XXII.
In the throne room of Kondal, with its gorgeously resplendent jeweled ceiling and jeweled metallic-tapestry walls, there were seated in earnest consultation the three most powerful men of the planet Osnome—Roban and Karfedix[1], Dunark the Kofedix[2], and Tarnan the Karbix[3]. Their "clothing" was the ordinary Osnomian regalia of straps, chains, and metallic bands, all thickly bestudded with blazing gems and for the most part supporting the full assortment of devastatingly powerful hand weapons without which any man of that race would have felt stark naked. Their fierce green faces were keenly hawklike; the hard, clean lines of their bare green bodies bespoke the rigid physical training that every Osnomian undergoes from birth until death.
"Father, Tarnan may be right," Dunark was saying soberly. "We are too savage, too inherently bloodthirsty, too deeply interested in killing, not as a means to some really worth-while end, but as an end in itself. Seaton the overlord thinks so, the Norlaminians think so, and I am beginning to think so myself. All really enlightened races look upon us as little better than barbarians, and in part I agree with them. I believe, however, that if we were really to devote ourselves to study and to productive effort we could soon equal or surpass any race in the System, except of course the Norlaminians."
"There may be something in what you say," the emperor admitted dubiously, "but it is against all our racial teachings. What, then, of an outlet for the energies of all manhood?"
"Constructive effort instead of destructive," argued the Karbix. "Let them build—study—learn—advance. It is all too true that we are far behind other races of the System in all really important things."
"But what of Urvan and his people?" Roban brought up his last and strongest argument. "They are as savage as we are, if not more so. As you say, the necessity for continuous warfare ceased with the destruction of Mardonale, but are we to leave our whole planet defenseless against an interplanetary attack from Urvania?"
"They dare not attack us," declared Tarnan, "any more than we dare attack them. Seaton the overlord decreed that the people of us two first to attack the other dies root and branch, and we all know that the word of the overlord is no idle, passing breath."
"But he has not been seen for long. He may be far away and the Urvanians may decide at any time to launch their fleets against us. However, before we decide this momentous question I suggest that you two pay a visit of state to the court of Urvan. Talk to Urvan and his Karbix as you have talked to me, of coöperation and of mutual advancement. If they will coöperate, we will."
During the long voyage to Urvania, the third planet of the fourteenth sun, however, their new ardor cooled perceptibly—particularly that of the younger man—and in Urvan's palace it became clear that the love of peaceful culture inculcated upon those fierce minds by contact with more humane peoples could not supplant immediately the spirit of strife bred into bone and fiber during thousands of generations of incessant warfare.
For when the two Osnomians sat down with the two Urvanians the very air seemed charged with animosity. Like strange dogs meeting with bared fangs and bristling manes, Osnomian and Urvanian alike fairly radiated hostility. Therefore Tarnan's suggestions as to coöperation and understanding were decidedly unconvincing, and were received with open scorn.
"Your race may well wish to coöperate with ours," sneered the Emperor of Urvania, "since, but for the threats of that self-styled overlord, you would have ceased to exist long since. And how do we know where that one is, what he is doing, whether he is paying any attention to us? Probably you have learned that he has left this System entirely and have already planned an attack upon us. In self-defense we shall probably have to wipe out your race to keep you from destroying ours. At any rate your plea is very evidently some underhanded trick of your weak and cowardly race—"
"Weak! Cowardly!Us?You conceited, bloated toad!" stormed Dunark, who had kept himself in check thus far only by sheer power of will. He sprang to his feet, his stool flying backward. "Here and now I demand a meeting of honor, if you know the meaning of the word honor."
The four enraged men, all drawing weapons, were suddenly swept apart, then clutched and held immovably as a figure of force materialized among them—the form of an aged, white-bearded Norlaminian.
The four enraged men, all drawing weapons, were suddenly swept apart.
The four enraged men, all drawing weapons, were suddenly swept apart.
The four enraged men, all drawing weapons, were suddenly swept apart.
"Peace, children, and silence!" the image commanded sternly. "Rest assured that there shall be no more warfare in this System and that the decrees of the overlord shall be enforced to the letter. Calm yourselves and listen. I know well, mind you, that none of you really meant what has just been said. You of Osnome were so impressed by the benefits of mutual helpfulness that you made this journey to further its cause; you of Urvania are at heart also strongly in favor of it, but neither of you has strength enough or courage enough to admit it.
"For know, vain and self-willed children, that it is weakness, not strength, which you have been displaying. It may well be, however, that your physical bravery and your love of strife can now be employed for the general good of all humanity. Would you join hands, to fight side by side in such a cause?"
"We would," chorused the four, as one.
Each was heartily ashamed of what had just happened, and was glad indeed of the opportunity to drop it without losing face.
"Very well! We of Norlamin fear greatly that we have inadvertently given to one of the greatest foes of universal civilization weapons equal in power to the overlord's own, and that he is even now working to undo all that had been done. Will you of Osnome and you of Urvania help in conducting an expedition against that foe?"
"We will!" they exclaimed.
Dunark added: "Who is that enemy, and where is he to be found?"
"He is Dr. Marc C. DuQuesne, of Earth."
"DuQuesne!" barked Dunark. "Why, I thought the Fenachrone killed him! But we shall attend to it at once—whenIkill any one hestayskilled!"
"Just a moment, son," the image cautioned. "He has surrounded Earth with defenses against which your every arm would be entirely impotent. Come you to Norlamin, bringing each of you one hundred of his best men. We shall have prepared for you certain equipment which, although it may not enable you to emerge victorious from the engagement, will at least insure your safe return. It might be well also to stop at Dasor, which is not now far from your course of flight, and bring along Sacner Carfon, who will be of great assistance, being a man both of action and of learning."
"ButDuQuesne!" raved Dunark, who realized immediately what must have happened. "Why didn't you ray him on sight? Didn't you know what a liar and a thief he is, by instinct and training?"
"We had no suspicion then who he was, thinking, as did you, that DuQuesne had passed. He came under another name, as Seaton's friend. He came as one possessing knowledge, with fair and plausible words. But of that we shall inform you later. Come at once—we shall place upon your controls forces which shall pilot you accurately and with speed."
