Han Electrono-ray Science

: The Airlords Of Han

At this period the Hans of Nu-Yok had only one airship equipped with

their new armored repeller ray, their latest defense against our tactics

of shooting rockets into the repeller rays and letting the latter hurl

them up against the ships. They had developed a new steel alloy of

tremendous strength, which passed their rep ray with ease, but was

virtually impervious to our most powerful explosives. Their supplies of

thi alloy were limited, for it could be produced only in the Lo-Tan

shops, for it was only there that they could develop the degree of

electronic power necessary for its manufacture.



This ship shot out toward our lines just as the last of the groundships

turned turtle and was blown to pieces. As it approached, the rockets of

our invisible and widely scattered gunners in the forest below began to

explode beneath its rep ray plates. The explosions caused the great

ship to plunge and roll mightily, but otherwise did it no serious harm

that I could see, for it was very heavily armored.



Occasionally rockets fired directly at the ship would find their mark

and tear gashes in its side and bottom plates, but these hits were few.

The ship was high in the air, and a far more difficult target than were

its rep ray columns. To hit the latter, our gunners had only to gauge

their aim vertically. Range could be practically ignored, since the

rep ray at any point above two-thirds the distance from the earth to

the ship would automatically hurl the rocket upward against the rep

ray plate.



As the ship sped toward us, rocking, plunging and recovering, it began

to beam the forest below. It was equipped with a superbeam too, which

cut a swathe nearly a hundred feet wide wherever it played.



With visions of many a life snuffed out below me, I surrendered to the

impulse to stage a single-handed attack on this ship, feeling quite

secure in my floating shell of inertron. I nosed up vertically, and

rocketed for a position above the ship. Then as I climbed upward, as yet

unobserved in my tiny craft that was scarcely larger than myself, I

trained my telultroscope on the Han ship, focussing through to a view of

its interior.



Much as I had imbibed of this generation's hatred for the Hans, I was

forced to admire them for the completeness and efficiency of this

marvelous craft of theirs.



Constantly twirling the controls of my scope to hold the focus, I

examined its interior from nose to stern.



* * * * *



It may be of interest at this point to give the reader a layman's

explanation of the electronic or ionic machinery of these ships, and of

their general construction, for today the general public knows little of

the particular application of the electronic laws which the Hans used,

although the practical application of ultronics are well understood.



Back in the Twentieth Century I had, like literally millions of others,

dabbled a bit in "radio" as we called it then; the science of the Hans

was simply the superdevelopment of "electricity," "radio," and

"broadcasting."



It must be understood that this explanation of mine is not technically

accurate, but only what might be termed an illustrative approximation.



The Hans' power-stations used to broadcast three distinct "powers"

simultaneously. Our engineers called them the "starter," the

"pullee" and the "sub-disintegrator." The last named had nothing to

do with the operation of the ships, but was exclusively the powerizer of

the disintegrator generators.



The "starter" was not unlike the "radio" broadcasts of the Twentieth

Century. It went out at a frequency of about 1,000 kilocycles, had an

amperage of approximately zero, but a voltage of two billion. Properly

amplified by the use of inductostatic batteries (a development of the

principle underlying the earth induction compass applied to the control

of static) this current energized the "A" ionomagnetic coils on the

airships, large and sturdy affairs, which operated the Attractoreflex

Receivers, which in turn "pulled in" the second broadcast power known

as the "pullee," absorbing it from every direction, literally

exhausting it from surrounding space. The "pullee" came in at about a

half-billion volts, but in very heavy amperage, proportional to the

capacity of the receiver, and on a long wave--at audio frequency in

fact. About half of this power reception ultimately actuated the

repeller ray generators. The other half was used to energize the "B"

ionomagnetic coils, peculiarly wound affairs, whose magnetic fields

constituted the only means of insulating and controlling the circuits of

the three "powers."



The repeller ray generators, operating on this current, and in

conjunction with "twin synchronizers" in the power broadcast plant,

developed two rhythmically variable ether-ground circuits of opposite

polarity. In the "X" circuit, the negative was grounded along an

ultraviolet beam from the ship's repeller-ray generator. The positive

connection was through the ether to the "X synchronizer" in the power

plant, whose opposite pole was grounded. The "Y" circuit travelled the

same course, but in the opposite direction.



The rhythmic variables of these two opposing circuits, as nearly as I

can understand it, in heterodyning, created a powerful material "push"

from the earth, up along the violet ray beam against the rep ray

generator and against the two synchronizers at the power plant.



This push developed molecularly from the earth-mass-resultant to the

generator; and at the same fractional distance from the rep ray

generator to the power plant.



* * * * *



The force exerted upward against the ship was, of course, highly

concentrated, being confined to the path of the ultraviolet beam. Air or

any material substance, coming within the indicated section of the beam,

was thrown violently upward. The ships actually rode on columns of air

thus forcefully up-thrown. Their "home berths" and "stations" were

constructed with air pits beneath. When they rose from ordinary ground

in open country, there was a vast upheaval of earth beneath their

generators at the instant of take-off; this ceased as they got well

above ground level.



Equal pressure to the lifting power of the generator was exerted against

the synchronizers at the power plant, but this force, not being

concentrated directionally along an ultraviolet beam, involved a

practical problem only at points relatively close to the synchronizers.



Of course the synchronizers were automatically controlled by the

operation of the generators, and only the two were needed for any number

of ships drawing power from the station, providing their protection was

rugged enough to stand the strain.



Actually, they were isolated in vast spherical steel chambers with thick

walls, so that nothing but air pressure would be hurled against them,

and this, of course, would be self-neutralizing, coming as it did from

all directions.



The "sub-disintegrator power" reached the ships as an ordinary broadcast

reception at a negligible amperage, but from one to 500 "quints"

(quintillions) voltage, controllable only by the fields of the "B"

ionomagnetic coils. It had a wave-length of about ten meters. In the

dis ray generator, this wave-length was broken up into an almost

unbelievably high frequency, and became a directionally controlled wave

of an infinitesimal fraction of an inch. This wave-length, actually

identical with the diameter of an electron, that is to say, being

accurately "tuned" to an electron, disrupted the orbital paths and

balanced pulsations of the electrons within the atom, so desynchronizing

them as to destroy polarity balance of the atom and causing it to cease

to exist as an atom. It was in this way that the ray reduced matter to

"nothingness."



This destruction of the atom, and a limited power for its reconstruction

under certain conditions, marked the utmost progress of the Han science.