Authors: E. E. 'Doc' Smith
‘We’ll do
something
!’ Seaton gritted. ‘We’re not as helpless as they think we are. I’ve got out five courses of six-ply screen, with full interliners of zones of force. I’ve got everything blocked, clear down to the sixth order. If they can think their way through those screens
they’re better than I think they are, and if they try anything else we’ll do our darndest to block that, too – and with this Norlaminian keyboard and all the uranium we’ve got that’ll be a mighty lot, believe me! After that last crack of theirs they’ll hunt for us, of course, and I’m pretty sure they’ll find us. I thought so – here they are! Materialization, huh? I told him once that if he’d stick to stuff that I could understand, I’d give him a run for his money!’
Far out in the depths of the intergalactic void there sped along upon its strange course the newly materialized planet of the intellectuals. Desolate and barren it was, and apparently destitute of life; but life was there – eternal, disembodied life, unaffected by any possible extreme of heat or cold, requiring for its continuance neither water nor air, nor, for that matter, any material substance whatsoever. And from somewhere in the vacuum above that planet’s forbidding surface there emanated a thought – a thought coldly clear, abysmally hopeless.
‘I have but one remaining aim in this life. While I have failed again, as I have failed innumerable times in the past, I shall keep on trying until I succeed in assembling in sufficient strength the exact forces necessary to disrupt this sixth-order pattern which is I.’
‘You speak foolishly, Eight, as does each of us now and again,’ came instant response. ‘There is much more to perceive, much more to do, much more to learn. Why be discouraged or disheartened? An infinity of time is necessary in which to explore infinite space and to acquire infinite knowledge.’
‘Foolish I may be, but this is no simple recurrent outburst of melancholia. I am definitely weary of this cycle of existence, and I wish to pass on to the next, whatever of experience or of sheer oblivion it may bring. In fact, I wish that you, One, had never worked out the particular pattern of forces that liberated our eleven minds from the so-called shackles of our material bodies. For we cannot die. We are simply patterns of force eternal, marking the passage of time only by the life cycles of the suns of the galaxies.
‘Why, I envy even the creatures inhabiting the planets throughout the galaxy we visited but a moment ago. Partially intelligent though they are, struggling and groping, each individual dying after only a fleeting instant of life; born, growing old, and passing on in a minute fraction of a millionth of one cycle – yet I envy even them.’
‘That was the reason you did not dematerialize
those you accompanied briefly while they were flitting about in their crude spaceship?’
‘Yes. Being alive for such an infinitesimal period of time, they value life highly. Why hurry them into the future that is so soon to be theirs?’
‘Do not dwell upon such thoughts, Eight,’ advised One. ‘They lead only to greater and greater depths of despondency. Consider instead what we have done and what we shall do.’
‘I have considered everything, at length,’ the entity known as Eight thought back stubbornly. ‘What benefit or satisfaction do we get out of this continuous sojourn in the cycle of existence from which we should have departed aeons ago? We have power, it is true, but what of it? It is barren. We create for ourselves bodies and their material surroundings, like this’ – the great hall came into being, and so vast was the mentality creating it that the flow of thought continued without a break – ‘but what of it? We do not enjoy them as lesser beings enjoy the bodies which to them are synonymous with life.
‘We have traveled endlessly, we have seen much, we have studied much; but what of it? Fundamentally we have accomplished nothing and we know nothing. We know but little more than we knew ourselves countless thousands of cycles ago, when our home planet was still substance. We know nothing of time; we know nothing of space; we know nothing even of the fourth dimension save that the three of us who rotated themselves into it have never returned. And until one of us succeeds in building a neutralizing pattern we can never die – we must face a drab and cheerless eternity of existence as we now are.’
‘An eternity, yes, but an eternity neither drab nor cheerless. We know but little, as you have said, but in that fact lies a stimulus; we can and shall go on forever, learning more and ever more. Think of it! But hold – what is that? I feel a foreign thought. It must emanate from a mind powerful indeed to have come so far.’
‘I have felt them. There are four foreign minds, but they are unimportant.’
‘Have you analyzed them?’
