CHAPTER XI
Into a Sun
As Rovol and Seaton approached the physics laboratory at the beginningof the period of labor, another small airboat occupied by one man drewup beside them and followed them to the ground. The stranger, anotherwhite-bearded ancient, greeted Rovol cordially and was introduced toSeaton as "Caslor, the First of Mechanism."
"Truly, this is a high point in the course of Norlaminian science, myyoung friend," Caslor acknowledged the introduction smilingly. "You haveenabled us to put into practice many things which our ancestors studiedin theory for many a wearisome cycle of time." Turning to Rovol, he wenton: "I understand that you require a particularly precise directionalmechanism? I know well that it must indeed be one of exceeding precisionand delicacy, for the controls you yourself have built are able to holdupon any point, however moving, within the limits of our immediate solarsystem."
"We require controls a million times as delicate as any I haveconstructed," said Rovol, "therefore I have called your surpassing skillinto co-operation. It is senseless for me to attempt a task in which Iwould be doomed to failure. We intend to send out a fifth-orderprojection, something none of our ancestors ever even dreamed of, which,with its inconceivable velocity of propagation, will enable us toexplore any region in the galaxy as quickly as we now visit our closestsister planet. Knowing the dimensions of this, our galaxy, you canreadily understand the exact degree of precision required to hold upon apoint at its outermost edge."
"Truly, a problem worthy of any man's brain," Caslor replied after amoment's thought. "Those small circles," pointing to the forty-foot hourand declination circles which Seaton had thought the ultimate in precisemeasurement of angular magnitudes, "are of course useless. I shall haveto construct large and accurate circles, and in order to produce theslow and fast motions of the required nature, without creep, slip, play,or backlash, I shall require a pure torque, capable of being increasedby infinitesimal increments.... Pure torque."
He thought deeply for a time, then went on: "No gear-train or chainmechanism can be built of sufficient tightness, since in any mechanismthere is some freedom of motion, however slight, and for this purposethe director must have no freedom of motion whatever. We must have apure torque--and the only possible force answering our requirements isthe four hundred sixty-seventh band of the fourth order. I shalltherefore be compelled to develop that band. The director must, ofcourse, have a full equatorial mounting, with circles some two hundredand fifty feet in diameter. Must your projector tube be longer thanthat, for correct design?"
"That length will be ample."
"The mounting must be capable of rotation through the full circle of arcin either plane, and must be driven in precisely the motion required toneutralize the motion of our planet, which, as you know, is somewhatirregular. Additional fast and slow motions must, of course, be providedto rotate the mechanism upon each graduated circle at the will of theoperator. It is my idea to make the outer supporting tube quite large,so that you will have full freedom with your inner, or projector tubeproper. It seems to me that dimensions X37 B42 J867 would perhaps be asgood as any."
"Perfectly satisfactory. You have the apparatus well in mind."
"These things will consume some time. How soon will you require thismechanism?" asked Caslor.
"We also have much to do. Two periods of labor, let us say: or, if yourequire them, three."
"It is well. Two periods will be ample time: I was afraid that you mightneed it today, and the work cannot be accomplished in one period oflabor. The mounting will, of course, be prepared in the Area ofExperiment. Farewell."
"You aren't going to build the final projector here, then?" Seaton askedas Caslor's flier disappeared.
"We shall build it here, then transport it to the Area, where itsdirigible housing will be ready to receive it. All mechanisms of thattype are set up there. Not only is the location convenient to allinterested, but there are to be found all necessary tools, equipment andmaterial. Also, and not least important for such long-range work as wecontemplate, the entire Area of Experiment is anchored immovably to thesolid crust of the planet, so that there can be not even the slightestvibration to affect the direction of our beams of force, which must, ofcourse, be very long."
He closed the master switches of his power-plants and the two resumedwork where they had left off. The control panel was soon finished. Rovolthen plated an immense cylinder of copper and placed it in thepower-plant. He next set up an entirely new system of refractoryrelief-points and installed additional ground-rods, sealed through thefloor and extending deep into the ground below, explaining as he worked.
"You see, son, we must lose one one-thousandth of one per cent of ourtotal energy, and provision must be made for its dissipation in order toavoid destruction of the laboratory. These air-gap resistances are thesimplest means of disposing of the wasted power."
"I get you--but say, how about disposing of it when we get the thing ina ship out in space? We picked up pretty heavy charges in the_Skylark_--so heavy that I had to hold up several times in the ionizedlayer of an atmosphere while they faded--and this outfit will burn uptons of copper where the old ones used ounces."
