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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ultimate Weapon, by John Wood Campbell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Ultimate Weapon
+
+Author: John Wood Campbell
+
+Illustrator: Gerald McConnell
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2007 [EBook #23790]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ULTIMATE WEAPON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ [Cover Illustration:
+ JOHN W. CAMPBELL
+ THE ULTIMATE WEAPON
+
+ When star fights star,
+ is chaos the best defense?]
+
+
+
+
+RED SUN RISING
+
+
+The star Mira was unpredictably variable. Sometimes it was blazing,
+brilliant and hot. Other times it was oddly dim, cool, shedding little
+warmth on its many planets. Gresth Gkae, leader of the Mirans, was
+seeking a better star, one to which his "people" could migrate. That
+star had to be steady, reliable, with a good planetary system. And in
+his astronomical searching, he found Sol.
+
+With hundreds of ships, each larger than whole Terrestrial spaceports,
+and traveling faster than the speed of light, the Mirans set out to move
+in to Solar regions and take over.
+
+And on Earth there was nothing which would be capable of beating off
+this incredible armada--until Buck Kendall stumbled upon THE ULTIMATE
+WEAPON.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN W. CAMPBELL first started writing in 1930 when his first short
+story, _When the Atoms Failed_, was accepted by a science-fiction
+magazine. At that time he was twenty years old and still a student at
+college. As the title of the story indicates, he was even at that time
+occupied with the significance of atomic energy and nuclear physics.
+
+For the next seven years, Campbell, bolstered by a scientific background
+that ran from childhood experiments, to study at Duke University and the
+Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote and sold science-fiction,
+achieving for himself an enviable reputation in the field.
+
+In 1937 he became the editor of _Astounding Stories_ magazine and
+applied himself at once to the task of bettering the magazine and the
+field of s-f writing in general. His influence on science-fiction since
+then has been great. Today he still remains as the editor of that
+magazine's evolved and redesigned successor, _Analog_.
+
+
+
+
+            _THE
+          ULTIMATE
+           WEAPON_
+
+
+             by
+      JOHN W. CAMPBELL
+
+
+
+       ACE BOOKS, INC.
+ 1120 Avenue of the Americas
+    New York, N.Y. 10036
+
+
+
+
+THE ULTIMATE WEAPON
+
+Copyright, 1936, by John W. Campbell
+
+Originally published as a serial in _Amazing Stories_ under the title of
+_Uncertainty_.
+
+All Rights Reserved
+
+
+_Cover by Gerald McConnell_
+
+
+Printed in U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+    typographical errors have been corrected without note. Subscript
+    characters are shown within {braces}. The mathematical symbol pi is
+    shown as [pi].
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I
+
+
+Patrol Cruiser "IP-T 247" circling out toward Pluto on leisurely
+inspection tour to visit the outpost miners there, was in no hurry at
+all as she loafed along. Her six-man crew was taking it very easy, and
+easy meant two-man watches, and low speed, to watch for the instrument
+panel and attend ship into the bargain.
+
+She was about thirty million miles off Pluto, just beginning to get in
+touch with some of the larger mining stations out there, when Buck
+Kendall's turn at the controls came along. Buck Kendall was one of
+life's little jokes. When Nature made him, she was absentminded. Buck
+stood six feet two in his stocking feet, with his usual slight stoop in
+operation. When he forgot, and stood up straight, he loomed about two
+inches higher. He had the body and muscles of a dock navvy, which Nature
+started out to make. Then she forgot and added something of the same
+stuff she put in Sir Francis Drake. Maybe that made Old Nature nervous,
+and she started adding different things. At any rate, Kendall, as
+finally turned out, had a brain that put him in the first rank of
+scientists--when he felt like it--the general constitution of an ostrich
+and a flair for gambling.
+
+The present position was due to such a gamble. An IP man, a friend of
+his, had made the mistake of betting him a thousand dollars he wouldn't
+get beyond a Captain's bars in the Patrol. Kendall had liked the idea
+anyway, and adding a bit of a bet to it made it irresistible. So, being
+a very particular kind of a fool, the glorious kind which old Nature
+turns out now and then, he left a five million dollar estate on Long
+Island, Terra, that same evening, and joined up in the Patrol. The Sir
+Francis Drake strain had immediately come forth--and Kendall was having
+the time of his life. In a six-man cruiser, his real work in the
+Interplanetary Patrol had started. He was still in it--but it was his
+command now, and a blue circle on his left sleeve gave his lieutenant's
+rank.
+
+Buck Kendall had immediately proceeded to enlist in his command the IP
+man who had made the mistaken bet, and Rad Cole was on duty with him
+now. Cole was the technician of the T-247. His rank as Technical
+Engineer was practically equivalent to Kendall's circle-rank, which made
+the two more comfortable together.
+
+Cole was listening carefully to the signals coming through from Pluto.
+"That," he decided, "sounds like Tad Nichols' fist. You can recognize
+that broken-down truck-horse trot of his on the key as far away as you
+can hear it."
+
+"Is that what it is?" sighed Buck. "I thought it was static mushing him
+at first. What's he like?"
+
+"Like all the other damn fools who come out two billion miles to scratch
+rock, as if there weren't enough already on the inner planets. He's got
+a rich platinum property. Sells ninety percent of his output to buy his
+power, and the other eleven percent for his clothes and food."
+
+"He must be an efficient miner," suggested Kendall, "to maintain 101%
+production like that."
+
+"No, but his bank account is. He's figured out that's the most economic
+level of production. If he produces less, he won't be able to pay for
+his heating power, and if he produces more, his operation power will
+burn up his bank account too fast."
+
+"Hmmm--sensible way to figure. A man after my own heart. How does he
+plan to restock his bank account?"
+
+"By mining on Mercury. He does it regularly--sort of a commuter. Out
+here his power bills eat it up. On Mercury he goes in for potassium, and
+sells the power he collects in cooling his dome, of course. He's a good
+miner, and the old fool can make money down there." Like any really
+skilled operator, Cole had been sending Morse messages while he talked.
+Now he sat quiet waiting for the reply, glancing at the chronometer.
+
+"I take it he's not after money--just after fun," suggested Buck.
+
+"Oh, no. He's after money," replied Cole gravely. "You ask him--he's
+going to make his eternal fortune yet by striking a real bed of jovium,
+and then he'll retire."
+
+"Oh, one of that kind."
+
+"They all are," Cole laughed. "Eternal hope, and the rest of it." He
+listened a moment and went on. "But old Nichols is a first-grade
+engineer. He wouldn't be able to remake that bankroll every time if he
+wasn't. You'll see his Dome out there on Pluto--it's always the best on
+the planet. Tip-top shape. And he's a bit of an experimenter too.
+Ah--he's with us."
+
+Nichols' ragged signals were coming through--or pounding through. They
+were worse than usual, and at first Kendall and Cole couldn't make them
+out. Then finally they got them in bursts. The man was excited, and his
+bad key-work made it worse. "--Randing stopped. They got him I think. He
+said--th--ship as big--a--nsport. Said it wa--eaded my--ay. Neutrons--on
+instruments--he's coming over the horizon--it's huge--war ship I
+think--register--instru--neutrons--." Abruptly the signals were blanked
+out completely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cole and Kendall sat frozen and stiff. Each looked at the other abruptly,
+then Kendall moved. From the receiver, he ripped out the recording coil,
+and instantly jammed it into the analyzer. He started it through once,
+then again, then again, at different tone settings, till he found a very
+shrill whine that seemed to clear up most of Nichols' bad key-work.
+"T-247--T-247--Emergency. Emergency. Randing reports the--over his
+horizon. Huge--ip--reign manufacture. Almost spherical. Randing's stopped.
+They got him I think. He said the ship was as big as a transport. Said
+it was headed my way. Neutrons--ont--gister--instruments. I think--is
+h--he's coming over the horizon. It's huge, and a war ship I
+think--register--instruments--neutrons."
+
+Kendall's finger stabbed out at a button. Instantly the noise of the
+other men, wakened abruptly by the mild shocks, came from behind.
+Kendall swung to the controls, and Cole raced back to the engine room.
+The hundred-foot ship shot suddenly forward under the thrust of her tail
+ion-rockets. A blue-red cloud formed slowly behind her and expanded.
+Talbot appeared, and silently took her over from Kendall. "Stations,
+men," snapped Kendall. "Emergency call from a miner of Pluto reporting a
+large armed vessel which attacked them." Kendall swung back, and eased
+himself against the thrusting acceleration of the over-powered little
+ship, toward the engine room. Cole was bending over his apparatus,
+making careful check-ups, closing weapon-circuits. No window gave view
+of space here; on the left was the tiny tender's pocket, on the right,
+above and below the great water tanks that fed the ion-rockets, behind
+the rockets themselves. The tungsten metal walls were cold and gray
+under the ship lights; the hunched bulks of the apparatus crowded the
+tiny room. Gigantic racked accumulators huddled in the corners. Martin
+and Garnet swung into position in the fighting-tanks just ahead of the
+power rooms; Canning slid rapidly through the engine room, oozed through
+a tiny door, and took up his position in the stern-chamber, seated
+half-over the great ion-rocket sheath.
+
+"Ready in positions, Captain Kendall," called the war-pilot as the
+little green lights appeared on his board.
+
+"Test discharges on maximum," ordered Kendall. He turned to Cole. "You
+start the automatic key?"
+
+"Right, Captain."
+
+"All shipshape?"
+
+"Right as can be. Accumulators at thirty-seven per cent, thanks to the
+loaf out here. They ought to pick up our signal back on Jupiter, he's
+nearest now. The station on Europa will get it."
+
+"Talbot--we are only to investigate if the ship is as reported. Have you
+seen any signs of her?"
+
+"No sir, and the signals are blank."
+
+"I'll work from here." Kendall took his position at the commanding
+control. Cole made way for him, and moved to the power board. One by one
+he tested the automatic doors, the pressure bulkheads. Kendall watched
+the instruments as one after another of the weapons were tested on
+momentary full discharge--titanic flames of five million volt protons.
+Then the ship thudded to the chatter of the Garnell rifles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tensely the men watched the planet ahead, white, yet barely visible in
+the weak sunlight so far out. It was swimming slowly nearer as the tiny
+ship gathered speed.
+
+Kendall cast a glance over his detector-instruments. The radio network
+was undisturbed, the magnetic and electric fields recognized only the
+slight disturbances occasioned by the planet itself. There was nothing,
+noth--
+
+Five hundred miles away, a gigantic ship came into instantaneous being.
+Simultaneously, and instantaneously, the various detector systems howled
+their warnings. Kendall gasped as the thing appeared on his view screen,
+with the scale-lines below. The scale must be cock-eyed. They said the
+ship was fifteen hundred feet in diameter, and two thousand long!
+
+"Retreat," ordered Kendall, "at maximum acceleration."
+
+Talbot was already acting. The gyroscopes hummed in their castings, and
+the motors creaked. The T-247 spun on her axis, and abruptly the
+acceleration built up as the ion-rockets began to shudder. A faint smell
+of "heat" began to creep out of the converter. Immense "weight" built
+up, and pressed the men into their specially designed seats--
+
+The gigantic ship across the way turned slowly, and seemed to stare at
+the T-247. Then it darted toward them at incredible speed till the poor
+little T-247 seemed to be standing still, as sailors say. The stranger
+was so gigantic now, the screens could not show all of him.
+
+"God, Buck--he's going to take us!"
+
+Simultaneously, the T-247 rolled, and from her broke every possible
+stream of destruction. The ion-rocket flames swirled abruptly toward
+her, the proton-guns whined their song of death in their housings, and
+the heavy pounding shudder of the Garnell guns racked the ship.
+
+Strangely, Kendall suddenly noticed, there was a stillness in the ship.
+The guns and the rays were still going--but the little human sounds
+seemed abruptly gone.
+
+"Talbot--Garnet--" Only silence answered him. Cole looked across at him
+in sudden white-faced amazement.
+
+"They're gone--" gasped Cole.
+
+Kendall stood paralyzed for thirty seconds. Then suddenly he seemed to
+come to life. "Neutrons! Neutrons--and water tanks! Old Nichols was
+right--" He turned to his friend. "Cole--the tender--quick." He darted a
+glance at the screen. The giant ship still lay alongside. A wash of ions
+was curling around her, splitting, and passing on. The pinprick
+explosions of the Garnell shells dotted space around her--but never on
+her.
+
+Cole was already racing for the tender lock. In an instant Kendall piled
+in after him. The tiny ship, scarcely ten feet long, was powered for
+flights of only two hours acceleration, and had oxygen for but
+twenty-four hours for six men, seventy-two hours for two men--maybe. The
+heavy door was slammed shut behind them, as Cole seated himself at the
+panel. He depressed a lever, and a sudden smooth push shot them away
+from the T-247.
+
+"DON'T!" called Kendall sharply as Cole reached for the ion-rocket
+control. "Douse those lights!" The ship was dark in dark space. The
+lighted hull of the T-247 drifted away from the little tender--further
+and further till the giant ship on the far side became visible.
+
+"Not a light--not a sign of fields in operation." Kendall said,
+unconsciously speaking softly. "This thing is so tiny, that it may
+escape their observation in the fields of the T-247 and Pluto down
+there. It's our only hope."
+
+"What happened? How in the name of the planets did they kill those men
+without a sound, without a flash, and without even warning us, or
+injuring us?"
+
+"Neutrons--don't you see?"
+
+"Frankly, I don't. I'm no scientist--merely a technician. Neutrons
+aren't used in any process I've run across."
+
+"Well, remember they're uncharged, tiny things. Small as protons, but
+without electric field. The result is they pass right through an
+ordinary atom without being stopped unless they make a direct hit.
+Tungsten, while it has a beautifully high melting point, is mostly open
+space, and a neutron just sails right through it, or any heavy atom.
+Light atoms stop neutrons better--there's less open space in 'em.
+Hydrogen is best. Well--a man is made up mostly of light elements, and a
+man stops those neutrons--it isn't surprising it killed those other
+fellows invisibly, and without a sound."
+
+"You mean they bathed that ship in neutrons?"
+
+"Shot it full of 'em. Just like our proton guns, only sending neutrons."
+
+"Well, why weren't we killed too?"
+
+"'Water stops neutrons,' I said. Figure it out."
+
+"The rocket-water tanks--all around us! Great masses of water--" gasped
+Cole. "That saved us?"
+
+"Right. I wonder if they've spotted us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stranger ship was moving slowly in relation to the T-247. Suddenly
+the motion changed, the stranger spun--and a giant lock appeared in her
+side, opened. The T-247 began to move, floated more and more rapidly
+straight for the lock. Her various weapons had stopped operating now,
+the hoppers of the Garnell guns exhausted, the charge of the
+accumulators aboard the ship down so low the proton guns had died out.
+
+"Lord--they're taking the whole ship!"
+
+"Say--Cole, is that any ship you ever heard of before? _I don't think
+that's just a pirate!_"
+
+"Not a pirate--what then?"
+
+"How'd he get inside our detector screens so fast? Watch--he'll either
+leave, or come after us--" The T-247 had settled inside the lock now,
+and the great metal door closed after it. The whole patrol ship had been
+swallowed by a giant. Kendall was sketching swiftly on a notebook,
+watching the vast ship closely, putting down a record of its lines, and
+formation. He glanced up at it, and then down for a few more lines, and
+up at it--
+
+The stranger ship abruptly dwindled. It dwindled with incredible speed,
+rushing off along the line of sight at an impossible velocity, and
+abruptly clicking out of sight, like an image on a movie-film that has
+been cut, and repaired after the scene that showed the final
+disappearance.
+
+"Cole--Cole--did you get that? Did you see--do you understand what
+happened?" Kendall was excitedly shouting now.
+
+"He missed us," Cole sighed. "It's a wonder--hanging out here in space,
+with the protector of the T-247's fields gone."
+
+"No, no, you asteroid--that's not it. _He went off faster than light
+itself!_"
+
+"Eh--what? Faster than _light_? That can't be done--"
+
+"He did it, I know he did. That's how he got inside our screens. He came
+inside faster than the warning message could relay back the information.
+Didn't you see him accelerate to an impossible speed in an impossible
+time? Didn't you see how he just vanished as he exceeded the speed of
+light, and stopped reflecting it? _That ship was no ship of this solar
+system!_"
+
+"Where did he come from then?"
+
+"God only knows, but it's a long, long way off."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The IP-M-122 picked them up. The M-122 got out there two days later, in
+response to the calls the T-247 had sent out. As soon as she got within
+ten million miles of the little tender, she began getting Cole's
+signals, and within twelve hours had reached the tiny thing, located it,
+and picked it up.
+
+Captain Jim Warren was in command, one of the old school commanders of
+the IP. He listened to Kendall's report, listened to Cole's tale--and
+radioed back a report of his own. Space pirates in a large ship had
+attacked the T-247, he said, and carried it away. He advised a close
+watch. On Pluto, his investigations disclosed nothing more than the fact
+that three mines had been raided, all platinum supplies taken, and the
+records and machinery removed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The M-122 was a fifty-man patrol cruiser, and Warren felt sure he could
+handle the menace alone, and hung around for over two weeks looking for
+it. He saw nothing, and no further reports came of attack. Again and
+again, Kendall tried to convince him this ship he was hunting was no
+mere space pirate, and again and again Warren grunted, and went on his
+way. He would not send in any report Kendall made out, because to do so
+would add his endorsement to that report. He would not take Kendall
+back, though that was well within his authority.
+
+In fact, it was a full month before Kendall again set foot on any of the
+Minor Planets, and then it was Mars, the base of the M-122. Kendall and
+Cole took passage immediately on an IP supply ship, and landed in New
+York six days later. At once, Kendall headed for Commander McLaurin's
+office. Buck Kendall, lieutenant of the IP, found he would have to make
+regular application to see McLaurin through a dozen intermediate
+officers.
+
+By this time, Kendall was savagely determined to see McLaurin himself,
+and see him in the least possible time. Cole, too, was beginning to
+believe in Kendall's assertion of the stranger ship's extra-systemic
+origin. As yet neither could understand the strange actions of the
+machine, its attack on the Pluto mines, and the capture and theft of a
+patrol ship.
+
+"There is," said Kendall angrily, "just one way to see McLaurin and see
+him quick. And, by God, I'm going to. Will you resign with me, Cole?
+I'll see him within a week then, I'll bet."
+
+For a minute, Cole hesitated. Then he shook hands with his friends.
+"Today!" And that day it was. They resigned, together. Immediately, Buck
+Kendall got the machinery in motion for an interview, working now from
+the outside, pulling the strings with the weight of a hundred million
+dollar fortune. Even the IP officers had to pay a bit of attention when
+Bernard Kendall, multi-millionaire began talking and demanding things.
+Within a week, Kendall _did_ see McLaurin.
+
+At that time, McLaurin was fifty-three years old, his crisp hair still
+black as space, with scarcely a touch of the gray that appears in his
+more recent photographs. He stood six feet tall, a broad-shouldered,
+powerful man, his face grave with lines of intelligence and character.
+There was also a permanent narrowing of the eyes, from years under the
+blazing sun of space. But most of all, while those years in space had
+narrowed and set his eyes, they had not narrowed and set his mind. An
+infinitely finer character than old Jim Warren, his experience in space
+had taught him always to expect the unexpected, to understand the
+incomprehensible as being part of the unknown and incalculable
+properties of space and the worlds that swam in it. Besides the fine
+technical education he had started with, he had acquired a liberal
+education in mankind. When Buck Kendall, straight and powerful, came
+into his office with Cole, he recognized in him a character that would
+drive steadily and straight for its goal. Also, he recognized behind the
+millionaire that had succeeded in pulling wires enough to see him, the
+scientist who had had more than one paper published "in an amateur way."
+
+"Dr. Bernard Kendall?" he asked, rising.
+
+"Yes, sir. Late Buck Kendall, lieutenant of the IP. I quit and got Cole
+here to quit with me, so we could see you."
+
+"Unusual tactics. I've had several men join up to get an interview with
+me." McLaurin smiled.
+
+"Yes, I can imagine that, but we had to see you in a hurry. A hidebound
+old rapscallion by the name of Jim Warren picked us up out by Pluto,
+floating around in a six-man tender. We made some reports to him, but he
+wouldn't believe, and he wouldn't send them through--so we had to send
+ourselves through. Sir, this system is about to be attacked by some
+extra-systemic race. The IP-T-247 was so attacked, her crew killed off,
+and the ship itself carried away."