Upon the aqueous world of Dasor they found its amphibious humanity reveling in an activity which, although dreamed of for centuries, had been impossible of realization until theSkylarkhad brought to them a supply of Rovolon, the metal of power. Now cities of metal were arising here and there above her waves, airplanes and helicopters sped through and hovered in her atmosphere, barges and pleasure craft sailed the almost unbroken expanse of ocean which was her surface, immense submarine freighters bored their serenely stolid ways through her watery depths.
Sacner Carfon, the porpoiselike, hairless, naked Dasorian councilor, heaved his six and a half feet of height and his five hundredweight of mass into Dunark's vessel and greeted the Osnomian prince with a grave and friendly courtesy.
"Yes, friend, everything is wonderfully well with Dasor," he answered Dunark's query. "Now that our one lack, that of power, has been supplied, our lives can at last be lived to the full, unhampered by the limitations which we have hitherto been compelled to set upon them. But this from Norlamin is terrible news indeed. What know you of it?"
During the trip to Norlamin the three leaders not only discussed and planned among themselves, but also had many conferences with the Advisory Five of the planet toward which they were speeding, so that they arrived upon that ancient world with a complete knowledge of what they were to attempt. There Rovol and Drasnik instructed them in the use of fifth-order forces, each according to his personality and ability.
To Sacner Carfon was given high command, and he was instructed minutely in every detail of the power, equipment, and performance of the vessel which was to carry the hope of civilization. To Tarnan, the best balanced of his race, was given a more limited knowledge. Dunark and Urvan, however, were informed only as to the actual operation of the armament, with no underlying knowledge of its nature or construction.
"I trust that you will not resent this necessary caution," Drasnik said carefully. "Your natures are as yet essentially savage and bloodthirsty; your reason is all too easily clouded by passion. You are, however, striving truly, and that is a great good. With a few mental operations, which we shall be glad to give you at a later time, you shall both be able to take your places as leaders in the march of your peoples toward civilization."
Fodan, majestic chief of the Five, escorted the company of warriors to their battleship of space, and what a ship she was! Fully twice the size ofSkylark Threein every dimension she lay there, surcharged with power and might, awaiting only her commander's touch to hurl herself away toward distant and now inimical Earth.
But the vengeful expedition was too late by far. DuQuesne had long since consolidated his position. His chain of interlinked power stations encircled the globe. Governments were in name only. World Steel now ruled the entire Earth and DuQuesne's power was absolute. Nor was that rule as yet unduly onerous. The threat of war was gone, the tyranny of gangsterism was done, everybody was working for high wages—what was there to kick about? Some men of vision of course perceived the truth and were telling it, but they were being howled down by the very people they were trying to warn.
It was thus against an impregnably fortified world that Dunark and Urvan directed every force with which their flying superdreadnought was armed. Nor was she feeble, this monster of the skyways, but DuQuesne had known well what form the attack would take and, having the resources of the world upon which to draw, he had prepared to withstand the amassed assault of a hundred such vessels—or a thousand.
Therefore the attack not only failed; it was repulsed crushingly. For from his massed generators DuQuesne hurled out upon the Norlaminian space ship a solid beam of such incredible intensity that in neutralizing its terrific ardor her store of power-uranium dwindled visibly, second by second. So rapidly did the metal disappear that Sacner Carfon, after waging the unequal struggle for some twenty hours, put on high acceleration and drove back toward the Central System, despite the raging protests of Dunark and of his equally tempestuous fellow lieutenant.
And in his private office, which was also a complete control room, DuQuesne smiled at Brookings—a hard, thin smile. "Now you see," he said coldly. "Suppose I hadn't spent all this time and money on my defenses?"
"Well, why don't you go out and chase 'em? Give 'em a scare, anyway?"
"Because it would be useless," DuQuesne stated flatly. "That ship carries more stuff than anything we have ready to take off at present. Also, Dunark does not scare. You might kill him, but you can't scare him—it isn't in the breed."
"Well, what is the answer, then? You have tried to take Norlamin with everything you've got—bombs, automatic ships, and projectors—and you haven't got to first base. You can't even get through their outside screens. What are you going to do—let it go on as a stalemate?"
"Hardly!" DuQuesne smiled thinly. "While I do not make a practice of divulging my plans, I am going to tell you a few things now, so that you can go ahead with more understanding and hence with greater confidence. Seaton is out of the picture, or he would have been back here before this. The Fenachrone are all gone. Dunark and his people are unimportant. Norlamin is the only known obstacle between me and the mastery of the Galaxy, therefore Norlamin must either be conquered or destroyed. Since the first alternative seems unduly difficult, I shall destroy her."
"Destroy Norlamin—how?" The thought of wiping out that world, with all its ancient culture, did not appall—did not even affect—Brookings' callous mind. He was merely curious concerning the means to be employed.
"This whole job so far has been merely a preliminary toward that destruction," DuQuesne informed him levelly. "I am now ready to go ahead with the second step. The planet Pluto is, as you may or may not know, very rich in uranium. The ships which we are now building are to carry a few million tons of that metal to a large and practically uninhabited planet not too far from Norlamin. I shall install driving machinery upon that planet and, using it as a projectile which all their forces cannot stop, I shall throw Norlamin into her own sun."
Raging but impotent, Dunark was borne back to Norlamin; and, more subdued now but still bitterly humiliated, he accompanied Urvan, Sacner Carfon, and the various Firsts to a consultation with the Five.
As they strolled along through the grounds, past fountains of flaming color, past fantastically geometric hedges intricately and ornately wrought of noble metal, past walls composed of self-luminous gems so moving as to form fleeting, blending pictures of exquisite line and color, Sacner Carfon eyed Drasnik in unobtrusive signal and the two dropped gradually behind.
"I trust that you were successful in whatever it was you had in mind to do while we set up the late diversion?" Carfon asked quietly, when they were out of earshot.
Dunark and Urvan, his fierce and fiery aids, had taken everything that had happened at its face value, but not so had the leader. Unlike his lieutenants, the massive Dasorian had known at first blast that his expedition against DuQuesne was hopeless. More, it had been clear to him that the Norlaminians had known from the first that their vessel, enormous as she was and superbly powerful, could not crush the defenses of Earth.
