The Black Star Passes

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Since the return of the Terrestrians to the _Solarite_, a great crowd of
Venerians had gathered around it, awaiting a glimpse of the men, for the
news had spread that this ship had come from Earth. Now, the crowd had
divided, and a group of men was approaching, clothed in great heavy
coats that seemed warm enough to wear in Terrestrial arctic regions!

"Why--Arcot--what's the idea of the winter regalia?" asked Fuller in
surprise.

"Think a moment--they are going to visit a place whose temperature is
seventy degrees colder than their room temperature. In the bargain,
Venus never has any seasonal change of temperature, and a heavy bank of
clouds that eternally cover the planet keeps the temperature as constant
as a thermocouple arrangement could. The slight change from day to night
is only appreciable by the nightly rains--see--the crowd is beginning to
break up now. It's night already, and there is a heavy dew settling.
Soon it will be rain, and the great amount of moisture in the air will
supply enough heat, in condensing, to prevent a temperature drop of more
than two or three degrees. These men are not used to changes in
temperature as we are and hence they must protect themselves far more
fully."

Three figures now entered the airlock of the _Solarite_, and muffled in
heavy garments as they were, large under any conditions, they had to
come through one at a time.

Much that Arcot showed them was totally new to them. Much he could not
explain to them at all, for their physics had not yet reached that
stage.

But there was one thing he could show them, and he did. There were no
samples of the liquids he wanted, but their chemistry was developed to a
point that permitted the communication of the necessary data and Arcot
told them the formula of Wade's gas. Its ability to penetrate any
material at ordinary temperatures, combined with its anesthetic
properties, gave it obvious advantages as a weapon for rendering the
opposing forces defenseless.

Since it was able to penetrate all substances, there was no means of
storing it. Hence it was made in the form of two liquids which reacted
spontaneously and produced the gas, which was then projected to the spot
where needed.

Arcot asked now that the Venerian chemists make him a supply of these
two liquids; and they promptly agreed. He felt he would have a fighting
chance in combatting the enemy if he could but capture one of their
flying forts. It seemed a strange task! Capturing so huge a machine with
only the tiny _Solarite_--but Arcot felt there was a good possibility of
his doing it if he but had a supply of that gas.

There was one difficulty--one step in the synthesis required a
considerable quantity of chlorine. Since chlorine was rare on Venus,
the men were forced to sacrifice most of their salt supply; but this
chlorine so generated could be used over and over again.

It was quite late when the Venerians left, to go again into the scalding
hot rain, rain that seemed to them to be a cold drizzle. After they had
gone, the Terrestrians turned in for the night, leaving a telephone
connection with the armed guard outside.

* * * * *

The dull light of the Venerian day was filtering in through the windows
the next morning when the Terrestrians awoke. It was eight o'clock, New
York time, but Sonor was working on a twenty-three hour day. It happened
that Sonor and New York had been in opposition at midnight two nights
ago, which meant that it was now ten o'clock Sonorian time. The result
was that Arcot left the car to speak to the officer in charge of the
guard about the ship.

"We need some pure water--water free of copper salts. I think it would
be best if you can get me some water that has been distilled. That is,
for drinking. Also we need about two tons of water of any kind--the
ship's tanks need recharging. I'd like about a ton of the drinking
water." Arcot had to translate the Terrestrian measures into the
corresponding Venerian terms, of course, but still the officer seemed
puzzled. Such a large amount of water would create a real problem in
transportation. After apparently conferring by telepathic means with his
superiors, the officer asked if the _Solarite_ could be moved to some
more accessible place.

Arcot agreed to have it moved to a spot just outside the city, where the
water could be procured directly from a stream. The drinking water would
be ready when he returned to the city.

The _Solarite_ was moved to the bank of the little river and the
electrolysis apparatus was set up beside it. During the previous day,
and ever since they had landed on Venus, all their power had been coming
from the storage cells, but now that the electrolysis apparatus was to
establish such a heavy and constant drain, Arcot started the generator,
to both charge the cells, and to do the work needed.

Throughout the day there could be heard the steady hum of the generator,
and the throb-throb-throb of the oxygen pump, as the gas was pumped into
the huge tanks. The apparatus they were using produced the gas very
rapidly, but it was near nightfall before the huge tanks had again been
filled. Even then there was a bit more room for the atomic hydrogen that
was simultaneously formed, although twice as much hydrogen as oxygen was
produced. Its task completed, the _Solarite_ rose again and sped toward
the distant city.