+
+"I got the report Captain Jim Warren sent through, stating it was a gang
+of space pirates. Now what makes you believe otherwise?"
+
+"That ship that attacked us, attacked with a neutron gun, a gun that
+shot neutrons through the hull of our ship as easily as protons pass
+through open space. Those neutrons killed off four of the crew, and
+spared us only because we happened to be behind the water tanks. Masses
+of hydrogen will stop neutrons, so we lived, and escaped in the tender.
+The little tender, lightless, escaped their observation, and we were
+picked up. Now, when the 247 had been picked up, and locked into their
+ship, that ship started accelerating. It accelerated so fast along my
+line of sight that it just dwindled, and--vanished. It didn't vanish in
+distance, it vanished _because it exceeded the speed of light_."
+
+"Isn't that impossible?"
+
+"Not at all. It can be done--if you can find some way of escaping from
+this space to do it. Now if you could cut across through a higher
+dimension, your _projection_ in this dimension might easily exceed the
+speed of light. For instance, if I could cut directly through the Earth,
+at a speed of one thousand miles an hour, my projection on the surface
+would go twelve thousand miles while I was going eight. Similar, if you
+could cut _through_ the four dimensional space instead of following its
+surface, you'd attain a speed greater than light."
+
+"Might it not still be a space pirate? That's a lot easier to believe,
+even allowing your statement that he exceeded the speed of light."
+
+"If you invented a neutron gun which could kill through tungsten walls
+without injuring anything within, a system of accelerating a ship that
+didn't affect the inhabitants of that ship, and a means of exceeding the
+speed of light, all within a few months of each other, would you become
+a pirate? I wouldn't, and I don't think any one else would. A pirate is
+a man who seeks adventure and relief from work. Given a means of
+exceeding the speed of light, I'd get all the adventure I wanted
+investigating other planets. If I didn't have a cent before, I'd have
+relief from work by selling it for a few hundred millions--and I'd sell
+it mighty easily too, for an invention like that is worth an
+incalculable sum. Tie to that the value of compensated acceleration, and
+no man's going to turn pirate. He can make more millions selling his
+inventions than he can make thousands turning pirate with them. So who'd
+turn pirate?"
+
+"Right." McLaurin nodded. "I see your point. Now before I'd accept your
+statements _in re_ the 'speed of light' thing, I'd want opinions from
+some IP physicists."
+
+"Then let's have a conference, because something's got to be done soon.
+I don't know why we haven't heard further from that fellow."
+
+"Privately--we have," McLaurin said in a slightly worried tone. "He was
+detected by the instruments of every IP observatory I suspect. We got
+the reports but didn't know what to make of them. They indicated so many
+funny things, they were sent in as accidental misreadings of the
+instruments. But since _all_ the observatories reported them, similar
+misreadings, at about the same times, that is with variations of only a
+few hours, we thought something must have been up. The only thing was
+the phenomena were reported progressively from Pluto to Neptune, clear
+across the solar system, in a definite progression, but at a velocity of
+crossing that didn't tie in with any conceivable force. They crossed
+faster than the velocity of light. That ship must have spent about half
+an hour off each planet before passing on to the next. And, accepting
+your faster-than-light explanation, we can understand it."
+
+"Then I think you have proof."
+
+"If we have, what would you do about it?"
+
+"Get to work on those 'misreadings' of the instruments for one thing,
+and for a second, and more important, line every IP ship with paraffin
+blocks six inches thick."
+
+"Paraffin--why?"
+
+"The easiest form of hydrogen to get. You can't use solid hydrogen,
+because that melts too easily. Water can be turned into steam too
+easily, and requires more work. Paraffin is a solid that's largely
+hydrogen. That's what they've always used on neutrons since they
+discovered them. Confine your paraffin between tungsten walls, and
+you'll stop the secondary protons as well as the neutrons."
+
+"Hmmm--I suppose so. How about seeing those physicists?"
+
+"I'd like to see them today, sir. The sooner you get started on this
+work, the better it will be for the IP."
+
+"Having seen me, will you join up in the IP again?" asked McLaurin.
+
+"No, sir, I don't think I will. I have another field you know, in which
+I may be more useful. Cole here's a better technician than fighter--and
+a darned good fighter, too--and I think that an inexperienced
+space-captain is a lot less useful than a second-rate physicist at work
+in a laboratory. If we hope to get anywhere, or for that matter, I
+suspect, stay anywhere, we'll have to do a lot of research pretty
+promptly."
+
+"What's your explanation of that ship?"
+
+"One of two things: an inventor of some other system trying out his
+latest toy, or an expedition sent out by a planetary government for
+exploration. I favor the latter for two reasons: that ship was _big_. No
+inventor would build a thing that size, requiring a crew of several
+hundred men to try out his invention. A government would build just
+about that if they wanted to send out an expedition. If it were an
+inventor, he'd be interested in meeting other people, to see what they
+had in the way of science, and probably he'd want to do it in a
+peaceable way. That fellow wasn't interested in peace, by any means. So
+I think it's a government ship, and an unfriendly government. They sent
+that ship out either for scientific research, for trade research and
+exploration, or for acquisitive exploration. If they were out for
+scientific research, they'd proceed as would the inventor, to establish
+friendly communication. If they were out for trade, the same would
+apply. If they were out for acquisitive exploration, they'd investigate
+the planets, the sun, the people, only to the extent of learning how
+best to overcome them. They'd want to get a sample of our people, and a
+sample of our weapons. They'd want samples of our machinery, our
+literature and our technology. That's exactly what that ship got.
+
+"Somebody, somewhere out there in space, either doesn't like their home,
+or wants more home. They've been out looking for one. I'll bet they sent
+out hundreds of expeditions to thousands of nearby stars, gradually
+going further and further, seeking a planetary system. This is probably
+the one and only one they found. It's a good one too. It has planets at
+all temperatures, of all sizes. It is a fairly compact one, it has a
+stable sun that will last far longer than any race can hope to."
+
+"Hmm--how can there be good and bad planetary systems?" asked McLaurin.
+"I'd never thought of that."
+
+Kendall laughed. "Mighty easy. How'd you like to live on a planet of a
+Cepheid Variable? Pleasant situation, with the radiation flaring up and
+down. How'd you like to live on a planet of Antares? That blasted sun
+is so big, to have a comfortable planet you'd have to be at least ten
+billion miles out. Then if you had an interplanetary commerce, you'd
+have to struggle with orbits tens of billions of miles across instead of
+mere millions. Further, you'd have a sun so blasted big, it would take
+an impossible amount of energy to lift the ship up from one planet to
+another. If your trip was, say, twenty billions of miles to the next
+planet, you'd be fighting a gravity as bad as the solar gravity at Earth
+here all the way--no decline with a little distance like that."
+
+"H-m-m-m--quite true. Then I should say that Mira would take the prize.
+It's a red giant, and it's an irregular variable. The sunlight there
+would be as unstable as the weather in New England. It's almost as big
+as Antares, and it won't hold still. Now that _would_ make a bad
+planetary system."
+
+"It would!" Kendall laughed. But as we know--he laughed too soon, and he
+shouldn't have used the conditional. He should have said, "It does!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Gresth Gkae, Commander of Expeditionary Force 93, of the Planet Sthor,
+was returning homeward with joyful mind. In the lock of his great ship,
+lay the T-247. In her cargo holds lay various items of machinery, mining
+supplies, foods, and records. And in her log books lay the records of
+many readings on the nine larger planets of a highly satisfactory
+planetary system.
+
+Gresth Gkae had spent no less than three ultra-wearing years going from
+one sun to another in a definitely mapped out section of space. He had
+investigated only eleven stars in that time, eleven stars, progressively
+further from the titanic red-flaming sun he knew as "the" sun. He knew
+it as "the" sun, and had several other appellations for it. Mira was
+so-named by Earthmen because it was indeed a "wonder" star, in Latin,
+mirare means "to wonder." Irregularly, and for no apparent reason it
+would change its rate of radiation. So far as those inhabitants of Sthor
+and her sister world Asthor knew, there was no reason. It just did it.
+Perhaps with malicious intent to be annoying. If so, it was
+exceptionally successful. Sthor and Asthor experienced, periodically, a
+young ice age. When Mira decided to take a rest, Sthor and Asthor froze
+up, from the poles most of the way to the equators. Then Mira would
+stretch herself a little, move about restlessly and Sthor and Asthor
+would become uninhabitably hot, anywhere within twenty degrees of the
+equator.
+
+Those Sthorian people had evolved in a way that made the conditions
+endurable for savage or uncivilized people, but when a scientific
+civilization with a well-ordered mode of existence tried to establish
+itself, Mira was all sorts of a nuisance.
+
+Gresth Gkae was a peculiar individual to human ways of thinking. He
+stood some seven feet tall, on his strange, double-kneed legs and his
+four toed feet. His body was covered with little, short feather-like
+things that moved now with a volition of their own. They were moving
+very slowly and regularly. The space-ship was heated to a comfortable
+temperature, and the little fans were helping to cool Gresth Gkae. Had
+it been cold, every little feather would have lain down close against
+its neighbors, forming an admirable, wind-proof and cold-proof blanket.
+
+Nature, on Sthor, had original ideas of arrangement too. Sthorians
+possessed two eyes--one directly above the other, in the center of their
+faces. The face was so long, and narrow, it resembled a blunt hatchet,
+with the two eyes on the edge. To counter-balance this vertical
+arrangement of the eyes, the nostrils had been separated some four
+inches, with one on each of the sloping cheeks. His ears were little
+pink-flesh cups on short, muscular stems. His mouth was narrow, and
+small, but armed with quite solid teeth adapted to his diet, a diet
+consisting of almost anything any creature had ever considered edible.
+Like most successful forms of intelligent life, Gresth Gkae was
+omnivorous. An intelligent form of life is necessarily adaptable, and
+adaptation meant being able to eat what was at hand.
+
+One of his eyes, the upper one, was fully twice the size of the lower
+one. This was his telescopic eye. The lower, or microscopic eye was
+adapted to work for which a human being would have required a low power
+microscope, the upper eye possessed a more normal power of vision,
+_plus_ considerable telescopic powers.
+
+Gresth Gkae was using it now to look ahead in the blank of space to
+where gigantic Mira appeared. On his screens now, Mira appeared deep
+violet, for he was approaching at a speed greater than that of light,
+and even this projected light of Mira was badly distorted.
+
+"The distance is half a light-year now, sir," reported the navigation
+officer.
+
+"Reduce the speed, then, to normal velocity for these ranges. What
+reserve of fuel have we?"
+
+"Less than one thousand pounds. We will barely be able to stop. We were
+too free in the use of our weapons, I fear," replied the Chief
+Technician.
+
+"Well, what would you? We needed those things in our reports. Besides,
+we could extract fuel from that ore we took on at Planet Nine of Phahlo.
+It is merely that I wish speed in the return."
+
+"As we all do. How soon do you believe the Council will proceed against
+the new system?"
+
+"It will be fully a year, I fear. They must gather the expeditions
+together, and re-equip the ships. It will be a long time before all will
+have come in."
+
+"Could they not send fast ships after them to recall them?"
+
+"Could they have traced us as we wove our way from Thart to Karst to
+Raloork to Phahlo? It would be impossible."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Steadily the great ship had been boring on her way. Mira had been a disc
+for nearly two days, gigantic, two-hundred-and-fifty-million-mile Mira
+took a great deal of dwarfing by distance to lose her disc. Even at the
+Twin Planets, eight thousand two hundred and fifty millions of miles
+out, Mira covered half the sky, it seemed, red and angry. Sometimes,
+though, to the disgust of the Sthorians it was just red-faced and lazy.
+Then Sthor froze.
+
+"Grih is in a descendant stage," said the navigation officer presently.
+"Sthor will be cold when we arrive."
+
+"It will warm quickly enough with our news!" Gresth laughed. "A
+system--a delightful system--discovered. A system of many close-grouped
+planets. Why think--from one side of that system to the other is less of
+a distance than from Ansthat, our first planet's orbit, to Insthor's
+orbit! That sun, as we know, is steady and warm. All will be well, when
+we have eliminated that rather peculiar race. Odd, that they should, in
+some ways, be so nearly like us! Nearly Sthorian in build. I would not
+have expected it. Though they did have some amazing peculiarities!
+Imagine--two eyes just alike, and in a horizontal row. And that flat
+face. They looked as though they had suffered some accident that smashed
+the front of the face in. And also the peculiar beak-like projection.
+Why should a race ever develop so amazing a projection in so peculiar
+and exposed a position? It sticks out inviting attack and injury. Right
+in the middle of the face. And to make it worse, there is the
+air-channel, and the only air channel. Why, one minor injury to the
+throat would be certain to damage that passage beyond repair, and bring
+death. Yet such relatively unimportant things as ears, and eyes are
+doubled. Surely you would expect that so important a member as the
+air-passage would be doubled for safety.
+
+"Those strange, awkward arms and legs were what puzzled me. I have been
+attempting to manipulate myself as they must be forced to, and I cannot
+see how delicate or accurate manual manipulation would be possible with
+those rigid, inflexible arms. In some ways I feel they must have had
+clever minds to overcome so great a handicap to constructive work. But I
+suppose single joints in the arms become as natural to them as our own
+more mobile two.
+
+"I wonder if life in any intelligent form wouldn't develop somewhat
+similar formations, though. Think, in all parts of Sthor, before men
+became civilized and developed communication, even so much as twenty
+thousand years ago, our records show that seats and chairs were much as
+they are today, and much as they are, in all places among all groups.
+Then too, the eye has developed in many different species, and always
+reached much the same structure. When a thing is intended and developed
+to serve a given purpose, no matter who develops it, or where or how, is
+it not apt to have similar shapes and parts? A chair must have legs, and
+a seat and arm-rests and a back. You may vary their nature and their
+shape, but not widely, and they must be there. An eye must, anywhere,
+have a sensitive retina, an adjustable lens, and an adjustable device
+for controlling the entrance of light. Similarly there are certain
+functions that the body of an intelligent creature must serve which
+naturally tend to make intelligent creatures similar. He must have a
+tool--the hand--"
+
+"Yes, yes--I see your point. It must be so, for surely these creatures
+out there are strange enough in other ways."
+
+"But tell me, have you calculated when we shall land?"
+
+"In twelve hours, thirty-three minutes, sir."
+
+Eleven hours later, the expedition ship had slowed to a normal
+space-speed. On her left hung the giant globe of Asthor, rotating
+slowly, moving slowly in her orbit. Directly ahead, Sthor loomed even
+greater. Tiny Teelan, the thousand-mile diameter moon of the Insthor
+system shone dull red in the reflected light of gigantic Mira. Mira
+herself was gigantic, red and menacing across eight and a quarter
+billions of miles of space.
+
+One hundred thousand miles apart, the twin worlds Sthor and Asthor
+rotated about their common center of gravity, eternally facing each
+other. Ten million miles from their common center of gravity, Teelan
+rotated in a vast orbit.
+
+Sthor and Asthor were capped at each pole now by gigantic white icecaps.
+Mira was sulking, and as a consequence the planets were freezing.
+
+The expedition ship sank slowly toward Sthor. A swarm of smaller craft
+had flown up at its approach to meet it. A gaily-colored small ship
+marked the official greeting-ship. Gresth had withheld his news
+purposely. Now suddenly he began broadcasting it from the powerful
+transmitter on his ship. As the words came through on a thousand sets,
+all the little ships began to whirl, dance and break out into glowing,
+sparkling lights. On Sthor and Asthor even commotions began to be
+visible. A new planetary system had been found-- They could move! Their
+overflowing populations could be spread out!
+
+The whole Insthor system went mad with delight as the great
+Expeditionary Ship settled downward.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+There was a glint of humor in Buck Kendall's eyes as he passed the sheet
+over to McLaurin. Commander McLaurin looked down the columns with
+twinkling eyes.
+
+"'Petition to establish the Lunar Mining Bank,'" he read. "What a bank!
+Officers: President, General James Logan, late of the IP;
+Vice-president, Colonel Warren Gerardhi, also late of the IP; Staff,
+consists of 90% ex-IP men, and a few scattered accountants. Designed by
+the well-known designer of IP stations, Colonel Richard Murray."
+Commander McLaurin looked up at Kendall with a broad grin. "And you
+actually got Interplanetary Life to give you a mortgage on the
+structure?"
+
+"Why not? It'll cut cost fifty-eight millions, with its twelve-foot
+tungsten-beryllium walls and the heavy defense weapons against those
+terrible pirates. You know we must defend our property."
+
+"With the thing you're setting up out there on Luna, you could more
+readily wipe out the IP than anything else I know of. Any new defense
+ideas?"
+
+"Plenty. Did you get any further appropriations from the IP
+Appropriations Board?"
+
+McLaurin looked sour. "No. The dear taxpayers might object, and those
+thickheaded, clogged rockets on the Board can't see your data on the
+Stranger. They gave me just ten millions, and that only because you
+demonstrated you could shoot every living thing out of the latest IP
+cruiser with that neutron gun of yours. By the way, they may kick when I
+don't install more than a few of those."
+
+"Let 'em. You can stall for a few months. You'll need that money more
+for other purposes. You've installed that paraffin lining?"
+
+"Yes--I got a report on that of 'finished' last week. How have you made
+out?"
+
+Buck Kendall's face fell. "Not so hot. Devin's been the biggest help--he
+did most of the work on that neutron gun really--"
+
+"After," McLaurin interrupted, "you told him how."
+
+"--but we're pretty well stuck now, it seems. You'll be off duty
+tomorrow evening, can't you drop around to the lab? We're going to try
+out a new system for releasing atomic energy."
+
+"Isn't that a pretty faint hope? We've been trying to get it for three
+centuries now, and haven't yet. What chance at it within a year or
+so?--which is the time you allow yourself before the Stranger returns."
+
+"It is, I'll admit that. But there's another factor, not to be
+forgotten. The data we got from correlating those 'misreadings' from the
+various IP posts mean a lot. We are working on an entirely different
+trail now. You come on out, and you can see our new apparatus. They are
+working on tremendous voltages, and hoping to smash the thing by a
+brutal bombardment of terrific voltage. We're trying, thanks to the
+results of those instruments, to get results with small, terrifically
+intense fields."
+
+"How do you know that's their general system?"
+
+"They left traces on the records of the post instruments. These records
+show such intensities as we never got. They have atomic energy,
+necessarily, and they might have had material energy, actual destruction
+of matter, but apparently, from the field readings it's the former. To
+be able to make those tremendous hops, light-years in length, they
+needed a real store of energy. They have accumulators, of course, but I
+don't think they could store enough power by the system they use to do
+it."
+
+"Well, how's your trick 'bank' out on Luna, despite its twelve-foot
+walls, going to stand an atomic explosion?"
+
+"More protective devices to come is our only hope. I'm working on three
+trails: atomic energy, some type of magnetic shield that will stop any
+moving material particle, and their faster-than-light thing. Also, that
+fortress--I mean, of course, bank--is going to have a lot of lead-lined
+rooms."
+
+"I wish I could use the remaining money the Board gave me to lead-line a
+lot of those IP ships," said McLaurin wistfully. "Can't you make a
+gamma-ray bomb of some sort?"
+
+"Not without their atomic energy release. With it, of course, it's easy
+to flood a region with rays. It'll be a million times worse than radium
+'C,' which is bad enough."
+
+"Well, I'll send through this petition for armaments. They'll pass it
+all right, I think. They may get some kicks from old Jacob Ezra Stubbs.
+Jacob Ezra doesn't believe in anything war-like. I wish they'd find some
+way to keep him off of the Arms Petition Board. He might just as well
+stay home and let 'em vote his ticket uniformly 'nay.'" Buck Kendall
+left with a laugh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Buck Kendall had his troubles though. When he had reached Earth again,
+he found that his properties totaled one hundred and three million
+dollars, roughly. One doesn't sell properties of that magnitude, one
+borrows against them. But to all intents and purposes, Buck Kendall
+owned two half-completed ship's hulls in the Baldwin Spaceship Yards, a
+great deal of massive metal work on its way to Luna, and contracts for
+some very extensive work on a "bank." Beyond that, about eleven million
+was left.
+
+A large portion of the money had been invested in a laboratory, the like
+of which the world had never seen. It was devoted exclusively to
+physics, and principally the physics of destruction. Dr. Paul Devin was
+the Director, Cole was in charge of the technical work, and Buck Kendall
+was free to do all the work he thought needed doing.
