But the squat and monstrous flying fort burst upward through the seething surface and was again in full action.
But the squat and monstrous flying fort burst upward through the seething surface and was again in full action.
But the squat and monstrous flying fort burst upward through the seething surface and was again in full action.
"All fourth-order stuff, Mart," Seaton, who had been frantically busy at his keyboard and instruments, reported to Crane. "Can't find a trace of anything on the fifth or sixth, and that gives us a break. I don't know what we can do yet, but we'll do something, believe me!"
"Fourth order? Are you sure?" Crane doubted. "A fourth-order screen would be a zone of force, opaque and impervious to gravitation, whereas those screens are transparent and are not affecting gravity."
"Yeah, but they're doing something that we never tried, since we never used fourth-order stuff in fighting. They've both left the gravity band open—it's probably too narrow for them to work through, at least with anything very heavy—and that gives us the edge."
"Why? Do you know more about it than they do?" queried Dorothy.
"Who and what are they, Dick?" asked Margaret.
"Sure I know more about it than they do. I understand the fifth and sixth orders, and you can't get the full benefit of any order until you know all about the next one. Just like mathematics—nobody can really handle trigonometry until after he has had calculus. And as to who they are, the folks in that fort are of course natives of the planet, and they may well be people more or less like us. It's dollars to doughnuts, though, that those vessels are manned by the inhabitants of that interloping planet—that form of life I was telling you about—and it's up to us to pull their corks if we can. There, I'm ready to go, I think. We'll visit the ship first."
The visible projection disappeared and, their images now invisible patterns of force, they stood inside the control room of one of the invaders. The air bore the faint, greenish-yellow tinge of chlorin; the walls were banked and tiered with controlling dials, meters, and tubes; and sprawling, lying, standing, or hanging before those controls were denizens of the chlorin planet. No two of them were alike in form. If one of them was using eyes he had eyes everywhere; if hands, hands by the dozen, all differently fingered, sprouted from one, two, or a dozen supple and snaky arms.
But the inspection was only momentary. Scarcely had the unseen visitors glanced about the interior when the visibeam was cut off sharply. The peculiar beings had snapped on a full-coverage screen and their vessel, now surrounded by the opaque spherical mirror of a zone of force, was darting upward and away—unaffected by gravity, unable to use any of her weapons, but impervious to any form of matter or to any ether-borne wave.
"Huh! 'We didn't come over here to get peeked at,' says they." Seaton snorted. "Amœbic! Must be handy, though, at that, to sprout eyes, arms, ears, and so on whenever and wherever you want to—and when you want to rest, to pull in all such impedimenta and subside into a senseless green blob. Well, we've seen the attackers, now let's see what the natives look like. They can't cut us off without sending their whole works sky-hooting off into space."
The visibeam sped down into the deepest sanctum of the fortress without hindrance, revealing a long, narrow control table at which were seated men—men not exactly like the humanity of Earth, of Norlamin, of Osnome, or of any other planet, but undoubtedly men, of the genushomo.
"You were right, Dick." Crane the anthropologist now spoke. "It seems that on planets similar to Earth in mass, atmosphere, and temperature, wherever situated, man develops. The ultimate genes must permeate universal space itself."
"Maybe—sounds reasonable. But did you see that red light flash on when we came in? They've got detectors set on the gravity band—look at the expression on their faces."
Each of the seated men had ceased his activity and was slumped down into his chair. Resignation, hopeless yet bitter, sat upon lofty, domed brows and stared out of large and kindly eyes.
"Oh, I get it!" Seaton exclaimed. "They think the chlorins are watching them—as they probably do most of the time—and they can't do anything about it. Should think they could do the same—or could broadcast an interference—I could help them on that if I could talk to them—wish they had an educator, but I haven't seen any—" He paused, brow knitted in concentration. "I'm going to make myself visible to try a stunt. Don't talk to me; I'll need all the brain power I've got to pull this off."
As Seaton's image thickened into substance its effect upon the strangers was startling indeed. First they shrank back in consternation, supposing that their enemies had at last succeeded in working a full materialization through the narrow gravity band. Then, as they perceived that Seaton's figure was human, and of a humanity different from their own, they sprang to surround him, shouting words meaningless to the Terrestrials.
For some time Seaton tried to make his meaning clear by signs, but the thoughts he was attempting to convey were far too complex for that simple medium. Communication was impossible and the time was altogether too short to permit of a laborious learning of language. Therefore streamers of visible force shot from Seaton's imaged eyes, sinking deeply into the eyes of the figure at the head of the table.
"Look at me!" he commanded, and his fists clenched and drops of sweat stood out on his forehead as he threw all the power of his brain into that probing, hypnotic beam.
The native resisted with all his strength, but not for nothing had Seaton had superimposed upon his already-powerful mind a large portion of the phenomenal brain of Drasnik, the First of Psychology of Norlamin. Resistance was useless. The victim soon sat relaxed and passive, his mind completely subservient to Seaton's, and as though in a trance he spoke to his fellows.
"This apparition is the force-image of one of a group of men from a distant Solar System," he intoned in his own language. "They are friendly and intend to help us. Their space ship is approaching us under full power, but it cannot get here for many days. They can, however, help us materially before they arrive in person. To that end, he directs that we cause to be brought into this room a full assortment of all our fields of force, transmitting tubes, controllers, force-converters—in short, the equipment of a laboratory of radiation—No, that would take too long. He suggests that one of us escort him to such a laboratory."
XVI.
As Seaton assumed, the near-collision of suns which had affected so disastrously the planet Valeron did not come unheralded to overwhelm a world unwarned, since for many hundreds of years her civilization had been of a high order indeed.
With all their resources of knowledge and of power, however, it was pitifully little that the people of Valeron could do; for of what avail are the puny energies of man compared to the practically infinite forces of cosmic phenomena? Any attempt of the humanity of the doomed planet to swerve from their courses the incomprehensible masses of those two hurtling suns was as surely doomed to failure as would be the attempt of an ant to thrust from its rails an onrushing locomotive.
But what little could be done was done; done scientifically and logically; done, if not altogether without fear, at least inasmuch as was humanly possible without favor. With mathematical certainty were plotted the areas of least strain, and in those areas were constructed shelters. Shelters buried deeply enough to be unaffected by the coming upheavals of the world's crust; shelters of unbreakable metal, so designed, so latticed and braced as to withstand the seismic disturbances to which they were inevitably to be subjected.
Having determined the number of such shelters that could be built, equipped, and supplied with the necessities of life in the time allowed, the board of selection began its cold-blooded and heartless task. Scarcely one in a thousand of Valeron's teeming millions was to be given a chance for continued life, and they were to be chosen only from the children who would be in the prime of young adulthood at the time of the catastrophe.
These children were the pick of the planet: flawless in mind, body, and heredity. They were assembled in special schools near their assigned refuges, where they were instructed intensively in everything that they would have to know in order that civilization should not disappear utterly from the universe.
Such a thing could not be kept a secret long, and it is best to touch as lightly as possible upon the scenes which ensued after the certainty of doom became public knowledge.
