The Black Star Passes

J >> John W Campbell >> The Black Star Passes

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THREE AGAINST THE STARS

A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own
invention....

First contact with an alien race dangerous enough to
threaten the safety of two planets....

The arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant
marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this
Solar System....

These were the three challenges that tested the skill
and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts
Arcot, Wade, and Morey. Their initial adventures are a
classic of science-fiction which first brought the name
of their author, John W. Campbell, into prominence as a
master of the inventive imagination.

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
cannot be underestimated. Today he still remains as the
editor of that magazine's evolved and redesigned
successor, _Analog_.

THE BLACK STAR PASSES

JOHN W. CAMPBELL

ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036

THE BLACK STAR PASSES

Copyright, 1953, by John W. Campbell, Jr.

Copyright, 1930, by Experimenter Publications, Inc.

An Ace Book, by arrangement with the author.

_Cover art by Jerome Podwil._

Printed in U.S.A.

Contents

Introduction 7

BOOK ONE

Piracy Preferred 11

BOOK TWO

Solarite 71

BOOK THREE

The Black Star Passes 145

[Illustration]

INTRODUCTION

These stories were written nearly a quarter of a century ago, for the
old _Amazing Stories_ magazine. The essence of any magazine is
not its name, but its philosophy, its purpose. That old _Amazing
Stories_ is long since gone; the magazine of the same name today is
as different as the times today are different from the world of 1930.

Science-fiction was new, in 1930; atomic energy was a dream we
believed in, and space-travel was something we tried to understand
better. Today, science-fiction has become a broad field, atomic
energy--despite the feelings of many present adults!--is no dream.
(Nor is it a nightmare; it is simply a fact, and calling it a
nightmare is another form of effort to push it out of reality.)

In 1930, the only audience for science-fiction was among those who
were still young enough in spirit to be willing to hope and speculate
on a new and wider future--and in 1930 that meant almost nothing but
teen-agers. It meant the brightest group of teen-agers, youngsters who
were willing to _play_ with ideas and understandings of physics
and chemistry and astronomy that most of their contemporaries
considered "too hard work."

I grew up with that group; the stories I wrote over the years, and,
later, the stories I bought for _Astounding Science Fiction_
changed and grew more mature too. _Astounding Science Fiction_
today has many of the audience that read those early stories; they're
not high school and college students any more, of course, but
professional engineers, technologists and researchers now. Naturally,
for them we need a totally different kind of story. In growing with
them, I and my work had to lose much of the enthusiastic scope that
went with the earlier science fiction.

When a young man goes to college, he is apt to say, "I want to be a
scientist," or "I want to be an engineer," but his concepts are broad
and generalized. Most major technical schools, well knowing this, have
the first year course for _all_ students the same. Only in the
second and subsequent years does specialization start.

By the sophomore year, a student may say, "I want to be a
_chemical_ engineer."

At graduation, he may say, "I'm going into chemical engineering
_construction_."

Ten years later he may explain that he's a chemical engineer
specializing in the construction of corrosion-resistant structures,
such as electroplating baths and pickling tanks for stainless steel.

Year by year, his knowledge has become more specialized, and much
deeper. He's better and better able to do the important work the world
needs done, but in learning to do it, he's necessarily lost some of
the broad and enthusiastic scope he once had.

These are early stories of the early days of science-fiction. Radar
hadn't been invented; we missed that idea. But while these stories
don't have the finesse of later work--they have a bounding enthusiasm
that belongs with a young field, designed for and built by young men.
Most of the writers of those early stories were, like myself, college
students. (_Piracy Preferred_ was written while I was a sophomore
at M.I.T.)

For old-timers in science-fiction--these are typical of the
days when the field was starting. They've got a fine flavor
of our own younger enthusiasm.

For new readers of science-fiction--these have the stuff that laid the
groundwork of today's work, they're the stories that were meant for
young imaginations, for people who wanted to think about the world
they had to build in the years to come.