+
+Returned to his laboratory, he looked sourly at the bench on which seven
+mechanicians were working. The ninth successive experiment on the
+release of atomic energy had failed. The tenth was in process of
+construction. A heavy pure tungsten dome, three feet in diameter, three
+inches thick, was being lowered over a clear insulum dome, a foot
+smaller. Inside, the real apparatus was arranged around the little pool
+of mercury. From it, two massive tungsten-copper alloy conductors led
+through the insulum housing, and outside. These, so Kendall had hoped,
+would surge with the power of broken atoms, but he was beginning to
+believe rather bitterly, they would never do so.
+
+Buck went on to his offices, and the main calculator room. There were
+ten calculator tables here, two of them in operation now.
+
+"Hello, Devin. Getting on?"
+
+"No," said Devin bitterly, "I'm getting off. Look at these results." He
+brought over a sheaf of graphs, with explanatory tables attached.
+Rapidly Buck ran through them with him. Most of them were graphs of
+functions of light, considered as a wave in these experiments.
+
+"H-m-m-m--not very encouraging. Looks like you've got the field--but it
+just snaps shut on itself and won't work. The lack of volume makes it
+break down, if you establish it, and makes it impossible to establish in
+the first place without the energy of matter. Not so hot. That's
+certainly cock-eyed somewhere."
+
+"I'm not. The math may be."
+
+"Well"--Kendall grinned--"it amounts to the same thing. The point is,
+light doesn't. Let's run over that theory again. Light is not only
+magnetic; but electric. Somehow it transforms electric fields cyclically
+into magnetic fields and back again. Now what we want to do is to
+transform an electric into a magnetic field and have it stay there.
+That's the first step. The second thing, is to have the lines of
+magnetic force you develop, lie down like a sheath around the ship,
+instead of standing out like the hairs on an angry cat, the way they
+want to. That means turning them ninety degrees, and turning an electric
+into a magnetic field means turning the space-strain ninety degrees.
+Light evidently forms a magnetic field whose lines of force reach along
+its direction of motion, so that's your starting point."
+
+"Yes, and _that_," growled Devin, "seems to be the finishing point.
+Quite definitely and clearly, the graph looped down to zero. In other
+words, the field closed in on itself, and destroyed itself."
+
+"Light doesn't vanish."
+
+"I'll make you all the lights you want."
+
+"I simply mean there must be something that will stop it."
+
+"Certainly. Transform it back to electric field before it gets a chance
+to close in, then repeat the process--the way light does."
+
+"That wouldn't make such a good magnetic shield. Every time that field
+started pulsing out through the walls of the ship it would generate
+heat. We want a permanent field that will stay on the job out there. I
+wonder if you couldn't make a conductor device that would open that
+field out--some special type of oscillating field that would keep it
+open."
+
+"H-m-m-m--that's an angle I might try. Any suggestions?"
+
+Kendall had suggestions, and rapidly he outlined a development that
+appeared from some of the earlier mathematics on light, and might be
+what they wanted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kendall, however, had problems of his own to work on. The question of
+atomic energy he was leaving alone, till the present experiment either
+succeeded, or, as he rather suspected, failed as had its predecessors.
+His present problem was to develop more fully some interesting lines of
+research he had run across in investigating mathematically the trick of
+turning electric to magnetic fields and then turning them back again. It
+might be that along this line he would find the answer to the speed
+greater than that of light. At any rate, he was interested.
+
+He worked the rest of that day, and most of the next on that line--till
+he ran it into the ground with a pair of equations that ended with the
+expression: dx.dv=h/(4[pi]m). Then Kendall looked at them for a long
+moment, then he sighed gently and threw them into a file cabinet.
+Heisenberg's Uncertainty. He'd reduced the thing to a form that simply
+told him it was beyond the limits of certainty and he ran it into the
+normal, natural uncertainty inevitable in Nature.
+
+Anyway he had real work to do now. The machine was about ready for his
+attention. The mechanicians had finished putting it in shape for
+demonstration and trial. He himself would have to test it over the rest
+of the afternoon and arrange for power and so forth.
+
+By evening, when Commander McLaurin called around with some of the other
+investors in Kendall's "bank" on Luna, the thing was already started,
+warming up. The fields were being fed and the various scientists of the
+group were watching with interest. Power was flowing in already at a
+rate of nearly one hundred thousand horsepower per minute, thanks to a
+special line given them by New York Power (a Kendall property). At ten
+o'clock they were beginning to expect the reaction to start. By this
+time the fields weren't gaining in intensity very rapidly, a maximum
+intensity had been reached that should, they felt, break the atoms soon.
+
+At eleven-thirty, through the little view window, Buck Kendall saw
+something that made him cry out in amazement. The mercury metal in the
+receiver, behind its layers of screening was beginning to glow, with a
+dull reddish light, and little solidifications were appearing in it!
+Eagerly the men looked, as the solidifications spread slowly, like
+crystals growing in an evaporating solution.
+
+Twelve o'clock came and went, and one o'clock and two o'clock. Still the
+slow crystallization went on. Buck Kendall was casting furtive glances
+at the kilowatt-hour meter. It stood at a figure that represented
+twenty-seven thousand dollars' worth of power. Long since the power rate
+had been increased to the maximum available, as the power plant's normal
+load reduced as the morning hours came. Surely, this time something
+would start, but Buck had two worries. If all the enormous amount of
+energy they had poured in there decided to release itself at once--
+
+And at any rate, Buck saw they'd never dare to let a generator stop,
+once it was started!
+
+The men were a tense group around the machine at three-fifteen A.M.
+There remained only a tiny, dancing globule of silvery mercury
+skittering around on the sharp, needle-like crystals of the dull red
+metal that had resulted. Slowly that skittering drop was shrinking--
+
+Three twenty-two and a half A.M. saw the last fraction of it vanish.
+Tensely the men stared into the machine--backing off slowly--watching
+the meters on the board. At nearly eighty thousand volts the power had
+been fed into it.
+
+The power continued to flow, and a growing halo of intense violet light
+appeared suddenly on those red, needle-like crystals, a swiftly
+expanding halo--
+
+Without a sound, without the slightest disturbance, the halo vanished,
+and softly, gently, the needle-like crystals relapsed, melted away, and
+a dull pool of metallic mercury rested in the receiver.
+
+At eighty thousand volts, power was flowing in--
+
+And it didn't even sparkle.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The apparatus of the magnetic shield had been completed two days later,
+and set up in Buck's own laboratory. On the bench was the powerful, but
+small, little projector of the straight magnetic field, simply a
+specially designed accumulator, a super-condenser, and the peculiar
+apparatus Devin had designed to distort the electric field through
+ninety degrees to a magnetic field. Behind this was a curious,
+paraboloid projector made up of hundreds of tiny, carefully orientated
+coils. This was Buck's own contribution. They were ready for the tests.
+
+"I would invite McLaurin in to see this," said Kendall looking at them,
+and then across the room bitterly toward the alleged atomic power
+apparatus on the opposite bench. "I think it will work. But after
+_that_--" He stared, glaring, at the heavy tungsten dome with its heavy
+tungsten contacts, across which the flame of released atomic energy was
+supposed to have leapt. "That was probably the flattest flop any
+experiment ever flopped."
+
+"Well--it didn't blow up. That's one comfort," suggested Devin.
+
+"I wish it had. Then at least it would have shown some response. The
+only response shown, actually, was shown on the power meter. It damn
+near wore out the bearings turning so fast."
+
+"Personally, I prefer the lack of action." Devin laughed. "Have you got
+that circuit hooked up?"
+
+"Right," sighed Kendall, turning back to the work in hand. "Is Douglass
+in on this?"
+
+"Yes--in the next room. He'll let us know when he's ready. He's setting
+up those instruments."
+
+Douglass, a young junior physicist, late of the IP Physics Department,
+stuck his head in the door and announced his instruments were all set
+up.
+
+"Keep an eye on them. They'll move somehow, at any rate. This thing
+couldn't go as flat as that atom-buster of mine."
+
+Carefully Kendall made a few last-minute adjustments on the limiting
+relays, and took up his position at the power board. Devin took his
+place near the apparatus, with another series of instruments, similar to
+those Douglass was now watching in the next room, some thirty feet away,
+through the two-inch metal wall. "Ready," called Kendall.
+
+The switch shot home. Instantly Kendall, Devin, and all the men in the
+building jumped some six feet from their former positions. A monstrous
+roar of sound crashed out in that laboratory that thundered from one
+wall to the other, and bellowed in a Titan's fury. It thundered and
+growled, it bellowed and howled, the walls shook with the march and
+counter-march of crashing waves of sound.
+
+And a ten-foot wavering flame of blue-white, bellying electric fire
+shuddered up to the ceiling from the contact points of the alleged
+atomic generator. The heat, pouring out from the flashing, roaring arc
+sent prickles of aching burns over Kendall's skin. For ten seconds he
+stood in utter, paralyzed surprise as his flop of flops bellowed its
+anger at his disdain. Then he leapt to the power board and shut off the
+roaring thing, by cutting the switch that had started it.
+
+"Spirits of Space! Did _that_ come to life!"
+
+"_Atomic Energy!_" Devin cried.
+
+"Atomic energy, hell. That's my thirty thousand dollars' worth of power
+breaking loose again," chortled Kendall. "We missed the atomic energy,
+but, sweet boy, what an accumulator we stubbed our toes on! I wondered
+where in blazes all that power went to. That's the answer. I'll bet I
+can tell you right now what happened. We built that mercury up to a new
+level, and that transitional stage was the red, crystalline metal. When
+it reached the higher stage, it was temporarily stable--but that
+projector over there that we designed for the purpose of holding open
+electric and magnetic fields just opened the door and let all that power
+right out again."
+
+"But why isn't it atomic energy? How do you know that no more than your
+power that you put in is coming out?" demanded Devin.
+
+"The arc, man, the arc. That was a high-current, and low-voltage arc.
+Couldn't you tell by the sound that no great voltage--as atomic voltages
+go--was smashing across there? If we were getting atomic voltage--and
+power--there'd have been a different tone to it, high and shriller.
+
+"Now, did you take any readings?"
+
+"What do you think, man? I'm human. Do you think I got any readings with
+that thing bellowing and shrieking in my ears, and burning my skin with
+ultra-violet? It itches now."
+
+Kendall laughed. "You know what to do for an itch. Now, I'm going to
+make a bet. We had those points separated for a half-million volts
+discharge, but there was a dust-cover thrown over them just now. That,
+you notice, is missing. I'll bet that served as a starter lead for the
+main arc. Now I'm going to start that projector thing again, and move
+the points there through about six inches, and that thing probably won't
+start itself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Most of the laboratory staff had collected at the doorway, looking in at
+the white-hot tungsten discharge points, and the now silent "atomic
+engine." Kendall turned to them and said: "The flop picked itself up.
+You go on back, we seem to be all in one piece yet. Douglass, you didn't
+get any readings, did you?"
+
+Sheepishly, Douglass grinned at him. "Eh--er--no--but I tore my pants.
+The magnetic field grabbed me and I jumped. They had some steel buttons,
+and a lot of steel keys--they're kinda' hard to keep on now."
+
+The laboratory staff broke into a roar of laughter, as Douglass, holding
+up his trousers with both hands was beheld.
+
+"I guess the field worked," he said.
+
+"I guess maybe it did," adjudged Kendall solemnly. "We have some rope
+here if you need it--"
+
+Douglass returned to his post.
+
+Swiftly, Kendall altered the atomic distortion storage apparatus, and
+returned to the power-board. "Ready?"
+
+"Check."
+
+Kendall shoved home the switch. The storage device was silent. Only a
+slight feeling of strain made itself felt, and the sudden noisy hum of a
+small transformer nearby. "She works, Buck!" Devin called. "The readings
+check almost exactly."
+
+"All good then. Now I want to get to that atomic thing. We can let that
+slide for a little bit--I'll answer it."
+
+The telephone had rung noisily. "Kendall Labs--Kendall speaking."
+
+"This is Superintendent Foster, of the New York Power, Mr. Kendall. We
+have some trouble just now that we think your operations may be
+responsible for. The sub-station at North Beaumont blew all the fuses,
+and threw the breakers at the main station. The men out there said the
+transformers began howling--"
+
+"Right you are--I'm afraid I did do that. I had no idea that it would
+reach so far. How far is that from my place here?"
+
+"It's about a thousand yards, according to the survey maps."
+
+"Thanks--and I'll be careful about it. Any damage, I am responsible for?
+All okay?"
+
+"Yes, sir, Mr. Kendall."
+
+Kendall hung up. "We stirred up a lot more dust
+than we expected, Devin. Now let's start seeing if we can keep track of
+it. Douglass, how did your readings show?"
+
+"I took them at the ten stations, and here they are. The stations are
+two feet apart."
+
+"H-m-m--.5--.55--.6--.7--20--198--5950--6010--6012--5920. Very, very
+nice--only the darned thing's got an arm as long as the law. Your
+readings were about .2, Devin?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"Then these little readings are just leakage. What's our normal
+intensity here?"
+
+"About .19. Just a very small fraction less than the readings."
+
+"Perfect--we have what amounts to a hollow shell of magnetic force--we
+can move inside, and you can move outside--far enough. But you can't get
+a conductor or a magnetic field through it." He put the readings on the
+bench, and looked at the apparatus across the room. "Now I want to start
+right on that other. Douglass, you move that magnetostat apparatus out
+of the way, and leave just the 'can-opener' of ours--the projector. I'm
+pretty sure that's what does the deed. Devin, see if you can hunt up
+some electrostatic voltmeters with a range in the neighborhood of--I
+think it'll be about eighty thousand."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rapidly, Douglass was dismounting the apparatus, as Devin started for
+the stock room. Kendall started making some new connections,
+reconnecting the apparatus they had intended using on the "atomic
+engine," largely high-capacity resistances. He seemed to perform this
+work mechanically, his mind definitely on something else. Suddenly he
+stopped, and looked carefully into the receiver of the machine. The
+metal in it was silvery, liquid, and here and there a floating crystal
+of the dull red metal. Slowly a smile spread across his face. He turned
+to Douglass.
+
+"Douglass--ah, you're through. Get on the trail of MacBride, and get him
+and his crew to work making half a dozen smaller things like this. Tell
+'em they can leave off the tungsten shield. I want different metals in
+the receiver of each. Use--hmmm--sodium--copper--magnesium--aluminium,
+iron and chromium. Got it?"
+
+"Yes, sir." He left, just as Devin returned with a large electrostatic
+voltmeter.
+
+"I'd like," said he, "to know how you know the voltage will range around
+eighty thousand."
+
+"K-ring excitation potential for mercury. I'm willing to bet that thing
+simply shoved the whole electron system of the mercury out a notch--that
+it simply _hasn't_ any K-ring of electrons now. I'm trying some other
+metals. Douglass is going to have MacBride make up half a dozen more
+machines. Machines--they need a name. This--ah--this is an 'atostor.'
+MacBride's going to make up half a dozen of 'em, and try half a dozen
+metals. I'm almost certain that's not mercury in there now, at all. It's
+probably element 99 or something like it."
+
+"It looks like mercury--"
+
+"Certainly. So would 99. Following the periodic table, 99 would probably
+have an even lower melting point than mercury, be silvery, dense and
+heavy--and perhaps slightly radioactive. The series under the B family
+of Group II is Magnesium, Zinc, Cadmium, Mercury--and 99. The melting
+point is going down all the way, and they're all silvery metals. I'm
+going to try copper, and I fully expect it to turn silvery--in fact, to
+become silver."
+
+"Then let's see." Swiftly they hooked up the apparatus, realigned the
+projector, and again Kendall took his place at the power-board. As he
+closed the switch, on no-load, the electrostatic voltmeter flopped over
+instantly, and steadied at just over 80,000 volts.
+
+"I hate to say 'I told you so,'" said Kendall. "But let's hook in a
+load. Try it on about 100 amps first."
+
+Devin began cutting in load. The resistors began heating up swiftly as
+more and more current flowed through them. By not so much as by a
+vibration of the voltmeter needle, did the apparatus betray any strain
+as the load mounted swiftly. 100--200--500--1000 amperes. Still, that
+needle held steady. Finally, with a drain of ten thousand amperes, all
+the equipment available could handle, the needle was steady as a rock,
+though the tremendous load of 800,000,000 watts was cut in and out.
+That, to atoms, atoms by the nonillions, was no appreciable load at all.
+There was _no_ internal resistance whatever. The perfect accumulator
+had certainly been discovered.
+
+"I'll have to call McLaurin--" Kendall hurried away with a broad, broad
+smile.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+"Hello, Tom?"
+
+The telephone rattled in a peeved sort of way. "Yes, it is. What now?
+And when am I going to see you in a social sort of way again?"
+
+"Not for a long, long time; I'm busy. I'm busy right now as a matter of
+fact. I'm calling up the vice-president of Faragaut Interplanetary
+Lines, and I want to place an order."
+
+"Why bother me? We have clerks, you know, for that sort of thing,"
+suggested Faragaut in a pained voice.
+
+"Tom, do you know how much I'm worth now?"
+
+"Not much," replied Faragaut promptly. "What of it? I hear, as a matter
+of fact that you're worth even less in a business way. They're talking
+quite a lot down this way about an alleged bank you're setting up on
+Luna. I hear it's got more protective devices, and armor than any IP
+station in the System, that you even had it designed by an IP designer,
+and have a gang of Colonels and Generals in charge. I also hear that
+you've succeeded in getting rid of money at about one million dollars a
+day--just slightly shy of that."
+
+"You overestimate me, my friend. Much of that is merely contracted for.
+Actually it'll take me nearly nine months to get rid of it. And by that
+time I'll have more. Anyway, I think I have something like ten million
+left. And remember that way back in the twentieth century some old
+fellow beat my record. Armour, I think it was, lost a million dollars a
+day for a couple of months running.
+
+"Anyway, what I called you up for was to say I'd like to order five
+hundred thousand tons of mercury, for delivery as soon as possible."
+
+"What! Oh, say, I thought you were going in for business." Faragaut gave
+a slight laugh of relief.
+
+"Tom, I am. I mean exactly what I say. I want
+five--hundred--thousand--_tons_ of metallic mercury, and just as soon as
+you can get it."
+
+"Man, there isn't that much in the system."
+
+"I know it. Get all there is on the market for me, and contract to take
+all the 'Jupiter Heavy-Metals' can turn out. You send those orders
+through, and clean out the market completely. Somebody's about to pay
+for the work I've been doing, and boy, they're going to pay through the
+nose. After you've got that order launched, and don't make a christening
+party of the launching either, why just drop out here, and I'll show you
+why the value of mercury is going so high you won't be able to follow it
+in a space ship."
+
+"The cost of that," said Faragaut, seriously now, "will be
+about--fifty-three million at the market price. You'd have to put up
+twenty-six cash, and I don't believe you've got it."
+
+Buck laughed. "Tom, loan me a dozen million, will you? You send that
+order through, and then come see what I've got. I've got a break, too!
+Mercury's the best metal for this use--and it'll stop gamma rays too!"
+
+"So it will--but for the love of the system, what of it?"
+
+"Come and see--tonight. Will you send that order through?"
+
+"I will, Buck. I hope you're right. Cash is tight now, and I'll probably
+have to put up nearer twenty million, when all that buying goes through.
+How long will it be tied up in that deal, do you think?"
+
+"Not over three weeks. And I'll guarantee you three hundred percent--if
+you'll stay in with me after you start. Otherwise--I don't think making
+this money would be fair just now."
+
+"I'll be out to see you in about two hours, Buck. Where are you? At the
+estate?" asked Faragaut seriously.
+
+"In my lab out there. Thanks, Tom."
+
+McLaurin was there when Tom Faragaut arrived. And General Logan, and
+Colonel Gerardhi. There was a restrained air of gratefulness about all
+of them that Tom Faragaut couldn't quite understand. He had been looking
+up Buck Kendall's famous bank, and more and more he had begun to wonder
+just what was up. The list of stockholders had read like a list of IP
+heroes and executives. The staff had been a list of IP men with a
+slender sprinkling of accountants. And the sixty-million dollar
+structure was to be a bank without advertising of any sort! Usually such
+a venture is planned and published months in advance. This had sprung up
+suddenly, with a strange quietness.
+
+Almost silently, Buck Kendall led the way to the laboratory. A small
+metal tank was supported in a peculiar piece of apparatus, and from it
+led a small platinum pipe to a domed apparatus made largely of insulum.
