Authors: E. E. 'Doc' Smith
‘Put this on quick. He may be only unconscious, and we might not be able to get a thing from him if he were awake.’
Loring donned the headset, still staring at the monstrous form with amazement, not unmixed with awe, while DuQuesne, paying no attention to anything except the knowledge he was seeking, manipulated
the controls of the instrument. His first quest was for full information concerning weapons and armament. In this he was disappointed, as he learned that the stranger was one of the navigating engineers, and as such, had no detailed knowledge of the matters of prime importance to the inquisitor. He did have a complete knowledge of the marvellous Fenachrone propulsion system, however, and this DuQuesne carefully transferred to his own brain. He then rapidly explored other regions of that fearsome organ of thought.
As the gigantic and inhuman brain was spread before them DuQuesne and Loring read not only the language, customs, and culture of the Fenachrone, but all their plans for the future, as well as the events of the past. Plainly in his mind they perceived how he had been cast adrift in the emptiness of the void. They saw the Fenachrone cruiser lying in wait for the two globular vessels. Looking through an extraordinarily powerful telescope with the eyes of their prisoner they saw them approach, all unsuspecting. DuQuesne recognized all five persons in the
Skylark
and Dunark and Sitar in the
Kondal
, such was that unearthly optical instrument and so clear was the impression upon the mind before him. They saw the attack and the battle. They saw the
Skylark
throw off her zone of force and attack; saw this one survivor standing directly in line with a huge projector-spring, under thousands of pounds of tension. They saw the spring cut in two by the zone. The severed end, flying free, struck the being upon the side of the head, and the force of the blow, only partially blocked by the heavy helmet, hurled him out through the yawning gap in the wall and hundreds of miles out into space.
Suddenly the clear view of the brain of the Fenachrone became blurred and meaningless and the flow of knowledge ceased – the prisoner had regained consciousness and was trying with all his gigantic strength to break away from those intangible bonds that held him. So powerful were the forces upon him, however, that only a few twitching muscles gave evidence that he was struggling at all. Glancing about him, he recognized the attractors and repellors bearing upon him, ceased his efforts to escape, and hurled the full power of his baleful gaze into the black eyes so close to his own. But DuQuesne’s mind, always under perfect control and now amply reinforced by a considerable portion of the stranger’s own knowledge and power, did not waver under the force of even that hypnotic glare.
‘It is useless, as you observe,’ he said coldly, in the stranger’s own tongue, and sneered. ‘You are perfectly helpless. Unlike you of the Fenachrone, however, men of my race do not always kill strangers at sight, merely because they are strangers. I will spare your life if you can give me anything of enough value to me to make the extra time and trouble worthwhile.’
‘You read my mind while I could not resist your childish efforts. I will have no traffic whatever with you who have destroyed my vessel. If you have mentality enough to understand any portion of
my mind – which I doubt – you already know the fate in store for you. Do with me what you will.’
DuQuesne pondered long before he replied; considering whether or not it was to his advantage to inform this stranger of the facts of the case. Finally he decided.
‘Sir, neither I nor this vessel had anything to do with the destruction of your warship. Our detectors discovered you floating in empty space; we stopped and rescued you from death. We have seen nothing else save what we saw pictured in your own brain. I know that, in common with all of your race, you possess neither conscience nor honor, as we understand the terms. An automatic liar by instinct and training whenever you think lies will best serve your purpose, you may yet have intelligence enough to recognize simple truth when you hear it. You already have observed that we are of the same race as those who destroyed your vessel, and have assumed that we are with them. In that you are wrong. It is true that I am acquainted with those others, but they are my enemies. I am here to kill them, not to aid them. You have already helped me in one way – I know as much as does my enemy concerning the impenetrable shield of force. If I will return you unharmed to your own planet, will you assist me in stealing one of your ships of space, so that I may destroy that Earth-vessel?’
The Fenachrone, paying no attention to DuQuesne’s barbed comments concerning his honor and veracity, did not hesitate an instant in his reply.
