Authors: E. E. 'Doc' Smith
‘As I see it, it’s like this. We’ve got our backs to the wall. Donark has
troubles of his own – if the Third Planet doesn’t get him the Fenachrone will, and the Third Planet is the more pressing danger. That lets him out. We’ve got nearly six months before the Fenachrone can get back here …’
‘But how can they possibly find us here, or wherever we’ll be by that time, Dick?’ asked Dorothy. ‘The battle was a long way from here.’
‘With that much start they probably couldn’t find us,’ he replied soberly. ‘It’s the world I’m thinking about. They’ve got to be stopped, and stopped cold – and we’ve got only six months to do it in … Osnome’s got the best tools and the fastest workmen I know of …’ His voice died away in thought.
‘That sort of thing is in your department, Dick.’ Crane was calm and judicial as always. ‘I will of course do anything I can, but you probably have a plan of campaign already laid out?’
‘After a fashion. We’ve got to find out how to work through this zone of force or we’re sunk without a trace. Even with weapons, screens, and ships equal to theirs we couldn’t keep them from sending a vessel to destroy the Earth; and they’d probably get us too, eventually. They’ve got a lot of stuff we don’t know about, of course, since I took only one man’s mind. While he was a very able man, he doesn’t know all that all the rest of them do, any more than any one man has all the Earthly science known. Absolutely our only chance is to get control of that zone – it’s the only thing I know of that they haven’t got. Of course, it may be impossible, but I won’t believe that until we’ve exhausted a lot of possibilities. Dunark, can you spare a crew to build us a duplicate of that Fenachrone ship, besides those you are going to build for yourself?’
‘Certainly. I will be only too glad to do so.’
‘Well, then, while Dunark is doing that, I suggest that we go to this Third Planet, abduct a few of their leading scientists, and read their minds. Then visit every other highly-advanced planet we can locate and do the same. There is a good chance that, by combining the best points of the warfare of many worlds, we can evolve something that will do us some good.’
‘Why not send a copper torpedo to destroy their entire planet?’ suggested Dunark.
‘Wouldn’t work. Their detecting screens would locate it a thousand million miles off in space, and they would detonate it long before it could do them any harm. With a zone of force that would get through their screens that’d be the first thing I’d do. You see, every thought comes back to that zone. We’ve got to get through it some way.’
The course alarm sounded, and they saw that a planet lay directly in their path. It was X, and enough negative acceleration was applied to make an easy landing possible.
‘Isn’t it going to be a long, slow job, chopping off two tons of that metal and fighting away those terrible animals besides?’ asked Margaret.
‘It’ll take about a millionth of a second, Peg.
I’m going to bite it off with the zone, just like I took that bite out of our field. The rotation of the planet will throw us away from the surface, then we’ll release the zone and drag our prey off with us. See?’
The
Skylark
descended rapidly toward that well-remembered ledge of metal to which the object-compass had led them.
‘This is exactly the same place we landed before,’ Margaret commented in surprise, and Dorothy added:
‘Yes, and here’s that horrible tree that ate the dinosaur or whatever it was. I thought you blew it up for me, Dick?’
‘I did, Dottie – blew it into atoms. Must be a good location for carnivorous trees – and they must grow awfully fast, too. As to its being the same place, Peg – sure it is. That’s what object-compasses are for.’
Everything appeared as it had at the time of their first visit. The rank Carboniferous vegetation, intensely, vividly green, was motionless in the still, hot, heavy air; the living nightmares inhabiting that primitive world were lying in the cooler depths of the jungle, sheltered from the torrid rays of that strange and fervent sun.
‘How about it, Dot? Want to see some of your little friends again? If you do I’ll give ’em a shot and bring ’em out.’
‘Heavens, no! I saw them once – if I never see them again it will be twenty minutes too soon!’
‘All right – we’ll grab us a piece of this ledge and beat it.’
Seaton lowered the vessel to the ledge, focused the main anchoring attractor upon it, and threw on the zone of force. Almost immediately he released the zone, pointed the bar parallel to the compass bearing upon Osnome, and slowly applied the power.
‘How much did you take, anyway?’ asked Dunark in amazement. ‘It looks bigger than the
Skylark
!’
