A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  The second Solarian fleet, because of the reputation achieved by the first, was assigned to a place well up in the forefront of the swiftly growing assemblage of fleets. As it swept out to take its place, it passed fleet after fleet of every shape and size. Bright and new did the ships of most of those fleets gleam, though scattered among them were fleets of battered ships, veterans of many a desperately fought battle.

  Scouts and tiny swift ships equipped with television apparatus hovering near the Magellanians kept the Supreme Council supplied with information as to their every move. The second third of the invading column was drawing rapidly near the cluster, being at the time when the fleets began to emerge at the edge of the galaxy to meet the myriads of ships that composed it, barely a half a light-year distant. Though its speed was almost equal to three-quarters that of light when first sighted, its terrific velocity was beginning to drop. It was plain to see that those that commanded it intended to wrest the cluster from the allied races.

  That third of the invading column was too near the cluster to be allowed to draw yet closer. Orders flashed through the vast assemblage that had poured outward from the galaxy’s interior to stop them. There was a final shifting, then they began to leave the red stars behind.

  For the first time the allied races actually began to see victory looming near. Even if that vast array of ships rushing outward should be wiped out of existence in halting the approaching third of the Magellanian column, the Confederation would not be entirely defenceless, for countless other fleets, among them a new type of ship, would by then be ready to take its place. Besides, the message bearing the call to arms was still being broadcast. New races were steadily joining the ranks of the Confederation. As fast as each new member could prepare its quota, it was sent out. A little more time, and the Confederation would be invincible. Then would the allied races turn their attention to the tiny island universes from which the invaders had come.

  NOT of the destructive kind were the series of vibrations that penetrated the metal walls of Don Stelite’s ship, just as open space appeared in front of it. They had only the power to temporarily paralyze the nervous system, either completely or partially, depending upon the organism, whose effects, governed by the organism’s resistance, wore off slowly or suddenly. The effect upon the human organism was complete unconsciousness the instant those vibrations found their mark.

  When Don Stelite recovered his senses, he felt a distinctly alien presence near him. Cautiously he opened his eyes. For a moment everything was blurred, then he made out a number of metal-clad beings standing about ten feet away. Also, he saw that he was still in the control room of his own ship. Thinking it best to feign unconsciousness until his mind cleared, he lowered his eyelids again.

  Those metal-clad beings, judged by their thoughts, were apparently the surviving officers of the ships the torpedo had wrecked. Their conversation turned to a change in plans that those in command had made. Hope of conquering the galaxy with their expedition was abandoned for the present. Their aim now was to gain possession of the red cluster toward which they were heading. Their new plan called for the use of it as a base.

  Then, one by one, they recalled defeat after defeat that they had suffered. If the races of the galaxy had not possessed their matter-transmitters, they would have fallen easy prey to this mighty expedition. With those matter-transmitters, the defenders could draw on their vast resources and concentrate them on the point being attacked. While the defenders grew stronger, they grew weaker.

  But that advantage would be equalized when next they tried to conquer the island universe. A number of their swiftest ships would soon start for their own galaxy with information about the transmitters; also prisoners from which to wring other information. Time meant nothing to them, for they were, outside of accidents, practically deathless. When those ships reached their galaxy, their species, who inhabited its countless solar systems would begin constructing huge matter-transmitters resembling those built by the races of the Confederation. Then would their legions really begin to pour down upon the defenders, to destroy them.

  The planets revolving about the red stars of the cluster would be used as a base, while waiting. In the interval they would dot the surfaces of those worlds with huge transmitters. But first they would have to conquer the cluster.

  One of the metal-clad beings left the group and moved over to where Don Stelite lay.

  “This is the last one,” the being beside Don Stelite put his thoughts into words of his own tongue and addressed them to the others. “He seems to be the one who commanded this vessel.”

  “It is hard to tell,” another spoke up, “for none of the creatures who manned this vessel wore any insignia to denote his rank.”

  “I would like,” said the one who stood beside Don Stelite, “to bring him back to consciousness. If his thought processes are the same as ours, and if his nerves transmit pain, I know that I can force him to divulge whatever he knows.”