Characters already strong were strengthened, but those already weak went to pieces entirely in orgies to a normal mind unthinkable. Almost overnight a peaceful and law-abiding world went mad—became an insane hotbed of crime, rapine, and pillage unspeakable. Martial law was declared at once, and after a few thousand maniacs had been ruthlessly shot down, the soberer inhabitants were allowed to choose between two alternatives. They could either die then and there before a firing squad, or they could wait and take whatever slight chance there might be of living through what was to come—but devoting their every effort meanwhile to the end that through those selected few the civilization of Valeron should endure.
Many chose death and were executed summarily and without formality, without regard to wealth or station. The rest worked.
Since the human mind cannot be kept indefinitely at high tension, the new condition of things came in time to be regarded almost as normal, and as months lengthened into years the routine was scarcely broken.
But always there were the sly—the self-seekers, the bribers, the corruptionists—willing to go to any lengths whatever to avoid their doom. Not openly did they carry on their machinations, but like loathsome worms eating at the heart of an outwardly fair fruit. But the scientists, almost to a man, were loyal. Trained to think, they thought clearly and logically, and surrounded themselves with soldiers and guards of the same stripe.
Time went on. The shelters were finished. Into them were taken stores, libraries, tools and equipment of every sort necessary for the rebuilding of a fully civilized world. Finally the "children," now in the full prime of young manhood and young womanhood, were carefully checked in. Once inside those massive portals of metal they were of a world apart.
They were completely informed and completely educated; they had for long governed themselves with neither aid nor interference; they knew precisely what they must face; they knew exactly what to do and exactly how to do it. Behind them the mighty, multi-ply seals were welded into place and broken rock by the cubic mile was blasted down upon their refuges.
Day by day the heat grew more and more intense. The tides waxed ever higher. Cyclonic storms raged ever fiercer, accompanied by an incessant blaze of lightning and a deafeningly continuous roar of thunder.
Work was at an end and the masses were utterly beyond control. The devoted were butchered by their frantic fellows; the hopeless were stung to madness; the stolid were driven to frenzy by the realization that there was to be no future; the remaining sly ones deftly turned the unorganized fury of the mob into a purposeful attack upon the shelters, their only hope of life.
But at each refuge the rabble met an unyielding wall of guards loyal to the last, and of scientists who, their work now done, were merely waiting for the end. Guards and scientists fought with rays, rifles, swords, and finally with clubs, stones, fists, feet and teeth. Outnumbered by thousands they fell and the howling mob surged over their bodies. To no purpose. Those shelters had been designed and constructed to withstand the attacks of nature gone berserk, and futile indeed were the attempts of the frenzied hordes to tear a way into their sacred recesses.
Thus died the devoted and high-souled band who had saved their civilization; but in that death each man was granted the boon which, deep in his heart, he had craved. They had died quickly and violently, fighting for a cause they knew to be good.
The suns passed, each upon his appointed way. The cosmic forces ceased to war and to the tortured and ravaged planet there at last came peace. The surviving children of Valeron emerged from their subterranean retreats and undauntedly took up the task of rebuilding their world. And to such good purpose did they devote themselves to the problems of rehabilitation that in a few hundred years there bloomed upon Valeron a civilization and a culture scarcely to be equaled in the universe.
For the new race had been cradled in adversity. In its ancestry there was no physical or mental taint or weakness, all dross having been burned away by the fires of cosmic catastrophe which had so nearly obliterated all the life of the planet.
Immediately after the Emergence it had been observed that the two outermost planets of the system had disappeared and that in their stead revolved a new planet. This phenomenon was recognized for what it was, an exchange of planets; something to give concern only to astronomers, and to them only mathematically, in the computation of now greatly perturbed orbits.
No one except sheerest romancers even gave thought to the possibility of life upon other worlds, it being an almost mathematically demonstrable fact that the Valeronians were the only life in the entire universe. And even if other planets might possibly be inhabited, what of it? The vast reaches of empty ether intervening between Valeron and even her nearest fellow planet formed an insuperable obstacle even to communication, to say nothing of physical passage.
When the interplanetary invaders were discovered upon Valeron, Quedrin Vornel, the most brilliant physicist of the planet, and his son Quedrin Radnor, the most renowned, were among the first to be informed of the visitation.
Of these two, Quedrin Vornel had for many years been engaged in researches of the most abstruse and fundamental character upon the ultimate structure of matter. He had delved deeply into those which we know as matter, energy, and ether, and had studied exhaustively the phenomena characteristic of or associated with atomic, electronic, and photonic rearrangements.
His son, while a scientist of no mean attainments in his own right, did not possess the phenomenally powerful and profoundly analytical mind that had made the elder Quedrin the outstanding scientific genius of his time. He was, however, a synchronizerpar excellence, possessing to a unique degree the ability to develop things and processes of great utilitarian value from concepts and discoveries of a purely scientific and academic nature.
The vibrations which we know as Hertzian waves had long been known and had long been employed in radio, both broadcast and tight-beam, in television, in beam-transmission of power, and in receiverless visirays and their blocking screens. When Quedrin the elder disrupted the atom, however, successfully and safely liberating and studying not only its stupendous energy but also an entire series of vibrations, rays, and particles theretofore unknown to science, Quedrin the younger began forthwith to turn the resulting products to the good of mankind.
Intra-atomic energy soon drove every prime mover of Valeron and shorter and shorter waves were harnessed. In beams, fans, and broadcasts Quedrin Radnor combined and heterodyned them, making of them tools and instruments immeasurably superior in power, precision, and adaptability to anything that his world had ever before known.
Due to the signal abilities of brilliant father and famous son, the laboratory in which they labored was connected by a private communication beam with the executive office of the Bardyle of Valeron. "Bardyle," freely translated, means "coördinator." He was neither king, emperor, nor president; and, while his authority was supreme, he was in no sense a dictator.
A paradoxical statement this, but a true one; for the orders—or rather, requests and suggestions—of the Bardyle merely guided the activities of men and women who had neither government nor laws, as we understand the terms, but were working of their own volition for the good of all mankind. The Bardyle could not conceivably issue an order contrary to the common weal, nor would such an order have been obeyed.
Upon the wall of the laboratory the tuned buzzer of Bardyle's beam-communicator sounded its subdued call and Klynor Siblin, the scientist's capable assistant, took the call upon his desk instrument. A strong, youthful face appeared upon the screen.
"Radnor is not here, Siblin?" The pictured visitor glanced about the room as he spoke.
"No, sir. He is out in the space ship, making another test flight. He is merely circling the world, however, so that I can easily get him on the plate here if you wish."
"That would perhaps be desirable. Something very peculiar has occurred, concerning which all three of you should be informed."
The connections were soon made and the Bardyle went on:
"A semicircular dome of force has been erected over the ruins of the ancient city of Mocelyn. It is impossible to say how long it has been in place, since you know the ruins lie in an entirely unpopulated area. It is, however, of an unknown composition and pattern, being opaque to vision and to our visibeams. It is also apparently impervious to matter. Since this phenomenon seems to lie in your province I would suggest that you three men investigate it and take such steps as you deem necessary."
"It is noted, O Bardyle," and Klynor Siblin cut the beam.
