"What!"
"Yes, it"s true! We were on our time field, and turned on the s.p.a.ce control--and a Thessian ship picked that moment to run into us. We cut the ship in half as neatly as you please, but it threw us eighty thousand years into the past. We have been coasting through time on r.e.t.a.r.ded rate while Earth caught up with itself, so to speak. In the meantime--three months in a day!
"But don"t call those men. Let them come to the appointment, while we do some work, and we have plenty of work to do, I a.s.sure you. We have a list of things to order from the standard supply houses, and I think you better get them for us, Dad." Arcot"s manner became serious now. "We haven"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 the other men didn"t have the opportunity we had for crowding much work into little time!
"But then, I wouldn"t want to take that road to concentration again myself!
"Have the enemy amused you in my absence? Come on, let"s sit down in the house instead of standing here in the sun."
They started toward the house, as Arcot senior explained what had happened 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 some heavy weight that moved across the floor, soundlessly and light of motion in itself. A shadow fell across the hall floor, and in the doorway a tremendously powerfully-built figure stood.
He seemed to overflow the doorway, nearly six and a half feet tall, and fully as wide as the door. His rugged, bronzed face was smiling pleasantly, and his deep-set eyes seemed to flash; a living force flowed from them.
"Torlos! By the Nine Planets! Torlos of Nansal! Say, I didn"t expect you here, and I will not put my hand in that meatgrinder of yours," grinned Arcot happily, as Torlos stretched forth a friendly, but quite too powerful hand.
Torlos of Nansal, that planet Arcot had discovered on his first voyage across s.p.a.ce, far in another Island of s.p.a.ce, 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. Their framework, instead of being stone, as is ours, was iron, their bones were pure metallic iron, far stronger than bone. On these far stronger bones were great muscles of an entirely different sort, a muscle that used heat of the body as its fuel, a muscle that was utterly tireless, and unbelievably powerful. Not a chemical engine, but a molecular motion engine, it had no chemical fatigue-products that would tire it, and needed only the constant heat supply the body sucked from the air to work indefinitely. Unlimited by waste-carrying considerations, the strength was enormous.
It was one of the commercial s.p.a.ce 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 the Four who now ruled Nansal, had suggested that they go to the aid of the man who had so aided them in their great war with Sator. It was Arcot"s gift of the secret of the molecular ray and the molecular ship that had enabled them to overcome their enemy of centuries, and force upon them an unwelcome peace.
Now, with a fleet of fifty interstellar, or better, intergalactic battleships, 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 rapid s.p.a.ce distortion system of travel, of course, and were a shock troop in the patrol. The Terrestrian and Venerian patrols were not so equipped in full.
"And Arcot, from what I have learned from your father, it seems that I can be of real a.s.sistance," finished Torlos.
"But now, I think, I should know what the enemy has done. I see they built some forts."
"Yes," replied Arcot senior, "they did. They decided that the system used on the forts of North and South poles was too effective. They moved to s.p.a.ce, and cut off slices of Luna, pulled it over on their molecular rays, and used some of the most magnificent apparatus you ever dreamed of. I have just started working on the mathematics of it.
"We sent out a fleet to do some investigating, but they attacked, and stopped work in the meantime. Whatever the ray is that can destroy matter at a distance, they are afraid that we could find its secret too easily, and block it, for they don"t think it is a weapon, and it is evidently 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, we built up a large ray screen apparatus, in fact, several of them, and carried them in ships to different parts of the world. Also some of the planets, lest they start dropping worlds on us. They are already in operation, sending their defensive waves against the Heaviside layer.
Radio is poor, over any distance, and we can"t call Venus from inside the layer now. However, we tested the protection, and it works--far more efficiently than we calculated, due to the amazing conductivity of the layer.
"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 was met with a ray screen from the fort.
"They fight with a wild viciousness now. They won"t let a ship get near them. They destroy everything on sight. They seem tremendously afraid of that 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, but the others waited, while the ship left Earth once more, and floated in s.p.a.ce. Immediately they went into the time-field.
They worked steadily, sleeping when necessary, and the giant strength of Torlos was frequently as great an a.s.set as his indefatigable work. He was learning rapidly, and was able to do a great deal of the work without 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 of Nansal had proven his brains, and he did his share.
The others, scientists all, found the operations difficult, for work had been allotted to each according to his utmost capabilities.
It was still nearly a week of their time before the apparatus was completed to the extent possible, less than a minute of normal time pa.s.sing.
Finally the una.s.sembled, but completed apparatus, was carried to the laboratory of the cottage, and word was sent to all the men of Earth that Arcot was going to give a demonstration of the apparatus he hoped would save them. The scientists from all over Earth and Venus were interested, and those of Earth came, for there was no time for the men of Venus to arrive to inspect the results.
Chapter XVII
POWER OF MIND
It was night. The stars visible through the laboratory windows winked violently in the disturbed air of the Heaviside layer, for the molecular ray screen was still up.
The laboratory was dimly lighted now, all save the front of the room.
There, a ma.s.s of compact boxes were piled one on another, and interconnected in various and indeterminate ways. And one table lay in a brilliant path of illumination. Behind it stood Arcot. He was talking to the dim white group of faces beyond the table, the scientists of Earth a.s.sembled.
"I have explained our power. It is the power of all the universe--Cosmic Power--which is necessarily vaster than all others combined.
"I cannot explain the control in the time I have at my disposal but the mathematics of it, worked out in two months of constant effort, you can follow from the printed work which will appear soon.
"The second thing, which some of you have seen before, has already been partly explained. It is, in brief, artificially created matter. The two important things to remember about it are that it _is_, that it _does exist_, and that it exists _only where it is determined to exist by the control there, and nowhere else_.
"These are all coordinated under the new mental relay control. Some of you will doubt this last, but think of it under this light. Will, thought, concentration--they are efforts, they require energy. Then they can 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 heavy thud as Morey pushed a small b.u.t.ton. The relay had closed. Arcot"s mind was now connected with the controls.
A globe of cloudiness appeared. It increased in density, and was a solid, 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 to the left at Arcot"s thought. "It is rising." The sphere rose. "It is changing to a disc two feet across." The sphere seemed to flow, and was a disc two feet across as Arcot"s toneless voice of concentration continued.
"It is changing into a hand, like a human hand." The disc changed into a human hand, the fingers slightly bent, the soft, white fingers of a woman with the pink of the flesh and the wrinkles at the knuckles visible. The wrist seemed to fade gradually into nothingness, the end of the hand was as indeterminate as are things in a dream, but the hand was definite.
"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 lux metal, wrapped dainty fingers about it and lifted it smoothly and effortlessly to the table, and laid it there.
A mistiness suddenly solidified to another hand. The second hand joined the first, and fell to work on the bar, and pulled. The bar stretched finally under an enormous load. One hand let go, and the thud of the highly elastic lux metal bar"s return to its original shape echoed through the soundless room. These men of the twenty-second century knew what relux and lux metals were, and knew their enormous strength. Yet it was putty under these hands. The hands that looked like a woman"s!