‘It is; considerably bigger. Thought we might as well take enough while we’re here, so I set the zone for a seventy-five-foot radius. It’s probably of the order of magnitude of half a million tons, since the stuff weighs more than half a ton to the cubic foot. However, we can handle it as easily as we could a smaller bite, and that much mass will help us hold that other stuff together when we catch up with it.’
The voyage to Osnome was uneventful. They overtook the wreckage, true to schedule, as they were approaching the green system, and attached it to the mass of metal behind them by means of attractors.
‘Where’ll we land this junk, Dunark?’ asked Seaton, as Osnome grew large beneath them. ‘We’ll hold this lump of metal and the fragment of the ship carrying the salt; and we’ll be able to hold some of the most important of the other stuff. But a lot of it is bound to get away from us – and the Lord help anybody who’s under it when it comes
down! You might yell for help – and say, you might ask somebody to have that astronomical date ready for us as soon as we land.’
‘The parade ground will be empty now, so we will be able to land there. We should be able to land everything in a field of that size, I should think.’ Dunark touched the sender at his belt, and in the general code notified the city of their arrival and warned everyone to keep away from the parade ground. He then sent several messages in the official code, concluding by asking that one or two spaceships come out and help lower the burden to the ground. As the peculiar, pulsating chatter of the Osnomian telegraph died out Seaton called for help.
‘Come here, you two, and grab some of these attractors. I need about twelve hands to keep this plunder in the straight and narrow path.’
The course had been carefully laid, with allowances for the various velocities and forces involved, to follow the easiest path to the Kondalian parade ground. The hemisphere of X and the fragment of the
Kondal
which bore the salt were held immovably in place by the main attractor and one auxiliary; and many other auxiliaries held sections of the Fenachrone vessel. However, the resistance of the air seriously affected the trajectory of many of the irregularly-shaped smaller masses of metal, and all three men were kept busy flicking attractors right and left; capturing those strays which threatened to veer off into the streets or upon the buildings of the Kondalian capital city, and shifting from one piece to another so that none of them could fall freely. Two sister ships of the Kondal appeared in answer to Dunark’s call, and their attractors aided greatly in handling the unruly collection of wreckage. A few of the smaller sections and a shower of debris fell clear, however, in spite of all efforts, and their approach was heralded by a meteoric display unprecedented in that world of continuous daylight.
As the three vessels with their cumbersome convoy dropped down into the lower atmosphere the guns of the city roared a welcome; banners and pennons waved; the air became riotous with color from hundreds of projectors and odorous with a bewildering variety of scents; while all around them played numberless aircraft of all descriptions and sizes. The space below them was carefully avoided, but on all sides of them and above them the air was so full that it seemed incredible that no collision occurred. Tiny one-man helicopters, little more than single chairs flying about; beautiful pleasure-planes soaring and wheeling; immense multiplane liners and giant freighters – everything in the air found occasion to fly as near as possible to the
Skylark
in order to dip their flags in salute to Dunark, their kofedix, and to Seaton, the wearer of the seven disks – their revered Overlord.
Finally the freight was landed without serious mishap and the
Skylark
leaped to the landing dock upon the palace roof, where the royal family and many nobles were waiting, in full panoply of glittering harness. Dunark and Sitar disembarked and the four others stepped out and stood at attention as Seaton addressed Roban, the Karfedix.
‘Sir, we greet you, but we cannot stop, even for a moment. You
know that only the most urgent necessity would make us forgo the pleasure of a brief rest beneath your roof – the kofedix will presently give you the measure of that need. We shall endeavor to return soon. Greetings; and, for a time, farewell.’
‘Overlord, we greet you, and trust that soon we may entertain you and profit from your companionship. For what you have done, we thank you. May the great First Cause smile upon you until you return. Farewell.’
‘Here’s a chart of the green system, Mart, with all the motions and the rest of the dope that they’ve been able to get. How’d it be for you to navigate us over to the third planet of the fourteenth sun?’
‘While you build a Fenachrone super-generator?’
‘Right, the first time. Your deducer is hitting on all eight, as usual. That big beam is hot stuff, and their screens are something to write home about, too.’