He then shot out their heaviest visiray beam, poising its viewpoint directly over what, in the days before the cataclysm, had been the populous city of Mocelyn.
Straight down the beam drove, upon the huge hemisphere of greenly glinting force; urged downward by the full power of the Quedrins' mighty generators. By the very vehemence of its thrust it tore through the barrier, but only for an instant. The watchers had time to perceive only fleetingly a greenish-yellow haze of light, but before any details could be grasped their beam was snapped—the automatically reacting screens had called for and had received enough additional power to neutralize the invading beam.
Then, to the amazement of the three physicists, a beam of visible energy thrust itself from the green barrier and began to feel its way along their own invisible visiray. Siblin cut off his power instantly and leaped toward the door.
"Whoever they are, they know something!" he shouted as he ran. "Don't want them to find this laboratory, so I'll set up a diversion with a rocket plane. If you watch at all, Vornel, do it from a distance and with a spy ray, not a carrier beam. I'll get in touch with Radnor on the way."
Even though he swung around in a wide circle, to approach the strange stronghold at a wide angle to his former line, such was the power of the plane that Siblin reached his destination in little more than an hour. Keying Radnor's visibeam to the visiplates of the plane, so that the distant scientist could see everything that happened, Siblin again drove a heavy beam into the unyielding pattern of green force.
Surrounded by a shell of energy, he was drawn toward the huge dome.
Surrounded by a shell of energy, he was drawn toward the huge dome.
Surrounded by a shell of energy, he was drawn toward the huge dome.
This time, however, the reaction was instantaneous. A fierce tongue of green flame licked out and seized the flying plane in mid-air. One wing and side panel were sliced off neatly and Siblin was thrown out violently, but he did not fall. Surrounded by a vibrant shell of energy, he was drawn rapidly toward the huge dome. The dome merged with the shell as it touched it, but the two did not coalesce. The shell passed smoothly through the dome, which as smoothly closed behind it. Siblin inside the shell, the shell inside the dome.
XVII.
Siblin never knew exactly what happened during those first few minutes, nor exactly how it happened. One minute, in his sturdy plane, he was setting up his "diversion" by directing a powerful beam of force upon the green dome of the invaders. Suddenly his rocket ship had been blasted apart and he had been hurled away from the madly spinning, gyrating wreckage.
He had a confused recollection of sitting down violently upon something very hard, and perceived dully that he was lying asprawl upon the inside of a greenishly shimmering globe some twenty feet in diameter. Its substance had the hardness of chilled steel, yet it was almost perfectly transparent, seemingly composed of cold green flame, pale almost to invisibility. He also observed, in an incurious, foggy fashion, that the great dome was rushing toward him at an appalling pace.
He soon recovered from his shock, however, and perceived that the peculiar ball in which he was imprisoned was a shell of force, of formula and pattern entirely different from anything known to the scientists of Valeron. Keenly alive and interested now, he noted with high appreciation exactly how the wall of force that was the dome merged with, made way for, and closed smoothly behind the relatively tiny globe.
Inside the dome he stared around him, amazed and not a little awed. Upon the ground, the center of that immense hemisphere, lay a featureless, football-shaped structure which must be the vessel of the invaders. Surrounding it there were massed machines and engineering structures of unmistakable form and purpose; drills, derricks, shaft heads, skips, hoists, and other equipment for boring and mining. From the lining of the huge dome there radiated a strong, lurid, yellowish-green light which intensified to positive ghastliness the natural color of the gaseous chlorin which replaced the familiar air in that walled-off volume so calmly appropriated to their own use by the Outlanders.
As his shell was drawn downward toward the strange scene Siblin saw many moving things beneath him, but was able neither to understand what he saw nor to correlate it with anything in his own knowledge or experience. For those beings were amorphous. Some flowed along the ground, formless blobs of matter; some rolled, like wheels or like barrels; many crawled rapidly, snakelike; others resembled animated pancakes, undulating flatly and nimbly about upon a dozen or so short, tentacular legs; only a few, vaguely manlike, walked upright.
A glass cage, some eight feet square and seven high, stood under the towering bulge of the great ship's side; and as his shell of force engulfed it and its door swung invitingly open, Siblin knew that he was expected to enter it.
Indeed, he had no choice—the fabric of cold flame that had been his conveyance and protection vanished, and he had scarcely time to leap inside the cage and slam the door before the noxious vapors of the atmosphere invaded the space from which the shell's impermeable wall had barred it. To die more slowly, but just as surely, from suffocation? No, the cage was equipped with a thoroughly efficient oxygen generator and air purifier; there were stores of Valeronian food and water; there were a chair, a table, and a narrow bunk; and, wonder of wonders, there were even kits of toilet articles and of changes of clothing.
Far above a great door opened. The cage was lifted and, without any apparent means either of support or of propulsion, it moved through the doorways and along various corridors and halls, coming finally to rest upon the floor in one of the innermost compartments of the sky rover. Siblin saw masses of machinery, panels of controlling instruments, and weirdly multiform creatures at station; but he had scant time even to glance at them, his attention being attracted instantly to the middle of the room where, lying in a heavily reënforced shallow cup of metal upon an immensely strong, low table, he saw a—asomething; and for the first time an inhabitant of Valeron saw at close range one of the invaders.
It was in no sense a solid, nor a liquid, nor yet a jelly; although it seemed to partake of certain properties of all three. In part it was murkily transparent, in part greenishly translucent, in part turbidly opaque; but in all it was intrinsically horrible.
But that it was sentient and intelligent there could be no doubt. Not only could its malign mental radiations be felt, but its brain could be plainly seen; a huge, intricately convolute organ suspended in an unyielding but plastic medium of solid jelly. Its skin seemed thin and frail, but Siblin was later to learn that that tegument was not only stronger than rawhide, but was more pliable, more elastic, and more extensible than the finest rubber.
As the Valeronian stared in helpless horror that peculiar skin stretched locally almost to vanishing thinness and an enormous, Cyclopean eye developed. More than an eye, it was a special organ for a special sense which humanity has never possessed, a sense combining ordinary vision with something infinitely deeper, more penetrant and more powerful. Vision, hypnotism, telepathy, thought-transference—something of all three, yet in essence a thing beyond any sense or faculty known to us or describable in language had its being in the almost-visible, almost-tangible beam of force which emanated from the single, temporary "eye" of the Thing and bored through the eyes and deep into the brain of the Valeronian. Siblin's very senses reeled under the impact of that wave of mental power, but he did not quite lose consciousness.
"Soyouare one of the ruling intelligences of this planet—one of its most advanced scientists?" The scornful thought formed itself, coldly clear, in his mind. "We have always known, of course, that we are the highest form of life in the universe, and the fact that you are so low in the scale of mentality only confirms that knowledge. It would be surprising indeed if such a noxious atmosphere as yours could nurture any real intelligence. It will be highly gratifying to report to the Council of Great Ones that not only is this planet rich in the materials we seek, but that its inhabitants, while intelligent enough to do our bidding in securing those materials, are not sufficiently advanced to cause us any trouble."
"Why did you not come in peace?" Siblin thought back. Neither cowed nor shaken, he was merely amazed at the truculently overbearing mien of the strange entity.
