Interstellar Extermination
:
Skylark Three
"I hate to leave this meeting--it's great stuff" remarked Seaton as he
flashed down to the torpedo room at Fenor's command to send recall
messages to all outlying vessels, "but this machine isn't designed to
let me be in more than two places at once. Wish it were--maybe after
this fracas is over we'll be able to incorporate something like that
into it."
The chief operator touched a lever and the chair upo
which he sat, with
all its control panels, slid rapidly across the floor toward an
apparently blank wall. As he reached it, a port opened a metal scroll
appeared, containing the numbers and last reported positions of all
Fenachrone vessels outside the detector zone, and a vast magazine of
torpedoes came up through the floor, with an automatic loader to place a
torpedo under the operator's hand the instant its predecessor had been
launched.
"Get Peg here quick, Mart--we need a stenographer. Till she gets here,
see what you can do in getting those first numbers before they roll off
the end of the scroll. No, hold it--as you were! I've got controls
enough to put the whole thing on a recorder, so we can study it at our
leisure."
Haste was indeed necessary for the operator worked with uncanny
quickness of hand. One fleeting glance at the scroll, a lightning
adjustment of dials in the torpedo, a touch upon a tiny button, and a
messenger was upon its way. But quick as he was, Seaton's flying fingers
kept up with him, and before each torpedo disappeared through the ether
gate there was fastened upon it a fifth-order tracer ray that would
never leave it until the force had been disconnected at the gigantic
control board of the Norlaminian projector. One flying minute passed
during which seventy torpedoes had been launched, before Seaton spoke.
"Wonder how many ships they've got out, anyway? Didn't get any idea from
the brain-record. Anyway, Rovol, it might be a sound idea for you to
install me some more tracer rays on this board, I've got only a couple
of hundred, and that may not be enough--and I've got both hands full."
Rovol seated himself beside the younger man, like one organist joining
another at the console of a tremendous organ. Seaton's nimble fingers
would flash here and there, depressing keys and manipulating controls
until he had exactly the required combination of forces centered upon
the torpedo next to issue. He then would press a tiny switch and upon a
panel full of red-topped, numbered plungers; the one next in series
would drive home, transferring to itself the assembled beam and
releasing the keys for the assembly of other forces. Rovol's fingers
were also flying, but the forces he directed were seizing and shaping
material, as well as other forces. The Norlaminian physicist, set up one
integral, stepped upon a pedal, and a new red-topped stop precisely like
the others and numbered in order, appeared as though by magic upon the
panel at Seaton's left hand. Rovol then leaned back in his seat--but the
red-topped stops continued to appear, at the rate of exactly seventy per
minute, upon the panel, which increased in width sufficiently to
accommodate another row as soon as a row was completed.
Rovol bent a quizzical glance upon the younger scientist, who blushed a
fiery red, rapidly set up another integral, then also leaned back in his
place, while his face burned deeper than before.
"That is better, son. Never forget that it is a waste of energy to do
the same thing twice with your hands and that if you know precisely what
is to be done, you need not do it with your hands at all. Forces are
tireless, and they neither slip nor make mistakes."
"Thanks, Rovol--I'll bet this lesson will make it stick in my mind,
too."
"You are not thoroughly accustomed to using all your knowledge as yet.
That will come with practice, however, and in a few weeks you will be as
thoroughly at home with forces as I am."
"Hope so, Chief, but it looks like a tall order to me."
Finally the last torpedo was dispatched, the tube closed, and Seaton
moved the projection back up into the council chamber, finding it empty.
"Well, the conference is over--besides, we've got more important fish to
fry. War has been declared, on both sides, and we've got to get busy.
They've got nine hundred and six vessels out, and every one of them has
got to go to Davy Jones' locker before we can sleep sound of nights. My
first job'll have to be untangling those nine oh six forces, getting
lines on each one of them, and seeing if I can project straight enough
to find the ships before the torpedoes overtake them. Mart, you and
Orlon, the astronomer, had better dope out the last reported positions
of each of those vessels, so we'll know about where to hunt for them.
Rovol, you might send out a detector screen a few light years in
diameter, to be sure none of them slips a fast one over on us. By
starting it right here and expanding it gradually, you can be sure that
no Fenachrone is inside it. Then we'll find a hunk of copper on that
planet somewhere, plate it with some of their own 'X' metal, and blow
them into Kingdom Come."
"May I venture a suggestion?" asked Drasnik, the First of Psychology.
"Absolutely--nothing you've said so far has been idle chatter."
"You know, of course, that there are real scientists among the
Fenachrone; and you yourself have suggested that while they cannot
penetrate the zone of force nor use fifth-order rays, yet they might
know about them in theory, might even be able to know when they were
being used--detect them, in other words. Let us assume that such a
scientist did detect your rays while you were there a short time ago.
What would he do?"
"Search me.... I bite, what would he do?"
"He might do any one of several things, but if I read their nature
aright, such a one would gather up a few men and women--as many as he
could--and migrate to another planet. For he would of course grasp
instantly the fact that you had used fifth-order rays as carrier waves,
and would be able to deduce your ability to destroy. He would also
realize that in the brief time allowed him, he could not hope to learn
to control those unknown forces; and with his terribly savage and
vengeful nature and intense pride of race, he would take every possible
step both to perpetuate his race and to obtain revenge. Am I right?"
* * * * *
Seaton swung to his controls savagely, and manipulated dials and keys
rapidly.
