The Zone Of Force Is Tested
:
Skylark Three
Seaton strode into the control room with a small oblong box in his hand.
Crane was seated at the desk, poring over an abstruse mathematical
treatise in Science. Margaret was working upon a bit of embroidery.
Dorothy, seated upon a cushion on the floor with one foot tucked under
her, was reading, her hand straying from time to time to a box of
chocolates conveniently near.
"Well, this is a peaceful, home-l
ke scene--too bad to bust it up. Just
finished sealing off and flashing out this case, Mart. Going to see if
she'll read. Want to take a look?"
He placed the compass upon the plane table, so that its final bearing
could be read upon the master circles controlled by the gyroscopes; then
simultaneously started his stop-watch and pressed the button which
caused a minute couple to be applied to the needle. Instantly the needle
began to revolve, and for many minutes there was no apparent change in
its motion in either the primary or secondary bearings.
"Do you suppose it is out of order, after all?" asked Crane,
regretfully.
"I don't think so," Seaton pondered. "You see, they weren't designed to
indicate such distances on such small objects as men, so I threw a
million ohms in series with the impulse. That cuts down the free
rotation to less than half an hour, and increases the sensitivity to the
limit. There, isn't she trying to quit it?"
"Yes, it is settling down. It must be on him still." Finally the
ultra-sensitive needle came to rest. When it had done so, Seaton
calculated the distance, read the direction, and made a reading upon
Osnome.
"He's there, all right. Bearings agree, and distances check to within a
light-year, which is as close as we can hope to check on as small a mass
as a man. Well, that's that--nothing to do about it until after we get
there. One sure thing, Mart--we're not coming straight back home from
'X'."
"No, an investigation is indicated."
"Well, that puts me out of a job. What to do? Don't want to study, like
you. Can't crochet, like Peg. Darned if I'll sit cross-legged on a
pillow and eat candy, like that Titian blonde over there on the floor. I
know what--I'll build me a mechanical educator and teach Shiro to talk
English instead of that mess of language he indulges in. How'd that be,
Mart?"
"Don't do it," put in Dorothy, positively. "He's just too perfect the
way he is. Especially don't do it if he'd talk the way you do--or could
you teach him to talk the way you write?"
"Ouch! That's a dirty dig. However, Mrs. Seaton, I am able and willing
to defend my customary mode of speech. You realize that the spoken word
is ephemeral, whereas the thought, whose nuances have once been
expressed in imperishable print is not subject to revision--its
crudities can never be remodeled into more subtle, more gracious
shading. It is my contention that, due to these inescapable conditions,
the mental effort necessitated by the employment of nice distinctions in
sense and meaning of words and a slavish adherence to the dictates of
the more precise grammarians should be reserved for the print...."
He broke off as Dorothy, in one lithe motion, rose and hurled her pillow
at his head.
"Choke him, somebody! Perhaps you had better build it, Dick, after all."
"I believe that he would like it, Dick. He is trying hard to learn, and
the continuous use of a dictionary is undoubtedly a nuisance to him."
"I'll ask him. Shiro!"
"You have call, sir?" Shiro entered the room from his galley, with his
unfailing bow.
"Yes. How'd you like to learn to talk English like Crane there
does--without taking lessons?"
Shiro smiled doubtfully, unable to take such a thought seriously.
"Yes, it can be done," Crane assured him. "Doctor Seaton can build a
machine which will teach you all at once, if you like."
"I like, sir, enormously, yes, sir. I years study and pore, but
honorable English extraordinary difference from Nipponese--no can do.
Dictionary useful but ..." he flipped pages dexterously, "extremely
cumbrous. If honorable Seaton can do, shall be extreme ...
gratification."
He bowed again, smiled, and went out.
"I'll do just that little thing. So long, folks, I'm going up to the
shop."
* * * * *
Day after day the Skylark plunged through the vast emptiness of the
interstellar reaches. At the end of each second she was traveling
exactly twenty-six feet per second faster than she had been at its
beginning; and as day after day passed, her velocity mounted into
figures which became meaningless, even when expressed in thousands of
miles per second. Still she seemed stationary to her occupants, and only
different from a vessel motionless upon the surface of the Earth in that
objects within her hull had lost three-sixteenths of their normal
weight. Acceleration, too, had its effect. Only the rapidity with which
the closer suns and their planets were passed gave any indication of the
frightful speed at which they were being hurtled along by the
inconceivable power of that disintegrating copper bar.
