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_!"
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