Invaders from the Infinite

by Jr. John W. Campbell

  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 he
r 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.