When the vessel was nearly half-way to "X," the bar was reversed in
order to change the sign of their acceleration, and the hollow sphere
spun through an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees around the
motionless cage which housed the enormous gyroscopes. Still apparently
motionless and exactly as she had been before, the Skylark was now
actually traveling in a direction which seemed "down" and with a
velocity which was being constantly decreased by the amount of their
negative acceleration.
A few days after the bar had been reversed Seaton announced that the
mechanical educator was complete, and brought it into the control room.
In appearance it was not unlike a large radio set, but it was infinitely
more complex. It possessed numerous tubes, kino-lamps, and
photo-electric cells, as well as many coils of peculiar design--there
were dozens of dials and knobs, and a multiple set of head-harnesses.
"How can a thing like that possibly work as it does?" asked Crane. "I
know that it does work, but I could scarcely believe it, even after it
had educated me."
"That is nothing like the one Dunark used, Dick," objected Dorothy. "How
come?"
"I'll answer you first, Dot. This is an improved model--it has quite a
few gadgets of my own in it. Now, Mart, as to how it works--it isn't so
funny after you understand it--it's a lot like radio in that respect. It
operates on a band of frequencies lying between the longest light and
heat waves and the shortest radio waves. This thing here is the
generator of those waves and a very heavy power amplifier. The headsets
are stereoscopic transmitters, taking or receiving a three-dimensional
view. Nearly all matter is transparent to those waves; for instance
bones, hair, and so on. However, cerebin, a cerebroside peculiar to the
thinking structure of the brain, is opaque to them. Dunark, not knowing
chemistry, didn't know why the educator worked or what it worked on--he
found out by experiment that it did work; just as we found out about
electricity. This three-dimensional model, or view, or whatever you want
to call it, is converted into electricity in the headsets, and the
resulting modulated wave goes back to the educator. There it is
heterodyned with another wave--this second frequency was found after
thousands of trials and is, I believe, the exact frequency existing in
the optic nerves themselves--and sent to the receiving headset.
Modulated as it is, and producing a three-dimensional picture, after
rectification in the receiver, it reproduces exactly what has been
'viewed,' if due allowance has been made for the size and configuration
of the different brains involved in the transfer. You remember a sort of
flash--a sensation of seeing something--when the educator worked on
you? Well, you did see it, just as though it had been transmitted to the
brain by the optic nerve, but everything came at once, so the impression
of sight was confused. The result in the brain, however, was clear and
permanent. The only drawback is that you haven't the visual memory of
what you have learned, and that sometimes makes it hard to use your
knowledge. You don't know whether you know anything about a certain
subject or not until after you go digging around in your brain looking
for it."
"I see," said Crane, and Dorothy, the irrepressible, put in:
"Just as clear as so much mud. What are the improvements you added to
the original design?"
"Well, you see, I had a big advantage in knowing that cerebrin was the
substance involved, and with that knowledge I could carry matters
considerably farther than Dunark could in his original model. I can
transfer the thoughts of somebody else to a third party or to a record.
Dunark's machine couldn't work against resistance--if the subject wasn't
willing to give up his thoughts he couldn't get them. This one can take
them away by force. In fact, by increasing plate and grid voltages in
the amplifier, I can pretty nearly burn out a man's brain. Yesterday, I
was playing with it, transferring a section of my own brain to a
magnetized tape--for a permanent record, you know--and found out that
above certain rather low voltages it becomes a form of torture that
would make the best efforts of the old Inquisition seem like a petting
party."
"Did you succeed in the transfer?" Crane was intensely interested.
"Sure. Push the button for Shiro, and we'll start something."
"Put your head against this screen," he directed when Shiro had come in,
smiling and bowing as usual. "I've got to caliper your brains to do a
good job."
The calipering done, he adjusted various dials and clamped the
electrodes over his own head and over the heads of Crane and Shiro.
"Want to learn Japanese while we're at it, Mart? I'm going to."
"Yes, please. I tried to learn it while I was in Japan, but it was
altogether too difficult to be worth while."