"Bah!" snapped the amœbus savagely. "That is the talk of a weakling—the whining, begging reasoning of a race of low intelligence, one which knows and acknowledges itself inferior. Know you, feeble brain, that we of Chlora"—to substitute an intelligible word for the unpronounceable and untranslatable thought-image of his native world—"neither require nor desire cooperation. We are in no need either of assistance or of instruction from any lesser and lower form of life. We instruct. Other races, such as yours, either obey or are obliterated. I brought you aboard this vessel because I am about to return to my own planet, and had decided to take one of you with me, so that the other Great Ones of the Council may see for themselves what form of life this Valeron boasts.
"If your race obeys our commands implicitly and does not attempt to interfere with us in any way, we shall probably permit most of you to continue your futile lives in our service; such as in mining for us certain ores which, relatively abundant upon your planet, are very scarce upon ours.
"As for you personally, perhaps we shall destroy you after the other Great Ones have examined you, perhaps we shall decide to use you as a messenger to transmit our orders to your fellow creatures. Before we depart, however, I shall make a demonstration which should impress upon even such feeble minds as those of your race the futility of any thought of opposition to us. Watch carefully—everything that goes on outside is shown in the view box."
Although Siblin had neither heard, felt, nor seen the captain issue any orders, all was in readiness for the take-off. The mining engineers were all on board, the vessel was sealed for flight, and the navigators and control officers were at their panels. Siblin stared intently into the "view box," the three-dimensional visiplate that mirrored faithfully every occurrence in the neighborhood of the Chloran vessel.
The lower edge of the hemisphere of force began to contract, passing smoothly through or around—the spectator could not decide which—the ruins of Mocelyn, hugging or actually penetrating the ground, allowing not even a whiff of its precious chlorin content to escape into the atmosphere of Valeron. The ship then darted into the air and the shrinking edge became an ever-decreasing circle upon the ground beneath her. That circle disappeared as the meeting edge fused and the wall of force, now a hollow sphere, contained within itself the atmosphere of the invaders.
High over the surface of the planet sped the Chloran raider toward the nearest Valeronian city, which happened to be only a small village. Above the unfortunate settlement the callous monstrosity poised its craft, to drop its dread curtain of strangling, choking death.
Down the screen dropped, rolling out to become again a hemispherical wall, sweeping before it every milliliter of the life-giving air of Valeron and drawing behind it the noxious atmosphere of Chlora. For those who have ever inhaled even a small quantity of chlorin it is unnecessary to describe in detail the manner in which those villagers of Valeron died; for those who have not, no possible description could be adequate. Suffice it to say, therefore, that they died—horribly.
Again the wall of force rolled up, coming clear up to the outer skin of the cruiser this time, in its approach liquefying the chlorin and forcing it into storage chambers. The wall then disappeared entirely, leaving the marauding vessel starkly outlined against the sky. Then, further and even more strongly to impress the raging but impotent Klynor Siblin:
"Beam it down!" the amœbus captain commanded, and various officers sent out thin, whiplike tentacles toward their controls.
Projectors swung downward and dense green pillars of flaming energy erupted from the white-hot refractories of their throats. And what those green pillars struck subsided instantly into a pool of hissing, molten glass. Methodically they swept the entire area of the village.
"You monster!" shrieked Siblin, white, shaken, almost beside himself. "You vile, unspeakable monster! Of what use is such a slaughter of innocent men? They have not harmed you—"
"Indeed they have not, nor could they," the amœbus interrupted callously. "They mean nothing whatever to me, in any way. I have gone to the trouble of wiping out this city to give you and the rest of your race an object lesson; to impress upon you how thoroughly unimportant you are to us and to bring home to you your abject helplessness. Your whole race is, as you have just shown yourself to be, childish, soft, and sentimental, and therefore incapable of real advancement. On the contrary we, the masters of the universe, do not suffer from silly inhibitions or from foolish weaknesses."
The eye faded out, its sharp outlines blurring gradually as its highly specialized parts became transformed into or were replaced by the formless gel composing the body of the creature. The amœbus then poured himself out of the cup, assumed the shape of a doughnut, and rolled rapidly out of the room.
When the Chloran captain had gone, Siblin threw himself upon his narrow bunk, fighting savagely to retain his self-control. Hemustescape—hemustescape—the thought repeated itself endlessly in his mind—but how? The glass walls of his prison were his only defense against hideous death. Nowhere in any Chloran thing, nowhere in any nook or cranny of the noisome planet toward which he was speeding, could he exist for a minute except inside the cell which his captors were keeping supplied with oxygen. No tools—nothing from which to make a protective covering—no way of carrying air—nowhere to go—helpless, helpless—even to break that glass meant death—
At last he slept, fitfully, and when he awoke the vessel was deep in interplanetary space. His captors paid no further attention to him—he had air, food, and water, and if he chose to kill himself that was of no concern to them—and Siblin, able to think more calmly now, studied every phase of his predicament.
There was absolutely no possibility of escape. Rescue was out of the question. He could, however, communicate with Valeron, since in his belt were tiny sender and receiver, attached by tight beams to instruments in the laboratory of the Quedrins. Detection of that pencil beam might well mean instant death, but that was a risk which, for the good of humanity, must be run. Lying upon his side, he concealed one ear plug under his head and manipulated the tiny sender in his belt.
"Quedrin Radnor—Quedrin Vornel—" he called for minutes, with no response. Truly, something of grave import must have happened to cause complete desertion ofthatlaboratory. However, it mattered little; his messages would be recorded. He went on to describe in detail, tersely, accurately, and scientifically, everything that he had observed and deduced concerning the Chlorans, their forces, and their mechanisms.
"We are now approaching the planet," he continued, now an observer reporting what he saw in the view box. "It is apparently largely land. It has north and south polar ice caps. A dark area, which I take to be an ocean, is the most prominent feature visible at this time. It is diamond-shaped and its longer axis, lying north and south, is about one quarter of a circumference in length. Its shorter axis, about half that length, lies almost upon the equator. We are passing high above this ocean, going east.
"East of the ocean and distant from it about one fifth of a circumference lies quite a large lake, roughly elliptical in shape, whose major axis lies approximately northeast and southwest. We are dropping toward a large city upon the southeast shore of this lake, almost equally distant from its two ends. Since I am to be examined by a so-called 'Council of Great Ones,' it may be that this city is their capital.
"No matter what happens, do not attempt to rescue me, as it is entirely hopeless. Escape is likewise impossible, because of the lethal atmosphere. There is a strong possibility, furthermore, that I may be returned to Valeron as a messenger to our race. This possibility is my only hope of returning. I am sending this data and will continue to send it as long as is possible, simply to aid you in deciding what shall be done to defend our civilization against these monsters.
"We are now docking, near a large, hemispherical dome of force—My cell is being transported through the atmosphere toward that dome—It is opening. I do not know whether my beam can pass out through it, but I shall keep on sending—Inside the dome there is a great building, toward which I am floating—I am inside the building, inside a glass compartment which seems to be filled with air—Yes, itisair, for the creatures who are entering it are wearing protective suits of some transparent substance. Their bodies are now globular and they are walking, each upon three short legs. One of them is developing an eye, similar to the one I descr—"
Their bodies were globular, and each one walked upon three short legs.