"Right as rain, Drasnik. There--I've thrown around them a fifth-order
detector screen, that they can't possibly neutralize. Anything that goes
out through it will have a tracer slapped onto it. But say, it's been
half an hour since war was declared--suppose we're too late? Maybe some
of them have got away already, and if one couple of 'em has beat us to
it, we'll have the whole thing to do over again a thousand years or so
from now. You've got the massive intellect, Drasnik. What can we do
about it? We can't throw a detector screen all over the Galaxy."
"I would suggest that since you have now guarded against further exodus,
it is necessary to destroy the planet for a time. Rovol and his
co-workers have the other projector nearly done. Let them project me to
the world of the Fenachrone, where I shall conduct a thorough mental
investigation. By the time you have taken care of the raiding vessels, I
believe that I shall have been able to learn everything we need to
know."
"Fine--hop to it, and may there be lots of bubbles in your think-tank.
Anybody else know of any other loop-holes I've left open?"
No other suggestions were made, and each man bent to his particular
task. Crane at the star-chart of the Galaxy and Orlon at the Fenachrone
operator's dispatching scroll rapidly worked out the approximate
positions of the Fenachrone vessels, and marked them with tiny green
lights in a vast model of the Galaxy which they had already caused
forces to erect in the air of the projector's base. It was soon learned
that a few of the ships were exploring quite close to their home system;
so close that the torpedoes, with their unthinkable acceleration, would
reach them within a few hours. Ascertaining the stop-number of the
tracer ray upon the torpedo which should first reach its destination,
Seaton followed it from the stop upon his panel out to the flying
messenger. Now moving with a velocity many times that of light, it was,
of course, invisible to direct vision; but to the light waves
heterodyned upon the fifth-order projector rays, it was as plainly
visible as though it were stationary. Lining up the path of the
projectile accurately, he then projected himself forward in that exact
line, with a flat detector-screen thrown out for half a light year upon
each side of him. Setting the controls, he flashed ahead, the detector
stopping him the instant that the invisible barrier encountered the
power-plant of the exploring raider. An oscillator sounded a shrill and
rising note, and Seaton slowly shifted his controls until he stood in
the control room of the enemy vessel.
The Fenachrone ship, a thousand feet long and more than a hundred feet
in diameter, was tearing through space toward a brilliant blue-white
star. Her crew were at battle stations, her navigating officers peering
intently into the operating visiplates, all oblivious to the fact that a
stranger stood in their very midst.
"Well, here's the first one, gang," said Seaton, "I hate like sin to do
this--it's altogether too much like pushing baby chickens into a creek
to suit me, but it's a dirty job that's got to be done."
As one man, Orlon and the other remaining Norlaminians leaped out of the
projector and floated to the ground below.
"I expected that," remarked Seaton. "They can't even think of a thing
like this without getting the blue willies--I don't blame them much, at
that. How about you, Carfon? You can be excused if you like."
"I want to watch those forces at work. I do not enjoy destruction, but
like you, I can make myself endure it."
Dunark, the fierce and bloodthirsty Osnomian prince, leaped to his feet,
his eyes flashing.
"That's one thing I never could get about you, Dick!" he exclaimed in
English. "How a man with your brains can be so soft--so sloppily
sentimental, gets clear past me. You remind me of a bowl of mush--you
wade around in slush clear to your ears. Faugh! It's their lives or
ours! Tell me what button to push and I'll be only too glad to push it.
I wanted to blow up Urvania and you wouldn't let me; I haven't killed an
enemy for ages, and that's my trade. Cut out the sob-sister act and for
Cat's sake, let's get busy!"
"'At-a-boy, Dunark! That's tellin' 'im! But it's all right with me--I'll
be glad to let you do it. When I say 'shoot' throw in that plunger
there--number sixty-three."
Seaton manipulated controls until two electrodes of force were clamped
in place, one at either end of the huge power-bar of the enemy vessel;
adjusted rheostats and forces to send a disintegrating current through
that massive copper cylinder, and gave the word. Dunark threw in the
switch with a vicious thrust, as though it were an actual sword which he
was thrusting through the vitals of one of the awesome crew, and the
very Universe exploded around them--exploded into one mad, searing
coruscation of blinding, dazzling light as the gigantic cylinder of
copper resolved itself instantaneously into the pure energy from which
its metal originally had come into being.
Seaton and Dunark staggered back from the visiplates, blinded by the
intolerable glare of light, and even Crane, working at his model of the
galaxy, blinked at the intensity of the radiation. Many minutes passed
before the two men could see through their tortured eyes.
"Zowie! That was fierce!" exclaimed Seaton, when a slowly-returning
perception of things other than dizzy spirals and balls of flame assured
him that his eyesight was not permanently gone. "It's nothing but my own
fool carelessness, too. I should have known that with all the light
frequencies in heterodyne for visibility, enough of that same stuff
would leak through to make strong medicine on these visiplates--for I
knew that that bar weighed a hundred tons and would liberate energy
enough to volatilize our Earth and blow the by-products clear to
Arcturus. How're you coming, Dunark? See anything yet?"
"Coming along O. K. now, I guess--but I thought for a few minutes I'd
been bloody well jobbed."
"I'll do better next time. I'll cut out the visible spectrum before the
flash, and convert and reconvert the infra-red. That'll let us see what
happens, without the direct effect of the glare--won't burn our eyes
out. What's my force number on the next nearest one, Mart?"