Seaton threw in a switch, opened it, depressed two more, opened them,
and threw off the power.
"All set," he reported crisply, and barked a series of explosive
syllables at Shiro, ending upon a rising note.
"Yes, sir," answered the Japanese. "You speak Nipponese as though you
had never spoken any other tongue. I am very grateful to you, sir, that
I may now discard my dictionary."
"How about you two girls--anything you want to learn in a hurry?"
"Not me!" declared Dorothy emphatically. "That machine is too darn weird
to suit me. Besides, if I knew as much about science as you do, we'd
probably fight about it."
"I do not believe I care to...." began Margaret.
She was interrupted by the penetrating sound of an alarm bell.
"That's a new note!" exclaimed Seaton, "I never heard that note before."
He stood in surprise at the board, where a brilliant purple light was
flashing slowly. "Great Cat! That's a purely Osnomian war-gadget--kind
of a battleship detector--shows that there's a boatload of bad news
around here somewhere. Grab the visiplates quick, folks," as he rang
Shiro's bell. "I'll take visiplate area one, dead ahead. Mart, take
number two. Dot, three; Peg, four; Shiro, five. Look sharp!... Nothing
in front. See anything, any of you?"
* * * * *
None of them could discover anything amiss, but the purple light
continued to flash, and the bell to ring. Seaton cut off the bell.
"We're almost to 'X'," he thought aloud. "Can't be more than a million
miles or so, and we're almost stopped. Wonder if somebody's there ahead
of us? Maybe Dunark is doing this, though. I'll call him and see." He
threw in a switch and said one word--"Dunark!"
"Here!" came the voice of the Kofedix from the speaker. "Are you
generating?"
"No--just called to see if you were. What do you make of it?"
"Nothing as yet. Better close up?"
"Yes, edge over this way and I'll come over to meet you. Leave your
negative as it is--we'll be stopped directly. Whatever it is, it's dead
ahead. It's a long ways off yet, but we'd better get organized. Wouldn't
talk much, either--they may intercept our wave, narrow as it is."
"Better yet, shut off your radio entirely. When we get close enough
together, we'll use the hand-language. You may not know that you know
it, but you do. Turn your heaviest searchlight toward me--I'll do the
same."
There was a click as Dunark's power was shut off abruptly, and Seaton
grinned as he cut his own.
"That's right, too, folks. In Osnomian battles we always used a
sign-language when we couldn't hear anything--and that was most of the
time. I know it as well as I know English, now that I am reminded of the
fact."
He shifted his course to intercept that of the Osnomian vessel. After a
time the watchers picked out a minute point of light, moving
comparatively rapidly against the stars, and knew it to be the
searchlight of the Kondal. Soon the two vessels were almost side by
side, moving cautiously forward, and Seaton set up a sixty-inch
parabolic reflector, focused upon a coil. As they went on, the purple
light continued to flash more and more rapidly, but still nothing was to
be seen.
"Take number six visiplate, will you, Mart? It's telescopic, equivalent
to a twenty-inch refractor. I'll tell you where to look in a
minute--this reflector increases the power of the regular indicator." He
studied meters and adjusted dials. "Set on nineteen hours forty-three
minutes, and two hundred seventy-one degrees. He's too far away yet to
read exactly, but that'll put him in the field of vision."
"Is this radiation harmful?" asked Margaret.
"Not yet--it's too weak. Pretty soon we may be able to feel it; then
I'll throw out a screen against it. When it's strong enough, it's pretty
deadly stuff. See anything, Mart?"
"I see something, but it is very indistinct. It is moving in sharper
now. Yes, it is a space-ship, shaped like a dirigible airship."
"See it yet, Dunark?" Seaton signaled.
"Just sighted it. Ready to attack?"
"I am not. I'm going to run. Let's go, and go fast!"
Dunark signaled violently, and Seaton shook his head time after time,
stubbornly.
"A difficulty?" asked Crane.
"Yes. He wants to go jump on it, but I'm not looking for trouble with
any such craft as that--it must be a thousand feet long and is certainly
neither Terrestrial nor Osnomian. I say beat it while we're all in one
piece. How about it?"
"Absolutely," concurred Crane and both women.
