Chapter IV
THE FIRST MOVE
The Ortolians were standing on a low, green-clad hill. Below themstretched the green flank of the little rise, and beyond lay ridge afterridge of the broad, smooth carpet of the beautiful Vermont hills.
"Man of Earth," said Zezdon Afthen, turning at last to Wade, who stoodbehind him. "It took us three months of constant flight at a speedunthinkable, through space dotted with the titanic gems of the OuterDark, stars gleaming in red, and blue and orange, some titaniclighthouses of our course, others dim pinpoints of glowing color. It wasa scene of unspeakable grandeur, but it was so awesomely mighty in itsscope, one was afraid, and his soul shriveled within him as he looked atthose inconceivable masses floating forever alone in the silence of theinconceivable nothingness of eternal cold and eternal darkness. One wasawed, suppressed by their sheer magnitude. A magnificent spectacletruly, but one no man could love.
"Now we are at rest on a tiny pinpoint of dust in a tiny bit of a tinycorner of an isolated universe, and the magnitude and stillness is gone.Only the chirpings of those strange birds as they seek rest in darkness,the soft gurgling of the little stream below, and the rustle ofcountless leaves, break the silence with a satisfying existence, whilethe loneliness of that great star, your sun, is lost in its tintings ofsoft color, the fleeciness of the clouds, and the seeming companionshipof green hills.
"The beauty of boundless space is awe-inspiring in its magnitude. Thebeauty of Earth is something man can love.
"Man of Earth, you have a home that you may well fight for with all thestrength of your arms, all the forces of your brain, and all theenergies of Space that you can call forth to aid you. It is a wondrousworld." Silently he stood in the gathering dusk, as first Venus winkedinto being, then one by one the stars came into existence in thedeepening color of the sky.
"Space is awesomely wonderful; this is--lovable." He gazed long at theheavens of this world so strange, so beautiful to him, looking at theunfamiliar heavens, as star after star flashed into the constellationsso familiar to terrestrians and to those Venerians who had been abovethe clouds of Venus' eternal shroud.
"But somewhere off there in space are other races, and far beyond thepower of our eyes to see is the star that is the sun of my world, andaround it circles that little globe that is home to me. What ishappening there now? Does it still exist? Are there people still livingon it? Oh, Man of Earth, let us reach that world quickly, you cannotguess the pangs that attack me, for if it be destroyed, think--forever Iam without home--without friends I knew. However kind your people may beto me, I would be forever lonely.
"I will not think of that--only it is time your ship was ready, is itnot?"
"I think we had better return," replied Wade softly, his English wordsrousing thoughts in his mind intelligible to the Ortolians.
The three rose in the air on the molecular suits and drove quickly downtoward the blue gem of the lake to the east, nestled among still othergreen hills. Lights were showing in the great shop, where the _AncientMariner_ was being fitted with the ray-shields, and all possibleweapons. Men streaming through her were hastily stocking her with vastquantities of foods, stocks of fuel, all the spare parts they could craminto her stock rooms.
When the men arrived from the hilltop, the work was practically done,and Wade stepped up to Morey, busily checking off a list of requireditems.
"Everything you ordered came through?" he asked.
"Yes--thanks to the pull of a two-billion dollar private fortune. Whosays credit-units don't have their value? This expedition never wouldhave gotten through, if it hadn't been for that.
"But we have the main space distortion power bank, and the new auxiliarycoils full. Ten tons of lead aboard for fuel. There's one thing we areafraid of. If the enemy have a system of tubes that is able to handlemore power than our last tube--we're sunk. These brilliant people thatsuggest using more tubes to a ray-power bank forget the last tube has tohandle the entire output of all the others, and modulate it correctly.If the enemy has a better tube--it will be too bad for us." Morey wasfrankly worried.
"My end is all set, Morey. How soon will you be ready?" Arcot asked.
"'Bout ten-fifteen minutes." Morey lit a cigarette and watched as thelast of the stuff was carried aboard.