"We knew, of course, that you would perceive the truth," the First of Psychology replied as quietly. "We also knew that you would appreciate our reasons for not taking you fully into our confidence in advance. Tarnan of Osnome also had an inkling of it, and I have already explained matters to him. Yes; we succeeded. While DuQuesne's whole attention was taken up in resisting your forces and in returning them in kind, we were able to learn much that we could not have learned otherwise. Also, our young friends Dunark and Urvan, through being chastened, have learned a very helpful lesson. They have seen themselves in true perspective for the first time; and, having fought side by side in a common and so far as they knew a losing cause, they have become friends instead of enemies. Thus it will now be possible to inaugurate upon those two backward planets a program leading toward true civilization."
In the Hall of the Five the Norlaminian spokesman voiced thanks and appreciation for the effort just made, concluding:
"While as a feat of arms the expedition may not have been a success, in certain other respects it was far from being a failure. By its help we were enabled to learn much, and I can assure you now that the foe shall not be allowed to prevail—it is graven upon the sphere that civilization is to go on."
"May I ask a question, sir?" Urvan was for the first time in his bellicose career speaking diffidently. "Is there no way of landing a real storming force upon Earth? Must we leave DuQuesne in possession indefinitely?"
"We must wait, son, and work," the chief answered, with the fatalistic calm of his race. "At present we can do nothing more, but in time—"
He was interrupted by a deafening blast of sound—the voice of Richard Seaton, tremendously amplified.
"This is theSkylarkcalling Rovol of Norlamin—Skylarkcalling Rovol of Norlamin—" it repeated over and over, rising to a roar and diminishing to a whisper as Seaton's broadcaster oscillated violently through space.
Rovol laid a beam to the nearest transmitter and spoke: "I am here, son. What is it?"
"Fine! I'm away out here in—"
"Hold on a minute, Dick!" Dunark shouted. He had been humble and sober enough since his return to Norlamin, realizing as he never had before his own ignorance in comparison with the gigantic minds about him, the powerlessness of his entire race in comparison with the energies he had so recently seen in action. But now, as Seaton's voice came roaring in and Rovol and his brain-brother were about to indulge so naïvely and so publicly in a conversation which certainly should not reach DuQuesne's ears, his spirits rose. Here was something he could do to help.
"DuQuesne is alive, has Earth completely fortified, and is holding it against everything we can give him," Dunark went on rapidly. "He's got everything we have, maybe more, and he's undoubtedly listening to every word we're saying. Talk Mardonalian—I know for a fact that DuQuesne can't understand that. They've got an educator here and I'll give it to Rovol right now—all right, go ahead."
"I'm clear out of the Galaxy," Seaton's voice went on, now speaking the language of the Osnomian race which had so recently been destroyed. "So many Galaxies away that none of you except Orlon could understand the distance. The speed of transmission is due to the fact that we have perfected and I am using a sixth-order projector, not a fifth. Have you a ship fit for really long-distance flight—as big asThreewas, or bigger?"
"Yes; we have a vessel twice her size."
"Fine! Load her up and start. Head for the Great Nebula in Andromeda—Orlon knows what and where that is. That isn't very close to my line, but it will do until you get some apparatus set up. I've got to have Rovol, Drasnik, and Orlon, and I would like to have Fodan; you can bring along anybody else that wants to come. I'll sign on again in an hour—you should be started by then."
Besides the four Norlaminians mentioned, Caslor, First of Mechanism, and Astron, First of Energy, also elected to make the stupendous flight, as did also many "youngsters" from the Country of Youth. Dunark would not be left behind, nor would adventurous Urvan. And lastly there was Sacner Carfon the Dasorian, who remarked that he "would have to go along to make the boys behave and to steer the ship in case the old professors forgot to." The space ship was well on its way when at the end of the hour Seaton's voice again was heard.
"All right, put me on a recorder and I'll give you the dope," he instructed, when he had made sure that his signal was received.
"DuQuesne has been trying to put a ray on us and he may try to follow us," Dunark put in.
"Let him," Seaton shot back grimly, then spoke in English: "DuQuesne, Dunark says that you're listening in. You have my urgent, if not cordial, invitation to follow this Norlaminian ship. If you follow it far enough, you'll take a long, long ride, believe me!"
Again addressing the voyagers, he recounted briefly everything that had occurred since the abandonment ofSkylark Three, then dived abruptly into the fundamental theory and practical technique of sixth-order phenomena and forces.
Of that ultramathematical dissertation Dunark understood not even the first sentence; Sacner Carfon perhaps grasped dimly a concept here and there. The Norlaminians, however, sat back in their seats, relaxed and smiling, their prodigious mentalities not only absorbing greedily but assimilating completely the enormous doses of mathematical and physical science being thrust upon them so rapidly. And when that epoch-making, that almost unbelievable, tale was done, not one of the aged scientists even referred to the tape of the recorder.
"Oh, wonderful—wonderful!" exclaimed Rovol in ecstasy, his transcendental imperturbability broken at last. "Think of it! Our knowledge extended one whole order farther in each direction, both into the small and into the large. Magnificent! And by one brain, and that of a youth. Extraordinary! And we may now traverse universal space in ordinary time, because that brain has harnessed the practically infinite power of cosmic radiation, a power which exhausted the store of uranium carried bySkylark Threein forty hours. Phenomenal! Stupendous!"
"But do not forget that the brain of that youth is a composite of many," said Fodan thoughtfully, "and that in it, among others, were yours and Dunark's. Seaton himself ascribes to that peculiar combination his successful solution of the problem of the sixth order. You know, of course, that I am in no sense belittling the native power of that brain. I am merely suggesting that perhaps other noteworthy discoveries may be made by superimposing brains in other, but equally widely divergent, fields of thought."
"An interesting idea, truly, and one which may be fruitful of result," assented Orlon, the First of Astronomy, "but I would suggest that we waste no more time. I, for one, am eager to behold with my own inner consciousness the vistas of the Galaxies."
