INVADERS FROM THE INFINITE

by

JOHN W. CAMPBELL

Ace Books, Inc. 1120 Avenue of the AmericasNew York, N. Y. 10036

Copyright, 1961, by John W. Campbell, Jr. An earlier version Copyright, 1932, by Experimenter Pub. Co. An Ace Book, by arrangement with the Author. All Rights ReservedCover by Gray Morrow. Printed in U. S. A. 

GALAXIES IN THE BALANCE

The famous scientific trio of Arcot, Wade and Morey, challenged by themost ruthless aliens in all the universes, blasted off on anintergalactic search for defenses against the invaders of Earth and allher allies. 

World after world was visited, secret after secret unleashed, and turnedto mighty weapons of intense force--and still the Thessian enemy seemedto grow in power and ferocity. 

Mighty battles between huge space armadas were but skirmishes in thegalactic war, as the invincible aliens savagely advanced and the Earthteam hurled bolt after bolt of pure ravening energy--until it appearedthat the universe itself might end in one final flare of furioustorrential power. . . . 

Chapter I

INVADERS

Russ Evans, Pilot 3497, Rocket Squad Patrol 34, unsnapped his seat belt, and with a slight push floated "up" into the air inside the weightlessship. He stretched himself, and yawned broadly. 

"Red, how soon do we eat?" he called. 

"Shut up, you'll wake the others, " replied a low voice from the rear ofthe swift little patrol ship. "See anything?"

"Several million stars, " replied Evans in a lower voice. "And--" Histone became suddenly severe. "Assistant Murphy, remember your mannerswhen addressing your superior officer. I've a mind to report you. "

A flaming head of hair topping a grinning face poked around the edge ofthe door. "Lower your wavelength, lower your wavelength! You may thinkyou're a sun, but you're just a planetoid. But what I'd like to know, Chief Pilot Russ Evans, is why they locate a ship in a forlorn, out ofthe way place like this--three-quarters of a billion miles, out ofplanetary plane. No ships ever come out here, no pirates, not a chanceto help a wrecked ship. All we can do is sit here and watch the otherfellows do the work. "

"Which is exactly why we're here. Watch--and tell the other ships whereto go, and when. Is that chow ready?" asked Russ looking at a smallclock giving New York time. 

"Uh--think she'll be on time? Come on an' eat. "

Evans took one more look at the telectroscope screen, then snapped itoff. A tiny, molecular towing unit in his hand, he pointed toward thedoor to the combined galley and lunch room, and glided in the wake ofMurphy. 

"How much fuel left?" he asked, as he glided into the dizzily spinningroom. A cylindrical room, spinning at high speed, causing an artificial"weight" for the foods and materials in it, made eating of food a lessdifficult task. Expertly, he maneuvered himself to the guide rail nearthe center of the room, and caught the spiral. Braking himself intomotion, he soon glided down its length, and landed on his feet. He bentand flexed his muscles, waiting for the now-busied assistant to get tothe floor and reply. 

"They gave us two pounds extra. Lord only knows why. Must expect us toclean up on some fleet. That makes four pound rolls left, untouched, andtwo thirds of the original pound. We've been here fifteen days, and havesix more to go. The main driving power rolls have about the same amountleft, and three pound rolls in each reserve bin, " replied Red, holding acuriously moving coffee pot that strove to adjust itself to rapidlychanging air velocities as it neared the center of the room. 

"Sounds like a fleet's power stock. Martian lead or the terrestrialisotope?" asked Evans, tasting warily a peculiar dish before him. "Say, this is energy food. I thought we didn't get any more till Saturday. "The change from the energy-less, flavored pastes that made up theprincipal bulk of a space-pilot's diet, to prevent over-eating, when noenergy was used in walking in the weightless ship, was indeed a welcomechange. 

"Uh-huh. I got hungry. Any objections?" grinned the Irishman. 

"None!" replied Evans fervently, pitching in with a will. 

Seated at the controls once more, he snapped the little switch thatcaused the screen to glow with flashing, swirling colors as thetelectroscope apparatus came to life. A thousand tiny points of flameappeared scattered on a black field with a suddenness that made themseem to snap suddenly into being. Points, tiny dimensionless points oflight, save one, a tiny disc of blue-white flame, old Sol from adistance of close to one billion miles, and under slight reversemagnification. The skillful hands at the controls were turningadjustments now, and that disc of flame seemed to leap toward him with ahundred light-speeds, growing to a disc as large as a dime in aninstant, while the myriad points of the stars seemed to scatter likefrightened chickens, fleeing from the growing sun, out of the screen. Other points, heretofore invisible, appeared, grew, and rushed away. 

The sun shifted from the center of the screen, and a smallerreddish-green disc came into view--a planet, its atmosphere coloring thelight that left it toward the red. It rushed nearer, grew larger. Earthspread as it took the center of the screen. A world, a portion of aworld, a continent, a fragment of a continent as the magnificationincreased, boundlessly it seemed. 

Finally, New York spread across the screen; New York seen from the air, with a strange lack of perspective. The buildings did not seem all toslant toward some point, but to stand vertical, for, from a distance ofa billion miles, the vision lines were practically parallel. Titanicshafts of glowing color in the early summer sun appeared; the hot raysfrom the sun, now only 82, 500, 000 miles away, shimmering on the coloredmetal walls. 

The new Airlines Building, a mile and a half high, supported at variouspoints by actual spaceship driving units, was a riot of shifting, rainbow hues. A new trick in construction had been used here, and Evanssmiled at it. Arcot, inventor of the ship that carried him, hadsuggested it to Fuller, designer of that ship, and of that building. Thecolored berylium metal of the wall had been ruled with 20, 000 lines tothe inch, mere scratches, but nevertheless a diffraction grating. Theresult was amazingly beautiful. The sunlight, split up to its rainbowcolors, was reflected in millions of shifting tints. 

In the air, supported by tiny packs strapped to their backs, thousandsof people were moving, floating where they wished, in any direction, atany elevation. There were none of the helicopters of even five yearsago, now. A molecular power suit was far more convenient, cost nothingto operate, and but $50 to buy. Perfectly safe, requiring no skill, everyone owned them. To the watcher in space, they were mere moving, snaky lines of barely distinguishable dots that shivered and seemed towrithe in the refractions of the air. Passing over them, seeming to passalmost through them in this strange perspectiveless view, were theshadowy forms of giant space liners, titanic streamlined hulls. Theywere streamlined for no good reason, save that they looked faster andmore graceful than the more efficient spherical freighters, just aspassenger liners of two centuries earlier, with their steam engines, hadcarried four funnels and used two. A space liner spent so minute aportion of its journey in the atmosphere that it was really inefficientto streamline them. 

"Won't be long!" muttered Russ, grinning cheerily at the familiar, sunlit city. His eyes darted to the chronometer beside him. The viewseemed to be taken from a ship that was suddenly scudding across theheavens like a frightened thing, as it ran across from Manhattan Island, followed the Hudson for a short way, then cut across into New Jersey, swinging over the great woodland area of Kittatiny Park, resting finallyon the New Jersey suburb of New York nestled in the Kittatinies, Blairtown. Low apartment buildings, ten or twelve stories high, nestledin the waving green of trees in the old roadways. When ground trafficceased, the streets had been torn up, and parkways substituted. 

Quickly the view singled out a single apartment, and the great smoothroof was enlarged on the screen to the absolute maximum clarity, tillfurther magnification simply resulted in worse stratospheric distortion. On the broad roof were white strips of some material, making a huge Vfollowed by two I's. Russ watched, his hand on the control steadying theview under the Earth's complicated orbital motion, and rotation, furthercorrections for the ship's orbital motion making the job one requiringgreat skill. The view held the center with amazing clarity. Somethingseemed to be happening to the last of the I's. It crumpled suddenly, rolled in on itself and disappeared. 

"She's there, and on time, " grinned Russ happily. 

He tried more magnification. Could he--

He was tired, terribly, suddenly tired. He took his hands from theviewplate controls, relaxed, and dropped off to sleep. 

"What made me so tired--wonder--GOD!" He straightened with a jerk, andhis hands flew to the controls. The view on the machine suddenlyretreated, flew back with a velocity inconceivable. Earth dropped awayfrom the ship with an apparent velocity a thousand times that of light;it was a tiny ball, a pinpoint, gone, the sun--a minute disc--gone--thenthe apparatus was flashing views into focus from the other side of theship. The assistant did not reply. Evans' hands were growing ineffablyheavy, his whole body yearned for sleep. Slowly, clumsily he pawed for alittle stud. Somehow his hand found it, and the ship reeled suddenly, little jerks, as the code message was flung out in a beam of suchtremendous power that the sheer radiation pressure made it noticeable. Earth would be notified. The system would be warned. But light, slowcrawling thing, would take hours to cross the gulf of space, and radiotravels no faster. 

Half conscious, fighting for his faculties with all his will, the pilotturned to the screen. A ship! A strange, glistening thing streamlined tothe nth degree, every spare corner rounded till the resistance was atthe irreducible minimum. But, in the great pilotport of the stranger, the patrol pilot saw faces, and gasped in surprise as he saw them!Terrible faces, blotched, contorted. Patches of white skin, patches ofbrown, patches of black, blotched and twisted across the faces. Long, lean faces, great wide flat foreheads above, skulls strangely squared, more box-like than man's rounded skull. The ears were large, pointedtips at the top. Their hair was a silky mane that extended low over theforehead, and ran back, spreading above the ears, and down the neck. 

Then, as that emotion of surprise and astonishment weakened his willmomentarily, oblivion came, with what seemed a fleeting instant ofmemories. His life seemed to flash before his mind in serried rank, afile of events, his childhood, his life, his marriage, his wife, animage of smiling comfort, then the years, images of great and near greatmen, his knowledge of history, pictures of great war of 2074, picturesof the attackers of the Black Star--then calm oblivion, quiet blankness. 

The long, silent ship that had hovered near him turned, and pointedtoward the pinhead of matter that glowed brilliantly in the flamingjewel box of the heavens. It was gone in an instant, rushing toward Sunand Earth at a speed that outraced the flying radio message, leaving theship of the Guard Patrol behind, and leaving the Pilot as he leaves ourstory. 

Chapter II

CANINE PEOPLE

"And that, " said Arcot between puffs, "will certainly be a great boon tothe Rocket Patrol, you must admit. They don't like dueling with thesespace-pirates using the molecular rays, and since molecular rays havesuch a tremendous commercial value, we can't prohibit the sale of rayapparatus. Now, if you will come into the 'workshop, ' Fuller, I'll givea demonstration with friend Morey's help. "

The four friends rose, Morey, Wade and Fuller following Arcot into hislaboratory on the thirty-seventh floor of the Arcot Research Building. As they went, Arcot explained to Fuller the results and principles ofthe latest product of the ingenuity of the "Triumvirate, " as Arcot, Morey and Wade had come to be called in the news dispatches. 

"As you know, the molecular rays make all the molecules of any piece ofmatter they are turned upon move in the desired direction. Since theysupply no new energy, but make the body they are turned upon supply itsown, using the energy of its own random molecular motion of heat, theyare practically impossible to stop. The energy necessary for molecularrays to take effect is so small that the usual type of filter letsenough of it pass. A ship equipped with filters is no better off whenattacked than one without. The rays simply drove the front end into therear, or _vice versa_, or tore it to pieces as the pirates desired. TheRocket Patrol could kill off the pirates, but they lost so many men inthe process, it was a Phyrric victory. 

"For some time Morey and I have been working on something to stop therays. Obviously it can't be by means of any of the usual metallic energyabsorption screens. 

"We finally found a combination of rays, better frequencies, that didwhat we wanted. I have such an apparatus here. What we want you to do, of course, is the usual job of rearranging the stuff so that theapparatus can be made from dies, and put into quantity production. Asthe Official Designer for the A. A. L. You ought to do that easily. " Arcotgrinned as Fuller looked in amazement at the apparatus Arcot had pickedup from the bench in the "workshop. "

"Don't get worried, " laughed Morey, "that's got a lifting unitcombined--just a plain ordinary molecular lift such as you see by thehundreds out there. " Morey pointed through the great window wherethousands of those lift units were carrying men, women and childrenthrough the air, lifting them hundreds, thousands of feet above thestreets and through the doors of buildings. 

"Here's an ordinary molecular pistol. I'm going to put the suit on, andrise about five feet off the floor. You can turn the pistol on me, andsee what impression it makes on the suit. "

Fuller took the molecular ray pistol, while Wade helped Arcot into thesuit. He looked at the pistol dubiously, pointed it at a heavy castingof iron resting in one corner of the room, and turned the ray at lowconcentration, then pressed the trigger-button. The casting gave out alow, scrunching grind, and slid toward him with a lurch. Instantly heshut off the power. "This isn't any ordinary pistol. It's got seven oreight times the ordinary power!" he exclaimed. 

"Oh yes, I forgot, " Morey said. "Instead of the fuel battery that theearly pistols used, this has a space-distortion power coil. This pistolhas as much power as the usual A-39 power unit for commercial work. "

By the time Morey had explained the changes to Fuller, Arcot had thesuit on, and was floating five or six feet in the air, like a grotesquecaptive balloon. "Ready, Fuller?"

"I guess so, but I certainly hope that suit is all it is claimed to be. If it isn't--well I'd rather not commit murder. "

"It'll work, " said Arcot. "I'll bet my neck on that!" Suddenly he wassurrounded by the faintest of auras, a strange, wavering blue light, like the hazy corona about a 400, 000-volt power line. "Now try it. "

Fuller pointed the pistol at the floating man and pushed the trigger. The brilliant blue beam of the molecular ray, and the low hum of theair, rushing in the path of the director beam, stabbed out toward Arcot. The faint aura about him was suddenly intensified a million times tillhe floated in a ball of blue-white fire. Scarcely visible, the air abouthim blazed with bluish incandescence of ionization. 

"Increase the power, " suggested Morey. Fuller turned on more power. Theblue halo was shot through with tiny violet sparks, the sharp odor ofozone in the air was stifling; the heat of wasted energy was making theroom hotter. The power increased further, and the tiny sparks werewaving streamers, that laced across the surface of the blue fire. Littlejets of electric flame reached out along the beam of the ray now. Finally, as full power of the molecular ray was reached, the entire halowas buried under a mass of writhing sparks that seemed to leap up intothe air above the man's head, wavering up to extinction. The room wasunbearably hot, despite the molecular ray coolers absorbing the heat ofthe air, and blowing cooled air into the room. 

Fuller snapped off the ray, and put the pistol on the table beside him. The halo died, and went out a moment later, and Arcot settled to thefloor. 

"This particular suit will stand up against anything the ordinarycommercial sets will give. The system now: remember that the rays areshort electrical waves. The easiest way to stop them is to interpose awave of opposite phase, and cause interference. Fine, but try to get intune with an unknown wave when it is moving in relation to your centerof control. It is impossible to do it before you yourself have beenrayed out of existence. We must use some system that will automatically, instantly be out of phase. 

"The Hall effect would naturally tend to make the frequency of a wavethrough a resisting medium change, and lengthen. If we can send out aspherical wave front, and have it lengthen rapidly as it proceeds, wewill have a wave front that is, at all points, different. Any enteringwave would, sooner or later, meet a wave that was half a phase out, nomatter what the motion was, nor what the frequency, as long as it lieswithin the comparatively narrow molecular wave band. What thisapparatus, or ray screen, consists of, is a machine generating aspherical wave front of the nature of a molecular wave, but of just toogreat a frequency to do anything. A second part generates a condition inspace, which opposes that wave. After traveling a certain distance, thewave has lengthened to molecular wave type, but is now beyond themachine which generated it, and no longer affects it, or damages it. However, as it proceeds, it continues to lengthen, till eventually itreaches the length of infra-light, when the air quickly absorbs it, asit reaches one of the absorption bands for air molecular waves, and anymolecular wave must find its half-wave complement somewhere in thatwedge of waves. It does, and is at once choked off, its energy fightingthe energy of the ray screen, of course. In the air, however, the screenis greatly helped by the fact that before the half-wave frequency is metin the ray-wedge, the molecular ray is buried in ions, leaving the rayscreen little work to do. 

"Now your job is to design the apparatus in a form that machines canmake automatically. We tried doing it ourselves for the fun of it, butwe couldn't see how we could make a machine that didn't need at leasttwo humans to supervise. "

"Well, " grinned Fuller, "you have it all over me as scientists, but aseconomic workers--two human supervisors to make one product!"

"All right--we agree. But no, let's see you--Lord! What was that?" Moreystarted for the door on the run. The building was still trembling fromthe shock of a heavy blow, a blow that seemed much as though a machinehad been wrecked on the armored roof, and a big machine at that. Arcot, a flying suit already on, was up in the air, and darting past Morey inan instant, streaking for the vertical shaft that would let him out tothe roof. The molecular ray pistol was already in his hand, ready topull any beams off unfortunate victims pinned under them. 

In a moment he had flashed up through the seven stories, and out to theroof. A gigantic silvery machine rested there, streamlined toperfection, its hull dazzingly beautiful in the sunlight. A door opened, and three tall, lean men stepped from it. Already people were collectingabout the ship, flying up from below. Air patrolmen floated up in aminute, and seeing Arcot, held the crowd back. 

The strange men were tall, eight feet or more in height. Great, round, soft brown eyes looked in curiosity at the towering multicoloredbuildings, at the people floating in the air, at the green trees and theblue sky, the yellowish sun. 

Arcot looked at their strangely blotched and mottled heads, faces, armsand hands. Their feet were very long and narrow, their legs long andthin. Their faces were kindly; the mottled skin, brown and white andblack, seemed not to make them ugly. It was not a disfigurement; itseemed oddly familiar and natural in some reminiscent way. 

"Lord, Arcot--queer specimens, yet they seem familiar!" said Morey in anundertone. 

"They are. Their race is that of man's first and best friend, the dog!See the brown eyes? The typical teeth? The feet still show the traces ofthe dog's toe-step. Their nails, not flat like human ones but rounded?The mottled skin, the ears--look, one is advancing. "

One of the strangers walked laboriously forward. A lighter world thanEarth was evidently his home. His great brown eyes fixed themselves onArcot's. Arcot watched them. They seemed to expand, grow larger; theyseemed to fill all the sky. Hypnotism! He concentrated his mind, and theeyes suddenly contracted to the normal eyes of the stranger. The manreeled back, as Arcot's telepathic command to sleep came, stronger thanhis own will. The stranger's friends caught him, shook him, but heslept. One of the others looked at Arcot; his eyes seemed hurt, desperately pleading. 

Arcot strode forward, and quickly brought the man out of the trance. Heshook his head, smiled at Arcot, then, with desperate difficulty, heenunciated some words in English, terribly distorted. 

"Ahy wizz tahk. Vokle kohds ron. Tahk by breen. "

Distorted as it was, Arcot recognized the meaning without difficulty. "Iwish (to) talk. Vocal cords wrong. Talk by brain. " He switched tocommunication by the Venerian method, telepathically, but withouthypnotism. 

"Good enough. When you attempted to hypnotize me, I didn't known whatyou wanted. It is not necessary to hypnotize to carry on communicationby the method of the second world of this system. What brings you to oursystem? From what system do you come? What do you wish to say?"

The other, not having learned the Venerian system, had great difficultyin communicating his thoughts, but Arcot learned that they had machineswhich would make it easier, and the terrestrian invited them into hislaboratory, for the crowd was steadily growing. 

The three returned to their ship for a moment, coming out with severalpeculiar headsets. Almost at once the ship started to rise, going upmore and more swiftly, as the people cleared a way for it. 

Then, in the tiniest fraction of a second, the ship was gone; it shrankto a point, and was invisible in the blue vault of the sky. 

"Apparently they intend to stay a while, " said Wade. "They are trustingsouls, for their line of retreat is cut off. We naturally have nointention of harming them, but they can't know that. "

"I'm not so sure, " said Arcot. He turned to the apparent leader of thethree and explained that there were several stories to descend, andstairs were harder than a flying unit. "Wrap your arms about my legs, when I rise above you, and hold on till your feet are on the flooragain, " he concluded. 

The stranger walked a little closer to the edge of the shaft, and lookeddown. White bulbs illuminated its walls down its length to the ground. The man talked rapidly to his friends, looking with evident distaste atthe shaft, and the tiny pack on Arcot's back. Finally, smiling, heevinced his willingness. Arcot rose, the man grasped his legs, and thenboth rose. Over the shaft, and down to his laboratory was the work of amoment. 

Arcot led them into his "consultation room, " where a number ofcomfortable chairs were arranged, facing each other. He seated themtogether, and his own friends facing them. 

"Friends of another world, " began Arcot, "we do not know your errandhere, but you evidently have good reason for coming to this place. It isunlikely that your landing was the result of sheer chance. What broughtyou? How came you to this point?"

"It is difficult for me to reply. First we must be _en rapport_. Oursystem is not simple as yours, but more effective, for yours depends onthought ideas, not altogether universal. Place these on your heads, foronly a moment. I must induce temporary hypnotic coma. Let one try firstif you desire. " The leader of the visitors held out one of the severalheadsets they had brought, caplike things, made of laminated metalapparently. 

Arcot hesitated, then with a grin slipped it on. 

"Relax, " came a voice in Arcot's head, a low, droning voice, a voice ofcommand. "Sleep, " it added. Arcot felt himself floating down an infiniteshaft, on some superflying suit that did not pull at him with itsstraps, just floating down lightly, down and down and down. Suddenly hereached the bottom, and found to his surprise that it led directly intothe room again! He was back. "You are awake. Speak!" came the voice. 

Arcot shook himself, and looked about. A new voice spoke now, not thetonelessly melodious voice, but the voice of an individual, yet a mentalvoice. It was perfectly clear, and perfectly comprehensible. "We havetraveled far to find you, and now we have business of the utmost import. Ask these others to let us treat them, for we must do what we can in theleast possible time. I will explain when all can understand. I am ZezdonFentes, First Student of Thought. He who sits on my right is ZezdonAfthen, and he beyond him, is Zezdon Inthel, of Physics and ofChemistry, respectively. "

And now Arcot spoke to his friends. 

"These men have something of the greatest importance to tell us, itseems. They want us all to hear, and they are in a hurry. The treatmentisn't at all annoying. Try it. The man on the extreme right, as we facethem, is Zezdon Fentes of Thought, Zezdon apparently meaning somethinglike professor, or 'First Student of. ' Those next him are Zezdon Afthenof Physics and Zezdon Inthel of Chemistry. "

Zezdon Afthen offered them the headsets, and in a moment everyonepresent was wearing one. The process of putting them _en rapport_ tookvery little time, and shortly all were able to communicate with ease. 

"Friends of Earth, we must tell our strange story quickly for thebenefit of your world as well as ours, and others, too. We cannot somuch as annoy. We are helpless to combat them. 

"Our world lies far out across the galaxy; even with incalculablevelocity of the great swift thing that bore us, three long months havewe traveled toward your distant worlds, hoping that at last the Invadersmight meet their masters. 

"We landed on this roof because we examined mentally the knowledge of apilot of one of your patrol ships. His mind told us that here we wouldfind the three greatest students of Science of this Solar System. So itwas here we came for help. 

"Our race has arisen, " he continued, "as you have so surely determinedfrom the race you call canines. It was artificially produced by theAncient Masters when their hour of need had come. We have lost the greatscience of the Ancient Ones. But we have developed a different science, a science of the mind. "

"Dogs are far more psychic than are men. They would naturally tend todevelop such a civilization, " said Arcot judiciously. 

Chapter III

A QUARTER OF A MILLION LIGHT YEARS

"Our civilization, " continued Zezdon Afthen, "is built largely on theknowledge of the mind. We cannot have criminals, for the man who plotsevil is surely found out by his thoughts. We cannot have lyingpoliticians and unjust rulers. 

"It is a peaceful civilization. The Ancient Masters feared and hated Warwith a mighty aversion. But they did not make our race cowards, merelypeaceful intelligence. Now we must fight for our homes, and my race willfight mightily. But we need weapons. 

"But my story has little to do with our race. I will tell the story ofour civilization and of the Ancient Ones later when the time is moreauspicious. 

"Four months ago, our mental vibration instruments detected powerfulemanations from space. That could only mean that a new, highlyintelligent race had suddenly appeared within a billion miles of ourworld. The directional devices quickly spotted it as emanating from thethird planet of our system. Zezdon Fentes, with my aid, set up somespecial apparatus, which would pick up strong thoughts and make themvisible. We had used this before to see not only what an enemylooked upon, but also what he saw in that curious thing, the eyeof the mind, the vision of the past and the future. But while thethought-amplification device was powerful, the new emanations were hardto separate from each other. 

"It was done finally, when all but one man slept. That one we wereenable to tune sharply to. After that we could reach him at any time. Hewas the commander. We saw him operate the ship, we saw the ship, saw itglide over the barren, rocky surface of that world. We saw other mencome in and go out. They were strange men. Short, squat, bulky men. Their arms were short and stocky. But their strength was enormous, unbelievable. We saw them bend solid bars of steel as thick as my arm. With perfect ease!

"Their brains were tremendously active, but they were evil, selfishlyevil. Nothing that did not benefit them counted. At one time ourinstruments went dead, and we feared that the commander had detected us, but we saw what happened a little later. The second in command hadkilled him. 

"We saw them examine the world, working their way across it, wearingheavy suits, yet, for all the terrific gravity of that world, bouncingabout like rubber balls, leaping and jumping where they wanted. Theirlegs would drive out like pistons, and they soared up and through theair. 

"They were tired while they made those examinations, and slept heavilyat night. 

"Then one night there was a conference. We saw then what they intended. Before we had tried desperately to signal them. Now we were glad that wehad failed. 

"We saw their ship rise (in the thoughts of the second in command) andsail out into space, and rush toward our world. The world grew larger, but it was imperfectly sketched in, for they did not know our worldwell. Their telescopes did not have great power as your electrictelescopes have. 

"We saw them investigate the planet. We saw them plan to destroy anypeople they found with a ray which was as follows: 'the ray which makesall parts move as one. ' We could not understand and could not interpret. Thoughts beyond our knowledge have, of course, no meaning, even when ourmental amplifiers get them, and bring them to us. "

"The Molecular ray!" gasped Morey in surprise. "They will be an enemy. "

"You know it! It is familiar to you! You have it? You can fight it?"asked Zezdon Afthen excitedly. 

"We know it, and can fight it, if that is all they have. "

"They have more--much more I fear, " replied Zezdon Afthen. "At any rate, we saw what they intended. If our world was inhabited, they woulddestroy every one on it, and then other men of their race were to floatin on their great ships, and settle on that largest of our worlds. 

"We had to stop them so we did what we could. We had powerful machines, which would amplify and broadcast our thoughts. So we broadcast ourthought-waves, and implanted in the mind of their leader that it wouldbe wise to land, and learn the extent of the civilization, and theweapons to be met. Also, as the ship drew nearer, we made him decide ona certain spot we had prepared for him. 

"He never guessed that the thoughts were not his own. Only the ideascame to him, seeming to spring from his own mind. 

"He landed--and we used our one weapon. It was a thing left to one groupof rulers when the Ancient Masters left us to care for ourselves. Whatit was, we never knew; we had never used it in the fifteen thousandyears since the Great Masters had passed--never had to. But now it wasbrought out, and concealed behind great piles of rock in a deep canyonwhere the ship of the enemy would land. When it landed, we turned thebeam of the machine on it, and the apparatus rotated it swiftly, and acone of the beam's ray was formed as the beam was swung through a smallcircle in the vertical plane. The machine leaped backward, and though itwas so massive that a tremendous amount of labor had been required tobring it there, the push of the pencil of force we sent out hurled itback against a rocky cliff behind it as though it were some child's toy. It continued to operate for perhaps a second, perhaps two. In that timetwo great holes had been cut in the enemy ship, holes fifteen feetacross, that ran completely through the hull as though a die had cutthrough the metal of the ship, cutting out a disc of metal. 

"There was a terrific concussion, and a roar as the air blasted out ofthe ship. It did not take us long to discover that the enemy were dead. Their terrible, bloated corpses lay everywhere in the ship. Most of themen we were able to recognize, having seen them in the mentovisor. Butthe colors were distorted, and their forms were peculiar. Indeed, thewhole ship seemed strange. The only time that things ever did seemnormal about that strange thing, when the angles of it seemed what theywere, when the machines did not seem out of proportion, out of shape, twisted, was when on a trial trip we ventured very close to our sun. "

Arcot whistled softly and looked at Morey. Morey nodded. "Probablyright. Don't interrupt. "

"That you thought something, I understood, but the thoughts themselveswere hopelessly unintelligible to me. You know the explanation?" askedZezdon Afthen eagerly. 

"We think so. The ship was evidently made on a world of huge size. Thosemen, their stocky, block legs and arms, their entire build and theirdesire for the largest of your planets, would indicate that. Their ownworld was probably even larger--they were forced to wear pressure suitseven on that large world, and could jump all over, you said. On so hugea sphere as their native world seems to be, the gravity would be sointense as to distort space. Geometry, such as yours seems to be, andsuch as ours was, could never be developed, for you assume the existenceof a straight line, and of an absolute plane surface. These thingscannot exist in space, but on small worlds, far from the central sun'smass, the conditions approach that without sufficient discrepency tomake the error obvious. On so huge a globe as their world the space isso curved that it is at once obvious that no straight line exists, andthat no plane exists. Their geometry would never be like ours. When youwent close to your sun, the attraction was sufficient to curve spaceinto a semblance of the natural conditions on their home planet, thenyour senses and the ship met a compromise condition which made it seemmore or less normal, not so obviously strange to you. 

"But continue. " Arcot looked at Afthen interestedly. 

"There were none left in their ship now, and we had been careful inlocating the first hole, that it should not damage the propulsivemachinery. The second hole was accidental, due to the shift of themachine. The machine itself was wrecked now, crushed by its ownreaction. We forgot that any pencil of force powerful enough to do whatwe wanted, would tear the machine from its moorings unless fastened withgreat steel bolts into the solid rock. 

"The second hole had been far to the rear, and had, by ill-luck, cut outa portion of the driving apparatus. We could not repair that, though wedid succeed at last in lifting the great discs into place. We attemptedto cut them, and put them back in sections. Our finest saws and machinesdid not nick them. Their weight was unbelievable, and yet we finallysucceeded in lifting the things into the wall of the ship. The actualmissing material did not represent more than a tiny cut, perhaps as wideas one of your credit-discs. You could slip the thin piece of metal inbetween them, but not so much as your finger. 

"Those slots we welded tight with our best steel, letting a flap hangover on each side of the cut, and as the hot metal cooled, it was drawnagainst the shining walls with terrific force. The joints were perfectlyairtight. 

"The machines proper were repaired to the greatest possible extent. Itwas a heartbreaking task, for we must only guess at what machines shouldbe connected together. Much damage had been done by the rushing air asit left, for it filled the machines, too, and they were not designed toresist the terrific air pressure that was on them when the pressure inthe ship escaped. Many of the machines had been burst open, and these wecould repair when we had the necessary elements and knew theirconstruction from the remnants, or could find unbroken duplicates in thestock rooms. 

"Once we connected the wrong things. This will show you what we dealtwith. They were the wrong poles--two generators, connected together inthe wrong way. There was a terrific crash when the switch was thrown, and huge sheets of electric flame leaped from one of them. Two men werekilled, incinerated in an instant, even the odors one might expect werekilled in that flash of heat. Everything save the shining metal andclear glass within ten feet of it was instantly wiped out. And there wasa fuse link that gave. The generator was ruined. One was left, andseveral small auxiliary generators. 

"Eventually, we did the job. We made the machine work. And we are here. 

"We have come to warn you, and to ask aid. Your system also has a largeplanet, slightly smaller than the largest of our system, but yetattractive. There are approximately 50, 000 planetary systems in thisuniverse, according to the records of the Invaders. Their world is notof this system. It is the World Thett, sun Antseck, Universe Venone. Where that is, or even what it means, we do not know. Perhaps youunderstand. 

"But they investigated your world, and its address, according to theirrecords, was World 3769-8482730-3. This, I believe, means, Universe3769, sun 8482730, world 3. They have been investigating this system nowfor nearly three centuries. It was close to 200 years ago that theyvisited your world--two hundred years of your time. "

"This is 2129--which makes it about the year 1929-30 that they floatedaround here investigating. Why haven't they done anything?" Arcot askedhim. 

"They waited for an auspicious time. They are afraid now, for recentlythey visited your world, and were utterly amazed to find theunbelievable progress your people have made. They intend to make animmediate attack on all worlds known to be intelligently populated. Theyhad made the mistake of letting one race learn too much; they cannotafford to let it happen again. 

"There are only twenty-one inhabited worlds known, and their thousandsof scouts have already investigated nearly all the central mass of thisuniverse, and much of the outer rings. They have established a base inthis universe. Where I do not know. That, alone, was never mentioned inthe records. But of all peoples, they feared only your world. 

"There is one race in the universe far older than yours, but they are asleeping people. Long ago their culture decayed. Still, now they are notfar from you, and perhaps it will be worth the few days needed to learnmore about them. We have their location and can take you there. Theirworld circles a dead star--"

"Not any more, " laughed Morey grimly. "That's another surprise for theenemy. They had a little jog, and they certainly are wide awake now. They are headed for big things, and they are going to do a lot. "

"But how do you know these things? You have ships that can go fromplanet to planet, I know, but the records of the enemy said you couldnot leave the system of your sun. They alone knew that secret. "

"Another surprise for them, " said Morey. "We can--and we can move fasterthan your ship, if not faster than they. The people of the dead starhave moved to a very live star--Sirius, the brightest in our heavens. And they are as much alive now as their new sun. They can move fasterthan light, also. We had a little misunderstanding a while back, whentheir star passed close to ours. They came off second best, and wehaven't spoken to them since. But I think we can make valuable alliesthere. "

For all Morey's jocular manner, he realized the terrible import of thisannouncement. A race which had been able to cross the vast gulf ofintergalactic space in the days when Terrestrians were still developingthe airplane--and already they had mapped Jupiter, and planned theircolonies! What developments had come? They had molecular rays, cosmicrays, the energy of matter, then--what else had they now? Lux and Relux, the two artificial metals, made of solidified light, far stronger thananything of molecular structure in nature, absolutely infusible, totallyinert chemically, one a perfect conductor of light and of all radiationin space, the other a perfect reflector of all radiations--savemolecular rays. Made into the condition of reflection by the action ofspecial frequencies in its formation from light, molecular frequencieswere, unfortunately, able to convert it into perfectly transparent luxmetal, when the protective value was gone. 

They had that. All Earth had, perhaps. 

"There was one other race of some importance, the others weresemi-civilized. They rated us in a position between these races and thehigh races--yours, those of the dead star, and those of world3769-37:478:326:894-6. Our science had been investigated two hundred orso years ago. 

"This other race was at a great distance from us, greater than yours, and apparently not feared as greatly as yours. They cannot cross toother worlds, save in small ships driven solely by fire, which theThessians have called a 'hopelessly inefficient and laughably awkwardthing to ride in. '"

"Rockets, " grinned Morey. "Our first ship was part rocket. "

Zezdon Fentes smiled. "But that is all. We have brought you warning, andour plea. Can you help us?"

"We cannot answer that. The Interplanetary Council must act. But I amafraid that it will be all we can do to protect our own world if thisenemy attacks soon, and I fear they will. Since they have a base in thisuniverse, it is impossible to believe that all ships did not report backto the home world at stated intervals. That one is missing will soon bediscovered, and it will be sought. War will start at once. Three monthsit took you to reach us--they should come soon. 

"Those men who left will be on their way back from the home world fromwhich they came. What do you call your planet, friend?"

"Ortol is our home, " replied Zezdon Inthel. 

"At any rate, I can only assure you that your world will be givenweapons that will permit your people to defend themselves and I will getyou to your home within twenty-four hours. Your ship--is it in thesystem?"

"It waits on the second satellite of the fourth planet, " replied ZezdonAfthen. 

"Signal them, and tell them to land where a beacon of intense light, alternating red and blue, reaches up from--this point on the map. " Arcotpointed out the spot in Vermont where their private lake and laboratorywere. 

He turned to the others, and in rapid-fire English, explained his plans. "We need the help of these people as much as they need ours. I thinkZezdon Fentes will stay here and help you. The others will go with us totheir world. There we shall have plenty of work to do, but on the way weare going to stop at Mars and pick up that valuable ship of theirs andmake a careful examination for possible new weapons, their system ofspeed-drive, and their regular space-drive. I'm willing to make a betright now, that I can guess both. Their regular drive is a moleculardrive with lead disintegration apparatus for the energy, cosmic rayabsorbers for the heating, and a drive much like ours. Their speed driveis a time distortion apparatus, I'll wager. Time distinction offers aneasy solution of speed. All speed is relative--relative to other bodies, but also to time-speed. But we'll see. 

"I'm going to hustle some workmen to installing the biggest spare powerboard I can get into the storerooms of the _Ancient Mariner_, and packin a ray-screen. It will be useful. Let's move. "

"Our ship, " said Zezdon Afthen, "will land in three of your hours. "

Chapter IV

THE FIRST MOVE

The Ortolians were standing on a low, green-clad hill. Below themstretched the green flank of the little rise, and beyond lay ridge afterridge of the broad, smooth carpet of the beautiful Vermont hills. 

"Man of Earth, " said Zezdon Afthen, turning at last to Wade, who stoodbehind him. "It took us three months of constant flight at a speedunthinkable, through space dotted with the titanic gems of the OuterDark, stars gleaming in red, and blue and orange, some titaniclighthouses of our course, others dim pinpoints of glowing color. It wasa scene of unspeakable grandeur, but it was so awesomely mighty in itsscope, one was afraid, and his soul shriveled within him as he looked atthose inconceivable masses floating forever alone in the silence of theinconceivable nothingness of eternal cold and eternal darkness. One wasawed, suppressed by their sheer magnitude. A magnificent spectacletruly, but one no man could love. 

"Now we are at rest on a tiny pinpoint of dust in a tiny bit of a tinycorner of an isolated universe, and the magnitude and stillness is gone. Only the chirpings of those strange birds as they seek rest in darkness, the soft gurgling of the little stream below, and the rustle ofcountless leaves, break the silence with a satisfying existence, whilethe loneliness of that great star, your sun, is lost in its tintings ofsoft color, the fleeciness of the clouds, and the seeming companionshipof green hills. 

