Invaders from the Infinite

J >> John Wood Campbell >> Invaders from the Infinite

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Their images stepped out, and the Venonian crowd which had collected,
stared in wonder at the giants, looming twice their height above them.

"You see not us, but images of us. We cannot withstand your gravity nor
your air pressure, save in the protection of our ship. But these images
are true images of us."

For some time then they communicated, and finally Arcot agreed to give a
demonstration of their power. At the suggestion of the cruiser commander
who had seen the construction of a spaceship from the emptiness of
space, Arcot rapidly constructed a small, very simple, molecular drive
machine of pure cosmium, making it entirely from energy. It required but
minutes, and the Venonians stared in wonder as Arcot's unbelievable
tools created the machine before their eyes. The completed ship Arcot
gave to an official of the city who had appeared. The Venonian looked at
the thing skeptically, and half expecting it to vanish like the tools
that made it, gingerly entered the port. Powered as it was by lead
burning cosmic ray generators, the lead alone having been made by
transmutation of natural matter, it was powerful, and speedy. The
official entered it, and finding it still existing, tried it out. Much
to his amazement it flew, and operated perfectly.

Nearly ten hours Arcot and his friends stayed at Venone, and before they
left, the Venonians, for all their vast differences of structure, had
proven themselves true, kindly honest men, and a race that our Alliance
has since found every reason to respect and honor. Our commerce with
them, though carried on under difficulties, is none the less a bond of
genuine friendship.

Chapter XXIV

THETT PREPARES

Streaking through the void toward Thett was again a tiny scout ship. It
carried but a single man, and with all the power of the machine he was
darting toward distant Thett, at a speed insanely reckless, but he knew
that he must maintain such a speed if his mission were to be successful.

Again a tiny ship entered Thett's far-flung atmosphere, and slowed to
less than a light speed, and sent its signal call ahead. In moments the
patrol ship, less than three hundred miles away, had reached it, and
together they streaked through the dense air in a screaming dive toward
Shatnsoma, the capital city. It was directly beneath, and it was not
long before they had reached the great palace grounds, and settled on
the upper roof. Then the scout leaped out of his tiny craft, and dove
for the door. Flashing his credentials, he dove down, and into the first
shielded room. Here precious seconds were wasted while a check was made
of the credentials the man carried, then he was sent through to the
Council Room. And he, too, stood on that exact spot where the other
scout, but a few weeks before, had stood--and vanished. Waiting, it
seemed, were four councilors and the new Sthanto, Thalt.

"What news, Scout?" asked the Sthanto.

"They have arrived in the Universe to Venone, and gone to the planet
Venone. They were on the planet when I left. None of our scouts were
able to approach the place, as there were innumerable Venonian watchers
who would have recognized our deeper skin-color, and destroyed us. Two
scouts were rayed, though the Galactians did not see this. Finally we
captured two Venonians who had seen it, and attempted to force the
information we needed from them. A young man and his chosen mate.

"The man would tell nothing, and we were hurried. So we turned to the
girl. These accursed Venonians are courageous for all their pacifism. We
were hurried, and yet it was long before we forced her to tell what we
needed to know so vitally. She had been one of the notetakers for the
Venonian government. We got most of their conversation, but she died of
burns before she finished.

"The Galactians know nothing of the twin-ray beyond its action, and that
it is an electro-magnetic phenomenon, though they have been able to
distort it by using a sheet of pure energy. But their walls are
impregnable to it, and their power of creating matter from the pure
energy of space, as we saw from a distance, would enable them to easily
defeat it, were it not that the twin-ray passes through matter without
harming it. Any ray which will destroy matter of the natural electrical
types, will be stopped.

"The girl was damnably clever, for she gave us only the things we
already knew, and but few new facts; knowing that she would inevitably
die soon, she talked--but it was empty talk. The one thing of import we
have learned is that they burn no fuel, use no fuel of any sort but in
some inconceivable manner get their energy from the radiations of the
suns of space. This could not be great--but we know she told the truth,
and we know their power is great. She told the truth, for we could
determine when she lied, by mental action, of course.

"But more we could not learn. The man died without telling anything,
merely cursing. He knew nothing anyway, as we already had determined,"
concluded the scout.

