The Black Star Passes

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"I think we'll have enough urge to cause disintegration right here," he
said, "but I want to make sure, and so, before we set up the case over
it, I think we may as well put that big magnet in place, and have it
there to help in the work of disintegration, if need be."

At last the complete apparatus was set up, and the tiny bit of
light-matter they were to work on was placed on the table of a powerful
Atchinson projector microscope, the field of view being in the exact
center of the field of both the magnet and the coil. Carefully, then,
step by step, Arcot, Morey and Wade went over their work, checking and
rechecking.

"Well, we're ready," said Arcot finally, as he placed the projector
screen in position and dimmed the lights in the room. A touch of the
switch, and the projection screen was illuminated with the greatly
enlarged image of the tiny scrap of light-metal.

With his hand on the switch, Arcot spoke to the other two. "I won't say
there's _no_ danger, since we haven't done this before; and if all the
energy should be released at once, it'll blow the top out of the
building. But I'm reasonably sure that it will work safely. Any
objections?"

Wade shook his head, and Morey said: "I can't see any flaws in our
work."

Arcot nodded, and unconsciously tensing, he closed the switch. This put
the powerful Arcot oscillator tubes into action, and the power was ready
for application.

Slowly he closed the rheostat and put the power into the coil. The
little sliver of metal on the slide seemed to throb a bit, and its
outline grew hazy; but at last, with full power on, the release was so
slow as to be imperceptible.

"Guess we need the magnet after all; I'll put it on this time."

He opened the coil circuit and closed the magnet circuit at half
voltage, then again he increased the current through the rheostat. This
time the plate throbbed quite violently, it took the appearance of a bit
of iodine. Dense vapors began pouring from it, and instantly those
vapors became a blindingly brilliant flood of light. Arcot had snapped
open the switch the moment he saw this display start, and it had had
little time to act, for the instant the circuit was opened, it subsided.
But even in that brief time, the light aluminum screen had suddenly
become limp and slumped down, molten! The room was unbearably hot, and
the men were half blinded by the intensity of the light.

"It works!" yelled Wade. "It works! That sure was hot, too--it's
roasting in here." He flung open a window. "Let's have some air."

Arcot and Morey gripped hands with a broad grin. That display meant that
Earth and Venus would have space ships with which to fight space ships.
Reason enough for their joy.

Though they had made an unusual amount of progress already, there was
still a great deal of development work to be done. Fuller was needed,
Arcot decided, so he called the elder Morey and requested his services
if he could be spared from his present work. He could, and would arrive
later that day.

When Fuller appeared about mid-afternoon, he found the three friends
already at work on the development of a more compact apparatus than the
makeshift hookup used in making that first release mechanism.

"And so you can see," said Arcot as he finished his summary of their
work to that point, "we still have quite a job ahead of us. I'm now
trying to find some data for you to work on, but I can tell you this:
We'll need a ship that has plenty of strength and plenty of speed. There
will be the usual power plant, of course; the generators, the power-tube
board, and the electro-magnetic relays for the regular molecular motion
controls. Then, in addition, we must have controls for the ray
projector, though that must wait a while, for Dad is working on a method
of doubling our range.... Oh yes, the driving units will be inside the
ship now, for all our power will come from the energy of the
light-matter."

They spent the next hour in discussing the manifold details involved in
the design of their space ship: the mechanism involved in transferring
the light-energy to the drivers; a means of warming the ship in
interstellar space; a main horizontal drive for forward and backward
motion as well as braking; three smaller vertical power units to give
them freedom of direction in climb or descent; other smaller horizontal
power units for turning and moving sideways.

The ships, they decided, must be capable of six or seven thousand miles
a second. They would need three types of ships: a small single-man
speedster, without bunk or living quarters, simply a little power plant
and weapon. Designed for speed and mobility, it would be very hard to
hit, and because of its own offensive power would be dangerous to the
enemy. They would need a fleet of mother ships--ships that would hold
both the speedsters and their pilots--say thirty to a cruiser. There
would also be some ten-man scouts, operating in the same manner as the
larger cruisers, but with a smaller fleet of speedsters dependent on
them.

