The Hill
:
Triplanetary
Its atmosphere was withdrawn, the outer door opened, and he
glanced across a bare hundred feet of space at the
rocket-plane which, keel ports fiercely aflame, was braking
her terrific speed to match the slower pace of the gigantic
ship of war.]
The heavy cruiser Chicago hung motionless in space, thousands of miles
distant from the warring fleets of space-ships so viciously attacking
br />
and so stubbornly defending the planetoid of the enemy. In the captain's
sanctum Lyman Cleveland crouched tensely above his ultra-cameras, his
sensitive fingers touching lightly their micrometric dials. His body was
rigid, his face was set and drawn. Only his eyes moved: flashing back
and forth between the observation plates and smoothly-running rolls
which were feeding into the cameras the hardened steel tapes upon which
were being magnetically recorded the frightful scenes of carnage and
destruction there revealed.
Silent and bitterly absorbed, though surrounded by staring officers,
whose fervent, almost unconscious cursing was prayerful in its
intensity, the visiray expert kept his ultra-instruments upon that awful
struggle to its dire conclusion. Flawlessly those instruments noted
every detail of the destruction of Roger's fleet, of the transformation
of the armada of Triplanetary into an unknown fluid, and finally of the
dissolution of the gigantic planetoid itself. Then furiously Cleveland
drove his beams against the crimsonly opaque obscurity into which the
peculiar, viscous stream of substance was disappearing. Time after time
he applied his every watt of power, with no result. A vast volume of
space, roughly ellipsodial in shape, was closed to him by forces
entirely beyond his experience or comprehension. But suddenly, while his
rays were still trying to pierce that impenetrable murk, it disappeared
instantly and, without warning, the illimitable infinity of space once
more lay revealed upon his plates and his beams flashed on and on
through the void, unimpeded.
"Back to Tellus, sir?" The Chicago's captain broke the strained
silence.
"I wouldn't say so, if I had the say." Cleveland, baffled and frustrate,
straightened up and shut off his cameras. "We should report back as soon
as possible, of course, but there seems to be a lot of wreckage out
there yet, that we can't photograph in detail at this distance. A close
study of it might help us a lot in understanding what they did and how
they did it. I'd say that we should get close-ups of whatever is left,
and do it right away, before it gets scattered all over space; but of
course I can't give you orders."
"You can, though," the captain made surprising answer. "My orders are
that you are in command of this vessel."
"In that case we will proceed at full emergency acceleration to
investigate the wreckage," Cleveland replied, and the cruiser--sole
survivor of Triplanetary's supposedly invincible force--shot away with
every projector delivering its maximum blast.
As the scene of the disaster was approached there was revealed upon the
plates a confused mass of debris; a mass whose individual units were
apparently moving at random: yet which was as a whole still following
the orbit of Roger's planetoid. Space was full of machine parts,
structural members, furniture, flotsam of all kinds; and everywhere were
the bodies of men. Some were encased in space-suits, and it was to these
that the rescuers turned first--space-hardened veterans though the men
of the Chicago were, they did not care even to look at the others.
Strangely enough, however, not one of the floating figures spoke or
moved, and space-line men were hurriedly sent out to investigate.
"All dead." Quickly the dread report came back. "Been dead a long time.
The armor is all stripped off the suits, and the generators and the
other apparatus are all shot. Something funny about it, too--none of
them seem to have been touched, but the machinery of the suits seems to
be about half of it missing."
"I've got it all on the spools, sir." Cleveland, his close-up survey of
the wreckage finished, turned to the captain. "What they've just
reported checks up with what I've photographed everywhere. I've got an
idea of what might have happened, but it's so dizzy that I'll have to
have a lot of reenforcement before I'll believe it myself. But you might
have them bring in a few of the armored bodies, a couple of those
switchboards and panels floating around out there, and half a dozen
miscellaneous pieces of junk--the nearest things they get hold of,
whatever they happen to be."
"Then back to Tellus at maximum?"
"Right--back to Tellus, as fast as we can possibly go there."