Their bodies were globular, and each one walked upon three short legs.
Their bodies were globular, and each one walked upon three short legs.
Siblin's message stopped in the middle of a word. The eye had developed and in its weirdly hypnotic grip the Valeronian was helpless to do anything of his own volition. Obeying the telepathic command of the Great One, he stepped out into the larger room and divested himself of his scanty clothing. One of the monstrosities studied his belt briefly, recognized his communicator instruments for what they were, and kicked them scornfully into a corner—thus rendering it impossible for either captive or captors to know it when that small receiver throbbed out its urgent message from Quedrin Radnor.
The inspection and examination finished, it did not take long for the monstrosities to decide upon a course of action.
"Take this scum back to its own planet as soon as your cargo is unloaded," the chief Great One directed. "You must pass near that planet on your way to explore the next one, and it will save time and inconvenience to let it carry our message to its fellows."
Out in space, speeding toward distant Valeron, the captain again communicated with Siblin:
"I shall land you close to one of your inhabited cities and you will at once get in touch with your Bardyle. You already know what your race is to do, and you have in your cage a sample of the ore with which you are to supply us. You shall be given twenty of your days in which to take from the mine already established by us enough of that ore to load this ship—ten thousand tons. The full amount—and pure mineral, mind you, no base rock—must be in the loading hoppers at the appointed time or I shall proceed to destroy every populated city, village, and hamlet upon the face of your globe."
"But that particular ore is rare!" protested Siblin. "I do not believe that it will prove physically possible to recover such a vast amount of it in the short time you are allowing us."
"You understand the orders—obey them or die!"
XVIII.
Very near to Valeron, as space distances go, yet so far away in terms of miles that he could take no active part whatever in the proceedings, Quedrin Radnor sat tense at his controls, staring into his powerful visiplates. Even before Klynor Siblin had lifted his rocket plane off the ground, Radnor had opened his throttles wide. Then, his ship hurtling at full drive toward home, everything done he could do, he sat and watched.
Watched, a helpless spectator. Watched while Siblin made his futilely spectacular attack; watched the gallant plane's destruction; watched the capture of the brave but foolhardy pilot; watched the rolling up and compression of the Chloran dome; watched in agony the obliteration of everything, animate and inanimate, pertaining to the outlying village; watched in horrified relief the departure of the invading space ship.
Screaming through the air, her outer plating white hot from its friction, her forward rocket tubes bellowing a vicious crescendo, Radnor braked his ship savagely to a landing in the dock beside the machine shop in which she had been built. During that long return voyage his mind had not been idle. Not only had he decided what to do, he had also made rough sketches and working drawings of the changes which must be made in his peaceful space ship to make of her a superdreadnought of the void.
This was not as difficult an undertaking as might be supposed. She already had power enough and to spare, her generators and connectors being able to supply, hundreds of times over, her maximum present drain; and, because of the ever-present danger of collision with meteorites, she was already amply equipped with repeller screens and with automatically tripped zones of force. Therefore all that was necessary was the installation of the required offensive armament—beam projectors, torpedo tubes, fields of force, controls, and the like—the designing of which was a simple matter for the brain which had tamed to man's everyday use the ultimately violent explosiveness of intra-atomic energy.
Radnor first made sure that the machine-shop superintendent, master mechanic, and foremen understood the sketches fully and knew precisely what was to be done. Then, confident that the new projectors would project and that the as yet nonexistent oxygen bombs would explode with their theoretical violence, he hurried to the office of the Bardyle. Already gathered there was a portentous group. Besides the coördinator there were scientists, engineers, architects, and beam specialists, as well as artists, teachers, and philosophers.
"Greetings, Quedrin Radnor!" began the Bardyle. "Your plan for the defense of Valeron has been adopted, with a few minor alterations and additions suggested by other technical experts. It has been decided, however, that your proposed punitive visit to Chlora cannot be approved. As matters now stand it can be only an expedition of retaliation and vengeance, and as such can in no wise advance our cause."
"Very well, O Bardyle! It is—" Radnor, trained from infancy in cooperation, was accepting the group decision as a matter of course when he was interrupted by an emergency call from his own laboratory. An assistant, returning to the temporarily deserted building, had found the message of Klynor Siblin and had known that it should be given immediate attention.
"Please relay it to us here, at once," Radnor instructed; and, when the message had been delivered:
"Fellow councilors, I believe that this word from Klynor Siblin will operate to change your decision against my proposed flight to Chlora. With these incomplete facts and data to guide me I shall be able to study intelligently the systems of offense and of defense employed by the enemy, and shall then be in position to strengthen immeasurably our own armament. Furthermore, Siblin was alive within the hour—there may yet be some slight chance of saving his life in spite of what he has said."
The Bardyle glanced once around the circle of tense faces, reading in them the consensus of opinion without having recourse to speech.
"Your point is well taken, Councilor Quedrin, and for the sake of acquiring knowledge your flight is approved," he said slowly. "Provided, however—and this is a most important proviso—that you can convince us that there is a reasonable certainty of your safe return. Klynor Siblin had, of course, no idea that he would be captured. Nevertheless, the Chlorans took him, and his life is probably forfeit. You must also agree not to jeopardize your life in any attempt to rescue your friend unless you have every reason to believe that such an attempt will prove successful. We are insisting upon these assurances because your scientific ability will be of inestimable value to Valeron in this forthcoming struggle, and therefore your life must at all hazards be preserved."
"To the best of my belief and ability my safe return is certain," replied Radnor positively. "Siblin's plane, used only for low-speed atmospheric flying, had no defenses whatever and so fell an easy prey to the Chlorans' attack. My ship, however, was built to navigate space, in which it may meet at any time meteorites traveling at immensely high velocities, and is protected accordingly. She already had four courses of high-powered repeller screens, the inside course of which, upon being punctured, automatically throws around her a zone of force.
"This zone, as most of you know, sets up a stasis in the ether itself, and thus is not only absolutely impervious to and unaffected by any material substance, however applied, but is also opaque to any vibration or wave-form propagated through the ether. In addition to these defenses I am now installing screens capable of neutralizing any offensive force with which I am familiar, as well as certain other armament, the plans of all of which are already in your possession, to be employed in the general defense.
"I agree also to your second condition."
"Such being the case your expedition is approved," the Bardyle said, and Radnor made his way back to the machine shop.
His first care was to tap Siblin's beam, but his call elicited no response. Those ultrainstruments were then lying neglected in a corner of an air-filled room upon far Chlora, where the almost soundless voice of the tiny receiver went unheard. Setting upon his receiver a relay alarm to inform him of any communication from Siblin, Radnor joined the force of men who were smoothly and efficiently re-equipping his vessel.
In a short time the alterations were done, and, armed now to the teeth with vibratory and with solid and gaseous destruction, he lifted his warship into the air, grimly determined to take the war into the territory of the enemy.
He approached the inimical planet cautiously, knowing that their cities would not be undefended, as were those of his own world, and fearing that they might have alarms and detector screens of which he could know nothing. Poised high above the outermost layer of that noxious atmosphere he studied for a long time every visible feature of the world before him.