"For defense," Arcot concluded, "we'll have to depend on armor as heavy
as we can make and still remain within the bounds of practical
construction. I don't believe we'll be able to build up enough mass to
insulate against their negative catalysis ray. We'll have to depend on
mobility and offense.

"But now let's get back to work. I think, Fuller, that you might call in
the engineers of all the big aircraft and machine tool manufacturers and
fabricators, and have them ready to start work at once when the plans
are finally drawn up. You'd better get in touch with the Venerian
producers, too. Those new works in Sorthol, Kaxor, will certainly be
able to help a lot.

"I suppose the Interplanetary Patrol men will have something to say, so
they better be called in. Likewise the Venerian Council. Morey, maybe
your dad can handle some of this."

As one they arose and set to work on their respective tasks--the
planning and building of the Earth-Venus war fleet.

V

Despite their utmost endeavor and the hard work of the industrial might
of two worlds, it was nearly six weeks before the fleet had grown to a
thing of importance. The tests to which they subjected the tiny
speedsters had been more than satisfactory. They behaved wonderfully,
shooting about at terrific speed, and with all the acceleration a pilot
could stand. These speedsters were literally piloted projectiles, and
their amazing mobility made them a powerful arm of offense.

There came into being a special corp dubbed, oddly enough, the "Rocket
Squad", a group of men who could stand plenty of "G's". This "Rocket
Squad" was composed solely of Terrestrians, for they were accustomed to
the gravity of Earth and could stand greater acceleration strains than
could the Venerians. The pick of the Air Patrol formed the nucleus of
this new military organization; and in short order, so great is the
appeal of the new and novel, the cream of the young men of the planet
were competing for a place among the Rocketeers.

Each ship, both speedster and mother craft, was equipped with an
invisibility locator, a sensitive short-wave directional receiver, that
would permit the operator to direct his rays at invisible targets. The
ships themselves could not be made invisible, since they depended in
their very principle on the absorption of light-energy. If the walls of
every part of the ship were perfectly transparent, they could absorb no
energy at all, and they would still be plainly visible--even more so
than before! They must remain visible, but they could also force the
enemy to remain visible.

Each ten-man ship carried an old-fashioned cannon that was equipped to
hurl cannisters carrying the luminous paint. They decided that these
would have advantages, even if the invaders did not use invisibility,
for in space a ship is visible only because it reflects or emits light.
For this reason the ships were not equipped with any portholes except in
the pilot room and at the observation posts. No light could escape. To
reduce the reflection to the absolute minimum, the ships had each been
painted with a 99% absorptive black. In space they would be exceedingly
difficult targets.

The heating effect of the sun on the black pigment when near the great
star was rather disagreeably intense, and to cool the speedsters they
had installed molecular director power units, which absorbed the heat
and used the energy to drive the ship. Heaters offset the radiation loss
of the black surface when too far from the sun.

Each of the speedsters was equipped with a small machine-gun shooting
luminous paint bullets. One of these, landing on another craft, made it
visible for at least two hours, and since they could cover an area of
about thirty feet, they were decidedly effective.

It was found that ray practice was rather complicated. The government
had ranges set up in great mountain districts away from any valuable
property, but they soon found that spatial warplay could not be carried
on on Earth. The rays very quickly demolished the targets, and in a
short time made good progress toward demolishing the mountains as well.
The problem was solved by using the barren surface of the moon and the
asteroid belt beyond Mars as a proving ground.

The ships were sent out in squadrons as fast as they could be finished
and the men could be brought together and trained. They were
establishing a great shield of ships across all that section of the
system whence the Nigrans had appeared, and they hoped to intercept the
next attack before it reached Earth, for they were certain the next
attack would be in full force.

Arcot had gone to the conference held on Venus with the other men who
had investigated the great wrecks, and each scientist had related his
view of things and had offered suggestions. Arcot's idea of the black
star was not very favorably received. As he later told Wade and Morey,
who had not gone, there was good reason for their objection to his idea.
Though the scientists were willing to admit that the invaders must have
come from a great distance, and they agreed that they lived in an
atmosphere of hydrogen, and judging from their pale skins, that they
were not used to the rays of a sun, they still insisted on the theory of
an outer planet of Sol.