"In the projected space-vessel we shall install converters to utilizeall the energy, so that there will be no loss whatever. Since suchconverters must be designed and built especially for each installation,and since they require a high degree of precision, it is not worth whileto construct them for a purely temporary mechanism, such as this one."
* * * * *
The walls of the laboratory were opened, ventilating blowers were built,and refrigerating coils were set up everywhere, even in the tubularstructure and behind the visiplates. After assuring themselves thateverything combustible had been removed, the two scientists put on undertheir helmets, goggles whose protecting lenses could be built up to anydesired thickness. Rovol then threw a switch, and a hemisphere offlaming golden radiance surrounded the laboratory and extended for milesupon all sides.
"I get most of the stuff you've pulled so far, but why such a light?"asked Seaton.
"As a warning. This entire area will be filled with dangerousfrequencies, and that light is a warning for all uninsulated persons togive our theater of operations a wide berth."
"I see. What next?"
"All that remains to be done is to take our lens-material and go,"replied Rovol, as he took from a cupboard the largest faidon that Seatonhad ever seen.
"Oh, that's what you're going to use! You know, I've been wonderingabout that stuff. I took one back with me to the Earth to experiment on.I gave it everything I could think of and couldn't touch it. I couldn'teven make it change its temperature. What is it, anyway?"
"It is not matter at all, in the ordinary sense of the word. It isalmost pure crystallized energy. You have, of course, noticed that itlooks transparent, but that it is not. You cannot see into its substancea millionth of a micron--the illusion of transparency being purely asurface phenomenon, and peculiar to this one form of substance. I havetold you that the ether is a fourth-order substance--this also is afourth-order substance, but it is crystalline, whereas the ether isprobably fluid and amorphous. You might call this faidon crystallizedether without being far wrong."
"But it should weigh tons, and it is hardly heavier than air--or no,wait a minute. Gravitation is also a fourth-order phenomenon, so itmight not weigh anything at all--but it would have terrific mass--orwould it, not having protons? Crystallized ether would displace fluidether, so it might--I'll give up! It's too deep for me!" said Seaton.
"Its theory is abstruse, and I cannot explain it to you any more fullythan I have, until after we have given you a knowledge of the fourth andfifth orders. Pure fourth-order material would be without weight andwithout mass; but these crystals as they are found are not absolutelypure. In crystallizing from the magma, they entrapped sufficient numbersof particles of the higher orders to give them the characteristics whichyou have observed. Th
e impurities, however, are not sufficient inquantity to offer a point of attack to any ordinary reagent."
"But how could such material possibly be formed?"
"It could be formed only in some such gigantic cosmic body as this, ourgreen system, formed incalculable ages ago, when all the mass comprisingit existed as one colossal sun. Picture for yourself the condition inthe center of that sun. It has attained the theoretical maximum oftemperature--some seventy million of your centigrade degrees--theelectrons have been stripped from the protons until the entire centralcore is one solid ball of neutronium and can be compressed no morewithout destruction of the protons themselves. Still the pressureincreases. The temperature, already at the theoretical maximum, can nolonger increase. What happens?"
"Disruption."
"Precisely. And just at the instant of disruption, during the veryinstant of generation of the frightful forces that are to hurl suns,planets and satellites millions of miles out into space--in that instantof time, as a result of those unimaginable temperatures and pressures,the faidon comes into being. It can be formed only by the absolutemaximum of temperature and at a pressure which can exist onlymomentarily, even in the largest conceivable masses."
"Then how can you make a lens of it? It must be impossible to work it inany way."
"It cannot be worked in any ordinary way, but we shall take this crystalinto the depths of that white dwarf star, into a region in which obtainpressures and temperatures only less than those giving it birth. Therewe shall play forces upon it which, under those conditions, will be ableto work it quite readily."
"Hm--m--m. I want to see that! Let's go!"
They seated themselves at the panels, and Rovol began to manipulatekeys, levers and dials. Instantly a complex structure of visibleforce--rods, beams and flat areas of flaming scarlet energy--appeared atthe end of the tubular, telescope-like network.
"Why red?"
"Merely to render them visible. One cannot work well with invisibletools, hence I have imposed a colored light frequency upon the invisiblefrequencies of the forces. We will have an assortment of colors if youprefer," and as he spoke each ray assumed a different color, so that theend of the projector was almost lost beneath a riot of color.