In this survey he employed an ordinary, old-fashioned telescope instead of his infinitely more powerful and maneuverable visirays, because the use of the purely optical instrument obviated the necessity of sending out forces which the Chlorans might be able to detect. He found the diamond-shaped ocean and the elliptical lake without difficulty, and placed his vessel with care. He then cut off his every betraying force and his ship plunged downward, falling freely under the influence of gravity.
Directly over the city Radnor actuated his braking rockets, and as they burst into their staccato thunder his hands fairly flashed over his controls. Almost simultaneously he scattered broadcast his cargo of bombs, threw out a vast hemisphere of force to confine the gas they would release, activated his spy ray, and cut in the generators of his awful offensive beams.
The bombs were simply large flasks of metal, so built as to shatter upon impact, and they contained only oxygen under pressure—but what a pressure! Five thousand Valeronian atmospheres those flasks contained. Well over seventy-five thousand pounds to the square inch in our ordinary terms, that pressure was one handled upon Earth only in high-pressure laboratories. Spreading widely to cover almost the whole circle of the city's expanse, those terrific canisters hurtled to ground and exploded with all the devastating might of the high-explosive shells which in effect they were.
But the havoc they wrought as demolition bombs was neither their only nor their greatest damage. The seventy-five million cubic feet of free oxygen, driven downward and prevented from escaping into the open atmosphere by Radnor's forces, quickly diffused into a killing concentration throughout the Chloran city save inside that one upstanding dome. Almost everywhere else throughout that city the natives died exactly as had died the people of the Valeronian village in the strangling chlorine of the invaders; for oxygen is as lethal to that amœbic race as is their noxious halogen to us.
Long before the bombs reached the ground Radnor was probing with his spy ray at the great central dome from within which Klynor Siblin's message had in part been sent. But now he could not get through it; either they had detected Siblin's beam and blocked that entire communication band or else they had already put up additional barriers around their headquarters against his attack, quickly though he had acted.
Snapping off the futile visiray, he concentrated his destructive beam into a cylinder of the smallest possible diameter and hurled it against the dome; but even that frightful pencil of annihilation, driven by Radnor's every resource of power, was utterly ineffective against that greenly scintillant hemisphere of force. The point of attack flared into radiant splendor, but showed no sign of overloading or of failure.
Knowing now that there was no hope at all of rescuing Siblin and that he himself had only a few minutes left in which to work, Radnor left his beam upon the dome only long enough for his recording photometers to analyze the radiations emanating from the point of contact. Then, full-driven still, but now operating at maximum aperture, he drove it in a dizzying spiral outwardly from the dome, fusing the entire unprotected area of the metropolis into a glassily fluid slag of seething, smoking desolation.
But beneath that dome of force there was a mighty fortress indeed. It is true that her offensive weapons had not seen active service for many years; not since the last rebellion of the slaves had been crushed. It is also true that the Chloran officers whose duty it was to operate these weapons had been caught napping—as thoroughly surprised at that fierce counterattack as would be a group of Earthly hunters were the lowly rabbits to turn upon them with repeating rifles in their furry paws.
But it did not take long for those officers to tune in their offensive armament, and that armament was driven by no such puny engines as Radnor's space ship bore. Being stationary and a part of the regular equipment of a fortress, their size and mass were of course much greater than anything ordinarily installed in any vessel, of whatever class or tonnage. Also, in addition to being superior in size and number, the Chloran generators were considerably more efficient in the conversion and utilization of interatomic energy than were any then known to the science of Valeron.
Therefore, as Radnor had rather more than expected, he was not long allowed to wreak his will. From the dome there reached out slowly, almost caressingly, a huge arm of force incredible, at whose first blighting touch his first or outer screen simply vanished—flared through the visible spectrum and went down, all in the veriest twinkling of an eye. That first screen, although the weakest by far of the four, had never even radiated under the heaviest test loads that Radnor had been able to put upon it. Now he sat at his instruments, tense but intensely analytical, watching with bated breath as that Titanic beam crashed through his second screen and tore madly at his third.
Well it was for Valeron that day that Radnor had armed and powered his vessel to withstand not only whatever forces he expected her to meet, but had, with the true scientific spirit and in so far as he was able, provided against any conceivable emergency. Thus, the first screen was, as has been said, sufficiently powerful to cope with anything the vessel was apt to encounter. Nevertheless, the power of the other defensive courses increased in geometrical progression; and, as a final precaution, the fourth screen, in the almost unthinkable contingency of its being overloaded, threw on automatically in the moment of its failure an ultimately impenetrable zone of force.
That scientific caution was now to save not only Radnor's life, but also the whole civilization of Valeron. For even that mighty fourth screen, employing in its generation as it did the unimaginable sum total of the power possible of production by the massed converters of the space flyer, failed to stop that awful thrust. It halted it for a few minutes, in a blazingly, flamingly pyrotechnic display of incandescence indescribable, but as the Chlorans meshed in additional units of their stupendous power plant it began to radiate higher and higher into the ultra-violet and was certainly doomed.
It failed, and in the instant of its going down actuated a zone of force—a complete stasis in the ether itself, through which no possible manifestation, either of matter or of energy in any form, could in any circumstances pass. Or could it? Radnor clenched his teeth and waited. Whether or not there was a sub-ether—something lying within and between the discrete particles which actually composed the ether—was a matter of theoretical controversy and of some academically scientific interest.
But, postulating the existence of such a medium and even that of vibrations of such infinitely short period that they could be propagated therein, would it be even theoretically possible to heterodyne upon them waves of ordinary frequencies? And could those amorphous monstrosities be so highly advanced that they had reduced to practical application something that was as yet known to humanity only in the vaguest, most tenuous of hypotheses?
Minute after minute passed, however, during which the Valeronian remained alive within an intact ship which, he knew, was hurtling upward and away from Chlora at the absolute velocity of her inertia, unaffected by gravitation, and he began to smile in relief. Whatever might lie below the level of the ether, either of vibration or of substance, it was becoming evident that the Chlorans could no more handle it than could he.
For half an hour Radnor allowed his craft to drift within her impenetrable shield. Then, knowing that he was well beyond atmosphere, he made sure that his screens were full out and released his zone. Instantly his screens sprang into a dazzling, coruscant white under the combined attack of two space ships which had been following him. This time, however, the Chloran beams were stopped by the third screen. Either the enemy had not had time to measure accurately his power, or they had not considered such measurement worth while.
They were now to pay dearly for not having gauged his strength. Radnor's beam, again a stabbing stiletto of pure energy, lashed out against the nearer vessel; and that luckless ship mounted no such generators as powered her parent fortress. That raging spear, driven as it was by all the power that Radnor had been able to pack into his cruiser, tore through screens and metal alike as though they had been so much paper; and in mere seconds what had once been a mighty space ship was merely a cloud of drifting, expanding vapor. The furious shaft was then directed against the other enemy, but it was just too late—the canny amœbus in command had learned his lesson and had already snapped on his zone of force.