Agreeing, the five white-bearded scientists seated themselves at the multiplex console of their fifth-order installation and set happily to work. Their gigantic minds were undaunted by the task they faced—they were only thrilled with interest at the opportunity of working with magnitudes, distances, forces, objects, and events at the very contemplation of which any ordinary human mind would quail.
Steadily and contentedly they worked on, while at the behest of their nimble and unerring fingers there came into being the forces which were to build into their own vessel a duplicate of the mechano-electrical brain which actuated and controlled the structure, almost of planetary proportions, in which Seaton was even then hurtling toward them. Hurtling with a velocity rapidly mounting to a value incalculable; driven by the power liberated by the disintegrating matter of all the suns of all the Galaxies of all the universes of cosmic space!
XXIII.
With all their might of brain and skill of hand and with all the resources of their fifth-order banks of forces, it was no small task for the Norlaminians to build the sixth-order controlling system which their ship must have if they were to traverse universal space in any time short of millenia. But finally it was done.
A towering mechano-electrical brain almost filled the mid-section of their enormous sky rover, the receptors and converters of the free energy of space itself had been installed, and their intra-atomic space-drive, capable of developing an acceleration of only five light-veloci ties, had been replaced by Seaton's newly developed sixth-order cosmic-energy drive which could impart to the ship and its entire contents, without jolt, jar, or strain, any conceivable, almost any calculable, acceleration.
For many days the Norlaminian vessel had been speeding through the void at her frightful maximum of power toward theSkylark of Valeron, which in turn was driving toward our Galaxy at the same mad pace. Braking down now, since only a few thousand light-years of distance separated the hurtling flyers, Seaton materialized his image at the brain control of the smaller cruiser and thought into it for minutes.
"There, we're all set!" In the control room of theSkylarkSeaton laid aside his helmet and wiped the perspiration from his forehead in sheer relief. "The trap is baited and ready to spring—I've been scared to death for a week that they'd tackle us before we were ready for them."
"What difference would it have made?" asked Margaret curiously. "Since we have our sixth-order screens out they couldn't hurt us, could they?"
"No, Peg; but keeping them from hurting us isn't enough—we've got to capture 'em. And they'll have to be almost directly between Rovol's ship and ours to make that capture possible. You see, we'll have to send out from each vessel a hollow hemisphere of force and surround them. If we had only one ship, or if they don't come between our two ships, we can't bottle them up, because they have exactly the same velocity of propagation that our own forces have.
"Also, you can see that our projector can't work direct on more than a hemisphere without cutting its own beams, and that we can't work through relay stations because, fast as relays are, the Intellectuals would get away while the relays were cutting in. Any more questions?"
"Yes; I have one," put in Dorothy. "You told us that this artificial brain of yours could do anything that your own brain could think of, and here you've got it stuck already and have to have two of them. How come?"
"Well, this is a highly exceptional case," Seaton replied. "What I said would be true ordinarily, but now, as I explained to Peg, it's working against something that can think and act just as quickly as it can."
"I know, dear, I was just putting you on the spot a little. What are you using for bait?"
"Thoughts. We're broadcasting them from a point midway between the two vessels. They're keen on investigating any sixth-order impulses they feel, you know—that's why we've kept all our stuff on tight beams heretofore, so that they probably couldn't detect it—so we're sending out a highly peculiar type of thought, that we are pretty sure will bring them in from wherever they are."
"Let me listen to it, just for a minute?" she pleaded.
"W-e-l-l—I don't know." He eyed her dubiously. "Not for a minute—no. Being of a type that not even a pure intellectual can resist, they'd burn out any human brain in mighty short order. Maybe you might for about a tenth of a second, though."
He lowered a helmet over her expectant head and snatched it off again, but that moment had been enough for Dorothy. Her violet eyes widened terribly in an expression commingled of amazedly poignant horror and of dreadfully ecstatic fascination.
Her whole body trembled violently. "Oh, Dick, Dick!" she gasped. "How horrible!"
Her whole body trembled violently. "Oh, Dick, Dick!" she gasped. "How horrible!"
Her whole body trembled violently. "Oh, Dick, Dick!" she gasped. "How horrible!"
"Dick—Dick!" she shrieked; then, recovering slowly: "How horrible—how ghastly—how perfectly, exquisitely damnable! What is it? Why, I actually heard babies begging to be born! And there were men who had died and gone to heaven and hell; there were minds that had lost their bodies and didn't know what to do—were simply shrieking out their agony, despair, and utter, unreasoning terror for the whole universe to hear! And there were joys, pleasures, raptures, so condensed as to be almost as unbearable as the tortures. And there were other things—awful, terrible, utterly indescribable and unimaginable things! Oh, Dick, I was sure that I had gone stark, staring, raving crazy!"
"'Sall right, dear," Seaton reassured his overwrought wife. "All those things are really there, and more. I told you it was bad medicine—that it would tear your brain to pieces if you took much of it."
Seaton paused, weighing in his mind how best to describe the really indescribable signal that was being broadcast by the Brain, then went on, choosing his words with care:
"All the pangs and all the ecstasies, all the thoughts and all the emotions of all evolution of all things, animate and inanimate, are there; of all things that ever have existed from the unknowable beginning of infinite time and of all things that ever shall exist until time's unknowable end. It covers all animate life, from the first stirring of that which was to vitalize the first uni-cell in the slime of the first world ever to come into being in the cosmos, to the last cognition of the ultimately last intelligent entity ever to be.
"Our present humanity was of course included, from before conception, through birth, through all of life, through death, and through the life beyond. It covers inanimate evolution from the ultimate particle and wave, through the birth, life, death, and re-birth of any possible manifestation of energy and of matter, up to and through the ultimate universe.
"Neither Mart nor I could do it all. We carried everything as far as we could, then the Brain went through with it to its logical conclusion, which of course we could not reach. Then the Brain systematized all the data and reduced it to a concentrated essence of pure thought. It is that essence which is being broadcast and which will certainly attract the Intellectuals. In the brief flash you got of it you probably could understand at all only the human part—but maybe it's just as well."
"I'll say it's just as well!" Dorothy emphatically agreed. "I wouldn't listen to that again, even for a millionth of a second, for a million dollars—but I wouldn't have missed it for another million, either. I don't know whether to beg you to listen to it, Peggy, or to implore you not to."