Silently the Sthanto sat in thought for some moments. Then he raised his
head, and looked at the scout once more.

"You have done well. You secured some information of import, which was
more than we had dared hope for. But you managed things poorly. The
woman should not have died so soon. We can only guess.

"The radiation of the suns of space--hmmm--" Sthanto Thalt's brow
wrinkled in thought. "The radiation of the _suns_ of space. Were his
power derived from the sun near which he is operating, he would not have
said _suns_. It was more than one?"

"It was, oh Sthanto," replied the scout positively.

"His power is unreasonable. I doubt that he gave the true explanation.
It may well have been that he did not trust the Venonians. I would not,
for all their warless ways. But surely the suns of space give very
little power at any given point at random. Else space would not be cold.

"But go, Scout, and you will be assigned a position in the fleet. The
Colonial fleet, the remains of it, have arrived, and the colonists been
removed. They failed. We will use their ships. You will be assigned."
The scout left, and was indeed assigned to a ship of the colonists. The
incoming colonial transports had been met at the outposts of the system,
and rayed out of existence at once--failures, and bringing danger at
their heels. Besides--there was no room for them on Thett without
Thessians being crowded uncomfortably.

As their battleships arrived they were conducted to one of the
satellites, and each man was "fumigated," lest he bring disease to the
mother planet. Men entered, men apparently emerged. But they were
different men.

"It seems," said the Sthanto softly, after the scout had left, "that we
will have little difficulty, for they are, we know, vulnerable to the
triple ray. And if we can but once destroy their driving units they will
be helpless on our world. I doubt that wild tale of their using no fuel.
Even if that be true they will be helpless with their power apparatus
destroyed, and--if we miss the first time, we can seek it out, or drive
them off!

"All of which is dependent on the fact that they attack at a point where
we have a triple ray station to meet them. There are but three of these,
actually, but I have had dummy stations, apparently identical with our
other real stations, set up in many places.

"This gibberish we hear of creating matter--it is impossible, and surely
unsuitable as a weapon. Their misty wall--that may be a force plane, but
I know of no such possibility. The artificial substance though--why
should any one make it? It but consumes energy, and once made is no more
dangerous than ordinary matter, save that there is the possibility of
creating it in dangerous position. Remember, we have heard already of
the mental suggestions planes--mere force planes--_plus_ a wonderfully
developed power of suggestion. They do most of their damage by mental
impression. Remember, we have heard already of the mental suggestions of
horrible things that drove one fleet of the weak-minded colonists mad.

"And that, I think, we will use to protect ourselves. If we can, with
the apparatus which you, my son, have developed, cause them to believe
that all the other forts are equally dangerous, and that this one on
Thett is the best point of attack--It will be easy. Can you do it?"

"I can, Oh Sthanto, if but a sufficient number of powerful minds may be
brought to aid me," replied the youngest of the four councilmen.

"And you, Ranstud, are the stations ready?" asked the ruler.

"We are ready."

Chapter XXV

WITH GALAXIES IN THE BALANCE

The _Thought_ arose from Venone after long hours, and at Arcot's
suggestion, they assumed an orbit about the world, at a distance of two
million miles, and all on board slept, save Torlos, the tireless
molecular motion machine of flesh and iron. He acted as guard, and as he
had slept but four days before, he explained there was really no reason
for him to sleep as yet.

But the terrestrians would feel the greatest strain of the coming
encounter, especially Arcot and Morey, for Morey was to help by
repairing any damage done, by working from the control board of the
_Banderlog_. The little tender had sufficient power to take care of any
damage that Thett might inflict, they felt sure.

For they had not learned of the triple ray.

It was hours later that, rested and refreshed, they started for Thett.
Following the great space-chart that they had been given by the
Venonians, a series of blocks of clear lux metal, with tiny points of
slowly disintegrating lux, such as had been used to illuminate the
letters of the _Thought_'s name representing suns, the colors and
relative intensity being shown. Then there was a more manageable guide
in the form of photographs, marked for route by constellations
formations as well, which would be their actual guide.

At the maximum speed of the time apparatus, for thus they could better
follow the constellations, the _Thought_ plunged along in the wake of
the tiny scout ship that had already landed on Thett. And, hours later,
they saw the giant red sun of Antseck, the star of Thett and its system.