‘Yes. They are the people of the spaceship which we just mentioned; projecting their mentalities to us here.’
‘Projecting mentalities? Such a low form of life? They must have learned much from you, Eight.’
‘Perhaps. I did give them one or two hints,’ Eight returned, utterly indifferent, ‘but they are of no importance to us.’
‘I am not so sure of that,’ One mused. ‘We found no others in that galaxy capable of so projecting themselves, nor did we find any beings possessing minds strong enough to be capable of existence without the support of a material body. It may be that they are sufficiently advanced to join us. Even if they are not, if their minds should prove too weak for our
company, they are undoubtedly strong enough to be of use in one of my researches.’
At this point Seaton cut off the projections and began to muster his sixth-order defenses, therefore he did not ‘hear’ Eight’s outburst against the proposal of his leader.
‘I will not allow it, One!’ the disembodied intelligence protested intensely. ‘Rather than have you inflict upon them the eternity of life that we have suffered I shall myself dematerialize them. Much as they love life, it would be infinitely better for them to spare a few minutes of it than to live forever.’
But there was no reply. One had vanished; had darted at utmost speed toward the
Skylark
. Eight followed him instantly.
Light-centuries of distance meant no more to them than to Seaton’s own projector, and they soon reached the hurtling spaceship; a spaceship moving with all its unthinkable velocity, yet to them motionless – what is velocity when there are no reference points by which to measure it?
‘Back, Eight!’ commanded One abruptly. ‘They are enclosed in a nullifying wall of the sixth order. They are indeed advanced in mentality.’
‘A complete stasis in the subether?’ Eight marveled. ‘That will do as well as the pattern …’
‘Greetings, strangers!’ Seaton’s thought interrupted. Thoughts as clear as those require no interpretation of language. ‘My projection is here, outside the wall, but I might caution you that one touch of your patterns will cut it off and stiffen that wall to absolute impenetrability. I assume that your visit is friendly?’
‘Eminently so,’ replied One. ‘I offer you the opportunity of joining us; or, at least, the opportunity of being of assistance to science in the attempt at joining us.’
‘They want us to join them as pure intellectuals, folks.’ Seaton turned from the projector, toward his friends. ‘How about it, Dottie? We’ve got quite a few things to do yet in the flesh, haven’t we?’
‘I’ll say we have, Dickie – don’t be an idiot!’ she chuckled.
‘Sorry, One!’ Seaton thought again into space. ‘Your invitation is appreciated to the full, and we thank you for it, but we have too many things to do in our own lives and upon our own world to accept it at this time. Later on, perhaps, we could do so with profit.’
‘You will accept it
now
,’ One declared coldly. ‘Do you imagine that your puny wills can withstand
mine
for a single instant?’
‘I don’t know; but, aided by certain mechanical devices of ours, I do know that they’ll do a terrific job of trying!’ Seaton blazed back.
‘There is one thing that I believe you can do,’ Eight put in. ‘Your barrier wall should be able to free me from this intolerable condition of eternal life!’ And he hurled himself forward with all his prodigious force against that nullifying wall.
Instantly the screen flamed into incandescence; converters
and generators whined and shrieked as hundreds of pounds of power uranium disappeared under that awful load. But the screens held, and in an instant it was over. Eight was gone, disrupted into the future life for which he had so longed, and the impregnable wall was once more merely a tenuous veil of sixth-order vibrations. Through that veil Seaton’s projection crept warily; but the inhuman, monstrous mentality poised just beyond it made no demonstration.
‘Eight committed suicide, as he has so often tried to do,’ One commented coldly, ‘but, after all, his loss will be felt with relief, if at all. His dissatisfaction was an actual impediment to the advancement of our entire group. And now, feeble intellect, I will let you know what is in store for you, before I direct against you the forces which will render your screens inoperative and therefore make further interchange of thought impossible. You shall be dematerialized; and, whether or not your minds are strong enough to exist in the free state, your entities shall be of some small assistance to me before you pass on to the next cycle of existence. What substance do you disintegrate for power?’
‘That is none of your business, and since you cannot drive a ray through this screen you will never find out!’ Seaton snapped.