"Don't bother," Margaret replied positively. "Anything that could throw you into such a hysterical tantrum as that did, I don't want any of at all. None at all, in fact, it would be altogether too much for—"
"Got them, folks—all done!" Seaton exclaimed. "You can put on your headsets now."
A signal lamp had flashed brightly and he knew that those two gigantic brains, working in perfect synchronism, had done instantaneously all that they had been set to do.
"Are you dead sure that they got them all, Dick?"
"Absolutely, and they got them in less time than it took the filament of the lamp to heat up. You can bank on it that all seven of them are in the can. I go off half cocked and make mistakes, but those Brains don't—they can't."
Seaton was right. Though far away, even as universal distances go, the Intellectuals had felt that broadcast thought and had shot toward its source at their highest possible speed. For in all their long lives and throughout all their cosmic wanderings they had never encountered thoughts of such wide scope, such clear cogency, such tremendous power.
The discarnate entities approached the amazing pattern of mental force which was radiating so prodigally and addressed it; and in that instant there were shot out curvingly from each of the mechano-electrical brains a gigantic, hemispherical screen.
Developing outwardly from the two vessels as poles with the unimaginable velocity possible only to sixth-order forces, the two cups were barriers impenetrable to any sixth-order force, yet neither affected nor were affected by the gross manifestations which human senses can perceive. Thus Solar Systems, even the neutronium cores of stars, did not hinder their instantaneous development.
Hundreds of light-years in diameter though they were, the open edges of those semiglobes of force met in perfect alignment and fused smoothly, effortlessly, instantaneously together to form a perfect, thought-tight sphere. The violently radiating thought-pattern which had so interested the Intellectuals disappeared, and at the same instant the ultrasensitive organisms of the entities were assailed by the to them deafening and blinding crash and flash of the welding together along its equator of the far-flung hollow globe.
These simultaneous occurrences were the first intimations that everything was not what it appeared, and the disembodied intelligences flashed instantly into furious activity, too late by the smallest possible instant of time. The trap was sprung, the sphere was impervious at its every point, and, unless they could break through that wall, the Intellectuals were incarcerated until Seaton should release his screens.
Within the confines of the globe there were not a few suns and thousands of cubic parsecs of space upon whose stores of energy the Intellectuals could draw. Wherefore they launched a concerted attack upon the wall, hurling against it all the force they could direct. But they were not now contending against the power of any human, organic, finite brain. For Seaton's mind, powerfully composite though it was of the mightiest intellects of the First Galaxy, was only the primary impulse which was being impressed upon the grids and was being amplified to any desirable extent by the almost infinite power of those two cubic miles of coldly emotionless, perfectly efficient, mechano-electrical artificial Brains.
Thus against every frantic effort of the Intellectuals within it the sphere was contracted inexorably, and as it shrank, reducing the volume of space from which the prisoners could draw energy, their struggles became weaker and weaker. When the ball of force was only a few hundred miles in diameter and the two vessels were relatively at rest, Seaton erected auxiliary stations around it and assumed full control.
Rapidly then the prisoning sphere, little larger now than a toy balloon, was brought through the inoson wall of theSkylarkand held motionless in the air above the Brain room. A complex structure of force was built around it, about which in turn there appeared a framework of inoson, supporting sixteen massive bars of uranium.
Seaton took off his helmet and sighed. "There, that'll hold them for a while, I guess."
"What are you going to do with them?" asked Margaret.
"Darned if I know, Peg," he admitted ruefully. "That's been pulling my cork ever since we figured out how to catch them. We can't kill them and I'm afraid to let them go, because they're entirely too hot to handle. So in the meantime, pending the hatching out of a feasible method of getting rid of them permanently, I have simply put them in jail."
"Why, Dick, how positively brutal!" Dorothy exclaimed.
"Yeah? There goes your soft heart again, Red-Top, instead of your hard head. I suppose it would be positively O.K. to let them loose, so that they can dematerialize all four of us? But it isn't as bad as it sounds, because I've got a stasis of time around them. We can leave them in there for seventeen thousand million years and even their intellects won't know it, because for them no time at all shall have lapsed."
"No-o-o—of course we can't let them go scot-free," Dorothy admitted, "but we—I should—well, maybe couldn't you make a bargain with them to give them their liberty if they will go away and let us alone? They're such free spirits, surely they would rather do that than stay bottled up there forever."
"Since they are purely intellectual and hence immortal, I doubt very much if they'll dicker with us at all," Seaton replied. "Time doesn't mean a thing to them, you know; but since you insist I'll check the stasis and talk it over with them."
A tenuous projection, heterodyned upon waves far below the band upon which the captives had their being, crept through the barrier screen and Seaton addressed his thoughts to the entity known as "One."
"Being highly intelligent, you have already perceived that we are vastly more powerful than you are. Living in the flesh possesses many advantages over an immaterial existence. One of these is that it permitted us to pass through the fourth dimension, which you cannot do because your patterns are purely three-dimensional and inextensible. While in hyperspace we learned many things. Particularly we learned much of the really fundamental natures and relationships of time, space, and matter, gaining thereby a basic knowledge of all nature which is greater, we believe, than any that has ever before been possessed by any three-dimensional being.
"Not only can we interchange matter and energy as you do in your materializations and dematerializations, but we can go much farther than you can, working in levels which you cannot reach. For instance, I am projecting myself through this screen, which you cannot do because the carrier wave is far below your lowest attainable level.
"With all my knowledge, however, I admit that I cannot destroy you, since you can shrink as nearly to a mathematical point as I can compress this zone, and its complete coalescence would of course liberate you. Upon the other hand, you realize your helplessness inside that sphere. You can do nothing about it since it cuts off your sources of power.
"I can keep you imprisoned therein as long as I choose. I can set upon it forces which will keep you imprisoned until this two-hundred-kilogram ingot of uranium has dwindled down to a mass of less than one milligram. Knowing that the half-life period of that element is approximately five times ten to the ninth years, you can calculate for yourself the length of time during which you shall remain incarcerated.