Along about sixteen to nineteen, a young man has to decide what is,
for him, the Job That Needs Doing--and get ready to get in and pitch.
If he selects well, selects with understanding and foresight, he'll
pick a job that _does_ need doing, one that will return rewards
in satisfaction as well as money. No other man can pick that for him;
he must choose the Job that _he_ feels fitting.

Crystal balls can be bought fairly reasonably--but they don't work
well. History books can be bought even more cheaply, and they're
moderately reliable. (Though necessarily filtered through the cultural
attitudes of the man who wrote them.) But they don't work well as
predicting machines, because the world is changing too rapidly.

The world today, for instance, needs engineers desperately. There a
lot of jobs that the Nation would like to get done that can't even be
started; not enough engineers available.

Fifty years ago the engineering student was a sort of Second Class
Citizen of the college campus. Today the Liberal Arts are fighting for
a come-back, the pendulum having swung considerably too far in the
other direction.

So science-fiction has a very real function to the teen-agers; it
presents varying ideas of what the world in which he will live his
adult life will be interested in.

This is 1953. My son will graduate in 1955. The period of his peak
earning power should be when he's about forty to sixty--about 1970,
say, to 1990. With the progress being made in understanding of health
and physical vigor, it's apt to run beyond 2000 A.D., however.

Anyone want to bet that people will be living in the same general
circumstances then? That the same general social and cultural and
material standards will apply?

I have a hunch that the history books are a poor way of planning a
life today--and that science-fiction comes a lot closer.

There's another thing about science-fiction yarns that is quite
conspicuous; it's so difficult to pick out the villains. It might have
made quite a change in history if the ballads and tales of the old
days had been a little less sure of who the villains were. Read the
standard boy's literature of forty years ago; tales of Crusaders who
were always right, and Saracens who were always wrong. (The same
Saracens who taught the Christians to respect the philosophy of the
Greeks, and introduced them to the basic ideas of straight,
self-disciplined thinking!)

Life's much simpler in a thatched cottage than in a dome on the
airless Moon, easier to understand when the Villains are all pure
black-hearted villains, and the Heroes are all pure White Souled
Heroes. Just look how simple history is compared with science-fiction!
It's simple--but is it good?

These early science-fiction tales explored the Universe; they were
probings, speculations, as to where we _could_ go. What we
_could_ do.

They had a sweep and reach and exuberance that belonged.

They _were_ fun, too....

John W. Campbell, Jr.
Mountainside, N.J.
April, 1953

BOOK ONE

PIRACY PREFERRED

PROLOGUE

High in the deep blue of the afternoon sky rode a tiny speck of
glistening metal, scarcely visible in the glare of the sun. The workers
on the machines below glanced up for a moment, then back to their work,
though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators. Even this
minor diversion was of interest in the dull monotony of green. These
endless fields of castor bean plants had to be cultivated, but with the
great machines that did the work it required but a few dozen men to
cultivate an entire county.

The passengers in the huge plane high above them gave little thought to
what passed below, engrossed with their papers or books, or engaged in
casual conversation. This monotonous trip was boring to most of them. It
seemed a waste of time to spend six good hours in a short 3,500 mile
trip. There was nothing to do, nothing to see, except a slowly passing
landscape ten miles below. No details could be distinguished, and the
steady low throb of the engines, the whirring of the giant propellers,
the muffled roar of the air, as it rushed by, combined to form a
soothing lullaby of power. It was all right for pleasure seekers and
vacationists, but business men were in a hurry.

The pilot of the machine glanced briefly at the instruments, wondered
vaguely why he had to be there at all, then turned, and leaving the
pilot room in charge of his assistant, went down to talk with the chief
engineer.