‘How can their rays be any hotter than ours, Dick?’ Dorothy asked curiously. ‘I thought you said we had the very last word in rays.’
‘I thought we did, but those birds we met back there spoke a couple of later words. They work on an entirely different system than ours do. They generate an extremely short carrier wave, like the Millikan cosmic ray, by recombining some of the electrons and protons of their disintegrating metal, and upon this wave they impose a pure heat frequency of terrific power. The Millikan rays will penetrate anything except a special screen or a zone of force, and carry with them – something like radio frequencies carry sound frequencies – the heat rays, which volatilize anything they touch. Their screens are a lot better than ours, too – they generate the entire spectrum. It’s a sweet system, and when we revamp ours so as to be just like it, we’ll be able to talk turkey to those folks on the third planet.’
‘How long will it take you to build it?’ asked Crane, who, dexterously turning the pages of
Vega’s Handbuch
, was calculating their course.
‘A day or so – three or four, maybe. I’ve got all the stuff, and with my Osnomian tools it won’t take long. If you find you’ll get there before I get done, you’ll have to loaf a while – kill a little time.’
‘Are you going to connect the power plant to operate
on the entire vessel and all its contents?’
‘No – can’t do it without designing the whole thing, and that’s hardly worthwhile for the short time we’ll use this out-of-date ship.’
Building those generators would have been a long and difficult task for a corps of Earthly mechanics and electricians, but to Seaton it was merely a job. The ‘shop’ had been enlarged and had been filled to capacity with Osnomian machinery; machine tools that were capable of performing automatically and with the utmost precision and speed almost any conceivable mechanical operation. He put a dozen of them to work, and before the vessel reached its destination, the new offensive and defensive weapons had been installed and thoroughly tested. He had added a third screen-generator, so that now, in addition to the four-foot hull of arenak and the repellors, warding off any material projectile, the
Skylark
was also protected by an outer, an intermediate, and an inner ray-screen; each driven by the super-power of a four-hundred-pound bar and each covering the entire spectrum – capable of neutralizing any dangerous frequency known to those master-scientists, the Fenachrone.
As the
Skylark
approached the planet, Seaton swung number six visiplate upon it, and directed their flight toward a great army base. Darting down upon it, he snatched an officer into the airlock, closed the door, and leaped back into space. He brought the captive into the control room pinioned by auxiliary attractors, and relieved him of his weapons. He then rapidly read his mind, encountering no noticeable resistance, released the attractors, and addressed him in his own language.
‘Please be seated, lieutenant,’ Seaton said courteously, motioning him to one of the seats. ‘We come in peace. Please pardon my discourtesy in handling you, but it was necessary in order to learn your language and thus to get in touch with your commanding officer.’
The officer, overcome with astonishment that he had not been killed instantly, sank into the seat indicated, without a reply, and Seaton went on:
‘Please be kind enough to signal your commanding officer that we are coming down at once, for a peace conference. By the way, I can read your signals, and will send them myself if necessary.’
Briefly the stranger worked an instrument attached to his harness, and the
Skylark
descended slowly toward the fortress.
‘I know, of course, that your vessels will attack,’ Seaton remarked, as he noted a crafty gleam in the eyes of the officer. ‘I intend to let them use all their power for a time, to prove to them the impotence of their weapons. After that, I shall tell you what to say to them.’
‘Do you think this is altogether safe, Dick?’ asked Crane as they saw a fleet of gigantic airships soaring upward to meet them.
‘Nothing sure but death and taxes,’ returned Seaton cheerfully, ‘but don’t forget that we’ve got Fenachrone armament now, instead of
Osnomian. I’m betting that they can’t begin to drive anything through even our outer screen. And even if our outer screen should begin to go into the violet – I don’t think it will even go cherry-red – out goes our zone of force and we automatically go up where no possible airship can reach. Since their only spaceships are rocket-driven, and of practically no maneuverability, they stand a fat chance of getting to us. Anyway, we must get in touch with them, to find out if they know anything we don’t, and this is the only way I know of to do it. Besides, I want to head Dunark off from wrecking this world. They’re exactly the same kind of folks he is, you notice, and I don’t like civil war. Any suggestions? Keep an eye on that bird, then, Mart, and we’ll go down.’