"You remember," explained Arcot, "several years ago there was
considerable discussion about the existence of a planet still further
out from the sun than Pluto. It is well known that there are a number of
irregularities in the orbits of Neptune and Pluto that can't be caused
by known planets, and an outer planet could have the necessary mass and
orbit to account for them.

"This attack from outer space was immediately taken as proof of that
theory, and it was very easily supported, too. My one good point that
stood for any length of time under their attacks was the fact that those
ships weren't developed in a year, nor a century, and that the chemical
constitution of the men was so different. There were no new elements
discovered, except the light-matter, but they are rather wondering about
the great difference of earthly chemical constitution and the
constitution of these invaders.

"They had one argument that was just about enough to throw mine out,
though they pointed to the odds against the thing happening. You know,
of course, how planets are formed? They are the results of tidal action
on two passing suns.

"You can imagine two mighty stars careening through space and then
drawing slowly nearer, till at last they come within a few billion miles
of each other, and their gigantic masses reach out and bind them with a
mighty chain of gravity. Their titanic masses swing about each other,
each trying to pull free, and continue its path about the center of the
galactic system. But as their huge bulks come nearer, the chains that
bind them become stronger and stronger, and the tremendous pull of the
one gargantuan fire ball on the other raises titanic tides of flame.
Great streamers of gas shoot out, and all the space about is lighted by
the flaming suns. The pull of gravity becomes more and more intense, and
as the one circles the other, the tide is pulled up, and the mighty ball
of fire, which, for all its existence has been practically motionless as
far as rotation goes, begins to acquire a greater and greater rotational
speed as the tidal drag urges it on. The flames begin to reach higher
and higher, and the tides, now urged from the sun by centrifugal force,
rise into an ever greater crest, and as the swinging suns struggle to
break loose, the flaming gas is pulled up and up, and becomes a mighty
column of fire, a column that reaches out across three--four--a dozen
millions of miles of space and joins the two stars at last, as
stalactites and stalagmites grow together. A flaming tie of matter joins
them, two titanic suns, and a mighty rope of fire binds them, while far
mightier chains of gravity hold them together.

"But now their original velocity reasserts itself, and having spiraled
about each other for who can say how long--a year--a million years
seems more probable--but still only an instant in the life of a
star--they begin to draw apart, and the flaming column is stretched out,
and ever thinner it grows, and the two stars at last separate. But now
the gas will never fall back into the sun. Like some giant flaming cigar
it reaches out into space and it will stay thus, for it has been set in
rotation about the sun at such a speed as is needed to form an orbit.
The giant mass of gas is, however, too cool to continue to develop
energy from matter, for it was only the surface of the sun, and cool. As
it cools still further, there appear in it definite condensations, and
the beginnings of the planets are there. The great filament that
stretched from the sun to sun was cigar-shaped, and so the matter is
more plentiful toward the center, and larger planets develop. Thus
Jupiter and Saturn are far larger than any of the others. The two ends
are tapering, thus Earth is larger than Venus, which is larger than
Mercury, and Uranus and Neptune are both smaller than Saturn, Pluto
being smaller than either.

"Mars and the asteroids are hard to explain. Perhaps it is easier to
understand when we remember that the planets thus formed must
necessarily have been rotating in eccentric orbits when they were first
born, and these planets came too near the sun while gaseous, or nearly
so, and Mars lost much of its matter, while the other, which now exists
only as the asteroids, broke up.

"But now that other flaming star has retired, wandering on through
space. The star has left its traces, for behind it there are planets
where none existed before. But remember that it, too, must have planets
now.

"All this happened some 2,000 million years ago.

"But in order that it might happen, it requires that two stars pass
within the relatively short distance of a few billion miles of each
other. Space is not overcrowded with matter, you know. The density of
the stars has been compared with twenty tennis balls roaming about
8,000-mile sphere that the Earth fills up--twenty tennis balls in some
270 billion cubic miles of space. Now imagine two of those tennis
balls--with plenty of room to wander in--passing within a few yards of
each other. The chances are about as good as the chances of two stars
passing close enough to make planets.

"Now let us consider another possibility.