A soft red glow filled the sky now, for even through the miles of clouds
the intense sun was able to force some direct rays, and all the city was
lighted with that warm radiance. The floodlights had not yet been turned
on, but the great buildings looming high in the ruddy light were
wonderfully impressive, the effect being heightened by the planned
construction, for there were no individual spires, only a single mass
that grew from the ground to tower high in the air, like some man-made
mountain.

Back at the Capital the _Solarite_ again settled into the broad avenue
that had been cut off to traffic now, and allotted to it as its resting
place. Tonlos met them shortly after they had settled into place, and
with him were five men, each carrying two large bottles.

"Ah-co," as Tonlos pronounced the Terrestrian name, "we have not been
able to make very much of the materials needed for your gas, but before
we made any very great amount, we tried it out on an animal, whose blood
structure is the same as ours, and found it had the same effect, but
that in our case the iodide of potassium is not as effective in
awakening the victim as is the sorlus. I do not know whether you have
tried that on Terrestrial animals or not. Luckily sorlus is the most
plentiful of the halogen groups; we have far more of it than of
chlorine, bromine or iodine."

"Sorlus? I do not know of it--it must be one of the other elements that
we do not have on Earth. What are its properties?"

"It, too, is much like iodine, but heavier. It is a black solid melting
at 570 degrees; it is a metallic looking element, will conduct
electricity somewhat, oxidizes in air to form an acidic oxide, and forms
strong oxygen acids. It is far less active than iodine, except toward
oxygen. It is very slightly soluble in water. It does not react readily
with hydrogen, and the acid where formed is not as strong as HI."

"I have seen so many new things here, I wonder if it may not be the
element that precedes niton. Is it heavier than that?"

"No," replied Tonlos; "it is just lighter than that element you call
niton. I think you have none of it."

"Then," said Arcot, "it must be the next member of the halogen series,
Morey. I'll bet they have a number of those heavier elements."

The gas was loaded aboard the _Solarite_ that evening, and when Wade saw
the quantity that they had said was "rather disappointingly small" he
laughed heartily.

"Small! They don't know what that gas will do! There's enough stuff
there to gas this whole city. Why, with that, we can bring down any
ship! But tell them to go on making it, for we can use it on the other
ships."

Again that night they spoke with Earth, and Morey, Senior, told them
that work was already under way on a hundred small ships. They were
using all their own ships already, while the Government got ready to act
on the idea of danger. It had been difficult to convince them that
someone on Venus was getting ready to send a force to Earth to destroy
them; but the weight of their scientific reputation had turned the
trick. The ships now under construction would be ready in three weeks.
They would be unable to go into space, but they would be very fast, and
capable of carrying large tanks of the gas-producing chemicals.

It was near midnight, Venerian time, when they turned in. The following
day they planned to start for the Kaxorian construction camp. They had
learned from Tonlos that there were but five of the giant planes
completed now, but there were fifteen more under construction, to make
up the fleet of twenty that was to attack Earth. These fifteen others
would be ready in a week--or less. When they were ready, the _Solarite_
would stand small chance. They must capture one of the giants and learn
its secrets, and then, if possible, with the weapons and knowledge of
two worlds, defeat them. A large order!

Their opportunity came sooner than they had hoped for--or wanted. It was
about three o'clock in the morning when the telephone warning hummed
loudly through the ship. Arcot answered.

Far to the east and south of them the line of scout planes that
patrolled all the borders of Lanor had been broken. Instantaneously, it
seemed, out of the dark, its lights obscured, the mighty Kaxorian craft
had come, striking a tiny scout plane head on, destroying it utterly
before the scout had a chance to turn from the path of the titanic ship.
But even as the plane spun downward, the pilot had managed to release a
magnesium flare, a blindingly brilliant light that floated down on a
parachute, and in the blaze of the white light it gave off, the other
scouts at a few miles distance had seen the mighty bulk of the Kaxorian
plane. At once they had dropped to the ground and then, by telephone
lines, had sent their report to far off Sonor.

