Part 10 (1/2)
”No artificial matter with the ray screen up. I'll use the magnet,”
called Morey.
He quickly shut off the apparatus, and went to the huge magnet control.
The power room was crowded, and now that the battle was raging in truth, with three s.h.i.+ps attacking simultaneously, even the enormous power capacity of the s.h.i.+p's generators was not sufficient, and the storage coils had been thrown into the operation. Morey looked at the instruments a moment. They were all up to capacity, save the ammeter from the coils. That wasn't registering yet. Suddenly it flicked, and the other instrument dropped to zero. They were in artificial s.p.a.ce.
”Come here, will you, Morey,” called Arcot. In a moment Morey joined his much worried friend.
”That artificial matter control won't work through ray screens. The Thessians never had to protect against moleculars here, and didn't have them up--hence the destruction wrought. We can't take our screen down, and we can't use our most deadly weapon with it up. If we had a big outfit, we might throw a screen around the whole s.h.i.+p, and sail right in. But we haven't.
”We can't stand ten seconds against that fleet. I'm going to find their base, and make them yell for help.” Arcot snapped a tiny switch one notch further for the barest instant, then snapped it back. They were several millions miles from the planet. ”Quicker,” he explained, ”to simply follow those s.h.i.+ps back home--go back in time.”
With the telectroscope, he took views at various distances, thus quickly tracing them back to their base at the pole of the planet. Instantly Arcot shot down, reaching the pole in less than a second, by carefully maneuvering of the s.p.a.ce device.
A gigantic dome of polished relux rose from rocky, icy plains. The thing was nearly half a mile high, a mighty rounded roof that covered an area almost three-quarters of a mile in diameter. t.i.tanic--that was the only word that described it. About it there was the peculiar s.h.i.+mmer of a molecular ray screen.
Morey darted to the power room and set his apparatus into operation. He created a ball of matter outside the s.h.i.+p and hurled it instantly at the fort. It exploded with a terrific concussion as it hit the wall of the ray screen. Almost instantly a second one followed. The concussion was terrifically violent, the ground about was fused, and the ray screen was opened for a moment. Arcot threw all his moleculars on the screen, as Morey sent bomb after bomb at it. The coils supplied the energy, cracked the rock beneath. Each energy release disrupted the ray-screen for a moment, and the concentrated fury of the molecular beams poured through the opened screen, and struck the relux behind. It glowed opalescent now in a spot twenty feet across. But the relux was tremendously thick.
Thirty bombs Morey hurled, while they held their position without difficulty, pouring their bombs and rays at the fort.
Arcot threw the s.h.i.+p into s.p.a.ce, moved, and reappeared suddenly nearly three hundred yards further on. A snap of the eyes, and he saw that the fleet was approaching now. He went again into s.p.a.ce, and retreated.
Discretion was the better part of valor. But his plan had worked.
He waited half an hour, and returned. From a distance the telectroscope told him that one lone s.h.i.+p was patrolling outside the fort. He moved toward it, creeping up behind the icy mountains. His magnetic beam reached out. The s.h.i.+p lurched and fell. The magnetic beam reached out toward the fort, from which a molecular ray had flashed already, tearing up the icy waste which had concealed him. The ray-screen stopped it, while again Morey turned the magnetic beam on--this time against the fort. The ray remained on! Arcot retreated hastily.
”They found the secret, all right. No use, Morey, come on up,” called the pilot. ”They evidently put magnetic s.h.i.+elding around the apparatus.
That means the magnetic beam is no good to us any more. They will certainly warn every other base, and have them install similar protection.”
”Why didn't you try the magnetic ray on our first attack?” asked Zezdon Afthen.
”If it had worked, their sending apparatus would have been destroyed, and no message could have been sent to call their attackers off Fellsheh. By forcing them to recall their fleet I got results I couldn't get by attacking the fleet,” Arcot said.
”I think there is little more I can do here, Stel Felso Theu. I will take you to Shesto, and there make final arrangements till my return, with apparatus capable of overthrowing your enemies. If you wish to accompany me--you may.” He glanced around at the others of his party.
”And our next move will be to return to Earth with what we have. Then we will investigate the Sirian planets, and learn anything they may have of interest, thence--to the real outer s.p.a.ce, the utter void of intergalactic s.p.a.ce, and an attempt to learn the secret of that enormous power.”
They returned to Shesto, and there Arcot arranged that the only generator they could spare, the one already in their possession, might be used till other terrestrian s.h.i.+ps could bring more. They left for Earth. Hour after hour they fled through the void, till at last old Sol was growing swiftly ahead of them, and finally Earth itself was large on the screens. They changed to a straight molecular drive, and dropped to the Vermont field from which they had taken off.
During the long voyage, Morey and Arcot had both spent much of the time working on the time-distortion field, which would give them a tremendous control over time, either speeding or slowing their time rate enormously. At last, this finished, they had worked on the artificial matter theory, to the point where they could control the shape of the matter perfectly, though as yet they could not control its exact nature.
The possibility of such control was, however, definitely proven by the results the machines had given them. Arcot had been more immediately interested in the control of form. He could control the nature as to opacity or transparency to all vibrations that normal matter is opaque or transparent to. Light would pa.s.s, or not as he chose, but cosmics he could not stop nor would radio or moleculars be stopped by any present s.h.i.+eld he could make.
They had signaled, as soon as they slowed outside the atmosphere, and when they settled to the field, Arcot's father and a number of very important scientists had already arrived.
Arcot senior greeted his son very warmly, but he was tremendously worried, as his son soon saw.
”What's happened, Dad--won't they believe your statements?”
”They doubted when I went to Luna for a session with the Interplanetary Council, but before they could say much, they had plenty of proof of my statements,” the older man answered. ”News came that a fleet of Planetary Guard s.h.i.+ps had been wiped out by a fleet of s.h.i.+ps from outer s.p.a.ce. They were huge things--nearly half a mile in length. The Guard s.h.i.+ps went up to them--fifty of them--and tried to signal for a conference. The white s.h.i.+p was instantly wiped out--we don't know how.
They didn't have ray screens, but that wasn't it. Whatever it was--slightly luminous ray in s.p.a.ce--it simply released the energy of the lux metal and relux of the s.h.i.+p. Being composed of light energy simply bound by photonic attraction, it let go with terrible energy.