"Twenty-nine."
* * * * *
Seaton fastened a detector ray upon stop twenty-nine of the tracer-ray
panel and followed its beam of force out to the torpedo hastening upon
its way toward the next doomed cruiser. Flashing ahead in its line as he
had done before, he located the vessel and clamped the electrodes of
force upon the prodigious driving bar. Again, as Dunark drove home the
detonating switch, there was a frightful explosion and a wild glare of
frenzied incandescence far out in that desolate region of interstellar
space; but this time the eyes behind the visiplates were not torn by the
high frequencies, everything that happened was plainly visible. One
instant, there was an immense space-cruiser boring on through the void
upon its horrid mission, with its full complement of the hellish
Fenachrone performing their routine tasks. The next instant there was a
flash of light extending for thousands upon untold thousands of miles in
every direction. That flare of light vanished as rapidly as it had
appeared--instantaneously--and throughout the entire neighborhood of the
place where the Fenachrone cruiser had been, there was nothing. Not a
plate nor a girder, not a fragment, not the most minute particle nor
droplet of disrupted metal nor of condensed vapor. So terrific, so
incredibly and incomprehensibly vast were the forces liberated by that
mass of copper in its instantaneous decomposition, that every atom of
substance in that great vessel had gone with the power-bar--had been
resolved into radiations which would at some distant time and in some
far-off solitude unite with other radiations, again to form matter, and
thus obey Nature's immutable cyclic law.
Thus vessel after vessel was destroyed of that haughty fleet which until
now had never suffered a reverse and a little green light in the
galactic model winked out and flashed back in rosy pink as each menace
was removed. In a few hours the space surrounding the system of the
Fenachrone was clear; then progress slackened as it became harder and
harder to locate each vessel as the distance between it and its torpedo
increased. Time after time Seaton would stab forward with his detector
screen extended to its utmost possible spread, upon the most carefully
plotted prolongation of the line of the torpedo's flight, only to have
the projection flash far beyond the vessel's furthest possible position
without a reaction from the far-flung screen. Then he would go back to
the torpedo, make a minute alteration in his line, and again flash
forward, only to miss it again. Finally, after thirty fruitless attempts
to bring his detector screen into contact with the nearest Fenachrone
ship, he gave up the attempt, rammed his battered, reeking briar full of
the rank blend that was his favorite smoke, and strode up and down the
floor of the projector base--his eyes unseeing, his hands jammed deep
into his pockets, his jaw thrust forward, clamped upon the stem of his
pipe, emitting dense, blue clouds of strangling vapor.
"The maestro is thinking, I perceive," remarked Dorothy, sweetly,
entering the projector from an airboat. "You must all be blind, I
guess--you no hear the bell blow, what? I've come after you--it's time
to eat!"
"'At-a-girl, Dot--never miss the eats! Thanks," and Seaton put his
problem away, with perceptible effort.
"This is going to be a job, Mart," he went back to it as soon as they
were seated in the airboat, flying toward "home." "I can nail them, with
an increasing shift in azimuth, up to about thirty thousand light-years,
but after that it gets awfully hard to get the right shift, and up
around a hundred thousand it seems to be darn near impossible--gets to
be pure guesswork. It can't be the controls, because they can hold a
point rigidly at five hundred thousand. Of course, we've got a pretty
short back-line to sight on, but the shift is more than a hundred times
as great as the possible error in backsight could account for, and
there's apparently nothing either regular or systematic about it that I
can figure out. But.... I don't know.... Space is curved in the fourth
dimension, of course.... I wonder if ... hm--m--m." He fell silent and
Crane made a rapid signal to Dorothy, who was opening her mouth to say
something. She shut it, feeling ridiculous, and nothing was said until
they had disembarked at their destination.
"Did you solve the puzzle, Dickie?"
"Don't think so--got myself in deeper than ever, I'm afraid," he
answered, then went on, thinking aloud rather than addressing any one in
particular:
"Space is curved in the fourth dimension, and fifth-order rays, with
their velocity, may not follow the same path in that dimension that
light does--in fact, they do not. If that path is to be plotted it
requires the solution of five simultaneous equations, each complete and
general, and each of the fifth degree, and also an exponential series
with the unknown in the final exponent, before the fourth-dimensional
concept can be derived ... hm--m--m. No use--we've struck something that
not even Norlaminian theory can handle."
"You surprise me." Crane said. "I supposed that they had everything
worked out."
"Not on fifth-order stuff--it's new, you know. It begins to look as
though we'd have to stick around until every one of those torpedoes gets
somewhere near its mother-ship. Hate to do it, too--it'll take six
months, at least, to reach the vessels clear across the Galaxy. I'll put
it up to the gang at dinner--guess they'll let me talk business a couple
of minutes overtime, especially after they find out what I've got to
say."
He explained the phenomenon to an interested group of white-bearded
scientists as they ate. Rovol, to Seaton's surprise, was elated and
enthusiastic.
"Wonderful, my boy!" he breathed. "Marvelous! A perfect subject for
years after year of deepest study and the most profound thought.
Perfect!"
"But what can we do about it?" asked Seaton, exasperated. "We don't
want to hang around here twiddling our thumbs for a year waiting for
those torpedoes to get to wherever they're going!"
"We can do nothing but wait and study. That problem is one of splendid
difficulty, as you yourself realize. Its solution may well be a matter
of lifetimes instead of years. But what is a year, more or less? You can
destroy the Fenachrone eventually, so be content."