In moments the interior of the _Solarite_ became a scene of swift
purposeful activity. All day the Terrestrians had been able to do so
little in preparation for the conflict they knew must come, the battle
for two worlds. They had wanted action, but they had no weapons except
their invisibility and the atomic hydrogen. It would not sink a plane.
It would only break open its armor, and they hoped, paralyze its crew.
And on this alone they must pin their hopes.

VI

Arcot lifted the _Solarite_ at once high into the air, and started
toward the point on the border, where the plane had been seen crossing.
In a short time Wade relieved him at the controls while he dressed.

They had been flying on in silence for about an hour, when suddenly Wade
made out in the distance the great bulk of the plane, against the dull
gray of the clouds, a mile or so above them. It seemed some monstrous
black bat flying there against the sky, but down to the sensitive
microphone on the side of the _Solarite_ came the drone of the hundred
mighty propellers as the great plane forged swiftly along.

Just how rapidly these giants moved, Arcot had not appreciated until he
attempted to overtake this one. It was going over a mile a second now--a
speed that demanded only that it move its own length in about
five-eights of a second! It made this tremendous speed by streamlining
and through sheer power.

The _Solarite_ hovered high above the dark ship at length, the roar of
the terrific air blast from its propellers below coming up to them as a
mighty wave of sound that made their own craft tremble! The hundred
gigantic propellers roaring below, however, would distribute their gas
perfectly.

"We're going invisible," Arcot exclaimed. "Look out!" There was a click
as the switch shut, and the _Solarite_ was as transparent as the air
above it. Arcot drove his ship swiftly, above and ahead of the mighty
colossus, then released the gas. There was a low hiss from the power
room, barely detectable despite the vacuum that shut them off from the
roar of the Kaxorian plane. The microphone had long since been
disconnected. Out of the gas vent streamed a cloud of purplish gas,
becoming faintly visible as it left the influence of the invisibility
apparatus, but only to those who knew where to look for it. The men in
that mighty plane could not see it as their machine bore down into the
little cloud of gas.

Tensely the Terrestrians waited. Moments--and the gigantic plane
wobbled! There was a sudden swerve that ended in a nose dive, straight
toward Venus seven miles below.

That the ship should crash into the ground below was not at all Arcot's
plan, and he was greatly relieved when it flattened its dive and started
to climb, its incalculable mass rapidly absorbing its kinetic energy.
Down from its seven mile height it glided, controlling itself perfectly
as Arcot released the last of the first four containers of the liquid
gas makers, putting to sleep the last man on the ship below.

In a long glide that carried it over many miles, the great ship
descended. It had sunk far, and gone smoothly, but now there loomed
ahead of it a range of low hills! It would certainly crash into the
rocky cliffs ahead! Nearer and nearer drew the barrier while Arcot and
the others watched with rigid attention. It might skim above those low
hills at that--just barely escaping.... The watchers cringed as head on,
at nearly two thousand miles an hour, the machine crashed into the
rocks. Arcot had snapped the loud speaker into the circuit once more,
and now as they looked at the sudden crash below, there thundered up to
them mighty waves of sound!

The giant plane had struck about twenty feet from the top of a nearly
perpendicular cliff. The terrific crash was felt by seismographs in
Sonor nearly two thousand miles away! The mighty armored hull plowed
into the rocks like some gigantic meteor, the hundreds of thousands of
tons crushing the rocky precipice, grinding it to powder, and shaking
the entire hill. The cliff seemed to buckle and crack. In moments the
plane had been brought to rest, but it had plowed through twenty feet of
rock for nearly an eighth of a mile. For an instant it hung motionless,
perched perilously in the air, its tail jutting out over the little
valley, then slowly, majestically it sank, to strike with a
reverberating crash that shattered the heavy armor plate!

For another instant the great motors continued turning, the roar of the
propellers like some throbbing background to the rending crashes as the
titanic wreck came to rest. Suddenly, with a series of roaring
explosions, the bank of motors in the left wing blew up with awful
force. There was a flash of indescribable brilliance that momentarily
blinded the watching Terrestrians; then there came to the microphone
such waves of sound as it could not reproduce. From the rock on which
rested the fused mass of metal that they knew had been the wing, rose a
great cloud of dust. Still the motors on the other side of the ship
continued roaring and the giant propellers turned. As the blast of air
blew the dust away, the Terrestrians stared in unbounded amazement. Up
from the gaping, broken wing lanced a mighty beam of light of such
dazzling intensity that Arcot swiftly restored them to visibility that
they might shut it out. There was a terrific hissing, crackling roar.
The plane seemed to wobble as it lay there, seemingly recoiling from
that flaming column. Where it touched the cliff there was intense
incandescence that made the rock glow white hot, then flow down in a
sluggish rivulet of molten lava! For five minutes longer this terrific
spectacle lasted, while Arcot withdrew the _Solarite_ to a safer
distance.