"The beauty of boundless space is awe-inspiring in its magnitude. Thebeauty of Earth is something man can love. 

"Man of Earth, you have a home that you may well fight for with all thestrength of your arms, all the forces of your brain, and all theenergies of Space that you can call forth to aid you. It is a wondrousworld. " Silently he stood in the gathering dusk, as first Venus winkedinto being, then one by one the stars came into existence in thedeepening color of the sky. 

"Space is awesomely wonderful; this is--lovable. " He gazed long at theheavens of this world so strange, so beautiful to him, looking at theunfamiliar heavens, as star after star flashed into the constellationsso familiar to terrestrians and to those Venerians who had been abovethe clouds of Venus' eternal shroud. 

"But somewhere off there in space are other races, and far beyond thepower of our eyes to see is the star that is the sun of my world, andaround it circles that little globe that is home to me. What ishappening there now? Does it still exist? Are there people still livingon it? Oh, Man of Earth, let us reach that world quickly, you cannotguess the pangs that attack me, for if it be destroyed, think--forever Iam without home--without friends I knew. However kind your people may beto me, I would be forever lonely. 

"I will not think of that--only it is time your ship was ready, is itnot?"

"I think we had better return, " replied Wade softly, his English wordsrousing thoughts in his mind intelligible to the Ortolians. 

The three rose in the air on the molecular suits and drove quickly downtoward the blue gem of the lake to the east, nestled among still othergreen hills. Lights were showing in the great shop, where the _AncientMariner_ was being fitted with the ray-shields, and all possibleweapons. Men streaming through her were hastily stocking her with vastquantities of foods, stocks of fuel, all the spare parts they could craminto her stock rooms. 

When the men arrived from the hilltop, the work was practically done, and Wade stepped up to Morey, busily checking off a list of requireditems. 

"Everything you ordered came through?" he asked. 

"Yes--thanks to the pull of a two-billion dollar private fortune. Whosays credit-units don't have their value? This expedition never wouldhave gotten through, if it hadn't been for that. 

"But we have the main space distortion power bank, and the new auxiliarycoils full. Ten tons of lead aboard for fuel. There's one thing we areafraid of. If the enemy have a system of tubes that is able to handlemore power than our last tube--we're sunk. These brilliant people thatsuggest using more tubes to a ray-power bank forget the last tube has tohandle the entire output of all the others, and modulate it correctly. If the enemy has a better tube--it will be too bad for us. " Morey wasfrankly worried. 

"My end is all set, Morey. How soon will you be ready?" Arcot asked. 

"'Bout ten-fifteen minutes. " Morey lit a cigarette and watched as thelast of the stuff was carried aboard. 

At last they were ready. The _Ancient Mariner_, originally built forintergalactic exploration, was kept in working condition. New apparatushad been incorporated in it, as their research had led to improvements, and it was constantly in condition, ready for a trip. Many explorationtrips to the nearer stars had already been made. 

The ship was backed out from the hangar now, and rested on the greatsmooth landing field, its tremendous quarter million ton mass of lux andrelux sinking a great, smooth depression in the turf of the field. Theywere waiting now for the arrival of the Ortolian ship. Zezdon Afthenassured them it would be there in a few minutes. 

High in the sky, came the whining whistle of an approaching ship, comingat terrific velocity. It came nearer the field, darting toward theground at an unheard of speed, flashing down at a speed of well overthree thousand miles an hour, and, only in the last fifty feet slowedwith a sickening deceleration. Even so it landed with a crash of fullytwo hundred miles of speed. Arcot gasped at the terrible landing thepilot had made, fully expecting to see the great hull dent somewhat, even though made of solid relux. And certainly the jar would kill everyman on board. Yet the hull did not seem harmed by the crash, and eventhe ground under the ship was but slightly disturbed, though, at adistance of some thirty feet, the entire block of soil was crushed, andcracked by the terrific impact of hundreds of thousands of tons strikingwith terrific energy. 

"Lord, it's a wonder they didn't kill themselves. I never saw such arotten landing, " exclaimed Morey with disgust. 

"Don't be too sure. I think they landed gently, and at very low speed. Notice how little the soil directly under them was dented?" repliedArcot, walking forward. "They have time control, as I suspected. Askthem. They drifted in gently. Their time rate was speeded uptremendously, so that what was hundreds of miles per hour to us was feetper minute to them. But come on, get the handlers to bring that junk upto the door--they are coming out. "

One of the tall, kindly-faced canine people was standing in the doorwaynow, the white light streaming out around him into the night, casting agrotesque shadow on the landing field, for all the flood lights bathingin it. 

Zezdon Afthen came up and spoke quickly to the man evidently in commandof the ship. The entire party went into the ship, and the cream of theirlaboratory instruments was brought in. 

For hours Arcot, Morey and Wade worked at the apparatus in the ship, measuring, calculating, following electrical and magnetic and sheerforce hook-ups of staggering complexity. They were not trying to findthe exact method of construction, only the principles involved, so thatthey could perform calculations of their own, and duplicate the resultsof the enemy. Thus they would be far more thoroughly familiar with themachinery when done. 

Little attention was paid to the actual driving plant, for it was amolecular drive with the same type of lead-fuel burner they used intheir own ship. The tubes of the power bank were, however, a puzzle tothem. They were made of relux, so that it was impossible to see theinterior of the tube. To open one was to destroy it, but calculationsmade from readings of their instruments showed that they were moreefficient, and could readily carry nearly half again the load that thebest terrestrian tubes could sustain. This meant the enemy could sendheavier rays and heavier ray screens. 

But finally they returned to the _Ancient Mariner_, and as the Ortolianship whined its way out to space, the _Ancient Mariner_ started, risingfaster and faster through the atmosphere till it was in the night ofspace. Then the molecular power was shut off. The ship suddenly seemedto writhe, space was black and starless about them, then sparklingweirdly distorted stars, all before them. They were moving already. Almost before the Ortolians fully realized what was happening, a dozenstars had swung past the ship, driving on now at better than five lightyears in every second. At this speed, approximately fourteen hours wouldbe needed to reach Ortol. 

"Now, Arcot, perhaps you will explain to me the secret of this ship, "said Zezdon Afthen at last, turning from the great lux pilot's window, to Arcot seated in the pilot's chair. "I know that only the broadestprinciples will be intelligible to me, for I could not understand thatship we captured, after almost four months of study. Yet it creptthrough space compared with this ship. Certainly no ship couldoutdistance this in a race!"

"As a matter of fact--watch!" Arcot pushed a little metal button along aslide to the extreme end. Again the ship seemed to writhe. Space was nolonger black, but faintly gray, and beside them, on either side, floatedtwo exact replicas of their ship! Zezdon Afthen stared. But in anothermoment, both were gone, and space was black, yet in but a few moments agrayness was showing, and light was appearing from all about, growinggradually in intensity. For three seconds Arcot continued thus, then hepulled the metal button down the slide, and flicked over another that hehad pulled to cause the second change. The stars were again before them, their colors changed beyond all recognition at that speed. But theorientation of the stars behind them had been familiar. Now an entirelydifferent set of constellation showed. 

"I merely opened the ship out to her maximum speed for a moment. I wasable to see any large star 2000 light years in our path, and there werenone. Small stars do not bother us as I will explain. When I put on fullpower of the main power coils, I drove the ship up to a speed of 30light years a second. When I turned in the full power of the auxiliarycoils as well I doubled the power, and the speed was multiplied byeight. The result was that in the four seconds of racing, we madeapproximately 1000 light years!"

Zezdon Afthen gasped. "Two hundred and forty light years _per second_"!He paused in bewilderment. "Suppose we had struck a small sun, a darkstar, even a meteor at that speed? What would have been the result?"

Arcot smiled. "The chances are excellent that we plowed through morethan one meteor, more than one dark star, and more than one small sun. 

"But this is the secret: the ship attains the speed only by going out ofspace. _Nothing in space can attain the speed of light, save radiation. _Nothing in normal space. But, we alter space, make space along patternswe choose, and so distort it that the natural speed of radiation isenormously greater. In fact, we so change space that nothing can go_slower_ than a speed we fix. 

"Morey--show Afthen the coils, and explain it all to him. I've got tostay here. "

Morey rose, and diving through the weightless ship, went down to thepower room, Zezdon Afthen following. Here, giant pots five feet highwere in close packed rows. The "pots" contained specially designed coilsstoring tremendous energy, the energy of four tons of disintegratedlead, in the only form that energy may be stored, as a strain, ordistortion in space. These charged coils distorted only the space withinthemselves, making a closed field entirely within themselves. But in theexact gravitational center of the quarter of a million ton ship was asingle high coil of different design that distorted space around it aswell as the space within it. This, as Morey explained, was the controlthat altered the constants of space to suit. The coils were charged, andthe energy stored. Their energy could be pumped into the big coil, andthen, when the ship slowed to normal space, could be pumped back tothem. The pumping energy, as well as any further energy needed forrecharging the coils could be supplied by three huge power generators. 

"These energy-producers, " Morey explained, "work on a principle knownfor hundreds of years on Earth. Lead, when reduced to a temperatureapproaching absolute zero as closely as, for instance, liquid helium, has _no_ electrical resistance. In other words, no matter how great acurrent is sent through it, there is no resistance, and no heat isproduced to raise the temperature. What we do is to send a powerfulcurrent through a lead wire. The wire has a current density so huge thatthe atoms are destroyed, and the protons and electrons coalesce intopure radiant energy. Relux, under the influence of a magnetic field, converts this directly into electrical potential. Electricity we canconvert to the spatial strain in the power coils, and thus the ship isdriven. " Morey pointed out the huge molecular power cylinder overhead, where the main power drive was located in the inertial center of theship, or as near as the great space coil would permit. 

The smaller power units for vertical lift, and for steering, were in theside walls, hidden under heavy walls of relux. 

"The projectors for throwing molecular and heat rays are on the outsideof course. Both of these projectors are protected. The walls of the shipare made of an outer wall of heavy lux metal, a vacuum between, and aninner wall of heavy relux. The lux is stronger than relux, and istherefore used for an outer shell. The inner shell of relux will reflectany dangerous rays and serve to hold the heat in the ship, since aperfect reflector is a perfect non-radiator. The vacuum wall is toprotect the occupants of the ship against any undue heat. If we shouldget within the atmosphere of a sun, it would be disastrous if thephysical conduction of heat were permitted, for though the relux willturn out any radiated heat, it is a conductor of heat, and we wouldroast almost instantly. These artificial metals are both absolutelyinfusible and non-volatile. The ship has actually been in the limb of astar tremendously hotter than your sun or mine. 

"Now you see why it is we need not fear a collision with a small sun, meteor or such like. Since we are in our own, artificial space, we arealone, and there is nothing in space to run into. But, if we enter ahuge sun, the terrific gravitational field of the mass of matter wouldbe enough to pull the energy of our coil away from us. That actuallyhappened the time we made our first intergalactic exploration. But it isalmost impossible to fall into a large star--they are too brilliant. Wewon't be worrying about it, " grinned Morey. 

"But how did the ship we captured operate?" asked Zezdon Afthen. 

"It was a very ingenious system, very closely related to ours, really. 

"We distort space and change the velocity characteristics; in otherwords, we distort the rate of motion through distance characteristics ofnormal space. The Thessian ships work on the principle of distorting therate of progress through time instead of through space. 

"_Velocity_ is really 'units of travel through space per unit of travelthrough time. ' Now if we make the time unit twice as great, and theunits traveled through space are not changed, the _velocity_ is twice asgreat. That is, if we are moving five light years per second, make thesecond twice as long and we are moving ten light years perdouble-second. Make it ten thousand times as long, and we are travelingfifty thousand light years per ten-thousand-seconds. This is theprinciple--but there is a drawback. We might increase the velocity byslowing time passage, that is, if it takes me a year for one heartbeat, two years to raise my arm thus, and six months to turn, my head, if allmy body processes are slowed down in this way, I will be able to live atremendous length of time, and though it takes me two hundred years togo from one star to another, so low is my time rate that the two hundredyears will seem but a few minutes. I can then make a trip to a distantstar--one five light years distant, let us say, in three minutes to me. I then will say, looking at my chronometer (which has been similarlyslowed) 'I have gone five light years in three minutes, or five thirdslight years per minute. I have exceeded the speed of light. '

"But people back on Earth would say, he has taken two hundred years togo five light years, therefore he has gone at a speed one fortieth ofthat of light, which would be true--for their time rate. 

"But suppose I can also speed up time. That is, I can live a year in aminute or two. Then everyone else will be exceedingly slow. The idealthing would be to combine these two effects, arranging that space aboutyour ship will have a very rapid time rate, ten thousand times that ofnormal space. Then the speed of radiation through that space will be1, 860, 000, 000 miles per second, and a speed of 1, 000, 000, 000 miles persecond would be possible, but still you, too, will be affected, so thatthough the people back home will say you are going far faster thanlight, you will say 'No, I am going only 100, 000 miles per second. '

"But now imagine that your ship and surrounding space for one mile is ata time rate 10, 000 times normal, and you, in a space of one hundred feetwithin your ship, are affected by a time rate 1/10, 000 that, or normal, due to a second, reversing field. The two fields will not fight, or bemutually antagonistic; they will merely compound their effects. Result:you will agree that you are exceeding the speed of light!

"Do you understand? That is the principle on which your ship operated. There were two time-fields, overlapping time-fields. Remember theterrible speed with which your ship landed, and yet there was noappreciable jar according to the men? The answer of course was, thattheir time rate had been speeded enough, due to the fact that one fieldhad been completely shut off, the other had not. 

"That is the principle. The system is so complex, naturally, that wehave not yet learned the actual method of working the process. We mustdo a great deal of mathematical and physical research. 

"Wish we had it done--we could use it now, " mused the terrestrian. 

"We have some other weapons, none as important, of course, as themolecular ray and the heat ray. Or none that have been. But, if theenemy have ray shields, then perhaps these others also will beimportant. There are molecular motion guns, metal tubes, with moleculardirector apparatus at one end. A metal shell is pulling the power turnedon, and the shell leaps out at a speed of about ten miles persecond--since it has been super-heated--and is very accurately aimed, asthere is no terrific shock of recoil to be taken up by the gun. 

"But a more effective weapon, if these men are as I expect them to be, will be a peculiarly effective magnetic field concentrator device, whichwill project a magnetic field as a beam for a mile or more. How usefulit will be--I don't know. We don't know what the enemy will turn against_us_!"

Chapter V

ORTOL

After Morey's explanation of the ship was completed, Wade took Arcot'splace at the controls, while Morey and Arcot retired to the calculatingroom to do some of the needed mathematics on the time-fieldinvestigation. 

Their work continued here, while the Ortolians prepared a meal andbrought it to them, and to Wade. When at last the sun of Ortol wasgrowing before them, Arcot took over controls from Wade once more. Slowing their speed to less than fifty times that of light, they droveon. The attraction of the giant sun was draining the energy from thecoils so rapidly now, that at last Arcot was forced to get into normalspace, while the planet was still close to a million miles from them. Morey was showing the Ortolians the operation of the telectroscope andhad it trained now on the rapidly approaching planet. The planet waseasily enlarged to a point where the features of continents werevisible. The magnification was increased till cities were no longerblurs, but truly cities. 

Suddenly, as city after city was brought under the action of themachine, the Ortolians recognizing them with glad exclamations, oneswept into view--and as they watched, it leapt into the air, a vastcolumn of dust, then twisting, whirling, it fell back in utter, chaoticruin. 

Zezdon Fentes staggered back from the screen in horror. 

"Arcot--drive down--increase your speed--the Thessians are there alreadyand have destroyed one city, " called Morey sharply. The men securedthemselves with heavy belts, as the deep toned hum of the warning echoedthrough the ship. A moment later they staggered under an acceleration offour gravities. Space was dark for the barest instant of time, and thenthere was the scream of atmosphere as the ship rocketed through the airof the planet at nearly fifteen hundred miles per second. The outer wallwas blazing in incandescence in a moment, and the heavy relux screensseemed to leap into place over the windows as the blasting heat, radiated from the incandescent walls flooded in. The millions of tonspressure of the air on the nose of the ship would have brought it to astop in an instant, and had it not been that the molecular drive was onat full power, driving the ship against the air resistance, and stilllosing. The ship slowed swiftly, but was shrieking toward the destroyedcity at terrific speed. 

"Hesthis--to the--right and ahead. That would be their next attack, "said the Ortolian. Arcot altered the ship's course, and they shot towardthe distance city of Hesthis. They were slowing perceptibly, and yet, though the city was half around the world, they reached it in half aminute. Now Arcot's wizardry at the controls came into play, for byaltering his space field constants, he succeeded in reaching a conditionthat slowed the ship almost instantly to a speed of but a mile a second, yet without apparent deceleration. 

High in the white Ortolian sky was a shining point bearing down on thenow-visible city. Arcot slanted toward it, and the approaching ship grewlike an expanding rubber balloon. 

A ray of intense, blindingly brilliant light flashed out, and a gout oflight appeared in the center of the city. A huge flame, bright blue, shot heavenward in roaring heat. 

Seeing that a strange ship had arrived was enough for the Thessians, andthey turned, and drove at Arcot instantly. The Thessian ship was builtfor a heavy world, and for heavy acceleration in consequence, and, asthey had found from the captured ship, it was stronger than the _AncientMariner_. Now the Thessians were driving at Arcot with an accelerationand speed that convinced him dodging was useless. Suddenly space wasblack around them, the sunlit world was gone. 

"Wonder what they thought of _that_!" grinned Arcot. Wade smiled grimly. 

"It's not what they thought, but what they'll do, that counts. "

Arcot came back to normal space, just in time to see the Thessian shipspin in a quick turn, under an acceleration that would have crushed ahuman to a pulp. Again the pilot dived at the terrestrian ship. Again itvanished. Twice more he tried these fruitless tactics, seeing the shiploom before him--bracing for the crash--then it was goneinstantaneously, and though he sailed through the spot he knew it tohave occupied, it was not there. Yet an instant later, as he turned, itwas floating, unharmed, exactly where his ship had passed!

Rushing was useless. He stood, and prepared to give battle. A molecularray reached out--and disappeared in flaring ions on a shield utterlyimpenetrable in the ionizing atmosphere. 

Arcot meanwhile watched the instrument of his shield. The Thessianshield would have been impenetrable, but his shield, fed by lessefficient tubes, was not, and he knew it. Already the terrific energy ofthe Thessian ray was noticeably heating the copper plates of the tube. The seal would break soon. 

Another ray reached out, a ray of flaring light. Arcot, watching throughthe "eyes" of his telectroscope viewplates, saw it for but an instant, then the "eyes" were blasted, and the screen went blank. 

"He won't do anything with that but burn out eyes, " muttered theterrestrian. He pushed a small button when his instruments told him therays were off. Another scanner came into action, and the viewplate wasalive again. 

Arcot shot out a cosmic ray himself, and swept the Thessian with itthoroughly. For the instant he needed the enemy ship was blinded. Immediately the _Ancient Mariner_ dove, and the automatic ray-finderscould no longer hold the rays on his ship. As soon as he was out of thedeadly molecular ray he shut off his screen, and turned on all hismolecular rays. The Thessian ship, their own ray on, had been unable toput up their screen, as Arcot was unable to use his ray with the enemy'sray forcing him to cover with a shield. 

Almost at once the relux covering of the Thessian ship shone withcharacteristic iridescence as it changed swiftly to lux metal. Themolecular ray blinked out, and a ray screen flashed out instead. TheThessians were covering up. Their own rays were useless now. ThoughArcot could not hope to destroy their ray shield, they could no longerattack his, for their rays were useless, and already they had lost somuch of the protective relux, that they would not be so foolhardy as torisk a second attack of the ray. 

Arcot continued to bathe the ship in energy, keeping their "eyes"closed. As long as he could hold his barrage on them, they would notdamage him. 

"Morey--get into the power room, strap onto the board. Throw all thepower-coil banks into the magnets. I may burn them out, but I havehopes--" Arcot already had the generators going full power, charging thepower coils. 

Morey dived. Almost simultaneously the Thessians succeeded in themaneuver they had been attempting for some time. There were a dozen raysflaring wildly from the ship, searching blindly over the sky and ground, hoping to stumble on the enemy ship, while their own ship dived andtwisted. Arcot was busily dodging the sweeping rays, but finally one hithis viewplates, and his own ship was blind. Instantly he threw the rayscreen out, cutting off his own molecular ray. His own cosmics he setrotating in cones that covered the three dimensions--save below, wherethe city lay. Immediately the Thessian had retreated to this one segmentwhere Arcot did not dare throw his own rays. The Thessian cosmicscontinued to make his relux screens necessary, and his ship remainedblind. 

His ray screen was showing signs of weakening. The Thessians got a thirdray into position for operation, and opened up. Almost at once the tubesheated terrifically. In an instant they would give way. Arcot threw hisship into space, and let the tubes cool under the water jacket. Moreyreported the coils ready as soon as he came out of space. 

Arcot cut in the new set of eyes, and put up his molecular ray screenagain. Then he cut the energy back to the coils. 

Half a mile below the enemy ship was vainly scurrying around an emptysky. Wade laughed at the strange resemblance to a puppy chasing itstail. The _Ancient Mariner_ was utterly lost to them. 

"Well, here goes the last trick, " said Arcot grimly. "If this doesn'twork, they'll probably win, for their tubes are better than ours, andthey can maneuver faster. By win I mean force us to let them attackOrtol. They can't really attack us; artificial space is a perfectdefense. "

Arcot's molecular ray apprized the Thessians of his presence. Theirscreen flared up once more. Arcot was driving straight toward their shipas they turned. He snapped the relux screens in front of his eyes aninstant before the enemy cosmics reached his ship. Immediately the thudof four heavy relays rang through the ship. The quarter of a million tonship leaped forward under a terrific acceleration, and then, as the fourrelays cut out again, the acceleration was gone. The screen regainedlife as Arcot opened the shutters. Before them, still directly in theirpath, was the huge Thessian ship. But now its screen was down, the reluxiridescent in decomposition. It was falling, helplessly falling to therocky plateau seven miles below. Its rays reached out even yet--andagain the _Ancient Mariner_ staggered under the terrific pull of someacceleration. The Thessian ship lurched upward, and a terrificconcussion came, and the entire neighborhood of that projectordisappeared in a flash of radiation. 

Arcot drove the _Ancient Mariner_ down beneath the Thessian ship in itslong fall, and with a powerful molecular beam ripped a mighty chasm inthe deserted plateau. The Thessian ship fell into a quarter mile rift inthe solid rock, smashing its way through falling débris. A moment laterit was buried beneath a quarter mile of broken rock as Arcot swept amolecular beam about with the grace of a mine foreman filling breaks. 

An instant later, a heat ray followed the molecular in dazzlingbrilliance. A terrific gout of light appeared in the barren rocks. Inten minutes the plateau was a white hot cauldron of molten rocks, glowing now against a darkening sky. Night was falling. 

"That ship, " said Arcot with an air of finality, "will never riseagain. "

Chapter VI

THE SECOND MOVE

"What happened to him, though?" asked Wade, bewildered. "I haven't yetfigured it out. He went down in a heap, and he didn't have any power. Ofcourse, if he had his power he could have pulled out again. He couldjust melt and burn all the excess rock off, and he would be all set. Buthis rays all went dead. And why the explosion?"

"The magnetic beam is the answer. In our boat we have everythingmagnetically shielded, because of the enormous magnetic flux set up bythe current flowing from the storage coils to the main coil. But--withso many wires heavily charged with current, what would have happened ifthey had not been shielded?

"If a current cuts across a magnetic field, a side thrust is developed. What do you suppose happened when the terrific magnetic field of thebeam and the currents in the wires of their power-board were mutuallyopposed?"

"Lord, it must have ripped away everything in the ship. It'd tear looseeven the lighting wires!" gasped Wade in amazement. 

"But if all the power of the ship was destroyed in this way, how was itthat one of their rays was operating as they fell?" asked Zezdon Afthen. 

"Each ray is a power plant in itself, " explained Arcot, "and so it wasable to function. I do not know the cause of the explosion, though itmight well have been that they had light-bombs such as the Kaxorians ofVenus have, " he added, thoughtfully. 

They landed, at Zezdon's advice, in the city that their arrival had beenable to save. This was Ortol's largest city, and their industrialcapital. Here, too, was the University at which Afthen taught. 

They landed, and Arcot, Morey and Wade, with the aid of Zezdon Afthenand Zezdon Fentes worked steadily for two of their days of fifty hourseach, teaching men how to make and use the molecular ships, and the raysand screens, heat beams, and relux. But Arcot promised that when hereturned he would have some weapon that would bring them certain andeasy salvation. In the meantime other terrestrians would follow him. 

They left the morning of their third day on the planet. A huge crowd hadcome to cheer them on their way as they left, but it was the "silentcheer" of Ortol, a telepathic well-wishing. 

"Now, " said Arcot as their ship left the planet behind, "we will have tomake the next move. It certainly looks as though that next move would beto the still-unknown race that lives on world 3769-37, 478, 326, 894-6. Evidently we will have to have some weapon they haven't, and I thinkthat I know what it will be. Thanks to our trip out to the Islands ofSpace. "

"Shall we go?"

"I think it would be wise, " agreed Morey. 

"And I, " said Wade. The Ortolians agreed, and so, with the aid of thephotographic copies of the Thessian charts that Arcot had made, theystarted for world 3769-37, 478, 326, 894-6. 

"It will take approximately twenty-two hours, and as we have beenputting off our sleep with drugs, I think that we had better catch up. Wade, I wish you'd take the ship again, while Morey and I do a littleconcentrated sleeping. We have by no means finished that calculation, and I'd very much like to. We'll relieve you in five hours. "

Wade took the ship, and following the course Arcot laid out, they spedthrough the void at the greatest safe speed. Wade had only to watch theview-screen carefully, and if a star showed as growing rapidly, it wasproof that they were near, and nearing rapidly. If large, a touch of aswitch, and they dodged to one side, if small, they were suddenlyplunged into an instant of unbelievable radiation as they swept throughit, in a different space, yet linked to it by radiation, not light, thatwere permitted in. 

Zezdon Afthen had elected to stay with him, which gave him anopportunity he had been waiting for. "If it's none of my business, justsay so, " he began. "But that first city we saw the Thessians destroy--itwas Zezdon Fentes' home, wasn't it? Did he have a family?"

The words seemed blunt as he said them, but there was no way out, oncehe had started. And Zezdon Afthen took the question with complete calm. 

"Fentes had both wives and children, " he said quietly. "His loss wasgreat. "

Wade concentrated on the screen for a moment, trying to absorb theshock. Then, fearing Zezdon Afthen might misinterpret his silence, heplunged on. "I'm sorry, " he said. "I didn't realize you werepolygamous--most people on Earth aren't, but some groups are. It'sprobably a good way to improve the race. But . . . Blast it, what bothersme is that Zezdon Fentes seemed to recover from the blow so quickly!From a canine race, I'd expect more affection, more loyalty, more. . . . "

He stopped in dismay. But Zezdon Afthen remained unperturbed. "Moreunconcealed emotion?" he asked. "No. Affection and loyalty we have--they_are_ characteristic of our race. But affection and loyalty should notbe uselessly applied. To _forget_ dead wives and children--that would beinsulting to their memory. But to mourn them with senseless loss ofhealth and balance would also be insulting--not only to their memory, but to the entire race. 

"No, we have a better way. Fentes, my very good friend, has notforgotten, no more than you have forgotten the death of your mother, whom you loved. But you no longer mourn her death with a fear and horrorof that natural thing, the Eternal Sleep. Time has softened the pain. 

"If we can do the same in five minutes instead of five years, is it notbetter? That is why Fentes has _forgotten_". 

"Then you have aged his memory of that event?" asked Wade in surprise. 

"That is one way of stating it, " replied Zezdon Afthen seriously. 

Wade was silent for a while, absorbing this. But he could not containhis curiosity completely. _Well, to hell with it_, he decided. _Conventional manners and tact don't have much meaning between twodifferent races_. "Are you--married?" he asked. 

"Only three times, " Zezdon Afthen told him blandly. "And to forestallyour next question--no, our system does not create problems. At least, not those you're thinking of. I know my wives have never had the jealousquarrels I see in your mind pictures. "

"It isn't safe thinking things around you, " laughed Wade. "Just thesame, all of this has made me even more interested in the 'AncientMasters' you keep mentioning. Who were they?"

"The Ancient Ones, " began Zezdon Afthen slowly, "were men such as youare. They descended from a primeval omnivorous mammal very closelyrelated to your race. Evidently the tendency of evolution on any planetis approximately the same with given conditions. 

"The race existed as a distinct branch for approximately 1, 500, 000 ofyour years before any noticeable culture was developed. Then it existedfor a total of 1, 525, 000 years before extinction. With culture andlearning they developed such marvelous means of killing themselves thatin twenty-five thousand years they succeeded perfectly. Ten thousandyears of barbaric culture--I need not relate it to you, five thousandyears of the medieval culture, then five thousand years of developedscience culture. 

"They learned to fly through space and nearly populated three worlds;two were fully populated, one was still under colonization when thegreat war broke out. An interplanetary war is not a long drawn outstruggle. The science of any people so far advanced as to haveinterplanetary lines is too far developed to permit any long duration ofwar. Selto declared war, and made the first move. They attacked anddestroyed the largest city of Ortol of that time. Ortolian ships drovethem off, and in turn attacked Selto's largest city. Twenty millionintelligences, twenty million lives, each with its aims, its hopes, itsloves and its strivings--gone in four days. 

"The war continued to get more and more hateful, till it became evidentthat neither side would be pacified till the other was totallysubjugated. So each laid his plans, and laid them to wipe out the entireworld of the other. 

"Ortol developed a ray of light that made things not happen, " explainedZezdon Afthen, his confused thoughts clearly indicating his ownuncertainty. 

"'A ray of light that made things not happen, '" repeated Wade curiously. "A ray, which prevented things, which caused processes to stop--_TheNegrian Death Ray_!" he exclaimed as he suddenly recognized, in thiscrude and garbled description of its powers, the Negrian ray ofanti-catalysis, a ray which tended to stop the processes of life'schemistry and bring instant, painless death. 

"Ah, you know it, too?" asked the Ortolian eagerly. "Then you willunderstand what happened. The ray was turned first on Selto, and as thewhirling planet spun under it, every square foot of it was wiped cleanof every living thing, from gigantic Welsthan to microscopic Ascoptel, and every man, woman and child was killed, painlessly, but instantly. 

"Then Thenten spun under it, and all were killed, but many who had fledthe planets were still safe--many?--a few thousand. 

"The day that Thenten spun under that ray, men of Ortol began tocomplain of disease--men by the thousands, hundreds of thousands. Everyman, every woman, every child was afflicted in some way. The diseasesdid not seem all the same. Some seemingly died of a disease of thelungs, some went insane, some were paralyzed, and lay helplesslyinactive. But most of them were afflicted, for it was exceedinglyvirulent, and the normal serums were helpless. Before any quantity ofnew serum was made, all but a slender remnant had died, either ofstarvation through paralysis, none being left to care for them, or fromthe disease itself, while thousands who had gone mad were painlesslykilled. 

"The Seltonians came to Ortol, and the remaining Ortolians, with theiraid, tried to rebuild the civilization. But what a sorry thing! Thecities were gigantic, stinking, plague-ridden morgues. And the plaguebroke among those few remaining people. The Ortolians had doneeverything in their power with the serums--but too late. The Seltonianshad been protected with it on landing--but even that was not enough. Again the wild fires of that loathsome disease broke out. 

"Since first those men had developed from their hairy forebears, theyhad found their eternal friends were the dogs, and to them they turnedin their last extremity, breeding them for intelligence, hairlessness, and resemblance to themselves. The Deathless ones alone remained afterthree generations of my people, but with the aid of certain rays, therays capable of penetrating lead for a short distance, and most othersubstances for considerable distances. " X-rays, thought Wade. "Greatchanges had been wrought. Already they had developed startlingintelligence, and were able to understand the scheme of their Masters. Their feet and hands were being modified rapidly, and their vocalapparatus was changing. Their jaws shortened, their chins developed, thenose retreated. 

"Generation after generation the process went on, while the DeathlessAncient Ones worked with their helpers, for soon my race was a realhelping organization. 

"But it was done. The successful arousing of true love-emotion followed, and the unhappy days were gone. Quickly development followed. In fivethousand years the new race had outstripped the Ancient Masters, andthey passed, voluntarily, willingly joining in oblivion the millions whohad died before. 

"Since then our own race has risen, it has been but a short thousandyears, a thousand years of work, and hope, and continuous improvementfor us, continual accomplishment on which we can look, and a living hopeto which we could look with raised heads, and smiling faces. 

"Then our hope died, as this menace came. Do you see what you and yourworld was meant to us, Man of Earth?" Zezdon Afthen raised his dark eyesto the terrestrian with a look in their depths that made Wadeinvoluntarily resolve that Thet and all Thessians should be promptlyconsigned to that limbo of forgotten things where they belonged. 

Chapter VII

WORLD 3769-37, 478, 326, 894, 6, TALSO

Wade sat staring moodily at the screen for some time, while ZezdonAfthen, sunk in his own reveries, continued. 

"Our race was too highly psychic, and too little mechanically curious. We learned too little of the world about, and too much of our ownprocesses. We are a peaceful race, for, while you and the AncientMasters learned the rule of existence in a world of strife, where onlythe fittest, the best fighters survived, we learned life in a carefullytended world, where the Ancient Masters taught us to live, where the onewhose social instincts were best developed, where he who would most helpthe others, and the race, was permitted to live. Is it not natural thatour race will not fight among themselves? We are careful to suppresstendencies toward criminality and struggle. The criminal and the maniac, or those who are permanently incurable as determined by carefulexamination, are 'removed' as the Leaders put it. Lethal gas. 

"At any rate, we know so pitiably little of natural science. We werehopelessly helpless against an attacking science. "

"I promise you, Afthen, that if Earth survives, Ortol shall survive, forwe have given you all the weapons we know of and we will give yourpeople all the weapons we shall learn of. " Morey spoke from the doorway. Arcot was directly behind him. 

They talked for a short while, then Wade retired for some needed sleep, while Morey and Arcot started further work on the time fields. 

Hour after hour the ship sped on through the dark of space, weirdlydistorted, glowing spots of light before them, wheeling suns that movedand flashed as their awesome speed whirled them on. 

They had to move slower soon, as the changing stars showed them near thespace-marks of certain locating suns. Finally, still moving close tofifteen thousand miles per second, they saw the sun they knew was sun3769-37, 478, -326, 894, twice as large as Sol, two and a half times asmassive and twenty-six times as brilliant. 

Thirteen major planets they counted as they searched the system withtheir powerful telectroscope, the outermost more than ten billion milesfrom the parent sun, while planet six, the one indicated by the worldnumber, was at a distance of five hundred million miles, nearly as farfrom the sun as Jupiter is from ours, yet the giant sun, giving morethan twenty-five times as much heat and light in the blue-white range, heated the planet to approximately the same temperature Earth enjoys. Spectroscopy showed that the atmosphere was well supplied with oxygen, and so the inhabitants were evidently oxygen-breathing men, unlike thoseof the Negrian people who live in an atmosphere of hydrogen. 

Arcot threw the ship toward the planet, and as it loomed swiftly larger, he shut off the space-control, and set the coils for full charge, whilethe ship entered the planet's atmosphere in a screaming dive, still at aspeed of better than a hundred miles a second. But this speed wasquickly damped as the ship shot high over broad oceans to the dull greenof land ahead in the daylit zone. Observations made from variousdistances by means of the space-control, thus going back in time, showthat the planet had a day of approximately forty hours, the diameter wasnearly nine thousand miles, which would probably mean an inconvenientlyhigh gravity for the terrestrians and a distressingly high gravity forthe Ortolians, used to their world even smaller than Earth, withscarcely 80 percent of Earth's gravity. 

Wade made some volumetric analysis of the atmosphere, and with the aidof a mouse, pronounced it "Q. A. R. " (quite all right) for human beings. It had not killed the mouse, so probably humans would find it quite allright. 

"We'll land at the first city that comes into view, " suggested Arcot. "Afthen, you be the spokesman; you have a very considerable ability withthe mental communication, and have a better understanding of the physicswe need to explain than has Zezdon Fentes. "

They were over land, a rocky coast that shot behind them as great jaggedmountains, tipped with snow, rose beneath. Suddenly, a shiningapparition appeared from behind one of the neighboring hills, and drovedown at them with an unearthly acceleration. Arcot moved just enough tododge the blow, and turned to meet the ship. Instantly, now that he hada good view of it he was certain it was a Thessian ship. Waiting nolonger to determine that it was not a ship of this world, he shot amolecular beam at it. The beam exploded into a coruscating panoply ofpyrotechnics on the Thessian shield. The Thessian replied with all beamshe had available, including an induction-beam, an intensely brilliantlight-beam, and several molecular cannons with shells loaded with anexplosive that was very evidently condensed light. This was noexploration ship, but a full-fledged battleship. 

The _Ancient Mariner_ was blinded instantly. None of the occupants werehurt, but the combined pressure of the various beams hurled the ship toone side. The induction beam alone was dangerous. It passed through theouter lux-metal wall unhindered, and the perfectly conducting relux wallabsorbed it, and turned it into power. At once, all the metal objects inthe ship began to heat up with terrific rapidity. Since there were nometallic conductors on the ship, no damage was done. 

Arcot immediately hid behind his perfect shield--the space-distortion. 

"That's no mild dose, " he said in a tense voice, working rapidly. "He'sa real-for-sure battleship. Better get down in the power room, Morey. "

In a few moments the ship was ready again. Opening the shield somewhat, Arcot was able to determine that no rays were being played on it, for noenergy fields disclosed as distorting the opened field, other than thefield of the sun and planet. 

Arcot opened it. The battleship was searching vainly about themountains, and was now some miles distant. His last view of Arcot's shiphad been a suddenly contracting ship, one that vanished in infinitedistance, the infinite distance of another space, though he did not knowit. 