His vacation began the first of July, and as this was the last of June,
he wondered what would have happened if he had done as he had been half
inclined to do--quit the trip and let the assistant take her through. It
would have been simple--just a few levers to manipulate, a few controls
to set, and the instruments would have taken her up to ten or eleven
miles, swung her into the great westward air current, and leveled her
off at five hundred and sixty or so an hour toward 'Frisco'. They would
hold her on the radio beam better than he ever could. Even the landing
would have been easy. The assistant had never landed a big plane, but he
knew the routine, and the instruments would have done the work. Even if
he hadn't been there, ten minutes after they had reached destination, it
would land automatically--if an emergency pilot didn't come up by that
time in answer to an automatic signal.

He yawned and sauntered down the hall. He yawned again, wondering what
made him so sleepy.

He slumped limply to the floor and lay there breathing ever more and
more slowly.

* * * * *

The officials of the San Francisco terminus of The Transcontinental
Airways company were worried. The great Transcontinental express had
come to the field, following the radio beam, and now it was circling the
field with its instruments set on the automatic signal for an emergency
pilot. They were worried and with good reason, for this flight carried
over 900,000 dollars worth of negotiable securities. But what could
attack one of those giant ships? It would take a small army to overcome
the crew of seventy and the three thousand passengers!

The great ship was landing gently now, brought in by the emergency
pilot. The small field car sped over to the plane rapidly. Already the
elevator was in place beside it, and as the officials in the car drew up
under the giant wing, they could see the tiny figure of the emergency
pilot beckoning to them. Swiftly the portable elevator carried them up
to the fourth level of the ship.

What a sight met their eyes as they entered the main salon! At first
glance it appeared that all the passengers lay sleeping in their chairs.
On closer examination it became evident that they were not breathing!
The ear could detect no heartbeat. The members of the crew lay at their
posts, as inert as the passengers! The assistant pilot sprawled on the
floor beside the instrument panel--apparently he had been watching the
record of the flight. There was no one conscious--or apparently
living--on board!

"Dead! Over three thousand people!" The field manager's voice was
hoarse, incredulous. "It's impossible--how could they have done it? Gas,
maybe, drawn in through the ventilator pumps and circulated through the
ship. But I can't conceive of any man being willing to kill three
thousand people for a mere million! Did you call a doctor by radio,
Pilot?"

"Yes, sir. He is on his way. There's his car now."

"Of course they will have opened the safe--but let's check anyway. I can
only think some madman has done this--no sane man would be willing to
take so many lives for so little." Wearily the men descended the stairs
to the mail room in the hold.

The door was closed, but the lock of the door was gone, the
magnesium-beryllium alloy burned away. They opened the door and entered.
The room seemed in perfect order. The guard lay motionless in the steel
guard chamber at one side; the thick, bullet-proof glass made his
outlines a little blurred, and the color of his face was green--but they
knew there too must be that same pallor they had seen on the other
faces. The delicate instruments had brought in the great ship perfectly,
but it was freighted with a cargo of dead!

They entered the room and proceeded to the safe, but it was opened as
they had expected. The six-inch tungsto-iridium wall had been melted
through. Even this unbelievable fact no longer surprised them. They
only glanced at the metal, still too hot to touch, and looked about the
room. The bonds had been taken. But now they noticed that over the
mail-clerk's desk there had been fastened a small envelope. On it was
printed:

To the Officials of the San Francisco Airport

Inside was a short message, printed in the same sharp, black letters:

Gentlemen:

This plane should land safely. If it doesn't, it is your
fault, not mine, for the instruments that it carries
should permit it. The passengers are NOT dead! They have
been put in a temporary state of suspended animation.
Any doctor can readily revive them by the injection of
seven c.c. of decinormal potassium iodide solution for
every 100 pounds of weight. Do NOT use higher
concentrations. Lower concentrations will act more
slowly.

You will find that any tendency toward leprosy or cancer
will have been destroyed. It will kill any existing
cancer, and cure it in about one week. I have not
experimented with leprosy beyond knowing that it is
cured very quickly.

This is an outside job. Don't annoy the passengers with
questions.

The gas used cannot be stopped by any material I know
of. You can try it with any mask--but don't use the
C-32L. It will react with the gas to kill. I would
advise that you try it on an animal to convince
yourselves.