The structure of force, which Seaton knew was the secondary projector,swung around as if sentient, and a lurid green ray extended itself,picked up the faidon, and lengthened out, hurling the jewel a thousandyards out through the open side of the laboratory. Rovol moved morecontrols and the structure again righted itself, swinging back intoperfect alignment with the tube and carrying the faidon upon itsextremity, a thousand yards beyond the roof of the laboratory.
"We are now ready to start our projection. Be sure your suit and gogglesare perfectly tight. We must see what we are doing, so the light-raysmust be heterodyned upon our carrier wave. Therefore the laboratory andall its neighborhood will be flooded with dangerous frequencies from thesun we are to visit, as well as with those from our own generators."
"O. K., chief! All tight here. You say it's ten light-years to thatstar. How long's it going to take us to get there?"
"About ten minutes. We could travel that far in less than ten secondsbut for the fact that we must take the faidon with us. Slight as is itsmass, it will require much energy in its acceleration. Our projections,of course, have no mass, and will require only the energy ofpropagation."
_Looking into the visiplate, he was out in space inperson, hurtling through space at a pace, beside which the best effortof the Skylark seemed the veriest crawl._]
Rovol flicked a finger, a massive pair of plunger switches shot intotheir sockets, and Seaton, seated at his board and staring into hisvisiplate, was astounded to find that he apparently possessed a dualpersonality. He _knew_ that he was seated motionless in the operator'schair in the base of the rigidly anchored primary projector, and bytaking his eyes away from the visiplate before him, he could see thatnothing in the laboratory had changed, except that the pyrotechnicdisplay from the power-bar was of unusual intensity. Yet, looking intothe visiplate, he was out in space _in person_, hurtling through spaceat a pace beside which the best effort of the _Skylark_ seemed theveriest crawl. Swinging his controls to look backward, he gasped as hesaw, so stupendous was their velocity, that the green system was onlybarely discernible as a faint green star!
* * * * *
Again looking forward, it seemed as though a fierce white star hadseparated from the immovable firmament and was now so close to thestructure of force in which he was riding that it was already showing adisk perceptible to the unaided eye. A few moments more and theviolet-white splendor became so intense that the watchers began to buildup, layer by layer, the protective goggles before their eyes. As theyapproached still closer, falling with their unthinkable velocity intothat incandescent inferno, a sight was revealed to their eyes such asman had never before been privileged to gaze upon. They were fallinginto a white dwarf star, could see everything visible during such anunheard-of journey, and would live to remember what they had seen! Theysaw the magnificent spectacle of solar prominences shooting hundreds ofthousands of miles into space, and directly in their path they saw animmense sunspot, a combined volcanic eruption and cyclonic storm in agaseous-liquid medium of blinding incandescence.
"Better dodge that spot, hadn't we, ace? Mightn't it be generatinginterfering fourth-order frequencies?" cried Seaton.
"It is undoubtedly generating fourth-order rays, but nothing caninterfere with us, since we are controlling every component of our beamfrom Norlamin."
Seaton gripped his hand-rail violently and involuntarily drew himselftogether into the smallest possible compass as, with their awful speedunchecked, they plunged through that flaming, incandescent photosphereand on, straight down, into the unexplored, unimaginable interior ofthat frightful and searing orb. Through the protecting goggles, now afull four inches of that peculiar, golden, shielding metal, Seaton couldsee the structure of force in which he was, and could also see thefaidon--in outline, as transparent diamonds are visible in equallytransparent water. Their apparent motion slowed rapidly and the materialabout them thickened and became more and more opaque. The faidon drewback toward them until it was actually touching the projector, and eddycurrents and striae became visible in the mass about them as theirprogress grew slower and slower.
"'Smatter? Something gone screwy?" demanded Seaton.
"Not at all, everything is working perfectly. The substance is now sodense that it is becoming opaque to rays of the fourth order, so that weare now partially displacing the medium instead of moving through itwithout friction. At the point where we can barely see to work; that is,when the fourth-order rays will be so retarded that they can no longercarry the heterodyned light waves without complete distortion, we shallstop automatically, as the material at that depth will have the requireddensity to refract the fifth-order rays to the correct degree."
"How can our foundations stand it?" asked Seaton. "This stuff must be ahundred times as dense as platinum already, and we must he pushing ahorrible load in going through it."
"We are exerting no force whatever upon our foundations nor uponNorlamin. The force is transmitted without loss from the power-plant inour laboratory to this secondary projector here inside the star, whereit is liberated in the correct band to pull us through the mass, usingall the mass ahead of us as anchorage. When we wish to return, we shallsimply change the pull into a push. Ah! we are now at a standstill--nowcomes the most important moment of the entire project!"