Arcot turned three powerful heat beams on the Thessian ship, and drovedown toward it, accompanying them with molecular rays. The Thessianshield stopped the moleculars, but the heat had already destroyed theeyes of the ship. By some system of magnetic or electrostatic locatingdevices, the enemy guns and rays replied, and so successfully that Arcotwas again blinded. 

He had again been driving in a line straight toward the enemy, and nowhe threw in the entire power of his huge magnetic field-rays. Theinduction ray disappeared, and the heat, light and cannons stopped. 

"Worked again, " grinned Arcot. A new set of eyes was insertedautomatically, and the screen again lighted. The Thessian ship wasspinning end over end toward the ground. It landed with a tremendouscrash. Simultaneously from the rear of the _Ancient Mariner_ came aterrific crash, an explosion that drove the terrestrian ship forward, asthough a giant hand had pushed it from behind. 

The _Ancient Mariner_ spun like a top, facing the direction of theexplosion, though still traveling in the direction it had been pursuing, but backward now. Behind them the air was a gigantic pool of ionization. Tremendous fragments of what obviously had been a ship were driftingdown, turning end over end. And those fragments of the wall showed themto be fully four feet of solid relux. 

"Enemy got up behind somehow while the eyes were out, and was ready toraise merry hell. Somebody blew them up beautifully. Look at the grounddown there--it's red hot. That's from the radiated heat of our recentencounter. Heat rays reflected, light bombs turned off, heat escapingfrom ions--nice little workout--and it didn't seriously bother ourdefenses of two-inch relux. Now tell me: what will blow up four-footrelux?" asked Arcot, looking at the fragments. "It seems to me thosefellows don't need any help from us; they may decline it with thanks. "

"But they may be willing to help us, " replied Afthen, "and we certainlyneed such help. "

"I didn't expect to come out alive from that battleship there. It wasluck. If they knew what we had, they could insulate against it in anhour, " added Arcot. 

"Let's finish those fellows over there--look!" From the wreck of theship they had downed, a stream of men in glistening relux suits werefiling. Any men comparable to humans would have been killed by the fall, but not Thessians. They carried peculiar machines, and as they drove outof the ship in dive that looked as though they had been shot from acannon, they turned and landed on the ground and proceeded to jump back, leaping at a speed that was bewildering, seemingly impossible in anyliving creature. 

They busied themselves quickly. It took less than thirty seconds, andthey had a large relux disc laid under the entire group and machines. Arcot turned a molecular ray down. The rock and soil shot up all aboutthem, even the ship shot up, to fall back into the great pit its ray hadformed. But the ionization told of the ray shield over the little groupof men. A heat ray reached down, while the men still frantically workedat their stubby projectors. The relux disc now showed its purpose. In aninstant the soil about them was white hot, bubbling lava. It was liquid, boiling furiously. But the deep relux disc simply floated on it. Theenemy ship began sinking, and in a moment had fallen almost completelybeneath the white hot rock. 

A fountain of the melted lava sprung up, and under Arcot's skillfuldirection, fell in a cloud of molten rock on the men working. The suitsprotected, and the white hot stuff simply rolled off. But it was sinkingtheir boat. Arcot continued hopefully. 

Meanwhile a signaling machine was frantically calling for help andsending out information of their plight and position. 

Then all was instantly wiped out in a single terrific jolt of themagnetic beam. The machines jumped a little, despite their weight, andthe ray shield apparatus slumped suddenly in blazing white heat, theinterior mechanism fused. But the men were still active, and rapidlyspreading from the spot, each protected by a ray shield pack. 

A brilliant stab of molecular ray shot at each from either of two of the_Ancient Mariner'_s projectors as Morey aided Arcot. Their little packsflared brilliantly for an instant under the thousands of horsepower ofenergy lashing at the screen, then flashed away, and the opalescentrelux yielded a moment later, and the figure went twisting, hurtlingaway. Meanwhile Wade was busy with the magnetic apparatus, destroyingshield after shield, which either Arcot or Morey picked off. The fallfrom even so much as half a mile seemed not sufficient to seriouslybother these supermen, for an instant later they would be up tearingaway in great leaps on their own power as their molecular suits, blownout by the magnetic field, failed them. 

It was but a matter of minutes before the last had been chased downeither by the rays or the ship. Then, circling back, Arcot slowlysettled beside the enemy ship. 

"Wait, " called Arcot sharply as Morey started for the door. 

"Don't go out yet. The friends who wrecked that little sweetheart whocrept up behind will probably show up. Wait and see what happens. "Hardly had he spoken, when a strange apparition rose from behind a rockscarcely a quarter of a mile away. Immediately Arcot intensified thevision screen covering him. He seemed to leap near. There was one man, and he held what was obviously a sword by the blade, above his head, waving it from side to side. 

"There they are--whatever they are. Intelligent all right--what moreuniversally obvious peace sign than a primitive weapon such as a knifeheld in reverse position? You go with Zezdon Afthen. Try holding acarving knife by the blade. "

Morey grinned as he got into his power suit, on Wade's O. K. Of theatmosphere. "They may mistake me for the cook out looking for dinner, and I wouldn't risk my dignity that way. I'll take the baseball bat andhold it wrong way instead. "

Nevertheless, as he stepped from the ship, with Afthen close behind, heheld the long knife by the blade, and Afthen, very awkwardly operatinghis still rather unfamiliar power suit, followed. 

Into the intensely blue sunlight the men stepped. Their skin andclothing took on a peculiar tint under the strange sunlight. 

The single stranger was joined by a second, also holding a reversedweapon, and together they threw them down. Morey and Zezdon Afthenfollowed suit. The two parties advanced toward each other. 

The strangers advanced with a swift, light step, jumping from rock torock, while Morey and Afthen flew part way toward them. The men of thisworld were totally unlike any intelligent race Morey had conceived of. Their head and brain case was so small as to be almost animalish. Thenose was small and well formed, the ears more or less cup-shaped with aremarkable power of motion. Their eyes were seemingly huge, probably nolarger than a terrestrian's, though in the tiny head they werenecessarily closely placed, protected by heavy bony ridges that actuallyprojected from the skull to enclose them. Tiny, childlike chinscompleted the head, running down to a scrawny neck. 

They were short, scarcely five feet, yet evidently of tremendousstrength for their short, heavy arms, the muscle bulging plainly underthe tight rubber-like composition garments, and the short legs whosestocky girth proclaimed equal strength were members of a body in keepingwith them. The deep, broad chest, wide, square shoulders, heavy broadhips, combined with the tiny head seemed to indicate a perfectincarnation of brainless, brute strength. 

"Strangers from another planet, enemies of our enemies. What brings youhere at this time of troubles?" The thoughts came clearly from thestocky individual before them. 

"We seek to aid, and to find aid. The menace that you face, attacks notalone your world, but all this star cluster, " replied Zezdon Afthensteadily. 

The stranger shook his head with an evident expression of hopelessness. "The menace is even greater than we feared. It was just fortune thatpermitted us to have our weapon in workable condition at the time yourship was attacked. It will be a day before the machine will again becapable of successful operation. When in condition for use, it isinvincible, but--one blow in thirty hours--you can see we are not ofgreat aid. " He shrugged. 

An enemy with evident resources of tremendous power, deadly, unknownrays that wiped out entire cities with a single brief sweep--and nodefense save this single weapon, good but once a day! Morey could readthe utter despair of the man. 

"What is the difficulty?" asked Morey eagerly. 

"Power, lack of power. Our cities are going without power, while everyelectric generator on the planet is pouring its output into theaccumulators that work these damnable, hopeless things. Invincible withpower--helpless without. "

"Ah!" Morey's face shone with delight--invincible weapon--with power. And the _Ancient Mariner_ could generate unthinkable power. 

"What power source do you use--how do you generate your power?"

"Combining oxidizing agent with reducing agents releases heat. Heat usedto boil liquid and the vapor runs turbines. "

"We can give you power. What wattage have you available?"

Only Morey's thoughts had to translate "watts" to "How many man-weightscan you lift through your height per time interval, equal to this. " Hegave the man some impression of a second, by counting. The man figuredrapidly. His answer indicated that approximately a total of two billionkilowatts were available. 

"Then the weapon is invincible hereafter, if what you say is true. Ourship alone can easily generate ten thousand times that power. 

"Come, get in the ship, accompany us to your capital. "

The men turned, and retreated to their position behind the rocks, whileMorey and Zezdon Afthen waited for them. Soon they returned, and enteredthe ship. 

"Our world, " explained the leader rapidly, "is a single unified colony. The capital is 'Shesto, ' our world we call 'Talso. '" His directions wereexplicit, and Arcot started for Shesto, on Talso. 

Chapter VIII

UNDEFEATABLE OR UNCONTROLLABLE?

Fifteen minutes after they started, they came to Shesto. They wereforced to land, and explain, for their relux ship was decidedly not thepopular Talsonian idea of a life-saver. 

Shesto was defended by two of the machines, and each machine had beenequipped with two fully charged accumulators. Their four possible shotswere hoped to be sufficient protection, and, so far, had been. The cityhad been attacked twice, according to Tho Stan Drel, the Talsonian: onceby a single ship which had been instantly destroyed, and once by a fleetof six ships. The interval had permitted time to recharge the dischargedaccumulator, and the fleet had been badly treated. Of the six ships, four had been brought down in rapid succession, and the remaining twoships had fled. 

When the first city had been wiped out, with a loss of life well in thehundreds of thousands, the other cities had, to limit of theirabilities, set up the protective apparatus. Apparently the Thessianswere holding off for the present. 

"In a way, " said Morey seriously, "it was distinctly fortunate that wewere attacked almost at once. Their instantaneous system of destructionwould have worked for the one shot needed to send the _Ancient Mariner_to eternal blazes. " He laughed, but it was a slightly nervous laugh. 

The terrestrial ship landed in a great grassy court, and out of respectfor the parklike smoothness of the turf, Arcot left the ship on itspower units, suspended a bit above the surface. Then he, Morey and theTalsonian left the ship. Zezdon Afthen was left with the ship and withWade in charge, for if some difficulties were encountered, Wade would beable to help them with the ship, and Zezdon Afthen with the tremendouspower of his thought locating apparatus, was busy seeking out theThessian stronghold. 

A party of men of Talso met the terrestrians outside the ship. 

"Welcome, Men of another world, and to you go our thanks for thedestruction of one of our enemies. " The clear thoughts of the spokesmanevinced his ability to concentrate. 

"And to your world must go our thanks for saving of our lives, and moreimportant, our ship, " replied Arcot. "For the ship represents a thing ofenormous value to this entire star-system. "

"I see--understand--your--thoughts that you wish to learn more of thisweapon we use. You understand that it is a question among us as towhether it is undefeatable, uncontrollable or just un-understandable. Wehave had fair success with it. It is not a weapon, was not developed assuch; it was an experiment in the line of electric-waves. How it works, what it is, what happens--we do not know. 

"But men who can create so marvelous a ship as this of yours, capable ofdestroying a ship of the Thessians with their own weapons must certainlybe able to understand any machine we may make--and you have power?" hefinished eagerly. 

"Practically infinite power. I will throw into any power line yousuggest, all the direct current you wish. " Arcot's thoughts were purereflection, but the Talsonian brightened at once. 

"I feared it might be alternating--but we can handle direct current. Allour transmission is done at high voltage direct current. What potentialdo you generate? Will we have to install changers?"

"We generate D. C. At any voltage up to fifty million, any power up tothat needed to lift ten trillion men through their own height in thistime a second. " The power represented approximately twenty trillionhorsepower. 

The Talsonian's face went blank with amazement as he looked at the ship. "In that tiny thing you generate such power?" he asked in amazement. 

"In that tiny ship we generate more than one million times that power, "Arcot said. 

"Our power troubles are over, " declared the military man emphatically. 

"Our troubles are not over, " replied a civilian who had joined theparty, with equal emphasis. "As a matter of fact, they are worse thanever. More tantalizing. What he says means that we have a tremendouspower source, but it is in one spot. How are you going to transmit thepower? We can't possibly move any power anywhere near that amount. Wecouldn't touch it to our lines without having them all go up in oneinstantaneous blaze of glory. 

"We cannot drain such a lake of power through our tiny power pipes ofsilver. "

"This man is Stel Felso Theu, " said Tho Stan Drel. "The greatest of ourscientists, the man who has invented this weapon which alone seems tooffer us hope. And I am afraid he is right. See, there is theUniversity. For the power requirements of their laboratories, a heavypower line has been installed, and it was hoped that you could carryleads into it. " His face showed evident despair greater than ever. 

"We can always feed some power into the lines. Let us see just what hopethere is. I think that it would be wiser to investigate the power linesat once, " suggested Morey. 

Ten minutes later, with but a single officer now accompanying them, ThoStan Drel, the terrestrial scientist, and the Talsonian scientist wereinspecting the power installation. 

They had entered a large stone building, into which led numerous veryheavy silver wires. The insulators were silicate glass. Their heightsuggested a voltage of well over one hundred thousand, and such heavycables suggested a very heavy amperage, so that a tremendous load wasexpected. 

Within the building were a series of gigantic glass tubes, their wallsfully three inches thick, and even so, braced with heavy platinum rods. Inside the tubes were tremendous elements such as the tiny tubes oftheir machine carried. Great cables led into them, and now their heatingcoils were glowing a somberly deep red. 

Along the walls were the switchboards, dozens of them, all sizes, alltypes of instruments, strange to the eyes of the terrestrians, and inpractically all the light-beam indicator system was used, no metallicpointers, but tiny mirrors directing a very fine line of brilliant lightacted as a needle. The system thus had practically no inertia. 

"Are these the changers?" asked Arcot gazing at the gigantic tubes. 

"They are; each tube will handle up to a hundred thousand volts, " saidStel Felso Theu. 

"But I fear, Stel Felso Theu, that these tubes will carry power only oneway; that is, it would be impossible for power to be pumped from hereinto the power house, though the process can be reversed, " pointed outArcot. "Radio tubes work only one way, which is why they can act asrectifiers. The same was true of these tubes. They could carry power oneway only. "

"True, of tubes in general, " replied the Talsonian, "and I see by thatthat you know the entire theory of our tubes, which is rather abstruse. "

"We use them on the ship, in special form, " interrupted Arcot. 

"Then I will only say that the college here has a very complete electricpower plant of its own. On special occasions, the power generated hereis needed by the city, and so we arranged the tubes with switches whichcould reverse the flow. At present they are operating to pour power intothe city. 

"If your ship can generate such tremendous power, I suspect that itwould be wiser to eliminate the tubes from the circuit, for they putcertain restrictions on the line. The main power plant in the city hastube banks capable of handling anything the line would. I suggest thatyour voltage be set at the maximum that the line will carry withoutbreakdown, and the amperage can be made as high as possible without heatloss. "

"Good enough. The line to the city power will stand what pressure?"

"It is good for the maximum of these tubes, " replied the Talsonian. 

"Then get into communication with the city plant and tell them toprepare for every work-unit they can carry. I'll get the generator. "Arcot turned, and flew on his power suit to the ship. 

In a few moments he was back, a molecular pistol in one hand, andsuspended in front of him on nothing but a ray of ionized air, to allappearances, a cylindrical apparatus, with a small cubical base. 

The cylinder was about four feet long, and the cubical box abouteighteen inches on a side. 

"What is that, and what supports it?" asked the Talsonian scientists insurprise. 

"The thing is supported by a ray which directs the molecules of a smallbar in the top clamp, driving it up, " explained Morey, "and that is thegenerator. "

"That! Why it is hardly as big as a man!" exclaimed the Talsonian. 

"Nevertheless, it can generate a billion horsepower. But you couldn'tget the power away if you did generate it. " He turned toward Arcot, andcalled to him. 

"Arcot--set it down and let her rip on about half a million horsepowerfor a second or so. Air arc. Won't hurt it--she's made of lux andrelux. "

Arcot grinned, and set it on the ground. "Make an awful hole in theground. "

"Oh--go ahead. It will satisfy this fellow, I think, " replied Morey. 

Arcot pulled a very thin lux metal cord from his pocket, and attachedone end of a long loop to one tiny switch, and the other to a second. Then he adjusted three small dials. The wire in hand, he retreated to adistance of nearly two hundred feet, while Morey warned the Talsoniansback. Arcot pulled one end of his cord. 

Instantly a terrific roar nearly deafened the men, a solid sheet ofblinding flame reached in a flaming cone into the air for nearly fiftyfeet. The screeching roar continued for a moment, then the heat was sointense that Arcot could stand no more, and pulled the cord. The flamedied instantly, though a slight ionization clung briefly. In a moment ithad cooled to white, and was cooling slowly through orange--reddeep--red--

The grass for thirty feet about was gone, the soil for ten feet aboutwas molten, boiling. The machine itself was in a little crater, halfsunk in boiling rock. The Talsonians stared in amazement. Then a sort ofsigh escaped them and they started forward. Arcot raised his molecularpistol, a blue green ray reached out, and the rock suddenly was black. It settled swiftly down, and a slight depression was the only evidenceof the terrific action. 

Arcot walked over the now cool rock, cooled by the action of themolecular ray. In driving the molecules downward, the work was done bythe heat of these molecules. The machine was frozen in the solid lava. 

"Brilliant idea, Morey, " said Arcot disgustedly. "It'll be a nice jobbreaking it loose. "

Morey stuck the lux metal bar in the top clamp, walked off somedistance, and snapped on the power. The rock immediately about themachine was molten again. A touch of the molecular pistol to the luxmetal bar, and the machine jumped free of the molten rock. 

Morey shut off the power. The machine was perfectly clean, and extremelyhot. 

"And your ship is made of that stuff!" exclaimed the Talsonianscientist. "What will destroy it?"

"Your weapon will, apparently. "

"But do you believe that we have power enough?" asked Morey with asmile. 

"No--it's entirely too much. Can you tone that condensed lightning boltdown to a workable level?"

Chapter IX

THE IRRESISTIBLE AND THE IMMOVABLE

The generator Arcot had brought was one of the two spare generators usedfor laboratory work. He took it now into the sub-station, and directedthe Talsonian students and the scientist in the task of connecting itinto the lines; though they knew where it belonged, he knew _how_ itbelonged. 

Then the terrestrian turned on the power, and gradually increased ituntil the power authorities were afraid of breakdowns. The accumulatorswere charged in the city, and the power was being shipped to othercities whose accumulators were not completely charged. 

But, after giving simple operating instructions to the students, Arcotand Morey went with Stel Felso Theu to his laboratory. 

"Here, " Stel Felso Theu explained, "is the original apparatus. All theseother machines you see are but replicas of this. How it works, why itworks, even what it does, I am not sure of. Perhaps you will understandit. The thing is fully charged now, for it is, in part, one of thedefenses of the city. Examine it now, and then I will show its power. "

Arcot looked it over in silence, following the great silver leads withkeen interest. Finally he straightened, and returned to the Talsonian. In a moment Morey joined them. 

The Talsonian then threw a switch, and an intense ionization appearedwithin the tube, then a minute spot of light was visible within thesphere of light. The minute spot of radiance is the real secret of theweapon. The ball of fire around it is merely wasted energy. 

"Now I will bring it out of the tube. " There were three dials on thecontrol panel from which he worked, and now he adjusted one of these. The ball of fire moved steadily toward the glass wall of the tube, andwith a crash the glass exploded inward. It had been highly evacuated. Instantly the tiny ball of fire about the point of light expanded to alarge globe. 

"It is now in the outer air. We make the--thing, in an evacuated glasstube, but as they are cheap, it is not an expensive procedure. The ballwill last in its present condition for approximately three hours. Feelthe exceedingly intense heat? It is radiating away its vast energy. 

"Now here is the point of greatest interest. " Again the Talsonian fellto work on his dials, watching the ball of fire. It seemed far morebrilliant in the air now. It moved, and headed toward a great slab ofsteel off to one side of the laboratory. It shifted about until it wasdirectly over the center of the great slab. The slab rested on a scaleof some sort, and as the ball of fire touched it, the scale showed asudden increase in load. The ball sank into the slab of steel, and thescale showed a steady, enormous load. Evidently the little ball waspressing its way through as though it were a solid body. In a moment itwas through the steel slab, and out on the other side. 

"It will pass through any body with equal ease. It seems to answer onlythese controls, and these it answers perfectly, and without difficulty. 

"One other thing we can do with it. I can increase its rate of energydischarge. "

The Talsonian turned a fourth dial, well off to one side, and thebrilliance of the spot increased enormously. The heat was unbearable. Almost at once he shut it off. 

"That is the principle we use in making it a weapon. Watch the actualoperation. "

The ball of fire shot toward an open window, out the window, andvanished in the sky above. The Talsonian stopped the rotation of thedials. "It is motionless now, but scarcely visible. I will now releaseall the energy. " He twirled the fourth dial, and instantly there was aflash of light, and a moment later a terrific concussion. 

"It is gone. " He left the controls, and went over to his apparatus. Heset a heavy silver bladed switch, and placed a new tube in theapparatus. A second switch arced a bit as he drove it home. "Yourgenerator is recharging the accumulators. "

Stel Felso Theu took the backplate of the control cabinet off, and theterrestrians looked at the control with interest. 

"Got it, Morey?" asked Arcot after a time. 

"Think so. Want to try making it up? We can do so out of spare junkabout the ship, I think. We won't need the tube if what I believe of itis true. "

Arcot turned to the Talsonian. "We wish you to accompany us to the ship. We have apparatus there which we wish to set up. "

Back to the ship they went. There Arcot, Morey and Wade worked rapidly. 

It was about three-quarters of an hour later when Arcot and his friendscalled the others to the laboratory. They had a maze of apparatus on thepower bench, and the shining relux conductors ran all over the shipapparently. One huge bar ran into the power room itself, and pluggedinto the huge power-coil power supply. 

They were still working at it, but looked up as the others entered. "Guess it will work, " said Arcot with a grin. 

There were four dials, and three huge switches. Arcot set all fourdials, and threw one of the switches. Then he started slowly turning thefourth dial. In the center of the room a dim, shining mist a foot indiameter began to appear. It condensed, solidified without shrinking, asolid ball of matter a foot in diameter. It seemed black, but was aperfectly reflective surface--and luminous!

"Then--then you had already known of this thing? Then why did you nottell me when I tried to show it?" demanded the Talsonian. 

Arcot was sending the globe, now perfectly non-luminous, about the room. It flattened out suddenly, and was a disc. He tossed a small weight onit, and it remained fixed, but began to radiate slightly. Arcotreadjusted his dials, and it ceased radiating, held perfectlymotionless. The sphere returned, and the weight dropped to the floor. Arcot maneuvered it about for a moment more. Then he placed his friendsbehind a screen of relux, and increased the radiation of the globetremendously. The heat became intense, and he stopped the radiation. 

"No, Stel Felso Theu, we do not have this on our world, " Arcot said. 

"You do not have it! You look at my apparatus fifteen minutes, and thenwork for an hour--and you have apparatus far more effective than ours, which required years of development!" exclaimed the Talsonian. 

"Ah, but it was not wholly new to me. This ship is driven by curvingspace into peculiar coordinates. Even so, we didn't do such a hot job, did we, Morey?"

"No, we should have--"

"What--it was not a good job?" interrupted the Talsonian. "You succeededin creating it in air--in making it stop radiating, in making a ball afoot in diameter, made it change to a disc, made it carry a load--whatdo you want?"

"We want the full possibilities, the only thing that can save us in thiswar, " Morey said. 

"What you learned how to do was the reverse of the process we learned. How you did it is a wonder--but you did. Very well--matter isenergy--does your physics know that?" asked Arcot. 

"It does; matter contains vast energy, " replied the Talsonian. 

"Matter has mass, and energy because of that! Mass _is_ energy. Energyin any known form is a field of force in space. So matter is ordinarilya combination of magnetic, electrostatic and gravitational fields. Yourapparatus combined the three, and put them together. The resultwas--matter!

"You created matter. We can destroy it but we cannot create it. 

"What we ordinarily call matter is just a marker, a sign that there arethose energy-fields. Each bit is surrounded by a gravitational field. The bit is just the marker of that gravitational field. 

"But that seems to be wrong. This artificial matter of yours seems alsoa sort of knot, for you make all three fields, combine them, and havethe matter, but not, very apparently, like normal matter. Normal matteralso holds the fields that make it. The artificial matter is surroundedby the right fields, but it is evidently not able to hold the fields, asnormal matter does. That was why your matter continually disintegratedto ordinary energy. The energy was not bound properly. 

"But the reason why it would blow up so was obvious. It did not takemuch to destroy the slight hold that the artificial matter had on itsfield, and then it instantly proceeded to release all its energy atonce. And as you poured millions of horsepower into it all day to fillit, it naturally raised merry hell when it let loose. "

Arcot was speaking eagerly, excitedly. 

"But here is the great fact, the important thing: It is artificiallycreated in a given place. It is made, and exists at the point determinedby these three coordinated dials. It is not natural, and can exist onlywhere it is made and nowhere else--obvious, but important. It cannotexist save at the point designated. Then, if that point moves along aline, the artificial matter must follow that moving point and be alwaysat that point. Suppose now that a slab of steel is on that line. Thepoint moves to it--through it. To exist, that artificial matter _must_follow it through the steel--if not, it is destroyed. Then the steel isattempting to destroy the artificial matter. If the matter hassufficient energy, it will force the steel out of the way, andpenetrate. The same is true of any other matter, lux metal or relux--itwill penetrate. To continue in existence it must. And it has greatenergy, and will expend every erg of that energy of existence tocontinue existence. 

"It is, as long as its energy holds out, absolutely irresistible!

"But similarly, if it is at a given point, it must stay there, and willexpend every erg staying there. It is then immovable! It is eitherirresistible in motion, or immovable in static condition. It is theirresistible and the immovable!

"What happens if the irresistible meets the immovable? It can only fightwith its energy of existence, and the more energetic prevails. "

Chapter X

IMPROVEMENTS AND CALCULATIONS

"It is still incredible. But you have done it. It is certainlysuccessful!" said the Talsonian scientist with conviction. 

Arcot shook his head. "Far from it--we have not realized a thousandthpart of the tremendous possibilities of this invention. We must work andcalculate and then invent. 

"Think of the possibilities as a shield--naturally if we can make thematter we should be able to control its properties in any way we like. We should be able to make it opaque, transparent, or any color. " Arcotwas speaking to Morey now. "Do you remember, when we were caught in thatcosmic ray field in space when we first left this universe, that I saidthat I had an idea for energy so vast that it would be impossible todescribe its awful power?[1] I mentioned that I would attempt toliberate it if ever there was need? The need exists. I want to find thatsecret. "

[Footnote 1: Islands of Space. ]

Stel Felso Theu was looking out through the window at a group of menexcitedly beckoning. He called the attention of the others to them, andhimself went out. Arcot and Wade joined him in a moment. 

"They tell me that Fellsheh, well to the poleward of here has used fourof its eight shots. They are still being attacked, " explained theTalsonian gravely. 

"Well, get in, " snapped Arcot as he ran back to the ship. Stel Felsohastily followed, and the _Ancient Mariner_ shot into the air, anddarted away, poleward, to the Talsonian's directions. The ground fledbehind them at a speed that made the scientist grip the hand-rail with atenseness that showed his nervousness. 

As they approached, a tremendous concussion and a great gout of light inthe sky informed them of the early demise of several Thessians. But areal fleet was clustered about the city. Arcot approached low, and wasable to get quite close before detection. His ray screen was up andMorey had charged the artificial matter apparatus, small as it was, foroperation. He created a ball of substance outside the _Ancient Mariner_, and thrust it toward the nearest Thessian, just as a molecular hit the_Ancient Mariner'_s ray screen. 

The artificial matter instantly exploded with terrific violence, slightly denting the tremendously strong lux metal walls. The pressureof the light was so great that the inner relux walls were dented inward. The ground below was suddenly, instantaneously fused. 

"Lord--they won't pass a ray screen, obviously, " Morey muttered, pickinghimself from where he had fallen. 

"Hey--easy there. You blinked off the ray screen, and our relux isseriously weakened, " called Arcot, a note of worry in his voice. 

"No artificial matter with the ray screen up. I'll use the magnet, "called Morey. 

He quickly shut off the apparatus, and went to the huge magnet control. The power room was crowded, and now that the battle was raging in truth, with three ships attacking simultaneously, even the enormous powercapacity of the ship's generators was not sufficient, and the storagecoils had been thrown into the operation. Morey looked at theinstruments a moment. They were all up to capacity, save the ammeterfrom the coils. That wasn't registering yet. Suddenly it flicked, andthe other instrument dropped to zero. They were in artificial space. 

"Come here, will you, Morey, " called Arcot. In a moment Morey joined hismuch worried friend. 

"That artificial matter control won't work through ray screens. TheThessians never had to protect against moleculars here, and didn't havethem up--hence the destruction wrought. We can't take our screen down, and we can't use our most deadly weapon with it up. If we had a bigoutfit, we might throw a screen around the whole ship, and sail rightin. But we haven't. 

"We can't stand ten seconds against that fleet. I'm going to find theirbase, and make them yell for help. " Arcot snapped a tiny switch onenotch further for the barest instant, then snapped it back. They wereseveral millions miles from the planet. "Quicker, " he explained, "tosimply follow those ships back home--go back in time. "

With the telectroscope, he took views at various distances, thus quicklytracing them back to their base at the pole of the planet. InstantlyArcot shot down, reaching the pole in less than a second, by carefullymaneuvering of the space device. 

A gigantic dome of polished relux rose from rocky, icy plains. The thingwas nearly half a mile high, a mighty rounded roof that covered an areaalmost three-quarters of a mile in diameter. Titanic--that was the onlyword that described it. About it there was the peculiar shimmer of amolecular ray screen. 

Morey darted to the power room and set his apparatus into operation. Hecreated a ball of matter outside the ship and hurled it instantly at thefort. It exploded with a terrific concussion as it hit the wall of theray screen. Almost instantly a second one followed. The concussion wasterrifically violent, the ground about was fused, and the ray screen wasopened for a moment. Arcot threw all his moleculars on the screen, asMorey sent bomb after bomb at it. The coils supplied the energy, crackedthe rock beneath. Each energy release disrupted the ray-screen for amoment, and the concentrated fury of the molecular beams poured throughthe opened screen, and struck the relux behind. It glowed opalescent nowin a spot twenty feet across. But the relux was tremendously thick. Thirty bombs Morey hurled, while they held their position withoutdifficulty, pouring their bombs and rays at the fort. 

Arcot threw the ship into space, moved, and reappeared suddenly nearlythree hundred yards further on. A snap of the eyes, and he saw that thefleet was approaching now. He went again into space, and retreated. Discretion was the better part of valor. But his plan had worked. 

He waited half an hour, and returned. From a distance the telectroscopetold him that one lone ship was patrolling outside the fort. He movedtoward it, creeping up behind the icy mountains. His magnetic beamreached out. The ship lurched and fell. The magnetic beam reached outtoward the fort, from which a molecular ray had flashed already, tearingup the icy waste which had concealed him. The ray-screen stopped it, while again Morey turned the magnetic beam on--this time against thefort. The ray remained on! Arcot retreated hastily. 

"They found the secret, all right. No use, Morey, come on up, " calledthe pilot. "They evidently put magnetic shielding around the apparatus. That means the magnetic beam is no good to us any more. They willcertainly warn every other base, and have them install similarprotection. "

"Why didn't you try the magnetic ray on our first attack?" asked ZezdonAfthen. 

"If it had worked, their sending apparatus would have been destroyed, and no message could have been sent to call their attackers offFellsheh. By forcing them to recall their fleet I got results I couldn'tget by attacking the fleet, " Arcot said. 

"I think there is little more I can do here, Stel Felso Theu. I willtake you to Shesto, and there make final arrangements till my return, with apparatus capable of overthrowing your enemies. If you wish toaccompany me--you may. " He glanced around at the others of his party. "And our next move will be to return to Earth with what we have. Then wewill investigate the Sirian planets, and learn anything they may have ofinterest, thence--to the real outer space, the utter void ofintergalactic space, and an attempt to learn the secret of that enormouspower. "

They returned to Shesto, and there Arcot arranged that the onlygenerator they could spare, the one already in their possession, mightbe used till other terrestrian ships could bring more. They left forEarth. Hour after hour they fled through the void, till at last old Solwas growing swiftly ahead of them, and finally Earth itself was large onthe screens. They changed to a straight molecular drive, and dropped tothe Vermont field from which they had taken off. 

During the long voyage, Morey and Arcot had both spent much of the timeworking on the time-distortion field, which would give them a tremendouscontrol over time, either speeding or slowing their time rateenormously. At last, this finished, they had worked on the artificialmatter theory, to the point where they could control the shape of thematter perfectly, though as yet they could not control its exact nature. The possibility of such control was, however, definitely proven by theresults the machines had given them. Arcot had been more immediatelyinterested in the control of form. He could control the nature as toopacity or transparency to all vibrations that normal matter is opaqueor transparent to. Light would pass, or not as he chose, but cosmics hecould not stop nor would radio or moleculars be stopped by any presentshield he could make. 

They had signaled, as soon as they slowed outside the atmosphere, andwhen they settled to the field, Arcot's father and a number of veryimportant scientists had already arrived. 

Arcot senior greeted his son very warmly, but he was tremendouslyworried, as his son soon saw. 

"What's happened, Dad--won't they believe your statements?"

"They doubted when I went to Luna for a session with the InterplanetaryCouncil, but before they could say much, they had plenty of proof of mystatements, " the older man answered. "News came that a fleet ofPlanetary Guard ships had been wiped out by a fleet of ships from outerspace. They were huge things--nearly half a mile in length. The Guardships went up to them--fifty of them--and tried to signal for aconference. The white ship was instantly wiped out--we don't know how. They didn't have ray screens, but that wasn't it. Whatever itwas--slightly luminous ray in space--it simply released the energy ofthe lux metal and relux of the ship. Being composed of light energysimply bound by photonic attraction, it let go with terrible energy. They can do it almost instantly from a distance. The other Guards atonce let loose with all their moleculars and cosmics. The enemy shuntedoff the moleculars, and wiped out the Guard almost instantly. 

"Of course, I could explain the screen, but not the detonation ray. I aminclined to believe from other casualties that the destruction, thoughreported as an instantaneous explosion, was not that. Other ships havebeen destroyed, and they seemed to catch fire, and burn, but withterrific speed, more like gun powder than coal. It seems to start aspreading decomposition, the ship lasts perhaps ten minutes. If it wentinstantly, the shock of such a tremendous energy release would disruptthe planet. 

"At any rate, the great fleet separated, twelve went to the North Poleof Earth, twelve to the south, and similarly twelve to each pole ofVenus. Then one of them turned, and went back to wherever it had comefrom, to report. Just turned and vanished. Similarly one from Venusturned and vanished. That leaves twelve at each of the four poles, for, as I said, there were an even fifty. 

"They all followed the same tactics on landing, so I'll simply tell whathappened in Attica. In the North they had to pick one of the islands abit to the south of the pole. They melted about a hundred square milesof ice to find one. 

"The ships arranged themselves in a circle around the place, andliterally hundreds of men poured out of each and fell to work. In ashort time, they had set up a number of machines, the parts coming fromthe ships. These machines at once set to work, and they built up a reluxwall. That wall was at least six feet thick; the floor was lined withthick relux as well as the roof, which is simply a continuation of thewall in a perfect dome. They had so many machines working on it, thatwithin twenty-four hours they had it finished. 

"We attacked twice, once in practically our entire force, with someray-shield machines. The result was disastrous. The second attack wasmade with ray shielded machines only, and little damage was done toeither side, though the enemy were somewhat impeded by masses of icehurled into their position. Their relux disintegration ray wasconspicuous by its absence. 

"Yesterday--and it seems a lot longer than that, son--they started itagain. They'd been unloading it from the ship evidently. We had hadray-shielded machines out, but they simply melted. They went down, andEarth retreated. They're in their fortress now. We don't know how tofight them. Now, for God's sake, tell us you have learned of someweapon, son!"

The older man's face was lined. His iron gray head showed his fatiguedue to hours of concentration on his work. 

"Some, " replied Arcot briefly. He glanced around. Other men had arrived, men whom he met in his work. But there were Venerians here, too, intheir protective suits, insulated against the cold of Earth, and againstits atmosphere. 

"First, though, gentlemen, allow me to introduce Stel Felso Theu of theplanet Talso, one of our allies in this struggle, and Zezdon Afthen andFentes of Ortol, one of our other allies. 

"As to progress, I can say only that it is in a more or less rudimentarystage. We have the basis for great progress, a weapon of inestimablevalue--but it is only the basis. It must be worked out. I am leavingwith you today the completed calculations and equations of the timefield, the system used by the Thessian invaders in propelling theirships at a speed greater than that of light. Also, the uncompletedcalculations in regard to another matter, a weapon which our ally, Talso, has given us, in exchange for the aid we gave in allowing themthe use of one of our generators. Unfortunately the ship could not sparemore than the single generator. I strongly advise rushing a number ofgenerators to Talso in intergalactic freighters. They badly needpower--power of respectable dimensions. 

"I have stopped on Earth only temporarily, and I want to leave as soonas possible. I intend, however, to attempt an attack on the Arctic baseof the Thessians, in strong hopes that they have not armored against oneweapon that the _Ancient Mariner_ carries--though I sadly fear that oldEarth herself has played us false here. I hope to use the magnetic beam, but Earth's polar magnetism may have forced them to armor, and they mayhave sufficiently heavy material to block the effects. "

Morey already had a ground crew servicing the ship. He gave designs tomachinists on hand to make special control panels for the largeartificial matter machines. Arcot and Wade got some badly neededequipment. 

In six hours, Arcot had announced himself ready, and a squadron ofPlanetary Guard ships were ready to accompany the refitted _AncientMariner_. 

They approached the pole cautiously, and were rewarded by the hiss androar of ice melting into water which burst into steam under a ray. Itwas coming from an outpost of the camp, a tiny dome under a great massof ice. But the dome was of relux. A molecular reached down from a Guardship--and the Guard ship crumbled suddenly as dozens of moleculars fromthe points hit it. 

"They know how to fight this kind of a war. That's their biggestadvantage, " muttered Arcot. Wade merely swore. 

"Ray screens, no moleculars!" snapped Arcot into the transmitter. He wasnot their leader, but they saw his wisdom, and the squadron commanderrepeated the advice as an order. In the meantime, another ship hadfallen. The dome had its screen up, allowing the multitudes of hiddenstations outside to fight for it. 