The bar was reversed and the Skylark leaped away. The Kondal
followed, although the observers could see that Dunark was raging.
Seaton swung number six visiplate around, looked once, and switched on
the radio.
"Well, Dunark," he said grimly. "You get your wish. That bird is coming
out, with at least twice the acceleration we could get with both motors
full on. He saw us all the time, and was waiting for us."
"Go on--get away if you can. You can stand a higher acceleration than we
can. We'll hold him as long as possible."
"I would, if it would do any good, but it won't. He's so much faster
than we are that he could catch us anyway, if he wanted to, no matter
how much of a start we had--and it looks now as though he wanted us. Two
of us stand a lot better chance than one of licking him if he's looking
for trouble. Spread out a mile or two, and pretend this is all the speed
we've got. What'll we give him first?"
"Give him everything at once. Rays six, seven, eight, nine, and ten...."
Crane, with Seaton, began making contacts, rapidly but with precision.
"Heat wave two-seven. Induction, five-eight. Oscillation, everything
under point oh six three. All the explosive copper we can get in.
Right?"
"Right--and if worse comes to worst, remember the zone of force. Let him
shoot first, because he may be peaceable--but it doesn't look like olive
branches to me."
"Got both your screens out?"
"Yes. Mart, you might take number two visiplate and work the guns--I'll
handle the rest of this stuff. Better strap yourselves in solid,
folks--this may develop into a kind of rough party, by the looks of
things right now."
* * * * *
As he spoke, a pyrotechnic display enveloped the entire ship as a
radiation from the foreign vessel struck the other neutralizing screen
and dissipated its force harmlessly in the ether. Instantly Seaton threw
on the full power of his refrigerating system and shot in the master
switch that actuated the complex offensive armament of his dreadnought
of the skies. An intense, livid violet glow hid completely main and
auxiliary power bars, and long flashes leaped between metallic objects
in all parts of the vessel. The passengers felt each hair striving to
stand on end as the very air became more and more highly charged--and
this was but the slight corona-loss of the frightful stream of
destruction being hurled at the other space-cruiser, now scarcely a mile
away!
Seaton stared into number one visiplate, manipulating levers and dials
as he drove the Skylark hither and yon, dodging frantically, the while
the automatic focusing devices remained centered upon the enemy and the
enormous generators continued to pour forth their deadly frequencies.
The bars glowed more fiercely as they were advanced to full working
load--the stranger was one blaze of incandescent ionization, but she
still fought on; and Seaton noticed that the pyrometers recording the
temperature of the shell were mounting rapidly, in spite of the
refrigerators.
"Dunark, put everything you've got upon one spot--right on the end of
his nose!"
As the first shell struck the mark, Seaton concentrated every force at
his command upon the designated point. The air in the Skylark crackled
and hissed and intense violet flames leaped from the bars as they were
driven almost to the point of disruption. From the forward end of the
strange craft there erupted prominence after prominence of searing,
unbearable flame as the terrific charges of explosive copper struck the
mark and exploded, liberating instantaneously their millions upon
millions of kilowatt-hours of intra-atomic energy. Each prominence
enveloped all three of the fighting vessels and extended for hundreds of
miles out into space--but still the enemy warship continued to hurl
forth solid and vibratory destruction.
A brilliant orange light flared upon the panel, and Seaton gasped as he
swung his visiplate upon his defenses, which he had supposed
impregnable. His outer screen was already down, although its mighty
copper generator was exerting its utmost power. Black areas had already
appeared and were spreading rapidly, where there should have been only
incandescent radiance; and the inner screen was even now radiating far
into the ultra-violet and was certainly doomed. Knowing as he did the
stupendous power driving those screens, he knew that there were
superhuman and inconceivable forces being directed against them, and his
right hand flashed to the switch controlling the zone of force. Fast as
he was, much happened in the mere moment that passed before his flying
hand could close the switch. In the last infinitesimal instant of time
before the zone closed in, a gaping black hole appeared in the
incandescence of the inner screen, and a small portion of a ray of
energy so stupendous as to be palpable, struck, like a tangible
projectile, the exposed flank of the Skylark. Instantly the refractory
arenak turned an intense, dazzling white and more than a foot of the
forty-eight-inch skin of the vessel melted away, like snow before an
oxy-acetylene flame: melting and flying away in molten globes and
sparkling gases--the refrigerating coils lining the hull were of no
avail against the concentrated energy of that titanic thrust. As Seaton
shut off his power, intense darkness and utter silence closed in, and he
snapped on the lights.