"My wife, however, has a purely sentimental objection to confining you thus, and wishes to make an agreement with you whereby we may set you at liberty without endangering our own present existences. We are willing to let you go if you will agree to leave this universe forever. I realize, of course, that you are beyond either sentiment or passion and are possessed of no emotions whatever. Realizing this, I give you a choice, upon purely logical grounds, thus:
"Will you leave us and our universe alone, to work out our own salvation or our own damnation, as the case may be, or shall I leave you inside that sphere of force until its monitor bars are exhausted? Think well before you reply; for, know you, we all prefer to exist for a short time as flesh and blood rather than for all eternity as fleshless and immaterial intelligences. Not only that—we intend so to exist and we shall so exist!"
"We shall make no agreements, no promises," One replied. "Yours is the most powerful mind I have encountered—almost the equal of one of ours—and I shall take it."
"You justthinkyou will!" Seaton blazed. "You don't seem to get the idea at all. I am going to surround you with an absolute stasis of time, so that you will not even be conscious of imprisonment, to say nothing of being able to figure a way out of it, until certain more pressing matters have been taken care of. I shall then work out a method of removing you from this universe in such a fashion and to such a distance that if you should desire to come back here the time required would be, as far as humanity is concerned, infinite. Therefore it must be clear to you that you will not be able to get any of our minds, in any circumstances."
"I had not supposed that a mind of such power as yours could think so muddily," One reproved him. "In fact, you do not so think. You know as well as I do that the time with which you threaten me is but a moment. Your Galaxy is insignificant, your universe is but an ultramicroscopic mote in the cosmic all. We are not interested in them and would have left them before this had I not encountered your brain, the best I have seen in substance. That mind is highly important and that mind I shall have."
"But I have already explained that you can't get it, ever," protested Seaton, exasperated. "I shall be dead long before you get out of that cage."
"More of your purposely but uselessly confused thinking," retorted One. "You know well that your mind shall never perish, nor shall it diminish in vigor throughout all time to come. You have the key to knowledge, which you will hand down through all your generations. Planets, Solar Systems, Galaxies, will come and go, as they have since time first was; but your descendants will be eternal, abandoning planets as they age to take up their abodes upon younger, pleasanter worlds, in other systems and in other Galaxies—perhaps even in other universes.
"And I do not believe that I shall lose as much time as you think. You are bold indeed in assuming that your mind, able as it is, can imprison mine for even the brief period we have been discussing. At any rate, do as you please—we will make neither promises nor agreements."
XXIV.
Immense as the Norlaminian vessel was, getting her inside the planetoid was a simple matter to the Brain. Inside theSkylarka dome bulged up, driving back the air; a circular section of the multilayered wall disappeared; Rovol's space-torpedo floated in; the wall was again intact; the dome vanished; the visitor settled lightly into the embrace of a mighty landing cradle which fitted exactly her slenderly stupendous bulk.
The Osnomian prince was the first to disembark, appearing unarmed; for the first time in his warlike life he had of his own volition laid aside his every weapon.
"Glad to see you, Dick," he said simply, but seizing Seaton's hand in both his own, with a pressure that said far more than his words. "We thought they got you, but you're bigger and better than ever—the worse jams you get into, the stronger you come out."
Seaton shook the hands enthusiastically. "Yeah, 'lucky' is my middle name—I could fall into a vat of glue and climb out covered with talcum powder and smelling like a bouquet of violets. But you've advanced more than I have," glancing significantly at the other's waist, bare now of its wonted assortment of lethal weapons. "You're going good, old son—we're all behind you!"
He turned and greeted the other new-comers in cordial and appropriate fashion, then all went into the control room.
During the long flight from Valeron to the First Galaxy no one paid any attention to course or velocity—a handful of cells in the Brain piloted theSkylarkbetter than any human intelligence could have done it. Each Norlaminian scientist studied rapturously new vistas of his specialty: Orlon the charted Galaxies of the First Universe, Rovol the minutely small particles and waves of the sixth order, Astron the illimitable energies of cosmic radiation, and so on.
Seaton spent day after day with the Brain, computing, calculating, thinking with a clarity and a cogency hitherto impossible, all to one end. What should he do, whatcouldhe do, with those confounded Intellectuals? Crane, Fodan, and Drasnik spent their time in planning the perfect government—planetary, systemic, galactic, universal—for all intelligent races, wherever situated.
Sacner Carfon studied quietly but profoundly with Caslor of Mechanism, adapting many of the new concepts to the needs of his aqueous planet. Dunark and Urvan, their fiery spirits now subdued and strangely awed, devoted themselves as sedulously to the arts and industries of peace as they formerly had to those of war.
Time thus passed quickly, so quickly that, almost before the travelers were aware, the vast planetoid slowed down abruptly to feel her cautious way among the crowded stars of our Galaxy. Though a mere crawl in comparison with her inconceivable intergalactic speed, her present pace was such that the stars sped past in flaming lines of light. Past the double sun, one luminary of which had been the planet of the Fenachrone, she flew; past the Central System; past the Dark Mass, whose awful attraction scarcely affected her cosmic-energy drive—hurtling toward Earth and toward Earth's now hated master, DuQuesne.
DuQuesne had perceived the planetoid long since, and his robot-manned ships rushed out into space to do battle with Seaton's new and peculiar craft. But of battle there was none; Seaton was in no mood to trifle. Far below the level of DuQuesne's screens, the cosmic energies directed by the Brain drove unopposed upon the power bars of the space fleet of Steel and that entire fleet exploded in one space-filling flash of blinding brilliance. Then theSkylark, approaching the defensive screens, halted.
"I know that you're watching me, DuQuesne, and I know what you're thinking about, but you can't do it." Seaton, at the Brain's control, spoke aloud. "You realize, don't you, that if you clamp on a zone of force it'll throw the Earth out of its orbit?"
"Yes; but I'll do it if I have to," came back DuQuesne's cold accents. "I can put it back after I get done with you."
"You don't know it yet, big shot, but you are going to do exactly nothing at all!" Seaton snapped. "You see, I've got a lot of stuff here that you don't know anything about because you haven't had a chance to steal it yet, and I've got you stopped cold. I'm just two jumps ahead of you, all the time. I could hypnotize you right now and make you do anything I say, but I'm not going to—I want you to be wide awake and aware of everything that goes on. Snap on your zone if you want to—I'll see to it that the Earth stays in its orbit. Well, start something, you big, black ape!"