Having learned many facts vital to the defense of Valeron and knowing that his return homeward would now be unopposed, Radnor put on full touring acceleration and drove toward his native world. Motionless at his controls, face grim and hard, he devoted his entire mind to the problem of how Valeron could best wage the inevitable war of extinction against the implacable denizens of the monstrous, interloping planet Chlora.
XIX.
As has been said, Radnor's reply to Siblin's message was unheard, for his ultraphones were not upon his person, but were lying disregarded in a corner of the room in which their owner had undergone examination by his captors. They still lay there as the Valeronian in his cage was wafted lightly back into the space ship from which he had been taken such a short time before; lay there as that vehicle of vacuous space lifted itself from its dock and darted away toward distant Valeron.
During the earlier part of that voyage Radnor was also in the ether, traveling from Valeron to Chlora. The two vessels did not meet, however, even though each was making for the planet which the other had left and though each pilot was following the path for him the most economical of time and of power. In fact, due to the orbits, velocities, and distances involved, they were separated by such a vast distance at the time of their closest approach to each other that neither ship even affected the ultrasensitive electro-magnetic detector screens of the other.
Not until the Chloran vessel was within Valeron's atmosphere did her commander deign again to notice his prisoner.
"As I told you when last I spoke to you, I am about to land you in one of your inhabited cities," the amœbus informed Siblin then. "Get in touch with your Bardyle at once and convey our instructions to him. You have the sample and you know what you are to do. No excuses for nonperformance will be accepted. If, however, you anticipate having any difficulty in convincing your fellow savages that we mean precisely what we say, I will take time now to destroy one or two more of your cities."
"It will not be necessary—my people will believe what I tell them," Siblin thought back. Then, deciding to make one more effort, hopeless although it probably would be, to reason with that highly intelligent but monstrously callous creature, he went on:
"I wish to repeat, however, that your demand is entirely beyond reason. That ore is rare, and in the time you have allowed us I really fear that it will be impossible for us to mine the required amount of it. And surely, even from your own point of view, it would be more logical to grant us a reasonable extension of time than to kill us without further hearing simply because we have failed to perform a task that was from the very first impossible. You must bear it in mind that a dead humanity cannot work your mines at all."
"We know exactly how abundant that ore is, and we know equally well your intelligence and your ability," the captain replied coldly—and mistakenly. "With the machinery we have left in the mine and by working every possible man at all times, you can have it ready for us. I am now setting out to explore the next planet, but I shall be at the mine at sunrise, twenty of your mornings from to-morrow. Ten thousand tons of that mineral must be ready for me to load or else your entire race shall that day cease to exist. It matters nothing to us whether you live or die, since we already have slaves enough. We shall permit you to keep on living if you obey our orders in every particular, otherwise we shall not so permit."
The vessel came easily to a landing. Siblin in his cage was picked up by the same invisible means, transported along corridors and through doorways, and was deposited, not ungently, upon the ground in the middle of a public square. When the raider had darted away he opened the door of his glass prison and made his way through the gathering crowd of the curious to the nearest visiphone station, where the mere mention of his name cleared all lines of communication for an instant audience with the Bardyle of Valeron.
"We are glad indeed to see you again, Klynor Siblin." The coördinator smiled in greeting. "The more especially since Quedrin Radnor, even now on the way back from Chlora, has just reported that his attempt to rescue you was entirely in vain. He was met by forces of such magnitude that only by employing a zone of force was he himself able to win clear. But you undoubtedly have tidings of urgent import—you may proceed."
Siblin told his story tersely and cogently, yet omitting nothing of importance. When he had finished his report the Bardyle said:
"Truly, a depraved evolution—a violent and unreasonable race indeed." He thought deeply for a few seconds, then went on: "The council extraordinary has been in session for some time. I am inviting you to join us here. Quedrin Radnor should arrive at about the same time as you do, and you both should be present to clear up any minor points which have not been covered in your visiphone report. I am instructing the transportation officer there to put at your disposal any special equipment necessary to enable you to get here as soon as possible."
The Bardyle was no laggard, nor was the transportation officer of the city in which Siblin found himself. Therefore when he came out of the visiphone station there was awaiting him a two-wheeled automatic conveyance bearing upon its windshield in letters of orange light the legend, "Reserved for Klynor Siblin." He stepped into the queer-looking, gyroscopically stabilized vehicle, pressed down "9-2-6-4-3-8"—the location number of the airport—upon the banked keys of a numbering machine, and touched a red button, whereupon the machine glided off of itself.
It turned corners, dived downward into subways and swung upward onto bridges, selecting unerringly and following truly the guiding pencils of force which would lead it to the airport, its destination. Its pace was fast, mounting effortlessly upon the straightaways to a hundred miles an hour and more.
There were no traffic jams and very few halts, since each direction of traffic had its own level and its own roadway, and the only necessity for stopping came in the very infrequent event that a main artery into which the machine's way led was already so full of vehicles that it had to wait momentarily for an opening. There was no disorder, and there were neither accidents nor collisions; for the forces controlling those thousands upon thousands of speeding mechanisms, unlike the drivers of Earthly automobiles, were uniformly tireless, eternally vigilant, and—sober.
Thus Siblin arrived at the airport without incident, finding his special plane ready and waiting. It also was fully automatic, robot-piloted, sealed for high flight, and equipped with everything necessary for comfort. He ate a hearty meal, and, then, as the plane reached its ninety-thousand-foot ceiling and leveled out at eight hundred miles an hour toward the distant capital, undressed and went to bed, to the first real sleep he had enjoyed for many days.
As has been indicated, Siblin lost no time; but, rapidly as he had traveled and instantly as he had made connections Quedrin Radnor was already in his seat in the council extraordinary when Siblin was ushered in to sit with that august body. The visiphone reports had been studied exhaustively by every councilor, and as soon as the newcomer had answered their many questions concerning the details of his experiences the council continued its intense, but orderly and thorough, study of what should be done, what could be done, in the present crisis.
"We are in agreement, gentlemen," the Bardyle at last announced. "This new development, offering as it does only the choice between death and slavery of the most abject kind, does not change the prior situation except in setting a definite date for the completion of our program of defense. The stipulated amount of tribute probably could be mined by dint of straining our every resource, but in all probability that demand is but the first of such a never-ending succession that our lives would soon become unbearable.
"We are agreed that the immediate extinction of our entire race is preferable to a precarious existence which can be earned only by incessant and grinding labor for an unfeeling and alien race; an existence even then subject to termination at any time at the whim of the Chlorans.
"Therefore the work which was begun as soon as the strangers revealed their true nature and which is now well under way shall go on. Most of you know already what that work is, but for one or two who do not and for the benefit of the news broadcasts I shall summarize our position as briefly as is consistent with clarity.
"We intend to defend this, our largest city, into which is being brought everything needed of supplies and equipment, and as many men as can work without interfering with each other. The rest of our people are to leave their houses and scatter into widely separated temporary refuges until the issue has been decided. This evacuation may not be necessary, since the enemy will center their attack upon our fortress, knowing that until it has been reduced we are still masters of our planet.
"It was decided upon, however, not only in the belief that the enemy may destroy our unprotected centers of population, either wantonly or in anger at our resistance, but also because such a dispersion will give our race the greatest possible chance of survival in the not-at-all-improbable event of the crushing of our defenses here.