While the Chicago hurtled through space at full power, Cleveland and
the ranking officers of the vessel grouped themselves about the salvaged
wreckage. Familiar with space-wrecks as were they all, none of them had
ever seen anything like the material before them. For every part and
instrument was weirdly and meaninglessly disintegrated. There were no
breaks, no marks of violence, and yet nothing was intact. Bolt-holes
stared empty, cores, shielding cases and needles had disappeared, the
vital parts of every instrument hung awry, disorganization reigned
rampant and supreme.
"I never imagined such a mess," the captain said, after a long and
silent study of the objects. "If you have any theory to cover that,
Cleveland, I would like to hear it!"
"I want you to notice something first," the visiray expert replied. "But
don't look for what's there--look for what isn't there."
"Well, the armor is gone. So are the shielding cases, shafts, spindles,
the housings and stems...." The captain's voice died away as his eyes
raced over the collection. "Why, everything that was made of wood,
bakelite, copper aluminum, silver, bronze, or anything but steel hasn't
been touched, and every bit of steel is gone. But that doesn't make
sense--what does it mean?"
"I don't know--yet," Cleveland replied, slowly. "But I'm afraid that
there's more, and worse." He opened a space-suit reverently, revealing
the face; a face calm and peaceful, but utterly, sickeningly white.
Still reverently, he made a deep incision in the brawny neck, severing
the jugular vein, then went on, soberly:
"You never imagined such a thing as white blood, either, but it all
checks up. Someway, somehow, every particle--probably every atom--of
free or combined iron in this whole volume of space was made off with."
"Huh? How come? And above all, why?" from the amazed and staring
officers.
"You know as much as I do," grimly, ponderingly. "If it were not for the
fact that there are solid asteroids of iron out beyond Mars, I would say
that somebody wanted iron badly enough to wipe out the fleets and the
planetoid to get it. But anyway, whoever they were, they carried enough
power so that our armament didn't bother them at all. They simply took
the metal they wanted and went away with it--so fast that I couldn't
trace them with an ultra-beam. There's only one thing plain; but that's
so plain that it scares me stiff. This whole affair spells intelligence,
with a capital "I", and that intelligence is anything but friendly. As
for me I want to get Fred Rodebush at work on this soon--think I'll
hurry it up a little."
He stepped over to his ultra-projector and called the Terrestrial
headquarters of the T. S. S. Samms' face soon appeared upon his screen.
"We got it all, Virgil," he reported.
"It's something extraordinary--bigger, wider, and deeper than any of us
dreamed. It may be urgent, too, so I think I had better shoot the
pictures in on the ultra-wave and save a few days. Fred has a
telemagneto recorder there that he can synchronize with this camera
outfit easily enough. Right?"
"Right. Good work, Lyman--thanks," came back terse approval and
appreciation, and soon the steel tapes were again flashing between the
feed-rolls. This time, however, their varying magnetic charges were
modulating an ultra-wave so that every detail of that calamitous battle
of the void was being screened and recorded in the innermost private
laboratory of the Triplanetary Secret Service.
Eager though he naturally was to join his fellow-scientists, Cleveland
did not waste his time during the long, but uneventful journey back to
earth. There was much to study, many improvements to be made in his
comparatively crude first ultra-camera. Then, too, there were long
conferences with Samms, and particularly with Rodebush, the mathematical
physicist, whose was the task of solving the riddles of the energies and
weapons of the Nevians. Thus it did not seem long before green Terra
grew large beneath the flying sphere of the Chicago.
"Going to have to circle at once, aren't you?" Cleveland asked the chief
pilot. He had been watching that officer closely for minutes, admiring
the delicacy and precision with which the great vessel was being
maneuvered preliminary to entering the earth's atmosphere.
"Yes," the pilot replied. "We had to come in in the shortest possible
time, and that meant a velocity here that we can't check without a
spiral. However, even at that we saved a lot of time. You can save quite
a bit more, though, by having a rocket-plane come out to meet us
somewhere around fifteen or twenty thousand kilometers, depending upon
where you want to land. With their power-to-mass ratio they can match
our velocity and still make the drop direct."
"Guess I'll do that--thanks," and the operative called his chief, only
to learn that his suggestion had already been acted upon.
"We beat you to it, Lyman," Samms smiled. "The Silver Sliver is out
there now, looping to match your course, acceleration, and velocity at
twenty-two thousand kilometers. You'll be ready to transfer?"