+A little pool of mercury, with small red crystals floating in it rested
+in a shallow hollow surrounded by heavy conductors.
+
+"That's it, Tom. I wanted to show you first what we have, and why I
+wanted all that mercury. Within three weeks, every man, woman and child
+in the system will be clamoring for mercury metal. That's the perfect
+accumulator." Quickly he demonstrated the machine, charging it, and then
+discharging it. It was better than 99.95% efficient on the charge, and
+was 100% efficient on the discharge.
+
+"Physically, any metal will do. Technically, mercury is best for a
+number of reasons. It's a liquid. I can, and do it in this, charge a
+certain quantity, and then move it up to the storage tank. Charge
+another pool, and move it up. In discharge, I can let a stream flow in
+continuously if I required a steady, terrific drain of power without
+interruption. If I wanted it for more normal service, I'd discharge a
+pool, drain it, refill the receiver, and discharge a second pool. Thus,
+mercury is the metal to use.
+
+"Do you see why I wanted all that metal?"
+
+"I do, Buck--Lord, I do," gasped Faragaut. "That is the perfect power
+supply."
+
+"No, confound it, it isn't. It's a secondary source. It isn't primary.
+We're just as limited in the _supply_ of power as ever--only we have
+increased our distribution of power. Lord knows, we're going to need a
+power _supply_ badly enough before long--" Buck relapsed into moody
+silence.
+
+"What," asked Faragaut, looking around him, "does that mean?"
+
+It was McLaurin who told him of the stranger ship, and Kendall's
+interpretation of its meaning. Slowly Faragaut grasped the meaning
+behind Buck's strange actions of the past months.
+
+"The Lunar Bank," he said slowly, half to himself. "Staffed by trained
+IP men, experts in expert destruction. Buck, you said something about
+the profits of this venture. What did you mean?"
+
+Buck smiled. "We're going to stick up IP to the extent necessary to pay
+for that fort--er--bank--on Luna. We'll also boost the price so that
+we'll make enough to pay for those ships I'm having made. The public
+will pay for that."
+
+"I see. And we aren't to stick the price too high, and just make money?"
+
+"That's the general idea."
+
+"The IP Appropriations Board won't give you what you need, Commander,
+for real improvements on the IP ships?"
+
+"They won't believe Kendall. Therefore they won't."
+
+"What did you mean about gamma rays, Buck?"
+
+"Mercury will stop them and the Commander here intends to have the
+refitted ships built so that the engine room and control room are one,
+and completely surrounded by the mercury tanks. The men will be
+protected against the gamma rays."
+
+"Won't the rays affect the power stored in the mercury--perhaps release
+it?"
+
+"We tried it out, of course, and while we can't get the intensities we
+expect, and can't really make any measurements of the gamma-ray energy
+impinging on the mercury--it seems to absorb, and store that energy!"
+
+"What's next on the program, Buck?"
+
+"Finish those ships I have building. And I want to do some more
+development work. The Stranger will return within six months now, I
+believe. It will take all that time, and more for real refitting of the
+IP ships."
+
+"How about more forts--or banks, whichever you want to call them. Mars
+isn't protected."
+
+"Mars is abandoned," replied General Logan seriously. "We haven't any
+too much to protect old Earth, and she must come first. Mars will, of
+course, be protected as best the IP ships can. But--we're expecting
+defeat. This isn't a case of glorious victory. It will be a case of hard
+won survival. We don't know anything about the enemy--except that they
+are capable of interstellar flights, and have atomic energy. They are
+evidently far ahead of us. Our battle is to survive till we learn how to
+conquer. For a time, at least, the Strangers will have possession of
+most of the planets of the system. We do not think they will be able to
+reach Earth, because Commander McLaurin here will withdraw his ships to
+Earth to protect the planet--and the great 'Lunar Bank' will display its
+true character."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Faragaut looked unsympathetically at Buck Kendall, as he stood glaring
+perplexedly at the apparatus he had been working on.
+
+"What's the matter, Buck, won't she perk?"
+
+"No, damn it, and it should."
+
+"That," pointed out Faragaut, "is just what you think. Nature thinks
+otherwise. We generally have to abide by her opinions. What is it--or
+what is it meant to be?"
+
+"Perfect reflector."
+
+"Make a nice mirror. What else, and how come?"
+
+"A mirror is just what I want. I want something that will reflect _all_
+the radiation that falls on it. No metal will, even in its range of
+maximum reflectivity. Aluminum goes pretty high, silver, on some ranges,
+a bit higher. But none of them reaches 99%. I want a perfect reflector
+that I can put behind a source of wild, radiant energy so I can focus
+it, and put it where it will do the most good."
+
+"Ninety-nine percent. Sounds pretty good. That's better efficiency than
+most anything else we have, isn't it?"
+
+"No, it isn't. The accumulator is 100% efficient on the discharge, and a
+good transformer, even before that, ran as high as 99.8 sometimes. They
+had to. If you have a transformer handling 1,000,000 horsepower, and
+it's even 1% inefficient, you have a heat loss of nearly 10,000
+horsepower to handle. I want to use this as a destructive weapon, and if
+I hand the other fellow energy in distressing amounts, it's even worse
+at my end, because no matter how perfect a beam I work out, there will
+still be some spread. I can make it mighty tight though, if I make my
+surface a perfect parabola. But if I send a million horse, I have to
+handle it, and a ship can't stand several hundred thousand horsepower
+roaming around loose as heat, let alone the weapon itself. The thing
+will be worse to me than to him.
+
+"I figured there was something worth investigating in those fields we
+developed on our magnetic shield work. They had to do, you know, with
+light, and radiant energy. There must be some reason why a metal
+reflects. Further, though we can't get down to the basic root of matter,
+the atom, yet, we can play around just about as we please with molecules
+and molecular forces. But it is molecular force that determines whether
+light and radiant energy of that caliber shall be reflected or
+transmitted. Take aluminum as an example. In the metallic molecule
+state, the metal will reflect pretty well. But volatilize it, and it
+becomes transparent. All gases are transparent, all metals reflective.
+Then the secret of perfect reflection lies at a molecular level in the
+organization of matter, and is within our reach. Well--this thing was
+supposed to make that piece of silver reflective. I missed it that
+time." He sighed. "I suppose I'll have to try again."
+
+"I should think you'd use tungsten for that. If you do have a slight
+leak, that would handle the heat."
+
+"No, it would hold it. Silver is a better conductor of heat. But the
+darned thing won't work."
+
+"Your other scheme has." Faragaut laughed. "I came out principally for
+some signatures. IP wants one hundred thousand tons of mercury. I've
+sold most of mine already in the open market. You want to sell?"
+
+"Certainly. And I told you my price."
+
+"I know," sighed Faragaut. "It seems a shame though. Those IP board men
+would pay higher. And they're so damn tight it seems a crime not to make
+'em pay up when they have to."
+
+"The IP will need the money worse elsewhere. Where do I--oh, here?"
+
+"Right. I'll be out again this evening. The regular group will be here?"
+
+Kendall nodded as he signed in triplicate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening, Buck had found the trouble in his apparatus, for as he
+well knew, the theory was right, only the practical apparatus needed
+changing. Before the group composed of Faragaut, McLaurin and the
+members of Kendall's "bank," he demonstrated it.
+
+It was merely a small, model apparatus, with a mirror of space-strained
+silver that was an absolutely perfect reflector. The mirror had been
+ground out of a block of silver one foot deep, by four inches square,
+carefully annealed, and the work had all been done in a cooling bath.
+The result was a mirror that was so nearly a perfect paraboloid that the
+beam held sharp and absolutely tight for the half-mile range they tested
+it on. At the projector it was three and one-half inches in diameter. At
+the target, it was three and fifty-two one hundredths inches in
+diameter.
+
+"Well, you've got the mirror, what are you going to reflect with it
+now?" asked McLaurin. "The greatest problem is getting a radiant source,
+isn't it? You can't get a temperature above about ten thousand degrees,
+and maintain it very long, can you?"
+
+"Why not?" Kendall smiled.
+
+"It'll volatilize and leave the scene of action, won't it?"
+
+"What if it's a gaseous source already?"
+
+"What? Just a gas-flame? That won't give you the point source you need.
+You're using just a spotlight here, with a Moregan Point-light. That
+won't give you energy, and if you use a gas-flame, the spread will be so
+great, that no matter how perfectly you figure your mirror, it won't
+beam."
+
+"The answer is easy. Not an ordinary gas-flame--a very extra-special
+kind of gas-flame. Know anything about Renwright's ionization-work?"
+
+"Renwright--he's an IP man isn't he?"
+
+"Right. He's developed a system, which, thanks to the power we can get
+in that atostor, will sextuply ionize oxygen gas. Now: what does that
+mean?"
+
+"Spirits of space! Concentrated essence of energy!"
+
+"Right. And in preparation, Cole here had one made up for me. That--and
+something else. We'll just hook it up--"
+
+With Devin's aid, Kendall attached the second apparatus, a larger device
+into which the silver block with its mirror surface fitted. With the
+uttermost care, the two physicists lined it up. Two projectors pointed
+toward each other at an angle, the base angles of a triangle, whose apex
+was the center of the mirror. On very low power, a soft, glowing violet
+light filtered out through the opening of the one, and a slight green
+light came from the other. But where the two streams met, an intense,
+violet glare built up. The center of action was not at the focus, and
+slowly this was lined up, till a sharp, violet beam of light reached out
+across the open yard to the target set up.
+
+Buck Kendall cut off the power, and slowly got into position. "Now. Keep
+out from in front of that thing. Put on these glasses--and watch out."
+Heavy, thick-lensed orange-brown goggles were passed out, and Kendall
+took his place. Before him, a thick window of the same glass had been
+arranged, so that he might see uninterruptedly the controls at hand, and
+yet watch unblinded, the action of the beam.
+
+Dully the mirror-force relay clicked. A hazy glow ran over the silver
+block, and died. Then--simultaneously the power was thrown from two
+small, compact atostors into the twin projectors. Instantly--a titanic
+eruption of light almost invisibly violet, spurted out in a solid,
+compact stream. With a roar and crash, it battered its way through the
+thick air, and crashed into the heavy target plate. A stream of flame
+and scintillating sparks erupted from the armor plate--and died as
+Kendall cut the beam. A white-hot area a foot across leaked down the
+face of the metal.
+
+"That," said Faragaut gently, removing his goggles. "That's not a
+spotlight, and it's not exactly a gas-flame. But I still don't know what
+that blue-hot needle of destruction is. Just what do you call that tame
+stellar furnace of yours?"
+
+"Not so far off, Tom," said Kendall happily, "except that even S Doradus
+is cold compared to that. That sends almost pure ultra-violet
+light--which, by the way, it is almost impossible to reflect
+successfully, and represents a temperature to be expressed not in
+thousands of degrees, nor yet in tens of thousands. I calculated the
+temperature would be about 750,000 degrees. What is happening is that a
+stream of low-voltage electrons--cathode rays--in great quantity are
+meeting great quantities of sextuply ionized oxygen. That means that a
+nucleus used to having two electrons in the K-ring, and six in the next,
+has had that outer six knocked off, and then has been hurled violently
+into free air.
+
+"All by themselves, those sextuply ionized oxygen atoms would have a
+good bit to say, but they don't really begin to talk till they start
+roaring for those electrons I'm feeding them. At the meeting point, they
+grab up all they can get--probably about five--before the competition
+and the fierce release of energy drives them out, part-satisfied. I lose
+a little energy there, but not a real fraction. It's the howl they put
+up for the first four that counts. The electron-feed is necessary,
+because otherwise they'd smash on and ruin that mirror. They work
+practically in a perfect vacuum. That beam smashes the air out of the
+way. Of course, in space it would work better."
+
+"How could it?" asked Faragaut, faintly.
+
+"Kendall," asked McLaurin, "can we install that in the IP ships?"
+
+"You can start." Kendall shrugged. "There isn't a lot of apparatus. I'm
+going to install them in my ships, and in the--bank. I suspect--we
+haven't a lot of time left."
+
+"How near ready are those ships?"
+
+"About. That's all I can say. They've been torn up a bit for
+installation of the atostor apparatus. Now they'll have to be changed
+again."
+
+"Anything more coming?"
+
+Buck smiled slowly. He turned directly to McLaurin and replied:
+"Yes--the Strangers. As to developments--I can't tell, naturally. But if
+they do, it will be something entirely unexpected now. You see, given
+one new discovery, a half-dozen will follow immediately from it. When we
+announced that atostor, look what happened. Renwright must have thought
+it was God's gift to suffering physicists. He stuck some oxygen in the
+thing, added some of his own stuff--and behold. The magnetic apparatus
+gave us directly the shield, and indirectly this mirror. Now, I seem to
+have reached the end for the time. I'm still trying to get that
+space-release for high speed--speed greater than light, that is. So
+far," he added bitterly, "all I've gotten as an answer is a single
+expression that simply means practical zero--Heisenberg's Uncertainty
+Expression."
+
+"I'm uncertain as to your meaning"--McLaurin smiled--"but I take it
+that's nothing new."
+
+"No. Nearly four centuries old--twentieth century physics. I'll have to
+try some other line of attack, I guess, but that did seem so darned
+right. It just sounded right. Something ought to happen--and it just
+keeps saying 'nothing more except the natural uncertainty of nature.'"
+
+"Try it out, your math might be wrong somewhere."
+
+Kendall laughed. "If it was--I'd hate to try it out. If it wasn't I'd
+have no reason to. And there's plenty of other work to do. For one
+thing, getting that apparatus in production. The IP board won't like
+me." Kendall smiled.
+
+"They don't," replied McLaurin. "They're getting more and more and more
+worried--but they've got to keep the IP fleet in such condition that it
+can at least catch an up-to-date freighter."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gresth Gkae looked back at Sthor rapidly dropping behind, and across at
+her sister world, Asthor, circling a bare 100,000 miles away. Behind his
+great interstellar cruiser came a long line of similar ships. Each was
+loaded now not with instruments and pure scientists, but with weapons,
+fuel and warriors. Colonists too, came in the last ships. One hundred
+and fifty giant ships. All the wealth of Sthor and Asthor had been
+concentrated in producing those great machines. Every one represented
+nearly the equivalent of thirty million Earth-dollars. Four and a half
+billions of dollars for mere materials.
+
+Gresth Gkae had the honor of lead position, for he had discovered the
+planets and their stable, though tiny, sun. Still, Gresth Gkae knew his
+own giant Mira was a super-giant sun--and a curse and a menace to any
+rational society. Our yellow-white sun (to his eyes, an almost invisible
+color, similar to our blue) was small, but stable, and warm enough.
+
+In half an hour, all the ships were in space, and at a given signal, at
+ten-second intervals, they sprang into the superspeed, faster than
+light. For an instant, giant Mira ran and seemed distorted, as though
+seen through a porthole covered with running water, then steadied,
+curiously distorted. Faster than light they raced across the galaxy.
+
+Even in their super-fast ships, nearly three and a half weeks passed
+before the sun they sought, singled itself from the star-field as an
+extra bright point. Two days more, and the sun was within planetary
+distance. They came at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic, but they
+leveled down to it now, and slanted toward giant Jupiter and Jovian
+worlds. Ten worlds, in one sweep, it was--four habitable worlds. The
+nine satellites would be converted into forts at once, nine
+space-sweeping forts guarding the approaches to the planet. Gresth Gkae
+had made a fairly good search of the worlds, and knew that Earth was the
+main home of civilization in this system. Mars was second, and Venus
+third. But Jupiter offered the greatest possibilities for quick
+settlement, a base from which they could more easily operate, a base for
+fuels, for the heavy elements they would need--
+
+Fifteen million miles from Jupiter they slowed below the speed of
+light--and the IP stations observed them. Instantly, according to
+instructions issued by Commander McLaurin, a fleet of ten of the
+tiniest, fastest scouts darted out. As soon as possible, a group of
+three heavy cruisers, armed with all the inventions that had been
+discovered, the atostor power system, perfectly conducting power leads,
+the terrible UV ray, started out.
+
+The scouts got there first. Cameras were grinding steadily, with long
+range telescopic lenses, delicate instruments probed and felt and caught
+their fingers in the fields of the giant fleet.
+
+At ten-second intervals, giant ships popped into being, and glided
+smoothly toward Jupiter.
+
+Then the cruisers arrived. They halted at a respectful distance, and
+waited. The Miran ships plowed on undisturbed. Simultaneously, from the
+three leaders, terrific neutron rays shot out. The paraffin block walls
+stopped those--and the cruisers started to explain their feelings on the
+subject. They were the IP-J-37, 39, and 42. The 37 turned up the full
+power of the UV ray. The terrific beam of ultra-violet energy struck the
+second Miran ship, and the spot it touched exploded into incandescence,
+burned white-hot--and puffed out abruptly as the air pressure within
+blew the molten metal away.
+
+The Mirans were startled. This was not the type of thing Gresth Gkae had
+warned them of. Gresth Gkae himself frowned as the sudden roar of the
+machines of his ship rose in the metal walls. A stream of ten-inch
+atomic bombs shrieked out of their tubes, fully glowing green things
+floated out more slowly, and immediately waxed brilliant. Gamma ray
+bombs--but they could be guarded against--
+
+The three Solarian cruisers were washed in such frightful flame as they
+had never imagined. Streams of atomic bombs were exploding soundlessly,
+ineffectively in space, not thirty feet from them as they felt the
+sudden resistance of the magnetic shields. Hopefully, the 39 probed with
+her neutron gun. Nothing happened save that several gamma ray bombs went
+off explosively, and all the atomic bombs in its path exploded at once.
+
+Gresth Gkae knew what that meant. Neutron beam guns. Then this race was
+more intelligent than he had believed. They had not had them before. Had
+he perhaps given them too much warning and information?
+
+There was a sudden, deeper note in the thrumming roar of the great
+ship. Eagerly Gresth Gkae watched--and sighed in relief. The nearer of
+the three enemy ships was crumbling to dust. Now the other two were
+beginning to become blurred of outline. They were fleeing--but oh, so
+slowly. Easily the greater ship chased them down, till only floating
+dust, and a few small pieces of--
+
+Gresth Gkae shrieked in pain, and horror. The destroyed ships had fought
+in dying. All space seemed to blossom out with a terrible light, a light
+that wrapped around them, and burned into him, and through him. His eyes
+were dark and burning lumps in his head, his flesh seemed crawling,
+stinging--he was being flayed alive--in shrieking agony he crumpled to
+the floor.
+
+Hospital attaches came to him, and injected drugs. Slowly torturing
+consciousness left him. The doctors began working over his horribly
+burned body, shuddering inwardly as the protective, feather-like
+covering of his skin loosened, and dropped from his body. Tenderly they
+lowered him into a bath of chemicals--
+
+"The terrible light which caused so much damage to our men," reported a
+physicist, "was analyzed, and found to have some extraordinary lines. It
+was largely mercury-vapor spectrum, but the spectrum of mercury-atoms in
+an impossibly strained condition. I would suggest that great care be
+used hereafter, and all men be equipped with protective masks when
+observations are needed. This sun is very rich in the infra-X-rays and
+ultra-visible light. The explosion of light, we witnessed, was dangerous
+in its consisting almost wholly of very short and hard infra-X-rays."
+
+The physicist had a special term for what we know as ultra-violet light.
+To him, blue was ultra-violet, and exceedingly dangerous to
+red-sensitive eyes. To him, our ultra-violet was a long X-ray, and was
+designated by a special term. And to him--the explosion of the atostor
+reservoirs was a terrible and mystifying calamity.
+
+To the men in the five tiny scout-ships, it was also a surprise, and a
+painful one. Even space-hardened humans were burned by the terrifically
+hard ultra-violet from the explosion. But they got some hint of what it
+had meant to the Mirans from the confusion that resulted in the fleet.
+Several of the nearer ships spun, twisted, and went erratically off
+their courses. All seemed uncontrolled momentarily.
+
+The five scouts, following orders, darted instantly toward the Lunar
+Bank. Why, they did not know. But those were orders. They were to land
+there.
+
+The reason was that, faster than any Solarian ship, radio signals had
+reached McLaurin, and he, and most of the staff of the IP service had
+been moved to the Lunar Bank. Buck Kendall had extended an invitation in
+this "unexpected emergency." It so happened that Buck Kendall's
+invitation got there before any description of the Strangers, or their
+actions had arrived. The staff was somewhat puzzled as to how this
+happened--
+
+And now for the satellites of great Jupiter.