The fifty motors of the remaining wing seemed slowing down now--then
suddenly there was such a crash and towering flash of light as no human
being had ever seen before! Up--up into the very clouds it shot its
mighty flame, a blazing column of light that seemed to reach out into
space. The _Solarite_ was hurled back end over end, tumbling, falling.
Even the heavy gyroscopes could not hold it for an instant, but quickly
the straining motors brought them to rest in air that whirled and whined
about them. They were more than twenty miles from the scene of the
explosion, but even at that distance they could see the glow of the
incandescent rock. Slowly, cautiously they maneuvered the _Solarite_
back to the spot, and looked down on a sea of seething lava!

Morey broke the awed silence. "Lord--what power that thing carries! No
wonder they could support it in the air! But--how can they control such
power? What titanic forces!"

Slowly Arcot sent the _Solarite_ away into the night--into the kindly
darkness once more. His voice when he spoke at last was oddly
restrained.

"I wonder what those forces were--they are greater than any man has ever
before seen! An entire hill fused to molten, incandescent rock, not to
mention the tons and tons of metal that made up that ship.

"And such awful forces as these are to be released on our Earth!" For an
interminable period they sat silent as the panorama of hills glided by
at a slow two-hundred miles an hour. Abruptly Arcot exclaimed, "We
_must_ capture a ship. We'll try again--we'll either destroy or capture
it--and either way we're ahead!"

* * * * *

Aimlessly they continued their leisurely course across a vast plain.
There were no great mountains on Venus, for this world had known no such
violent upheaval as the making of a moon. The men were lost in thought,
each intent on his own ideas. At length Wade stood up, and walked slowly
back to the power room.

Suddenly the men in the control room heard his call:

"Arcot--quick--the microphone--and rise a mile!"

The _Solarite_ gave a violent lurch as it shot vertically aloft at
tremendous acceleration. Arcot reached over swiftly and snapped the
switch of the microphone. There burst in upon them the familiar roaring
drone of a hundred huge propellers. No slightest hum of motor, only the
vast whining roar of the mighty props.

"Another one! They must have been following the first by a few minutes.
We'll get this one!" Arcot worked swiftly at his switches. "Wade--strap
yourself in the seat where you are--don't take time to come up here."

They followed the same plan which had worked so well before. Suddenly
invisible, the _Solarite_ flashed ahead of the great plane. The titanic
wave of rushing sound engulfed them--then again came the little hiss of
the gas. Now there were no hills in sight, as far as the eye could see.
In the dim light that seemed always to filter through these gray clouds
they could see the distant, level horizon.

Several dragging minutes passed before there was any evident effect; the
men from Earth were waiting for that great ship to waver, to wobble from
its course. Suddenly Arcot gave a cry of surprise. Startled amazement
was written all over his face, as his companions turned in wonderment to
see that he was partially visible! The _Solarite_, too, had become a
misty ghost ship about them; they were becoming visible! Then in an
instant it was gone--and they saw that the huge black bulk behind them
was wavering, turning; the thunderous roar of the propellers fell to a
whistling whine; the ship was losing speed! It dipped, and shot down a
bit--gained speed, then step by step it glided down--down--down to the
surface below. The engines were idling now, the plane running more and
more slowly.

They were near the ground now--and the watchers scarcely breathed. Would
this ship, too, crash? It glided to within a half mile of the
plain--then it dipped once more, and Arcot breathed his relief as it
made a perfect landing, the long series of rollers on the base of the
gigantic hull absorbing the shock of the landing. There were small
streams in the way--a tree or two, but these were obstacles unnoticed by
the gargantuan machine. Its mighty propellers still idling slowly, the
huge plane rolled to a standstill.

Swooping down, the _Solarite_ landed beside it, to be lost in the vast
shadows of the mighty metal walls.