"Hmm--something to remember when terrestrians have to retire to forts. They will, too, before this war is over. That way the main fort doesn'thave to lower its ray screen to fight, " commented Arcot. He was watchingintensely as a tiny ship swung away from one of the larger machines, anda tremendously powerful molecular started biting at the fort's rayscreen. The ship seemed nothing but a flying ray projector, which waswhat it was. 

As they had hoped, the deadly new ray stabbed out from somewhere on theside of the fort. It was not within the fort. 

"Which means, " pointed out Morey, "that they can't make stuff to standthat. Probably the projector would be vulnerable. "

But a barrage of heat rays which immediately followed had no apparenteffect. The little radio-controlled molecular beam projector lay on therock under the melted ice, blazing incandescent with the rapidlyreleased energy of the relux. 

"Now to try the real test we came here for, " Morey clambered back to thepower room, and turned on the controls of the magnetic beam. The shipwas aligned, and then he threw the last switch. The great mass of themachine jerked violently, and plunged forward as the beam attracted themagnetic core of the Earth. 

Morey could not see it, but almost instantly the shimmer of themolecular screen on the fort died out. The deadly ray sprang out fromthe Thessian projector--and went dead. Frantically the Thessians triedweapon after weapon, and found them dead almost as soon as they wereturned on--which was the natural result in the terrific magnetic field. 

And these men had iron bones, their very bones were attracted by thebeam; they plunged upward toward the ship as the beam touched them, but, accustomed to the enormous gravitation accelerations of an enormousworld, most of them were not killed. 

"Ah--!" exclaimed Arcot. He picked up the transmitter and spoke again tothe Squadron Commander. "Squadron Commander Tharnton, what reluxthickness does your ship carry?"

"Inch and a quarter, " replied the surprised voice of the commander. 

"Any of the other ships carry heavier?"

"Yes, the special solar investigator carries five inches. What shall wedo?"

"Tell him to lower his screen, and let loose at once on all operatingforts. His relux will stand for the time needed to shut them down fortheir own screens, unless some genius decides to fight it out. As soonas the other ships can lower their screens, tell them to do so, and tellthem to join in. I'll be able to help then. My relux has been burned, and I'm afraid to lower the screen. It's mighty thin already. "

The squadron commander was smiling joyously as he relayed the advice asa command. 

Almost at once a single ship, blunt, an almost perfect cylinder, loweredits screen. In an instant the opalescence of the transformation showedon it, but its dozen ray projectors were at work. Fort after fort glowedopalescent, then flashed into protective ionization of screening. Quickly other ships lowered their screens, and joined in. In a momentmore, the forts had been forced to raise their screens for protection. 

A disc of artificial matter ten feet across suddenly appeared beside the_Ancient Mariner_. It advanced with terrific speed, struck the greatdome of the fort, and the dome caved, bent in, bent still more--butwould not puncture. The disc retreated, became a sharp cone, and drovein again. This time the point smashed through the relux, and made asmall hole. The cone seemed to change gradually, melting into a cylinderof twenty foot diameter, and the hole simply expanded. It continued toexpand as the cylinder became a huge disc, a hundred feet across, set inthe wall. 

Suddenly it simply dissolved. There was a terrific roar, and a mightycolumn of white rushed out of the gaping hole. Figures of Thessianscaught by the terrific current came rocketing out. The inside was atlast visible. The terrific pressure was hurling the outside line ofships about like thistledown. The _Ancient Mariner_ reeled back underthe tremendous blast of expanding gas. The snow that fell to the boilingwater below was not water, _in toto_; some was carbon dioxide--and someoxygen chilled in the expansion of the gas. It was snowing within thedome. The falling forms of Thessians were robbed of the life-giving airpressure to which they were accustomed. But all this was visible for butan instant. 

Then a small, thin sheet of artificial matter formed beside the fort, and advanced on the dome. Like a knife cutting open an orange, it simplywent around the dome's edge, the great dome lifted like the lid of ateapot under the enormous gas pressure remaining--then dropped under itsown weight. 

The artificial matter was again a huge disc. It settled over the exactcenter of the dome--and went down. The dome caved in. It was crushedunder a load utterly inestimable. Then the great disc, like somemonstrous tamper, tamped the entire works of the Thessians into thebed-rock of the island. Every ship, every miniature fort, every man wascaught under it--and annihilated. 

The disc dissolved. A terrific barrage of heat beams played over theisland, and the rock melted, flowed over the ruins, and left only thespumes of steam from the Arctic ice rising from a red-hot: mass of rock, contained a boiling pool. 

The Battle of the Arctic was done. 

Chapter XI

"WRITE OFF THE MAGNET"

"Squadron commander Tharnton speaking: Squadron 73-B of Planetary Guardwill follow orders from Dr. Arcot directly. Heading south to Antarcticaat maximum speed, " droned the communicator. Under the official tone ofcommand was a note of suppressed rage and determination. "And thesquadron commander wishes Dr. Arcot every success in wiping outAntarctica as thoroughly and completely as he destroyed the Arcticbase. "

The flight of ships headed south at a speed that heated them white inthe air, thin as it was at the hundred mile altitude, yet going higherwould have taken unnecessary time, and the white heat meant nodiscomfort. They reached Antarctica in about ten minutes. The Thessianships were just entering through great locks in the walls of the dome. At first sight of the terrestrial ships they turned, and shot toward theguard-ships. Their screens were down, for, armored as they were withvery heavy relux they expected to be able to overcome the terrestrialthin relux before theirs was seriously impaired. 

"Ships will put up screens. " Arcot spoke sharply--a new plan hadoccurred to him. The moleculars of the Thessians Struck glowing screens, and no damage was done. "Ships, in order of number, will lower screenfor thirty seconds, and concentrate all moleculars on one ship--theleader. Solar investigator will not join in action. "

The flagship of the squadron lowered its screen, and a tremendousbombardment of rays struck the leading ship practically in one point. The relux glowed, and the opalescence shifted with bewildering, confusing colors. Then the terrestrial ship's screen was up, before theThessians could concentrate on the one unprotected ship. Immediatelyanother terrestrial ship opened its screen and bombarded the same ship. Two others followed--and then it was forced to use its screen. 

But suddenly a terrestrial ship crashed. Its straining screen had beenoverworked--and it failed. 

Arcot's magnetic beam went into action. The Thessian ray did not goout--it flickered, dimmed, but was apparently as deadly as ever. 

"Shielded--write off the magnet, Morey. That is one asset we lose. "

Arcot, protected in space, was thinking swiftly. Moleculars--useless. They had to keep their own screens up. Artificial matter--bound in bytheir own molecular screen! And the magnet had failed them against theprotected mechanism of the dome. The ships were not as yet protected, but the dome was. 

"Guess the only place we'd be safe is under the ground--way under!"commented Wade dryly. 

"Under the ground--Wade, you're a genius!" Arcot gave a shout of joy, and told Wade to take over the ship. 

"Take the ship back into normal space, head for the hill over behind theDome, and drop behind it. It's solid rock, and even their rays will takea moment or so to move it. As soon as you get there, drop to the ground, and turn off the screen. No--here, I'll do it. You just take it there, land on the ground, and shut off the screen. I promise the rest!" Arcotdived for the artificial matter room. 

The ship was suddenly in normal space; its screen up. The dog-fight hadbeen ended. The terrestrial ships had been completely defeated. The_Ancient Mariner'_s appearance was a signal for all the moleculars insight. Ten huge ships, half a dozen small forts and now the unshieldedDome, joined in. Their screen tubes heated up violently in the briefmoment it took to dive behind the hill, a tube fused, and blew out. Automatic devices shunted it, another tube took the load--and heated. But their screen was full of holes before they were safe for the momentbehind the hill. 

Instantly Wade dropped the defective screen. Almost as quickly as thescreen vanished, a cylinder of artificial matter surrounded the entireship. The cylinder was tipped by a perfect cone of the same basediameter. The entire system settled into the solid rock. The rock abovecracked and filled in behind them. The ship was suddenly pushed by thebase of the cylinder behind them, and drove on through the rock, thecone parting the hard granite ahead. They went perhaps half a mile, thenstopped. In the light of the ship's windows, they could see the faintmistiness of the inconceivably hard, artificial matter, and beyond theslick, polished surface of the rock it was pushing aside. The cone shapewas still there. 

There was a terrific roar behind them, the rock above cracked, shiftedand moved about. 

"Raying the spot where we went down, " Arcot grinned happily. 

The cone and cylinder merged, shifted together, and became a sphere. Thesphere elongated upward and the _Ancient Mariner_ turned in it, till it, too, pointed upward. The sphere became an ellipsoid. 

Suddenly the ship was moving, accelerating terrifically. It plowedthrough the solid rock, and up--into a burst of light. They were_inside_ the dome. Great ships were berthed about the floor. Hugemachines bulked here and there--barracks for men--everything. 

The ellipsoid shrank to a sphere, the sphere grew a protuberance whichseparated and became a single bar-like cylinder. The cylinder turned, and drove through the great dome wall. A little hole but it whirledrapidly around, sliced the top off neatly and quickly. Again, like agigantic teapot lid, the whole great structure lifted, settled, andstayed there. Men, scrambling wildly toward ships, suddenly stopped, seemed to blur and their features ran together horribly. They fell--andwere dead in an instant as the air disappeared. In another instant theywere solid blocks of ice, for the temperature was below the freezingpoint of carbon dioxide. 

The giant tamper set to work. The Thessian ships went first. They wereall crumpled, battered wrecks in a few seconds of work of the terribledisc. 

The dome was destroyed. Arcot tried something else. He put on hiscontrol machine the equation of a hyperboloid of two branches, andchanged the constants gradually till the two branches came close. Thenhe forced them against each other. Instantly they fought, foughtterribly for existence. A tremendous blast of light and heat explodedinto being. The energy of two tons of lead attempted to maintain thosetwo branches. It was not, fortunately, explosive, and it took place overa relux floor. Most of the energy escaped into space. The vast flood oflight was visible on Venus, despite the clouds. 

But it fused most of Antarctica. It destroyed the last traces of thecamp in Antarctica. 

"Well--the Squadron was wiped out, I see. " Arcot's voice was flat as hespoke. The Squadron: twenty ships--four hundred men. 

"Yes--but so is the Arctic camp, and the Antarctic camp, as well, "replied Wade. 

"What next, Arcot. Shall we go out to intergalactic space at once?"asked Morey, coming up from the power room. 

"No, we'll go back to Vermont, and have the time-field stuff I orderedinstalled, then go to Sirius, and see what they have. They moved theirplanets from the gravitation field of Negra, their dead, black star, tothe field of Sirius--and I'd like to know how they did it. [2]Then--Intergalactia. " He started the ship toward Vermont, while Moreygot into communication with the field, and gave them a brief report. 

[Footnote 2: "The Black Star Passes. "]

Chapter XII

SIRIUS

They landed about half an hour later, and Arcot simply went into thecottage, and slept--with the aid of a light soporific. Morey and Wadedirected the disposition of the machines, but Dr. Arcot senior reallyfinished the job. The machines would be installed in less than tenhours, for the complete plans Arcot and Morey had made, with the modernmachines for translating plans to metal and lux had made the actualconstruction quick, while the large crew of men employed required butlittle time. 

When Arcot and his friends awoke, the machines were ready. 

"Well, Dad, you have the plans for all the machines we have. I expect tobe back in two weeks. In the meantime you might set up a number of shipswith very heavy relux walls, walls that will stand rays for a while, andequip them with the rudimentary artificial matter machines you have, andgo ahead with the work on the calculations. Thett will land othermachines here--or on the moon. Probably they will attempt to ray thewhole Earth. They won't have concentration of ray enough to move theplanet, or to seriously chill it. But life is a different matter--it'ssensitive. It is quite apt to let go even under a mild ray. I think thata few exceedingly powerful ray screen stations might be set up, and theHeavyside Layer used to transmit the vibrations entirely around theEarth. You can see the idea easily enough. If you think itworthwhile--or better, if you can convince the thickheaded politiciansof the Interplanatary Defense Commission that it is--

"Beyond that, I'll see you in about two weeks, " Arcot turned, andentered the ship. 

"I'll line up for Sirius and let go. " Arcot turned the ship now, forEarth was well behind, and lined it on Sirius, bright in the utter blackof space. He pushed his control to "1/2, " and the space closed in aboutthem. Arcot held it there while the chronometer moved through six and ahalf seconds. Sirius was at a distance almost planetary in its magnitudefrom them. Controlling directly now, he brought the ship closer, till aplanet loomed large before them--a large world, its rocky continents, its rolling oceans and jagged valleys white under the enormousenergy-flood from the gigantic star of Sirius, twenty-six times morebrilliant than the sun they had left. 

"But, Arcot, hadn't you better take it easy?" Wade asked. "They mighttake us for enemies--which wouldn't be so good. "

"I suppose it would be wise to go slowly. I had planned, as a matter offact, on looking up a Thessian ship, taking a chance on a fight, andproving our friendship, " replied Arcot. 

Morey saw Arcot's logic--then suddenly burst into laughter. "Absolutely--attack a Thessian. But since we don't see any around now, we'll have to make one!"

Wade was completely mystified, and gave Morey a doubtful, sarcasticlook. "Sounds like a good idea, only I wonder if this constant terrificmental strain--"

"Come along and find out!" Arcot threw the ship into artificial spacefor safety, holding it motionless. The planet, invisible to them, retreated from their motionless ship. 

In the artificial matter control room, Arcot set to work, and developeda very considerable string of forms on his board, the equations of theirformations requiring all the available formation controls. 

"Now, " said Arcot at last, "you stay here, Morey, and when I give thesignal, create the thing back of the nearest range of hills, raise it, and send it toward us. "

At once they returned to normal space, and darted down toward the nowdistant planet. They landed again near another city, one which wassituated close to a range of mountains ideally suited to their purposes. They settled, while Zezdon Afthen sent out the message of friendship. Hefinally succeeded in getting some reaction, a sensation of scepticism, of distrust--but of interest. They needed friends, and only hoped thatthese were friends. Arcot pushed a little signal button, and Morey beganhis share of the play. From behind a low hill a slim, pointed formemerged, a beautifully streamlined ship, the lines obviously those of aThessian, the windows streaming light, while the visible ionizationabout the hull proclaimed its molecular ray screen. Instantly ZezdonAfthen, who had carefully refrained from learning the full nature oftheir plans, felt the intense emotion of the discovery, called out tothe others, while his thoughts were flashed to the Sirians below. 

From the attacking ship, a body shot with tremendous speed, it flashedby, barely missing the _Ancient Mariner_, and buried itself in thehillside beyond. With a terrific explosion it burst, throwing the soilabout in a tremendous crater. The _Ancient Mariner_ spun about, turnedtoward the other ship, and let loose a tremendous bombardment ofmolecular and cosmic rays. A great flame of ionized air was the onlyresult. A new ray reached out from the other ship, a fan-like spreadingray. It struck the _Ancient Mariner_, and did not harm it, though thehillside behind was suddenly withered and blackened, then smoking as thetemperature rose. 

Another projectile was launched from the attacking ship, and explodedterrifically but a few hundred feet from the _Ancient Mariner_. Theterrestrial ship rocked and swayed, and even the distant attacker rockedunder the explosion. 

A projectile, glowing white, leaped from the Earthship. It darted towardthe enemy ship, seemed to barely touch it, then burst into terrificflames that spread, eating the whole ship, spreading glowing flame. Inan instant the blazing ship slumped, started to fall, then seeminglyevaporated, and before it touched the ground, was completely gone. 

The relief in Zezdon Afthen's mind was genuine, and it was easilyobvious to the Sirians that the winning ship was friendly, for, with allits frightful armament, it had downed a ship obviously of Thett. Thoughnot exactly like the others, it had the all too familiar lines. 

"They welcome us now, " said Zezdon Afthen's mental message to hiscompanions. 

"Tell them we'll be there--with bells on or thoughts to that effect, "grinned Arcot. Morey had appeared in the doorway, smiling broadly. 

"How was the show?" he asked. 

"Terrible--Why didn't you let it fall, and break open?"

"What would happen to the wreckage as we moved?" he asked sarcastically. "I thought it was a darned good demonstration. "

"It was convincing, " laughed Arcot. "They want us now!"

The great ship circled down, landing gently just outside of the city. Almost at once one of the slim, long Sirian ships shot up from acourtyard of the city, racing out and toward the _Ancient Mariner_. Scarcely a moment later half a hundred other ships from all over thecity were on the way. Sirians seemed quite humanly curious. 

"We'll have to be careful here. We have to use altitude suits, as theNegrians breathe an atmosphere of hydrogen instead of oxygen, " explainedArcot rapidly to the Ortolian and the Talsonian who were to accompanyhim. "We will all want to go, and so, although this suit will bedecidedly uncomfortable for you and Zezdon Afthen and Stel Felso Theu, Ithink it wise that you all wear it. It will be much more convincing tothe Sirians if we show that people of no less than three worlds arealready interested in this alliance. "

A considerable number of Sirian ships had landed about them, and thetall, slim men of the 100, 000, 000-year-old race were watching them withtheir great brown eyes from a slight distance, for a cordon of men withevident authority were holding them back. 

"Who are you, friends?" asked a single man who stood within the cordon. His strongly built frame, a great high brow and broad head designatedhim a leader at a glance. 

Despite the vast change the light of Sirius had wrought, Arcotrecognized in him the original photographs he had seen from the planetold Sol had captured as Negra had swept past. So it was he who answeredthe thought-question. 

"I am of the third planet of the sun your people sought as a home a fewyears back in time, Taj Lamor. Because you did not understand us, andbecause we did not understand you, we fought. We found the records ofyour race on the planet our sun captured, and we know now what you mostwanted. Had we been able to communicate with you then, as we can now, our people would never have fought. 

"At last you have reached that sun you so needed, thanks, no doubt, tothe genius that was with you. 

"But now, in your new-found peace comes a new enemy, one who wants notonly yours, but every sun in this galaxy. 

"You have tried your ray of death, the anti-catalyst? And it butsputters harmlessly on their screens? You have been swept by theirterrible rays that fuse mountains, then hurl them into space? Our worldand the world of each of these men is similarly menaced. 

"See, here is Zezdon Afthen, from Ortol, far on the other side of thegalaxy, and here is Stel Felso Theu, of Talso. Their worlds, as well asyours and mine have been attacked by this menace from a distant galaxy, from Thett, of the sun Ansteck, of the galaxy Venone. 

"Now we must form an alliance of far wider scope than ever has existedbefore. 

"To you we have come, for your race is older by far than any race of ouralliance. Your science has advanced far higher. What weapons have youdiscovered among those ancient documents, Taj Lamor? We have one weaponthat you no doubt need; a screen, which will stop the rays of themolecule director apparatus. What have you to offer us?"

"We need your help badly, " was the reply. "We have been able to keepthem from landing on our planets, but it has cost us much. They havelanded on a planet we brought with us when we left the black star, butit is not inhabited. From this as a base they have made attacks on us. We tried throwing the planet into Sirius. They merely left the planethurriedly as it fell toward the star, and broke free from our attractiveray. "

"The attractive ray! Then you have uncovered that secret?" asked Arcoteagerly. 

Taj Lamor had some of his men bring an attractive ray projector to theship. The apparatus turned out to be nearly a thousand tons in weight, and some twenty feet long, ten feet wide and approximately twelve feethigh. It was impossible to load the huge machine into the _AncientMariner_, so an examination was conducted on the spot, with instrumentswhose reading was intelligible to the terrestrians operating it. Itsprincipal fault lay in the fact that, despite the enormous energy ofmatter given out, the machine still gobbled up such titanic amounts ofenergy before the attraction could be established, that a very largemachine was needed. The ray, so long as maintained, used no more powerthan was actually expended in moving the planet or other body. The powerused while the ray was in action corresponded to the work done, but atremendous power was needed to establish it, and this power could neverbe recovered. 

Further, no reaction was produced in the machine, no matter what body itwas turned upon. In swinging a planet then, a spaceship could be used asthe base for the reaction was not exerted on the machine. 

From such meager clues, and the instruments, Arcot got the hints thatled him to the solution of the problem, for the documents, from whichTaj Lamor had gotten his information, had been disastrously wiped out, when one of their cities fell, and Taj Lamor had but copied the machinesof his ancestors. 

The immense value of these machines was evident, for they would permitArcot to do many things that would have been impossible without them. The explanation as he gave it to Stel Felso Theu, foretold the uses towhich it might be put. 

"As a weapon, " he pointed out, "its most serious fault is that it takesa considerable time to pump in the power needed. It has here, practically the same fault which the artificial matter had on yourworld. 

"As I see it, the ray is actually a directed gravitational field. 

"Now here is one thing that makes it more interesting, and more useful. It seems to defy the laws of mechanics. It acts, but there is noapparent reaction! A small ship can swing a world! Remember, the fieldthat generates the attraction is an integral, interwoven part of themesh of Space. It is created by something outside of itself. Like theartificial matter, it exists there, and there alone. There is reactionon that attractive field, but it is created in Space at that givenpoint, and the reaction is taken by all Space. No wonder it won't move. 

"The work considerations are fairly obvious. The field is built up. Thattakes energy. The beam is focused on a body, the body falls nearer, andimmediately absorbs the energy in acquiring a velocity. The machinereplenishes the energy, because it is set to maintain a certainenergy-level in the field. Therefore the machine must do the work ofmoving the ship, just as though it were a driving apparatus. After thebeam has done what is wanted, it may be shut off, and the energy in thefield is now available for any work needed. It may be drained back intopower coils such as ours for instance, or one might just spend that lastiota of power on the job. 

"As a driving device it might be set to pull the entire ship along, andstill not have any acceleration detectable to the occupants. 

"I think we'll use that on our big ship, " he finished, his eyes far awayon some future idea. 

"Natural gravity of natural matter is, luckily, not selective. It goesin all directions. But this artificial gravity is controlled so that itdoes not spread, and the result is that the mass-attraction of a mass ofmatter does not fall off as the inverse square of the distance, but likethe ray from the parallel beam spotlight, continues undiminished. 

"Actually, they create an exceedingly intense, exceedingly smallgravitational field, and direct it in a straight line. The building upof this field is what takes time. "

Zezdon Afthen, who had a question which was troubling him, lookedanxiously at his friends. Finally he broke into their thoughts which hadbeen too cryptically abbreviated for him to follow, like the work of aprofessor solving some problem, his steps taken so swiftly and soabbreviated that their following was impossible to his students. 

"But how is it that the machine is not moved when exerting such force onsome other body?" he asked at last. 

"Oh, the ray concentrates the gravitational force, and projects it. Theactual strain is in space. It is space that takes the strain, but innormal cases, unless the masses are very large, no considerableacceleration is produced over any great distance. That law operates inthe case of the pulled body; it pulls the gravitational field as anormal field, the inverse-square law applying. 

"But on the other hand, the gravity-beam pulls with a constant force. 

"It might be likened to the light-pressure effects of a spotlight and astar. The spotlight would push the sun with a force that was constant;no matter what the distance, while the light pressure of the sun wouldvary as the inverse square of the distance. 

"But remember, it is not a body that pulls another body, but agravitational field that pulls another. The field is in space. A normalfield is necessarily attached to the matter that it represents, or thatrepresents it as you prefer, but this artificial field has no connectionin the form of matter. It is a product of a machine, and exists only asa strain in space. To move it you must move all space, since it, likeartificial matter, exists only where it is created in space. 

"Do you see now why the law of action and reaction is apparentlyflouted? Actually the reaction is taken up by space. "

Arcot rose, and stretched. Morey and Wade had been looking at him, andnow they asked when he intended leaving for the intergalactic spaces. 

"Now, I think. We have a lot of work to do. At present we have themathematics of the artificial matter to carry on, and the math of theartificial gravity to develop. We gave the Sirians all we had onartificial matter and on moleculars. 

"They gave us all they had--which wasn't much beyond the artificialgravity, and a lot of work. At any rate, let's go!"

Chapter XIII

ATTACKED

The _Ancient Mariner_ stirred, and rose lightly from its place besidethe city. Visible over the horizon now, and coming at terrific speed, was a fleet of seven Thessian ships. 

They must do their best to protect that city. Arcot turned the ship andcalled his decision to Morey. As he did so, one of the Thessian shipssuddenly swerved violently, and plunged downward. The attractive ray wasin action. It struck the rocks of Neptune, and plunged in. Half buried, it stopped. Stopped--and backed out! The tremendously strong relux andlux had withstood the blow, and these strange, inhumanly powerful menhad not been injured!

Two of the ships darted toward him simultaneously, flashing outmolecular rays. The rays glanced off of Arcot's screen already in place, but the tubes were showing almost at once that this could not besustained. It was evident that the swiftly approaching ships would soonbreak down the shields. Arcot turned the ship and drove to one side. Hiseyes went dead. 

He cut into artificial space, waited ten seconds, then cut back. Thescene before him changed. It seemed a different world. The light wasvery dim, so dim he could scarcely see the images on the view plate. They were so deep a red that they were very near to black. Even Sirius, the flaming blue-white star was red. The darting Thessian ships weremoving quite slowly now, moving at a speed that was easy to follow. Their rays, before ionizing the air brilliantly red, were now dark. Theinstruments showed that the screen was no longer encountering seriousloading, and, further, the load was coming in at a frequency harmlesslyfar down the radio spectrum!

Arcot stared in wide-eyed amazement. What could the Thessians have donethat caused this change? He reached up and increased the amplificationon the eyes to a point that made even the dim illumination sufficient. Wade was staring in amazement, too. 

"Lord! What an idea!" suddenly exclaimed Arcot. 

Wade was staring at Arcot in equally great amazement. "What's thesecret?" he asked. 

"Time, man, time! We are in an advanced time plane, living faster thanthey, our atoms of fuel are destroyed faster, our second is shorter. Inone second of our earthly time our generators do the same amount of workas usual, but they do many, many times more work in one second, of thetime we were in! We are under the advanced time field. "

Wade could see it all. The red light--normal light seen through eyesenormously speeded in all perceptions. The change, the dimness--dimbecause less energy reached them per second of their time. Then camethis blue light, as they reached the X-ray spectrum of Sirius, and sawX-rays as normal light--shielded, tremendously shielded by theatmosphere, but the enormous amplification of the eyes made up for it. 

The remaining Thessians seemed to get the idea simultaneously, andstarted for Arcot in his own time field. The Thessian ship appeared tobe actually leaping at him. Suddenly, his speed increased inconceivably. Simultaneously, Arcot's hand, already started toward the space-controlswitch, reached it, and pushed it to the point that threw the ship intoartificial Space. The last glimmer of light died suddenly, as theThessian ship's bow loomed huge beside the _Ancient Mariner_. 

There was a terrific shock that hurled the ship violently to one side, threw the men about inside the ship. Simultaneously the lights blinkedout. 

Light returned as the automatic emergency incandescent lights in theroom, fed from an energy store coil, flashed on abruptly. The men werewhite-faced, tense in their positions. Swiftly Morey was looking overthe indicators on his remote-reading panel, while Arcot stared at thefew dials before the actual control board. 

"_There's an air pressure outside the ship!_" he cried out in surprise. "High oxygen, very little nitrogen, breathable apparently, providedthere are no poisons. Temperature ten below zero C. "

"Lights are off because relays opened when the crash short circuitedthem. " Morey and the entire group were suddenly shaking. 

"Nervous shock, " commented Zezdon Afthen. "It will be an hour or morebefore we will be in condition to work. "

"Can't wait, " replied Arcot testily, his nerves on edge, too. 

"Morey, make some good strong coffee if you can, and we'll waste alittle air on some smokes. "

Morey rose and went to the door that led through the main passage to thegalley. "Heck of a job--no weight at all, " he muttered. "There is air inthe passage, anyway. " He opened the door, and the air rushed from thecontrol room to the passage till the pressure was equalized. The door tothe power room was shut, but it was bulged, despite its two-inch luxmetal, and through its clear material he could see the wreckage of thepower room. 

"Arcot, " he called. "Come here and look at the power room. Quintillionsof miles from home, we can't shut off this field now. "

Arcot was with him in a moment. The tremendous mass of the nose of theThessian ship had caught them full amid-ship, and the powerful ram haddriven through the room. Their lux walls had not been touched; only asledge-hammer blow would have bent them under any circumstances, letalone breaking them. But the tremendously powerful main generator wassplit wide open. And the mechanical damage was awful. The prow of theship had been driven deep into the machine, and the power room was awreck. 

"And, " pointed out Morey, "we can't handle a job like that. It will takea tremendous amount of machinery back on a planet to work that stuff, and we couldn't bend that bar, let alone fix it. "

"Get the coffee, will you please, Morey? I have an idea that's bound towork, " said Arcot looking fixedly at the machinery. 

Morey turned and went to the galley. 

Five minutes later they returned to the corridor, where Arcot stoodstill, looking fixedly at the engine room. They were carrying smallplastic balloons with coffee in them. 

They drank the coffee and returned to the control room, and sat about, the terrestrians smoking peacefully, the Ortolian and the Talsoniansatisfying themselves with some form of mild narcotic from Ortol, whichZezdon Afthen introduced. 

"Well, we have a lot more to do, " Arcot said. "The air-apparatus stoppedworking a while back, and I don't want to sit around doing nothing whilethe air in the storage tanks is used up. Did you notice our friends, theenemy?" Through the great pilot's window the bulk of the Thessian ship'sbow could be seen. It was cut across with an exactitude of mathematicalcertainty. 

"Easy to guess what happened, " Morey grinned. "They may have wrecked us, but we sure wrecked them. They got half in and half out of our spacefield. Result--the half that was in, stayed in. The half that was outstayed out. The two halves were instantaneously a billion miles apart, and that beautifully exact surface represents the point our space cutacross. 

"That being decided, the next question is how to fix this poor oldwreck. " Morey grinned a bit. "Better, how to get out of here, and downto old Neptune. "

"Fix it!" replied Arcot. "Come on; you get in your space suit, take theportable telectroscope and set it up in space, motionless, in such aposition that it views both our ship and the nose of the Thessianmachine, will you, Wade? Tune it to--seven-seven-three. " Morey rose withArcot, and followed him, somewhat mystified, down the passage. At theairlock Wade put on his space suit, and the Ortolian helped him with it. In a moment the other three men appeared bearing the machine. It waspractically weightless, though it would fall slowly if left to itself, for the mass of the _Ancient Mariner_ and the front end of the Thessianship made a considerable attractive field. But it was clumsy, and neededguiding here in the ship. 

Wade took it into the airlock, and a moment later into space with him. His hand molecular-driving unit pulling him, he towed the machine intoplace, and with some difficulty got it practically motionless withrespect of the two bodies, which were now lying against each other. 

"Turn it a bit, Wade, so that the _Ancient Mariner_ is just in itsrange, " came Arcot's thoughts. Wade did so. "Come on back and watch thefun. "

Wade returned. Arcot and the others were busy placing a heavy emergencylead from the storeroom in the place of one of the broken leads. In fiveminutes they had it fixed where they wanted it. 

Into the control room went Arcot, and started the power-room televiewplate. Connected into the system of view plates, the scene was visiblenow on all the plates in the ship. Well off to one side of the room, prepared for such emergencies, and equipped with individual powerstorage coils that would run it for several days, the view platefunctioned smoothly. 

"Now, we are ready, " said Arcot. The Talsonian proved he understoodArcot's intentions by preceding him to the laboratory. 

Arcot had two viewplates operating here. One was covering the scene asshown by the machine outside, and the other showed the power room. 

Arcot stepped over to the artificial-matter machine, and worked swiftlyon it. In a moment the power from the storage coils of the ship wasflowing through the new cable, and into the machine. A huge ringappeared about the nose of the Thessian ship, fitting snugly over it. Aterrific wrench--and it was free of the _Ancient Mariner_. The ringcontracted and formed a chunk of the stuff free of the broken nose ofthe ship. 

It was carried over to the wall of the _Ancient Mariner_, a smallerpiece snipped off as before, and carried inside. A piece of perhaps halfa ton mass. "I hope they use good stuff, " grinned Arcot. The piece wasdeposited on the floor of the ship, and a disc formed of artificialmatter plugged the hole in its side. Another took a piece of the reluxfrom the broken Thessian ship, pushed it into the hole on the ship. Thespace about the scene of operation was a crackling inferno of energybreaking down into heat and light. Arcot dematerialized his tremendoustools, and the wall of the _Ancient Mariner_ was neatly patched withrelux smoothed over as perfectly as before. A second time, using some ofthe relux he had brought within the ship, and the inner wall wasrebuilt. The job was absolutely perfect, save that now, where there hadbeen lux, there was an outer wall of relux. 

The main generator was crumpled up, and torn out. The auxiliarygenerators would have to carry the load. The great cables were swiftlyrepaired in the same manner, a perfect cylinder forming about them, anda piece of relux from the store Arcot had sliced from the enemy ship, welding them perfectly under enormous pressure, pressure that made themflow perfectly into one another as heat alone could not. 

In less than half an hour the ship was patched up, the power roomgenerally repaired, save for a few minor things that had to be replacedfrom the stores. The main generator was gone, but that was not anessential. The door was straightened and the job done. 

In an hour they were ready to proceed. 

Chapter XIV

INTERGALACTIC SPACE

"Well, Sirius has retreated a bit, " observed Arcot. The star was indeedseveral trillions of miles away. Evidently they had not been motionlessas they had thought, but the interference of the Thessian ship hadthrown their machine off. 

"Shall we go back, or go on?" asked Morey. 

"The ship works. Why return?" asked Wade. "I vote we go on. "

"Seconded, " added Arcot. 

"If they who know most of the ship vote for a continuance of thejourney, then assuredly we who know so little can only abide by theirjudgment. Let us continue, " said Zezdon Afthen gravely. 

Space was suddenly black about them. Sirius was gone, all the jewels ofthe heavens were gone in the black of swift flight. Ten seconds laterArcot lowered the space-control. Black behind them the night of spacewas pricked by points of light, the infinite multitude of the stars. Before them lay--nothing. The utter emptiness of space between thegalaxies. 

"Thlek Styrs! What happened?" asked Morey in amazement, his pet Venerianphrase rolling out in his astonishment. 

"Tried an experiment, and it was overly successful, " replied Arcot, aworried look on his face. "I tried combining the Thessian high speed_time_ distortion with our high _speed_ space distortion--both on lowpower. 'There ain't no sich animals, ' as the old agriculturist remarkedof the giraffe. God knows what speed we hit, but it was plenty. We mustbe ten thousand light years beyond the galaxy. "

"That's a fine way to start the trip. You have the old star maps to getback however, have you not?" asked Wade. 

"Yes, the maps we made on our first trip out this way are in thecabinet. Look 'em up, will you, and see how far we have to go before wereach the cosmic fields?"

Arcot was busy with his instruments, making a more accuratedetermination of their distance from the "edge" of the galaxy. Headopted the figure of twelve thousand five hundred light years as theprobable best result. Wade was back in a moment with the informationthat the fields lay about sixteen thousand light years out. Arcot wenton, at a rate that would reach the fields in two hours. 

Several hours more were spent in measurements, till at last Arcotannounced himself satisfied. 

"Good enough--back we go. " Again in the control room, he threw on thedrive, and shot through the twenty-seven thousand light years of cosmicray fields, and then more leisurely returned to the galaxy. The starmaps were strangely off. They could follow them, but only withdifficulty as the general configuration of the constellations that weretheir guides were visibly altered to the naked eye. 

"Morey, " said Arcot softly, looking at the constellation at which theywere then aiming, and at the map before him, "there is something very, very rotten. The Universe either 'ain't what it used to be' or we havetraveled in more than space. "

"I know it, and I agree with you. Obviously, from the degree ofalteration off the constellations, we are off by about 100, 000 years. Question: how come? Question: what are we going to do about it?"

"Answer one: remembering what we observed _in re_ Sirius, I suspect thatthe interference of that Thessian ship, with its time-field opposing ourspace-field did things to our time-frame. We were probably thrown offthen. 

"As to the second question, we have to determine number one first. Thenwe can plan our actions. "

With Wade's help, and by coming to rest near several of the stars, thenobserving their actual motions, they were able to determine theirtime-status. The estimate they made finally was of the order of eightythousand years in the past! The Thessian ship had thrown them that muchout of their time. 

"This isn't all to the bad, " said Morey with a sigh. "We at least haveall the time we could possibly use to determine the things we want forthis fight. We might even do a lot of exploring for the archeologists ofEarth and Venus and Ortol and Talso. As to getting back--that's aquestion. "

"Which is, " added Arcot, "easy to answer now, thank the good Lord. Allwe have to do is wait for our time to catch up with us. If we just waiteighty thousand years, eight hundred centuries, we will be in our owntime. "

"Oh, I think waiting so long would be boring, " said Wade sarcastically. "What do you suggest we do in the intervening eighty millenniums? Playcards?"

"Oh, cards or chess. Something like that, " grinned Arcot. "Play cards, calculate our fields--and turn on the time rate control. "

"Oh--I take it back. You win! Take all! I forgot all about that, " Wadesmiled at his friend. "That will save a little waiting, won't it. "

"The exploring of our worlds would without doubt be of infinite benefitto science, but I wonder if it would not be of more direct benefit if wewere to get back to our own time, alive and well. Accidents alwayshappen, and for all our weapons, we might easily meet some animal whichwould put an abrupt and tragic finish to our explorations. Is it notso?" asked Stel Felso Theu. 

"Your point is good, Stel Felso Theu. I agree with you. We will do nomore exploring than is necessary, or safe. "

"We might just as well travel slowly on the time retarder, and work onthe way. I think the thing to do is to go back to Earth, or better, thesolar system, and follow the sun in its path. "

They returned, and the desolation that the sun in its journey passesthrough is nothing to the utter, oppressive desolation of empty spacebetween the stars, for it has its family of planets--and it has noconscious thought. 

The Sun was far from the point that it had occupied when the travelershad left it, billions on billions of miles further on its journey aroundthe gravitational center of our galactic universe, and in the eightymillenniums that they must wait, it would go far. 

They did not go to the planets now, for, as Arcot said in reply to StelFelso Theu's suggestion that they determine more accurately theirposition in time, life had not developed to an extent that would enablethem to determine the year according to our calendar. 