‘It matters little,’ One rejoined, unmoved. ‘Were you employing pure neutronium and were your vessel entirely filled with it, yet in a short time it would be exhausted. For, know you, I have summoned the other members of our group. We are able to direct cosmic forces which, although not infinite in magnitude, are to all intents and purposes inexhaustible. In a brief time your power will be gone, and I shall confer with you again.’
The other mentalities flashed up in response to the call of their leader, and at his direction arranged themselves all about the far-flung outer screen of the
Skylark
. Then from all space, directed inward, there converged upon the spaceship gigantic streamers of force. Invisible streamers, and impalpable, but under their fierce impacts the defensive screens of the Terrestrial vessel flared into even more frenzied displays of pyrotechnic incandescence than they had exhibited under the heaviest beams of the superdreadnought of the Fenachrone. For thousands of miles space became filled with coruscantly luminous discharges as the uranium-driven screens of the
Skylark
dissipated the awful force of the attack.
‘I don’t see how they can keep that up for very long.’ Seaton frowned as he read his meters and saw at what an appalling rate their store of metal was decreasing. ‘But he talked as though he knew his stuff. I wonder if – um – um –’ He fell silent, thinking intensely, while the others watched his face in strained attention; then went on: ‘Uh-huh. I see – he can do it – he wasn’t kidding us.’
‘How?’ asked Crane tensely.
‘But how can he, possibly, Dick?’ cried Dorothy. ‘Why, they aren’t
anything
, really!’
‘They can’t store up power in themselves, of course,
but we know that all space is pervaded by radiation – theoretically a source of power that outclasses us as much as we outclass mule power. Nobody that I know of ever tapped it before, and I can’t tap it yet; but they’ve tapped it and can direct it. The directing is easy enough to understand – just like a kid shooting a high-power rifle. He doesn’t have to furnish energy for the bullet, you know – he merely touches off the powder and tells the bullet where to go.
‘But we’re not sunk yet. I see one chance; and even though it’s pretty slim, I’d take it before I would knuckle down to his nibs out there. Eight said something a while ago, remember, about “rotating” into the fourth dimension? I’ve been mulling the idea around in my mind. I’d say that as a last resort we might give it a whirl and take a chance on coming through. See anything else that looks at all feasible, Mart?’
‘Not at the present moment,’ Crane replied calmly. ‘How much time have we?’
‘About forty hours at the present rate of dissipation. It’s constant, so they’ve probably focused everything they can bring to bear on us.’
‘You cannot attack them in any way? Apparently the sixth-order zone of force kills them?’
‘Not a chance. If I open a slit one kilocycle wide anywhere in the band they’ll find it instantly and it’ll be curtains for us. And even if I could fight them off and work through that slit I couldn’t drive a zone into them – their velocity is the same as that of the zone, you know, and they’d simply bounce back with it. If I could pen them up into a spherical – um – um – no use, can’t do it with this equipment. If we had Rovol and Caslor and a few others of the Firsts of Norlamin here, and had a month or so of time, maybe we could work out something, but I couldn’t even start it alone in the time we’ve got.’
‘But even if we decide to try the fourth dimension, how could you do it? Surely that dimension is merely a mathematical concept, with no actual existence in nature?’
‘No; it’s actual enough, I think – nature’s a big field, you know, and contains a lot of unexplored territory. Remember how casually that Eight thing out there discussed it? It isn’t how to get there that’s biting me; it’s only that those intellectuals can stand a lot more grief than we can, and conditions in the region of the fourth dimension probably wouldn’t suit us any too well.
‘However, we wouldn’t have to be there for more than a hundred thousandth of a second to dodge this gang, and we could stand almost anything that long, I imagine. As to how to do it – rotation. Three pairs of rotating, high-amperage currents, at mutual right angles, converging upon a point. Remembering that any rotating current exerts its force at a right angle, what would happen?’
‘It might, at that,’ Crane conceded, after minutes of narrow-eyed concentration; then, Crane-wise, began to muster objections.
‘But it would not so affect this vessel. She is altogether too large, is of the wrong shape, and—’