"I'll be ready!" and the Quartermaster's ex-clerk went to his quarters
and packed his dunnage-bag.
In due time the long, slender body of the rocket-plane came into view,
creeping 'down' upon the space-ship from 'above,' and Cleveland bade his
friends good-bye. Donning a space-suit, he stationed himself in the
starboard airlock. Its atmosphere was withdrawn, the outer door opened,
and he glanced across a bare hundred feet of space at the rocket-plane
which, keel ports fiercely aflame, was braking her terrific speed to
match the slower pace of the gigantic ship of war. Shaped like a
toothpick, needle-pointed fore and aft, with ultra-stubby wings and
vanes, with flush-set rocket ports everywhere, built of a lustrous
silvery alloy of noble and almost infusible metals--such was the private
speedboat of the chief of the T. S. S. The fastest thing known, whether
in planetary air, the stratosphere, or the vacuus depth of
interplanetary space, her first flashing trial spins had won her the
nickname of the Silver Sliver. She had had a more formal name, but
that title had long since been buried in the Departmental files.
Lower and slower dropped the Silver Sliver, her rockets flaming even
brighter, until her slender length lay level with the airlock door. Then
her blasting discharges subsided to the power necessary to match exactly
the Chicago's deceleration.
"Ready to cut, Chicago! Give me a three-second call!" snapped from the
pilot room of the Sliver.
"Ready to cut!" the pilot of the Chicago replied. "Seconds! Three!
Two! One! CUT!"
At the last word the power of both vessels was instantly cut off and
everything in them became weightless. In the tiny airlock of the slender
craft crouched a space-line man with coiled cable in readiness, but he
was not needed. As the flaring exhausts ceased Cleveland swung out his
heavy bag and stepped lightly off into space, and in a right line he
floated directly into the open doorway of the rocket-plane. The door
clanged shut behind him and in a matter of moments he stood in the
control room of the racer, divested of his armor and shaking hands with
his friend and co-laborer, Frederick Rodebush.
"Well, Fred, what do you know?" Cleveland asked, as soon as greetings
had been exchanged. "How do the various reports dovetail together? I
know that you couldn't tell me anything on the wave, but there's no
danger of eavesdroppers here."
"You can't tell," Rodebush soberly replied. "We're just beginning to
wake up to the fact that there are a lot of things we don't know
anything about. Better wait until we're back at the Hill. We have a full
set of ultra-screens around there now. There's a couple of other good
reasons, too--it would be better for both of us to go over the whole
thing with Virgil, from the ground up; and we can't do any more talking,
anyway. Our orders are to get back there at maximum, and you know what
that means aboard the Sliver. Strap yourself solid in that
shock-absorber there, and here's a pair of ear-plugs."
"When the Sliver really cuts loose it means a rough party, all right,"
Cleveland assented, snapping about his body the heavy spring-straps of
his deeply cushioned seat, "but I'm just as anxious to get back to the
Hill as anybody can be to get me there. All set."
Rodebush waved his hand at the pilot and the purring whisper of the
exhausts changed instantly to a deafening, continuous explosion. The men
were pressed deeply into their shock-absorbing chairs as the Silver
Sliver spun around her longitudinal axis and darted away from the
Chicago with such a tremendous acceleration that the spherical warship
seemed to be standing still in space. In due time the calculated
mid-point was reached, the slim space-plane rolled over again, and, mad
acceleration now reversed, rushed on toward the earth, but with
constantly diminishing speed. Finally a measurable atmospheric pressure
was encountered, the needle prow dipped downward, and the Silver
Sliver shot forward upon her tiny wings and vanes, nose-rockets now
drumming in staccato thunder. Her metal grew hot: dull red, bright red
yellow, blinding white; but it neither melted nor burned. The pilot's
calculations had been sound, and though the limiting point of safety of
temperature was reached and steadily held, it was not exceeded. As the
density of the air increased so decreased the velocity of the man-made
meteorite. So it was that a dazzling lance of fire sped high over
Seattle, lower over Spokane, and hurled itself eastward, a furiously
flaming arrow; slanting downward in a long, screaming dive toward the
heart of the Rockies. As the now rapidly cooling greyhound of the skies
passed over the western ranges of the Bitter Roots it became apparent
that her goal was a vast, flat-topped, and conical mountain, shrouded in
livid light; a mountain whose height awed even its stupendous neighbors.