So for thirty thousand years they hung motionless as the sun moved on, and the little spots of light, that were worlds, hurled about it in amad race. Even Pluto, in its three-hundred-year-long track seemed madlygyrating beneath them; Mercury was a line of light, as it swirled aboutthe swiftly moving sun. 

But that thirty thousand years was thirty days to the men of the ship. Their time rate immensely retarded, they worked on their calculations. At the end of that month Arcot had, with the help of Morey and Wade, worked out the last of the formulas of artificial matter, and themachines had turned out the last graphical function of the last branchof research that they could discover. It was a time of labor for them, and they worked almost constantly, stopping occasionally for a game ofsome sort to relax the nervous tension. 

At the end of that month they decided that they would go to Earth. 

They speeded their time rate now, and flashed toward Earth at enormousspeed that brought them within the atmosphere in minutes. They hadlanded in the valley of the Nile. Arcot had suggested this as a means ofdetermining the advancement of life of man. Man had evidentlyestablished some of his earliest civilizations in this valley wherewater and sun for his food plants were assured. 

"Look--there _are_ men here!" exclaimed Wade. Indeed, below them werevillages, of crude huts made of timber and stone and mud. Rubble workwalls, for they needed little shelter here, and the people were butsavages. 

"Shall we land?" asked Arcot, his voice a bit unsteady with suppressedexcitement. 

"Of course!" replied Morey without turning from his station at thewindow. Below them now, less than half a mile down on the patchwork ofthe Nile valley, men were standing, staring up, collecting in littlegroups, gesticulating toward the strange thing that had materialized inthe air above them. 

"Does every one agree that we land?" asked Arcot. 

There were no dissenting voices, and the ship sank gently toward a roadbelow and to the left. A little knot of watchers broke, and they fled interror as the great machine approached, crying out to their friends, casting affrighted glances at the huge, shining monster behind them. 

Without a jar the mighty weight of the ship touched the soil of itsnative planet, touched it fifty millenniums before it was made, fivehundred centuries before it left!

Arcot's brow furrowed. "There is one thing puzzles me--I can't see howwe can come back. Don't you see, Morey, we have disturbed the lives ofthose people. We have affected history. This must be written into thehistory that exists. 

"This seems to banish the idea of free thought. We have changed history, yet history is that which is already done!

"Had I never been born, had--but I _was_ already--I existed fifty-eightythousand years before I was born!"

"Let's go out and think about that later. We'll go to a psych hospital, if we don't stop thinking about problems of space and time for a littlewhile. We need some kind of relaxation. "

"I suggest that we take our weapons with us. These men may have weaponsof chemical nature, such as poisons injected into the flesh on smallsticks hurled either by a spring device or by pneumatic pressure of thelungs, " said Stel Felso Theu as he rose from his seat unstrappinghimself. 

"Arrows and blow-guns we call 'em. But it's a good idea, Stel Felso, andI think we will, " replied Arcot. "Let's not all go out at once, and thefirst group to go out goes out on foot, so they won't be scared off byour flying around. "

Arcot, Wade, Zezdon Afthen, and Stel Felso Theu went out. The nativeshad retreated to a respectful distance, and were now standing about, looking on, chattering to themselves. They were edging nearer. 

"Growing bold, " grinned Wade. 

"It is the characteristic of intelligent races manifestingitself--curiosity, " pointed out Stel Felso Theu. 

"Are these the type of men still living in this valley, or who will beliving there in fifty thousand years?" asked Zezdon Afthen. 

"I'd say they weren't Egyptians as we know them, but typical Neolithicmen. It seems they have brains fully as large as some of the men I seeon the streets of New York. I wonder if they have the ability to learnas much as the average man of--say about 1950?"

The Neolithic men were warming up. There was an orator among them, andhis grunts, growls, snorts and gestures were evidently affecting them. They had sent the women back (by the simple and direct process ofsweeping them up in one arm and heaving them in the general direction ofhome). The men were brandishing polished stone knives and axes, variousinstruments of war and peace. One favorite seemed to be a large club. 

"Let's forestall trouble, " suggested Arcot. He drew his ray pistol, andturned it on the ground directly in front of them, and about halfwaybetween them and the Neoliths. A streak of the soil about two feet wideflashed into intense radiation under the impact of millions on millionsof horsepower of radiant energy. Further, it was fused to a depth oftwenty feet or more, and intensely hot still deeper. The Neoliths took asingle look at it, then turned, and raced for home. 

"Didn't like our looks. Let's go back. "

They wandered about the world, investigating various peoples, and provedto their own satisfaction that there was no Atlantis, not at this timeat any rate. But they were interested in seeing that the polar capsextended much farther toward the equator; they had not retreated at thattime to the extent that they had by the opening of history. 

They secured some fresh game, an innovation in their larder, and awelcome one. Then the entire ship was swept out with fresh, clean air, their water tanks filled with water from the cold streams of the meltingglaciers. The air apparatus was given a new stock to work over. 

Their supplies in a large measure restored, thousands of aerialphotographic maps made, they returned once more to space to wait. 

Their time was taken up for the most part by actual work on the enormousmass of calculation necessary. It is inconceivable to the layman whattremendous labor is involved in the development of a single mathematicalhypothesis, and a concrete illustration of it was the long time, withtremendously advanced calculating machines, that was required in theirpresent work. 

They had worked out the problem of the time-field, but there they hadbeen aided by the actual apparatus, and the possibilities of makingdirect tests on machines already set up. The problem of artificialmatter, at length fully solved, was a different matter. This hadrequired within a few days of a month (by their clocks; close to thirtythousand years of Earth's time), for they had really been forced todevelop it all from the beginning. In the small improvements Arcot hadinstituted in Stel Felso Theu's device, he had really merely followedthe particular branch that Stel Felso Theu had stumbled upon. Hence itwas impossible to determine with any great variety, the type of mattercreated. Now, however, Arcot could make any known kind of matter, andmany unknown kinds. 

But now came the greatest problem of all. They were ready to start workon the data they had collected in space. 

"What, " asked Zezdon Afthen, as he watched the three terrestrians begintheir work, "is the nature of the thing you are attempting to harness?"

"In a word, energy, " replied Arcot, pausing. 

"We are attempting to harness energy in its primeval form, in the formof a space-field. Remember, mass is a measure of energy. Two centuriesago a scientist of our world proposed the idea that energy could bemeasured by mass, and proceeded to prove that the relationship was thenow firmly intrenched formula E=Mc^{2}. 

"The sun is giving off energy. It is giving off mass, then, in the formof light photons. The field of the sun's gravity must be constantlydecreasing as its mass decreases. It is a collapsing field. It is true, the sun's gravitational field does decrease, by a minute amount, despitethe fact that our sun loses a thousand million tons of matter every fourminutes. The percentage change is minute, but the energy releasedis--immeasurable. 

"But, I am going to invent a new power unit, Afthen. I will call it the'sol, ' the power of a sun. One sol is the rating of our sun. And I willmeasure the energy I use in terms of sun-powers, not horsepower. Thatmay tell you of its magnitude!"

"But, " Zezdon Afthen asked, "while you men of Earth work on thisproblem, what is there for us? We have no problems, save the problem ofthe fate of our world, still fifty thousand years of your time in thefuture. It is terrible to wait, wait, wait and think of what may behappening in that other time. Is there nothing we can do to help? I knowour hopeless ignorance of your science. Stel Felso Theu can scarcelyunderstand the thoughts you use, and I can scarcely understand hisexplanations! I cannot help you there, with your calculations, but isthere nothing I can do?"

"There is, Ortolian, decidedly. We badly need your help, and as StelFelso Theu cannot aid us here as much as he can by working with you, Iwill ask him to do so. I want your knowledge of psycho-mechanicaldevices to help us. Will you make a machine controlled by mentalimpulses? I want to see such a system and know how it is done that I maycontrol machines by such a system. "

"Gladly. It will take time, for I am not the expert worker that you are, and I must make many pieces of apparatus, but I will do what I can, "exclaimed Zezdon Afthen eagerly. 

So, while Arcot and his group continued their work of determining theconstants of the space-energy field, the others were working on themental control apparatus. 

Chapter XV

ALL-POWERFUL GODS

Again there was a period of intense labor, while the ship driftedthrough time, following Earth in its mad careening about the sun, andthe sun as it rushed headlong through space. At the end of a thirty-dayperiod, they had reached no definite position in their calculations, andthe Talsonian reported, as a medium between the two parties ofscientists, that the work of the Ortolian had not reached a level thatwould make a scientific understanding possible. 

As the ship needed no replenishing, they determined to finish theirpresent work before landing, and it was nearly forty thousand yearsafter their first arrival that they again landed on Earth. 

It was changed now; the ice caps had retreated visibly, the Nile deltawas far longer, far more prominent, and cities showed on the Earth hereand there. 

Greece, they decided would be the next stop, and to Greece they went, landing on a mountain side. Below was a village, a small village, asmall thing of huts and hovels. But the villagers attacked, swarming upthe hillside furiously, shouting and shrieking warnings of theirterrible prowess to these men who came from the "shining house, "ordering them to flee from them and turn over their possession to them. 

"What'll we do?" asked Morey. He and Arcot had come out alone this time. 

"Take one of these fellows back with us, and question him. We had bestget a more or less definite idea of what time-age we are in, hadn't we?We don't want to overshoot by a few centuries, you know!"

The villagers were swarming up the side of the hill, armed with weaponsof bronze and wood. The bronze implements of murder were rare, andevidently costly, for those that had them were obviously leaders, andbetter dressed than the others. 

"Hang it all, I have only a molecular pistol. Can't use that, it wouldbe a plain massacre!" exclaimed Arcot. 

But suddenly several others, who had come up from one side, appearedfrom behind a rock. The scientists were wearing their power suits, andhad them on at low power, leaving a weight of about fifty pounds. Morey, with his normal weight well over two hundred, jumped far to one side ofa clumsy rush of a peasant, leaped back, and caught him from behind. Lifting the smaller man above his head, he hurled him at two othersfollowing. The three went down in a heap. 

Most of the men were about five feet tall, and rather lightly built. The"Greek God" had not yet materialized among them. They were probablypoorly fed, and heavily worked. Only the leaders appeared to be in goodphysical condition, and the men could not develop to large stature. Arcot and Morey were giants among them, and with their greater skill, tremendous jumping ability, and far greater strength, easily overcamethe few who had come by the side. One of the leaders was picked up, andtrussed quickly in a rope a fellow had carried. 

"Look out, " called Wade from above. Suddenly he was standing besidethem, having flown down on the power suit. "Caught your thoughts--ratherZezdon Afthen did. " He handed Arcot a ray pistol. The rest of the Greekswere near now, crying in amazement, and running more slowly. They didn'tseem so anxious to attack. Arcot turned the ray pistol to one side. 

"Wait!" called Morey. A face peered from around the rock toward whichArcot had aimed his pistol. It was that of a girl, about fifteen yearsold in appearance, but hard work had probably aged her face. Morey bentover, heaved on a small boulder, about two hundred pounds of rock, androlled it free of the depression it rested in, then caught it on amolecular ray, hurled it up. Arcot turned his heat ray on it for aninstant, and it was white hot. Then the molecular ray threw it overtoward the great rock, and crushed it against it. Three childrenshrieked and ran out from the rock, scurrying down the hillside. 

The soldiers had stopped. They looked at Morey. Then they looked at thegreat rock, three hundred yards from him. They looked at the rockfragments. 

"They think you threw it, " grinned Arcot. 

"What else--they saw me pick it up, saw me roll it, and it flew. Whatelse could they think?"

Arcot's heat ray hissed out, and the rocks sputtered and cracked, thenglowed white. There was a dull explosion, and chips of rock flew up. Water, imprisoned, had been turned into steam. In a moment the whistleand crackle of combined heat and molecular rays stabbing out fromArcot's hands had built a barrier of fused rocks. 

Leisurely Arcot and Morey carried their now revived prisoner back to theship, while Wade flew ahead to open the locks. 

Half an hour later the prisoner was discharged, much to his surprise, and the ship rose. They had been able to learn nothing from him. Eventhe Greek Gods, Zeus, Hermes, Apollo, all the later Greek gods, wereunknown, or so greatly changed that Arcot could not recognize them. 

"Well, " he said at length, "it seems all we know is that they camebefore any historical Greeks we know of. That puts them back quite abit, but I don't know how far. Shall we go see the Egyptians?"

They tried Egypt, a few moments across the Mediterranean, landing closeto the mouth of the Nile. The people of a village near by immediatelyset out after them. Better prepared this time, Arcot flew out to meetthem with Zezdon Afthen and Stel Felso Theu. Surely, he felt, the sightof the strange men would be no more terrifying than the ship or the menflying. And that did not seem to deter their attack. Apparently theproverb that "Discretion is the better part of valor, " had not beeninvented. 

Arcot landed near the head of the column, and cut off two or three menfrom the rest with the aid of his ray pistol. Zezdon Afthen quicklysearched his mind, and with Arcot's aid they determined he did not knowany of the Gods that Arcot suggested. 

Finally they had to return to the ship, disappointed. They had had theslight satisfaction of finding that the Sun God was Ralz, the laterEgyptian Ra might well have been an evolved form of that name. 

They restocked the ship, fresh game and fruits again appearing on themenu, then once again they launched forth into space to wait for theirown time. 

"It seems to me that we must have produced some effect by our visit, "said Arcot, shaking his head solemnly. 

"We did, Arcot, " replied Morey softly. "We left an impress in history, an impress that still is, and an impress that affected countlessthousands. 

"Meet the Egyptian Gods with their heads strange to terrestrians, theGods who fly through the air without wings, come from a shining housethat flies, whose look, whose pointed finger melts the desert sands, andthe moist soil!" he continued softly, nodding toward the Ortolian andthe Talsonian. 

"Their 'impossible' Gods existed, and visited them. Indubitably somegenius saw that here was a chance for fame and fortune and sold 'charms'against the 'Gods. ' Result: we are carrying with us some of the oldestdeities. Again, we did leave our imprint in history. "

"And, " cried Wade excitedly, "meet the great Hercules, who threw menabout. I always knew that Morey was a brainless brute, but I neverrealized the marvelous divining powers of those Greeks soperfectly--now, the Incarnation of Dumb Power!" Dramatically Wadepointed to Morey, unable even now to refrain from some unnecessarycomments. 

"All right, Mercury, the messenger of the Gods speaks. The little flapson Wade's flying shoes must indeed have looked like the winged shoes oflegend. Wade was Mercury, too brainless for anything but carrying thewords of wisdom uttered by others. 

"And Arcot, " continued Morey, releasing Wade from his condescendingstare, "is Jove, hurling the rockfusing, destroying thunderbolts!"

"The Gods that my friends have been talking of, " explained Arcot to thecurious Ortolians, "are legendary deities of Earth. I can see now thatwe did leave an imprint on history in the only way we could--as Gods, for surely no other explanation could have occurred to those men. "

The days passed swiftly in the ship, as their work approachedcompletion. Finally, when the last of the equation of Time, artificialmatter, and the most awful of their weapons, the unlimited Cosmic Power, had been calculated, they fell to the last stage of the work. The actualappliances were designed. Then the completed apparatus that the Ortolianand the Talsonian had been working on, was carefully investigated by theterrestrial physicists, and its mechanism studied. Arcot had great plansfor this, and now it was incorporated in their control apparatus. 

The one remaining problem was their exact location in time. Alreadytheir progress had brought them well up to the nineteenth century, but, as Morey sadly remarked, they couldn't tell what date, for they weresadly lacking in history. Had they known the real date, for instance, ofthe famous battle of Bull Run, they could have watched it in thetelectroscope, and so determined their time. As it was, they knew onlythat it was one of the periods of the first half of the decade of 1860. 

"As historians, we're a bunch of first-class kitchen mechanics. Lookslike we're due for another landing to locate the exact date, " agreedArcot. 

"Why land now? Let's wait until we are nearer the time to which webelong, so we won't have to watch so carefully and so long, " suggestedWade. 

They argued this question for about two hundred years as a matter offact. After that, it was academic anyway. 

Chapter XVI

HOME AGAIN

They were getting very near their own time, Arcot felt. Indeed, theymust already exist on Earth. "One thing that puzzles me, " he commented, "is what would happen if we were to go down now, and see ourselves. "

"Either we can't or we don't want to do it, " pointed out Morey, "becausewe didn't. "

"I think the answer is that nothing can exist two times at the sametime-rate, " said Arcot. "As long as we were in a different time-rate wecould exist at two times. When we tried to exist simultaneously, wecould not, and we were forced to slip through time to a time wherein weeither did not exist or wherein we had not yet been. Since we werenearer the time when we last existed in normal time, than we were to thetime of our birth, we went to the time we left. I suspect that we willfind we have just left Earth. Shall we investigate?"

"Absolutely, Arcot, and here's hoping we didn't overshoot the mark bymuch. " As Morey intimated, had they gone much beyond the time they leftEarth, they might find conditions very serious, indeed. But now theywent at once toward Earth on the time control. As they neared, theylooked anxiously for signs of the invasion. Arcot spotted the onlyevident signs, however; two large spheres, tiny points in appearance onthe telectroscope screen, were circling Earth, one at about 1, 000 miles, moving from east to west, the other about 1, 200 miles moving from northto south. 

"It seems the enemy have retreated to space to do their fighting. Iwonder how long we were away. "

As they swept down at a speed greater than light, they were invisibletill Arcot slowed down near the atmosphere. Instantly half a dozen fastships darted toward them, but the ship was very evidently unlike theThessian ships, and no attack was made. First the occupants would havean opportunity to prove their friendliness. 

"Terrestrians Arcot, Morey and Wade reporting back from exploration inspace, with two friends. All have been on Earth with us previously, "said Arcot into the radio vision apparatus. 

"Very well, Dr. Arcot. You are going to New York or Vermont?" asked thePatrol commander. 

"Vermont. "

"Yes, Sir. I'll see that you aren't stopped again. "

And, thanks to the message thus sent ahead, they were not, and in lessthan half an hour they landed once more in Vermont, on the field fromwhich they had started. 

The group of scientists who had been here on their last call had gone, which seemed natural enough to them, who had been working for threemonths in the interval of their trip, but to Dr. Arcot senior, as he sawthem, it was a misfortune. 

"Now I never will get straight all you'll have ready, and I didn'texpect you back till next week. The men have all gone back to theirlaboratories, since that permits of better work on the part of each, butwe can call them here in half an hour. I'm sure they'll want to come. What did you learn, Son, or haven't you done any calculating on yourdata as yet?"

"We learned plenty, and I feel quite sure that a hint of what we havewould bring all those learning-hounds around us pretty quickly, Dad, "laughed Arcot junior, "and believe it or not, we've been calculating onthis stuff for three months since we left yesterday!"

"What!"

"Yes, it's true! We were on our time field, and turned on the spacecontrol--and a Thessian ship picked that moment to run into us. We cutthe ship in half as neatly as you please, but it threw us eightythousand years into the past. We have been coasting through time onretarded rate while Earth caught up with itself, so to speak. In themeantime--three months in a day!

"But don't call those men. Let them come to the appointment, while we dosome work, and we have plenty of work to do, I assure you. We have alist of things to order from the standard supply houses, and I think youbetter get them for us, Dad. " Arcot's manner became serious now. "Wehaven't gotten our Government Expense Research Cards yet, and you have. Order the stuff, and get it out here, while we get ready for it. Honestly, I believe that a few ships such as this apparatus will permit, will be enough in themselves to do the job. It really is a pity that theother men didn't have the opportunity we had for crowding much work intolittle time!

"But then, I wouldn't want to take that road to concentration againmyself!

"Have the enemy amused you in my absence? Come on, let's sit down in thehouse instead of standing here in the sun. "

They started toward the house, as Arcot senior explained what hadhappened in the short time they had been away. 

"There is a friend of yours here, whom you haven't seen in some time, Son. He came with some allies. "

As they entered the house, they could hear the boards creak under someheavy weight that moved across the floor, soundlessly and light ofmotion in itself. A shadow fell across the hall floor, and in thedoorway a tremendously powerfully-built figure stood. 

He seemed to overflow the doorway, nearly six and a half feet tall, andfully as wide as the door. His rugged, bronzed face was smilingpleasantly, and his deep-set eyes seemed to flash; a living force flowedfrom them. 

"Torlos! By the Nine Planets! Torlos of Nansal! Say, I didn't expect youhere, and I will not put my hand in that meatgrinder of yours, " grinnedArcot happily, as Torlos stretched forth a friendly, but quite toopowerful hand. 

Torlos of Nansal, that planet Arcot had discovered on his first voyageacross space, far in another Island of Space, another Island Universe, was not constructed as are human beings of Earth, nor of Venus, Talso, or Ortol, but most nearly resembled, save in size, the Thessians. Theirframework, instead of being stone, as is ours, was iron, their boneswere pure metallic iron, far stronger than bone. On these far strongerbones were great muscles of an entirely different sort, a muscle thatused heat of the body as its fuel, a muscle that was utterly tireless, and unbelievably powerful. Not a chemical engine, but a molecular motionengine, it had no chemical fatigue-products that would tire it, andneeded only the constant heat supply the body sucked from the air towork indefinitely. Unlimited by waste-carrying considerations, thestrength was enormous. 

It was one of the commercial space freighters plying between Nansal, Sator, Earth and Venus that had brought the news of this war to him, Torlos explained, and he, as the new Trade Coordinator and Fourth of theFour who now ruled Nansal, had suggested that they go to the aid of theman who had so aided them in their great war with Sator. It was Arcot'sgift of the secret of the molecular ray and the molecular ship that hadenabled them to overcome their enemy of centuries, and force upon theman unwelcome peace. 

Now, with a fleet of fifty interstellar, or better, intergalacticbattleships, Nansal was coming to Earth's aid. 

The battleships were now on patrol with all of Earth's and Venus' fleet. But the Nansalian ships were all equipped with the enormously rapidspace distortion system of travel, of course, and were a shock troop inthe patrol. The Terrestrian and Venerian patrols were not so equipped infull. 

"And Arcot, from what I have learned from your father, it seems that Ican be of real assistance, " finished Torlos. 

"But now, I think, I should know what the enemy has done. I see theybuilt some forts. "

"Yes, " replied Arcot senior, "they did. They decided that the systemused on the forts of North and South poles was too effective. They movedto space, and cut off slices of Luna, pulled it over on their molecularrays, and used some of the most magnificent apparatus you ever dreamedof. I have just started working on the mathematics of it. 

"We sent out a fleet to do some investigating, but they attacked, andstopped work in the meantime. Whatever the ray is that can destroymatter at a distance, they are afraid that we could find its secret tooeasily, and block it, for they don't think it is a weapon, and it isevidently slow in action. "

"Then it isn't what I thought it was, " muttered Arcot. 

"What did you think it was?" asked his father. 

"Er--tell you later. Go on with the account. "

"Well, to continue. We have not been idle. Following your suggestion, webuilt up a large ray screen apparatus, in fact, several of them, andcarried them in ships to different parts of the world. Also some of theplanets, lest they start dropping worlds on us. They are already inoperation, sending their defensive waves against the Heaviside layer. Radio is poor, over any distance, and we can't call Venus from insidethe layer now. However, we tested the protection, and it works--far moreefficiently than we calculated, due to the amazing conductivity of thelayer. 

"If they intend to attack in that way, I suspect that it will be soon, for they are ready now, as we discovered. An attack on their fort wasmet with a ray screen from the fort. 

"They fight with a wild viciousness now. They won't let a ship get nearthem. They destroy everything on sight. They seem tremendously afraid ofthat apparatus of yours. Too bad we had no more. "

"We will have--if you will let me get to work. "

They went to the ship, and entered it. Arcot senior did not follow, butthe others waited, while the ship left Earth once more, and floated inspace. Immediately they went into the time-field. 

They worked steadily, sleeping when necessary, and the giant strength ofTorlos was frequently as great an asset as his indefatigable work. Hewas learning rapidly, and was able to do a great deal of the workwithout direction. He was not a scientist, and the thing was new to him, but his position as one of the best of the secret intelligence force ofNansal had proven his brains, and he did his share. 

The others, scientists all, found the operations difficult, for work hadbeen allotted to each according to his utmost capabilities. 

It was still nearly a week of their time before the apparatus wascompleted to the extent possible, less than a minute of normal timepassing. 

Finally the unassembled, but completed apparatus, was carried to thelaboratory of the cottage, and word was sent to all the men of Earththat Arcot was going to give a demonstration of the apparatus he hopedwould save them. The scientists from all over Earth and Venus wereinterested, and those of Earth came, for there was no time for the menof Venus to arrive to inspect the results. 

Chapter XVII

POWER OF MIND

It was night. The stars visible through the laboratory windows winkedviolently in the disturbed air of the Heaviside layer, for the molecularray screen was still up. 

The laboratory was dimly lighted now, all save the front of the room. There, a mass of compact boxes were piled one on another, andinterconnected in various and indeterminate ways. And one table lay in abrilliant path of illumination. Behind it stood Arcot. He was talking tothe dim white group of faces beyond the table, the scientists of Earthassembled. 

"I have explained our power. It is the power of all the universe--CosmicPower--which is necessarily vaster than all others combined. 

"I cannot explain the control in the time I have at my disposal but themathematics of it, worked out in two months of constant effort, you canfollow from the printed work which will appear soon. 

"The second thing, which some of you have seen before, has already beenpartly explained. It is, in brief, artificially created matter. The twoimportant things to remember about it are that it _is_, that it _doesexist_, and that it exists _only where it is determined to exist by thecontrol there, and nowhere else_. 

"These are all coordinated under the new mental relay control. Some ofyou will doubt this last, but think of it under this light. Will, thought, concentration--they are efforts, they require energy. Then theycan exert energy! That is the key to the whole thing. 

"But now for the demonstration. "

Arcot looked toward Morey, who stood off to one side. There was a heavythud as Morey pushed a small button. The relay had closed. Arcot's mindwas now connected with the controls. 

A globe of cloudiness appeared. It increased in density, and was asolid, opalescent sphere. 

"There is a sphere, a foot in diameter, ten feet from me, " droned Arcot. The sphere was there. "It is moving to the left. " The sphere moved tothe left at Arcot's thought. "It is rising. " The sphere rose. "It ischanging to a disc two feet across. " The sphere seemed to flow, and wasa disc two feet across as Arcot's toneless voice of concentrationcontinued. 

"It is changing into a hand, like a human hand. " The disc changed into ahuman hand, the fingers slightly bent, the soft, white fingers of awoman with the pink of the flesh and the wrinkles at the knucklesvisible. The wrist seemed to fade gradually into nothingness, the end ofthe hand was as indeterminate as are things in a dream, but the hand wasdefinite. 

"The hand is reaching for the bar of lux metal on the floor. " The soft, little hand moved, and reached down and grasped the half ton bar of luxmetal, wrapped dainty fingers about it and lifted it smoothly andeffortlessly to the table, and laid it there. 

A mistiness suddenly solidified to another hand. The second hand joinedthe first, and fell to work on the bar, and pulled. The bar stretchedfinally under an enormous load. One hand let go, and the thud of thehighly elastic lux metal bar's return to its original shape echoedthrough the soundless room. These men of the twenty-second century knewwhat relux and lux metals were, and knew their enormous strength. Yet itwas putty under these hands. The hands that looked like a woman's!

The bar was again placed on the table, and the hands disappeared. Therewas a thud, and the relay had opened. 

"I can't demonstrate the power I have. It is impossible. Thepower is so enormous that nothing short of a sun could serve as ademonstration-hall. It is utterly beyond comprehension under anyconditions. I have demonstrated artificial matter, and control by mentalaction. 

"I'm now going to show you some other things we have learned. Remember, I can control perfectly the properties of artificial matter, bydetermining the structure it shall have. 

"Watch. "

Morey closed the relay. Arcot again set to work. A heavy ingot of ironwas raised by a clamp that fastened itself upon it, coming from nowhere. The iron moved, and settled over the table. As it approached, amistiness that formed became a crucible. The crucible showed the gray ofpure iron, but it was artificial matter. The iron settled in thecrucible, and a strange process of flowing began. The crucible became aball, and colors flowed across its surface, till finally it was glowingrichly silvery. The ball opened, and a great lump of silvery stuff waswithin it. It settled to the floor, and the ball disappeared, but thesilvery metal did not. 

"Platinum, " said Morey softly. A gasp came from the audience. "Onlyplatinum could exist there, and the matter had to rearrange itself asplatinum. " He could rearrange it in any form he chose, either absorbingor supplying energy of existence and energy of formation. 

The mistiness again appeared in the air, and became a globe, a globe ofbrown. But it changed, and disappeared. Morey recognized the signal. "Hewill now make the artificial matter into all the elements, and manynonexistent elements, unstable, atomic figures. " There followed a longseries of changes. 

The material shifted again, and again. Finally the last of the naturalelements was left behind, all 104 elements known to man were shown, andmany others. 

"We will skip now. This is element of atomic weight 7000. "

It was a lump of soft, oozy blackness. One could tell from the way thatArcot's mind handled it that it was soft. It seemed cold, terribly cold. Morey explained:

"It is very soft, for its atom is so large that it is soft in themolecular state. It is tremendously photoe-lectric, losing electronsvery readily, and since its atom has so enormous a volume, its electronsare very far from the nucleus in the outer rings, and they absorb raysof very great length; even radio and some shorter audio waves seem toaffect it. That accounts for its blackness, and the softness as Arcothas truly depicted it. Also, since it absorbs heat waves and changesthem to electrical charges, it tends to become cold, as the frost Arcothas shown indicates. Remember, that that is infinitely hard as you seeit, for it is artificial matter, but Arcot has seen natural matterforced into this exceedingly explosive atomic figuration. 

"It is so heavily charged in the nucleus that its X-ray spectrum is welltoward the gamma! The inner electrons can scarcely vibrate. "

Again the substance changed--and was gone. 

"Too far--atom of weight 20, 000 becomes invisible and nonexistent asspace closes in about it--perhaps the origin of our space. Atoms of thisweight, if breaking up, would form two or more atoms that would exist inour space, then these would be unstable, and break down further intonormal atoms. We don't know. 

"And one more substance, " continued Morey as he opened the relay oncemore. Arcot sat down and rested his head in his hands. He was notaccustomed to this strain, and though his mind was one of the mostpowerful on Earth, it was very hard for him. 

"We have a substance of commercial and practical use now. Cosmium. Arcotwill show one method of making it. "

Arcot resumed his work, seated now. A formation reached out, and graspedthe lump of platinum still on the floor. Other bars of iron were broughtover from the stack of material laid ready, and piled on a broad sheetthat had formed in the air, tons of it, tens of tons. Finally hestopped. There was enough. The sheet wrapped itself into a sphere, andcontracted, slowly, steadily. It was rampant with energy, energy flowedfrom it, and the air about was glowing with ionization. There was afeeling of awful power that seeped into the minds of the watchers, andheld them spellbound before the glowing, opalescent sphere. The tons ofmatter were compressed now to a tiny ball! Suddenly the energy flaredout violently, a terrific burst of energy, ionizing the air in theentire room, and shooting it with tiny, burning sparks. Then it wasover. The ball split, and became two planes. Between them was a smallball of a glistening solid. The planes moved slowly together, and theball flattened, and flowed. It was a sheet. 

A clamp of artificial matter took it, and held the paper-thin sheet, many feet square, in the air. It seemed it must bend under its ownenormous weight of tons, but thin as it was it did not. 

"Cosmium, " said Morey softly. 

Arcot crumpled it, and pressed it once more between artificial mattertools. It was a plate, thick as heavy cardboard, and two feet on a side. He set it in a holder of artificial matter, a sort of frame, and causedthe controls to lock. 

Taking off the headpiece he had worn, he explained, "As Morey said, Cosmium. Briefly, density, 5007. 89. Tensile strength, about two hundredthousand times that of good steel!" The audience gasped. That seemslittle to men who do not realize what it meant. An inch of this stuffwould be harder to penetrate than three miles of steel!

"Our new ship, " continued Arcot, "will carry six-inch armor. Six incheswould be the equivalent of eighteen miles of solid steel, with theenormous improvement that it will be concentrated, and so will have fargreater resistance than any amount of steel. Its tensile strength wouldbe the equivalent of an eighteen-mile wall of steel. 

"But its most important properties are that it reflects everything weknow of. Cosmics, light, and even moleculars! It is made of cosmic rayphotons, as lux is made of light photons, but the inexpressibly tighterbond makes the strength enormous. It cannot be handled by any means saveby artificial matter tools. 

"And now I am going to give a demonstration of the theatricalpossibilities of this new agent. Hardly scientific--but amusing. "

But it wasn't exactly amusing. 

Arcot again donned the headpiece. "I think, " he continued, "that amanifestation of the super-natural will be most interesting. Rememberthat all you see is real, and all effects are produced by artificialmatter generated by the cosmic energy, as I have explained, and arecontrolled by my mind. "

Arcot had chosen to give this demonstration with definite reason. Apparently a bit of scientific playfulness, yet he knew that nothing isso impressive, nor so lastingly remembered as a theatrical demonstrationof science. The greatest scientist likes to play with his science. 

But Arcot's experiment now--it was on a level of its own!

From behind the table, apparently crawling up the leg came a thing! Itwas a hand. A horrible, disjointed hand. It was withered and incarminedwith blood, for it was severed from its wrist, and as it hunched itselfalong, moving by a ghastly twitching of fingers and thumb, it left atrail of red behind it. The papers to be distributed rustled as itpassed, scurrying suddenly across the table, down the leg, and racingtoward the light switch! By some process of writhing jerks it reachedit, and suddenly the room was plunged into half-light as the lightswinked out. Light filtering over the transom of the door from the hallalone illuminated the hall, but the hand glowed! It glowed, and scurriedaway with an awful rustling, scuttling into some unseen hole in thewall. The quiet of the hall was the quiet of tenseness. 

From the wall, coming through it, came a mistiness that solidified as itflowed across. It was far to the right, a bent stooped figure, a figurehalf glimpsed, but fully known, for it carried in its bony, glowing handa great, nicked scythe. Its rattling tread echoed hollowly on the floor. Stooping walk, shuffling gait, the great metal scythe scraping on thefloor, half seen as the gray, luminous cloak blew open in some unfeltbreeze of its ephemeral world, revealing bone; dry, gray bone. Only thescythe seemed to know Life, and it was red with that Life. Slow running, sticky lifestuff. 

Death paused, and raised his awful head. The hood fell back from thecavernous eyesockets, and they flamed with a greenish radiance that madeevery strained face in the room assume the same deathly pallor. 

"The Scythe, the Scythe of Death, " grated the rusty Voice. "The Scytheis slow, too slow. I bring new things, " it cackled in its cracked voice, "new things of my tools. See!" The clutching bones dropped the rattlingScythe, and the handle broke as it fell, and rotted before their eyes. "Heh, heh, " the Thing cackled as it watched. "Heh--what Death touches, rots as he leaves it. " The grinning, blackened skull grinned wider, inan awful, leering cavity, rotting, twisted teeth showed. But from underhis flapping robe, the skeletal hands drew something--ray pistols!

"These--these are swifter!" The Thing turned, and with a single leeringglance behind, flowed once more through the wall. 

A gasp, a stifled, groaning gasp ran through the hall, a half sob. 

But far, far away they could hear something clanking, dragging its slowway along. Spellbound they turned to the farthest corner--and lookeddown the long, long road that twined off in distance. A lone, luminousfigure plodded slowly along it, his half human shamble bringing himrapidly nearer. 

Larger and larger he loomed, clearer and clearer became the figure, andhis burden. Broken, twisted steel, or metal of some sort, twisted andblackened. 

"It's over--it's over--and my toys are here. I win, I always win. For Iam the spawn of Mars, of War, and of Hate, the sister of War, and mytoys are the things they leave behind. " It gesticulated, waving thetwisted stuff and now through the haze, they could see them--buildings. The framework of buildings and twisted liners, broken weapons. 

It loomed nearer, the cavernous, glowing eyes under low, shaggy brows, became clear, the awful brutal hate, the lust of Death, the rottingflesh of Disease--all seemed stamped on the Horror that approached. 

"Ah!" It had seen them! "Ahh!" It dropped the buildings, the brokenthings, and shuffled into a run, toward them! Its face changed, the lipsdrew back from broken, stained teeth, the curling, cruel lips, and therotting flesh of the face wrinkled into a grin of lust and hatred. Theshaggy mop of its hair seemed to writhe and twist, the long, thinfingers grasped spasmodically as it neared. The torn, broken fingernailswere visible--nearer--nearer--nearer--

"Oh, God--stop it!" A voice shrieked out of the dark as someone leapedsuddenly to his feet. 

Simultaneously with the cry the Thing puffed into nothingness of energyfrom which it had sprung, and a great ball of clear, white glowing lightcame into being in the center of the room, flooding it with a light thatdazzled the eyes, but calmed broken nerves. 

Chapter XVIII

EARTH'S DEFENSES

"I am sorry, Arcot. I did not know, for I see I might have helped, butto me, with my ideas of horror, it was as you said, amusement, " saidTorlos. They were sitting now in Arcot's study at the cottage; Arcot, his father, Morey, Wade, Torlos, the three Ortolians and the Talsonian. 

"I know, Torlos. You see, where I made my mistake, as I have said, wasin forgetting that in doing as I did, picturing horror, like a snowballrolling, it would grow greater. The idea of horror, started, my mindpictured one, and it inspired greater horror, which in turn reacted onmy all too reactive apparatus. As you said, the things changed as youwatched, molding themselves constantly as my mind changed them, underits own initiative and the concentrated thoughts of all those others. Itwas a very foolish thing to do, for that last Thing--well, remember it_was_, it existed, and the idea of hate and lust it portrayed was causedby my mind, but my mind could picture what it would do, if such were itsemotions, and it would do them because my mind pictured them! And_nothing_ could resist it!" Arcot's face was white once more as hethought of the danger he had run, of the terrible consequences possibleof that 'amusement. '

"I think we had best start on the ship. I'll go get some sleep now, andthen we can go. "

Arcot led the way to the ship, while Torlos, Morey and Wade and StelFelso Theu accompanied him. The Ortolians were to work on Earth, aidingin the detection of attacks by means of their mental investigation ofthe enemy. 