"We're about there," said Arcot, a peculiar tenseness showing in his
thoughts. "Shall we barge right in, or wait and investigate?"

"Well have to chance it. Where is their main fort here?"

"From the direction, I should say it was to the left and ahead of our
position," replied Zezdon Afthen.

The ship moved ahead, while about it the tremendous Thessian battlefleet
buzzed like flies, thousands of ships now, and more coming with each
second.

In a few moments the titanic ship had crossed a great plain, and came to
a region of bare, rocky hills several hundred feet high. Set in those
hills, surrounded by them, was a huge sphere, resting on the ground. As
though by magic the Thessian fleet cleared away from the _Thought_. The
last one had not left, when Arcot shot a terrific cosmic ray toward the
sphere. It was relux, and he knew it, but he knew what would happen when
that cosmic ray hit it. The solometer flickered and steadied at three as
that inconceivable ray flashed out.

Instantly there was a terrific explosion. The soil exploded into
hydrogen atoms, and expanded under heat that lashed it to more than a
million degrees in the tiniest fraction of a second. The terrific recoil
of the ray-pressure was taken by all space, for it was generated in
space itself, but the direct pressure struck the planet, and that
titanic planet reeled! A tremendous fissure opened, and the section that
had been struck by the ray smashed its way suddenly far into the planet,
and a geyser of fluid rock rolled over it, twenty miles deep in that
world. The relux sphere had been struck by the ray, and had turned it,
with the result that it was pushed doubly hard. The enormously thick
relux strained and dented, then shot down as a whole, into the
incandescent rock.

For miles the vaporized rock was boiling off. Then the fort sent out a
ray, and that ray blasted the rock that had flowed over it as Arcot's
titanic ray snapped out. In moments the fort was at the surface
again--and a molecular hit it. The molecular did not have the energy the
cosmic had carried, but it was a single concentrated beam of destruction
ten feet across. It struck the fort--and the fort recoiled under its
energy. The marvelous new tubes that ran its ray screen flashed
instantly to a temperature inconceivable, and, so long as the elements
embedded in the infusible relux remained the metals they were, those
tubes could not fail. But they were being lashed by the energy of half a
sun. The tubes failed. The elements heated to that enormous temperature
when elements cannot exist--and broke to other elements that did not
resist. The relux flashed into blinding iridescence--

And from the fort came a beam of pure silvery light. It struck the
_Thought_ just behind the bow, for the operator was aiming for the point
where he knew the control room and pilot must be. But Arcot had designed
the ship for mental control, which the enemy operator could not guess.
The beam was a flat beam, perhaps an inch thick, but it fanned out to
fifty feet width. And where it touched the _Thought_, there was a
terrific explosion, and inconceivably violent energy lashed out as the
cosmium instantaneously liberated its energy.

A hundred feet of the nose was torn off the ship, and the enormously
dense air of Thett rushed in. But that beam had cut through the very
edge of one of the ray projectors, or better, one of the ray feed
apparatus. And the ray feed released it without control; it released all
the energy it could suck in from space about it, as one single beam of
cosmic energy, somewhat lower than the regular cosmics, and it flashed
out in a beam as solid matter.

There was air about the ship, and the air instantly exploded into atoms
of a different sort, threw off their electrons, and were raised to the
temperature at which no atom can exist, and became protons and
electrons. But so rapidly was that coil sucking energy from space that
space tended to close in about it, and in enormous spurts the energy
flooded out. It was directed almost straight up, and but one ship was
caught in its beam. It was made of relux, but the relux was powdered
under the inconceivable blow that countless quintillions of cosmic ray
photons struck it. That ray was in fact, a solid mass of cosmium moving
with the velocity of light. And it was headed for that satellite of
Thett, which it would reach in a few hours time.

The _Thought_, due to the spatial strains of the wounded coil, was
constantly rushing away to an almost infinite distance, as the ship
approached that other space toward which the coil tended with its load,
and rushing back, as the coil, reaching a spatial condition which
supplied no energy, fell back. In a hundredth of a second it had reached
equilibrium, and they were in a weirdly, terribly distorted space. But
the triple-ray of the Thessians seemed to sheer off, and miss, no matter
how it was directed. And it was painfully weak, for the coil sucked up
the energy of whatsoever matter disintegrated in the neighborhood.