"But content is just exactly what I'm not!" declared Seaton,
emphatically. "I want to do it, and do it now!"
"Perhaps I might volunteer a suggestion," said Caslor, diffidently; and
as both Rovol and Seaton looked at him in surprise he went on: "Do not
misunderstand me. I do not mean concerning the mathematical problem in
discussion, about which I am entirely ignorant. But has it occurred to
you that those torpedoes are not intelligent entities, acting upon their
own volition and steering themselves as a result of their own ordered
mental processes? No, they are mechanisms, in my own province, and I
venture to say with the utmost confidence that they are guided to their
destinations by streamers of force of some nature, emanating from the
vessels upon whose tracks they are."
"'Nobody Holme' is right!" exclaimed Seaton, tapping his temple with an
admonitory forefinger. "'Sright, ace--I thought maybe I'd quit using my
head for nothing but a hatrack now, but I guess that's all it's good
for, yet. Thanks a lot for the idea--that gives me something I can get
my teeth into, and now that Rovol's got a problem to work on for the
next century or so, everybody's happy."
"How does that help matters?" asked Crane in wonder. "Of course it is
not surprising that no lines of force were visible, but I thought that
your detectors screens would have found them if any such guiding beams
had been present."
"The ordinary bands, if of sufficient power, yes. But there are many
possible tracer rays not reactive to a screen such as I was using. It
was very light and weak, designed for terrific velocity and for
instantaneous automatic arrest when in contact with the enormous
forces of a power bar. It wouldn't react at all to the minute energy
of the kind of beams they'd be most likely to use for that work.
Caslor's certainly right. They're steering their torpedoes with tracer
rays of almost infinitesimal power, amplified in the torpedoes
themselves--that's the way I'd do it myself. It may take a little while
to rig up the apparatus, but we'll get it--and then we'll run those
birds ragged--so fast that their ankles'll catch fire--and won't need
the fourth-dimensional correction after all."
* * * * *
When the bell announced the beginning of the following period of labor,
Seaton and his co-workers were in the Area of Experiment waiting, and
the work was soon under way.
"How are you going about this, Dick?" asked Crane.
"Going to examine the nose of one of those torpedoes first, and see what
it actually works on. Then build me a tracer detector that'll pick it up
at high velocity. Beats the band, doesn't it, that neither Rovol nor I,
who should have thought of it first, ever did see anything as plain as
that? That those things are following a ray?"
"That is easily explained, and is no more than natural. Both of you were
not only devoting all your thoughts to the curvature of space, but were
also too close to the problem--like the man in the woods, who cannot see
the forest because of the trees."
"Yeah, may be something in that, too. Plain enough, when Caslor showed
it to us," said Seaton.
While he was talking, Seaton had projected himself into the torpedo he
had lined up so many times the previous day. With the automatic motions
set to hold him stationary in the tiny instrument compartment of the
craft, now traveling at a velocity many times that of light, he set to
work. A glance located the detector mechanism, a set of short-wave coils
and amplifiers, and a brief study made plain to him the principles
underlying the directional loop finders and the controls which guided
the flying shell along the path of the tracer ray. He then built a
detector structure of pure force immediately in front of the torpedo,
and varied the frequency of his own apparatus until a meter upon one of
the panels before his eyes informed him that his detector was in perfect
resonance with the frequency of the tracer ray. He then moved ahead of
the torpedo, along the guiding ray.
"Guiding it, eh?" Dunark congratulated him.
"Kinda. My directors out there aren't quite so hot, though. I'm a trifle
shy on control somewhere, so much so that if I put on anywhere near full
velocity, I lose the ray. Think I can clear that up with a little
experimenting, though."
He fingered controls lightly, depressed a few more keys, and set one
vernier, already at a ratio of a million to one, down to ten million. He
then stepped up his velocity, and found that the guides worked well up
to a speed much greater than any ever reached by Fenachrone vessels or
torpedoes, but failed utterly to hold the ray at anything approaching
the full velocity possible to his fifth-order projector. After hours and
days of work and study--in the course of which hundreds of the
Fenachrone vessels were destroyed--after employing all the resources of
his mind, now stored with the knowledge of rays accumulated by hundreds
of generations of highly-trained research specialists in rays, he became
convinced that it was an inherent impossibility to trace any ether wave
with the velocity he desired.
"Can't be done, I guess, Mart," he confessed, ruefully. "You see, it
works fine up to a certain point; but beyond that, nothing doing. I've
just found out why--and in so doing, I think I've made a contribution
to science. At velocities well below that of light, light-waves are
shifted a minute amount, you know. At the velocity of light, and up
to a velocity not even approached by the Fenachrone vessels on their
longest trips, the distortion is still not serious--no matter how fast
we want to travel in the Skylark, I think I can guarantee that we
will still be able to see things. That is to be expected from the
generally-accepted idea that the apparent velocity of any ether
vibration is independent of the velocity of either source or receiver.
However, that relationship fails at velocities far below that of
fifth-order rays. At only a very small fraction of that speed the
tracers I am following are so badly distorted that they disappear
altogether, and I have to distort them backwards. That wouldn't be too
bad, but when I get up to about one per cent of the velocity I want to
use, I can't calculate a force that will operate to distort them back
into recognizable wave-forms. That's another problem for Rovol to chew
on, for another hundred years."