"Well--good-bye, Dad. Don't know when I'll be back. Maybe twenty-fivethousand years from now, or twenty-five thousand years ago. But we'llget back somehow. And we'll clean out the Thessians!"

He entered the ship, and rose into space. 

"Where are you going, Arcot?" asked Morey. 

"Eros, " replied Arcot laconically. 

"Not if my mind is working right, " cried Wade suddenly. All the otherswere tense, listening for inaudible sounds. 

"I quite agree, " replied Arcot. The ship turned about, and dived towardNew York, a hundred thousand miles behind now, at a speed many timesthat of light as Arcot snapped into time. Across the void, ZezdonFentes' call had come--New York was to be attacked by the Thessians, NewYork and Chicago next. New York because the orbits of their two fortswere converging over that city in a few minutes!

They were in the atmosphere, screaming through it as their relux glowedinstantaneously in the Heaviside layer, then was through before damagecould be done. The screen was up. 

Scarcely a minute after they passed, the entire heavens blazed intolight, the roar of tremendous thunders crashing above them, greatlightning bolts rent the upper air for miles as enormous energiesclashed. 

"Ah--they are sending everything they have against that screen, and it'shot. We have ten of our biggest tube stations working on it, and morecoming in, to our total of thirty, but they have two forts, and Lordknows how many ships. 

"I think me I'm going to cause them some worrying. "

Arcot turned the ship, and drove up again, now at a speed very low tothem but as they had the time-field up, very great. They passed thescreen, and a tremendous bolt struck the ship. Everything in it wasshielded, but the static was still great enough to cause them sometrouble as the time-field and electric field fought. But the time-field, because of its very nature, could work faster, and they won throughundamaged, though the enormous current seemed flowing for many minutesas they drifted slowly past it. Slowly--at fifty miles a second. 

Out in space, free of the atmosphere, Arcot shot out to the point wherethe Thessians were congregating. The shining dots of their ships and thediscs of the forts were visible from Earth save for the air'sdistortion. 

They seemed a miniature Milky Way, their deadly beams concentrated onEarth. 

Then the Thessians discovered that the terrestrial fleet was in action. A ship glowed with the ray, the opalescence of relux under molecularsvisible on its walls. It simply searched for its opponent while itsrelux slowly yielded. It found it in time, and the terrestrial ship putup its screen. 

The terrestrial fleet set to work, everything they had flying at theThessian giants, but the Thessians had heavier ships, and heavier tubes. More power was winning for them. Inevitably, when the Sun's interferencesomewhat weakened the ray shield--

About that time Arcot arrived. The nearest fort dived toward the furtherwith an acceleration that smashed it against no less than ten of its ownships before they could so much as move. 

When the way was clear to the other fort--and that fort had moved, theberserk fort started off a new tack--and garnered six more wrecks on itsside. 

Then Thett's emissaries located Arcot. The screen was up, and theNegrian attractive ray apparatus which Arcot had used was workingthrough it. The screen flashed here and there and collapsed under thefull barrage of half the Thessian fleet, as Arcot had suspected itwould. But the same force that made it collapse operated a relay thatturned on the space control, and Thett's molecular ray energy steamedoff to outer space. 

"We worried them, then dug our hole and dragged it in after us, asusual, but damn it, we can't hurt them!" said Arcot disgustedly. "All wecan do is tease them, then go hide where it's perfectly safe, inartificial--" Arcot stopped in amazement. The ship had been held undersuch space control that space was shut in about them, and they weremotionless. The dials had reached a steady point, the current flow hadbecome zero, and they hung there with only the very slow drain of theSun's gravitational field and that of the planet's field pulling on theship. Suddenly the current had leaped, and the dials giving the chargein the various coil banks had moved them down toward zero. 

"Hey--they've got a wedge in here and are breaking out our hole. Turn onall the generators, Morey. " Arcot was all action now. Somehow, inconceivable though it was, the Thessians had spotted them, and gotsome means of attacking them, despite their invulnerable position inanother space!

The generators were on, pouring enormous power into the coils, and thedials surged, stopped, and climbed ever so slowly. They should havejumped back under that charge, ordinarily dangerously heavy. For perhapsthirty seconds they climbed, then they started down at full speed!

Arcot's hand darted to the time field, and switched it on full. The dialjerked, swung, then swung back, and started falling in unison with thedials, stopped, and climbed. All climbed swiftly, gaining ever morerapidly. With what seemed a jerk, the time dial flew over, and back, asArcot opened the switch. They were free, and the dial on the spacecontrol coils was climbing normally now. 

"By the Nine Planets, did they drink out our energy! The energy of sixtons of lead just like that!"

"How'd they do it?" asked Wade. 

Torlos kept silent, and helped Morey replace the coils of lead wire withothers from stock. 

"Same way we tickled them, " replied Arcot, carefully studying thecontrol instruments, "with the gravity ray! We knew all along thatgravitational fields drank out the energy--they simply pulled it outfaster than we could pump it in, and used four different rays on usdoing it. Which speaks well for a little ship! But they burned off therelux on one room here, and it's a wreck. The molecs hit everything init. Looks like something bad, " called Arcot. The room was Morey's, buthe'd find that out himself. "In the meantime, see if you can tell wherewe are. I got loose from their rays by going on both the high speedtime-field and the space control at full, with all generators going fullblast. Man, they had a stranglehold on us that time! But wait till weget that new ship turned out!"

With the telectroscope they could see what was happening. The terrificbombardment of rays was continuing, and the fleets were locked now in astruggle, the combined fleets of Earth and Venus and of Nansal, faracross the void. Many of the terrestrian, or better, Solarian ships, were equipped with space distortion apparatus, now, and had some measureof safety in that the attractive rays of the Thessians could not be soconcentrated on them. In numbers was safety; Arcot had been endangeredbecause he was practically alone at the time they attacked. 

But it was obvious that the Solarian fleet was losing. They could notcompete with the heavier ships, and now the frequent flaming bursts oflight that told of a ship caught in the new deadly ray showed anotherdanger. 

"I think Earth is lost if you cannot aid it soon, Arcot, for otherThessian ships are coming, " said Stel Felso Theu softly. 

From out of the plane of the planetary orbits they were coming, acrossspace from some other world, a fleet of dozens of them. They werevisible as one after another leapt into normal time-rates. 

"Why don't they fight in advanced time?" asked Morey, half aloud. 

"Because the genius that designed that apparatus didn't think of it. Remember, Morey, those ships have their time apparatus connected withtheir power apparatus so that the power has to feed the timecontinuously. They have no coils like ours. When they advance theirtime, they're weakened every other way. 

"We need that new ship. Are we going to make it?" demanded Arcot. 

"Take weeks at best. What chance?" asked Morey. 

"Plenty; watch. " As he spoke, Arcot pulled open the time controls, andspun the ship about. They headed off toward a tiny point of light farbeyond. It rushed toward them, grew with the swiftness of an explodingbomb, and was suddenly a great, rough fragment of a planet hangingbefore them, miles in extent. 

"Eros, " explained Wade laconically to Torlos. "Part of an ancient planetthat was destroyed before the time of man, or life on Earth. The planetgot too near the sun when its orbit was irregular, and old Sol pulled itto pieces. This is one of the pieces. The other asteroids are the rest. All planetary surfaces are made up of great blocks; they aren'tcontinuous, you know. Like blocks of concrete in a building, they canslide a bit on each other, but friction holds them till they slip with ajar and we have earthquakes. This is one of the planetary blocks. We seeEros from Earth intermittently, for when this thing turns broadside itreflects a lot of light; edge on it does not reflect so much. "

It was a desolate bit of rock. Bare, airless, waterless rock, ofenormous extent. It was contorted and twisted, but there were no greatcracks in it for it was a single planetary block. 

Arcot dropped the ship to the barren surface, and anchored it with anattractive ray at low concentration. There was no gravity of consequenceon this bit of rock. 

"Come on, get to work. Space suits, and rush all the apparatus out, "snapped Arcot. He was on his feet, the power of the ship in neutral now. Only the attractor was on. In the shortest possible time they got intotheir suits, and under Arcot's direction set up the apparatus on therocky soil as fast as it was brought out. In all, less than fifteenminutes were needed, yet Arcot was hurrying them more and more. Torlos'tremendous strength helped, even on this gravitationless world, for hecould accelerate more quickly with his burdens. 

At last it was up for operation. The artificial matter apparatus wasoperated by cosmic power, and controlled by mental operation, or bymathematical formula as they pleased. Immediately Arcot set to work. Agiant hollow cylinder drilled a great hole completely through the thin, curved surface of the ancient planetary block, through twelve miles ofsolid rock--a cylinder of artificial matter created on a scale possibleonly to cosmic power. The cylinder, half a mile across, contained a hugeplug of matter. Then the artificial matter contracted swiftly, compressing the matter, and simultaneously treating it with thetremendous fields that changed its energy form. In seconds it was atremendous mass of cosmium. 

A second smaller cylinder bored a plug from the rock, and worked on it. A huge mass of relux resulted. Now other artificial matter tools set towork at Arcot's bidding, and cut pieces from his huge masses of rawmaterials, and literally, quick as thought, built a great framework ofthem, anchored in the solid rock of the planetoid. 

Then a tremendous plane of matter formed, and neatly bisected theplanetoid, two great flat pieces of rock were left where one hadbeen--miles across, miles thick--planetary chips. 

On the great framework that had been constructed, four tall shafts ofcosmium appeared, and each was a hollow tube, up the center of which rana huge cable of relux. At the peak of each mile-high shaft was a greatglobe. Now in the framework below things were materializing as Arcot'sflying thoughts arranged them--great tubes of cosmium with reluxelement--huge coils of relux conductors, insulated with microscopic butimpenetrable layers of cosmium. 

Still, for all his swiftness of mind and accuracy of thought, he had tocorrect two mistakes in all his work. It was nearly an hour before thething was finished. Then, two hundred feet long, a hundred wide, andfifty in height, the great mechanism was completed, the tall columnsrising from four corners of the greater framework that supported it. 

Then, into it, Arcot turned the powers of the cosmos. The stars in theairless space wavered and danced as though seen through a thickatmosphere. Tingling power ran through them as it flowed into thetremendous coils. For thirty seconds--then the heavens were as before. 

At last Arcot spoke. Through the radio communicators, and through thethought-channels, his ideas came as he took off the headpiece. "It'sdone now, and we can rest. " There was a tremendous crash from within theapparatus. The heavens reeled before them, and shifted, then were still, but the stars were changed. The sun shone weirdly, and the stars werealtered. 

"That is a time shifting apparatus on a slightly larger scale, " repliedArcot to Torlos' question, "and is designed to give us a chance to work. Come on, let's sleep. A week here should be a few minutes of Earthtime. "

"You sleep, Arcot. I'll prepare the materials for you, " suggested Morey. So Arcot and Wade went to sleep, while Morey and the Talsonian andTorlos worked. First Morey bound the _Ancient Mariner_ to the frame ofthe time apparatus, safely away from the four luminous balls, broadcasters of the time field. Then he shut off the attractive ray, andbound himself in the operator's seat of the apparatus of the artificialmatter machine. 

A plane of artificial matter formed, and a stretch of rock rose underits lift as it cleft the rock apart. A great cleared, level spaceresulted. Other artificial matter enclosed the rock, and the fragmentscut free were treated under tremendous pressure. In a few moments asecond enormous mass of cosmium was formed. 

For three hours Morey worked steadily, building a tremendous reserve ofmaterials. Lux metal he did not make, but relux, the infusible, perfectconductor, and cosmium in tremendous masses, he did make. And he madesome great blocks of oxygen from the rock, transmuting the atoms, andstored it frozen on the plane, with liquid hydrogen in huge tanks, andsome metals that would be needed. Then he slept while they waited forArcot. 

Eight hours after he had lain down, Arcot was up, and ate his breakfast. He set to work at once with the machine. It didn't suit him, it seemed, and first he made a new tool, a small ship that could move about, propelled by a piece of artificial matter, and the entire ship was atremendously greater artificial matter machine, with a greater powerthan before!

His thoughts, far faster than hands could move, built up the gigantichull of the new ship, and put in the rooms, and the brace members inless than twelve hours. A titanic shell of eight-inch cosmium, a space, with braces of the same nonconductor of heat, cosmium, and a two inchinner hull. A tiny space in the gigantic hull, a space less than onethousand cubic feet in dimension was the control and living quarters. 

It was held now on great cosmium springs, but Arcot was not by any meansthrough. One man must do all the work, for one brain must design it, andthough he received the constant advice and help of Morey and the others, it was his brain that pictured the thing that was built. 

At last the hull was completed. A single, glistening tube, of enormousbulk, a mile in length, a thousand feet in diameter. Yet nearly all ofthat great bulk would be used immediately. Some room would be left foradditional apparatus they might care to install. Spare parts they didnot have to carry--they could make their own from the energy aboundingin space. 

The enormous, shining hull was a thing of beauty through stark grandeurnow, but obviously incomplete. The ray projectors were not mounted, butthey were to be ray projectors of a type never before possible. Space isthe transmitter of all rays, and it is in space that those energy formsexist. Arcot had merely to transfer the enormously high energy level ofthe space-curvature to any form of energy he wanted, and now, with thecomplete statistics on it, he was able to do that directly. No tubes, nogenerators, only fields that changed the energy already there--theimmeasurable energy available!

The next period of work he started the space distortion apparatus. Thatmust go at the exact center of the ship. One tremendous coil, big enoughfor the _Ancient Mariner_ to lie in easily! Minutes, and flying thoughtshad made it--then came thousands of the individual coils, by thinking ofone, and picturing it many times! In ranks, rows, and columns they werepiled into a great block, for power must be stored for use of thistremendous machine, while in the artificial space when its normal powerwas not available, and that power source must be tremendous. 

Then the time apparatus, and after that the driving apparatus. Not themolecular drive now, but an attraction ray focused on their own ship, with projectors scattered about the ship that it might move effortlesslyin every direction. And provision was made for a force-drive by means ofartificial matter, planes of it pushing the ship where it was wanted. But with the attraction-drive they would be able to land safely, withoutfear of being crushed by their own weight on Thett, for all its enormousgravity. 

The control was now suspended finally, with a series of attractiondrives about it, locking it immovably in place, while smaller attractiondevices stimulated gravity for the occupants. 

Then finally the main apparatus--the power plant--was installed. Theenormous coils which handled, or better, caused space to handle as theydirected, powers so great that whole suns could be blastedinstantaneously, were put in place, and the field generators that wouldmake and direct their rays, their ray screen if need be, and handletheir artificial matter. Everything was installed, and all but a rathersmall space was occupied. 

It had been six weeks of continuous work for them, for the mind of eachwas aiding in this work, indirectly or directly, and it nearedcompletion now. 

"But, we need one more thing, Arcot. That could never land on any planetsmaller than Jupiter. What is its mass?" suggested Morey. 

"Don't know, I'm sure, but it is of the order of a billion tons. I knowyou are right. What are we going to do?"

"Put on a tender. "

"Why not the _Ancient Mariner_?" asked Wade. 

"It isn't fitting. It was designed for individual use anyway, " repliedMorey. "I suggest something more like this on a small scale. We won'thave much work on that, merely think of every detail of the big ship ona small scale, with the exception of the control cube furnishings. Instead of the numerous decks, swimming pool and so forth, have a large, single room. "

"Good enough, " replied Arcot. 

As if by magic, a machine appeared, a "small" machine oftwo-hundred-foot length, modified slightly in some parts, its bottomflattened, and equipped with an attractor anchor. Then they were ready. 

"We will leave the _Mariner_ here, and get it later. This apparatuswon't be needed any longer, and we don't want the enemy to get it. Ourtrial trip will be a fight!" called Arcot as he leaped from his seat. The mass of the giant ship pulled him, and he fell slowly toward it. 

Into its open port he flew, the others behind him, their suits still on. The door shut behind them as Arcot, at the controls, closed it. As yetthey had not released the air supplies. It was airless. 

Now the hiss of air, and the quickening of heat crept through it. Thewater in the tanks thawed as the heat came, soaking through from thegreat heaters. In minutes the air and heat were normal throughout thegreat bulk. There was air in power compartments, though no one wasexpected to go there, for the control room alone need be occupied;vision-screens here viewed every part of the ship, and all about it. 

The eyes of the new ship were set in recesses of the tremendously strongcosmium wall, and over them, protecting them, was an infinitely thin, but infinitely strong wall of artificial matter, permanently maintained. It was opaque to all forms of radiation known from the longest Hertzianto the shortest cosmics, save for the very narrow band of visible light. Whether this protection would stop the Thessian beam that was so deadlyto lux and relux was not, of course, known. But Arcot hoped it would, and, if that beam was radiant energy, or material particles, it would. 

"We'll destroy our station here now, and leave the _Ancient Mariner_where it is. Of course we are a long way out of the orbit this planetoidfollowed, due to the effect of the time apparatus, but we can note whereit is, and we'll be able to find it when we want it, " said Arcot, seatedat the great control board now. There were no buttons now, or visiblecontrols; all was mental. 

A tiny sphere of artificial matter formed, and shot toward the controlboard of the time machine outside. It depressed the main switch, andspace about them shifted, twisted, and returned to normal. The timeapparatus was off for the first time in six weeks. 

"Can't fuse that, and we can't crush it. It's made of cosmium, andtrying to crush it against the rock would just drive it into it. We'llsee what we can do though, " muttered Arcot. A plane of artificial matterformed just beneath it, and sheared it from its bed on the planetoid, cutting through the heavy cosmium anchors. The framework lifted, and theapparatus with it. A series of planes, a gigantic honeycomb formed, andthe apparatus was cut across again and again, till only small fragmentswere left of it. Then these were rolled into a ball, and crushed by asphere of artificial matter beyond all repair. The enemy would neverlearn their secret. 

A huge cylinder of artificial matter cut a great gouge from the planethat was left where the apparatus had been, and a clamp of the samematerial picked up the _Ancient Mariner_, deposited it there, thencovered it with rubble and broken rock. A cosmic flashed on the rock foran instant, and it was glowing, incandescent lava. The _Ancient Mariner_was buried under a hundred feet of rapidly solidifying rock, but rockwhich could be fused away from its infusible walls when the time came. 

"We're ready to go now--get to work with the radio, Morey, when we getto Earth. "

The gravity seemed normal here as they walked about, no accelerationsaffected them as the ship darted forward, for all its inconceivablygreat mass, like an arrow, then flashed forward under time control. Thesun was far distant now, for six weeks they had been traveling with thesection of Eros under time control. But with their tremendous timecontrol plant, and the space control, they reached the solar system invery little time. 

It seemed impossible to them that that battle could still be waging, butit was. The ships of Earth and Venus, battling now as a last, hopelessstand, over Chicago, were attempting to stop the press of a greatThessian fleet. Thin, long Negrian, or Sirian ships had joined them inthe hour of Earth time that the men had been working. Still, despite thereinforcements, they were falling back. 

Chapter XIX

THE BATTLE OF EARTH

It had been an anxious hour for the forces of the Solar System. 

They were in the last fine stages of Earth's defense when the generalstaff received notice that a radio message of tremendous power hadpenetrated the ray screen, with advice for them. It was signed "Arcot. "

"Bringing new weapon. Draw all ships within the atmosphere when I startaction, and drive Thessians back into space. Retire as soon as adistance of ten thousand miles is reached. I will then handle thefleet, " was the message. 

"Gentlemen: We are losing. The move suggested would be eminently poortactics unless we are sure of being able to drive them. If we don't, weare lost in any event. I trust Arcot. How vote you?" asked GeneralHetsar Sthel. 

The message was relayed to the ships. Scarcely a moment after themessage had been relayed, a tremendous battleship appeared in space, just beyond the battle. It shot forward, and planted itself directly inthe midst of the battle, brushing aside two huge Thessians in itsprogress. The Thessian ships bounced off its sides, and reeled away. Itlay waiting, making no move. All the Thessian ships above poured thefull concentration of their moleculars into its tremendous bulk. Adiffused glow of opalescence ran over every ship--save the giant. Themoleculars were being reflected from its sides, and their diffusedenergy attacked the very ships that were sending them!

A fort moved up, and the deadly beam of destruction reached out, luminous even in space. 

"Now, " muttered Morey, "we shall see what cosmium will stand. "

A huge spot on the side of the ship had become incandescent. A vapor, astrange puff of smokiness exploded from it, and disappeared instantly. Another came and faster and faster they followed each other. The cosmiumwas disintegrating under the ray, but very slowly, breaking first intogaseous cosmic rays, then free, and spreading. 

"We will not fight, " muttered Morey happily as he saw Arcot shift in hisseat. 

Arcot picked the moleculars. They reached out, touched the heavy reluxof the fort, and it exploded into opalescence that was hazily white, thecolors shifted so quickly. A screen sprang into being, and the ray waschopped off. The screen was a mass of darting flames as energies ofstupendous magnitude clashed. 

Arcot used a bit more of his inconceivable power. The ray struck thescreen, and it flashed once--then died into blackness. The fort suddenlycrumpled in like a dented can, and rolled clumsily away. The other fortwas near now, and started an attack of its own. Arcot chose theartificial matter this time. He was not watching the many attackingships. 

The great ship careened suddenly, fell over heavily to one side. "Foolish of me, " said Arcot. "They tried crashing us. "

A mass of crumpled, broken relux and lux surrounded by a haze of gaslying against a slight scratch on the great sides, told the story. Eightinches of cosmium does not give way. 

Yet another ship tried it. But it stopped several feet away from thereal wall of the ship. It struck a wall even more unyielding--artificialmatter. 

But now Arcot was using this major weapon--artificial matter. Ship aftership, whether fleeing or attacking, was surrounded suddenly by a greatsphere of it, a sudden terrific blaze of energy as the sphere struck theray shield, the control forces now backed by the energy of all themillions of stars of space shattered it in an instant. Then came theinexorable crush of the artificial matter, and a ball of matter aloneremained. 

But the pressing disc of the battle-front which had been lowering onChicago, greatest of Earth's metropolises, was lifted. This disc-frontwas staggering back now as Arcot's mighty ship weakened its strength, and destroyed its morale, under the steady drive of the now hopefulSolarians. 

The other gigantic fort moved up now, with twenty of the largestbattleships. The fort turned loose its destructive ray--and Arcot triedhis new "magnet. " It was not a true magnet, but a transformed spacefield, a field created by the energy of all the universe. 

The fort was gigantic. Even Arcot's mighty ship was a small thing besideit, but suddenly it seemed warped and twisted as space curved visibly ina magnetic field of such terrific intensity as to be immeasurable. 

Arcot's armory was tested and found not wanting. 

Suddenly every Thessian ship in sight ceased to exist. They disappeared. Instantly Arcot threw on all time power, and darted toward Venus. TheThessians were already nearing the planet, and no possible rays couldovertake them. An instantaneous touch of the space control, and themighty ship was within hundreds of miles of the atmosphere. 

Space twisted about them, reeled, and was firm. The Thessian fleet wasbefore them in a moment, visible now as they slowed to normal speed. Startled, no doubt, to find before them the ship they had fled, theycharged on for a space. Then, as though by some magic, they stopped andexploded in gouts of light. 

When space had twisted, seconds before, it was because Arcot had drawnon the enormous power of space to an extent that had been appreciableeven to it--ten sols. That was forty million tons of matter a second, and for a hundredth part of a second it had flowed. Before them, in avast plane, had been created an infinitesimally thin film of artificialmatter, four hundred thousand tons of it, and into this invisible, infinitely hard barrier, the Thessian fleet had rammed. And it was gone. 

"I think, " said Arcot softly, as he took off his headpiece, "that thebeginning of the end is in sight. "

"And I, " said Morey, "think it is now out of sight. Half a dozen shipsstopped. And they are gone now, to warn the others. "

"What warning? What can they tell? Only that their ships were destroyedby something they couldn't see. " Arcot smiled. "I'm going home. "

Chapter XX

DESTRUCTION

Some time later, Arcot spoke. "I have just received a message fromZezdon Fentes that he has an important communication to make, so I willgo down to New York instead of to Chicago, if you gentlemen do not mind. Morey will take you to Chicago in the tender, and I can find ZezdonFentes. "

Zezdon Fentes' message was brief. He had discovered from the minds ofseveral who had been killed by the magnetic field Arcot had used, andnot destroyed, that they had a base in this universe. Thett's base wassomewhere near the center of the galaxy, on a system of unusually largeplanets, circling a rather small star. But what star their minds had notrevealed. 

"It's up to us then to locate said star, " said Arcot, after listening toZezdon Fentes' account: "I think the easiest way will be to follow themhome. We can go to your world, Zezdon Fentes, and see what they aredoing there, and drive them off. Then to yours, Stel Felso. I place yourworld second as it is far better able to defend itself than is Ortol. Itis agreeable?"

It was, and the ship which had been hanging in the atmosphere over NewYork, where Zezdon Afthen, Fentes and Inthel had come to it in ataxi-ship, signaled for the crowd to clear away above. The enormous bulkof the shining machine, the savior of Earth, had attracted a very greatamount of attention, naturally, and thousands on thousands of hardysouls had braved the cold of the fifteen mile height with altitude suitsor in small ships. Now they cleared away, and as the ship slowly rose, the tremendous concentrated mental well-wishing of the thousands reachedthe men within the ship. "That, " observed Morley, "is one thing cosmiumwon't stop. In some ways I wish it would--because the mental power thatcould be wielded by any great number of those highly advanced Thessians, if they know its possibilities, is not a thing to neglect. "

"I can answer that, terrestrian, " thought Zezdon Afthen. "Ourinstruments show great mental powers, and great ability to concentratethe will in mental processes, but they indicate a very slightdevelopment of these abilities. Our race, despite the fact that ourmental powers are much less than those of such men as Arcot andyourself, have done, and can do many things your greater minds cannot, for we have learned the direction of the will. We need not fear the willof the Thessians. I feel confident of that!"

The ship was in space now, and as Arcot directed it toward Ortol, farfar across the Island, he threw on, for the moment, the combined powerof space distortion and time fields. Instantly the sun vanished, andwhen, less than a second later, he cut off the space field, and leftonly the time, the constellations were instantly recognizable. They werewithin a dozen light years of Ortol. 

"Morey, may I ask what you call this machine?" asked Torlos. 

"You may, but I can't answer, " laughed Morey. "We were so anxious to getit going that we didn't name it. Any suggestions?"

For a moment none of them made any suggestions, then slowly came Arcot'sthoughts, clear and sharp, the thoughts of carefully weighed decision. 

"The swiftest thing that ever was _thought_! The most irresistiblething, _thought_, for nothing can stop its progress. The mostdestructive thing, _thought_. Thought, the greatest constructor, thegreatest destroyer, the product of mind, and producer of powers, thegreatest of powers. Thought is controlled by the mind. Let us call it_Thought_!"

"Excellent, Arcot, excellent. The _Thought_, the controller of thepowers of the cosmos!" cried Morey. 

"But the _Thought_ has not been christened, save in battle, and then ithad no name. Let us emblazen its name on it now, " suggested Wade. 

Stopping their motion through space, but maintaining a time field thatpermitted them to work without consuming precious time, Arcot formedsome more cosmium, but now he subjected it to a special type ofconverted field, and into the cosmium, he forced some light photons, half bound, half free. The fixture he formed into the letters, andwelded forever on the gigantic prow of the ship, and on its huge sides. _Thought_, it stood in letters ten feet high, made of clear transparentcosmium, and the golden light photons, imprisoned in it, the slowlydisintegrating lux metal, would cause those letters to shine forcountless aeons with the steady golden light they now had. 

The _Thought_ continued on now, and as they slowed their progress forOrtol, they saw that messengers of Thett had barely arrived. The forthere too had been razed to the ground, and now they were concentratingover the largest city of Ortol. Their rays were beating down on thegreat ray screen that terrestrial engineers had set up, protecting thecity, as Earth had been protected. But the fleet that stood guard wassmall, and was rapidly being destroyed. A fort broke free, and plungedat last for the ray screen. Its relux walls glowed a thousand colors asthe tremendous energy of the ray-screen struck them--but it was through!

A molecular ray reached down for the city--and stopped halfway in atremendous coruscating burst of light and energy. Yet there was none ofthe sheen of the ray screen. Merely light. 

The fort was still driving downward. Then suddenly it stopped, and theside dented in like the side of a can some one has stepped on, and itcame to sudden rest against an invisible, impenetrable barrier. Amolecular reached down from somewhere in space, hit the ray screen ofOrtol, which the Thessians had attacked for hours, and the screenflashed into sudden brilliance, and disappeared. The ray struck theThessian fort, and the fort burst into tremendous opalescence, while theinvisible barrier the ray had struck was suddenly a great sheet offlaming light. In less than half a second the opalescence was gone, thefort shuddered, and shrieked out of the planet's atmosphere, a mass oflux now, and susceptible to the moleculars. And everything that livedwithin that fort had died instantly and painlessly. 

The fleet which had been preparing to follow the leading fort wassuddenly stopped; it halted indecisively. 

Then the _Thought_ became visible as its great golden letters showedsuddenly, streaking up from distant space. Every ship turned cosmic andmoleculars on it. The cosmic rebounded from the cosmium walls, and fromthe artificial matter that protected the eyes. The moleculars did notaffect either, but the invisible protective sheet that the _Thought_ wasmaintaining in the Ortolian atmosphere became misty as it fought theslight molecular rebounds. 

The _Thought_ went into action. The fort which remained was the point ofattack. The fort had turned its destructive ray on the cosmium ship withthe result that, as before, the cosmium slowly disintegrated into puffsof cosmic rays. The vapor seemed to boil out, puff suddenly, then wasgone. Arcot put up a wall of artificial matter to test the effect. Theray went right through the matter, without so much as affecting it. Hetried a sheet of pure energy, an electro-magnetic energy stream oftremendous power. The ray bent sharply to one side. But in a moment theThessians had realigned it. 

"It's a photonic stream, but of some type that doesn't affect ordinarymatter, but only artificial matter such as lux, relux, or cosmium. Ifthe artificial matter would only fight it, I'd be all right. " Thethought running through Arcot's mind reached the others. 

A tremendous burst of light energy to the rear announced the fact that aThessian had crashed against the artificial matter wall that surroundedthe ship. Arcot was throwing the Thessian destructive beam from side toside now, and twice succeeded in misdirecting it so that it hit theenemy machines. 

The _Thought_ sent out its terrific beam of magnetic energy. The ray wassuddenly killed, and the fort cruised helplessly on. Its drivingapparatus was dead. The diffused cosmic reached out, and as the magneticfield, the relux and the cosmics interacted, the great fort was suddenlyblue-white--then instantly a dust that scattered before an enormousblast of air. 

From the _Thought_ a great shell of artificial matter went, a visible, misty wall, that curled forward, and wrapped itself around the Thessianships with a motion of tremendous speed, yet deceptive, for it seemed tobillow and flow. 

A Thessian warship decided to brush it away--and plowed intoinconceivable strength. The ship crumpled to a mass of broken relux. 

The greater part of the Thessian fleet had already fled, but thereremained half a hundred great battleships. And now, within half amillion miles of the planet, there began a battle so weird thatastronomers who watched could not believe it. 

From behind the _Thought_, where it hung motionless beyond the mistywall, a Thing came. 

The Thessian ships had realized now that the misty sphere that walledthem in was impenetrable, and their rays were off, for none they now hadwould penetrate it. The forts were gone. 

But the Thing that came behind the _Thought_ was a ship, a little shipof the same misty white, and it flowed into, and through the wall, andwas within their prison. The Thessian ships turned their rays toward it, and waited. What was this thing?

The ovaloid ship which drifted so slowly toward them suddenly seemed tojerk, and from it reached pseudopods! An amoeba on a titanic scale! Itwrithed its way purposefully toward the nearest ship, and while thatship waited, a pseudopod reached out, and suddenly drove through thefour foot relux armor! A second pseudopod followed with lightningrapidity, and in an instant the ship had been split from end to end!

Now a hundred rays were leaping toward the thing, and the rays burstinto fire and gouts of light, blackened, burned pseudopods seemed tofall from the thing and hastily it retreated from the enclosure, flowingonce more through the wall that stopped their rays. 

But another Thing came. It was enormous, a mile long, a great, shiningscaly thing, a dragon, and on its mighty neck was mounted an enormous, distorted head, with great flat nose and huge flapping nostrils. It wasa Thessian head! The mouth, fifty feet across, wrinkled into an horrificgrin, and broken, stained teeth of iron showed in the mouth. Greattalons upraised, it rent the misty wall that bound them, and writhed itsawful length in. The swish of its scales seemed to come to the watchers, as it chased after a great battleship whose pilot fled in terror. Fasterthan the mighty spaceship the awful Thing caught it in mighty talonsthat ripped through solid relux. Scratching, fluttering enormous, blood-red wings, the silvery claws tore away great masses of relux, sending them flying into space. 

Again rays struck at it. Cosmic and moleculars with blinding pencils oflight. For now in the close space of the Wall was an atmosphere, the airof two great warships, and though the space was great, the air in theships was dense. 

The rays struck its awful face. The face burst into light, and black, greasy smoke steamed up, as the thing writhed and twisted horribly, awful screams ringing out. Then it was free, and half the face wasburned away, and a grinning, bleeding, half-cooked face writhed andscreamed in anger at them. It darted at the nearest ship, and ripped outthat ray that burned it--and quivered into death. It quivered, thenquickly faded into mist, a haze, and was gone!

A last awful thing--a thing they had not noticed as all eyes watchedthat Thing--was standing by the rent in the Sphere now, the giganticThessian, with leering, bestial jaws, enormous, squat limbs, the webbedfingers and toes, and the heavy torso of his race, grinning at them. Inone hand was a thing--and his jaws munched. Thett's men stared in horroras they recognized that thing in his hand--a Thessian body! He grinnedhappily and reached for a battleship--a ray burned him. He howled, andleaped into their midst. 

Then the Thessians went mad. All fought, and they fought each other, rays of all sorts, their moleculars and their cosmics, while in theirmidst the Giant howled his glee, and laughed and laughed--

Eventually it was over, and the last limping Thessian ship drove itselfcrazily against the wreck of its last enemy. And only wreckage was left. 

"Lord, Arcot! Why in the Universe did you do that--and how did youconceive those horrors?" asked Morey, more than a little amazed at thetactics Arcot had displayed. 

Arcot shook himself, and disconnected his controls. "Why--why I don'tknow. I don't know what made me do that, I'm sure. I never imaginedanything like that dragon thing--how did--"

His keen eyes fixed themselves suddenly on Zezdon Fentes, and theirtremendous hypnotic power beat down the resistance of the Ortolian'strained mind. Arcot's mind opened for the others the thoughts of ZezdonFentes. 

He had acted as a medium between the minds of the Thessians, and Arcot. Taking the horror-ideas of the Thessians, he had imprinted them onArcot's mind while Arcot was at work with the controls. In Arcot's mind, they had acted exactly as had the ideas that night on Earth, only herethe demonstration had been carried to the limit, and the horror ideaswere compounded to the utmost. The Thessians, highly developed mindsthough they were, were not resistant and they had broken. The Allies, with their different horror-ideas, had been but slightly affected. 

"We will leave you on Ortol, Zezdon Fentes. We know you have done much, and perhaps your own mind has given a bit. We hope you recover. I thinkyou agree with me, Zezdon Afthen and Inthel?" thought Arcot. 

"We do, heartily, and are heartily sorry that one of our race has actedin this way. Let us proceed to Talso, as soon as possible. You mightsend Fentes down in a shell of artificial matter, " suggested ZezdonAfthen. 

"Which, " said Arcot, after this had been done, and they were on theirway to Talso, "shows the danger of a mad _Thought_!"

Chapter XXI

THE POWER OF "_THE THOUGHT_"

But it seemed, or must have seemed to any infinite being capable ofwatching it as it moved now, that the _Thought_ was a mad thought. Withthe time control opened to the limit, and a touch of the space control, it fled across the Universe at a velocity such as no other thing wascapable of. 

One star--it flashed to a disc, loomed enormous--overpowering--thensuddenly they were flashing _through_ it! The enormous coils fed theircurrent into the space-coils and the time field, and the ship seemed totwist and writhe in distorted space as the gravitational field of agiant star, and a giant ship's space field fought for a fraction of timeso short as to be utterly below measurement. Then the ship was gone--andbehind it a star, the center of which had suddenly been hurled intoanother space forever, as the counteracting, gravitational field of theouter layers was removed for a moment, and only its own enormous densityaffected space, writhed and collapsed upon itself, to explode into amighty sea of flames. Planets it formed, we know, by a process such ascan happen when only this man-made accident happens. 

But the ship fled on, its great coils partly discharged, but still farmore charged than need be. 

It was minutes to Talso where it had been hours with the _AncientMariner_, but now they traveled with the speed of _Thought_!

Talso too was the scene of a battle, and more of a battle than Ortol hadbeen, for here where more powerful defensive forces had been active, theThessians had been more vengeful. All their remaining ships seemedconcentrated here. And the great molecular screen that terrestrianengineers had flung up here had already fallen. Great holes hadopened in it, as two great forts, and a thousand ships, some mightybattleships of the intergalactic spaces, some little scout cruisers, had turned their rays on the struggling defensive machines. It had heldfor hours, thanks to the tremendous tubes that Talso had in theirpower-distribution stations, but in the end had fallen, but not beforemany of their largest cities had been similarly defended, and the peopleof the others had scattered broadcast. 

True, wherever they might be, a diffused molecular would find them anddestroy all life save under the few screens, but if the Thessians oncediffused their rays, without entering the atmosphere, the broken screenwould once more be able to hold. 

No fleet had kept the Thessian forces out of this atmosphere, but dozensof more adequately powered artificial matter bomb stations had taughtThett respect for Talso. But Talso's own ray screen had stopped theirbombs. They could only send their bombs as high as the screen. They didnot have Arcot's tremendous control power to maintain the matter withoutdifficulty even beyond a screen. 

At last the screen had fallen, and the Thessian ships, a hole once made, were able to move, and kept that hole always under them, though if itonce were closed, they would again have the struggle to open it. 

Exploding matter bombs had twice caused such spatial strains and ionizedconditions as to come near closing it, but finally the Thessian fleethad arranged a ring of ships about the hole, and opened a cylinder ofrays that reached down to the planet. 