I have left stock in my new company to replace the bonds
I have taken.

Piracy Incorporated is incorporated under my own laws.

The Pirate

On the desk beneath the note was a small package which contained a
number of stock certificates. They totalled $900,000 face value of
"Piracy Preferred", the preferred stock of a corporation, "Piracy, Inc."

"Piracy! Pirates in the air!" The field manager forced an unnatural
laugh. "In 2126 we have pirates attacking our air lines. _Piracy
Preferred!_ I think I'd prefer the bonds myself. But thank God he did
not kill all those people. Doctor, you look worried! Cheer up. If what
this pirate says is true, we can resuscitate them, and they'll be better
off for the experience!"

The doctor shook his head. "I've been examining your passengers. I'm
afraid that you'll never be able to bring these people back to life
again, sir. I can't detect any heart action even with the amplifier.
Ordinary heart action sounds like a cataract through this instrument. I
can see nothing wrong with the blood; it has not coagulated as I
expected, nor is there any pronounced hydrolysis as yet. But I'm afraid
I'll have to write out the death warrants for all these men and women.
One of the people on that ship was coming to see me. That's how I
happened to be on the field. For her, at least, it may be better so. The
poor woman was suffering from an incurable cancer."

"In this case, Doctor, I hope and believe you are wrong. Read this
note!"

* * * * *

It was two hours before the work of reviving the passengers could be
started. Despite all the laws of physics, their body temperature had
remained constant after it had reached seventy-four, showing that some
form of very slow metabolism was going on. One by one they were put into
large electric blankets, and each was given the correct dose of the
salt. The men waited anxiously for results--and within ten minutes of
the injection the first had regained consciousness!

The work went forward steadily and successfully. Every one of the
passengers and crew was revived. And the Pirate had spoken the truth.
The woman who had been suffering from cancer was free from pain for the
first time in many months. Later, careful examination proved she was
cured!

The papers were issuing extras within five minutes of the time the great
plane had landed, and the radio news service was broadcasting the first
"break" in a particularly dead month. During all of June the news had
been dead, and now July had begun with a bang!

With time to think and investigate, the airport officials went over the
ship with the Air Guard, using a fine-tooth comb. It was soon evident
that the job had been done from the outside, as the Pirate had said. The
emergency pilot testified that when he entered the ship, he found a
small piece of wire securing the air lock from the outside. This had
certainly been put on while the ship was in flight, and that meant that
whoever had done this, had landed on the great ship with a small plane,
had somehow anchored it, then had entered the plane through the air lock
at the ten mile height. He had probably flown across the path of the
plane, leaving a trail of gas in its way to be drawn in through the
ventilator pumps. It had been washed out by the incoming good air later,
for the emergency pilot had not been affected.

Now the investigation led them to the mail-room. Despite the refractory
nature of the metal, the door had been opened by melting or burning out
the lock. And an opening had been burned into the safe itself! Opened by
melting it through!

A bond shipment was due the next day, and the airline officials planned
to be on the watch for it. It would get through safely, they were sure,
for men were put on board in steel chambers hermetically welded behind
them, with oxygen tanks and automatic apparatus sealed within to supply
them with clean air. The front of the tanks were equipped with
bullet-proof glass windows, and by means of electrically operated
controls the men inside could fire machine guns. Thus they were
protected from the Pirate's gas and able to use their weapons.

The ship was accompanied by a patrol of Air Guardsmen. Yet, despite,
this, cancer cases were aboard with the hope of being gassed.

When the plane reached the neighborhood of San Francisco, there had been
no sign of an attack. The Pirate might well retire permanently on a
million, if he were alone, as the singular signature indicated; but it
seemed much more probable that he would attempt another attack in any
case. Well, that just meant watching all the planes from now on, a
tremendous job for the Air Guard to handle.