"That will, of course, slow up the work of clearing the Galaxy of the
Fenachrone, but at the same time I see nothing about which to be
alarmed," Crane replied. "You are working very much faster than you
could have done by waiting for the torpedoes to arrive. The present
condition is very satisfactory, I should say," and he waved his hand at
the galactic model, in nearly three-fourths of whose volume the green
lights had been replaced by pink ones.
"Yeah, pretty fair as far as that goes--we'll clean up in ten days or
so--but I hate to be licked. Well, I might as well quit sobbing and get
busy!"
In due time the nine hundred and sixth Fenachrone vessel was checked off
on the model, and the two Terrestrials went in search of Drasnik, whom
they found in his study, summing up and analyzing a mass of data, facts,
and ideas which were being projected in the air around him.
"Well, our first job's done," Seaton stated. "What do you know that you
feel like passing around?"
"My investigation is practically complete," replied the First of
Psychology, gravely. "I have explored many Fenachrone minds, and without
exception I have found them chambers of horror of a kind unimaginable to
one of us. However, you are not interested in their psychology, but in
facts bearing upon your problem. While such facts were scarce, I did
discover a few interesting items. I spied upon them in public and in
their most private haunts. I analyzed them individually and
collectively, and from the few known facts and from the great deal of
guesswork and conjecture there available to me, I have formulated a
theory. I shall first give you the known facts. Their scientists cannot
direct nor control any ray not propagated through ether, but they can
detect one such frequency or band of frequencies which they call
'infra-rays' and which are probably the fifth-order rays, since they lie
in the first level below the ether. The detector proper is a type of
lamp, which gives a blue light at the ordinary intensity of such rays as
would come from space or from an ordinary power plant, but gives a red
light under strong excitation."
"Uh-huh, I get that O. K.," said Seaton. "Rovol's
great-great-great-grandfather had 'em--I know all about 'em," Seaton
encouraged Drasnik, who had paused, with a questioning glance. "I know
exactly how and why such a detector works. We gave 'em an alarm, all
right. Even though we were working on a tight beam from here to there,
our secondary projector there was radiating enough to affect every such
detector within a thousand miles."
* * * * *
Drasnik continued: "Another significant fact is that a great many
persons--I learned of some five hundred, and there were probably many
more--have disappeared without explanation and without leaving a trace;
and it seems that they disappeared very shortly after our communication
was delivered. One of these was Fenor, the Emperor. His family remain,
however, and his son is not only ruling in his stead, but is carrying
out his father's policies. The other disappearances are all alike and
are peculiar in certain respects. First, every man who vanished belonged
to the Party of Postponement--the minority party of the Fenachrone, who
believe that the time for the Conquest has not yet come. Second, every
one of them was a leader in thought in some field of usefulness, and
every such field is represented by at least one disappearance--even the
army, as General Fenimol, the Commander-in-Chief, and his whole family,
are among the absentees. Third, and most remarkable, each such
disappearance included an entire family, clear down to children and
grand-children, however young. Another fact is that the Fenachrone
Department of Navigation keeps a very close check upon all vessels,
particularly vessels capable of navigating outer space. Every vessel
built must be registered, and its location is always known from its
individual tracer ray. No Fenachrone vessel is missing."
"I also sifted a mass of gossip and conjecture, some of which may bear
upon the subject. One belief is that all the persons were put to death
by Fenor's secret service, and that the Emperor was assassinated in
revenge. The most widespread belief, however, is that they have fled.
Some hold that they are in hiding in some remote shelter in the jungle,
arguing that the rigid registration of all vessels renders a journey of
any great length impossible and that the detector screens would have
given warning of any vessel leaving the planet. Others think that
persons as powerful as Fenimol and Ravindau could have built any vessel
they chose with neither the knowledge nor consent of the Department of
Navigation, or that they could have stolen a Navy vessel, destroying its
records; and that Ravindau certainly could have so neutralized the
screens that they would have given no alarm. These believe that the
absent ones have migrated to some other solar system or to some other
planet of the same sun. One old general loudly gave it as his opinion
that the cowardly traitors had probably fled clear out of the Galaxy,
and that it would be a good thing to send the rest of the Party of
Postponement after them. There, in brief, are the salient points of my
investigation in so far as it concerns your immediate problem."
"A good many straws pointing this way and that," commented Seaton.
"However, we know that the 'postponers' are just as rabid on the idea of
conquering the Universe as the others are--only they are a lot more
cautious and won't take even a gambler's chance of a defeat. But you've
formed a theory--what is it, Drasnik?"
"From my analysis of these facts and conjectures, in conjunction with
certain purely psychological indices which we need not take time to go
into now, I am certain that they have left their solar system, probably
in an immense vessel built a long time ago and held in readiness for
just such an emergency. I am not certain of their destination, but it is
my opinion that they have left this Galaxy, and are planning upon
starting anew upon some suitable planet in some other Galaxy, from
which, at some future date, the Conquest of the Universe shall proceed
as it was originally planned."
"Great balls of fire!" blurted Seaton. "They couldn't--not in a million
years!" He thought a moment, then continued more slowly: "But they
could--and, with their dispositions, they probably would. You're one
hundred per cent. right, Drasnik. We've got a real job of hunting on our
hands now. So-long, and thanks a lot."
Back in the projector Seaton prowled about in brown abstraction, his
villainous pipe poisoning the circumambient air, while Crane sat, quiet
and self-possessed as always, waiting for the nimble brain of his friend
to find a way over, around, or through the obstacle confronting them.