"One power-driven dome of force is to protect the city proper, and around that dome are being built concentric rings of fortifications housing the most powerful mechanisms of offense and defense possible for us to construct.
"Although we have always been a peaceful people our position is not entirely hopeless. Thesine qua nonof warfare is power, and of that commodity we have no lack. True, without knowledge of how to apply that power our cause would be already lost, but we are not without knowledge of the application. Many of our peace-time tools are readily transformed into powerful engines of destruction. Quedrin Radnor, besides possessing a unique ability in the turning of old things to new purposes, has studied exhaustively the patterns of force employed by the enemy and understands thoroughly their generation, their utilization, and their neutralization.
"Finally, the mining and excavating machinery of the Chlorans has been dismantled and studied, and its novel features have been incorporated in several new mechanisms of our own devising. Twenty days is none too long a time in which to complete a program of this magnitude and scope, but that is all the time we have. You wish to ask a question, Councilor Quedrin?"
"If you please. Shall we not have more than twenty days? The ship to be loaded will return in that time, it is true, but we can deal with her easily enough. Their ordinary space ships are no match for ours. That fact was proved so conclusively during our one engagement in space that they did not even follow me back here. They undoubtedly are building vessels of vastly greater power, but it seems to me that we shall be safe until those heavier vessels can arrive."
"I fear that you are underestimating the intelligence of our foes," replied the coördinator. "In all probability they know exactly what we are doing, and were their present space ships superior to yours we would have ceased to exist ere this. It is practically certain that they will attack as soon as they have constructed craft of sufficient power to insure success. In fact, they may be able to perfect their attack before we can complete our defense, but that is a chance which we must take.
"In that connection, two facts give us grounds for optimism. First, theirs is an undertaking of greater magnitude than ours, since they must of necessity be mobile and operative at a great distance from their base, whereas we are stationary and at home. Second, we started our project before they began theirs. This second fact must be allowed but little weight, however, for they may well be more efficient than we are in the construction of engines of war.
"The exploring vessel is unimportant. She may or may not call for her load of ore; she may or may not join in the attack which is now inevitable. One thing only is certain—we must and we will drive this program through to completion before she is due to dock at the mine. Everything else must be subordinated to the task; we must devote to it every iota of our mental, physical, and mechanical power. Each of you knows his part. The meeting is adjournedsine die."
There ensued a world-wide activity unparalleled in the annals of the planet. During the years immediately preceding the cataclysm there had been hustle and bustle, misdirected effort, wasted energy, turmoil and confusion; and a certain measure of success had been wrested out of chaos only by the ability of a handful of men to think clearly and straight. Now, however, Valeron was facing a crisis infinitely more grave, for she had but days instead of years in which to prepare to meet it. But now, on the other hand, instead of possessing only a few men of vision, who had found it practically impossible either to direct or to control an out-and-out rabble of ignorant, muddled, and panic-stricken incompetents, she had a population composed entirely of clear thinkers who, requiring very little direction and no control at all, were able and eager to work together whole-heartedly for the common good.
Thus, while the city and its environs now seethed with activity, there was no confusion or disorder. Wherever there was room for a man to work, a man was working, and the workers were kept supplied with materials and with mechanisms. There were no mistakes, no delays, no friction. Each man knew his task and its relation to the whole, and performed it with a smoothly efficient speed born of a racial training in coöperation and coördination impossible to any member of a race of lesser mental attainments.
To such good purpose did every Valeronian do his part that at dawn of The Day everything was in readiness for the Chloran visitation. The immense fortress was complete and had been tested in every part, from the ranked batteries of gigantic converters and generators down to the most distant outlying visiray viewpoint. It was powered, armed, equipped, provisioned, garrisoned. Every once-populated city was devoid of life, its inhabitants having dispersed over the face of the globe, to live in isolated groups until it had been decided whether the proud civilization of Valeron was to triumph or to perish.
Promptly as that sunrise the Chloran explorer appeared at the lifeless mine, and when he found the loading hoppers empty he calmly proceeded to the nearest city and began to beam it down. Finding it deserted he cut off, and felt a powerful spy ray, upon which he set a tracer. This time the ray held up and he saw the immense fortress which had been erected during his absence; a fortress which he forthwith attacked viciously, carelessly, and with the loftily arrogant contempt which seemed to characterize his breed.
But was that innate contemptuousness the real reason for that suicidal attempt? Or had that vessel's commander been ordered by the Great Ones to sacrifice himself and his command so that they could measure Valeron's defensive power? If so, why did he visit the mine at all and why did he not know beforehand the location of the fortress? Camouflage? In view of what the Great Ones of Chlora must have known, why that commander did what he did that morning no one of Valeron ever knew.
The explorer launched a beam—just one. Then Quedrin Radnor pressed a contact and out against the invader there flamed a beam of such violence that the amœbus had no time to touch his controls, that even the automatic trips of his zone of force—if he had such trips—did not have time in which to react. The defensive screens scarcely flashed, so rapidly did that terrific beam drive through them, and the vessel itself disappeared almost instantly—molten, vaporized, consumed utterly. But there was no exultation beneath Valeron's mighty dome. From the Bardyle down, the defenders of their planet knew full well that the real attack was yet to come, and knew that it would not be long delayed.
It was not. And the ships which came to reduce Valeron's far-flung stronghold in no way resembled any form of space ship with which humanity was familiar. Two stupendous structures of metal appeared, plunging stolidly along, veritable flying fortresses, of such enormous bulk and mass that it seemed scarcely conceivable for them actually to support themselves in air.
Simultaneously the two floating castles launched against the towering dome of defense the heaviest beams they could generate and project. Under that awful thrust Valeron's mighty generators shrieked a mad crescendo and her imponderable shield radiated a fierce, eye-tearing violet, but it held. Not for nothing had the mightiest minds of Valeron wrought to convert their mechanisms and forces of peace into engines of war; not for nothing had her people labored with all their mental and physical might for almost two-score days and nights, smoothly and efficiently as one mind in one body. Not easily did even Valeron's Titanic defensive installation carry that frightful load, but they carried it.
Then, like mythical Jove hurling his bolt—like, that is, save that beside that Valeronian beam any possible bolt of lightning would have been as sweetly innocuous a caress as young love's first kiss—Radnor drove against the nearer structure a beam of concentrated fury; a beam behind which there were every volt and every ampere that his stupendous offensive generators could yield.
The Chloran defenses in turn were loaded grievously, but in turn they also held; and for hours then there raged a furiously spectacular struggle. Beams, rods, planes, and needles of every known kind and of every usable frequency of vibratory energy were driven against impenetrable neutralizing screens. Monstrous cannon, hurling shells with a velocity and of an explosive violence far beyond anything known to us of Earth, radio-beam-dirigible torpedoes, robot-manned drill planes, and the many other lethal agencies of ultra-scientific war—all these were put to use by both sides in those first few frantic hours, but neither side was able to make any impression upon the other. Then, each realizing that the other's defenses had been designed to withstand his every force, the intensive combat settled down to a war of sheer attrition.