"They take one trick!" he blazed, his eyes almost emitting sparks, and
leaped for the generators. He had forgotten the efforts of the zone of
force, however, and only sprawled grotesquely in the air until he
floated within reach of a line.
"Hold everything, Dick!" Crane snapped, as Seaton bent over one of the
bars. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to put as heavy bars in these ray-generators as they'll stand
and go out and get that bird. We can't lick him with Osnomian rays or
with our explosive copper, but I can carve that sausage into slices with
a zone of force, and I'm going to do it."
"Steady, old man--take it easy. I see your point, but remember that you
must release the zone of force before you can use it as a weapon.
Furthermore, you must discover his exact location, and must get close
enough to him to use the zone as a weapon, all without its protection.
Can those ray-screens be made sufficiently powerful to withstand the
beam they employed last, even for a second?"
"Hm ... m ... m. Never thought of that, Mart," Seaton replied, the fire
dying out of his eyes. "Wonder how long the battle lasted?"
"Eight and two-tenths seconds, from first to last, but they had had
that heavy ray in action only a fraction of one second when you cut
in the zone of force. Either they underestimated our strength at first,
or else it required about eight seconds to tune in their heavy
generators--probably the former."
"But we've got to do something, man! We can't just sit here and
twiddle our thumbs!"
"Why, and why not? That course seems eminently wise and proper. In fact,
at the present time, thumb-twiddling is distinctly indicated."
"Oh, you're full of little red ants! We can't do a thing with that zone
on--and you say just sit here. Suppose they know all about that zone of
force? Suppose they can crack it? Suppose they ram us?"
"I shall take up your objections in order," Crane had lighted a
cigarette and was smoking meditatively. "First, they may or may not know
about it. At present, that point is immaterial. Second, whether or not
they know about it, it is almost a certainty that they cannot crack it.
It had been up for more than three minutes, and they have undoubtedly
concentrated everything possible upon us during that time. It is still
standing. I really expected it to go down in the first few seconds, but
now that it has held this long it will, in all probability, continue to
hold indefinitely. Third, they most certainly will not ram us, for
several reasons. They probably have encountered few, if any, foreign
vessels able to stand against them for a minute, and will act
accordingly. Then, too, it is probably safe to assume that their vessel
is damaged, to some slight extent at least; for I do not believe that
any possible armament could withstand the forces you directed against
them and escape entirely unscathed. Finally, if they did ram us, what
would happen? Would we feel the shock? That barrier in the ether seems
impervious, and if so, it could not transmit a blow. I do not see
exactly how it would affect the ship dealing the blow. You are the one
who works out the new problems in unexplored mathematics--some time you
must take a few months off and work it out."
"Yes, it would take that long, too, I guess--but you're right, he can't
hurt us. That's using the old bean, Mart! I was going off half-cocked
again, darn it! I'll pipe down, and we'll go into a huddle."
* * * * *
Seaton noticed that Dorothy's face was white and that she was fighting
for self-control. Drawing himself over to her, he picked her up in a
tight embrace.
"Cheer up, Red-Top! This man's war ain't started yet!"
"Not started? What do you mean? Haven't you and Martin just been
admitting to each other that you can't do anything? Doesn't that mean
that we are beaten?"
"Beaten! Us? How do you get that way? Not on your sweet young life!" he
ejaculated, and the surprise on his face was so manifest that she
recovered instantly. "We've just dug a hole and pulled the hole in after
us, that's all! When we get everything doped out to suit us, we'll snap
out of it and that bird'll think he's been petting a wildcat!"
"Mart, you're the thinking end of this partnership," he continued,
thoughtfully. "You've got the analytical mind and the judicial
disposition, and can think circles around me. From what little you've
seen of those folks, tell me who, what, and where they are. I'm getting
the germ of an idea, and maybe we can make it work."
"I will try it." Crane paused. "They are, of course, neither from the
Earth nor from Osnome. It is also evident that they have solved the
secret of intra-atomic energy. Their vessels are not propelled as ours
are--they have so perfected that force that it acts upon every particle
of the structure and its contents...."