Arcot had left a small radio receiver with Tonlos in Sonor before he
started on this trip, and had given him directions on how to tune in on
the _Solarite_. Now he sent a message to him, telling that the plane had
been brought down, and asking that a squadron of planes be sent at once.

Wade and Arcot were elected to make the first inspection of the Kaxorian
plane, and clad in their cooling suits, they stepped from the
_Solarite_, each carrying, for emergency use, a small hand torch,
burning atomic hydrogen, capable of melting its way through even the
heavy armor of the great plane.

As they stood beside it, looking up at the gigantic wall of metal that
rose sheer beside them hundreds of feet straight up, it seemed
impossible that this mighty thing could fly, that it could be propelled
through the air. In awed silence they gazed at its vast bulk.

Then, like pygmies beside some mighty prehistoric monster, they made
their way along its side, seeking a door. Suddenly Wade stopped short
and exclaimed: "Arcot, this is senseless--we can't do this! The machine
is so big that it'll take us half an hour of steady walking to go around
it. We'll have to use the _Solarite_ to find an entrance!"

It was well that they followed Wade's plan, for the only entrance, as
they later learned, was from the top. There, on the back of the giant,
the _Solarite_ landed--its great weight having no slightest effect on
the Kaxorian craft. They found a trap-door leading down inside. However,
the apparatus for opening it was evidently within the hull, so they had
to burn a hole in the door before they could enter.

What a sight there was for these men of Earth. The low rumble of the
idling engines was barely audible as they descended the long ladder.

There was no resemblance whatever to the interior of a flying machine;
rather, it suggested some great power house, where the energies of half
a nation were generated. They entered directly into a vast hall that
extended for a quarter of a mile back through the great hull, and
completely across the fuselage. To the extreme nose it ran, and
throughout there were scattered little globes that gave off an intense
white light, illuminating all of the interior. Translucent bull's-eyes
obscured the few windows.

All about, among the machines, lay Venerians. Dead they seemed, the
illusion intensified by their strangely blue complexions. The two
Terrestrians knew, however, that they could readily be restored to life.
The great machines they had been operating were humming softly, almost
inaudibly. There were two long rows of them, extending to the end of
the great hall. They suggested mighty generators twenty feet high. From
their tops projected two-feet-thick cylinders of solid fused quartz.
From these extended other rods of fused quartz, rods that led down
through the floor; but these were less bulky, scarcely over eight inches
thick.

The huge generator-like machines were disc-shaped. From these, too, a
quartz rod ran down through the floor. The machines on the further row
were in some way different; those in the front half of the row had the
tubes leading to the floor below, but had no tubes jutting into the
ceiling. Instead, there were many slender rods connected with a vast
switchboard that covered all of one side of the great room. But
everywhere were the great quartz rods, suggesting some complicated water
system. Most of them were painted black, though the main rods leading
from the roof above were as clear as crystal.

Arcot and Wade looked at these gigantic machines in hushed awe. They
seemed impossibly huge; it was inconceivable that all this was but the
power room of an airplane!

Without speaking, they descended to the level below, using a quite
earthly appearing escalator. Despite the motionless figures everywhere,
they felt no fear of their encountering resistance. They knew the
effectiveness of Wade's anesthetic.

The hall they entered was evidently the main room of the plane. It was
as long as the one above, and higher, yet all that vast space was taken
by one single, titanic coil that stretched from wall to wall! Into it,
and from it there led two gigantic columns of fused quartz. That these
were rods, such as those smaller ones above was obvious, but each was
over eight feet thick!

Short they were, for they led from one mighty generator such as they had
seen above, but magnified on a scale inconceivable! At the end of it,
its driving power, its motor, was a great cylindrical case, into which
led a single quartz bar ten inches thick. This bar was alive with
pulsing, glowing fires, that changed and maneuvered and died out over
all its surface and through all its volume. The motor was but five feet
in diameter and a scant seven feet long, yet obviously it was driving
the great machine, for there came from it a constant low hum, a deep
pitched song of awful power. And the huge quartz rod that led from the
titanic coil-cylinder was alive with the same glowing fires that played
through the motor rod. From one side of the generator, ran two objects
that were familiar, copper bus bars. But even these were _three feet
thick_!

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