+
+One hundred and fifty giant interstellar cruisers advanced on Callisto.
+They didn't pause to investigate the mines and scattered farms of the
+satellite, but ten great ships settled, and a horde of warriors began
+pouring out.
+
+One hundred and forty ships reached Ganymede. One hundred and thirty
+sailed on. One hundred and thirty ships reached Europa--and they sailed
+on hurriedly, one hundred and twenty-nine of them. Gresth Gkae did not
+know it then, but the fleet had lost its first ship. The IP station on
+Europa had spoken back.
+
+They sailed in, a mighty armada, and the first dropped through Europa's
+thin, frozen atmosphere. They spotted the dome of the station, and a
+neutron ray lashed out at it. On the other, undefended worlds, this had
+been effective. Here--it was answered by ten five-foot UV rays. Further,
+these men had learned something from the destruction of the cruisers,
+and ten torpedoes had been unloaded, reloaded with atostor mercury, and
+sent out bravely.
+
+Easily the Mirans wiped out the first torpedo--
+
+Shrieking, the Miran pilots clawed their way from the controls as the
+fearful flood of ultra-violet light struck their unaccustomed skins.
+Others too felt that burning flood.
+
+The second torpedo they caught and deflected on a beam of
+alternating-current magnetism that repelled it. It did not come nearer
+than half a mile to the ship. The third they turned their deflecting
+beam on--and something went strangely wrong with the beam. It pulled
+that torpedo toward the ship with a sickening acceleration--and the
+torpedo exploded in that frightful violet flame.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five-foot diameter UV beams are nothing to play with. The Mirans were
+dodging these now as they loosed atomic bombs, only to see them exploded
+harmlessly by neutron guns, or caught in the magnetic screen. Gamma ray
+bombs were as useless. Again the beam of disintegrating force was turned
+on--
+
+The present opponent was not a ship. It was an IP defense station,
+equipped with everything Solarian science knew, and the dome was an
+eight-foot wall of tungsten-beryllium. The eight feet of solid,
+ultra-resistant alloy drank up that crumbling beam, and liked it. The
+wall did not fail. The men inside the fort jerked and quivered as the
+strange beam, a small, small fraction of it, penetrated the eight feet
+of outer wall, the six feet or so of intervening walls, and the mercury
+atostor reserves.
+
+"Concentrate all those UV beams on one spot, and see if you can blast a
+hole in him before he shakes it loose," ordered the ray technician.
+"He'll wiggle if you start off with the beam. Train your sights on the
+nose of that first ship--when you're ready, call out."
+
+"Ready--ready--" Ten men replied. "Fire!" roared the technician. Ten
+titanic swords of pure ultra-violet energy, energy that practically no
+unconditioned metal will reflect to more than fifty per cent, emerged.
+There was a single spot of intense incandescence for a single hundredth
+of a second--and then the energy was burning its way through the inner,
+thinner skins with such rapidity that they sputtered and flickered like
+a broken televisor.
+
+One hundred and twenty-nine ships retreated hastily for conference,
+leaving a gutted, wrecked hull, broken by its fall, on Europa.
+Triumphantly, the Europa IP station hurled out its radio message of the
+first encounter between a fort and the Miran forces.
+
+Most important of all, it sent a great deal of badly wanted information
+regarding the Miran weapons. Particularly interesting was the fact that
+it had withstood the impact of that disintegrating ray.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Grimly Buck Kendall looked at the reports. McLaurin stood beside him,
+Devin sat across the table from him. "What do you make of it, Buck?"
+asked the Commander.
+
+"That we have just one island of resistance left on the Jovian worlds.
+And that will, I fear, vanish. They haven't finished with their arsenal
+by any means."
+
+"But what was it, man, what was it that ruined those ships?"
+
+"Vibration. Somehow--Lord only knows how it's done--they can project
+electric fields. These projected fields are oscillated, and they are
+tuned in with some parts of the ship. I suspect they are crystals of the
+metals. If they can start a vibration in the crystals of the
+metal--that's fatigue, metal fatigue enormously speeded. You know how a
+quartz crystal oscillator in a radio-control apparatus will break, if
+you work it on a very heavy load at the peak? They simply smash the
+crystals of metal in the same way. Only they project their field."
+
+"Then our toughest metals are useless? Can't something tough, rather
+than hard, like copper or even silver for instance, stand it?"
+
+"Calcium metal's the toughest going--and even that would break under the
+beating those ships give it. The only way to withstand it is to have
+such a mass of metal that the oscillations are damped out. But--"
+
+The set tuned in on the IP station on Europa was speaking again. "The
+ships are returning. There are one hundred and twenty-nine by accurate
+count. Jorgsen reports that telescopic observation of the dead on the
+fallen cruiser show them to be a _completely un-human race_! They are
+of mottled coloring, predominately grayish brown. The ships are
+returning. They have divided into ten groups, nine groups of two each,
+and a main body of the rest of the fleet. The group of eighteen is
+descending within range, and we are focusing our beams on them--"
+
+Out by Europa, ten great UV beams were stabbing angrily toward ten great
+interstellar ships. The metal of the hulls glowed brilliant, and
+distorted slowly as the thick walls softened under the heat, and the air
+behind pressed against it. Grimly the ten ships came on. Torpedoes were
+being launched, and exploded, and now they had no effect, for the Mirans
+within were protected.
+
+The eighteen grouped ships separated, and arranged themselves in a
+circle around the fort. Suddenly one staggered as a great puff of gas
+shot out through the thin atmosphere of Europa to flare brilliantly in
+the lash of the stabbing UV beam. Instantly the ship righted itself, and
+labored upward. Another dropped to take its place--
+
+And the great walls of the IP fort suddenly groaned and started in their
+welded joints. The faint, whispering rustle of the crumbling beam was
+murmuring through the station. Engineers shouted suddenly as meters
+leapt the length of their scales, and the needles clicked softly on the
+stop pins. A thin rustle came from the atostors grouped in the great
+power room. "Spirits of Space--a revolving magnetic field!" roared the
+Chief Technician. "They're making this whole blasted station a squirrel
+cage!"
+
+The mighty walls of eight-foot metal shuddered and trembled. The UV
+beams lashed out from the fort in quivering arcs now, they did not hold
+their aim steady, and the magnetic shield that protected them from
+atomic bombs was working and straining wildly. Eighteen great ships
+quivered and tugged outside there now, straining with all their power to
+remain in the same spot, as they passed on from one to another the
+magnetic impulses that were now creating a titanic magnetic vortex about
+the fort.
+
+"The atostors will be exhausted in another fifteen minutes," the Chief
+Technician roared into his transmitter. "Can the signals get through
+those fields, Commander?"
+
+"No, Mac. They've been stopped, Sparks tells me. We're here--and let's
+hope we stay. What's happening?"
+
+"They've got a revolving magnetic field out there that would spin a
+minor planet. The whole blasted fort is acting like the squirrel cage in
+an induction motor! They've made us the armature in a five hundred
+million horsepower electric motor."
+
+"They can't tear this place loose, can they?"
+
+"I don't know--it was never--" The Chief stopped. Outside a terrific
+roar and crash had built up. White darts of flame leapt a thousand feet
+into the air, hurling terrific masses of shattered rock and soil.
+
+"I was going to say," the Chief went on, "this place wasn't designed for
+that sort of a strain. Our own magnetic field is supporting us now,
+preventing their magnetic field from getting its teeth on metal. When
+the strain comes--well, they're cutting loose our foundation with atomic
+bombs!"
+
+Five UV beams were combined on one interstellar ship. Instantly the
+great machine retreated, and another dropped in to take its place while
+the magnetic field spun on, uninterruptedly.
+
+"Can they keep that up long?"
+
+"God knows--but they have a hundred and more ships to send in when the
+power of one gives out, remember."
+
+"What's our reserve now?"
+
+The Chief paused a moment to look at the meters. "Half what it was ten
+minutes ago!"
+
+Commander Wallace sent some other orders. Every torpedo tube of the
+station suddenly belched forth deadly, fifteen-foot torpedoes, most of
+them mud-torpedoes, torpedoes loaded with high explosive in the nose, a
+delayed fuse, and a load of soft clinging mud in the rear. The mud would
+flow down over the nose and offer a resistance foot-hold for the
+explosive which empty space would not. Four hundred and three torpedoes,
+equipped with anti-magnetic apparatus darted out. One hundred and four
+passed the struggling fields. One found lodgement on a Miran ship, and
+crushed in a metal wall, to be stopped by a bulkhead.
+
+The Chief engineer watched his power declining. All ten UV beams were
+united in one now, driving a terrible sword of energy that made the
+attacked ship skip for safety instantly, yet the beams were all but
+useless. For the Miran reserves filled the gap, and the magnetic tornado
+continued.
+
+For seventeen long minutes the station resisted the attack. Then the
+last of the strained mercury flowed into the receivers, and the vast
+power of the atostors was exhausted. Slowly the magnetic fields
+declined. The great walls of the station felt the clutching lines of
+force--they began to heat and to strain. A low, harsh grinding became
+audible over the roar of the atomic bombs. The whole structure trembled,
+and jumped slightly. The roar of bombs ceased suddenly, as the station
+jerked again, more violently. Then it turned a bit, rolled clumsily.
+Abruptly it began to spin violently, more and more rapidly. It started
+rolling clumsily across the plateau--
+
+A rain of atomic bombs struck the unprotected metal, and the eighth
+breached the walls. The twentieth was the last. There was no longer an
+IP station on Europa.
+
+"The difference," said Buck Kendall slowly, when the reports came in
+from scout-ships in space that had witnessed the last struggle, "between
+an atomic generator and an atomic power-store, or accumulator, is
+clearly shown. We haven't an adequate _source_ of power."
+
+McLaurin sighed slowly, and rose to his feet. "What can we do?"
+
+"Thank our lucky stars that Faragaut here, and I, bought up all the
+mercury in the system, and had it brought to Earth. We at least have a
+supply of materials for the atostors."
+
+"They don't seem to do much good."
+
+"They're the best we've got. All the photocells on Earth and Venus and
+Mercury are at present busy storing the sun's power in atostors. I have
+two thousand tons of charged mercury in our tanks here in the 'Lunar
+Bank.'"
+
+"Much good that will do--they can just pull and pull and pull till it's
+all gone. A starfish isn't strong, but he can open the strongest oyster
+just because he can pull from now on. You may have a lot of power--but."
+
+"But--we also have those new fifteen-foot UV beams. And one fifteen-foot
+UV beam is worth, theoretically, nine five-foot beams, and practically,
+a dozen. We have a dozen of them. Remember, this place was designed not
+only to protect itself, but Earth, too."
+
+"They can still pull, can't they?"
+
+"They'll stop pulling when they get their fingers burned. In the
+meantime, why not use some of those IP ships to bring in a few more
+cargoes of charged mercury?"
+
+"They aren't good for much else, are they? I wonder if those fellows
+have anything more we don't know?"
+
+"Oh, probably. I'm going to work on that crumbler thing. That's the
+first consideration now."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"So we can move a ship. As it is, even those two we built aren't any
+good."
+
+"Would they be anyway?"
+
+"Well--I think I might disturb those gentlemen slightly. Remember, they
+each have a nose-beam eighteen feet across. Exceedingly unpleasant
+customers."
+
+"Score: Strangers; magnetic field, atomic bombs, atomic power, crumbler
+ray. Home team; UV beams."
+
+Kendall grinned. "I'd heard you were a pessimistic cuss when battle
+started--"
+
+"Pessimistic, hell, I'm merely counting things up."
+
+"McClellan had all the odds on Lee back in the Civil War of the
+States--but Lee sent him home faster than he came."
+
+"But Lee lost in the end."
+
+"Why bring that up? I've got work to do." Still smiling, Kendall went to
+the laboratory he had built up in the "Lunar Bank." Devin was already
+there, calculating. He looked unhappy.
+
+"We can't do anything, as far as I can see. They're using an electric
+field all right, and projecting it. I can't see how we can do that."
+
+"Neither can I," agreed Kendall, "so we can't use that weapon. I really
+didn't want to anyway. Like the neutron gun which I told Commander
+McLaurin would be useless as a weapon, they'd be prepared for it, you
+can be sure. All I want to do is fight it, and make their projection
+useless."
+
+"Well, we have to know how they project it before we can break up the
+projection, don't we?"
+
+"Not at all. They're using an electric field of very high frequency, but
+variable frequency. As far as I can see, all we need is a similar
+variable electric field of a slightly different frequency to heterodyne
+theirs into something quite harmless."
+
+"Oh," said Devin. "We could, couldn't we? But how are you going to do
+that?"
+
+"We'll have to learn, that's all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Buck Kendall started trying to learn. In the meantime, the Mirans were
+taking over Jupiter. There were three IP stations on the planet itself,
+but they were vastly hindered by the thick, almost ultra-violet-proof
+atmosphere of Jupiter. Their rays were weak. And the magnetic fields of
+the Mirans were unaffected. Only their atomic bombs were hindered by the
+heavier gravity that pulled the rocks back in place faster than the
+bombs could throw them out. Still--a few hours of work, and the IP
+stations on Jupiter had rolled wildly across the flat plains of the
+planet like dented cans, to end in utter destruction.
+
+The Mirans had paid no attention to the fleeing passenger and freighter
+ships that left the planet, loaded to the utmost with human cargo, and
+absolutely no freight. The IP fleet had to go to their rescue with
+oxygen tanks to take care of the extra humans, but nearly three-quarters
+of the population of Jupiter, a newly established population, and hence
+a readily mobile one, was saved. The others, the Mirans did not bother
+with particularly except when they happened to be near where the Mirans
+wanted to work. Then they were instantly destroyed by atomic bombing, or
+gamma rays.
+
+The Mirans settled almost at once, and began their work of finding on
+Jupiter the badly needed atomic fuels. Machines were set up, and work
+begun, Mirans laboring under the gravity of the heavy planet. Then,
+fifty ships swam up again, reloaded with fuel, and with crews consisting
+solely of uninjured warriors, and started for Mars.
+
+Mars was half way between her near conjunction and her maximum
+elongation with respect to Jupiter at that time. The Mirans knew their
+business though, for they started in on the IP station on Phobos. They
+were practiced by this time, and this IP station had only seven
+five-foot beams. In half an hour that station fell, and its sister
+station on Deimos followed. Three wounded ships returned to Jupiter, and
+ten new ships came out. The attack on Mars itself was started.
+
+Mars was a different proposition. There were thirty-two IP stations
+here, one of them nearly as powerful as the Lunar Bank station. It was
+equipped with four of the huge fifteen-foot beams. And it had fifteen
+tons of mercury, more than seven-eighths charged. The Mars Center
+Station was located a short ten miles from the Mars Center City, and
+under the immediate orders of the IP heads, Mars Center City had been
+vacated.
+
+For two days the Mirans hung off Mars, solidifying their positions on
+Phobos and Deimos. Then, with sixty-two ships, they attacked. They had
+made some very astute observations, and they started on the smaller
+stations just beyond the range of the Mars Center Station. Naturally,
+near so powerful a center, these stations had never been strong. They
+fell rapidly. But they had been counted on by Mars Center as auxiliary
+supports. McLaurin had sent very definite orders to Mars Center
+forbidding any action on their part, save gathering of power-supplies.
+
+At last the direct attack on Mars Center was launched. For the first
+time, the Mirans saw one of the fifteen-foot beams. Mars' atmosphere is
+thin, and there is little ozone. The ultra-violet beams were nearly as
+effective as in empty space. When the Mirans dropped their ships, a full
+thirty of them, into the circle formation, Mars Center answered at once.
+All four beams started.
+
+Those fifteen-foot beams, connected directly to huge atostor release
+apparatus, delivered a maximum power of two and three-quarter billion
+horsepower, each. The first Miran ship struck, sparkled magnificently,
+and a terrific cascade of white-hot metal rolled down from its nose. The
+great ship nosed down and to the left abruptly, accelerated swiftly--and
+crashed with tremendous energy on the plain outside of Mars Center City.
+White, unwavering flames licked up suddenly, and made a column five
+hundred feet high against the dark sky. Then the wreck exploded with a
+violence that left a crater half a mile across.
+
+Three other ships had been struck, and were rapidly retreating. Another
+try was made for the ring formation, and four more ships were wounded,
+and replaced. The ring did not retreat, but the great magnetic field
+started. Atomic and gamma ray bombs started now, flashing sometimes
+dangerously close to the station as its magnetic field battled the
+rotating field of the ships. The four greater beams, and many smaller
+ones were in swift and angry action. Not more than a ten-second exposure
+could be endured by any one ship, before it must retreat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For five minutes the Mirans hung doggedly at their task. Then, wisely,
+they retreated. Of the fleet, not more than seven ships remained
+untouched. Mars Center Station had held--at what cost only they knew.
+Five hundred tons of their mercury had been exhausted in that brief five
+minutes. One hundred tons a minute had flowed into and out of the
+atostor apparatus. Mars Center radioed for help, when the fleet lifted.
+
+There was one other station on Mars that stood a good chance of
+survival, Deenmor Station, with three of the big beams installed, and
+apparatus for their fourth was in the station, and being rapidly worked
+over. McLaurin did a wise and courageous thing, at which every man on
+Mars cursed. He ordered that all IP stations save these two be deserted,
+and all mercury fuel reserves be moved to Deenmor and Mars Center.
+
+The Mirans could not land on the North Western section of Mars, nor in
+the South Central region. Therefore Mars was not exactly habitable to
+Miran ships, because the great beams had been so perfectly figured that
+they were effective at a range of nearly twelve hundred miles.
+
+Deenmor station was attacked--but it was a half-hearted attack, for
+Mirans were becoming distinctly skittish about fifteen-foot UV beams.
+Two badly blistered ships--and the Mirans retreated to Jupiter. But Mira
+held Phobos and Deimos. In two weeks, they had set up cannon there, and
+proved themselves accurate long-range gunners. Against the feeble
+attraction of Deimos, and with Mars' gravity to help them, they began
+bombarding the two stations, and anything that attempted to approach
+them, with gamma and atomic explosive bombs. Meanwhile they amused
+themselves occasionally by planting a gamma-ray bomb in each of Mars'
+major cities. They made Mars uninhabitable for Solarians as well as for
+Mirans, at least until the deadly slow-action atomic explosives wore
+off, or were removed.
+
+Then the Mirans, after a lapse of three weeks while they dug in their
+toes on Jupiter, prepared to leap. Earth was the next goal. Miran
+scout-ships had been sent out before this--and severely handled by the
+concentrated fleets of the IP that hung grimly off Earth and Luna now.
+But the scouts had learned one thing. Mirans could never hope to attain
+a firm grasp on Earth while terribly armed Luna hung like a Sword of
+Damocles over their heads. Further, attack on Earth directly would be
+next to impossible, for, thanks to Faragaut's Interplanetary Company,
+nearly all the mercury metal in the system was safely lodged on Earth,
+and saturated with power. Every major city had been equipped with great
+UV apparatus. And neutron guns in plenty waited on small ships just
+outside the atmosphere to explode harmlessly any atomic or gamma bombs
+Miran ships might attempt to deposit.
+
+An attack on Luna was the first step. But that terrible, gigantic fort
+on Luna worried them. Yet while that fort existed, Earth ships were free
+to come and go, for Mirans could not afford to stand near. At a distance
+of twenty thousand miles, small Miran ships had felt the touch of those
+great UV beams.
+
+Finally, a brief test-attack was made, with an entire fleet of one
+hundred ships. They drew almost into position, faster than light, faster
+than the signaling warnings could send their messages. In position, all
+those great ships strained and heaved at the mighty magnetic vortex that
+twisted at the field of the fort. Instantly, twelve of the fifteen-foot
+UV beams replied. And--two great UV beams of a size the Mirans had never
+seen before, beams from the two ships, "S Doradus" and "Cepheid."
+
+The test-attack dissolved as suddenly as it had come. The Mirans
+returned to Jupiter, and to the outer planets where they had further
+established themselves. Most of the Solar system was theirs. But the
+Solarians still held the choicest planets--and kept the Mirans from
+using the mild-temperatured Mars.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+"They can't take this, at least," sighed McLaurin as they retreated from
+Luna.
+
+"I didn't think they could--right away. I'm wondering though if they
+haven't something we haven't seen yet. Besides which--give them time,
+give them time."