Like some gigantic plow the rays tore up mountains, oceans, glaciers andland. Tremendous chasms opened in straight lines as it plowed along. Unprotected cities flashed into fountains of rock and soil and steelthat leaped upwards as the rays touched, and were gone. Protectedcities, their screens blazing briefly under the enormous rayconcentrations as the ships moved on, unheeding, stood safe on islandsof safety amidst the destruction. Here in the lower air, where ionswould be so plentiful, Thett did not try to break down the screens, forthe air would aid the defenders. 

Finally, as Thett's forces had planned, they came to one of the ionizedlayer ray-screen stations that was still projecting its cone ofprotective screening to the layer above. Every available ray was turnedon that station, and, designed as it was for protecting part of a world, the station was itself protected, but slowly, slowly as its alreadyheated tubes weakened their electronic emission, the disc of ionsretreated more and more toward the station, as, like some splashingstream, the Thessian rays played upon it forcing it back. A rapidlyaccelerating retreat, faster and faster, as the disc changed from thedull red of normal defense to the higher and bluer quanta of failing, less complete defense, the disc of interference retreated. 

Then, with a flash of light, and a roar as the soil below spouted up, the station was gone. It had failed. 

Instantly the ring of ships expanded as the great screen was weakened bythe withdrawal of this support. Wider was the path of destruction now asthe forces moved on. 

But high, high in the sky, far out of sight of the naked eye, was a tinyspot that was in reality a giant ship. It was flashing forward, and inmoments it was visible. Then, as another deserted city vanished, it wasabove the Thessian fleet. 

Their rays were directed downward through a hole that was even larger. Asecond station had gone with that city. But, as by magic, the holeclosed up, and chopped their rays off with a decisiveness that startledthem. The interference was so sharp now that not even the dullest ofreds showed where their beams touched. The close interference was givingoff only radio! In amazement they looked for this new station of suchenormous power that their combined rays did not noticeably affect it. Aworld had been fighting their rays unsuccessfully. What single stationcould do this, if the many stations of the world could not? There wasbut one they knew of, and they turned now to search for the ship theyknew must be there. 

"No horrors this time; just clean, burning energy, " muttered Arcot. 

It was clean, and it was burning. In an instant one of the forts was amass of opalescence that shifted so swiftly it was purest white, thenrocketed away, lifeless, and no longer relux. 

The other fort had its screen up, though its power, designed towithstand the attack of a fleet of enormous intergalactic, matter-driven, fighting ships lasted but an instant under the drivingpower of half a million million suns, concentrated in one enormous rayof energy. The sheer energy of the ray itself, molecular ray though itwas, heated the material it struck to blinding incandescence even as ithurled it at a velocity close to that of light into outer space. Withlittle sparkling flashes battleships of the void after giant cruisersflashed into lux, and vanished under the ray. 

A tremendous combined ray of magnetism and cosmic ray energy replacedthe molecular, and the ships exploded into a dust as fine as theprimeval gas from which came all matter. 

Sweeping energy, so enormous that the defenses of the ships did not evenoperate against it, shattered ship after ship, till the few thatremained turned, and, faster than the pursuing energies could racethrough space, faster than light, headed for their base. 

"That was fair fight; energy against energy, " said Arcot delightedly, for his new toy, which made playthings of suns and fed on the cosmicenergy of a universe, was behaving nicely, "and as I said, Stel FelsoTheu, at the beginning of this war, the greater Power wins, always. Andin our island here, I have five hundred thousand million separate powerplants, each generating at the rate of decillions of ergs a second, backing this ship. 

"Your world will be safe now, and we will head for our last embattledally, Sirius. " The titanic ship turned, and disappeared from the view ofthe madly rejoicing billions of Talso below, as it sped, far faster thanlight, across a universe to relieve another sorely tried civilization. 

Knowing their cause was lost, hopeless in the knowledge that nothingknown to them could battle that enormous force concentrated in one ship, the _Thought_, the Thessians had but one aim now, to do all the damagein their power before leaving. 

Already their tremendous, unarmed and unarmored transports weredeparting with their hundreds of thousands from that base system for thefar-off Island of Space from which they had come. Their battlefleetswere engaged in destroying all the cities of the allies, and those otherhelpless races of our system that they could. Those other inhabitedworlds, many of which were completely wiped out because Arcot had noknowledge of them, were relieved only when the general call for retreatto protect the mother planet was sent out. 

But Sirius was looming enormous before them. And its planets, heavilydefended now by the combined Sirian, Terrestrial and Venerian fleets andgreat ray screens as well as a few matter-bomb stations, were sufferinglosses none the less. For the old Sixth of Negra, the Third here, hadfallen. Slipping in on the night side of the planet, all power off, andso sending forth no warning impulses till it actually fell through theray screen, a small fleet of scouts had entered. Falling still undersimple gravity, they had been missed by the rays till they had fallen toso small a distance, that no humans or men of our allied systems couldhave stopped, but only their enormous iron boned strength permitted themto resist the acceleration they used to avert collision with the planet. Then scattering swiftly, they had blasted the great protective screenstations by attacking on the sides, where the ray screen projectors werenot mounted. Designed to protect above, they had no side armor, and theSixth was opened to attack. 

Two and one-half billion people lost their lives painlessly andinstantaneously as tremendous diffused moleculars played on therevolving planet. 

Arcot arrived soon after this catastrophe. The Thessians left almostimmediately, after the loss of three hundred or more ships. One hundredand fifty wrecks were found. The rest were so blasted by the forceswhich attacked them, that no traces could be found, and no count made. 

But as those ships fled back to their base, Arcot, with the wonderfullydelicate mental control of his ship, was able to watch them, and followthem; for, invisible under normal conditions, by twisting space in thesame manner that they did he was able to see them flee, and follow. 

Light year after light year they raced toward the distant base. Theyreached it in two hours, and Arcot saw them from a distance sink to thevarious worlds. There were twelve gigantic worlds, each far larger thanJupiter of Sol, and larger than Stwall of Talso's sun, Renl. 

"I think, " said Arcot as he stopped the ship at a third of a light year, "that we had best destroy those planets. We may kill many men, andinnocent non-combatants, but they have killed many of our races, and itis necessary. There are, no doubt, other worlds of this Universe herethat we do not know of that have felt the vengeance of Thett, and if wecan cause such trouble to them by destroying these worlds, and puttingthe fear of our attacking their mother world into them, they will calloff those other fleets. I could have been invisible to Thett's ships aswe followed them here, and for the greater part of the way I was, for Iwas sufficiently out of their time-rate, so that they were visible onlyby the short ultra-violet, which would have put in their infra-red, and, no photo-electric cell will work on quanta of such low energy. When atlast I was sure of the sun for which they were heading, I let them seeus, and they know we are aware of their base, and that we can followthem. 

"I will destroy one of these worlds, and follow a fleet as it starts fortheir home nebula. Gradually, as they run, I will fade intoinvisibility, and they will not know that I have dropped back here tocomplete the work, but will think I am still following. Probably theywill run to some other nebula in an effort to throw me off, but theywill most certainly send back a ship to call the fleets here to thedefense of Thett. 

"I think that is the best plan. Do you agree?"

"Arcot, " asked Morey slowly, "if this race attempts to settle anotherUniverse, what would that indicate of their own?"

"Hmmm--that it was either populated by their own race or that anotherrace held the parts they did not, and that the other race was stronger, "replied Arcot. "The thought idea in their minds has always been a singleworld, single solar system as their home, however. "

"And single solar systems cannot originate in this Space, " repliedMorey, referring to the fact that in the primeval gas from which allmatter in this Universe and all others came, no condensation of massless than thousands of millions of times that of a sun could form andcontinue. 

"We can only investigate--and hope that they do not inhabit the wholesystem, for I am determined that, unpleasant as the idea may be, thereis one race that we cannot afford to have visiting us, and it is goingto be permanently restrained in one way or another. I will first have aconference with their leaders and if they will not be peaceful--the_Thought_ can destroy or make a Universe! But I think that a second raceholds part of that Universe, for several times we have read in theirminds the thought of the 'Mighty Warless Ones of Venone. '"

"And how do you plan to destroy so large a planet as these are?" askedMorey, indicating the telectroscope screen. 

"Watch and see!" said Arcot. 

They shot suddenly toward the distant sun, and as it expanded, planetscame into view. Moving ever slower on the time control, Arcot drove theship toward a gigantic planet at a distance of approximately 300, 000, 000miles from its primary, the sun of this system. 

Arcot fell into step with the planet as it moved about in its orbit, andwatched the speed indicator carefully. 

"What's the orbital speed, Morey?" asked Arcot. 

"About twelve and a half miles per second, " replied the somewhatmystified Morey. 

"Excellent, my dear Watson, " replied Arcot. "And now does my dear friendknow the average molecular velocity of ordinary air?"

"Why, about one-third of a mile a second, average. "

"And if that planet as a whole should stop moving, and the individualmolecules be given the entire energy, what would their average velocitybe? And what temperature would that represent?" asked Arcot. 

"Good--Why, they would have to have the same kinetic energy asindividuals as they now have as a whole, and that would be an averagemolecular velocity in random motion of 12. 5 miles a second--givingabout--about--about--twelve thousand degrees centigrade!" exclaimedMorey in surprise. "That would put it in the far blue-white region!"

"Perfect. Now watch. " Arcot donned the headpiece he had removed, andonce more took charge. He was very far from the planet, as distances go, and they could not see his ship. But he wanted to be seen. So he movedcloser, and hung off to the sunward side of the planet, then moved tothe night side, but stayed in the light. In seconds, a battlefleet wasout attempting to destroy him. 

Surrounding the ship with a wall of artificial matter, lest they annoyhim, he set to work. 

Directly in the orbit of the planet, a faint mistiness appeared, andrapidly solidified to a titanic cup, directly in the path of the planet. 

Arcot was pouring energy into the making of that matter at such a ratethat space was twisted now about them. The meter before them, which hadnot registered previously, was registering now, and had moved over tothree. Three sols--and was still climbing. It stopped when ten werereached. Ten times the energy of our sun was pouring into thatcondensation, and it solidified quickly. 

The Thessians had seen the danger now. It was less than ten minutes awayfrom their planet, and now great numbers of ships of all sorts startedup from the planet, swarming out like rats from a sinking vessel. 

Majestically the great world moved on in its orbit toward the thin wallof infinite strength and infinite toughness. Already Thessianbattleships were tearing at that wall with rays of all types, and thewall sputtered back little gouts of light, and remained. The meters onthe _Thought_ were no longer registering. The wall was built, and nowArcot had all the giant power of the ship holding it there. Any attemptto move it or destroy it, and all the energy of the Universe would rushto its defense!

The atmosphere of the planet reached the wall. Instantly, as thepressure of that enormous mass of air touched it, the wall fought, andburst into a blaze of energy. It was fighting now, and the meter thatmeasured sun-powers ran steadily, swiftly up the scale. But the men werenot watching the meter; they were watching the awesome sight of Manstopping a world in its course! Turning a world from its path!

But the meter climbed suddenly, and the world was suddenly a tremendousblaze of light. The solid rock had struck the giant cup, 110, 000 milesin diameter. It was silent, as a world pitted its enormous kineticenergy against the combined forces of a universe. Soundless--and ashopeless. Its strength was nothing, its energy pitted unnoticed againstthe energy of five hundred thousand million suns--as vain as thosefutile attempts of the Thessian battleships on the invulnerable walls ofthe _Thought_. 

What use is there to attempt description of that scene as2, 500, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 tons of rock and metal and mattercrashed against a wall of energy, immovable and inconceivable. Theplanet crumpled, and split wide. A thousand pieces, and suddenly therewas a further mistiness about it, and the whole enormous mass, seemingbut a toy, as it was from this distance in space, and as it was in thisship, was enclosed in that same, immovable, unalterable wall of energy. 

The ship was as quiet and noiseless, as without indication of strain aswhen it hummed its way through empty space. But the planet crumpled andtwirled, and great seas of energy flashed about it. 

The world, seeming tiny, was dashed helpless against a wall that stoppedit, but the wall flared into equal and opposite energy, so that matterwas raised not to the twelve thousand Morey had estimated but nearertwenty-four thousand degrees. It was over in less than half an hour, anda broken, misshapen mass of blue incandescence floated in space. Itwould fall now, toward the sun, and it would, because it was motionlessand the sun moved, take an eccentric orbit about that sun. Eventually, perhaps, it would wipe out the four inferior planets, or perhaps itwould be broken as it came within the Roches limit of that sun. But theplanet was now a miniature sun, and not so very small, at that. 

And from every planet of the system was pouring an assorted stream ofships, great and small, and they all set panic-stricken across the voidin the same direction. They had seen the power of the _Thought_, and didnot contest any longer its right to this system. 

Chapter XXII

THETT

Through the utter void of intergalactic space sped a tiny shell, a weemite of a ship. Scarcely twenty feet long, it was one single powerplant. The man who sat alone in it, as it tore through the void at themaximum speed that even its tiny mass was capable of, when every lasttwist possible had been given to the distorted time fields, watched afar, far galaxy ahead that seemed unchanging. 

Hours, days sped by, and he did not move from his position in the ship. But the ship had crossed the great gulf, and was speeding through thegalaxy now. He was near the end. At a reckless speed, he sat motionlessbefore the controls, save for slight movements of supple fingers thatdirected the ship at a mad pace about some gigantic sun and its familyof planets. Suns flashed, grew to discs, and were left behind in thebriefest instant. 

The ship slowed, the terrific pace it had been holding fell, and dullwhine of overworked generators fell to a contented hum. A star waslooming, expanding before it. The great sun glowed the characteristicred of a giant as the ship slowed to less than a light-speed, and turnedtoward a gigantic planet that circled the red sun. The planet was veryclose to 50, 000 miles in diameter, and it revolved at a distance of fourand one half billions of miles from the surface of its sun, which madethe distance to the center of the titanic primary four billion, eighthundred million miles, in round figures, for the sun's diameter wasclose to six hundred and fifty million miles! Greater even than Antares, whose diameter is close to four hundred million miles, was this star ofanother universe, and even from the billions of miles of distance thatits planet revolved, the disc was enormous, a titanic disc of dull redflame. But so low was its surface temperature, that even that enormousdisc did not overheat the giant planet. 

The planet's atmosphere stretched out tens of thousands of miles intospace, and under the enormous gravitational acceleration of thetremendous mass of that planet, it was near the surface a blanket denseas water. There was no temperature change upon it, though its night wasone hundred hours long, and its day the same. The centrifugal force ofthe rapid rotation of this enormous body had flattened it when stillliquid till it seemed now more of the shape of a pumpkin than of anorange. It was really a double planet, for its satellite was a world ofone hundred thousand miles diameter, yet smaller in comparison to itsgiant primary than is Luna in comparison to Earth. It revolved at adistance of five million miles from its primary's center, and it, too, was swarming with its people. 

But the racing ship sped directly toward the great planet, and shriekedits way down through the atmosphere, till its outer shell was radiatingfar in the violet. 

Straight it flew to where a gigantic city sprawled in the heaped, sombermasonry, but in some order yet, for on closer inspection the appearanceof interlaced circles came over the edge of the giant cities. Rayscreens were circular and the city was protected by dozens of stations. 

The scout was going well under the speed of light now, and a message, imperative and commanding, sped ahead of him. Half a dozen patrol boatsflashed up, and fell in beside him, and with him raced to a giganticbuilding that reared its somber head from the center of the city. 

Under a white sky they proceeded to it, and landed on its roof. From thelittle machine the single man came out. Using the webbed hands and feetthat had led the Allied scientists to think them an aquatic race, heswam upward, and through the water-dense atmosphere of the planet towardthe door. 

Trees overtopped the building, for it had but four stories, aboveground, though it was the tallest in the city. The trees, like seaweed, floated most of their enormous weight in the dense air, but thebuildings under the gravitational acceleration, which was more than onehundred times Earth's gravity, could not be built very high ere theycrumple under their own weight. Though one of these men weighedapproximately two hundred pounds on Earth, for all their short stature, on this planet their weight was more than ten tons! Only the enormouslydense atmosphere permitted them to move. 

And such an atmosphere! At a temperature of almost exactly 360 degreescentigrade, there was no liquid water on the planet, naturally. At thattemperature water cannot be a liquid, no matter what the pressure, andit was a gas. In their own bodies there was liquid water, but onlybecause they lived on heat, their muscles absorbed their energy for workfrom the heat of the air. They carried in their own musclesrefrigeration, and, with that aid, were able to keep liquid water fortheir life processes. With death, the water evaporated. Almost theentire atmosphere was made up of oxygen, with but a trace of nitrogen, and some amount of carbon dioxide. 

Here their enormous strength was not needed, as Arcot had supposed, tomove their own bodies, but to enable them to perform the ordinary tasksof life. The mere act of lifting a thing weighing perhaps ten pounds onEarth, here required a lifting force of more than half a ton! No wonderenormous strength had been developed! Such things as a man might carrywith him, perhaps a ray pistol, would weigh half a ton; his money wouldweigh near to a hundred pounds!

But--there were no guns on this world. A man could throw a stone perhapsa short distance, but when a gravitational acceleration of more than ahalf a mile per second acted on it, and it was hurled through anatmosphere dense as water--what chance was there for a long range?

But these little men of enormous strength did not know other schemes ofexistence, save in the abstract, and as things of comical peculiarity. To them life on a planet like Earth was as life to a terrestrian on aplanetoid such as Ceres, Juno or Eros would have seemed. Even onThettsost, the satellite planet of Thett, life was strange, and theyused lux roofs over their cities, though their weight there was fourtons!

As the scout swam through the dense atmosphere of his world toward theentrance way to the building, guards stopped him, and examined hiscredentials. Then he was led through long halls, and down a shaft tenstories below the planet's surface, to where a great table occupied apart of a low ceilinged, wide room. This room was shielded, interferencescreens of all known kinds lined the hollow walls, no rays could reachthrough it to the men within. The guard changed, and new men examinedthe scout's credentials, and he was led still deeper into the bowels ofthe planet. Once more the guard changed, and he entered a room guardednot by single shields but by triple, and walled with six foot relux, andceiled with the same strong material. But here, under the enormousgravity, even its great strength required aid in the form of pillars. 

A giant of his race sat before a low table. The table ran half thelength of the room, and beside it sat four other men. But there wereplaces for more than two dozen. 

"A scout from the colony? What news?" demanded the leader. His voice wasa growl, deep and throaty. 

"Oh mighty Sthanto, I bring news of resistance. We waited too long, inour explorations, and those men of World 3769-8482730-3 have learned toomuch. We were wrong. They had found the secret of exceeding the speed oflight, and can travel through space fully as rapidly as we can, and now, since by some means we cannot fathom, they have learned to combine bothour own system and theirs, they have one enormous engine of destructionthat travels across their huge universe in less time than it takes us totravel across a planetary system. 

"Our cause is lost, which is by far the least of our troubles. Thett isin danger. We cannot hope to combat that ship. "

"Thalt--what means have we. Can we not better them?" demanded Sthanto ofhis chief scientist. 

"Great Sthanto, we know that such a substance can be made when pressurecan be brought to bear on cosmic rays under the influence of field24-7649-321, but that field cannot be produced, because no sufficientconcentration of energy is available. Energy cannot be released rapidlyenough to replace the losses when the field is developing. The fact thatthey have that material indicates their possession of an unguessed andterrific energy source. I would have said that there was no energygreater than the energy of matter, but we know the properties of thismaterial and that the triple ray which has at last been perfected, canbe produced providing your order for all energy sources is given, willrelease its energy at a speed comparable to the rate of energy relux ina twin ray, but that the release takes place only in the path of theray. "

"What more, Scout?" asked Sthanto smoothly. 

"The ship first appeared in connection with our general attack on world3769-8482730-3. The attack was near success, their screens were alreadyfailing. They have devised a new and very ionized layer as a conductor. It was exceedingly difficult to break, and since their sun had beensimilarly screened, we could not throw masses of that matter upon them. 

"In another sthan of time, we would have destroyed their world. Then theship appeared. It has molecular rays, magnetic beams and cosmic rays, and a fourth weapon we know nothing of. It has molecular screens, wesuspect, but has not had occasion to use them. 

"Our heaviest molecular screens flash under their molecular rays. Ordinary screens fall instantly without momentary defense. The ray poweris incalculable. 

"Their magnetic beams are used in conjunction with cosmics. The actionof the two causes the relux to induce current, and due to reaction ofcurrents on the magnetic field--"

"And the resistance due to the relux, the relux is first heated toincandescence and then the ship opens out as the air pressure bends themagnetically softened relux?" finished Thalt. 

"No, the effect is even more terrific. It explodes into powder, " repliedthe scout. 

"And what happens to worlds that the magnetic ray touches?" inquired thescientist. 

"A corner of it touched the world we fought over, and the world shook, "replied the colonist. 

"And the last weapon?" asked Sthanto, his voice soft now. 

"It seems a ghost. It is a mistiness that comes into existence like acloud, and what it touches is crushed, what it rams is shattered. Itsurrounds the great ship, and machines crashing into it at a speed ofmore than six times that of light are completely destroyed, without inthe slightest injuring the shield. 

"Then--what caused my departure from the colony--it showed once more itsunutterable power. The mistiness formed in the path of our colonialworld, number 3769-1-5, and the planet swept against that wall ofmistiness, and was shattered, and turned in less than five sthan to aball of blue-white fire. The wall stopped the planet in its motion. Wecould not fight that machine, and we left the worlds. The others arecoming, " finished the scout. 

The ruler turned his slightly smiling face to the commander of hisarmies, who sat beside him. 

"Give orders, " he said softly, almost gently, "that a triple ray stationbe set up under the direction of Thalt, and further notice that allpower be made instantly available to it. Add that the colonists arereturning defeated, and bringing danger at their heels. The triple raywill destroy each ship as it enters the system. " His hand under thetable pushed an invisible protuberance, and from the perfectlyconducting relux floor to the equally perfectly conducting ceiling, andbetween four pillars grouped around the spot where the scout stood, terrific arcs suddenly came into being. They lasted for the thousandthpart of a second, and when they suddenly died away, as swiftly as theyhad come, there was not even ash where the scout had been. 

"Have you any suggestions, Thalt?" he asked of the scientist, his voiceas soft as before. 

"I quite agree with your conduct so far, but the future conduct you hadplanned is quite unsatisfactory, " replied the scientist. The ruler satmotionless in his great seat, staring fixedly at the scientist. "I thinkit is time I take your place, therefore. " The place where the ruler hadbeen was suddenly seen as through a dark cloud, then the cloud was gone, and with it the king, only his relux chair, and the bits of lux or reluxthat had been about his garments remained. 

"He was a fool, " said the scientist softly, as he rose, "to plan onremoving his scientist. Are there any who object to my succession?"

"No one objects, " said Faslar, the ex-king's Prime Minister andcouncilor. 

"Then I think, Phantal, Commander of planetary forces, that you had bestsee Ranstud, my assistant, and follow out the plan outlined by mypredecessor. And you Tastal, Commander of Fleets, had best bring yourfleets near the planets for protection. Go. "

"May I suggest, mighty Thalt, " said Faslar after the others had left, "that my knowledge will be exceedingly useful to you. You have twocommanders, neither of whom loves you, and neither of whom is highlycapable. The family of Thadstil would be glad to learn who removed thathonored gentleman, and the family of Datstir would gladly support himwho brought the remover of their head to them. 

"This would remove two unwelcome menaces, and open places for such asRanstud and your son Warrtil. 

"And, " he said hastily as he saw a slight shift in Thalt's eyes, "Imight say further that the bereaved ones of Parthel would find greatinterest in certain of my papers, which are only protected by mypersonal constant watchfulness. "

"Ah, so? And what of Kelston Faln, Faslar?" smiled the new Sthanta. 

Thalt's hand relaxed and they started a conversation and discussion onmeans of defense. 

Chapter XXIII

VENONE

Up from Earth, out of its clear blue sky, and into the glare and dark ofspace and near a sun the ship soared. They had been holding itmotionless over New York, and now as it rose, hundreds of tiny craft, and a few large excursion ships followed it until it was out of Earth'satmosphere. Then--it was gone. Gone across space, racing toward that farUniverse at a speed no other thing could equal. In minutes the greatdisc of the Universe had taken form behind them, as they took theirroute photographs to find their way back to Earth after the battle, ifstill they could come. 

Then into the stillness of the Intergalactic spaces. 

"This will be our first opportunity to test the full speed of this ship. We have never tried its velocity, and we should measure it now. Take asight on the diameter of the Island, as seen from here, Morey. Then wewill travel ten seconds, and look again. "

Half a million light years from the center of the Island now, the greatdisc spread out over the vast space behind them, apparently the size ofa dinner plate at about thirty inches distance, it was more than twohundred and fifty thousand light years across. Checking carefully, Moreyread their distance as just shy of five hundred thousand light years. 

"Hold on--here we go, " called Arcot. Space was suddenly black, andbeside them ran the twin ghost ships that follow always when space isclosed to the smallest compass, for light leaving, goes around a spacewhose radius is measured in miles, instead of light centuries andreturns. There was no sound, no slightest vibration, only Torlos' ironbones felt a slight shock as the inconceivable currents flowed into thegigantic space distortion coil from the storage fields, their shieldedmagnetic flux leaking by in some slight degree. 

For ten seconds that seemed minutes Arcot held the ship on the courseunder the maximum combined powers of space distortion and time fielddistortion. Then he released both simultaneously. 

The velvet black of space was about them as before, but now the disc ofthe Nebula was tiny behind them! So tiny was it, that these men, whoknew its magnitude, gasped in sudden wonder. None of them had been ableto conceive of such a velocity as this ship had shown! In seconds, Moreyannounced a moment later, they had traveled _one million, one hundredthousand light years_! Their velocity was six hundred and sixtyquadrillion miles per second!

"Then it will take us only a little over one thousand seconds to travelthe hundred and fifty million light years, at 110, 000 light years persecond--that's about the radius of our galaxy, isn't it!" exclaimedWade. 

They started on now, and one thousand and ten seconds, or a little morethan eighteen minutes later, they stopped again. So far behind them nowas to be almost lost in the far scattered universes, lay their ownIsland, and carefully they photographed the Universe that now lay lessthan twenty million light years ahead. Still, it was further, even aftercrossing this enormous gulf, than are many of those nebulae we see fromEarth, many of which lie within that distance. They must proceedcautiously now, for they did not know the exact distance to the Nebula. Carefully, running forward in jumps of five million light years, forty-five second drives, they worked nearer. 

Then finally they entered the Island, and drove toward the densercenter. 

"Good Lord, Arcot, look at those suns!" exclaimed Morey in amazement. For the first time they were seeing the suns of this system at a rangethat permitted observation, and Arcot had stopped to observe. The firstone they had chosen had been a blue-white giant of enormous mass, nearlyone hundred and fifty times as heavy as our own sun, and all theenormous surface was radiating power into space at a rate of nearlythirty thousand horsepower per square inch! No planets circled it, however, in its journey through space. 

"I've been noticing the number of giants here. Look around. "

The _Thought_ moved on, on to other suns. They must find one that wasinhabited. 

They stopped at last near a great orange giant, and examined it. It hadindeed planets, and as Arcot watched, he saw in the telectroscope a lineof gigantic freighters rise from the world, and whisk off to nothingnessas they exceeded the speed of light! Instantly he started the _Thought_searching in time fields for the freighters. He found them, and followedthem as they raced across the void. He knew he was visible to them, andas he suspected, they soon stopped, slowing down and signaling to him. 

"Morey--take the _Thought_. I'm going to visit them in the _Banderlog_as I think we shall name the tender, " called Arcot, stripping off theheadset, and leaving the control seat. The other fleet of ships was nowless than a hundred thousand miles away, clearly visible in thetelectroscope. They were still signaling, and Arcot had set an automaticsignaling device flashing an enormously powerful searchlight toward themin a succession of dots and dashes, an obvious signal, though also, obviously unintelligible to those others. 

"Is it safe, Arcot?" asked Torlos anxiously. To approach those enormousships in the relatively tiny _Banderlog_ seemed unwise. 

"Far safer than they'll believe. Remember, only the _Thought_ couldstand up against such weapons as even the _Banderlog_ carries, run asthey are by cosmic energy, " replied Arcot, diving down toward the littletender. 

In a moment it was out through the lock, and sped away from them like abullet, reaching the distant stranger fleet in less than ten seconds. 

"They are communicating by thought!" announced Zezdon Afthen presently. "But I cannot understand them, for the impulses are too weak to beintelligently received. "

For nearly an hour the _Banderlog_ hung beside the fleet, then it turnedabout, and raced once more to the _Thought_. Inside the lock, and amoment later Arcot appeared again on the threshold of the door. Helooked immensely relieved. 

"Well, I have some good news, " he said and smiled, sitting down. "Followthat bunch, Morey, and I'll tell you about it. Set it and she'll holdnicely. We have a long way to go, and those are slow freighters, accompanied by one Cruiser. 

"Those men, " he began, "are men of Venone. You remember Thett's recordssaid something of the Mighty Warless Ones of Venone? Those are they. They inhabit most of this universe, leaving the Thessians but fourplanets of a minor sun, way off in one corner. It seems the Thessiansare their undesirable exiles, those who have, from generation togeneration, been either forced to go there, or who wanted to go there. 

"They did not like the easier and more effective method of disposing ofundesirables, the instantaneous death chamber they now use. Thett wastheir prison world. No one ever returned and his family could go withhim if they desired, but if they did not, they were carefully watchedfor outcroppings of undesirable traits--murder, crime of any sort, anyhabitual tendency to injustice. 

"About six hundred years ago of our time, Thett revolted. There werescientists there, and their scientists had discovered a thing that theyhad been seeking for generations--the Twin-ray. I don't know what it is, and the Venonians don't either. It is the ray that destroys relux andlux, however, and can be carried only on a machine the size of theirforts, due to some limitations. Just what those limitations are theVenonians don't know. Other than that ray they had no new weapons. 

"But it was enough. Their guard ships which had circled the worlds ofthe prison system, Antseck, were suddenly destroyed, so suddenly thatVenone received no word of it till a consignment ship, bringingprisoners, discovered their absence. The consignment ship returnedwithout landing. Thett was now independent. But they were bound to theirsystem, for although they had the molecular ships, they had never beenpermitted to have time apparatus, nor to see it, nor was any one whoknew its principles ever consigned there. The result was that they wereas isolated as ever. 

"This was for two centuries. Two centuries later it was worked out byone of their scientists, and the Warless Ones had a War of defense. Their small fleet of cruisers, designed for rescue work and for clearingspace lanes of wrecks and asteroids, was destroyed instantly, theirworld was protected only by the ray screen, which the Thessians did nothave, and by the fact that they could build more cruisers. In less thana year Thett was defeated, and beaten back to her world, though Venonecould not overcome Thett, now, for around their planets they had so manyforts projecting the deadly rays, that no ship could approach. 

"Then Thett learned how to make the screen, and came again. Venone hadplanetoid stations, that projected molecular rays of an intensity Iwonder at, with their system of projecting. It seems these people haveforce-power feeds that operate through space, by which an entire solarsystem can tie in for power, and they fed these stations in that way. Lord only knows what tubes they had, but the Thessians couldn't get thepower to fight. 

"They've been let alone since then, they did not know why. I told themwhat their dear friends had been doing in that time, and the Venonianswere immensely surprised, and very evidently sorry. They begged mypardon for letting loose such a menace, quite sincerely feeling that itwas their fault. They offered any help they could give, and I told themthat a chart of this system would be of the greatest use. They are goingnow to Venone, and we are to go with them, and see what they have tooffer. Also, they want a demonstration of this 'remarkable ship that candefeat whole fleets of Thessians, and destroy or make planets at will, '"concluded Arcot. 

"I do not in the least blame them for wanting to see this ship inoperation, Arcot, but they are, very evidently, a much older race thanyours, " said Torlos, his thoughts coming clear and sharp, as those of aman who has thought over what he says carefully. "Are you not runningdanger that their minds may be more powerful than yours, that this storythey have told you is but a ruse to get this ship on their world wherethousand, millions can concentrate their will against you and capturethe ship by mind where they cannot capture it by force?"

"That, " agreed Arcot, "is where 'the rub' comes in as an ancient poet ofEarth put it. I don't know and I did not have a chance to see. WhereforeI am about to do some work. Let me have the controls, Morey, will you?"

Arcot made a new ship. It was made entirely, perforce, of cosmium, luxand relux, for those were the only forms of matter he could create inspace permanently from energy. It was equipped with gravity drive, andtime distortion speed apparatus, and his far better trained mindfinished this smaller ship with his titanic tools in less than the twodays that it took them to reach Venone. In the meantime, the Venoniancruiser had drawn close, and watched in amazement as the ship wasfashioned from the energy of space, became a thing of glistening matter, materializing from the absolute void of space, and forming under titanictools such as the commander could not visualize. 

Now, this move was partly the reason for this construction, for whilethe Venonian was busy, absorbed in watching the miraculous construction, his mind was not shielded, and it was open for observation of two suchwonderfully trained minds as those of Zezdon Afthen and Zezdon Inthel. With their instruments and wonderfully developed mind-science, aided attimes by Morey's less skillful, but more powerful mind of his olderrace, and powerful too, both because of long concentration and training, and because of his individual inheritance, they examined the minds ofmany of the officers of the ship without their awareness. 

As a final test, Arcot, having finished the ship, suggested that theVenonian officer and one of the men of his ship have a trial of mentalpowers. 

Zezdon Afthen tried first, and between the two ships, racing along sideby side at a speed unthinkable, the two men struggled with those forcesof will. 

Quickly Zezdon Afthen told Arcot what he had learned. 

The sun of Venone was close, now, and Arcot prepared to use as heintended the little space machine he had made. Morey took it, and wentaway from the _Thought_ flying on its time field. The ship had beenstocked with lead fuel for its matter-burning generators from the supplythat had been brought on the _Thought_ for emergencies, and the air hadcome from the _Thought_'s great tanks. Morey was going to Venone aheadof the _Thought_ to scout--"to see many of the important men of Venoneand find out from them what I can of the relationship between Venone andThett. "

Hours later Morey returned with a favorable report. He had seen many ofthe important men of Venone, and conversed with them mentally from thesafety of his ship, where the specially installed gravity apparatus hadprotected him and the ship against the enormous gravity of this giganticworld. He did not describe Venone; he wanted them to see it as he hadfirst seen it. 

So the little ship, which had served its purpose now, was destroyed, nearly a light year from Venone, and left a crushed wreck when twoplates of artificial matter had closed upon it, destroying theapparatus, lest some unwelcome finder use it. There was little about it, the gravity apparatus alone perhaps, that might have been of use toThett, and Thett already had the ray--but why take needless risk?

Then once more they were racing toward Venone. Soon the giant star ofwhich it was a planet loomed enormous. Then, at Morey's direction, theyswung, and before them loomed a planet. Large as Thett, near a halfmillion miles in diameter, its mass was very closely equal to that ofour sun. Yet it was but the burned-out sweepings of the outermostphotospheric layers of this giant sun, and the radioactive atoms thatmade a sun active were not here; it was a cold planet. But its densitywas far, far higher than that of our sun, for our sun is but slightlydenser than ordinary sea water. This world was dense as copper, for withthe deeper sweepings of the tidal strains that had formed it, more ofthe heavier atoms had gone into its making, and its core was denser thanthat of Earth. 

About it swept two gigantic satellite Worlds, each larger than Jupiter, but satellites of a satellite here! And Venone itself was inhabited bycountless millions, yet their low, green tile and metal cities wereinvisible in the aspect of rolling lands with tiny hillocks, dwarfed bygigantic bulbous trees that floated their enormous weight in thewater-dense atmosphere. 

Here, too, there were no seas, for the temperature was above thecritical temperature of water, and only in the self-cooling bodies ofthese men and in the trees which similarly cooled themselves, couldthere be liquid. 

The sun of the world was another of the giant red stars, close to threehundred and fifty times the mass of our sun. It was circled by but threegiant planets. Its enormous disc was almost invisible from the surfaceof the world as the _Thought_ sank slowly through fifteen thousand milesof air, due to the screening effect on light passing through so muchair. Earth could have rested on this planet and not extended beyond itsatmosphere! Had Earth been situated at this planet's center, the Mooncould have revolved about it, and would not have been beyond theplanet's surface!

In silent wonder the terrestrians watched the titanic world as theysank, and their friends looked on amazed, comprehending even less of thesignificance of what they saw. Already within the titanic gravitationalfield, they could see that indescribable effects were being produced onthem, and on the ship. Arcot alone could know the enormous gravitation, and his accelerometer told him now that he was subject to agravitational acceleration of three thousand four hundred andeighty-seven feet per second, or almost exactly one hundred and ninetimes Earth's pull. 

"The _Thought_ weighs one billion, two hundred and six million, fivehundred thousand tons, with tender, on Earth. Here it weighsapproximately one hundred and twenty-one billion tons, " said Arcotsoftly. 

"Can you set it down? It may crush under this load if the gravity driveisn't supporting it, " asked Torlos anxiously. 

"Eight inches cosmium, and everything else supported by cosmium. I madethis thing to stand any conceivable strain. Watch--if the planet'ssurface will take the load, " replied Arcot. 

They were still sinking, and now a number of small marvelouslystreamlined ships were clustered around the slowly settling giant. In afew moments more people, hundreds, thousands of men were flying throughthe air up to the ship. 

A cruiser had appeared, and was very evidently intent on leading themsomewhere, and Arcot followed it as it streaked through the dense air. "No wonder they streamline, " he muttered as he saw the enormous force ittook to drive the gigantic ship through this air. The air pressureoutside their ship now was so great, that the sheer crushing effect ofthe air pressure alone was enormous. The pressure was well over ninetons to the square inch, on the surface of that enormous ship!

They landed approximately fifty miles from a large city which was thecapital. The land seemed absolutely level, and the horizon faded off indistance in an atmosphere absolutely clear. There was no dust in the airat their height of nearly three hundred feet, for dust was too heavy onthis world. There were no clouds. The mountains of this enormous worldwere not large, could not be large, for their sheer weight would tearthem down, but what mountains there were were jagged, tortured rock, exceedingly sharp in outline. 