At last they were ready. The _Ancient Mariner_, originally built forintergalactic exploration, was kept in working condition. New apparatushad been incorporated in it, as their research had led to improvements,and it was constantly in condition, ready for a trip. Many explorationtrips to the nearer stars had already been made.
The ship was backed out from the hangar now, and rested on the greatsmooth landing field, its tremendous quarter million ton mass of lux andrelux sinking a great, smooth depression in the turf of the field. Theywere waiting now for the arrival of the Ortolian ship. Zezdon Afthenassured them it would be there in a few minutes.
High in the sky, came the whining whistle of an approaching ship, comingat terrific velocity. It came nearer the field, darting toward theground at an unheard of speed, flashing down at a speed of well overthree thousand miles an hour, and, only in the last fifty feet slowedwith a sickening deceleration. Even so it landed with a crash of fullytwo hundred miles of speed. Arcot gasped at the terrible landing thepilot had made, fully expecting to see the great hull dent somewhat,even though made of solid relux. And certainly the jar would kill everyman on board. Yet the hull did not seem harmed by the crash, and eventhe ground under the ship was but slightly disturbed, though, at adistance of some thirty feet, the entire block of soil was crushed, andcracked by the terrific impact of hundreds of thousands of tons strikingwith terrific energy.
"Lord, it's a wonder they didn't kill themselves. I never saw such arotten landing," exclaimed Morey with disgust.
"Don't be too sure. I think they landed gently, and at very low speed.Notice how little the soil directly under them was dented?" repliedArcot, walking forward. "They have time control, as I suspected. Askthem. They drifted in gently. Their time rate was speeded uptremendously, so that what was hundreds of miles per hour to us was feetper minute to them. But come on, get the handlers to bring that junk upto the door--they are coming out."
One of the tall, kindly-faced canine people was standing in the doorwaynow, the white light streaming out around him into the night, casting agrotesque shadow on the landing field, for all the flood lights bathingin it.
Zezdon Afthen came up and spoke quickly to the man evidently in commandof the ship. The entire party went into the ship, and the cream of theirlaboratory instruments was brought in.
For hours Arcot, Morey and Wade worked at the apparatus in the ship,measuring, calculating, following electrical and magnetic and sheerforce hook-ups of staggering complexity. They were not trying to findthe exact method of construction, only the principles involved, so thatthey could perform calculations of their own, and duplicate the resultsof the enemy. Thus they would be far more thoroughly familiar with themachinery when done.
Little attention was paid to the actual driving plant, for it was amolecular drive with the same type of lead-fuel burner they used intheir own ship. The tubes of the power bank were, however, a puzzle tothem. They were made of relux, so that it was impossible to see theinterior of the tube. To open one was to destroy it, but calculationsmade from readings of their instruments showed that they were moreefficient, and could readily carry nearly half again the load that thebest terrestrian tubes could sustain. This meant the enemy could sendheavier rays and heavier ray screens.
But finally they returned to the _Ancient Mariner_, and as the Ortolianship whined its way out to space, the _Ancient Mariner_ started, risingfaster and faster through the atmosphere till it was in the night ofspace. Then the molecular power was shut off. The ship suddenly seemedto writhe, space was black and starless about them, then sparklingweirdly distorted stars, all before them. They were moving already.Almost before the Ortolians fully realized what was happening, a dozenstars had swung pa
st the ship, driving on now at better than five lightyears in every second. At this speed, approximately fourteen hours wouldbe needed to reach Ortol.
"Now, Arcot, perhaps you will explain to me the secret of this ship,"said Zezdon Afthen at last, turning from the great lux pilot's window,to Arcot seated in the pilot's chair. "I know that only the broadestprinciples will be intelligible to me, for I could not understand thatship we captured, after almost four months of study. Yet it creptthrough space compared with this ship. Certainly no ship couldoutdistance this in a race!"