+
+"Well, give us time, too," snapped McLaurin. "How are you coming?"
+
+Buck smiled. "I'm sure I don't know. I have a machine but I haven't the
+slightest idea of whether or not it's any good."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I can destroy--I hope--but I can't build up their ray. I can't test the
+machine because I haven't their ray to test it against."
+
+"What can we do to test it?"
+
+"The only thing I can see is to call for volunteers--and send out a
+six-man cruiser. If the ship's too small, they may not destroy it with
+the big crumbler rays. If it's too large--and the machine didn't
+work--we'd lose too much."
+
+Twelve hours later, the IP men at the Lunar Bank fort were lined up.
+McLaurin stepped up on the platform, and addressed the men briefly, told
+them what was needed. Six volunteers were selected by a process of
+elimination, those who were married, had dependents, officers, and
+others were refused. Finally, six men of the IP were chosen, neither
+rookies nor veterans, six average men. And one average six-man cruiser,
+one hundred and eleven feet long, twenty-two in diameter. It was the
+T-208, a sister ship of the T-247, the first ship to be destroyed.
+
+The T-208 started out from Luna, and with full acceleration, sped out
+toward Phobos. Slowly she circled the satellite, while distant scouts
+kept her under view. Lazily, the Miran patrol on Phobos watched the
+T-208, indifferent to her. The T-208 dove suddenly, after five fruitless
+circles of the tiny world, and with her four-foot UV beam flaming,
+stabbed angrily at a flight of Miran scouts berthed in the very shadow
+of a great battle cruiser, one of the interstellar ships stationed here
+on Phobos.
+
+Four of the little ships slumped in incandescence. Angrily the terrific
+sword of energy slashed at the frail little scouts.
+
+Angrily the Miran interstellar ship shot herself abruptly into action
+against this insolent cruiser. The cruiser launched a flight of the
+mercury-torpedoes. Flashing, burning, ultra-violet energy flooded the
+great ship, harmlessly, for the men were, as usual, protected. The Miran
+answered with the neutron beam, atomic and gamma bombs--and the crumbler
+ray.
+
+Gently, softly a halo of shimmering-violet luminescence built up about
+the T-208. The UV beam continued to flare, wavering slightly in its
+aim--then fell way off to one side. The T-208 staggered suddenly,
+wandered from her course--whole, but uncontrolled. For the men within
+the ship were dead.
+
+Majestically the Miran swung along beside the dead ship, a great
+magnetic tow-cable shot out toward it, to shy off at first, then slowly
+to be adjusted, and take hold in the magnetic shield of the T-208. The
+pilots of the watching scout-ships turned away. They knew what would
+happen.
+
+It did. Five--ten--twenty seconds passed. Then the "dead-man" took over
+the ship--and the stored power in the atostor tanks blasted in a
+terrible flame that shattered the metal hull to molecular fragments. The
+interstellar cruiser shuddered, and rolled half over at the blasting
+pressure. Leaking seams appeared in her plates.
+
+The scouts raced back to Luna as the Miran settled heavily, and a trifle
+clumsily to Phobos. Miran radio-beams were forcing their way out toward
+the Miran station on Europa, to be relayed to the headquarters on
+Jupiter, just as Solarian radio beams were thrusting through space
+toward Luna. Said the Miran messages: "Their ships no longer crumble."
+Said the Solarian messages: "The ships no longer crumble--but the men
+die."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His deep eyes burning tensely, Buck Kendall heard the messages coming
+in, and rose slowly from his seat to pace the floor. "I think I know
+why," he said at last. "I should have thought. For that too can be
+prevented."
+
+"Why--what in the name of the Planets?" asked McLaurin. "It didn't kill
+the men in the forts--why does it kill the men in the ships, when the
+ships are protected?"
+
+"The protection kills them."
+
+"But--but they had the protective oscillations on all the way out!"
+protested the Commander.
+
+"Think how it works though. Think, man. The enemy's field is an
+electric-field oscillation. We combat it by setting up a similar
+oscillating field in the metal of the hull ourselves. Because the metal
+conducts the strains, they meet, and oppose. It is not a shield--a
+shield is impossible, as I have said, because of energy concentration
+factors. If their beam carried a hundred thousand horsepower in a
+ten-foot square beam, in every ten square feet of our shield, we'd have
+to have one hundred thousand horsepower. In other words, hundreds of
+times as much energy would be needed in the shield, as they used in
+their beam. We can't afford that. We had to let the beams oppose our
+oscillations in the metal, where, because the metal conducts, they meet
+on an equal basis. But--when two oscillations of slightly different
+frequency meet, what is the result?"
+
+"In this case, a heterodyne frequency of a lower, and harmless
+frequency."
+
+"So I thought. I was partly right. It does _not_ harm the metal. But it
+kills the men. It is super-sonic. The terrible, shrill sounds destroy
+the cells of the men's bodies. Then, when their dead hands release the
+controls, the automatic switches blow up the ship."
+
+"God! We stop one menace--and it is like the Hydra. For every head we
+lop off, two spring up."
+
+"Ah--but they are lesser heads. Look, what is the fundamental difference
+between sound and light?"
+
+"One is a vibration of matter and the--ah--eliminate the material
+contact!"
+
+"Exactly! All we need to do is to let the ships operate airless, the men
+in space suits. Then the air cannot carry the sounds to them. And by
+putting special damping materials in their suits, we can stop the
+vibrations that would reach them through their feet and hands. Another
+six-man ship must go out--but this ship will come back!"
+
+And with the order for another experimental ship, went the orders for
+commercial supplies of this new apparatus. Every IP ship must be
+equipped to resist it.
+
+Buck Kendall sailed on the six-man scout that went out this time. Again
+they swooped once at Phobos, again Miran scout-ships crumbled under the
+attack of the vicious UV beams. The Mirans were not waiting
+contemptuously this time. In an instant the great interstellar ship rose
+from its berth, its weapons working angrily. The crumbler ray snapped
+out at the T-253.
+
+Kendall stared into the periscope visor intently. Clumsily his padded
+hands worked at the specially adapted controls. The soft hiss of the
+oxygen release into his suit disturbed him slightly. The radio-phones in
+his helmet carried all the conversations in the ship to him with equal
+clarity. He watched as the great ship angled angrily up--
+
+His vision was momentarily obscured by a violet glow that built up and
+reached out gently from every point of metal in the ship. The instant
+Kendall saw that, the T-253 was fleeing under his hands. The test had
+been made. Now all he desired was safety again. The ion-rockets flared
+recklessly as, crushed under an acceleration of four Earth-gravities, he
+sank heavily into his seat. Grimly the Miran ship was pursuing them,
+easily keeping up with the fleeing midget. The crumbler became more
+intense, the violet glow more vivid.
+
+The UV beam was reaching out directly behind now. The--
+
+With a cry of agony, Kendall ripped the radio-phone connection out of
+his suit. A soft hiss of leaking air warned him of too great violence
+only minutes later. For his ears had been deafened by the sudden shriek
+of a tremendous signal from outside!
+
+Instantly Kendall knew what that meant. And he could not communicate
+with his men! There was no metal in these special suits, even the oxygen
+tanks were made of synthetic plastics of tremendous strength. No scrap
+of vibrating metal was permissible. The padded gloves and boots
+protected him--but there was a new and different type of crackle and
+haze from the metal points now. It was almost invisible in the
+practically airless ship, but Kendall saw it.
+
+Presently he felt it, as he desperately increased his acceleration. Slow
+creeping heat was attacking him. The heat was increasing rapidly now.
+Desperately he was working at the crumbler-protection controls--but
+immediately set them back as they were. He had to have the crumbler
+protection as well--!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grimly the great Miran ship hung right beside them. Angrily the two
+four-foot UV beams flashed back--seeking some weak spot. There were
+none. At her absolute maximum of acceleration the little ship plunged
+on. Gamma and atomic bombs were washing her in flame. The heavy blocks
+of paraffin between her walls were long since melted, retained only by
+the presence of the metal walls. Smoke was beginning to filter out now,
+and Kendall recognized a new, and deadlier menace! Heat--quantities of
+heat were being poured into the little ship, and the neutron guns were
+doing their best to add to it. The paraffin was confined in there--and
+like any substance, it could be volatilized, and as a vapor, develop
+pressure--explosive pressure!
+
+The Miran seemed satisfied in his tactics so far--and changed them.
+Forty-seven million miles from Earth, the Miran simply accelerated a bit
+more, and crowded the Solarian ship a bit. White-faced, Buck Kendall was
+forced to turn a bit aside. The Miran turned also. Kendall turned a bit
+more--
+
+Flashing across his range of vision at an incredible speed, a tiny
+thing, no more than twenty feet long and five in diameter, a scout-ship
+appeared. Its tiny nose ultra-violet beam was blasting a solid cylinder
+of violet incandescence a foot across in the hull of the Miran--and, to
+the Miran, angling swiftly across his range of vision. Its magnetic
+field clashed for a thousandth of a second with the T-253, instantly
+meeting, and absorbing the fringing edges. Then--it swept through the
+Miran's magnetic shield as easily. The delicate instruments of the scout
+instantaneously adjusted its own magnetic field as much as possible.
+There was resistance, enormous resistance--the ship crumpled in on
+itself, the tail vanished in dust as a sweeping crumbler beam caught it
+at last--and the remaining portion of the ship plowed into the nose of
+the Miran.
+
+The Miran's force-control-room was wrecked. For perhaps a minute and a
+half, the ship was without control, then the control was
+re-established--and in vain the telescopes and instruments searched for
+the T-253. Lightless, her rockets out now, her fields damped down to
+extinction, the T-253 was lost in the pulsing, gyrating fields of half a
+dozen scout-ships.
+
+Kendall looked grimly at the crushed spot on the nose of the Miran. His
+ship was drifting slowly away from the greater ship. Presently, however,
+the Miran put on speed in the direction of Earth, and the T-253 fell far
+behind. The Miran was not seriously injured. But that scout pilot, in
+sacrificing life, had thrown dust in their eyes for just those few
+moments Kendall had needed to lose a lightless ship in lightless
+space--lightless--for the Mirans at any rate. The IP ships had been
+covered with a black paint, and in no time at all, Kendall had gotten
+his ship into a position where the energy radiations of the sun made him
+undetectable from the Miran's position, since the radiation of his own
+ship, even in the heat range, was mingled with the direct radiation of
+the sun. The sun was in the Miran's "eyes," both actual and
+instrumental.
+
+An hour later the Miran returned, passed the still-lightless ship at a
+distance of five million miles, and settled to Phobos for the slight
+repairs needed.
+
+Twelve hours later, the T-253 settled to Luna, for the many
+rearrangements she would need.
+
+"I rather knew it was coming," Kendall admitted sadly, "but danged if I
+didn't forget all about it. And--cost the life of one of the finest men
+in the system. Jehnson's family get a permanent pension just twice his
+salary, McLaurin. In the meantime--"
+
+"What was it? Pure heat, but how?"
+
+"Pure radio. Nothing but short-wave radio directed at us. They probably
+had the apparatus, knew how to make it, but that's not a good type of
+heat ray, because a radio tube is generally less than eighty percent
+efficient, which is a whale of a loss when you're working in a battle,
+and a whale of an inconvenience. We were heated only four times as much
+as the Miran. He had to pump that heat into a heat-reservoir--a water
+tank probably--to protect himself. Highly inefficient and ineffective
+against a large ship. Also, he had to hold his beam on us nearly ten
+minutes before it would have become unbearable. He was again, trying to
+kill the men, and not the ship. The men are the weakest point,
+obviously."
+
+"Can you overcome that?"
+
+"Obviously, no. The thing works on pure energy. I'd have to match his
+energy to neutralize it. You knew it's an old proposition, that if you
+could take a beam of pure, monochromatic light and divide it exactly in
+half, and then recombine it in perfect interference, you'd have
+annihilation of energy. Cancellation to extinction. The trouble is, you
+never do get that. You can't get monochromatic light, because light
+can't be monochromatic. That's due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty--my pet
+bug-bear. The atom that radiates the light, must be moving. If it isn't,
+the emission of the light itself gives it a kick that moves it. Now, no
+matter what the quantum _might_ have been, it loses energy in kicking
+the atom. That changes the situation instantly, and incidentally the
+'color' of the light. Then, since all the radiating atoms won't be
+moving alike, etc., the mass of light can't be monochromatic. Therefore
+perfect interference is impossible.
+
+"The way that relates to the problem in hand, is that we can't possibly
+destroy his energy. We can, as we do in the crumbler stunt, change it.
+He can't, I suspect, put too much power behind his crumbler, or he'd
+have crumbling going on at home. We get a slight heating from it,
+anyway. Into the bargain, his radio was after us, and his neutrons
+naturally carried energy. Now, no matter what we do, we've got that to
+handle. When we fight his crumbler, we actually add heat-energy to it,
+ourselves, and make the heating effect just twice as bad. If we try to
+heterodyne his radio--presto--it has twice the heat energy anyway,
+though we might reduce it to a frequency that penetrated the ship
+instead of all staying in it. But by the proposition, we have to use as
+much energy, and in fact, remember the 80% rule. We've got to take it
+and like it."
+
+"But," objected McLaurin, "we _don't_ like it."
+
+"Then build ships as big as his, and he'll quit trying to roast you.
+Particularly if the inner walls are synthetic plastics. Did you know I
+used them in the 'S Doradus' and 'Cepheid'?"
+
+"Yes. Were you thinking of that?"
+
+"No--just luck--and the fact that they're light, strong as steel almost,
+and can be manufactured in forms much more quickly. Only the outer hull
+is tungsten-beryllium. The advantage in this will be that nearly all the
+energy will be absorbed outside, and we'll radiate pretty fast,
+particularly as that tungsten-beryllium has a high radiation-factor in
+the long heat range."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"Well, ordinary polished silver is a mighty poor radiator. Homely
+example: Try waiting for your coffee to cool if it's in a polished
+silver pot. Then try it in a tungsten-beryllium pot. No matter how you
+polish that tungsten-beryllium, the stuff WILL radiate heat. That's why
+an IP ship is always so blamed cold. You know the passenger ships use
+polished aluminum outer walls. The big help is, that the
+tungsten-beryllium will throw off the energy pretty fast, and in a big
+ship, with a whale of a lot of matter to heat, the Strangers will simply
+give up the idea."
+
+"Yes, but only two ships in the system compare with them in size."
+
+"Sorry--but I didn't build the IP fleet, and there are lots of tungsten
+and beryllium on Earth. Enough anyway."
+
+"Will they use that beam on the fort? And can't we use the thing on
+them?"
+
+"They won't and we won't--though we could. A bank of those new million
+watt tubes--perhaps a hundred of them--and we'd have a pretty effective
+heater--but an awful waste of power. I've got something better."
+
+"New?"
+
+"Somewhat. I've found out how to make the mirror field in a plate of
+metal, instead of a block. Come on to the lab, and I'll show you."
+
+"What's the advantage? Oh--weight saved, and silver metal saved."
+
+"A lot more than that, Mac. Watch."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the laboratory, the new apparatus looked immensely lighter and
+simpler than the old. The atostor, the ionizer, and the twin
+ion-projectors were as before, great, rigid, metal structures that would
+maintain the meeting point of the ions with inflexible exactitude under
+any acceleration strains. But now, instead of the heavy silver block in
+which a mirror was figured, the mirror consisted of a polished silver
+plate, parabolic to be sure, but little more than a half-inch in
+thickness. It was mounted in a framework of complex, stout metal braces.
+
+Kendall started the ion-flame at low intensity, so the UV beam was
+little more than a spotlight.
+
+"You missed the point, Mac. Now--watch that tungsten-beryllium plate.
+I'll hold the power steady. It's an eighteen-inch beam--and now the
+energy is just sufficient to heat that tungsten plate to bright red.
+But--"
+
+Kendall turned over a small rheostat control--and abruptly the
+eighteen-inch diameter spot on the tungsten-beryllium plate began
+contracting; it contracted till it was a blazing, sparkling spot of
+molten incandescence less than an inch across!
+
+"That's the advantage of focus. At this distance of a few hundred feet
+with a small beam I can do that. With a twenty-foot beam, I can get a
+two-foot spot at a distance of nearly ten miles! That means that the
+receiving end will have the pleasure of handling _one hundred times the
+energy concentration_. That would punch a hole through most anything.
+All you have to do is focus it. The trouble being, if it's out of focus
+the advantage is more than lost. So if there's any question about
+getting the focus, we'll get along without it."
+
+"A real help, if you do. That would punch a hole before the Stranger
+ship could turn away as they do now."
+
+Kendall nodded. "That's what I was after. It is mainly for the forts,
+though. We'll have to signal the dope to the Mars Center and Deenmor
+stations. They can fix it up, themselves. In the meantime--all we can do
+is hold on and hunt, and let's hope better than the Strangers do."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Sadly the convalescent Gresth Gkae listened to the reports of his
+lieutenants. More and more disgraced he felt as he realized how badly he
+had blundered in reporting the people of this system unable to cope with
+the attackers' weapons. Gresth Gkae looked up at his old friend and
+physician, Merth Skahl. He shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid, Merth
+Skahl. I am afraid. We have, perhaps, made a mistake. The better and the
+stronger alone should rule. Aye, but is the _stronger_ always the
+_better_? I am afraid we have mistaken the Truth in assuming this. If we
+have--then may Jarth, Lord of Truth and Wisdom punish us. Mighty Jarth,
+if I have mistaken in following my judgments, it is not from
+disobedience, it is lack of Thy knowledge. The strongest--they are not
+always the better, are they?"
+
+Merth Skahl bent sharply over his friend. "Quiet thyself, Gresth Gkae.
+You know, and I know, you have done only your best, and surely Jarth
+himself can ask no better of any one. You must rest, for only by rest
+can those terrible burns be healed. All your _stheen_ over half the
+body-area was burned off. You have been delirious for many days."
+
+"But Merth Skahl, think--have we disobeyed Jarth's will? It is, we know,
+his will that only the best and the strongest shall rule--but are the
+best always the strongest? An imbecile adult could destroy the life of a
+genius-grade child. The strongest wins, but not the best. Such would not
+be the will of Jarth. If we be the stronger, _and_ the best, then it is
+right and just that these strange creatures should be destroyed that we
+may have a stable world of stable light and heat. But look and see, with
+what terrible swiftness these strange creatures have learned! May it not
+be they are the better race--that it is _we_ who are the weaker and the
+poorer? Can it be that Jarth has brought us together that these people
+might learn--and destroy us? If they be the stronger, and the
+better--then may Jarth's will be done. But we must test our strength to
+the utmost. I must rise, and go to my laboratory soon. They have set it
+up?"
+
+"Aye, they have, Gresth Gkae. But remember, the weak and the sick make
+faults the strong and the well do not. Better that you rest yourself.
+There is little you can do while your body seeks to recover from these
+terrible burns."
+
+"You are wrong, my friend, wrong. Don't you see that my mind is
+clear--that it is the mind which must fight in these battles, for surely
+the man is weak against such things as this infra-X-radiation? Why, I am
+better able to fight now than are you, for I am a trained fighter of the
+mind, while you are a trained healer of the body. These strange beings
+with their stiff arms and legs, their tender skins, and--and their swift
+minds have fought us all too well. If we must test, let it be a test. I
+have heard how they so quickly solved the riddle of the crumbling field.
+That took us longer, and we designed it. The Counsel of Worlds put me in
+command, let me up, Skahl, I must work."
+
+Concerned, the physician looked down at him. Finally he spoke again.
+"No, I will not permit you to leave the hospital-ship. You must stay
+here, but if, as you have said, the mind is what must fight, then surely
+you can fight well from here, for your mind is here."
+
+"No, I cannot, and you well know it. I may shorten my life, but what
+matter. 'Death is the end toward which the chemical reaction, Life,
+tends,'" quoted the scientist. "You know I have left my children--my
+immortality is assured through them. I can afford to die in peace, if it
+assures their welfare. Time is precious, and while my mind might work
+from here, it must have data on which to work. For that, I must go to
+the laboratories. Help me, Merth Skahl."
+
+Reluctantly the physician granted the request, but begged of Gresth Gkae
+a promise of at least six hours rest in every fifteen, and a good sleep
+of at least twenty-seven hours every "night." Gresth Gkae agreed, and
+from a wheelchair, conducted his work, began a new line of
+experimentation he hoped would yield them the weapon they needed. Under
+him, the staff of scientists worked, aiding and advising and suggesting.