Then suddenly the performance was over. And they plunged into artificial
space that was black and clean, and not a thing of wavering, struggling
energies. Morey, from his control in the _Banderlog_, had succeeded in
getting sufficient energy, by using his space distortion coils, to
destroy the great projector mechanism. Instantly Arcot, now able to
create the artificial space without the destruction of the coils by the
struggling ray-feed coil, had thrown them to comparative safety.

Space writhed before they could so much as turn from the instruments.
The Thessians had located their artificial space, and reached it with an
attraction ray. They already had been withstanding the drain of the
enormous fields of the giant planet and the giant sun; the attractive
ray was an added strain. Arcot looked at his instruments, and with a
grim smile set a single dial. The space about them became black again.

"Pulling our energy--merely let 'em pull. They're pulling on an ocean,
not a lake this time. I don't think they'll drain those coils very
quickly." He looked at his instruments. "Good for two and a half hours
at this rate.

"Morey, you sure did your job then. I was helpless. The controls
wouldn't answer, of course, with that titanic thing flopping its wings,
so to speak. What are we going to do?"

Morey stood in the doorway, and from his pocket drew a cigarette, handed
it to Arcot, another to each of the others who smoked, and lit them, and
his own. "Smoke," he said, and puffed. "Smoke and think. From our last
experience with a minor tragedy, it helps."

"But--this is no minor tragedy, they have burst open the wall of this
invulnerable ship, destroyed one of those enormous coils, and can do it
again," exclaimed Zezdon Afthen, exceedingly nervous, so nervous that
the normal courage of the man was gone. His too-psychic breeding was
against him as a warrior.

"Afthen," replied Stel Felso Theu calmly, "when our friends have smoked,
and thought, the _Thought_ will be repaired perfectly, and it will be
made invulnerable to that weapon."

"I hope so, Stel Felso Theu," smiled Arcot. He was feeling better
already. "But do you know what that weapon is, Morey?"

"Got some readings on it with the _Banderlog_'s instruments, and I think
I do. Twin-ray is right," replied Morey.

"Hm-hm--so I think. It's a super-photon. What they do is to use a field
somewhat similar to the field we use in making cosmium, except that in
theirs, instead of the photons lying side by side, they slide into one
another, compounding. They evidently get three photons to go into one.
Now, as we know, that size photon doesn't exist for the excellent reason
that it can't in this space. Space closes in about it. Therefore they
have a projected field to accompany it that tends to open out space--and
they are using that, not the attractive ray, on us now. The result is
that for a distance not too great, the triple-ray exists in normal
space--then goes into another. Now the question is how can we stop it? I
have an idea--have you any?"

"Yes, but my idea can't exist in this space either," grinned Morey.

"I think it can. If it's what I think, remember it will have a terrific
electric field."

"It's what you think, then. Come on." Arcot and Morey went to the
calculating room, while Wade took over the ship. But one of the
ray-feeds had been destroyed, and they had three more in action, as well
as their most important weapon, artificial matter. Wade threw on the
time field, and started the emergency lead burner working to recharge
the coils that the Thessians were constantly draining. Being in their
own peculiar space, they could not draw energy from the stars, and Arcot
didn't want to return to normal space to discharge them, unless
necessary.

"How's the air pressure in the rest of the ship?" asked Wade.

"Triple normal," replied Morey. "The Thessian atmosphere leaked in and
sent it up terrifically, but when we went into our own space, at the
halfway point, a lot leaked out. But the ship is full of water now. It
was a bit difficult coming up from the _Banderlog_, and I didn't want to
breathe the air I wasn't sure of. But let's work."

They worked. For eight hours of the time they were now in they continued
to work. The supply of lead metal gave out before the end of the fourth
hour, and the coils were nearing the end of their resistance. It would
soon be necessary for Arcot to return to normal space. So they stopped,
their calculations very nearly complete. Throwing all the remaining
energy into the coils, they a little more than held the space about
them, and moved away from Thett at a speed of about twice that of light.
For an hour more Arcot worked, while the ship plowed on. Then they were
ready.