"Got it, Mart!" Seaton yelled, darting to the board and setting up one
integral after another. "If they did leave the planet in a ship, we'll
be able to watch them go--and we'll see what they did, anyway, no matter
what it was!"
"How? They've been gone almost a month already," protested Crane.
"We know within half an hour the exact time of their departure. We'll
simply go out the distance light has traveled since that time, gather in
the rays given off, amplify them a few billion times, and take a look at
whatever went on."
"But we have no idea of what region of the planet to study, or whether
it was night or day at the point of departure when they left."
"We'll get the council room, and trace events from there. Day or night
makes no difference--we'll have to use infra-red anyway, because of the
fog, and that's almost as good at night as in the daytime. There is no
such thing as absolute darkness upon any planet, anyway, and we've got
power enough to make anything visible that happened there, night or day.
Mart, I've got power enough here to see and to photograph the actual
construction of the pyramids of Egypt in that same way--and they were
built thousands of years ago!"
"Heavens, what astounding possibilities!" breathed Crane. "Why, you
could...."
"Yeah, I could do a lot of things," Seaton interrupted him rudely, "but
right now we've got other fish to fry. I've just got the city we
visited, at about the time we were there. General Fenimol, who
disappeared, must be in the council room down here right now. I'll
retard our projection, so that time will apparently pass more quickly,
and we'll duck down there and see what actually did happen. I can
heterodyne, combine, and recombine just as though we were watching the
actual scene--it's more complicated, of course, since I have to follow
it and amplify it too, but it works out all right."
"This is unbelievable, Dick. Think of actually seeing something that
really happened in the past!"
"Yeah, it's kinda strong, all right. As Dot would say, it's just too
perfectly darn outrageous. But we're doing it, ain't we? I know just
how, and why. When we get some time I'll shoot the method into your
brain. Well, here we are!"
* * * * *
Peering into the visiplates, the two men were poised above the immense
central cone of the capital city of the Fenachrone. Viewing with
infra-red light as they were, the fog presented no obstacle and the
indescribable beauty of the city of concentric rings and the wonderfully
luxuriant jungle growth were clearly visible. They plunged down into the
council chamber, and saw Fenor, Ravindau, and Fenimol deep in
conversation.
"With all the other feats of skill and sorcery you have accomplished,
why don't you reconstruct their speech, also?" asked Crane, with a
challenging glance.
"Well, old Doubting Thomas, it might not be absolutely impossible, at
that. It would mean two projectors, however, due to the difference in
speed of sound-waves and light-waves. Theoretically, sound-waves also
extend to an infinite distance, but I don't believe that any possible
detector and amplifier could reconstruct a voice more than an hour or so
after it had spoken. It might, though--we'll have to try it some time,
and see. You're fairly good at lip-reading, as I remember it. Get as
much of it as you can, will you?"
As though they were watching the scene itself as it happened--which, in
a sense, they were--they saw everything that had occurred. They saw
Fenor die, saw the general's family board the airboat, saw the orderly
embarkation of Ravindau's organization. Finally they saw the stupendous
take-off of the first inter-galactic cruiser, and with that take-off,
Seaton went into action. Faster and faster he drove that fifth-order
beam along the track of the fugitive, until a speed was attained beyond
which his detecting converters could not hold the ether-rays they were
following. For many minutes Seaton stared intently into the visiplate,
plotting lines and calculating forces, then he swung around to Crane.
"Well, Mart, noble old bean, solving the disappearances was easier than
I thought it would be; but the situation as regards wiping out the last
of the Fenachrone is getting no better, fast."
"I glean from the instruments that they are heading straight out into
space away from the Galaxy, and I assume that they are using their
utmost acceleration?"
"I'll say they're traveling! They're out in absolute space, you know,
with nothing in the way and with no intention of reversing their power
or slowing down--they must've had absolute top acceleration on every
minute since they left. Anyway, they're so far out already that I
couldn't hold even a detector on them, let alone a force that I can
control. Well, let's snap into it, fellow--on our way!"
"Just a minute, Dick. Take it easy, what are your plans?"
"Plans! Why worry about plans? Blow up that planet before any more of
'em get away, and then chase that boat clear to Andromeda, if necessary.
Let's go!"
"Calm down and be reasonable--you are getting hysterical again. They
have a maximum acceleration of five times the velocity of light. So have
we, exactly, since we adopted their own drive. Now if our acceleration
is the same as theirs, and they have a month's start, how long will it
take us to catch them?"
"Right again. Mart--I sure was going off half-cocked again," Seaton
conceded ruefully, after a moment's thought. "They'd always be going a
million or so times as fast as we would be, and getting further ahead of
us in geometrical ratio. What's your idea?"
"I agree with you that the time has come to destroy the planet of
Fenachrone. As for pursuing that vessel through intergalactic space,
that is your problem. You must figure out some method of increasing our
acceleration. Highly efficient as is this system of propulsion, it seems
to me that the knowledge of the Norlaminians should be able to improve
it in some detail. Even a slight increase in acceleration would enable
us to overtake them eventually."
"Hm--m--m." Seaton, no longer impetuous, was thinking deeply. "How far
are we apt to have to go?"
"Until we get close enough to them to use your rays--say half a million
light-years."
"But surely they'll stop, some time?"