‘I will not. We supermen of the Fenachrone will allow no vessel of ours, with its secrets unknown to any others of the universe, to fall into the hands of any of the lesser breeds of man.’
‘Well, you didn’t try to lie that time, anyway. But think a minute. Seaton, my enemy, already has one of your vessels – don’t think he is too much of a fool to put it back together and to learn its every secret. Then, too, remember that I have your mind, and can get along without you; even though I am willing to admit that you could be of enough help to me so that I would save your life in exchange for that help. Also, remember that, superman though you may be, your mentality cannot cope with the forces I have bearing upon you. Neither will your being a superman enable your body to retain life after I have thrown you out into space without your armor.’
‘I have the normal love of life; but some things cannot be done, even with life at stake. Stealing a vessel of the Fenachrone is one of those things. I can, however, do this much – if you will return me to my own planet, you two shall be received as guests aboard one of our vessels and shall be allowed to witness the vengeance of the Fenachrone upon your enemy. Then you shall be returned to your vessel and allowed to depart unharmed.’
‘Now you are lying by rote – I know just what you’d do. Get that idea out of your head right now. The attractors now holding you will not be released until after you have paid your way. Then, and then only,
will I try to discover a way of returning you to your own world without risking my own neck. Incidentally, I warn you that your first attempt to play false with me in any way will also be your last.’
The prisoner remained silent, analyzing every feature of the situation, and DuQuesne continued, coldly:
‘Here’s something else for you to think about. If you are unwilling to help us, what is to prevent me from killing you, and then hunting up Seaton and making peace with him for the duration of this forthcoming war? With the fragments of your vessel, which he has; with my knowledge of your mind, reinforced by your own dead brain; and with the vast resources of all the planets of the green system; I do not believe that you could ever conquer us. In fact, it is quite possible – even probable – that we would be able eventually to destroy your entire race. Understand, however, that I care nothing for the green system. You are welcome to it if you do as I ask. If you do not, I shall warn them and help them simply to protect my own world, which is now my own personal property.’
‘In return for our armament and equipment, you promise not to warn the green system against us? The death of your enemies takes first place in your mind?’ The stranger spoke thoughtfully. ‘In that I understand your viewpoint thoroughly. But, after I have remodeled your power plant into ours and have piloted you to our planet, what assurance have I that you will liberate me, as you have said?’
‘None whatever – I have made and am making no promises, since I cannot expect you to trust me, any more than I can trust you. Enough of this argument! I am master here, and I am dictating terms. We can get along without you. Therefore you must decide quickly whether you would rather die suddenly and surely, here in space and right now, or help us as I demand and live until you get back home – enjoying meanwhile your life and whatever chance you think you may have of being liberated within the atmosphere of your own planet.’
‘Just a minute, chief!’ Loring said, in English, his back to the prisoner. Wouldn’t we gain more by killing him and going back to Seaton and the green system, as you suggested?’
‘No.’ DuQuesne also turned away, to shield his features from the mind-reading gaze of the Fenachrone. ‘That was pure bluff. I don’t want to get within a million miles of Seaton until after we have the armament of this fellow’s ships. I couldn’t make peace with Seaton now, even if I wanted to – and I haven’t the slightest intention of trying. I intend killing him on sight. Here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’ll get what we came after. Then we’ll find the
Skylark
and blow her out of space, and take over the pieces of that Fenachrone ship. After that we’ll head for the green system, and with their own stuff and what we’ll give them they’ll be able to give the Fenachrone a hot
reception. By the time they finally destroy the Osnomians – if they do – we’ll have the world ready for them.’ He turned to the captive. ‘What is your decision?’
‘I submit, in the hope that you will keep your promise, since there is no alternative but death.’
