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.
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