"Of course, but not necessarily for many years. They are powered and
provisioned for a hundred years, you remember, and are going to 'a
distant galaxy.' Such a one as Ravindau would not have specified a
distant Galaxy idly, and the very closest Galaxies are so far away
that even the Fenachrone astronomers, with their reflecting mirrors five
miles in diameter, could form only the very roughest approximations of
the true distances."
"Our astronomers are all wet in their guesses, then?"
"Their estimates are, without exception, far below the true values. They
are not even of the correct order of magnitude.'"
"Well, then, let's mop up on that planet. Then we'll go places and do
things."
Seaton had already located the magazines in which the power bars of the
Fenachrone war-vessels were stored, and it was a short task to erect a
secondary projector of force in the Fenachrone atmosphere. Working out
of that projector, beams of force seized one of the immense cylinders of
plated copper and at Seaton's direction transported it rapidly to one of
the poles of the planet, where electrodes of force were clamped upon it.
In a similar fashion seventeen more of the frightful bombs were placed,
equidistant over the surface of the world of the Fenachrone, so that
when they were simultaneously exploded, the downward forces would be
certain to meet sufficient resistance to assure complete demolition of
the entire globe. Everything in readiness, Seaton's hand went to the
plunger switch and closed upon it. Then, his face white and wet, he
dropped his hand.
"No use, Mart--I can't do it. It pulls my cork. I know darn well you
can't either--I'll yell for help."
"Have you got it on the infra-red?" asked Dunark calmly, as he shot up
into the projector in reply to Seaton's call. "I want to see this, all
of it."
"It's on--you're welcome to it," and, as the Terrestrials turned away,
the whole projector base was illuminated by a flare of intense, though
subdued light. For several minutes Dunark stared into the visiplate,
savage satisfaction in every line of his fierce green face as he
surveyed the havoc wrought by those eighteen enormous charges of
incredible explosive.
"A nice job of clean-up, Dick," the Osnomian prince reported, turning
away from the visiplate. "It made a sun of it--the original sun is now
quite a splendid double star. Everything was volatized, clear out, far
beyond their outermost screen."
"It had to be done, of course--it was either them or else all the rest
of the Universe," Season said, jerkily. "However, even that fact doesn't
make it go down easy. Well, we're done with this projector. From now on
it's strictly up to us and Skylark Three. Let's beat it over there and
see if they've got her done yet--they were due to finish up today, you
know."
* * * * *
It was a silent group who embarked in the little airboat. Half way to
their destination, however, Seaton came out of his blue mood with a
yell.
"Mart, I've got it! We can give the Lark a lot more acceleration than
they are getting--and won't need the assistance of all the minds of
Norlamin, either."
"How?"
"By using one of the very heavy metals for fuel. The intensity of the
power liberated is a function of atomic weight, or atomic number, and
density; but the fact of liberation depends upon atomic configuration--a
fact which you and I figured out long ago. However, our figuring didn't
go far enough--it couldn't: we didn't know anything then. Copper happens
to be the most efficient of the few metals which can be decomposed at
all under ordinary excitation--that is, by using an ordinary coil, such
as we and the Fenachrone both use. But by using special exciters,
sending out all the orders of rays necessary to initiate the disruptive
processes, we can use any metal we want to. Osnome has unlimited
quantities of the heaviest metals, including radium and uranium. Of
course we can't use radium and live--but we can and will use uranium,
and that will give us something like four times the acceleration
possible with copper. Dunark, what say you snap over there and smelt us
a cubic mile of uranium? No--hold it--I'll put a flock of forces on the
job. They'll do it quicker, and I'll make 'em deliver the goods. They'll
deliver 'em fast, too, believe us--we'll see to that with a ten-ton bar.
The uranium bars'll be ready to load tomorrow, and we'll have enough
power to chase those birds all the rest of our lives!"
Returning to the projector, Seaton actuated the complex system of forces
required for the smelting and transportation of the enormous amount of
metal necessary, and as the three men again boarded their aerial
conveyance, the power-bar in the projector behind them flared into
violet incandescence under the load already put upon it by the new
uranium mine in distant Osnome.
The Skylark lay stretched out over two miles of country, exactly as
they had last seen her, but now, instead of being water-white, the
ten-thousand-foot cruiser of the void was one jointless, seamless
structure of sparkling, transparent, purple inoson. Entering one of the
open doors, they stepped into an elevator and were whisked upward into
the control room, in which a dozen of the aged, white-bearded students
of Norlamin were grouped about a banked and tiered mass of keyboards,
which Seaton knew must be the operating mechanism of the extraordinarily
complete fifth-order projector he had been promised.
"Ah, youngsters, you are just in time. Everything is complete and we are
just about to begin loading."
"Sorry, Rovol, but we'll have to make a couple of changes--have to
rebuild the exciter or build another one," and Seaton rapidly related
what they had learned, and what they had decided to do.
"Of course, uranium is a much more efficient source of power," agreed
Rovol, "and you are to be congratulated for thinking of it. It perhaps
would not have occurred to one of us, since the heavy metals of that
highly efficient group are very rare here. Building a new exciter for
uranium is a simple task, and the converters for the corona-loss will,
of course, require no change, since their action depends only upon the
frequency of the emitted losses, not upon their magnitude."
"Hadn't you suspected that some of the Fenachrone might be going to lead
us a life-long chase?" asked Dunark curiously.
"We have not given the matter a thought, my son," the Chief of the Five
made answer. "As your years increase, you will learn not to anticipate
trouble and worry. Had we thought and worried over the matter before the
time had arrived, you will note that it would have been pain wasted, for
our young friend Seaton has avoided that difficulty in a truly scholarly
fashion."