The screens of theSkylarkglowed redly as a beam carrying the full power of DuQuesne's installations was hurled against them—a beam behind which there was the entire massed output of Steel's world-girdling network of superpower stations. But Seaton's screens merely glowed; they did not radiate even under that Titanic thrust. For, as has been said, this newSkylarkwas powered, not by intra-atomic energy, but by the cosmic energy liberated by all the disrupting atoms in all the suns of all the Galaxies of all the universes. Therefore her screens did not radiate; in fact, the furious blasts of DuQuesne's projectors only increased the stream of power being fed to her receptors and converters.
The mighty shields of the planetoid took every force that DuQuesne could send, then Seaton began to compress his zones, leaving open only the narrow band in the fourth order through which the force of gravitation makes itself manifest. Not only did he leave that band open, he so blocked it open that not even DuQuesne's zones of force, full-driven though they were, could close it.
In their closing those zones brought down over all Earth a pall of darkness of an intensity theretofore unknown. It was not the darkness of any possible night, but the appalling, absolute blackness of the utter absence of every visible wave from every heavenly body. As that unrelieved and unheralded blackness descended, millions of Earth's humanity went mad in unspeakable orgies of fright, of violence, and of crime.
But that brief hour of terror, horrible as it was, can be passed over lightly, for it ended forever any hope of world domination by any self-interested man or group, paving the way as it did for the heartiest possible reception of the government of right instead of by might so soon to be given to Earth's peoples by the sages of Norlamin.
Through the barriers both of mighty space ship and of embattled planet Seaton drove his sixth-order projection. Although built to be effective at universal distances the installation was equally efficient at only miles, since its control was purely mental. Therefore Seaton's image, solid and visible, materialized in DuQuesne's inner sanctum—to see DuQuesne standing behind Dorothy's father and mother, a heavy automatic pistol pressed into Mrs. Vaneman's back.
"That'll be all from you, I think," he sneered. "You can't touch me without hurting your beloved parents-in-law and you're too tender-hearted to do that. If you make the slightest move toward me all I've got to do is to touch the trigger. And I shall do that, anyway, right now, if you don't get out of this System and stay out. I am still master of the situation, you see."
"You are master of nothing, you murderous baboon!"
Even before Seaton spoke the first word his projection had acted. DuQuesne was fast, as has been said, but how fast are the fastest of human nervous and muscular reactions when compared with the speed of thought? DuQuesne's retina had not yet registered the fact that Seaton's image had moved when his pistol was hurled aside and he was pinioned by forces as irresistible as the cosmic might from which they sprang.
DuQuesne was snatched into the air of the room—was surrounded by a globe of energy—was jerked out of the building through a welter of crushed and broken masonry and concrete and of flailing, flying structural steel—was whipped through atmosphere, stratosphere, and empty space into the control room of theSkylark of Valeron. The inclosing shell of force disappeared and Seaton hurled aside his controlling helmet, for he knew that his iron self-control was fast giving way. He knew that wave upon wave of passion, of sheer hate, was rising, battering at the very gates of his mind; knew that if he wore that headset one second longer the Brain, actuated by his own uncontrollable thoughts, would passionlessly but mercilessly exert its awful power and blast his foe into nothingness before his eyes.
Thus at long last the two men, physically so like, so unlike mentally, stood face to face; hard gray eyes staring relentlessly into unyielding eyes of midnight black. Seaton was in a towering rage; DuQuesne, cold and self-contained as ever, was calmly alert to seize any possible chance of escape from his present predicament.
"DuQuesne, I'm telling you something," Seaton gritted through clenched teeth. "Prop back your ears and listen. You and I are going out in that projector. You are going to issue 'cease firing' orders to all your stations and tell them that you're all washed up—that a humane government is taking things over."
"Or else?"
"Or else I'll do, here and now, what I've been wanting to do to you ever since you shot up Crane's place that night—I will scatter your component atoms all the way from here to Valeron."
"But, Dick—" Dorothy began to protest.
"Don't butt in, Dot!"
Stern and cold, Seaton's voice was one his wife had never before heard. Never had she seen his face so hard, so bitterly implacable.
"Sympathy is all right in its place," Seaton went on, "but this is the showdown. The time for dealing tenderly with this piece of mechanism in human form is past. He has needed killing for a long time, and unless he toes the mark quick and careful he'll get it, right here and right now.
"And as for you, DuQuesne," turning again to the prisoner, "for your own good I'd advise you to believe that I'm not talking just to make a noise. This isn't a threat, it's a promise—get me?"
"You couldn't do it, Seaton, you're too—" Their eyes were still locked, but into DuQuesne's there had crept a doubt. "Why, I believe youwould!" he exclaimed.
"I'll tell the cockeyed universe I will!" Seaton barked. "Last chance! Yes or no?"
"Yes." DuQuesne knew when to back down. "You win—temporarily at least," he could not help adding.
The projection went out and the required orders were given. Sunlight, moonlight, and starlight again bathed the world in wonted fashion. DuQuesne sat at ease in a cushioned chair, smoking Crane's cigarettes; Seaton stood scowling blackly, hands jammed deep into pockets, addressing the jury of Norlaminians.
"You see what a jam I'm in?" he complained. "I could be arrested for what I think of that bird. He ought to be killed, but I can't do it unless he gives me about half an excuse, and he's darn careful not to do that. So what?"
"The man has a really excellent brain, but it is slightly warped," Drasnik offered. "I do not believe, however, that it is beyond repair. It may well be that a series of mental operations might make of him a worth-while member of society."
"I doubt it." Seaton still scowled. "He'd never be satisfied unless he was all three rings of the circus. Being a big shot isn't enough—he's got to be the whole works, a regular Poo-Bah. He's naturally antisocial—he would always be making trouble and would never fit into a really civilized world. Hehasgot a wonderful brain; but he isn't human—Say, that gives me an idea!" His corrugated brow smoothed magically, his boiling rage was forgotten.
"DuQuesne, how would you like to become a pure intellect? A bodiless intelligence, immaterial and immortal, pursuing pure knowledge and pure power throughout all cosmos and all time, in company with seven other such entities?"