"The Black Star, as I told you, has planets. That means that it must
have thus passed close to another star. Now we have it coming close to
another sun that has been similarly afflicted. The chances of that
happening are inconceivably small. It is one chance in billions that the
planets will form. Two stars must pass close to each other, when they
have all space to wander about in. Then those afflicted stars separate,
and one of them passes close by a new star, which has thus been
similarly afflicted with that one chance in billions--well, that is then
a chance in billions of billions.

"So my theory was called impossible. I don't know but what it is.
Besides, I thought of an argument the other men didn't throw at me. I'm
surprised they didn't, too--the explanation of the strange chemical
constitution of these men of a solar system planet would not be so
impossible. It is quite possible that they live on a planet revolving
about the sun which is, nevertheless, a planet of another star. It is
quite conceivable to me that the chemical constitution of Neptune and
Pluto will be found to be quite different from that of the rest of our
planets. The two filaments drawn out from the suns may not have mingled,
though I think they did, but it is quite conceivable that, just before
parting, our sun tore one planet, or even two or three, from the other
star.

"And that would explain these strange beings.

"My other ideas were accepted. The agreed-on plan for the release of
energy, and the source of the power." Arcot puffed on his pipe
meditatively for several moments, then stood up and stretched.

"Ho--I wish they'd let me go on active duty with the space fleet! A
scientific reputation can be an awful handicap at times," he grinned. He
had been rejected very emphatically when he had tried to enlist. The
Interplanetary governments had stated flatly that he was too important
as a scientist to be risked as a pilot of a space ship.

On two worlds the great construction plants were humming with activity.
Civilian production of all but the barest essentials had been put aside
for the duration of the emergency. Space ships were being turned out at
top speed, getting their fuel from the wrecks of the invaders' cruisers.
Each ship needed only a small amount of the light-metal, for the energy
content was tremendous. And those ships had been gigantic.

Already there was a fleet of speedsters and mother ships out there in
space, and with every passing hour others left the home planets, always
adding to the fighting force that was to engage the attackers deep in
space, where no stray ships might filter through to destroy the cities
of Earth or Venus. Assembly lines were now turning out ships so rapidly
that the training of their operators was the most serious problem. This
difficulty had finally been overcome by a very abbreviated training
course in the actual manipulation of the controls on the home planets,
and subsequent training as the squadrons raced on their outward courses.

It was soon decided that there must be another service beside that of
the ordinary ships. One plant was devoted to making huge interstellar
liners. These giants, made on Venus, were nearly a quarter of a mile
long, and though diminutive in comparison with the giant Nigran ships,
they were still decidedly large. Twelve of these could be completed
within the next month, it was found; and one was immediately set aside
as an officers' headquarters ship. It was recognized that the officers
must be within a few hundred thousand miles of the actual engagements,
for decisions would have to be made without too much loss of time in the
transmission of reports.

The ship must not be brought too near the front lest the officers be
endangered and the entire engagement lost for want of the organizing
central headquarters. The final solution had been the huge central
control ship.

The other large vessels were to be used to carry food and supplies. They
were not to enter the engagement, for their huge size would make them as
vulnerable to the tiny darting mites of space as the Nigran ships had
been to the Interplanetary Patrol. The little ships could not
conveniently stock for more than a week of engagement, then drop back to
these warehouses of space, and go forward again for action.

Throughout the long wait the officers of the Solarian forces organized
their forces to the limit of their ability, planning each move of their
attack. Space had been marked off into a great three-dimensional map,
and each ship carried a small replica, the planets moving as they did in
their orbits. The space between the planets was divided off into
definite points in a series of Cartesian co-ordinates, the sun being the
origin, and the plane of the elliptic being the X-Y plane.

The OX line was taken pointing toward one of the brightest of the fixed
stars that was in the plane of the elliptic. The entire solar system was
thus marked off as had been the planets long ages before, into a system
of three dimensional latitude and longitude. This was imperative, in
order to assure the easy location of the point of first attack, and to
permit the entire fleet to come into position there. A scattered guard
was to remain free, to avoid any false attacks and a later attack from a
point millions of miles distant. Earth and Venus were each equipped with
gigantic ray projectors, mighty weapons that could destroy anything,
even a body as large as the Moon, at a distance of ten thousand miles.
Still, a ship might get through, and with the death ray--what fearful
toll might be exacted from a vast city such as Chicago--with its thirty
millions! Or Karos, on Venus, with its fifteen and one half millions!