+The apparatus was built, tested, and found wanting. Time and again as
+the days passed, they watched Gresth Gkae, gaining strength very, very
+slowly, taken away despondent at the end of his forty hours of work.
+
+A dozen expeditions were sent to Jupiter's poles to watch and measure
+and study the tremendous auroral displays there, where Jupiter's vast
+magnetic field sucked in countless quintillions of the flying electrons
+from the sun, and brought them circling in, in a vast, magnificent
+display of auroral ionization.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Expeditions went to the great Southern Plateau, the Plateau of Storms,
+where the titanic air currents resulted in an everlasting display of
+terrific lightnings, great burning balls of electric force floating
+dangerous and deadly across the frozen, ultra-cold plain.
+
+And the expeditions brought back data. Yet still Gresth Gkae could not
+sleep, his thoughts intruding constantly. Hours Merth Skahl spent with
+him, calming him to sleep.
+
+"But what is this constant search? It is little enough I know of
+science, but why do you send our men to these spots of wonderfully
+beautiful, but useless natural forces. Can we somehow, do you think,
+turn them against the people of these worlds?"
+
+Softly the old Miran smiled. "Yes, you might say so. For look, it is the
+strange balls of electric force I want to know about. Sthor had few, but
+occasionally we saw them. Never were they properly investigated. I want
+to know their secret, for I am sure they are balls of electric forces
+not vastly dissimilar from the nucleus of the atom. Always we have known
+that no system of purely electrical forces could remain stable. Yet
+these strange balls of energy do. How is it? I am sure it will be of
+vast importance. But the direct secret I hope to learn is in this: What
+can be done with electric fields can nearly always be duplicated, or
+paralleled in magnetic fields. If I can learn how to make these
+electric balls of energy, can I not hope to make similar magnetic balls
+of energy?"
+
+"Yes, I see--that would seem true. But what benefit would you derive
+from that? You have magnetic beams now, and yet they are useless because
+you can get nowhere near the forts. How then would these benefit you?"
+
+"We can do nothing to those forts, because of that magnetic shield.
+Could we once break it down, then the fort is helpless, and one or two
+small atomic bombs destroy it. But--we cannot stay near, for the
+terrible infra-X-rays of theirs burn holes in our ships, and--in our
+men.
+
+"But look you, I can drop many atomic bombs from a distance where their
+beams are ineffective. Suppose I _do_ make a magnetic ball of energy, a
+magnetic bomb. Then--I can drop it from a distance! We have learned that
+the power supply of these forts is very great--but not endless, as is
+ours now, thanks to the vast supplies of power metal on this heavy
+planet. Then all we need do is stay at a distance where they cannot
+reach us--and drop magnetic bombs. Ah, they will be stopped, and their
+energy absorbed. But we can keep it up, day after day, and slowly drain
+out their power. Then--then our atomic bombs can destroy those forts,
+and we can move on!" But suddenly the animation and strength left his
+voice. He turned a sad, downcast face to his friend. "But Merth Skahl,
+we can't do it," he complained.
+
+"Ah--now I can see why you so want to continue this wearing and worrying
+work. You need time, Gresth Gkae, only time for success. Tomorrow it may
+be that you will see the first hint that will lead you to success."
+
+"Ah--I only hope it, Merth Skahl, I only hope it."
+
+But it was the next day that they saw the first glimpse of the secret,
+and saw the path that might lead to hope and success. In a week they
+were sending electric bombs across the laboratory. And in three days
+more, a magnetic bomb streaked dully across the laboratory to a magnetic
+shield they had set up, and buried itself in it, to explode in brilliant
+light and heat.
+
+From that day Gresth Gkae began to mend. In the three weeks that were
+needed to build the apparatus into ships, he regained strength so that
+when the first flight of five interstellar ships rose from Jupiter, he
+was on the flagship.
+
+To Phobos they went first, to the little inner satellite of Mars,
+scarcely eight miles in diameter, a tiny bit of broken metal and rock,
+utterly airless, but scarcely more than 3700 miles from the surface of
+Mars below. The Mars Center and Deenmor forts were wasting no power
+raying a ship at that distance. They could, of course, have damaged it,
+but not severely enough to make up for the loss of their strictly
+limited power. The photocells had been working overtime, every minute of
+available light had been used, and still scarcely 2100 tons of charged
+mercury remained in the tanks of Mars Center and 1950 in the tanks at
+Deenmor.
+
+The flight of five ships settled comfortably upon Phobos, while the
+three relieved of duty started back to Jupiter. Immediately work was
+begun on the attack. The ships were first landed on the near side, while
+the apparatus of the projectors was unloaded, then the great ships moved
+around to the far side. Phobos of course rotated with one face fixed
+irrevocably toward Mars itself, the other always to the cold of space.
+Great power leads trailed beneath the ships, and to the dark side. Then
+there were huge water lines for cooling. On this almost weightless
+world, where the great ships weighing hundreds of thousands of tons on a
+planet, weighed so little they were frequently moved about by a single
+man, the laying of five miles of water conduit was no impossibility.
+
+Then they were ready. Mars Center came first. Automatic devices kept the
+aim exact, as the first of the magnetic bombs started down. At
+five-second intervals they were projected outward, invisible globes of
+concentrated magnetic energy, undetectable in space. Seven seconds
+passed before the first became dimly visible in the thin air of Mars. It
+floated down, it would miss the fort it seemed--so far to one side--
+Abruptly it turned, and darted with tremendously accelerating speed for
+the great magnetic field of the fort. With a vast blast of light, it
+exploded. Five seconds later a second exploded. And a third.
+
+Mars Center signaled scoffingly that the bombs were all being stopped
+dead in the magnetic atmosphere, after the bombardment had been
+witnessed from Earth and Luna. An hour later they gave a report that
+they were concentrated magnetic fields of energy that would be rather
+dangerous--if it weren't that they couldn't even stand into the magnetic
+atmosphere. Three hours later Mars Center reported that they contained
+considerably more energy than had at first been thought. Further, which
+they had not carefully considered at first, they were taking energy with
+them! They were taking away about an equal amount of energy as each blew
+up.
+
+It was only a half-hour after that that the men at Mars Center realized
+perfectly what it meant. Their power was being drained just a little bit
+better than twice as fast as they generated during the day--and since
+Phobos spun so swiftly across the sky.
+
+Deenmor got the attack just about the time Mars Center was released.
+Deenmor immediately began seeking for the source of it. Somewhere on
+Phobos--but where?
+
+The Mirans were experts at camouflage. Deenmor Station, realizing the
+menace, immediately rayed the "projector." They tore up a great deal of
+harmless rock with their huge UV rays. But the bomb device continued to
+throw one bomb each five seconds.
+
+When Deenmor operated from Phobos' position, Mars Center was exposed to
+the deadly, constant drain. A day or two later, the bombs were coming
+one each second and a half, for more ships had joined in the work on
+Phobos.
+
+Gresth Gkae saw the work was going nicely. He knew that now it was only
+a question of time before those magnetic shields would fail--and then
+the whole fort would be powerless. Maybe--it might be a good idea, when
+the forts were powerless to investigate instead of blowing them up.
+There might be many interesting and worthwhile pieces of
+apparatus--particularly the UV beam's apparatus.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Buck Kendall entered the Communications room rather furtively. He hated
+the place. Cole was there, and McLaurin. Mac was looking tired and
+drawn, Cole not so tired, but equally drawn. The signals were coming
+through fairly well, because most of the disturbance was rising where
+the signals rose, and all the disturbance, practically, was magnetic
+rather than electric.
+
+"Deenmor is sending, Buck," McLaurin said as he entered. "They're down
+to the last fifty-five tons. They'll have more time now--a rest while
+Phobos sinks. Mars Center has another 250 tons, but--it's just a
+question of time. Have you any hope to offer?"
+
+"No," said Kendall in a strained voice. "But, Mac, I don't think men
+like those are afraid to die. It's dying uselessly they fear. Tell
+'em--tell 'em they've defended not alone Mars, but all the system, in
+holding up the Strangers on Mars. We here on Luna have been safer
+because of them. And tell--Mac, tell them that in the meantime, while
+they defended us, and gave us time to work, we have begun to see the
+trail that will lead to victory."
+
+"_You have!_" gasped McLaurin.
+
+"No--but they will never know!" Kendall left hastily. He went and stood
+moodily looking at the calculator machines--the calculator machines that
+refused to give the answers he sought. No matter how he might modify
+that original idea of his, no matter what different line of attack he
+might try in solving the problems of Space and Matter, while he used the
+system he _knew_ was right--the answer came down to that deadly,
+hope-blasting expression that meant only "uncertain."
+
+Even Buck was beginning to feel uncertain under that constant crushing
+of hope. Uncertainty--uncertainty was eating into him, and destroying--
+
+From the Communications room came the hum and drive of the great sender
+flashing its message across seventy-two millions of miles of nothing.
+"B-u-c-k K-e-n-d-a-l-l s-a-y-s h-e h-a-s l-e-a-r-n-e-d s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g
+t-h-a-t w-i-l-l l-e-a-d t-o v-i-c-t-o-r-y w-h-i-l-e y-o-u h-e-l-d
+b-a-c-k t-h-e--"
+
+Kendall switched on a noisy, humming fan viciously. The too-intelligible
+signals were drowned in its sound.
+
+"And--tell them to--destroy the apparatus before the last of the power
+is gone," McLaurin ordered softly.
+
+The men in Deenmor station did slightly better than that. Gradually they
+cut down their magnetic shield, and some of the magnetic bombs tore and
+twisted viciously at the heavy metal walls. The thin atmosphere of Mars
+leaked in. Grimly the men waited. Atomic bombs--or ships to investigate?
+It did not matter much to them personally--
+
+Gresth Gkae smiled with his old vigor as he ordered one of the great
+interstellar ships to land beside the powerless station, approaching
+from such an angle that the still-active Mars Center station could not
+attack. One of the fleet of Phobos rose, and circled about the planet,
+and settled gracefully beside the station. For half an hour it lay there
+quietly, waiting and watching. Then a crew of two dozen Mirans started
+across the dry, crumbly powder of Mars' sands, toward the fort.
+Simultaneously almost, three things happened. A three-foot UV beam wiped
+out the advancing party. A pair of fifteen-foot beams cut a great gaping
+hole in the wall of the interstellar ship, as it darted up, like a
+startled quail, its weapons roaring defiance, only to fall back,
+severely wounded.
+
+And the radio messages pounded out to Earth the first description of the
+Miran people. Methodically the men in Deenmor station used all but one
+ton of their power to completely and forever wreck and destroy the
+interstellar cripple that floundered for a few moments on the sands a
+bare mile away. Presently, before Deenmor was through with it, the
+atomic bombs stopped coming, and the atomic shells. The magnetic shield
+that had been re-established for the few minutes of this last, dying
+sting, fell.
+
+Deenmor station vanished in a sudden, colossal tongue of blue-green
+light as the ton of atomically distorted mercury was exploded by a
+projector beam turned on the tank.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was long gone, when the first atomic bombs and magnetic bombs dropped
+from Phobos reached the spot, and only hot rock and broken metal
+remained.
+
+Mars Center failed in fact the next time Phobos rode high over it. The
+apparatus here had been carefully destroyed by technicians with a view
+of making it indecipherable, but the Mirans made it even more certain,
+for no ship settled here to investigate, but a stream of atomic bombs
+that lasted for over an hour, and churned the rock to dust, and the dust
+to molten lava, in which pools of fused tungsten-beryllium alloy bubbled
+slowly and sank.
+
+"Ah, Jarth--they are a brave race, whatever we may say of their queer
+shape," sighed Gresth Gkae as the last of Mars Center sank in bubbling
+lava. "They stung as they died." For some minutes he was silent.
+
+"We must move on," he said at length. "I have been thinking, and it
+seems best that a few ships land here, and establish a fort, while some
+twenty move on to the satellite of the third planet and destroy the fort
+there. We cannot operate against the planet while that hangs above us."
+
+Seven ships settled to Mars, while the fleet came up from Jupiter to
+join with Gresth Gkae's flight of ships on its way to Luna.
+
+An automatically controlled ship was sent ahead, and began the
+bombardment. It approached slowly, and was not destroyed by the UV beams
+till it had come to within 40,000 miles of the fort. At 60,000 Gresth
+Gkae stationed his fleet--and returned to 150,000 immediately as the
+titanic UV beams of the Lunar Fort stretched out to their maximum range.
+The focus made a difference. One ship started limping back to Jupiter,
+in tow of a second, while the rest began the slow, methodical work of
+wearing down the defenses of the Lunar Fort.
+
+Kendall looked out at the magnificent display of clashing, warring
+energies, the great, whirling spheres and discs of opalescent flame, and
+turned away sadly. "The men at Deenmor must have watched that for days.
+And at Mars Center."
+
+"How long can we hold out?" asked McLaurin.
+
+"Three weeks or so, at the present rate. That's a long time, really. And
+we can escape if we want to. The UV beams here have a greater range than
+any weapon the Strangers have, and with Earth so near--oh, we could
+escape. Little good."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I," said Buck Kendall, suddenly savage, "am going to consign all the
+math machines in the universe to eternal damnation--and go ahead and
+build a machine anyway. I _know_ that thing ought to be right. The
+math's wrong."
+
+"There is no other thing to try?"
+
+"A billion others. I don't know how many others. We ought to get atomic
+energy somehow. But that thing infuriates me. A hundred things that math
+has predicted, that I have checked by experiment, simple little things.
+But--when I carry it through to the point where I can get something
+useful--it wriggles off into--uncertainty."
+
+Kendall stalked off to the laboratory. Devin was there working over the
+calculus machines, and Kendall called him angrily. Then more apologetic,
+he explained it was anger at himself. "Devin, I'm going to make that
+thing, if it blows up and kills me. I'm going to make that thing if this
+whole fort blows up and kills me. That math has blown up in my face for
+four solid months, and half killed me, so I'm going to kill it. Come on,
+we'll make that damned junk."
+
+Angrily, furiously, Kendall drove his helpers to the task. He had worked
+out the apparatus in plan a dozen times, and now he had the plans turned
+into patterns, the patterns into metal.
+
+Saucily, the "S Doradus" made the trip to and from Earth with patterns,
+and with metal, with supplies and with apparatus. But she had to dodge
+and fight every inch of the way as the Miran ships swooped down angrily
+at her. A fighting craft could get through when the Miran fleet was
+withdrawn to some distance, but the Mirans were careful that no
+heavy-loaded freighter bearing power supply should get through.
+
+And Gresth Gkae waited off Luna in his great ship, and watched the
+steady streams of magnetic bombs exploding on the magnetic shield of the
+Lunar Fort. Presently more ships came up, and added their power to the
+attack, for here, the photo-cell banks could gather tremendous energy,
+and Gresth Gkae knew he would need to overcome this, and drain the
+accumulated power.
+
+Gresth Gkae felt certain if he could once crack this nut, break down
+Earth, he would have the system. This was the home planet. If this fell,
+then the two others would follow easily, despite the fact that the few
+forts on the innermost planet, Mercury, could gather energy from the sun
+at a rate greater than their ships could generate.
+
+It took Kendall two weeks and three days to set up his preliminary
+apparatus. They had power for perhaps four days more, thanks to the fact
+that the long Lunar day had begun shortly after Gresth Gkae's impatient
+attack had started. Also, the "S Doradus" had brought in several hundred
+tons of charged mercury on each trip, though this was no great quantity
+individually, it had mounted up in the ten trips she had made. The
+"Cepheid," her sister ship, had gone along on seven of the trips, and
+added to the total.
+
+But at length the apparatus was set up. It was peculiar looking, and it
+employed a great deal of power, nearly as much as a UV beam in fact.
+McLaurin looked at it sceptically toward the last, and asked Buck: "What
+do you expect it to do?"
+
+"I am," said Kendall sourly, "uncertain. The result will be uncertainty
+itself."
+
+Which, considering things, was a surprisingly accurate statement.
+Kendall gave the exact answer. He meant to give an ironic comment. For
+the mathematics had been perfectly correct, only Buck Kendall
+misinterpreted the answer.
+
+"I've followed the math with mechanism all the way through," he
+explained, "and I'm putting power into it. That's all I know. Somewhere,
+by the laws of cause and effect, this power _must_ show itself
+again--despite what the damn math says."
+
+And in that, of course, Kendall was wrong. Because the laws of cause and
+effect didn't hold in what he was doing now.
+
+"Do you want to watch?" he asked at length. "I'm all set to try it."
+
+"I suppose I may as well." McLaurin smiled. "In our close-knit little
+community the fate of one is of interest to all. If it's going to blow
+up, I might as well be here, and if it isn't, I want to be."
+
+Kendall smiled appreciatively and replied: "Let it be on thy own head.
+Here she goes."
+
+He walked over to the power board, and took command. Devin, and a squad
+of other scientists were seated about the room with every conceivable
+type and combination of apparatus. Kendall wanted to see what this was
+doing. "Tubes," he called. "Circuits A and D. Tie-ins." He stopped, the
+preliminary switches in. "Main circuit coming." With a jerk he threw
+over the last contact. A heavy relay thudded solidly. The hum of a
+straining atostor. Then--
+
+An electric motor, humming smoothly stopped with a jerk. "This," it
+remarked in a deep throaty voice, "is probably the last stand of
+humanity."
+
+The galvanometer before which Devin was seated apparently agreed. In a
+rather high pitched voice it pointed out that: "If the Lunar Fort falls,
+the Earth--" It stopped abruptly, and an electroscope beside Douglass
+took up the thread in a high, shrill voice, rather slurred, "--will be
+directly attacked."
+
+"This," resumed the motor in a hoarse voice, "will certainly mean the
+end of humanity." The motor gave up the discourse and hummed violently
+into action--in reverse!
+
+"My God!" Kendall pulled the switch open with a sagging jaw and staring
+eyes.
+
+The men in the room burst into sudden startled exclamations.
+
+Kendall didn't give them time. His jaw snapped shut, and a blazing light
+of wondrous joy shone in his eyes. He instantly threw the switch in
+again. Again the humming atostor, the strain--
+
+Slowly Devin lifted from his seat. With thrashing arms and startled,
+staring eyes, he drifted gently across the room. Abruptly he fell to the
+floor, unhurt by the light Lunar gravity.
+
+"I advise," said the motor in its grumbling voice, "an immediate
+exodus." It stopped speaking, and practiced what it preached. It was a
+fifty-horse motor-generator, on a five-ton tungsten-beryllium base, but
+it rose abruptly, spun rapidly about an axis at right angles to the axis
+of its armature, and stopped as suddenly. In mid air it continued its
+interrupted lecture. "Mercury therefore is the destination I would
+advise. There power is sufficient for--all machines." Gently it inverted
+itself and settled to the middle of the floor. Kendall instantly cut the
+switch. The relay did not chunk open. It refused to obey. Settled in the
+middle of the floor now, torn loose from its power leads, the
+motor-generator began turning. It turned faster and faster. It was
+shrilling in a thin scream of terrific speed, a speed that should have
+torn its windings to fragments under the lash of centrifugal force.
+Contentedly it said throatily. "Settled."
+
+The galvanometer spoke again in its peculiar harsh voice. "Therefore,
+move." Abruptly, without apparent reason, the stubborn relay clicked
+open. The shrilly screaming motor stopped dead instantly, as though it
+had had no real momentum, or had been inertialess.
+
+Startled, white-faced men looked at Kendall. Buck's eyes were shining
+with an unholy glee.
+
+"_Uncertainty!_" he shouted. "Uncertainty--uncertainty--uncertainty,
+you fools! Don't you see it? All the math--it said uncertainty--man,
+man--_we've got just that--uncertainty_!"
+
+"You're crazy," gasped McLaurin. "I'm crazy, everything's gone crazy."
+
+Kendall roared with sudden, joyous laughter. "Absolutely. Everything
+goes crazy--_the laws of nature break down_! Heisenberg's principle
+showed that the law of cause and effect weren't absolute. We've made
+them absolutely uncertain!"
+
+"But--but motors _talking_, instruments giving lectures--"
+
+"Certainly--or rather uncertainly--anything, absolutely anything. The
+destruction of the laws of gravity, freedom from inertia--why, merely
+picking up a radio lecture is nothing!"
+
+Suddenly, abruptly, a thousand questions poured in on him. Jubilantly he
+answered what he could, told what he thought--and then brought order.