Then, still loosely held by the attractors and carefully watched by DuQuesne and Loring, the creature tore into the task of rebuilding the Osnomian power plant into the space-annihilating drive of the Fenachrone. Nor was he turning traitor, for he well knew one fact that DuQuesne’s hurried inspection had failed to glean from the labyrinthine intricacies of his brain; that once within the detector screens of that distant solar system these Earth-beings would be utterly helpless before the forces which would be turned upon them. And time was precious. For the good of his own race he must drive the
Violet
so unmercifully that she would overtake even that fleeing torpedo, now many hours upon its way – the torpedo bearing news, for the first time in Fenachrone history, of the overwhelming defeat and capture of one of its mighty engines of interstellar war.
In a very short time, considering the complexity of the undertaking, the conversion of the power plant was done and the repellors, already supposed the ultimate in protection, were reinforced by a ten-thousand-pound mass of activated copper, effective for untold millions of miles. Their monstrous pilot then set the bar and advanced both levers of the dual power control out to the extreme limit of their travel.
There was no sense of motion or of acceleration, since the new system of propulsion acted upon every molecule of matter within the radius of activity of the bar, which had been set to include the entire hull. The passengers felt only the utter lack of all weight and the other peculiar sensations with which they were already familiar. But in spite of the lack of apparent motion, the
Violet
was now leaping through the unfathomable depths of interstellar space with the unthinkable acceleration of five times the velocity of light!
‘How long do you figure it’s going to take us to get there, Mart?’ Seaton asked from a corner, where he was bending over his apparatus-table.
‘About three days at this acceleration. I set it at what I thought the safe maximum for the girls. Should we increase it?’
‘Probably not – three days isn’t too bad. Anyway, to save even
one day we’d have to double the acceleration, so we’d better let it ride. How’re you making it, Peg?’
‘I’m getting used to weighing a ton now. My knees buckled only once this morning from my forgetting to watch them when I tried to walk. Don’t let me interfere, though; if I am slowing us down I’ll go to bed and stay there!’
‘It’d hardly pay. We can use the time to good advantage. Look here, Mart – I’ve been looking over this stuff I got out of their ship, and here’s something I know you’ll eat up. They refer to it as a chart, but it’s three-dimensional and almost incredible. I can’t say that I understand it, but I get an awful kick out of looking at it. I’ve been studying it a couple of hours, and haven’t started yet. I haven’t found our solar system, the green one, or our own. It’s too heavy to move around now, because of the acceleration we’re using – come on over here and give it a look.’
The ‘chart’ was a strip of film, apparently miles in length, wound upon reels at each end of the machine. One section of the film was always under the viewing mechanism – an optical system projecting an undistorted image into a visiplate somewhat similar to their own – and at the touch of a lever a small motor moved the film through the projector.
It was not an ordinary star-chart: it was three-dimensional, ultra-stereoscopic. The eye did not perceive a flat surface, but beheld an actual, extremely narrow wedge of space as seen from the center of the galaxy. Each of the closer stars was seen in its true position in space and in its true perspective, and each was clearly identified by number. In the background were faint stars and nebulous masses of light, too distant to be resolved into separate stars – a true representation of the actual sky. As both men stared, fascinated, into the visiplate, Seaton touched the lever and they apparently traveled directly along the center line of that ever-widening wedge. As they proceeded the nearer stars grew brighter and larger, soon becoming suns, with their planets and then the satellites of the planets plainly visible, and finally passing out of the picture behind the observers. The fainter stars became bright, grew into suns and solar systems, and were passed in turn. The chart still unrolled. The nebulous masses of light were approached, became composed of faint stars, which developed as had the others, and were passed.
Finally, when the picture filled the entire visiplate, they arrived at the outermost edge of the galaxy. No more stars were visible: they saw empty space stretching for inconceivably vast distances before them. But beyond that indescribable and incomprehensible vacuum they saw faint lenses and dull spots of light, which were also named, and which each man knew to be other galaxies, charted by the almost unlimited power of the Fenachrone astronomers, but not as yet explored. As the magic scroll unrolled still farther they found themselves back in the center of the galaxy, starting outward in the wedge adjacent to the one which they had just traversed.
Seaton cut off the motor and wiped his forehead.