As the scout swam through the dense atmosphere of his world toward the entrance way to the building, guards stopped him, and examined his credentials. Then he was led through long halls, and down a shaft ten stories below the planet"s surface, to where a great table occupied a part of a low ceilinged, wide room. This room was shielded, interference screens of all known kinds lined the hollow walls, no rays could reach through it to the men within. The guard changed, and new men examined the scout"s credentials, and he was led still deeper into the bowels of the planet. Once more the guard changed, and he entered a room guarded not by single shields but by triple, and walled with six foot relux, and ceiled with the same strong material. But here, under the enormous gravity, even its great strength required aid in the form of pillars.
A giant of his race sat before a low table. The table ran half the length of the room, and beside it sat four other men. But there were places for more than two dozen.
"A scout from the colony? What news?" demanded the leader. His voice was a growl, deep and throaty.
"Oh mighty Sthanto, I bring news of resistance. We waited too long, in our explorations, and those men of World 3769-8482730-3 have learned too much. We were wrong. They had found the secret of exceeding the speed of light, and can travel through s.p.a.ce fully as rapidly as we can, and now, since by some means we cannot fathom, they have learned to combine both our own system and theirs, they have one enormous engine of destruction that travels across their huge universe in less time than it takes us to travel across a planetary system.
"Our cause is lost, which is by far the least of our troubles. Thett is in danger. We cannot hope to combat that ship."
"Thalt--what means have we. Can we not better them?" demanded Sthanto of his chief scientist.
"Great Sthanto, we know that such a substance can be made when pressure can be brought to bear on cosmic rays under the influence of field 24-7649-321, but that field cannot be produced, because no sufficient concentration of energy is available. Energy cannot be released rapidly enough to replace the losses when the field is developing. The fact that they have that material indicates their possession of an unguessed and terrific energy source. I would have said that there was no energy greater than the energy of matter, but we know the properties of this material and that the triple ray which has at last been perfected, can be produced providing your order for all energy sources is given, will release its energy at a speed comparable to the rate of energy relux in a twin ray, but that the release takes place only in the path of the ray."
"What more, Scout?" asked Sthanto smoothly.
"The ship first appeared in connection with our general attack on world 3769-8482730-3. The attack was near success, their screens were already failing. They have devised a new and very ionized layer as a conductor.
It was exceedingly difficult to break, and since their sun had been similarly screened, we could not throw ma.s.ses of that matter upon them.
"In another sthan of time, we would have destroyed their world. Then the ship appeared. It has molecular rays, magnetic beams and cosmic rays, and a fourth weapon we know nothing of. It has molecular screens, we suspect, but has not had occasion to use them.
"Our heaviest molecular screens flash under their molecular rays.
Ordinary screens fall instantly without momentary defense. The ray power is incalculable.
"Their magnetic beams are used in conjunction with cosmics. The action of the two causes the relux to induce current, and due to reaction of currents on the magnetic field--"
"And the resistance due to the relux, the relux is first heated to incandescence and then the ship opens out as the air pressure bends the magnetically softened relux?" finished Thalt.
"No, the effect is even more terrific. It explodes into powder," replied the scout.
"And what happens to worlds that the magnetic ray touches?" inquired the scientist.
"A corner of it touched the world we fought over, and the world shook,"
replied the colonist.
"And the last weapon?" asked Sthanto, his voice soft now.
"It seems a ghost. It is a mistiness that comes into existence like a cloud, and what it touches is crushed, what it rams is shattered. It surrounds the great ship, and machines crashing into it at a speed of more than six times that of light are completely destroyed, without in the slightest injuring the shield.
"Then--what caused my departure from the colony--it showed once more its unutterable power. The mistiness formed in the path of our colonial world, number 3769-1-5, and the planet swept against that wall of mistiness, and was shattered, and turned in less than five sthan to a ball of blue-white fire. The wall stopped the planet in its motion. We could not fight that machine, and we left the worlds. The others are coming," finished the scout.
The ruler turned his slightly smiling face to the commander of his armies, who sat beside him.
"Give orders," he said softly, almost gently, "that a triple ray station be set up under the direction of Thalt, and further notice that all power be made instantly available to it. Add that the colonists are returning defeated, and bringing danger at their heels. The triple ray will destroy each ship as it enters the system." His hand under the table pushed an invisible protuberance, and from the perfectly conducting relux floor to the equally perfectly conducting ceiling, and between four pillars grouped around the spot where the scout stood, terrific arcs suddenly came into being. They lasted for the thousandth part of a second, and when they suddenly died away, as swiftly as they had come, there was not even ash where the scout had been.