+"The battle's still on, men--we've still got to find out how to use
+this, now we've got it. I have an idea--that there's a lot more. I know
+what I'll get this time. Now help me remake this apparatus so we don't
+broadcast the thing."
+
+At once, ten times the former pace, work was done. On the radio, news
+was sent out that Kendall was on the right track after all. In two hours
+the apparatus had been vastly altered, it was in the final stage, and an
+entirely different sort of field set up. Again they watched as Buck
+applied the power.
+
+The atostor hummed--but no strange tricks of matter happened this time.
+The more concentrated, altered field was, as Buck was to find out later,
+"Uncertainty of the Second Degree." It was molecular uncertainty. In a
+field a foot and a half in diameter, Buck saw the thing created--and
+suddenly a brilliant green-blue flame shot up, and a great dark cloud of
+terrible, red-brown deadly vapor. Then an instant later, Kendall had
+opened the relay. Gasping, the men ran from the laboratory, shutting the
+deadly fumes in. "N{2}O{4}" gasped Morton, the chemist, as they reached
+safety. "It's exothermic--but it formed there!"
+
+In that instant, Kendall grasped the meaning the choking fumes carried.
+"Molecular uncertainty!" he decided. "We're going back--we're getting
+there--"
+
+He altered the apparatus again, added another atostor in series, reduced
+the size of his sphere of forces--of strange chaos of uncertainty.
+Within--little was certain. Without--the laws of nature applied as ever.
+
+Again the apparatus was started, cautiously this time. Only a strange
+jumbled ionization appeared this time, then a slow, rising blue flame
+began to creep up, and burn hot and blue. Buck looked at it for a
+moment, then his face grew tense and thoughtful. "Devin--give me a
+half-dollar." Blankly, Devin reached in his pocket, and handed over the
+metal disc. Cautiously Buck Kendall tossed it toward the sphere of
+force. Instantly there was a flash of flame, soundless and soft-colored.
+Then the silver disc was outlined in light, and swiftly, inevitably
+crumbling into dust so fine only a blue haze appeared. In less than two
+seconds, the metal was gone. Only the dense blue fog remained. Then this
+began to go, and the leaping blue flame grew taller, and stronger.
+
+"We're on the track--I'm going to stop here, and calculate. Bring the
+data--"
+
+Kendall shut off the machine, and went to the calculation room. Swiftly
+he selected already prepared graphs, graphs of the math he had worked
+on. Devin came soon, and others. They assembled the data and with tables
+and arithmetical machines turned it into graphs.
+
+Then all these graphs were fed into the machine. There were curves, and
+sine-curves, abrupt breaking lines--but the answer that came when all
+were compounded was a perfect diagram of a flight of four steps,
+descending in unequal treads to zero.
+
+Kendall looked at it for long minutes. "That," he said at length, "is
+what I expected. There are four degrees of uncertainty, we generated
+'Uncertainty of the First Degree,' 'Mass Uncertainty,' when we started.
+That, as here shown, takes little energy concentration. Then we
+increased the energy concentration and got 'Uncertainty of the Second
+Degree,' 'Molecular Uncertainty.' Then I added more power, and reduced
+the field, and got 'Uncertainty of the Third Degree'--'Atomic
+Uncertainty.' There is 'Uncertainty of the Fourth Degree.' It is barely
+attainable with our atostors. It is--utter uncertainty.
+
+"In the First Degree, the laws of mass action fail, the great
+broad-reaching laws. In the Second Degree, the laws of the molecules, a
+finer organization, break down, and anything can happen in chemistry. In
+the Third Degree, the laws of atomic physics break down slowly. The atom
+is tough. It is very compact, and we just barely attained the
+concentration needed with that apparatus. But--in the Third Degree, when
+the Atomic Laws break down into utter uncertainty, the atoms break, and
+only hydrogen can exist. That was the blue flame.
+
+"But the Fourth Degree--_there is no law whatsoever_, nothing in all the
+Universe can exist. It means--_the utter destruction and release of the
+energy of matter_!" Kendall paused for a moment. "We have won, with
+this. We need only make up this apparatus--and maybe make it into a
+weapon. You know, in the Fourth Degree, nothing in all the Universe
+could resist, deflect, or control it, if launched freely, and
+self-maintaining. I think that might be done. You see, no law affects
+it, for it breaks down the law. Magnetism cannot attract or repel it
+because magnetic fields cannot exist; there is no law of magnetic force,
+where this field is.
+
+"And you know, Devin, how I have analyzed and duplicated their magnetic
+ball-fields. This should be capable of formation into a ball-field.
+
+"We need only make it up now. We will install it in the 'S Doradus' and
+the 'Cepheid' as a weapon. We need only install it as an energy source
+here. Let us start."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Buck Kendall with a slow smile, looked out of the port in the thick
+metal wall. The magnetic shield of the Lunar Fort was washed constantly
+with the fires of exploding magnetic bombs. The smile spread broader.
+"My friends," he said softly, "you can pull from now till doomsday as
+far as I'm concerned, and you won't even disturb us now." He looked back
+over his shoulder into the power room. A hunched bulk, beautifully
+designed and carefully finished, the apparatus that created 'Uncertainty
+of the Fourth Degree' was destroying matter, and creating by its
+destruction terrific electric fields. These fields were feeding the
+magnetic shield now. Under the present drain, the machine was not
+noticeably working. In fact, Kendall was a bit annoyed. He had tested
+out the energy generating properties of this machine, trying to find a
+limit. He had found there was no limit. The great copper conductors,
+charged with the same atostor force that was used in the mercury fuel,
+were perfect conductors, they had not heated. But the eleven thousand
+tons of discharged mercury metal had been completely charged in just a
+bit better than eleven minutes. The pumps wouldn't force it through the
+charging apparatus any faster than that.
+
+Two weeks more had passed, while the "S Doradus" and the "Cepheid" were
+fitted out with the new apparatus Buck had designed. They were almost
+ready to start now.
+
+McLaurin came down the corridor, and stopped near Kendall. He too smiled
+at the Miran's attempts. "They've got a long way to go, Buck."
+
+"They're going a long way. Clear back home--and we'll be right along. I
+don't think they can outdistance us."
+
+"I still don't see why you couldn't use one of those Uncertainty
+conditions--the First Degree perhaps, and annihilate our inertia."
+
+"You can't control Uncertainty. By its essential character it's beyond
+control."
+
+"What's that Fourth Degree machine of yours--the material energy--if it
+isn't controlled and utilized Uncertainty?"
+
+"It's utter and utterly uncontrolled Uncertainty. The matter within that
+field breaks down to absolutely nothing. Within, no law whatsoever
+applies, but fortunately, outside the old laws of physics apply--and we
+can gather and use the energy which is released outside, though nothing
+can be done inside. Why, think, man, if I could control that
+Uncertainty, I could do anything at all, absolutely anything. It would
+be a world as unreasonable as a bad dream. Think how unreasonable those
+manifestations we first got were!"
+
+"But can't you get any control at all?"
+
+"Very little. Anyway, if I could get inertialess conditions at will, I'd
+be afraid of them. They'd make chemical reactions impossible in all
+probability--and life is chemical. Two atoms must come into more or less
+violent contact before a union takes place, and cannot if they have
+neither momentum nor inertia.
+
+"Anyway--why worry. I can't do it, because I can't control this thing.
+And we have the extra-space drive."
+
+"How does that darned thing work? Can't you drop the math and tell me
+about it?"
+
+Kendall smiled. "Not too readily. Remember first, as to the driving
+system, that it works on the fabric of space. Space is, in the physical
+sense, a fabric woven of the threads of lines of force from every body
+in the universe, made up of fields and forces. It is elastic, and can
+transmit strains. But anything that can transmit strains, can be
+strained against. With the tremendous field intensities available by the
+material engines, I can get such fields as will 'dig their toes' into
+space and push.
+
+"That's the drive itself. It is accelerationless, because it enfolds us,
+and acts equally on every atom of us. By maintaining in addition a
+slight artificial gravity--thanks also to the intensity of those
+material engine fields--we can be comfortable, while we accelerate at
+tremendous rates.
+
+"That is, I think, at least allied to the Stranger's system. For the
+high-speed drive, I do in fact use the Uncertainty. I can control it in
+a certain sense by determining its powers, and the limits of
+uncertainty, whether First, Second, Third or Fourth Degree. It advances
+in jumps--but on a finer plotting of the curve, you can see that each
+jump represents a vast series of smaller jumps. That is, there is Class
+A, B, C, D, and so forth Uncertainty of the First Degree. Now Class A
+First Degree Uncertainty involves only the deepest, broadest principles.
+Only they break down. One of these is the law of the speed of light.
+
+"I'm sure that isn't the system the Strangers use, but I'm also sure
+there's no limit to the speed we can get."
+
+"Doesn't that wreck your drive system?"
+
+"No, because gravity and the fields I use in driving are First Degree
+Uncertainties of the higher classes.
+
+"But at any rate, it will work. And--I suspect you came to say you were
+ready to go."
+
+"I did." McLaurin nodded.
+
+"Still stick to your original plan?"
+
+McLaurin nodded. "I think it's best. You follow those fellows back to
+their system in the 'S Doradus' and I'll stay here in the 'Cepheid' to
+protect the system. They may need some time to get out of the place
+here. And remember, we ought to be as decent as they were. They didn't
+bother the transports leaving Jupiter when they came in, only attacked
+the warships. We're bound to do the same, but we'll have to keep a watch
+on them, nonetheless. So you go on ahead."
+
+They started down the corridor, and came presently to the huge locks
+where the "S Doradus" and the "Cepheid" were berthed. The super-ships
+lay cold and gray now, men swarming in and out with last-minute
+supplies. Air, water, spare parts, bedding and personal equipment.
+Douglass, Cole, and most of the laboratory staff would go with Kendall
+when he followed the Strangers home. Devin and a few of the most
+advanced physicists would stay with McLaurin in case of need.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later the "S Doradus" rose gently, soundlessly from her berth,
+and floated out of the open lock-door. The "Cepheid" followed her in
+five seconds. Still under the great screen of the fort, the lashing,
+coruscating colors of the magnetic bombs and the magnetic screen flashed
+and was iridescent. The "S Doradus" poked her great nose gently through
+the screen, and an instant later her titanically powerful,
+material-engine effortlessly discharged a great magnetic bomb, sent with
+the combined power of five atomic-powered interstellar ships. The two
+ships separated now, the "Cepheid" under McLaurin flashing ahead with
+sudden, terrific acceleration toward Mars, whispering through space at a
+speed that made it undetectable, faster than light. The "S Doradus"
+journeyed out leisurely toward the fleet of forty-seven Miran ships.
+
+Gresth Gkae saw the "S Doradus" and as he watched the steady progress,
+felt sudden fear at his heart. The ship seemed so certain--
+
+At a distance of thirty thousand miles, Kendall stopped. Magnetic bombs
+were washing his screen continuously now, seeking to exhaust the ship as
+all the great ships beyond poured their energy against it. A slow smile
+spread over Kendall's mouth as he heard the gentle hum of the barely
+working material-engine. Carefully he aligned the nose UV beam of the "S
+Doradus" on the nearest of the Miran ships. Then he depressed a switch.
+
+There was no ion-release before the force-mirror now. Just a jet of gas
+whirling into a half-inch field of "Uncertainty of the Fourth Degree."
+The matter vanished instantly in released energy so stupendous that the
+greatest previous UV beams had been harmless things by comparison.
+Material energy maintained the mirror forces. Material energy gave the
+power that was released. And only material energy could have stood up
+before it. Thirty thousand miles away, a Miran ship flamed
+instantaneously into inconceivable incandescence, vanishing almost in
+blue-violet light of terrific intensity. The ship reeled away, a
+half-molten wreck.
+
+The beam spotted two more ships before it winked out. Then Kendall began
+sending bombs. He moved up to within 2000 miles that his aim might be
+accurate. They were bombs of "Uncertainty of the Third Degree," the
+Uncertainty of atomic law in bomb form. One hit the nose of the nearest
+ship, and a sphere five feet in diameter glowed mistily blue for a
+moment. Then very easily, the matter that formed the wall of the cruiser
+began to run and change, and presently there was only a hole, and an
+expanding cloud of gas. Three more flowed toward it--and the hole
+enlarged, and another hole appeared in a bulkhead behind.
+
+Kendall made a change. For the first time there came the staccato bark
+of the material engine under strain, as it fashioned the terrific fields
+of "Uncertainty of the Ultimate Degree." Abruptly they leapt out,
+invisible till they entered a magnetic screen, then run over with
+opalescent light as the energy of the field was sucked into them and
+released.
+
+It struck the nose of a ship--a field no larger than an apple--
+
+A titanic gout of energy burst out that was soundless in space. The ship
+suddenly opened back, opened like the peel of a banana, till a little
+nub remained at the further end, and the metal flaps dropped back across
+and behind it dejectedly. A second ship was struck, and it was struck on
+one side, so that it was shattered like a spent firecracker.
+
+Then the Miran fleet vanished in speed.
+
+Kendall followed them. "I think," he said with a grin, "they tried to
+use their radio beam, but it spread too much to do anything at that
+distance. And they used their rotating magnetic field, which we couldn't
+feel. And their crumbler ray too, of course. I wonder--are they headed
+only for Jupiter? No--no, they've passed it!"
+
+Faster than light, faster than energy could follow through space, or
+Uncertainty Bombs pursue, the Mirans were fleeing for home. They knew
+now that only in speed lay safety. Already they knew that a similar ship
+had appeared off Jupiter, and, after wiping out the Phobos and Mars
+stations with one bomb each, had cleared the Jovian Satellites with
+equal terrible efficiency.
+
+In one of the fleeing ships was a broken, tired old man, and his staff.
+Gresth Gkae looked back at the blank, distorted space behind them, at
+the swiftly dwindling sun, and spoke. "I was at fault, my friends. Jarth
+has spoken. _They_ are the stronger and the wiser race. Farth Skalt has
+shown you--they use space fields of intensity 100. That means the energy
+of the ultimate destruction. Jarth used us as his instrument of testing,
+only to drive and stimulate that race. I do not--nay. There is no doubt
+now, for look."
+
+Plainly visible, rapidly overtaking them, the "S Doradus" appeared
+sharp, and luminous on the jet of distorted space.
+
+"We cannot escape, my friends. Shall we return to Sthor or remain in
+space, lost?"
+
+"Let us deflect our course--at least he may not know our destination."
+The interstellar ship turned very slightly in her course. Plainly they
+saw the "S Doradus" flash on, in a straight line, headed for distant,
+red-glowing Mira. Gresth Gkae watched, and shrugged. Silently he put the
+ship back on its course, at its utmost speed. Parallel with them, near
+to them, the "S Doradus" flashed on. Day after day, the two hurled
+through space faster than light. Gradually Mira brightened, and at last
+became a disc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gresth Gkae slowed his ships, and Kendall, watching, slowed to match his
+speed. Five billion miles from Sthor, they had reached normal space
+speeds. Viciously the Miran fleet attacked the lone ship from Earth.
+Their rays, their bombs, their every weapon was flaming. Great
+interstellar ships flashed suddenly into speeds greater than that of
+light, seeking to ram and destroy the smaller ship. The "S Doradus"
+flashed into equal or greater speed, and eluded them.
+
+Kendall had determined now, which was the leader's ship.
+
+Gresth Gkae watched dully as his ships attempted to destroy the single,
+small ship. He sighed in resignation, and turned to walk back to the
+chapel aboard the ship. One last prayer to Jarth--
+
+Gresth Gkae stopped abruptly. The great ship was lurching strangely. Men
+shouted sudden, frightened cries. The clanking and thud of relays
+sounded, the shrill of alarms. Then the alarms stopped, and suddenly the
+whole great ship vibrated to an infinitely deep voice speaking in
+perfect Sthorian. The voice remarked solemnly, in great, vibrant tones,
+that they would certainly receive news presently from the Expeditions.
+It went on for some seconds to discuss the conditions as reported in the
+new system. Then it stopped abruptly. An electric motor just above
+Gresth Gkae's head suddenly hummed into action without reason or power
+connection. Almost simultaneously he heard the shouts of startled men as
+the great lock doors began to open into space of their own accord,
+bulkhead doors slipped shut as the roar of escaping air echoed in the
+ship.
+
+Then it was all over. Gresth Gkae ran to the control room. The Mirans
+there looked up at him with drawn faces.
+
+"The instruments--Gresth Gkae--the instruments. The instruments read
+impossible things, the motors worked without reason, the fields
+fluctuated--the atomic engines stopped and the magnetic shield broke
+down and gripped part of the ship instead!" reported the bewildered
+pilot.
+
+"I do not know--some strange weapon of--" began the old scientist.
+Something luminous and huge twisted suddenly through space toward them,
+a bomb of "Uncertainty of the First Degree." It wrapped the ship
+silently--and again strange things happened. Abruptly the ship started
+whirling violently, yet without centrifugal force. The heavens wheeled
+crazily, and turned about three axes simultaneously. There was no
+gyroscopic effect to hold them!
+
+Gradually the thing died out. Then a great field seemed to catch the
+ship, and hurl it away from its companions. Abruptly the pilot applied
+all his power to pull free. In vain.
+
+Gresth Gkae shook his head slowly, and raised the pilot's hands from the
+board. "Let them do as they will. I think they mean us no real harm,
+Thart Kralt. They can, we know, destroy us in an instant. Perhaps he
+wants us to go somewhere with him"--Gresth Gkae smiled sadly--"and
+anyway, we can do nothing."
+
+For nearly a billion miles the great ship was hurled through space at
+tremendous normal-space velocity. Then abruptly it was halted, without a
+sign of strain or hurt. The great twenty-foot UV beam on the nose of the
+"S Doradus" broke into glowing gentle red light. It flashed twice. There
+was a pause. Then it flashed four times. A long wait. Then three times,
+a pause and nine times. A wait. Four times, a pause, sixteen times. Then
+it stopped.
+
+A slow smile of ineffable joy spread over Gresth Gkae's face. "Jarth Be
+Praised. He can destroy, but does not wish to. Ah, Thart Kralt, turn
+your spotlight toward him, and flash it twenty-five times, for he is
+trying to start communications with us. Jarth is wise beyond all
+understanding. They were the weaker race, and they are the stronger. But
+also they are the better, for they could destroy, and they do not, but
+seek only to communicate."
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+
+The interstellar liner "Mirasol" settled gently to Sthor, having circled
+wide of Asthor, and from her hold a cargo of the heavy Jovian elements
+was discharged, while a mixed stream of Solarians and Mirans came from
+her passenger quarters.
+
+A delegation of Mirans met the new Ambassador from Sol, Commander
+McLaurin, and conducted him joyfully to the Central Government Group.
+Beside the great buildings, a battered, scarred interstellar ship lay,
+her rear section a mass of great patches, rudely applied, and rudely
+made, mere cast metal plates.
+
+Gresth Gkae welcomed Commander McLaurin to the Government Hall. "Your
+arrival today, Commander McLaurin, was most fortunate," he said in the
+interstellar language that had been developed, "for but yesterday Gresth
+Talak, my brother, arrived in his ship. Before we made that
+fortunate-unfortunate expedition against your system, we waited for him,
+and he did not come, so we knew his ship had, like others, been lost.
+
+"He arrived only yesterday, some seventy hours ago, and explained how it
+had come about. He too found a solar system. But he was less fortunate
+than I, and while exploring this uninhabited system, far out still from
+the central sun, where there should have been no masses of matter, one
+of those rare things, a giant stony meteor that even a magnetic shield
+will not stop careened into the rear of his ship. Damaged badly, barely
+able to move, they settled to a planet. The atmosphere was breathable,
+the temperature mild. But while they could navigate planetary
+distances, they could not return, so for nearly four and a half of your
+years they remained there, working, working to repair their ship.
+
+"They have done it at last. And they have returned. And best of all,
+after a four-year stay there, they know all they need know about that
+system of eleven planets. It is compact as yours, with an ultra-light
+sun such as yours, and four of the planets are habitable. Together we
+can colonize that system! It is a system of stable heat and stable
+light. And it is small, yet large enough. And with the devices such as
+your new energy has permitted, we need never fear the stony meteors
+again." Gresth Gkae smiled happily. "Still better--it is inhabited only
+by the lowest forms of life. It is too costly to both races when Jarth
+sees fit to stimulate them by throwing one against the other, despite
+the good things that may come later."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Ultimate Weapon, by John Wood Campbell
+
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