"All set, then, Rovol?" asked Seaton, when the forces flying from the
projector had built the compound exciter which would make possible the
disruption of the atoms of uranium. "The metal, enough of it to fill all
the spare space in the hull, will be here tomorrow. You might give Crane
and me the method of operating this projector, which I see is vastly
more complex even than the one in the Area of Experiment."
"It is the most complete thing ever seen upon Norlamin," replied Rovol
with a smile. "Each of us installed everything in it that he could
conceive of ever being of the slightest use, and since our combined
knowledge covers a large field, the projector is accordingly quite
comprehensive."
Multiple headsets were donned, and from each of the Norlaminian brains
there poured into the minds of the two Terrestrials a complete and
minute knowledge of every possible application of the stupendous
force-control banked in all its massed intricacy before them.
"Well, that's some outfit!" exulted Seaton in pleased astonishment as
the instructions were concluded. "It can do anything but lay an egg--and
I'm not a darn bit sure that we couldn't make it do that! Well, let's
call the girls and show them around this thing that's going to be their
home for quite a while."
While they were waiting, Dunark led Seaton aside.
"Dick, will you need me on this trip?" he asked. "Of course I knew there
was something on your mind when you didn't send me home when you let
Urvan, Carfon and the others go back."
"No, we're going it alone--unless you want to come along. I did want you
to stick around until I got to a good chance to talk to you alone--now
will be a good a time as any. You and I have traded brains, and besides,
we've been through quite a lot of grief together, here and there--I want
to apologize to you for not passing along to you all this stuff I've
been getting here. In fact, I really wish I didn't have to have it
myself. Get me?"
"Got you? I'm 'way ahead of you! Don't want it, not any part of
it--that's why I've stayed away from any chance of learning any of it,
and the one reason why I am going back home instead of going with you. I
have just brains enough to realize that neither I nor any other man of
my race should have it. By the time we grow up to it naturally we shall
be able to handle it, but not until then."
The two brain brothers grasped hands strongly, and Dunark continued in a
lighter vein: "It takes all kinds of people to make a world, you
know--and all kinds of races, except the Fenachrone, to make a Universe.
With Mardonale gone, the evolution of Osnome shall progress rapidly, and
while we may not reach the Ultimate Goal, I have learned enough from you
already to speed up our progress considerably."
"Well, that's that. Had to get it off my chest, although I knew you'd
get the idea all right. Here are the girls--Sitar too. We'll show 'em
around."
* * * * *
Seaton's first thought was for the very brain of the ship--the precious
lens of neutronium in its thin envelope of the eternal jewel--without
which the beam of fifth-order rays could not be directed. He found it a
quarter of a mile back from the needle-sharp prow, exactly in the
longitudinal axis of the hull, protected from any possible damage by
bulkhead after massive bulkhead of impregnable inoson. Satisfied upon
that point, he went in search of the others, who were exploring their
vast new space-ship.
Huge as she was, there was no waste space--her design was as compact as
that of a fine radio set. The living quarters were grouped closely about
the central compartment, which housed the power plants, the many ray
generators and projectors, and the myriads of controls of the marvelous
mechanism for the projection and direction of fifth-order rays. Several
large compartments were devoted to the machinery which automatically
serviced the vessel--refrigerators, heaters, generators and purifiers
for water and air, and the numberless other mechanisms which would make
the cruiser a comfortable and secure home, as well as an invincible
battleship, in the heatless, lightless, airless, matterless waste of
illimitable, inter-galactic space. Many compartments were for the
storage of food-supplies, and these were even then being filled by
forces under the able direction of the first of Chemistry.
"All the comforts of home, even to the labels," Seaton grinned, as he
read "Dole No. 1" upon cans of pineapple which had never been within
thousands of light-years of the Hawaiian Islands, and saw quarter after
quarter of fresh meat going into the freezer room from a planet upon
which no animal other than man had existed for many thousands of years.
Nearly all of the remaining millions of cubic feet of space were for the
storage of uranium for power, a few rooms already having been filled
with ingot inoson for repairs. Between the many bulkheads that divided
the ship into numberless airtight sections, and between the many
concentric skins of purple metal that rendered the vessel space-worthy
and sound, even though slabs many feet thick were to be shown off in any
direction--in every nook and cranny could be stored the metal to keep
those voracious generators full-fed, no matter how long or how severe
the demand for power. Every room was connected through a series of
tubular tunnels, along which force-propelled cars or elevators slid
smoothly--tubes whose walls fell together into air-tight seals at any
point, in case of a rupture.
As they made their way back to the great control-room room of the
vessel, they saw something that because of its small size and clear
transparency they had not previously seen. Below that room, not too near
the outer skin, in a specially-built spherical launching space, there
was Skylark Two, completely equipped and ready for an interstellar
journey on her own account!
"Why, hello, little stranger!" Margaret called. "Rovol, that was a kind
thought on your part. Home wouldn't quite be home without our old
Skylark, would it, Martin?"
"A practical thought, as well as a kind one," Crane responded. "We
undoubtedly will have occasion to visit places altogether too small for
the really enormous bulk of this vessel."
"Yes, and whoever heard of a sea-going ship without a small boat?" put
in irrepressible Dorothy. "She's just too perfectly kippy for words,
sitting up there, isn't she?"