All apparent motion had ceased, and Seaton could see only dimly theoutlines of the faidon, now directly before his eyes. The structure offorce slowly warped around until its front portion held the faidon as ina vise. Rovol pressed a lever and behind them, in the laboratory, fourenormous plunger switches drove home. A plane of pure energy, flamingradiantly even in the indescribable incandescence of the core of thatseething star, bisected the faidon neatly, and ten gigantic beams, fiveupon each ha
lf of the jewel, rapidly molded two sections of ageometrically-perfect hollow lens. The two sections were then broughttogether by the closing of the jaws of the mighty vise, their edges inexact alignment. Instantly the plane and the beams of energy becametransformed into two terrific opposing tubes of force--vibrant, glowingtubes, whose edges in contact coincided with the almost invisible seambetween the two halves of the lens.
Like a welding arc raised to the _nth_ power these two immeasurable andirresistible forces met exactly in opposition--a meeting of suchincredible violence that seismic disturbances occurred throughout theentire mass of that dense, violet-white star. Sunspots of unprecedentedsize appeared, prominences erupted to hundreds of times their normaldistances, and although the two scientists deep in the core of thetormented star were unaware of what was happening upon its surface,convulsion after Titanic convulsion wracked the mighty globe, andenormous masses of molten and gaseous material were riven from it andhurled far out into space--masses which would in time become planets ofthat youthful and turbulent luminary.
Seaton felt his air-supply grow hot. Suddenly it became icy cold, andknowing that Rovol had energized the refrigerator system, Seaton turnedaway from the fascinating welding operation for a quick look around thelaboratory. As he did so, he realized Rovol's vast knowledge andunderstood the reason for the new system of relief-points andground-rods, as well as the necessity for the all-embracing scheme ofrefrigeration.
Even through the practically opaque goggles he could see that thelaboratory was one mass of genuine lightning. Not only from therelief-points, but from every metallic corner and protuberance thepent-up losses from the disintegrating bar were hurling themselves uponthe flaring, blue-white, rapidly-volatilizing ground-rods; and the veryair of the room, renewed second by second though it was by the powerfulblowers, was beginning to take on the pearly luster of thehighly-ionized corona. The bar was plainly visible, a scintillatingdemon of pure violet radiance, and a momentary spasm of fear seized himas he saw how rapidly that great mass of copper was shrinking--fear thattheir power would be exhausted with their task still uncompleted.
But the calculations of the aged physicist had been accurate. The lenswas completed with some hundreds of pounds of copper to spare, and thatgeometrical form, with its precious content of semi-neutronium, wasfollowing the secondary projector back toward the green system. Rovolleft his seat, discarded his armor, and signaled Seaton to do the same.
"I've got to hand it to you, ace--you sure are a blinding flash and adeafening report!" Seaton exclaimed, writhing out of his insulatingsuit. "I feel as though I'd been pulled half-way through a knot-hole andriveted over on both ends! How big a lens did you make, anyway? Lookedas though it would hold a couple of liters; maybe three."
"Its contents are almost exactly three liters."
"Hm--m--m. Seven and a half million kilograms--say eight thousand tons._Some_ mass, I'd say, to put into a gallon jug. Of course, being insidethe faidon, it won't have any weight, but it'll have all its full quotaof inertia. That's why you're taking so long to bring it in, of course."
"Yes. The projector will now bring it here into the laboratory withoutany further attention from us. The period of labor is about to end, andtomorrow we shall find the lens awaiting us when we arrive to beginwork."
"How about cooling it off? It had a temperature of something like fortymillion degree centigrade before you started working on it; and when yougot done with it, it was hot."
"You're forgetting again, son. Remember that the hot, dense material isentirely enclosed in an envelope impervious to all vibrations longerthan those of the fifth order. You could put your hand upon it now,without receiving any sensation either of heat, or of cold."
"Yeah, that's right, too. I noticed that I could take a faidon right outof an electric arc and it wouldn't even be warm. I couldn't explain whyit was, but I see now. So that stuff inside that lens will always stayas hot as it is right now! Zowie! Here's hoping she never explodes!Well, there's the bell--for once in my life, I'm all ready to quit whenthe whistle blows," and arm in arm the young Terrestrial chemist and theaged Norlaminian physicist strolled out to their waiting airboat.