Part 7 (2/2)

When the first city had been wiped out, with a loss of life well in the hundreds of thousands, the other cities had, to limit of their abilities, set up the protective apparatus. Apparently the Thessians were holding off for the present.

”In a way,” said Morey seriously, ”it was distinctly fortunate that we were attacked almost at once. Their instantaneous system of destruction would have worked for the one shot needed to send the _Ancient Mariner_ to eternal blazes.” He laughed, but it was a slightly nervous laugh.

The terrestrial s.h.i.+p landed in a great gra.s.sy court, and out of respect for the parklike smoothness of the turf, Arcot left the s.h.i.+p on its power units, suspended a bit above the surface. Then he, Morey and the Talsonian left the s.h.i.+p. Zezdon Afthen was left with the s.h.i.+p and with Wade in charge, for if some difficulties were encountered, Wade would be able to help them with the s.h.i.+p, and Zezdon Afthen with the tremendous power of his thought locating apparatus, was busy seeking out the Thessian stronghold.

A party of men of Talso met the terrestrians outside the s.h.i.+p.

”Welcome, Men of another world, and to you go our thanks for the destruction of one of our enemies.” The clear thoughts of the spokesman evinced his ability to concentrate.

”And to your world must go our thanks for saving of our lives, and more important, our s.h.i.+p,” replied Arcot. ”For the s.h.i.+p represents a thing of enormous value to this entire star-system.”

”I see--understand--your--thoughts that you wish to learn more of this weapon we use. You understand that it is a question among us as to whether it is undefeatable, uncontrollable or just un-understandable. We have had fair success with it. It is not a weapon, was not developed as such; it was an experiment in the line of electric-waves. How it works, what it is, what happens--we do not know.

”But men who can create so marvelous a s.h.i.+p as this of yours, capable of destroying a s.h.i.+p of the Thessians with their own weapons must certainly be able to understand any machine we may make--and you have power?” he finished eagerly.

”Practically infinite power. I will throw into any power line you suggest, all the direct current you wish.” Arcot's thoughts were pure reflection, but the Talsonian brightened at once.

”I feared it might be alternating--but we can handle direct current. All our transmission is done at high voltage direct current. What potential do you generate? Will we have to install changers?”

”We generate D.C. at any voltage up to fifty million, any power up to that needed to lift ten trillion men through their own height in this time a second.” The power represented approximately twenty trillion horsepower.

The Talsonian's face went blank with amazement as he looked at the s.h.i.+p.

”In that tiny thing you generate such power?” he asked in amazement.

”In that tiny s.h.i.+p we generate more than one million times that power,”

Arcot said.

”Our power troubles are over,” declared the military man emphatically.

”Our troubles are not over,” replied a civilian who had joined the party, with equal emphasis. ”As a matter of fact, they are worse than ever. More tantalizing. What he says means that we have a tremendous power source, but it is in one spot. How are you going to transmit the power? We can't possibly move any power anywhere near that amount. We couldn't touch it to our lines without having them all go up in one instantaneous blaze of glory.

”We cannot drain such a lake of power through our tiny power pipes of silver.”

”This man is Stel Felso Theu,” said Tho Stan Drel. ”The greatest of our scientists, the man who has invented this weapon which alone seems to offer us hope. And I am afraid he is right. See, there is the University. For the power requirements of their laboratories, a heavy power line has been installed, and it was hoped that you could carry leads into it.” His face showed evident despair greater than ever.

”We can always feed some power into the lines. Let us see just what hope there is. I think that it would be wiser to investigate the power lines at once,” suggested Morey.

Ten minutes later, with but a single officer now accompanying them, Tho Stan Drel, the terrestrial scientist, and the Talsonian scientist were inspecting the power installation.

They had entered a large stone building, into which led numerous very heavy silver wires. The insulators were silicate gla.s.s. Their height suggested a voltage of well over one hundred thousand, and such heavy cables suggested a very heavy amperage, so that a tremendous load was expected.

Within the building were a series of gigantic gla.s.s tubes, their walls fully three inches thick, and even so, braced with heavy platinum rods.

Inside the tubes were tremendous elements such as the tiny tubes of their machine carried. Great cables led into them, and now their heating coils were glowing a somberly deep red.

Along the walls were the switchboards, dozens of them, all sizes, all types of instruments, strange to the eyes of the terrestrians, and in practically all the light-beam indicator system was used, no metallic pointers, but tiny mirrors directing a very fine line of brilliant light acted as a needle. The system thus had practically no inertia.

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