The leader of the patrol turned in an easy bank to descend the ten miles
to Earth, and his planes followed him. Then suddenly through the
communicator came an unmistakable sound. _The plane automatically
signaling for an emergency pilot!_ That could only mean that the plane
had been gassed under the very eyes of his men!

The bonds were gone and the passengers gassed, and incredibly, the men
in the steel tanks were as thoroughly gassed as the rest.

The note was brief, and as much to the point as was the absence of the
bonds.

To the Officials of the Airport:

Restore as usual. The men in the tanks are asleep
also--I said the gas would penetrate _any_ material. It
does. A mask obviously won't do any good. Don't try that
C-32L mask. I warn you it will be fatal. My gas reacts
to produce a virulent poison when in contact with the
chemicals in the C-32L.

The Pirate

I.

On the thirty-ninth floor of a large New York apartment two young men
were lounging about after a strenuous game of tennis. The blue tendrils
of smoke from their pipes rose slowly, to be drawn away by the efficient
ventilating system. The taller of the two seemed to be doing most of the
talking. In the positions they had assumed it would have been rather
difficult to be sure of which was the taller, but Robert Morey was a
good four inches taller than Richard Arcot. Arcot had to suffer under
the stigma of "runt" with Morey around--he was only six feet tall.

The chosen occupation of each was physical research, and in that field
Arcot could well have called Morey "runt", for Arcot had only one
competitor--his father. In this case it had been "like father, like
son". For many years Robert Arcot had been known as the greatest
American physicist, and probably the world's greatest. More recently he
had been known as the father of the world's greatest physicist. Arcot
junior was probably one of the most brilliant men the world had ever
seen, and he was aided in all his work by two men who could help him in
a way that amplified his powers a thousand fold. His father and his best
friend, Morey, were the complimentary and balancing minds to his great
intelligence. His father had learned through years of work the easiest
and best ways of performing the many difficult feats of laboratory
experimentation. Morey could develop the mathematical theory of a
hypothesis far more readily than Arcot could. Morey's mind was more
methodical and exact than Arcot's, but Arcot could grasp the broad
details of a problem and get the general method of solution developed
with a speed that made it utterly impossible for his friend even to
follow the steps he suggested.

Since Arcot junior's invention of the multiple calculus, many new
ramifications of old theories had been attained, and many developments
had become possible.

But the factor that made Arcot so amazingly successful in his line of
work was his ability to see practical uses for things, an ability that
is unfortunately lacking in so many great physicists. Had he collected
the royalties his inventions merited, he would have been a billionaire
twice or thrice over. Instead he had made contracts on the basis that
the laboratories he owned be kept in condition, and that he be paid a
salary that should be whatever he happened to need. Since he had sold
all his inventions to Transcontinental Airways, he had been able to
devote all his time to science, leaving them to manage his finances.
Perhaps it was the fact that he did sell these inventions to
Transcontinental that made these lines so successful; but at any rate,
President Arthur Morey was duly grateful, and when his son was able to
enter the laboratories he was as delighted as Arcot.

The two had become boon companions. They worked, played, lived, and
thought together.

Just now they were talking about the Pirate. This was the seventh day of
his discovery, and he had been growing steadily more menacing. It was
the great Transcontinental Airways that had suffered most repeatedly.
Sometimes it was the San Francisco Flyer that went on without a pilot,
sometimes the New York-St. Louis expresses that would come over the
field broadcasting the emergency signal. But always the people were
revived with little difficulty, and each time more of the stock of
"Piracy, Inc." was accumulated. The Air Guard seemed helpless. Time and
time again the Pirate slipped in undetected. Each time he convinced
them that it was an outside job, for the door was always sealed from the
outside.

"Dick, how do you suppose he gets away with the things he does right
under the eyes of those Air Guardsmen? He must have some system; he does
it every time."

"I have a vague idea," Arcot answered. "I was going to ask you today, if
your father would let us take passage on the next liner carrying any
money. I understand the insurance rates have been boosted so high that
they don't dare to send any cash by air any more. They've resorted to
the slow land routes. Is there any money shipment in sight?"

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