"What are you trying to do, kid me?" DuQuesne sneered. "I don't need any sugar coating on my pills. You are going to take me on a one-way ride—all right, go to it, but don't lie about it!"
"No; I mean it. Remember the one we met in the firstSkylark? Well, we captured him and six others, and it's a very simple matter to dematerialize you so that you can join them. I'll bring them in, so that you can talk to them yourself."
The Intellectuals were brought into the control room, the stasis of time was released, and DuQuesne—via projection—had a long conversation with One.
"That's the life!" he exulted finally. "Better a million times over than any possible life in the flesh—the ideal existence! Think you can do it without killing me, Seaton?"
"Sure I can—I know both the words and the music."
DuQuesne and the caged Intellectuals poised in the air, Seaton threw a zone around cage and man, the inner zone of course disappearing as the outer one went on. DuQuesne's body disappeared—but not so his intellect.
"That was the first really bad mistake you ever made, Seaton," the same sneering, domineering, icily cold DuQuesne informed Seaton's projection in level thought. "It was bad because you can't ever remedy it—youcan'tkill me now! And now Iwillget you—what's to hinder me from doing anything I please?"
"I am, bucko," Seaton informed him cheerfully. "I told you quite a while ago that you'd be surprised at what I could do, and that still goes as it lays. But I'm surprised at your rancor and at the survival of your naughty little passions. What d'you make of it, Drasnik? Is it simply a hangover, or may it be permanent in his case?"
"Not permanent, no," Drasnik decided. "It is only that he has not yet become accustomed to his changed state of being. Such emotions are definitely incompatible with pure mentality and will disappear in a short time."
"Well, I'm not going to let him think even for a minute that I slipped up on his case," Seaton declared. "Listen, you. If I hadn't been dead sure of being able to handle you I would have killed you instead of dematerializing you. And don't get too cocky about my not being able to kill you yet, either, if it comes to that. It shouldn't be impossible to calculate a zone in which there would be no free energy whatever, so that you would starve to death. But don't worry, I'm not going to do it unless I have to."
"Just what do you think youaregoing to do?"
"See that miniature space ship there? I am going to compress you and your new playmates into this spherical capsule and surround you with a stasis of time. Then I am going to send you on a trip. As soon as you are out of the Galaxy this bar here will throw in a cosmic-energy drive—not using the power of the bar itself, you understand, but only employing its normal radiation of energy to direct and to control the energy of space—and you will depart for scenes unknown with an acceleration equal to the sixth power of the velocity of light. You will travel at that acceleration until this small bar is gone. It will last approximately ninety thousand million years, which, as One will assure you, is but a moment.
"Then these large bars, which will still be big enough to do the work, will rotate your capsule into the fourth dimension. This is desirable, not only to give you additional distance, but also to destroy any orientation you may have remaining, in spite of the stasis of time and the not inconsiderable distance already covered. When and if you get back into three-dimensional space you will be so far away from here that you will certainly need most of what is left of eternity to find your way back here." Then, turning to the ancient physicist of Norlamin: "O.K., Rovol?"
"An exceedingly scholarly bit of work," Rovol applauded.
"It is well done, son," majestic Fodan gravely added. "Not only is it a terrible thing indeed to take away a life, but it is certain that the unknowable force is directing these disembodied mentalities in the engraving upon the sphere of a pattern which must forever remain hidden from our more limited senses."
Seaton thought into the headset for a few seconds, then again projected his mind into the capsule.
"All set to go, folks?" he asked. "Don't take it too hard—no matter how many millions of years the trip lasts, you won't know anything about it. Happy landings!"
The tiny space-ship prison shot away, to transport its contained bodiless intelligences into the indescribable immensities of the super-universe; of the cosmic all; of that ultimately infinite space which can be knowable, if at all, only to such immortal and immaterial, to such incomprehensibly gigantic, mentalities as were theirs.
EPILOGUE
The erstwhile overlord and his wife sat upon an ordinary davenport in their own home, facing a fireplace built by human labor, within which nature-grown logs burned cracklingly. Dorothy wriggled luxuriously, fitting her gorgeous auburn head even more snugly into the curve of Seaton's mighty shoulder, her supple body even more closely into the embrace of his brawny arm.
"It's funny, isn't it, lover, the way things turn out? Space ships and ordinary projectors and forces and things are all right, but I'm awfully glad that you turned that horrible Brain over to the Galactic Council in Norlamin and said you'd never build another. Maybe I shouldn't say it, but it's ever so much nicer to have you just a man again, instead of a—well, a kind of a god or something."
"I'm glad of it, too, Dorothy mine—I couldn't hold the pose. When I got so mad at DuQuesne that I had to throw away the headset I realized that I never could get good enough to be trusted with that much dynamite."
"We're both really human, and I'm glad of it. It's funny, too," she went on dreamily, "the way we jumped around and how much we missed. From here across thousands of Solar Systems to Osnome, and from Norlamin across thousands of Galaxies to Valeron. And yet we haven't seen either Mars or Venus, our next-door neighbors, and there are lots of places on Earth, right in our own back yard, that we haven't seen yet, either."
"Well, since we're going to stick around here for a while, maybe we can catch up on our local visitings."
"I'm glad that you are getting reconciled to the idea; because where you go I go, and if I can't go you can't, either, so you'vegotto stay on Earth for a while, because Richard Ballinger Seaton the Second is going to be born right here, and not off in space somewhere!"
"Sure he is, sweetheart. I'm with you, all the way—you're a blinding flash and a deafening report, dear little girl friend, and, as I may have intimated previously, I love you."
"Just as I love you—it's wonderful, isn't it, how supremely happy you and I are? I wish more people could be like us—more of them will be, too, won't they, after this new planetary government has shown them what coöperation can do?"
"They're bound to, dear. It'll take time, of course—racial hates and fears cannot be overcome in a day—but the people of our old Earth are not too dumb to learn."
Auburn head close to brown, they stared into the flickering flames in silence; the wonderfully satisfying silence of perfect comradeship, perfect sympathy, perfect understanding, perfect and perfected love.
For these two the problems of life were few and small.