"How do you figure that?" blurted Seaton.
"Because of the acceleration they can stand. Nothing even semi-human,
and probably nothing living, could endure it otherwise. Right?"
"Yes--I never thought of that."
"Furthermore, they are far from home, for if they were from anywhere
nearby, the Osnomians would have known of them--particularly since it is
evident from the size of the vessel that it is not a recent development
with them, as it is with us. Since the green system is close to the
center of the Galaxy, it seems reasonable, as a working hypothesis, to
assume that they are from some system far from the center, perhaps close
to the outer edge. They are very evidently of a high degree of
intelligence. They are also highly treacherous and merciless...."
"Why?" asked Dorothy, who was listening eagerly.
"I deduce those characteristics from their unprovoked attack upon
peaceful ships, vastly smaller and supposedly of inferior armament; and
also from the nature of that attack. This vessel is probably a scout or
an exploring ship, since it seems to be alone. It is not altogether
beyond the bounds of reason to imagine it upon a voyage of discovery, in
search of new planets to be subjugated and colonized...."
"That's a sweet picture of our future neighbors--but I guess you're
hitting the old nail on the head, at that."
"If these deductions are anywhere nearly correct, they are terrible
neighbors. For my next point, are we justified in assuming that they do
or do not know about the zone of force?"
"That's a hard one. Knowing what they evidently do know, it's hard to
see how they could have missed it. And yet, if they had known about it
for a long time, wouldn't they be able to get through it? Of course it
may be a real and total barrier in the ether--in that case they'd know
that they couldn't do a thing as long as we keep it on. Take your
choice, but I believe that they know about it, and know more than we
do--that it is a total barrier set up in the ether."
"I agree with you, and we shall proceed upon that assumption. They know,
then, that neither they nor we can do anything as long as we maintain
the zone--that it is a stalemate. They also know that it takes an
enormous amount of power to keep the zone in place. Now we have gone as
far as we can go upon the meager data we have--considerably farther than
we really are justified in going. We must now try to come to some
conclusion concerning their present activities. If our ideas as to their
natures are even approximately correct, they are waiting, probably
fairly close at hand, until we shall be compelled to release the zone,
no matter how long that period of waiting shall be. They know, of
course, from our small size, that we cannot carry enough copper to
maintain it indefinitely, as they could. Does that sound reasonable?"
"I check you to nineteen decimal places, Mart, and from your ideas I'm
getting surer and surer that we can pull their corks. I can get into
action in a hurry when I have to, and my idea now is to wait until they
relax a trifle, and then slip a fast one over on them. One more bubble
out of the old think-tank and I'll let you off for the day. At what time
will their vigilance be at lowest ebb? That's a poser, I'll admit, but
the answer to it may answer everything--the first shot will, of course,
be the best chance we'll ever have."
"Yes, we should succeed in the first attempt. We have very little
information to guide us in answering that question." He studied the
problem for many minutes before he resumed, "I should say that for a
time they would keep all their rays and other weapons in action against
the zone of force, expecting us to release it immediately. Then, knowing
that they were wasting power uselessly, they would cease attacking, but
would be very watchful, with every eye fastened upon us and with every
weapon ready for instant use. After this period of vigilance, regular
ship's routine would be resumed. Half the force, probably, would go off
duty--for, if they are even remotely like any organic beings with which
we are familiar, they require sleep or its equivalent at intervals. The
men on duty--the normal force, that is--would be doubly careful for a
time. Then habit will assert itself, if we have done nothing to create
suspicion, and their watchfulness will relax to the point of ordinary
careful observation. Toward the end of their watch, because of the
strain of the battle and because of the unusually long period of duty,
they will become careless, and their vigilance will be considerably
below normal. But the exact time of all these things depends entirely
upon their conception of time, concerning which we have no information
whatever. Though it is purely a speculation, based upon Earthly and
Osnomian experience, I should say that after twelve or thirteen hours
would come the time for us to make the attack."
"That's good enough for me. Fine, Mart, and thanks. You've probably
saved the lives of the party. We will now sleep for eleven or twelve
hours."
"Sleep, Dick! How could you?" Dorothy exclaimed.