Invaders from the Infinite

by Jr. John W. Campbell

  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?"

  "We'll 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 invul
nerable 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 fo
rce 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--!r />
  "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 Mor
ey 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