The tension became greater and greater as with each passing day the
populace of two worlds awaited the call from the far-flung guard. The
main bulk of the fleet had been concentrated in the center of their
great spherical shell of ships. They could only wait--and watch--and
prepare! Hundreds of miles apart, yet near enough so that no ship
except perhaps a one-man craft could pass them undetected; and behind
them were ships with delicate apparatus that could detect any foreign
body of any size whatever within a hundred thousand miles of them.

The Solar System was prepared to repel boarders from the vast sea of
space!

VI

Taj Lamor gazed down at the tremendous field below him. In it lay close
packed a great mass of ships, a concourse of Titans of Space,
dreadnoughts that were soon to set out to win--not a nation, not even a
world, but to conquer a solar system, and to win for their owners a vast
new sun, a sun that would light them and heat them for long ages to
come.

Momentarily Taj Lamor's gaze followed the retreating figure of Tordos
Gar, the Elder; a figure with stooped shoulders and bowed head. His
quiet yet vibrant parting words still resounded in his ears:

"Taj Lamor, remember what I tell you. If you win this awful war--you
lose. As will our race. Only if you lose will you win."

With a frown Taj Lamor stared down at the vast metal hulls glistening
softly in the dull light of far-off stars, the single brightly beaming
star that was their goal, and the dim artificial lighting system. From
the distance came to him the tapping and humming of the working machines
below as they strove to put the finishing touches to the great ships.

He raised his eyes toward the far-off horizon, where a great yellow star
flamed brilliantly against the black velvet of space. He thought of that
planet where the sky had been blue--an atmosphere of such intensity that
it colored the sky!

Thoughtfully he gazed at the flaming yellow point.

He had much to consider now. They had met a new race, barbarians in
some ways, yet they had not forgotten the lessons they had learned; they
were not decadent. Between his eon-old people and their new home stood
these strange beings, a race so young that its age could readily be
counted in millennia, but withal a strong, intelligent form of life. And
to a race that had not known war for so many untold ages, it was an
unthinkable thing that they must kill other living, intelligent beings
in order that they might live.

They had no need of moving, Tordos Gar and many others had argued; they
could stay where they were forever, and never find any need for leaving
their planet. This was the voice of decadence, Taj Lamor told himself;
and he had grown to hate that voice.

There were other men, men who had gone to that other solar system, men
who had seen vast oceans of sparkling water, showering from their
ruffled surfaces the brilliant light of a great, hot sun. They had seen
towering masses of mountains that reached high into the blue sky of a
natural atmosphere, their mighty flanks clothed with green growth;
natural plants in abundance.

And best of all, they had fought and seen action, such as no member of
their race had known in untold ages. They knew Adventure and Excitement,
and they had learned things that no member of their ancient race had
known for millennia. They had learned the meaning of advancement and
change. They had a new ardor, a new strength, a new emotion to drive
them, and those who would have held them back became enthusiasts
themselves. Enthusiasm may be contagious, but the spirit of their
decadence was rapidly failing before this new urge. Here was their last
chance and they must take it; they would!

They had lost many men in that battle on the strange world, but their
race was intelligent; they learned quickly, the small ships had been
very hard targets, while their big ships were too easy to strike. They
must have small ships, yet they must have large ships for cargo, and for
the high speed driving apparatus. The small ships were not able to
accelerate to the terrific speed needed. Once their velocity had been
brought up to the desired value, it was easy to maintain it with the
infinitely small friction of space as the only retarding force; one atom
per cubic inch was all they must meet. This would not hold them up, but
the great amount of fuel and the power equipment needed to accelerate to
the desired speed could not be packed into the small ship. Into the vast
holds of the huge ships the smaller ones were packed, long shining rows
of little metal projectiles. Tiny they were, but they could dart and
twist and turn as swiftly as could the ships they had met on that other
world--tiny ships that flashed about with incredible suddenness, a
target that seemed impossible to hit. These ships would be a match for
those flashing motes of the Yellow Sun. Now it might be that their great
transport and battle ships could settle down to those worlds and arrange
them for their own people!

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