"Have you any suggestions, Thalt?" he asked of the scientist, his voice as soft as before.
"I quite agree with your conduct so far, but the future conduct you had planned is quite unsatisfactory," replied the scientist. The ruler sat motionless in his great seat, staring fixedly at the scientist. "I think it is time I take your place, therefore." The place where the ruler had been was suddenly seen as through a dark cloud, then the cloud was gone, and with it the king, only his relux chair, and the bits of lux or relux that had been about his garments remained.
"He was a fool," said the scientist softly, as he rose, "to plan on removing his scientist. Are there any who object to my succession?"
"No one objects," said Faslar, the ex-king"s Prime Minister and councilor.
"Then I think, Phantal, Commander of planetary forces, that you had best see Ranstud, my a.s.sistant, and follow out the plan outlined by my predecessor. And you Tastal, Commander of Fleets, had best bring your fleets near the planets for protection. Go."
"May I suggest, mighty Thalt," said Faslar after the others had left, "that my knowledge will be exceedingly useful to you. You have two commanders, neither of whom loves you, and neither of whom is highly capable. The family of Thadstil would be glad to learn who removed that honored gentleman, and the family of Datstir would gladly support him who brought the remover of their head to them.
"This would remove two unwelcome menaces, and open places for such as Ranstud and your son Warrtil.
"And," he said hastily as he saw a slight shift in Thalt"s eyes, "I might say further that the bereaved ones of Parthel would find great interest in certain of my papers, which are only protected by my personal constant watchfulness."
"Ah, so? And what of Kelston Faln, Faslar?" smiled the new Sthanta.
Thalt"s hand relaxed and they started a conversation and discussion on means of defense.
Chapter XXIII
VENONE
Up from Earth, out of its clear blue sky, and into the glare and dark of s.p.a.ce and near a sun the ship soared. They had been holding it motionless 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"s atmosphere. Then--it was gone. Gone across s.p.a.ce, racing toward that far Universe at a speed no other thing could equal. In minutes the great disc of the Universe had taken form behind them, as they took their route photographs to find their way back to Earth after the battle, if still they could come.
Then into the stillness of the Intergalactic s.p.a.ces.
"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 a sight on the diameter of the Island, as seen from here, Morey. Then we will travel ten seconds, and look again."
Half a million light years from the center of the Island now, the great disc spread out over the vast s.p.a.ce behind them, apparently the size of a dinner plate at about thirty inches distance, it was more than two hundred and fifty thousand light years across. Checking carefully, Morey read their distance as just shy of five hundred thousand light years.
"Hold on--here we go," called Arcot. s.p.a.ce was suddenly black, and beside them ran the twin ghost ships that follow always when s.p.a.ce is closed to the smallest compa.s.s, for light leaving, goes around a s.p.a.ce whose radius is measured in miles, instead of light centuries and returns. There was no sound, no slightest vibration, only Torlos" iron bones felt a slight shock as the inconceivable currents flowed into the gigantic s.p.a.ce distortion coil from the storage fields, their shielded magnetic flux leaking by in some slight degree.
For ten seconds that seemed minutes Arcot held the ship on the course under the maximum combined powers of s.p.a.ce distortion and time field distortion. Then he released both simultaneously.
The velvet black of s.p.a.ce was about them as before, but now the disc of the Nebula was tiny behind them! So tiny was it, that these men, who knew its magnitude, gasped in sudden wonder. None of them had been able to conceive of such a velocity as this ship had shown! In seconds, Morey announced a moment later, they had traveled _one million, one hundred thousand light years_! Their velocity was six hundred and sixty quadrillion miles per second!
"Then it will take us only a little over one thousand seconds to travel the hundred and fifty million light years, at 110,000 light years per second--that"s about the radius of our galaxy, isn"t it!" exclaimed Wade.
They started on now, and one thousand and ten seconds, or a little more than eighteen minutes later, they stopped again. So far behind them now as to be almost lost in the far scattered universes, lay their own Island, and carefully they photographed the Universe that now lay less than twenty million light years ahead. Still, it was further, even after crossing this enormous gulf, than are many of those nebulae we see from Earth, many of which lie within that distance. They must proceed cautiously 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 denser center.
"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 range that permitted observation, and Arcot had stopped to observe. The first one they had chosen had been a blue-white giant of enormous ma.s.s, nearly one hundred and fifty times as heavy as our own sun, and all the enormous surface was radiating power into s.p.a.ce at a rate of nearly thirty thousand horsepower per square inch! No planets circled it, however, in its journey through s.p.a.ce.
"I"ve been noticing the number of giants here. Look around."