against. With the tremendous field intensities available by the
material engines, I can get such fields as will 'dig their toes' into
space and push.
"That's the drive itself. It is accelerationless, because it enfolds us,
and acts equally on every atom of us. By maintaining in addition a
slight artificial gravity--thanks also to the intensity of those
material engine fields--we can be comfortable, while we accelerate at
tremendous rates.
"That is, I think, at least allied to the Stranger's system. For the
high-speed drive, I do in fact use the Uncertainty. I can control it in
a certain sense by determining its powers, and the limits of
uncertainty, whether First, Second, Third or Fourth Degree. It advances
in jumps--but on a finer plotting of the curve, you can see that each
jump represents a vast series of smaller jumps. That is, there is Class
A, B, C, D, and so forth Uncertainty of the First Degree. Now Class A
First Degree Uncertainty involves only the deepest, broadest principles.
Only they break down. One of these is the law of the speed of light.
"I'm sure that isn't the system the Strangers use, but I'm also sure
there's no limit to the speed we can get."
"Doesn't that wreck your drive system?"
"No, because gravity and the fields I use in driving are First Degree
Uncertainties of the higher classes.
"But at any rate, it will work. And--I suspect you came to say you were
ready to go."
"I did." McLaurin nodded.
"Still stick to your original plan?"
McLaurin nodded. "I think it's best. You follow those fellows back to
their system in the 'S Doradus' and I'll stay here in the 'Cepheid' to
protect the system. They may need some time to get out of the place
here. And remember, we ought to be as decent as they were. They didn't
bother the transports leaving Jupiter when they came in, only attacked
the warships. We're bound to do the same, but we'll have to keep a watch
on them, nonetheless. So you go on ahead."
They started down the corridor, and came presently to the huge locks
where the "S Doradus" and the "Cepheid" were berthed. The super-ships
lay cold and gray now, men swarming in and out with last-minute
supplies. Air, water, spare parts, bedding and personal equipment.
Douglass, Cole, and most of the laboratory staff would go with Kendall
when he followed the Strangers home. Devin and a few of the most
advanced physicists would stay with McLaurin in case of need.
* * * * *
An hour later the "S Doradus" rose gently, soundlessly from her berth,
and floated out of the open lock-door. The "Cepheid" followed her in
five seconds. Still under the great screen of the fort, the lashing,
coruscating colors of the magnetic bombs and the magnetic screen flashed
and was iridescent. The "S Doradus" poked her great nose gently through
the screen, and an instant later her titanically powerful,
material-engine effortlessly discharged a great magnetic bomb, sent with
the combined power of five atomic-powered interstellar ships. The two
ships separated now, the "Cepheid" under McLaurin flashing ahead with
sudden, terrific acceleration toward Mars, whispering through space at a
speed that made it undetectable, faster than light. The "S Doradus"
journeyed out leisurely toward the fleet of forty-seven Miran ships.
Gresth Gkae saw the "S Doradus" and as he watched the steady progress,
felt sudden fear at his heart. The ship seemed so certain--
At a distance of thirty thousand miles, Kendall stopped. Magnetic bombs
were washing his screen continuously now, seeking to exhaust the ship as
all the great ships beyond poured their energy against it. A slow smile
spread over Kendall's mouth as he heard the gentle hum of the barely
working material-engine. Carefully he aligned the nose UV beam of the "S
Doradus" on the nearest of the Miran ships. Then he depressed a switch.
There was no ion-release before the force-mirror now. Just a jet of gas
whirling into a half-inch field of "Uncertainty of the Fourth Degree."
The matter vanished instantly in released energy so stupendous that the
greatest previous UV beams had been harmless things by comparison.
Material energy maintained the mirror forces. Material energy gave the
power that was released. And only material energy could have stood up
before it. Thirty thousand miles away, a Miran ship flamed
instantaneously into inconceivable incandescence, vanishing almost in
blue-violet light of terrific intensity. The ship reeled away, a
half-molten wreck.
The beam spotted two more ships before it winked out. Then Kendall began
sending bombs. He moved up to within 2000 miles that his aim might be
accurate. They were bombs of "Uncertainty of the Third Degree," the
Uncertainty of atomic law in bomb form. One hit the nose of the nearest
ship, and a sphere five feet in diameter glowed mistily blue for a
moment. Then very easily, the matter that formed the wall of the cruiser
began to run and change, and presently there was only a hole, and an
expanding cloud of gas. Three more flowed toward it--and the hole
enlarged, and another hole appeared in a bulkhead behind.
Kendall made a change. For the first time there came the staccato bark
of the material engine under strain, as it fashioned the terrific fields
of "Uncertainty of the Ultimate Degree." Abruptly they leapt out,
invisible till they entered a magnetic screen, then run over with
opalescent light as the energy of the field was sucked into them and
released.