"As a matter of fact--watch!" Arcot pushed a little metal button along aslide to the extreme end. Again the ship seemed to writhe. Space was nolonger black, but faintly gray, and beside them, on either side, floatedtwo exact replicas of their ship! Zezdon Afthen stared. But in anothermoment, both were gone, and space was black, yet in but a few moments agrayness was showing, and light was appearing from all about, growinggradually in intensity. For three seconds Arcot continued thus, then hepulled the metal button down the slide, and flicked over another that hehad pulled to cause the second change. The stars were again before them,their colors changed beyond all recognition at that speed. But theorientation of the stars behind them had been familiar. Now an entirelydifferent set of constellation showed.
"I merely opened the ship out to her maximum speed for a moment. I wasable to see any large star 2000 light years in our path, and there werenone. Small stars do not bother us as I will explain. When I put on fullpower of the main power coils, I drove the ship up to a speed of 30light years a second. When I turned in the full power of the auxiliarycoils as well I doubled the power, and the speed was multiplied byeight. The result was that in the four seconds of racing, we madeapproximately 1000 light years!"
Zezdon Afthen gasped. "Two hundred and forty light years _per second_"!He paused in bewilderment. "Suppose we had struck a small sun, a darkstar, even a meteor at that speed? What would have been the result?"
Arcot smiled. "The chances are excellent that we plowed through morethan one meteor, more than one dark star, and more than one small sun.
"But this is the secret: the ship attains the speed only by going out ofspace. _Nothing in space can attain the speed of light, save radiation._Nothing in normal space. But, we alter space, make space along patternswe choose, and so distort it that the natural speed of radiation isenormously greater. In fact, we so change space that nothing can go_slower_ than a speed we fix.
"Morey--show Afthen the coils, and explain it all to him. I've got tostay here."
Morey rose, and diving through the weightless ship, went down to thepower room, Zezdon Afthen following. Here, giant pots five feet highwere in close packed rows. The "pots" contained specially designed coilsstoring tremendous energy, the energy of four tons of disintegratedlead, in the only form that energy may be stored, as a strain, ordistortion in space. These charged coils distorted only the space withinthemselves, making a closed field entirely within themselves. But in theexact gravitational center of the quarter of a million ton ship was asingle high coil of different design that distorted space around it aswell as the space within it. This, as Morey explained, was the controlthat altered the constants of space to suit. The coils were charged, andthe energy stored. Their energy could be pumped into the big coil, andthen, when the ship slowed to normal space, could be pumped back tothem. The pumping energy, as well as any further energy needed forrecharging the coils could be supplied by three huge power generators.
"These energy-producers," Morey explained, "work on a principle knownfor hundreds of years on Earth. Lead, when reduced to a temperatureapproaching absolute zero as closely as, for instance, liquid helium,has _no_ electrical resistance. In other words, no matter how great acurrent is sent through it, there is no resistance, and no heat isproduced to raise the temperature. What we do is to send a powerfulcurrent through a lead wire. The wire has a current density so huge thatthe atoms are destroyed, and the protons and electrons coalesce intopure radiant energy. Relux, under the influence of a magnetic field,converts this directly into electrical potential. Electricity we canconvert to the spatial strain in the power coils, and thus the ship isdriven." Morey pointed out the huge molecular power cylinder overhead,where the main power drive was located in the inertial center of theship, or as near as the great space coil would permit.
The smaller power units for vertical lift, and for steering, were in theside walls, hidden under heavy walls of relux.
"The projectors for throwing molecular and heat rays are on the outsideof course. Both of these projectors are protected. The walls of the shipare made of an outer wall of heavy lux metal, a vacuum between, and aninner wall of heavy relux. The lux is stronger than relux, and istherefore used for an outer shell. The inner shell of relux will reflectany dangerous rays and serve to hold the heat in the ship, since aperfect reflector is a perfect non-radiator. The vacuum wall is toprotect the occupants of the ship against any undue heat. If we shouldget within the atmosphere of a sun, it would be disastrous if thephysical conduction of heat were permitted, for though the relux willturn out any radiated heat, it is a conductor of heat, and we wouldroast almost instantly. These artificial metals are both absolutelyinfusible and non-volatile. The ship has actually been in the limb of astar tremendously hotter than your sun or mine.