"No rain--no temperature change to break them down, " said Wade lookingat them. "The zone of fracture can't be deep here. "

"What, Wade, is the zone of fracture?" asked Torles. 

"Rock has weight. Any substance, no matter how brittle, will flow ifsufficient pressure is brought to bear from all sides. A thing which canflow will not break or fracture. You can't imagine the pressure to whichthe rock three hundred feet down is subject to. There is the enormousmass of atmosphere, the tremendous mass of rock above, and all forceddown by this gravitation. By the time you get down half a mile, the rockis under such an inconceivably great pressure that it will flow likemud. The rock there cannot break; it merely flows under pressure. Above, the rock can break, instead of flowing. That is the zone of fracture. OnEarth the zone of fracture is ten miles deep. Here it must be of theorder of only five hundred feet! And the planetary blocks that made aplanet's surface float on the zone of flowage--they determine the zoneof fracture. "

The gigantic ship had been sinking, and now, suddenly it gave a veryunexpected demonstration of Wade's words. It had landed, and Arcot shutoff the power. There was a roaring, and the giant ship trembled, rocked, and rolled along a bit. Instantly Arcot drove it into the air. 

"Whoa--can't do it. The ship will stand it, and won't bend under theload--but the planet won't. We caused a Venone-quake. One of thoseplanetary blocks Wade was talking about slipped under the added strain. "

Quickly Wade explained that all the planetary blocks were floating, truly floating, and in equilibrium just as a boat must be. The addedload had been sufficiently great, so that, with an already extantoverload on this particular planetary block, this "boat" had sunk a bitfurther into the flowage zone, till it was once more at rest andbalanced. 

"They wish us to come out that they may see us, strangers and friendsfrom another Island, " interrupted Zezdon Afthen. 

"Tell them they'd have to scrape us up off the ground, if we attemptedit. We come from a world where we weigh about as much as a pebble here, "said Wade, grinning at the thought of terrestrians trying to walk onthis world. 

"Don't--tell them we'll be right out, " said Arcot sharply. "All of us. "

Morey and the others all stared at Arcot in amazement. It was utterlyimpossible!

But Zezdon Afthen did as Arcot had asked. Almost immediately, anotherMorey stepped out of the airlock wearing what was obviously a pressuresuit. Behind him came another Wade, Torlos, Stel Felso Theu, and indeedall the members of their party save Arcot himself! The Galactians staredin wonder--then comprehended and laughed together. Arcot had sentartificial matter images of them all!

Their images stepped out, and the Venonian crowd which had collected, stared in wonder at the giants, looming twice their height above them. 

"You see not us, but images of us. We cannot withstand your gravity noryour air pressure, save in the protection of our ship. But these imagesare true images of us. "

For some time then they communicated, and finally Arcot agreed to give ademonstration of their power. At the suggestion of the cruiser commanderwho had seen the construction of a spaceship from the emptiness ofspace, Arcot rapidly constructed a small, very simple, molecular drivemachine of pure cosmium, making it entirely from energy. It required butminutes, and the Venonians stared in wonder as Arcot's unbelievabletools created the machine before their eyes. The completed ship Arcotgave to an official of the city who had appeared. The Venonian looked atthe thing skeptically, and half expecting it to vanish like the toolsthat made it, gingerly entered the port. Powered as it was by leadburning cosmic ray generators, the lead alone having been made bytransmutation of natural matter, it was powerful, and speedy. Theofficial entered it, and finding it still existing, tried it out. Muchto his amazement it flew, and operated perfectly. 

Nearly ten hours Arcot and his friends stayed at Venone, and before theyleft, the Venonians, for all their vast differences of structure, hadproven themselves true, kindly honest men, and a race that our Alliancehas since found every reason to respect and honor. Our commerce withthem, though carried on under difficulties, is none the less a bond ofgenuine friendship. 

Chapter XXIV

THETT PREPARES

Streaking through the void toward Thett was again a tiny scout ship. Itcarried but a single man, and with all the power of the machine he wasdarting toward distant Thett, at a speed insanely reckless, but he knewthat he must maintain such a speed if his mission were to be successful. 

Again a tiny ship entered Thett's far-flung atmosphere, and slowed toless than a light speed, and sent its signal call ahead. In moments thepatrol ship, less than three hundred miles away, had reached it, andtogether they streaked through the dense air in a screaming dive towardShatnsoma, the capital city. It was directly beneath, and it was notlong before they had reached the great palace grounds, and settled onthe upper roof. Then the scout leaped out of his tiny craft, and dovefor the door. Flashing his credentials, he dove down, and into the firstshielded room. Here precious seconds were wasted while a check was madeof the credentials the man carried, then he was sent through to theCouncil Room. And he, too, stood on that exact spot where the otherscout, but a few weeks before, had stood--and vanished. Waiting, itseemed, were four councilors and the new Sthanto, Thalt. 

"What news, Scout?" asked the Sthanto. 

"They have arrived in the Universe to Venone, and gone to the planetVenone. They were on the planet when I left. None of our scouts wereable to approach the place, as there were innumerable Venonian watcherswho would have recognized our deeper skin-color, and destroyed us. Twoscouts were rayed, though the Galactians did not see this. Finally wecaptured two Venonians who had seen it, and attempted to force theinformation we needed from them. A young man and his chosen mate. 

"The man would tell nothing, and we were hurried. So we turned to thegirl. These accursed Venonians are courageous for all their pacifism. Wewere hurried, and yet it was long before we forced her to tell what weneeded to know so vitally. She had been one of the notetakers for theVenonian government. We got most of their conversation, but she died ofburns before she finished. 

"The Galactians know nothing of the twin-ray beyond its action, and thatit is an electro-magnetic phenomenon, though they have been able todistort it by using a sheet of pure energy. But their walls areimpregnable to it, and their power of creating matter from the pureenergy of space, as we saw from a distance, would enable them to easilydefeat it, were it not that the twin-ray passes through matter withoutharming it. Any ray which will destroy matter of the natural electricaltypes, will be stopped. 

"The girl was damnably clever, for she gave us only the things wealready knew, and but few new facts; knowing that she would inevitablydie soon, she talked--but it was empty talk. The one thing of import wehave learned is that they burn no fuel, use no fuel of any sort but insome inconceivable manner get their energy from the radiations of thesuns of space. This could not be great--but we know she told the truth, and we know their power is great. She told the truth, for we coulddetermine when she lied, by mental action, of course. 

"But more we could not learn. The man died without telling anything, merely cursing. He knew nothing anyway, as we already had determined, "concluded the scout. 

Silently the Sthanto sat in thought for some moments. Then he raised hishead, and looked at the scout once more. 

"You have done well. You secured some information of import, which wasmore than we had dared hope for. But you managed things poorly. Thewoman should not have died so soon. We can only guess. 

"The radiation of the suns of space--hmmm--" Sthanto Thalt's browwrinkled in thought. "The radiation of the _suns_ of space. Were hispower derived from the sun near which he is operating, he would not havesaid _suns_. It was more than one?"

"It was, oh Sthanto, " replied the scout positively. 

"His power is unreasonable. I doubt that he gave the true explanation. It may well have been that he did not trust the Venonians. I would not, for all their warless ways. But surely the suns of space give verylittle power at any given point at random. Else space would not be cold. 

"But go, Scout, and you will be assigned a position in the fleet. TheColonial fleet, the remains of it, have arrived, and the colonists beenremoved. They failed. We will use their ships. You will be assigned. "The scout left, and was indeed assigned to a ship of the colonists. Theincoming colonial transports had been met at the outposts of the system, and rayed out of existence at once--failures, and bringing danger attheir heels. Besides--there was no room for them on Thett withoutThessians being crowded uncomfortably. 

As their battleships arrived they were conducted to one of thesatellites, and each man was "fumigated, " lest he bring disease to themother planet. Men entered, men apparently emerged. But they weredifferent men. 

"It seems, " said the Sthanto softly, after the scout had left, "that wewill have little difficulty, for they are, we know, vulnerable to thetriple ray. And if we can but once destroy their driving units they willbe helpless on our world. I doubt that wild tale of their using no fuel. Even if that be true they will be helpless with their power apparatusdestroyed, and--if we miss the first time, we can seek it out, or drivethem off!

"All of which is dependent on the fact that they attack at a point wherewe have a triple ray station to meet them. There are but three of these, actually, but I have had dummy stations, apparently identical with ourother real stations, set up in many places. 

"This gibberish we hear of creating matter--it is impossible, and surelyunsuitable as a weapon. Their misty wall--that may be a force plane, butI know of no such possibility. The artificial substance though--whyshould any one make it? It but consumes energy, and once made is no moredangerous than ordinary matter, save that there is the possibility ofcreating it in dangerous position. Remember, we have heard already ofthe mental suggestions planes--mere force planes--_plus_ a wonderfullydeveloped power of suggestion. They do most of their damage by mentalimpression. Remember, we have heard already of the mental suggestions ofhorrible things that drove one fleet of the weak-minded colonists mad. 

"And that, I think, we will use to protect ourselves. If we can, withthe apparatus which you, my son, have developed, cause them to believethat all the other forts are equally dangerous, and that this one onThett is the best point of attack--It will be easy. Can you do it?"

"I can, Oh Sthanto, if but a sufficient number of powerful minds may bebrought to aid me, " replied the youngest of the four councilmen. 

"And you, Ranstud, are the stations ready?" asked the ruler. 

"We are ready. "

Chapter XXV

WITH GALAXIES IN THE BALANCE

The _Thought_ arose from Venone after long hours, and at Arcot'ssuggestion, they assumed an orbit about the world, at a distance of twomillion miles, and all on board slept, save Torlos, the tirelessmolecular motion machine of flesh and iron. He acted as guard, and as hehad slept but four days before, he explained there was really no reasonfor him to sleep as yet. 

But the terrestrians would feel the greatest strain of the comingencounter, especially Arcot and Morey, for Morey was to help byrepairing any damage done, by working from the control board of the_Banderlog_. The little tender had sufficient power to take care of anydamage that Thett might inflict, they felt sure. 

For they had not learned of the triple ray. 

It was hours later that, rested and refreshed, they started for Thett. Following the great space-chart that they had been given by theVenonians, a series of blocks of clear lux metal, with tiny points ofslowly disintegrating lux, such as had been used to illuminate theletters of the _Thought_'s name representing suns, the colors andrelative intensity being shown. Then there was a more manageable guidein the form of photographs, marked for route by constellationsformations as well, which would be their actual guide. 

At the maximum speed of the time apparatus, for thus they could betterfollow the constellations, the _Thought_ plunged along in the wake ofthe tiny scout ship that had already landed on Thett. And, hours later, they saw the giant red sun of Antseck, the star of Thett and its system. 

"We're about there, " said Arcot, a peculiar tenseness showing in histhoughts. "Shall we barge right in, or wait and investigate?"

"Well have to chance it. Where is their main fort here?"

"From the direction, I should say it was to the left and ahead of ourposition, " replied Zezdon Afthen. 

The ship moved ahead, while about it the tremendous Thessian battlefleetbuzzed like flies, thousands of ships now, and more coming with eachsecond. 

In a few moments the titanic ship had crossed a great plain, and came toa region of bare, rocky hills several hundred feet high. Set in thosehills, surrounded by them, was a huge sphere, resting on the ground. Asthough by magic the Thessian fleet cleared away from the _Thought_. Thelast one had not left, when Arcot shot a terrific cosmic ray toward thesphere. It was relux, and he knew it, but he knew what would happen whenthat cosmic ray hit it. The solometer flickered and steadied at three asthat inconceivable ray flashed out. 

Instantly there was a terrific explosion. The soil exploded intohydrogen atoms, and expanded under heat that lashed it to more than amillion degrees in the tiniest fraction of a second. The terrific recoilof the ray-pressure was taken by all space, for it was generated inspace itself, but the direct pressure struck the planet, and thattitanic planet reeled! A tremendous fissure opened, and the section thathad been struck by the ray smashed its way suddenly far into the planet, and a geyser of fluid rock rolled over it, twenty miles deep in thatworld. The relux sphere had been struck by the ray, and had turned it, with the result that it was pushed doubly hard. The enormously thickrelux strained and dented, then shot down as a whole, into theincandescent rock. 

For miles the vaporized rock was boiling off. Then the fort sent out aray, and that ray blasted the rock that had flowed over it as Arcot'stitanic ray snapped out. In moments the fort was at the surfaceagain--and a molecular hit it. The molecular did not have the energy thecosmic had carried, but it was a single concentrated beam of destructionten feet across. It struck the fort--and the fort recoiled under itsenergy. The marvelous new tubes that ran its ray screen flashedinstantly to a temperature inconceivable, and, so long as the elementsembedded in the infusible relux remained the metals they were, thosetubes could not fail. But they were being lashed by the energy of half asun. The tubes failed. The elements heated to that enormous temperaturewhen elements cannot exist--and broke to other elements that did notresist. The relux flashed into blinding iridescence--

And from the fort came a beam of pure silvery light. It struck the_Thought_ just behind the bow, for the operator was aiming for the pointwhere he knew the control room and pilot must be. But Arcot had designedthe ship for mental control, which the enemy operator could not guess. The beam was a flat beam, perhaps an inch thick, but it fanned out tofifty feet width. And where it touched the _Thought_, there was aterrific explosion, and inconceivably violent energy lashed out as thecosmium instantaneously liberated its energy. 

A hundred feet of the nose was torn off the ship, and the enormouslydense air of Thett rushed in. But that beam had cut through the veryedge of one of the ray projectors, or better, one of the ray feedapparatus. And the ray feed released it without control; it released allthe energy it could suck in from space about it, as one single beam ofcosmic energy, somewhat lower than the regular cosmics, and it flashedout in a beam as solid matter. 

There was air about the ship, and the air instantly exploded into atomsof a different sort, threw off their electrons, and were raised to thetemperature at which no atom can exist, and became protons andelectrons. But so rapidly was that coil sucking energy from space thatspace tended to close in about it, and in enormous spurts the energyflooded out. It was directed almost straight up, and but one ship wascaught in its beam. It was made of relux, but the relux was powderedunder the inconceivable blow that countless quintillions of cosmic rayphotons struck it. That ray was in fact, a solid mass of cosmium movingwith the velocity of light. And it was headed for that satellite ofThett, which it would reach in a few hours time. 

The _Thought_, due to the spatial strains of the wounded coil, wasconstantly rushing away to an almost infinite distance, as the shipapproached that other space toward which the coil tended with its load, and rushing back, as the coil, reaching a spatial condition whichsupplied no energy, fell back. In a hundredth of a second it had reachedequilibrium, and they were in a weirdly, terribly distorted space. Butthe triple-ray of the Thessians seemed to sheer off, and miss, no matterhow it was directed. And it was painfully weak, for the coil sucked upthe energy of whatsoever matter disintegrated in the neighborhood. 

Then suddenly the performance was over. And they plunged into artificialspace that was black and clean, and not a thing of wavering, strugglingenergies. Morey, from his control in the _Banderlog_, had succeeded ingetting sufficient energy, by using his space distortion coils, todestroy the great projector mechanism. Instantly Arcot, now able tocreate the artificial space without the destruction of the coils by thestruggling ray-feed coil, had thrown them to comparative safety. 

Space writhed before they could so much as turn from the instruments. The Thessians had located their artificial space, and reached it with anattraction ray. They already had been withstanding the drain of theenormous fields of the giant planet and the giant sun; the attractiveray was an added strain. Arcot looked at his instruments, and with agrim smile set a single dial. The space about them became black again. 

"Pulling our energy--merely let 'em pull. They're pulling on an ocean, not a lake this time. I don't think they'll drain those coils veryquickly. " He looked at his instruments. "Good for two and a half hoursat this rate. 

"Morey, you sure did your job then. I was helpless. The controlswouldn't answer, of course, with that titanic thing flopping its wings, so to speak. What are we going to do?"

Morey stood in the doorway, and from his pocket drew a cigarette, handedit to Arcot, another to each of the others who smoked, and lit them, andhis own. "Smoke, " he said, and puffed. "Smoke and think. From our lastexperience with a minor tragedy, it helps. "

"But--this is no minor tragedy, they have burst open the wall of thisinvulnerable ship, destroyed one of those enormous coils, and can do itagain, " exclaimed Zezdon Afthen, exceedingly nervous, so nervous thatthe normal courage of the man was gone. His too-psychic breeding wasagainst him as a warrior. 

"Afthen, " replied Stel Felso Theu calmly, "when our friends have smoked, and thought, the _Thought_ will be repaired perfectly, and it will bemade invulnerable to that weapon. "

"I hope so, Stel Felso Theu, " smiled Arcot. He was feeling betteralready. "But do you know what that weapon is, Morey?"

"Got some readings on it with the _Banderlog_'s instruments, and I thinkI do. Twin-ray is right, " replied Morey. 

"Hm-hm--so I think. It's a super-photon. What they do is to use a fieldsomewhat similar to the field we use in making cosmium, except that intheirs, instead of the photons lying side by side, they slide into oneanother, compounding. They evidently get three photons to go into one. Now, as we know, that size photon doesn't exist for the excellent reasonthat it can't in this space. Space closes in about it. Therefore theyhave a projected field to accompany it that tends to open out space--andthey are using that, not the attractive ray, on us now. The result isthat for a distance not too great, the triple-ray exists in normalspace--then goes into another. Now the question is how can we stop it? Ihave an idea--have you any?"

"Yes, but my idea can't exist in this space either, " grinned Morey. 

"I think it can. If it's what I think, remember it will have a terrificelectric field. "

"It's what you think, then. Come on. " Arcot and Morey went to thecalculating room, while Wade took over the ship. But one of theray-feeds had been destroyed, and they had three more in action, as wellas their most important weapon, artificial matter. Wade threw on thetime field, and started the emergency lead burner working to rechargethe coils that the Thessians were constantly draining. Being in theirown peculiar space, they could not draw energy from the stars, and Arcotdidn't want to return to normal space to discharge them, unlessnecessary. 

"How's the air pressure in the rest of the ship?" asked Wade. 

"Triple normal, " replied Morey. "The Thessian atmosphere leaked in andsent it up terrifically, but when we went into our own space, at thehalfway point, a lot leaked out. But the ship is full of water now. Itwas a bit difficult coming up from the _Banderlog_, and I didn't want tobreathe the air I wasn't sure of. But let's work. "

They worked. For eight hours of the time they were now in they continuedto work. The supply of lead metal gave out before the end of the fourthhour, and the coils were nearing the end of their resistance. It wouldsoon be necessary for Arcot to return to normal space. So they stopped, their calculations very nearly complete. Throwing all the remainingenergy into the coils, they a little more than held the space aboutthem, and moved away from Thett at a speed of about twice that of light. For an hour more Arcot worked, while the ship plowed on. Then they wereready. 

As Arcot took over the controls, space reeled once more, and they werealone, far from Thett. The suns of this space were flashing and glowingabout them, and the unlimited energy of a universe was at Arcot'scommand. But all the remaining atmosphere in the ship had either goneinstantaneously in the vacuum, or solidified as the chill of expansionfroze it. 

To the amazement of the extra-terrestrians, Arcot's first move was tocreate a titanic plane of artificial matter, and neatly bisect the_Thought_ at the middle! He had thrown all of the controls thusinterrupted into neutral, and in the little more than half of the shipwhich contained the control cabin, was also the artificial mattercontrol. It was busy now. With bewildering speed, with the speed ofthought trained to construct, enormous masses of cosmium were appearingbeside them in space as Arcot created them from pure energy. Cosmium, relux and some clear cosmium-like lux metal. Ordinary cosmium wasreflective, and he wanted something with cosmium's strength, and theclearness of lux. 

In seconds, under Arcot's flying thought manipulation, a great tube hadbeen welded to the original hull, and the already gigantic shiplengthened by more than five hundred feet! Immediately great artificialmatter tools gripped the broken nose-section, clamped it into place, andwelded it with cosmium flowing under the inconceivable pressure till itwas again a single great hull. 

Then the Thessian fleet found them. The coils were charged now, and theycould have escaped, but Arcot had to work. The Thessians were attackedwith moleculars, cosmics, and a great twin-ray. Arcot could not use hismagnet, for it had been among those things severed from the control. Hehad two ray feeds, and the artificial matter. There were nearly threethousand ships attacking him with a barrage of energy that wasinconceivably great, but the cosmium walls merely turned it aside. Ittook Arcot less than ten seconds to wipe out that fleet of ships! Hecreated a wall of artificial matter at twenty feet from the ship--andanother at twenty thousand miles. It was thin, yet it was utterlyimpenetrable. He swept the two walls together, and forced them againsteach other until his instruments told him only free energy remainedbetween them. Then he released the outer wall, and a terrific flood ofenergy swept out. 

"I don't think we'll be attacked again, " said Morey softly. They werenot. Thett had only one other fleet, and had no intention of losing thepowers of their generators at this time when they so badly needed them. The strange ship had retired for repairs--very well, they could attackagain--and maybe--

Arcot was busy. In the great empty space that had been left, heinstalled a second collector coil as gigantic as the main artificialmatter generator. Then he repaired the broken ray feed, and it, and thecompanion coil which, with it, had been in the severed nose section, were now in the same relative position to the new collector coil thatthey had had with relation to the artificial matter coil. Next Arcotbuilt two more ray feeds. Now in the gigantic central power room thereloomed two tremendous power collectors, and six smaller ray feedcollectors. 

His next work was to reconnect the severed connectors and controls. Thenhe began work on the really new apparatus. Nothing he had constructed sofar was more than a duplicate of existing apparatus, and he had beenable to do it almost instantly, from memory. Now he must visionsomething new to his experience, and something that was forced to existin part in this space, and partly in another. He tried four times beforethe apparatus had been completed correctly, and the work occupied tenhours. But at last it was done. The _Thought_ was ready now for thebattle. 

"Got it right at last?" asked Wade. "I hope so. "

"It's right--tried it a little. I don't think you noticed it. I'm goingdown now to give them a nice little dose, " said Arcot grimly. His shipwas repaired--but they had caused him plenty of trouble. 

"How long have we been out here, their time?" asked Wade. 

"About an hour and a half. " The _Thought_ had been on the time field atall times save when the Thessian fleet attacked. 

"I think, Earthman, that you are tired, and should rest, lest you make atired thought and do great harm, " suggested Zezdon Afthen. 

"I want to finish it!" replied Arcot, sharply. He was tired. 

In seconds the _Thought_ was once more over that fortified station inthe mountains--and the triple-ray reached out--and suddenly, about theship, was a wall of absolute, utter blackness. The triple-ray touchedit, and exploded into coruscating, blinding energy. It could notpenetrate it. More energy lashed at the wall of blackness as theoperators within the sphere-fort turned in the energy of all thegenerators under their control. The ground about the fort was a greatlake of dazzling lava as far as the eye could see, for the triple-raywas releasing its energy, and the wall of black was releasing an equal, and opposing energy!

"Stopped!" cried Arcot happily. "Now here is where we give themsomething to think about. The magnet and the heat!"

He turned the two enormous forces simultaneously on the point where heknew the fort was, though it was invisible behind the wall of black thatprotected him. From his side, the energy of the spot where all thesystem of Thett was throwing its forces, was invisible. 

Then he released them. Instantly there was a terrific gout of light onthat wall of blackness. The ship trembled, and space turned gray aboutthem. The black wall dissolved into grayness in one spot, as a flood ofenergy beyond comprehension exploded from it. The enormously strongcosmium wall dented as the pressure of the escaping radiation struck it, and turned X-ray hot under the minute percentage it absorbed. Thetriple-ray bent away, and faded to black as the cosmic force playingabout it, actually twisted space beyond all power of its mechanism toovercome. Then, in the tiniest fraction of a second it was over, andagain there was blackness and only the brilliant, blinding blue of thecosmium wall testified to its enormous temperature, cooling now far moreslowly through green to red. 

"Lord--you're right, Zezdon Afthen. I'm going to sleep, " called Arcot. And the ship was suddenly far, far away from Thett. Morey took over, andArcot slept. First Morey straightened the uninjured wall and ironed outthe dents. 

"What, Morey, is the wall of Blackness?" asked Stel Felso Theu. 

"It's solid matter. A thing that you never saw before. That wall ofmatter is made of a double layer of protons lying one against the other. It absorbs absolutely every and all radiation, and because it is solidmatter, not tiny sprinklings of matter in empty space, as is the matterof even the densest star, it stops the triple-ray. That matter isnothing but protons; there are no electrons there, and the positiveelectrical field is inconceivably great, but it is artificial matter, and that electrical field exerts its strain not in pulling andelectrifying other bodies, but in holding space open, in keeping it fromclosing in about that concentrated matter, just as it does about asingle proton, except that here the entire field energy is so absorbed. 

"Arcot was tired, and forgot. He turned his magnet and his heat againstit. The heat fought the solid matter with the same energy that createdit, and with an energy that had resources as great. The magnet curvedspace about it, and about us. The result was the terrific energy releaseyou saw, and the hole in the wall. All Thett couldn't make anyimpression on it. One of the rays blasted a hole in it, " said Morey witha laugh. For he, too, loved this mighty thing, the almost living ideasof his friend's brain. 

"But it is as bad as the space defense. It works both ways. We can'tsend through it but neither can they. Any thing we use that attacksthem, attacks it, and so destroys it--and it fights. "

"We're worse off than ever!" said Morey gloomily. 

"My friend, you, too, are tired. Sleep, sleep soundly, sleep till Icall--sleep!" And Morey slept under Zezdon Afthen's will, till Torloscarried him gently to his room. Then Afthen let the sleep relax to anatural one. Wade decided he might as well follow under his own power, for now he knew he was tired, and could not overcome Zezdon Afthen, whowas not. 

 * * * * *

On Thett, the fort was undestroyed, and now floating on its power unitsin a sea of blazing lava. Within, men were working quickly to install asecond set of the new tubes in the molecular motion ray screen, andother men were transmitting the orders of the Sthanto who had come hereas the place of actually greatest safety. 

"Order all battleships to the nearest power-feed station, and commandthat all power available be transmitted to the station attacked. Ibelieve it will be this one. There is no limit on the power transmissionlines, and we need all possible power, " he commanded his son, now incharge of all land and spatial forces. 

"And Ranstud, what happened to that molecular ray screen?"

"I do not know. I cannot understand such power. 

"But what most worries me is his wall of darkness, " said Ranstudseriously. 

"But he was forced to retire for all his wall of darkness, as you saw. 

"He can maintain it but a short time, and it was full of holes when hefled. "

"Old Sthanto is much too confident, I believe, " said an assistantworking at one of the great boards in the enemy's fort, to one of hisfriends. "And I think he has lost his science-knowledge. Any power-mancould tell what happened. They tried to use their own big rays againstus, and their screen stopped them from going out, just as it stoppedours on the way in. Ours had been working at it for seconds, and hadn'tbothered them. Then for a bare instant their ray touched it--and theyretired. That shield of blackness is absolutely new. "

"They have many men on that ship of theirs, " replied his friend, helpingto lift the three hundred ton load of a vacuum tube into place, "for itis evident that they built new apparatus, and it is evident their shipwas increased in size to contain it. Also the nose was repaired. Theyprobably worked under a time field, for they accomplished an impossibleamount of work in the period they were gone. "

Ranstud had come up behind them, and overheard the later part of thisconversation. "And what, " he asked suddenly, "did your meters tell youwhen our ray opened his ship?"

"Councilor of Science-wisdom, they told us that our power diminished, and our generators gave off but little power when his power wasexceedingly little, we still had much. "

"Have you heard the myth of the source of his power, in the story thathe gets it from all the stars of the Island?"

"We have, Great Councilor. And I for one believe it, for he sucked thepower from our generators. So might he suck the power from theinconceivably greater generators of the Suns. I believe that we shouldtreat with them, for if they be like the peace-loving fools of Venone, we might win a respite in which to learn their secret. "

Ranstud walked away slowly. He agreed, in his heart, but he loved lifetoo well to tell the Sthanto what to do, and he had no intention ofsacrificing himself for the possible good of the race. 

So they prepared for another attack of the _Thought_, and waited. 

Chapter XXVI

MAN, CREATOR AND DESTROYER

"What we must find, " said Arcot, between contented puffs, for he hadslept well, and his breakfast had been good, "is some weapon which willattack them, but won't attack us. The question is, what is it? And Ithink, I think--I know. " His eyes were dreamy, his thoughts socryptically abbreviated that not even Morey could follow them. 

"Fine--what is it?" asked Morey after vainly striving to deduce somesense from the formulas that were chasing through Arcot's thoughts. Hereand there he recognized them: Einstein's energy formula, Planck'squantum formulas, Nitsu Thansi's electron interference formulas, Stebkowfski's proton interference, Williamson's electric field, and hisown formulas appeared, and others so abbreviated he could not recognizethem. 

"Do you remember what Dad said about the way the Thessians made thegiant forts out in space--hauled matter from the moon and transformed itto lux and relux. Remember, I said then I thought it might be a ray--butfound it wasn't what I thought? I want to to use the ray I was thinkingof. The only question in my mind is--what is going to happen to us whenI use it?"

"What's the ray?"

"Why is it, Morey, that an electron falls through the different quantumenergy levels, falls successively lower and lower till it reaches its'lowest energy level, ' and can radiate no more. Why can't it fillanother step, and reach the proton? Why has it no more quanta torelease? We know that electrons tend to fall always to lower energylevel orbits. Why do they stop?"

"And, " said Morey, his own eyes dreamily bright now, "what would happenif it did? If it fell all the way?"

"I cannot follow your thoughts, Earthmen, beyond a glimpse of anexplosion. And it seems it is Thett that is exploding, and that Thett isexploding itself. Can you explain?" asked Stel Felso Theu. 

"Perhaps--you know that electrons in their planetary orbits, so called, tend to fall away to orbits of lower energy, till they reach the lowestenergy orbit, and remain fixed till more energy comes and is absorbed, driving them out again. Now we want to know why they don't fall lower, fall all the way? As a matter of fact, thanks to some work I did lastyear with disintegrating lead, we do know. And thanks to the absolutestability of artificial matter, we can handle such a condition. 

"The thing we are interested in is this: Artificial matter has notendency to radiate, its electrons have no tendency to fall into theproton, for the matter is created, and remains as it was created. Butnatural matter does have a tendency to let the electron fall into theproton. A force, the 'lowest energy wall, ' over which no electron canjump, caused by the enormous space distorting of the proton's mass andelectrical attraction, prevents it. What we want to do is to remove thatforce, iron it out. Requires inconceivable power to do so in a mass thesize of Thett-but then--!

"And here's what will happen: Our wall of protonic material won't beaffected by it in the least, because it has no tendency to collapse, ashas normal matter, but Thett, beyond the wall, _has_ that tendency, andthe ray will release the energy of every planetary electron on Thett, and every planetary electron will take with it the energy of one proton. And it will take about one one-hundred-millionth of a second. Thett willdisappear in one instantaneous flash of radiation, radiation in the highcosmics!

"Here's the trouble: Thett represents a mass as great as our sun. Andour sun can throw off energy at the present rate of one sol for a periodof some ten million million years, three and a half million tons ofmatter a second for ten million years. If all of that went up in _oneone-hundred-millionth of a second_, how many sols?" asked Morey. 

"Too many, is all I can say. Even this ship couldn't maintain its wallsof energy against that!" declared Stel Felso Theu, awed by the thought. 

"But that same power would be backing this ship, and helping it tosupport its wall. We would operate from--half a million miles. "

"We will. If we are destroyed--so is Thett, and all the worlds of Thett. Let that flood of energy get loose, and everything within a dozen lightyears will be destroyed. We will have to warn the Venonians, that theirpeople on nearby worlds may escape in the time before the energy reachesthem, " said Arcot slowly. 

The _Thought_ started toward one of the nearer suns, and as it went, Arcot and Morey were busy with the calculators. They finished theirwork, and started back from that world, having given their message ofwarning, with the artificial matter constructors. When they reachedThett, less than a quarter of an hour of Thessian time had passed. But, before they reached Thett, Arcot's viewplates were blinded for aninstant as a terrific flood of energy struck the artificial matterprotectors, and caused them to flame into defense. Thett's satellite wassending its message of instantaneous destruction. That terrific ray hadreached it, touched it, and left it a shattered, glowing ball ofhydrogen. 

"There won't be even that left when we get through with Thett!" saidArcot grimly. The apparatus was finished, and once more they were overthe now fiery-red lava sea that had been mountains. The fort was stillin action. Arcot had cut a sheet of sheer energy now, and as thetriple-ray struck it, he knew what would happen. It did. The triple-rayshunted off at an angle of forty-five degrees in the energy field, andspread instantly to a diffused beam of blackness. Arcot's molecularreached out. The lava was instantly black, and mountains of ice wereforming over the struggling defenses of the fort. The molecular screenwas working. 

"I'd like to know how they make tubes that'll stand that, Morey, " saidArcot, pointing to an instrument that read . 01 millisols. "They havetubes now, that would have wiped us out in minutes, seconds beforethis. "

The triple-ray snapped off. They were realigning it to hit the ship now, correcting for the shield. Arcot threw out his protonic shield, andretreated to half a million miles, as he had said. 

"Here goes. " But before even his thoughts could send Theft to radiation, the entire side of the planet blazed suddenly incandescent. Thett waslearning what had happened when their ray had wounded the _Thought_. 

And then, in the barest instant of time, there was no Thett. There wasan instant of intolerable radiation, then momentary blackness, and thenthe stars were shining where Thett had been. Thett was utterly gone. 

But Arcot did not see this. About him there was a tremendous roar, titanic generator-converters that had not so much as hummed under theimpact of Thett's greatest weapons, whined and shuddered now. The twoenormous generators, the blackness of the protonic shield, and the greatartificial matter generator, throwing an inner shield impervious to thecosmics Thett gave off as it vanished, both were whining. And the sixsmaller machines, which Arcot had succeeded in interconnecting with theprotonic generator, were whining too. Space was weirdly distorted, glowing gray about them, the great generators struggling to maintain thevarious walls of protecting power against the surge of energy as Thett, a world of matter, disintegrated. 

But the Very energy that fought to destroy those walls was absorbed indefending it, and by that much the attacking energy was lessened. Still, it seemed hours, days that the battle of forces continued. 

Then it was over, and the skies were clear once more as Arcot loweredthe protonic screen silently. The white sky of Thett was gone, and onlythe black starriness of space remained. 

"_It's gone!_" gasped Torlos. He had been expecting it--still, thedisappearance of a world--

"We will have to do no more. No ships had time to escape, and the riskwe run is too great, " said Morey slowly. "The escaping energy from thatworld will destroy the others of this system as completely, and it willprobably cause the sun itself to blow up--perhaps to form new planets, and so the process repeats itself. But Venone knows better now, andtheir criminals will not populate more worlds. 

"And we can go--home. To our little dust specks. "

"But they're wonderfully welcome dust specks, and utterly important tous, Earthman, " reminded Zezdon Afthen. 

"Let us go then, " said Arcot. 

 * * * * *

It was dusk, and the rose tints of the recently-set sun still hung onthe clouds that floated like white bits of cotton in the darkening bluesky. The dark waters of the little lake, and the shadowy tree-clad hillsseemed very beautiful. And there was a little group of buildings downthere, and a broad cleared field. On the field rested a shining, slimshape, seventy-five feet long, ten feet in diameter. 

But all, the lake, the mountains even, were dwarfed by the silent, glistening ruby of a gigantic machine that settled very, very slowly, and very, very gently downward. It touched the rippled surface of thelake with scarcely a splash, then hung, a quarter submerged in thatlake. 

Lights were showing in the few windows the huge bulk had, and lightsshowed now in the buildings on the shore. Through an open door light wasstreaming, casting silhouettes of two men. And now a tiny door opened inthe enormous bulk that occupied the lake, and from it came five figures, that floated up, and away, and toward the cottage. 

"Hello, Son. You have been gone long, " said Arcot, senior, gravely, ashis son landed lightly before him. 

"I thought so. Earth has moved in her orbit. More than six months?"

His father smiled a bit wryly. "Yes. Two years and three months. You gotcaught in another time field and thrown the other way this time?"

"Time and force. Do you know the story yet?"

"Part of it--Venone sent a ship to us within a month of the time youleft, and said that all Thett's system had disappeared save for onetremendous gas cloud--mostly hydrogen. Their ships were met by such ablast of cosmic rays as they came toward Thett that the radiationpressure made it almost impossible to advance. There were two distinctwaves. One was rather slighter, and was more in the gamma range, so theysuspected that two bodies had been directly destroyed; one small one, and one large one were reduced completely to cosmics. Your warning toSentfenn was taken seriously, and they have vacated all planets near. Itwas the force field created when you destroyed Thett that threw youforward? Where are the others?"

"Zezdon Afthen and Zezdon Inthel we took home, and dropped in theirpower suits, without landing. Stel Felso Theu as well. We will visitthem later. "

"Have you eaten? Then let us eat, and after supper we'll tell you whatlittle there is to tell. "

"But Arcot, " said Morey slowly, "I understand that Dad will be heresoon, so let us wait. And I have something of which I have not spoken toyou as yet. Worked it out and made it on the back trip. Installed in the_Thought_ with the _Banderlog_'s controls. It is--well, will youlook?--Fuller! Come and see the new toy you designers are going to haveto work on!"

They had all been depressed by the thought of their long absence, by thescenes of destruction they had witnessed so recently. They werebeginning to feel better. 

"Watch. " Morey's thoughts concentrated. The _Thought_ outside had beenleft on locked controls, but the apparatus Morey had installed respondedto his thoughts from this distance. 

Before them in the room appeared a cube that was obviously copper. Itstayed there but a moment, beaming brightly, then there was a snappingof energies about them--and it dropped to the floor and rang with theimpact!

"It was not created from the air, " said Morey simply. 

"And now, " said Arcot, looking at it, "Man can do what never before waspossible. From the nothingness of Space he can make anything. 

"Man alone in this space is Creator and Destroyer. 

"It is a high place. 

"May he henceforth live up to it. "

And he looked out toward the mighty starlit hull that had destroyed asolar system--and could create another. 

 * * * * *

Books by JOHN W. CAMPBELL in Ace editions:

THE BLACK STAR PASSES

THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE

ISLANDS OF SPACE

THE PLANETEERS & THE ULTIMATE WEAPON