As Arcot took over the controls, space reeled once more, and they were
alone, far from Thett. The suns of this space were flashing and glowing
about them, and the unlimited energy of a universe was at Arcot's
command. But all the remaining atmosphere in the ship had either gone
instantaneously in the vacuum, or solidified as the chill of expansion
froze it.

To the amazement of the extra-terrestrians, Arcot's first move was to
create a titanic plane of artificial matter, and neatly bisect the
_Thought_ at the middle! He had thrown all of the controls thus
interrupted into neutral, and in the little more than half of the ship
which contained the control cabin, was also the artificial matter
control. It was busy now. With bewildering speed, with the speed of
thought trained to construct, enormous masses of cosmium were appearing
beside them in space as Arcot created them from pure energy. Cosmium,
relux and some clear cosmium-like lux metal. Ordinary cosmium was
reflective, and he wanted something with cosmium's strength, and the
clearness of lux.

In seconds, under Arcot's flying thought manipulation, a great tube had
been welded to the original hull, and the already gigantic ship
lengthened by more than five hundred feet! Immediately great artificial
matter tools gripped the broken nose-section, clamped it into place, and
welded it with cosmium flowing under the inconceivable pressure till it
was again a single great hull.

Then the Thessian fleet found them. The coils were charged now, and they
could have escaped, but Arcot had to work. The Thessians were attacked
with moleculars, cosmics, and a great twin-ray. Arcot could not use his
magnet, for it had been among those things severed from the control. He
had two ray feeds, and the artificial matter. There were nearly three
thousand ships attacking him with a barrage of energy that was
inconceivably great, but the cosmium walls merely turned it aside. It
took Arcot less than ten seconds to wipe out that fleet of ships! He
created a wall of artificial matter at twenty feet from the ship--and
another at twenty thousand miles. It was thin, yet it was utterly
impenetrable. He swept the two walls together, and forced them against
each other until his instruments told him only free energy remained
between them. Then he released the outer wall, and a terrific flood of
energy swept out.

"I don't think we'll be attacked again," said Morey softly. They were
not. Thett had only one other fleet, and had no intention of losing the
powers of their generators at this time when they so badly needed them.
The strange ship had retired for repairs--very well, they could attack
again--and maybe--

Arcot was busy. In the great empty space that had been left, he
installed a second collector coil as gigantic as the main artificial
matter generator. Then he repaired the broken ray feed, and it, and the
companion coil which, with it, had been in the severed nose section,
were now in the same relative position to the new collector coil that
they had had with relation to the artificial matter coil. Next Arcot
built two more ray feeds. Now in the gigantic central power room there
loomed two tremendous power collectors, and six smaller ray feed
collectors.

His next work was to reconnect the severed connectors and controls. Then
he began work on the really new apparatus. Nothing he had constructed so
far was more than a duplicate of existing apparatus, and he had been
able to do it almost instantly, from memory. Now he must vision
something new to his experience, and something that was forced to exist
in part in this space, and partly in another. He tried four times before
the apparatus had been completed correctly, and the work occupied ten
hours. But at last it was done. The _Thought_ was ready now for the
battle.

"Got it right at last?" asked Wade. "I hope so."

"It's right--tried it a little. I don't think you noticed it. I'm going
down now to give them a nice little dose," said Arcot grimly. His ship
was repaired--but they had caused him plenty of trouble.

"How long have we been out here, their time?" asked Wade.

"About an hour and a half." The _Thought_ had been on the time field at
all times save when the Thessian fleet attacked.

"I think, Earthman, that you are tired, and should rest, lest you make a
tired thought and do great harm," suggested Zezdon Afthen.

"I want to finish it!" replied Arcot, sharply. He was tired.

In seconds the _Thought_ was once more over that fortified station in
the mountains--and the triple-ray reached out--and suddenly, about the
ship, was a wall of absolute, utter blackness. The triple-ray touched
it, and exploded into coruscating, blinding energy. It could not
penetrate it. More energy lashed at the wall of blackness as the
operators within the sphere-fort turned in the energy of all the
generators under their control. The ground about the fort was a great
lake of dazzling lava as far as the eye could see, for the triple-ray
was releasing its energy, and the wall of black was releasing an equal,
and opposing energy!

"Stopped!" cried Arcot happily. "Now here is where we give them
something to think about. The magnet and the heat!"

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