"Now you see why it is we need not fear a collision with a small sun,meteor or such like. Since we are in our own, artificial space, we arealone, and there is nothing in space to run into. But, if we enter ahuge sun, the terrific gravitational field of the mass of matter wouldbe enough to pull the energy of our coil away from us. That actuallyhappened the time we made our first intergalactic exploration. But it isalmost impossible to fall into a large star--they are too brilliant. Wewon't be worrying about it," grinned Morey.
"But how did the ship we captured operate?" asked Zezdon Afthen.
"It was a very ingenious system, very closely related to ours, really.
"We distort space and change the velocity characteristics; in otherwords, we distort the rate of motion through distance characteristics ofnormal space. The Thessian ships work on the principle of distorting therate of progress through time instead of through space.
"_Velocity_ is really 'units of travel through space per unit of travelthrough time.' Now if we make the time unit twice as great, and theunits traveled through space are not changed, the _velocity_ is twice asgreat. That is, if we are moving five light years per second, make thesecond twice as long and we are moving ten light years perdouble-second. Make it ten thousand times as long, and we are travelingfifty thousand light years per ten-thousand-seconds. This is theprinciple--but there is a drawback. We might increase the velocity byslowing time passage, that is, if it takes me a year for one heartbeat,two years to raise my arm thus, and six months to turn, my head, if allmy body processes are slowed down in this way, I will be able to live atremendous length of time, and though it takes me two hundred years togo from one star to another, so low is my time rate that the two hundredyears will seem but a few minutes. I can then make a trip to a distantstar--one five light years distant, let us say, in three minutes to me.I then will say, looking at my chronometer (which has been similarlyslowed) 'I have gone five light years in three minutes, or five thirdslight years per minute. I have exceeded the speed of light.'
"But people back on Earth would say, he has taken two hundred years togo five light years, therefore he has gone at a speed one fortieth ofthat of light, which would be true--for their time rate.
"But suppose I can also speed up time. That is, I can live a year in aminute or two. Then everyone else will be exceedingly slow. The idealthing would be to combine these two effects, arranging that space aboutyour ship will have a very rapid time rate, ten thousand times that ofnormal space. Then the speed of radiation through that space will be1,860,000,000 miles per second, and a speed of 1,000,000,000 miles persecond would be possible, but still you, too, will be affected, so thatthough the people back home will say
you are going far faster thanlight, you will say 'No, I am going only 100,000 miles per second.'
"But now imagine that your ship and surrounding space for one mile is ata time rate 10,000 times normal, and you, in a space of one hundred feetwithin your ship, are affected by a time rate 1/10,000 that, or normal,due to a second, reversing field. The two fields will not fight, or bemutually antagonistic; they will merely compound their effects. Result:you will agree that you are exceeding the speed of light!
"Do you understand? That is the principle on which your ship operated.There were two time-fields, overlapping time-fields. Remember theterrible speed with which your ship landed, and yet there was noappreciable jar according to the men? The answer of course was, thattheir time rate had been speeded enough, due to the fact that one fieldhad been completely shut off, the other had not.
"That is the principle. The system is so complex, naturally, that wehave not yet learned the actual method of working the process. We mustdo a great deal of mathematical and physical research.
"Wish we had it done--we could use it now," mused the terrestrian.
"We have some other weapons, none as important, of course, as themolecular ray and the heat ray. Or none that have been. But, if theenemy have ray shields, then perhaps these others also will beimportant. There are molecular motion guns, metal tubes, with moleculardirector apparatus at one end. A metal shell is pulling the power turnedon, and the shell leaps out at a speed of about ten miles persecond--since it has been super-heated--and is very accurately aimed, asthere is no terrific shock of recoil to be taken up by the gun.
"But a more effective weapon, if these men are as I expect them to be,will be a peculiarly effective magnetic field concentrator device, whichwill project a magnetic field as a beam for a mile or more. How usefulit will be--I don't know. We don't know what the enemy will turn against_us_!"