While not artificial, the Hill had been altered markedly by the
Triplanetary engineers who had built into it the headquarters of the
Secret Service. Its mile-wide top was a jointless expanse of gray armor
steel; the steep, smooth surface of the truncated cone was a
continuation of the same immensely thick sheet of metal. No known
vehicle could climb that smooth, hard, forbidding slope of steel; no
known projectile could mar that armor; no known craft could even
approach the Hill without detection. Could not approach it at all, in
fact, for it was constantly inclosed in a vast hemisphere of lambent
violet flame through which neither material substance nor destructive
ray could pass.
As the Silver Sliver, crawling along at a bare three-hundred miles an
hour, approached that transparent, brilliantly violet wall of
destruction, a violet light filled her control room and as suddenly went
out; flashing on and off again and again.
"Giving us the once-over, eh?" Cleveland asked. "That is something new,
isn't it, Fred?"
"Yes, it's a high-powered ultra-wave spy," Rodenbush returned. "The
light is simply a warning, which can be carried if desired. It can also
carry voice and vision...."
"Like this," Samms' voice interrupted from the powerful dynamic speaker
upon the pilots' panel and his clear-cut face appeared upon the
television screen. "I don't suppose Fred thought to mention it, but this
is one of his inventions of the last few days. We are just trying it out
on you. It doesn't mean a thing though, as far as the Sliver is
concerned. Come ahead!"
A circular opening appeared in the wall of force, an opening which
disappeared as soon as the plane had darted through it; and at the same
time her landing-cradle rose into the air through a great trap-door.
Slowly and gracefully the space-plane settled downward into that
cushioned embrace. Then cradle and nestled Sliver sank from view and,
turning smoothly upon mighty trunnions, the plug of armor drove solidly
back into its place in the metal pavement of the mountain's lofty
summit. The cradle-elevator dropped rapidly, coming to rest many levels
down in the heart of the Hill, and Cleveland and Rodebush leaped lightly
out of their transport, through her still hot outer walls. A door opened
before them and they found themselves in a large room of full daylight
illumination; the anteroom of the private office of Virgil Samms. Chiefs
of Departments sat at their desks, concentrated upon problems or at
ease, according to the demands of the moment; televisotypes and
recorders flashed busily but silently; calmly efficient men and women
went wontedly about the all-embracing business of Triplanetary's
space-pervading Secret Service.
"Right of way, Norma?" Rodebush paused briefly before the desk of the
Chief's private secretary; but even before he had spoken she had pressed
a button and the door behind her swung wide.
"You two do not need to be announced," the attractive young woman
smiled. "Go right in."
Samms met them at the door eagerly, shaking hands particularly
vigorously with Cleveland.
"Congratulations on that camera, Lyman!" he exclaimed. "You did a
wonderful piece of work on that. Help yourselves to smokes and sit
down--there are a lot of things we want to talk over. Your pictures
carried most of the story, but they would have left us pretty much at
sea without Costigan's reports. But as it was, Fred here and his crew
worked out most of the answers from the dope the two of you got; and
what few they haven't got yet they soon will have."
"Nothing new on Conway?" Cleveland was almost afraid to ask the
question.
"No." A shadow came over Samms' face. "I'm afraid ... but I'm hoping
it's only that those creatures, whatever they are, have taken him so far
away that he can't reach us."
"They certainly are so far away that we can't reach them." Rodenbush
volunteered. "We can't even get their ultra-wave interference any more."
"Yes, that's a hopeful sign," Samms went on. "I hate to think of Conway
Costigan checking out. There, fellows, was a real observer. He was the
only man, I have ever known, who combined the two qualities of the
perfect witness. He could actually see everything he looked at, and
could report it truly, to the last, least detail. Take all this stuff,
for instance; especially their ability to transform iron into a fluid
allotrope, and in that form to use its intra-atomic energy as power.
Something brand new--unheard of except in the ravings of imaginative
fiction--and yet he described their converters and projectors so
minutely that Fred was able to work out the underlying theory in three
days, and to tie it in with our own super-ship. My first thought was
that we'd have to rebuild it iron-free, but Fred showed me my error--you
found it first yourself, of course."
"It wouldn't do any good to make the ship non-ferrous unless you could
so change our blood chemistry that we could get along without
hemoglobin, and that would be quite a feat," Cleveland agreed. "Then,
too, our most vital electrical machinery is built around iron cores. No,
we'll have to develop a screen for those forces--screens, rather, so
powerful that they can't drive anything through them."
"We've been working along those lines ever since you reported," Rodebush
said, "and we're beginning to see light. And in that same connection
it's no wonder that we couldn't handle our super-ship. We had some good
ideas, but they were wrongly applied. However, things look quite
promising now. We have that transformation of iron all worked out in
theory, and as soon as we get a generator going we can straighten out
everything else in short order. And think what that unlimited power
means! All the power we want--power enough even to try out such hitherto
purely theoretical possibilities as the neutralization of gravity, and
even of the inertia of matter!"
"Hold on!" protested Samms. "You certainly can't do that! Inertia
is--must be--a basic attribute of matter, and surely cannot be done
away with without destroying the matter itself. Don't start anything
like that. Fred--I don't want to lose you and Lyman, too."
"Don't worry about us, Chief." Rodebush replied with a smile. "If you
will tell me what matter is, fundamentally, I may agree with you ... No?
Well, then, don't be surprised at anything that happens. We are going to
do a lot of things that nobody ever thought of doing before."
Thus for a long time the argument and discussion went on, to be
interrupted by the voice of the secretary.
"Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Samms, but some things have come up that you
will have to handle. Knobos is calling from out near Mars. He has caught
the Endymion, and has killed about half her crew doing it. Milton has
finally reported from Venus, after being out of touch for five days. He
trailed the Wintons into Thalleron swamp. They crashed him there, but he
won out and has what he went after. And just now I got a flash from
Fletcher, in the asteroid belt. I think that he has finally traced that
dope line. But Knobos is on now--what do you want him to do about the
Endymion?"
"Tell him to--no, put him on here, I'd better tell him myself," Samms
directed, and his face hardened in ruthless decision as the horny,
misshapen face of the Martian lieutenant appeared upon the screen. "What
do you think, Knobos? Shall they come to trial or not?"
"No."
"I don't think so, either. It is better that a few gangsters should
disappear in space than run the risk of another uprising. See to it."
"Right." The screen darkened and Samms spoke to his secretary. "Put
Milton and Fletcher on whenever their rays come in." He then turned to
his guests. "We've covered the ground quite thoroughly. Good-bye--I wish
I could go with you, but I'll be pretty well tied up for the next week
or two."
"Tied up, doesn't half express it," Rodebush remarked as the two
scientists walked along a corridor toward an elevator. "He probably is
the busiest man on the three planets."
"As well as the most powerful," Cleveland supplemented. "And very few
men could use his power as fairly--but he's welcome to it, as far as I'm
concerned. I'd have the pink fantods for a month if I had to do only
once what he's just done--and to him it's just part of a day's work."
"You mean the Endymion? What else could he do?"
"Nothing--that's just what I'm talking about. It had to be done, since
bringing them to trial would probably mean killing half the people of
Morseca; but at the same time it's a ghastly thing to have to order a
job of deliberate, cold-blooded, and illegal murder."
"You're right, of course, but you would...." he broke off, unable to put
his thoughts into words. For while inarticulate, manlike, concerning
their deepest emotions, in both men was ingrained the code of their
organization; both knew that to every man chosen for it The Service
was everything, himself nothing.
"But enough of that, we'll have plenty of grief of our own right here,"
Rodebush changed the subject abruptly as they stepped into a vast room,
almost filled by the immense bulk of the Boise--the sinister
space-ship which, although never flown, had already lined with black so
many pages of Triplanetary's roster. She was now, however, the center of
a furious activity. Men swarmed over her and through her, in the orderly
confusion of a fiercely driven but carefully planned program of
reconstruction.
"I hope your dope is right, Fred!" Cleveland called, as the two
scientists separated to go to their respective laboratories. "If it is,
we'll make a perfect lady out of this unmanageable man-killer yet!"