  “Not now,” one, who was obviously in command, broke in. “You know that the orders are to place the crews of all captured vessels in the state of suspended animation so as to conserve their feeble spark of life as long as possible. All prisoners are to be transported to our own galaxy, where our scientists, first forcing them to give up all knowledge they possess, will experiment upon their living bodies until they discover a force that, while harmless to us, will be destructive to them. That force will then be propagated through their galaxy to rid it of all life.”

  “Are we to operate this captured vessel back to our own galaxy?” the one who stood beside Don Stelite asked.

  “Yes,” the one who seemed to be in command replied. “And during the long ages going back you will have plenty of time to bring him back to consciousness for a period long enough to satisfy your curiosity.”

  Don Stelite was nerving himself to spring to his feet, with the idea of somehow reaching the ship’s communicating apparatus to warn the cluster of what he had learned, when metal tentacles gripped and turned him upon his face. He tried to struggle free, but was powerless to move. Desperately he flung his thoughts out to warn some member of the Confederation. Even as he did so he felt that it was useless. A sharp instrument was beginning to penetrate the back of his neck. The next instant a deep blackness settled slowly over his mind. But, in that instant, he felt the Two back on Earth reach out to him and empty his mind.

  As the fleets sped outward, word came from sentinels patroling a portion of space at the opposite side of the cluster saying that they had sighted a solid mass of ships approaching them at terrific speed. Suspecting them to be the vanguard of the remaining third of the invading column, the sentinels, going to certain death, darted closer. They were Magellanian ships. As the distance lessened, they made out with their space-penetrating instruments, far in the rear of the vanguard—a countless host of ships.

  It was the remaining third of the main invading column!

  Dismay greeted that information. If there had been means, the races inhabiting the solar systems at the outskirts of the threatened cluster would have abandoned their worlds and migrated to solar systems far from the galaxy’s edge, but the matter-transmitters were now needed more than ever to transport every available ship outwards.

  That remaining third was even nearer than the other, barely a quarter of a light-year off. Too near wag that force for the Confederation to send out enough ships to hold them off from the solar systems in their path.

  Therefore, to prevent the solar systems from falling into their power to be used as bases for further operations against the defenders, an order was issued to destroy the planets of all solar systems in its path. Fleets of huge ships began issuing from the transmitters in the solar systems to be sacrificed. It would be the task of each fleet to tear a planet out of its orbit and hurl it into the dying sun in the center. A mighty outrush of blinding flame would follow, enveloping the rest of the planets.

  When it was learnt that there was time only for a l
imited number of inhabitants of each doomed world to be transported to other solar systems, panic threatened to start. The feeling of panic quickly gave way to resignation as those to be transported were chosen. Too long had self-abnegation been the rule of those old races for panic to take hold.

  Nearer to the outermost solar systems of that cluster drew the remaining third of the main invading column. Though that vast host must have been visible from the nearer solar systems, no fleets sped out to bar its way. So unusual was it that there should be no opposition, that those in command became suspicious. Then, as their vanguard drew near one of the outermost solar systems, they learned why.

  The invaders, manning the foremost ships of the vanguard, saw a fleet of giant space ships tear a planet out of its orbit and drag it faster and faster toward the glowing surface of that dying star. Warning the host behind to give that region wide berth, they swerved sharply from the zone of danger. As they did so, a spot of blinding light appeared on the red surface, spreading rapidly, then the surface began to expand at a terrific rate. Not until it was at least one hundred times its former diameter did the outward rushing shell of blinding flame begin to slow down. And, as the vanguard drew near other solar systems, they in turn flared up and became blinding novas.

  Meanwhile, at the other side of the cluster, the mighty aggregation of fleets was drawing near the approaching second third of the main invading column. Both forces had scouts flung far ahead. Soon would they meet and clash.

  From the transmitters on worlds belonging to solar systems within the cluster just behind those that were being sacrificed, there began to issue fleet after fleet of hastily gathered space-ships. A large gathering of fleets had already assembled when there began to pour forth long lines of titanic cylinders. Super-giant ships of space were those cylinders. Nothing like them had ever been seen before. It was not their mere size that set them apart. The allied races had other ships just as large. It was their armament. The whole forward end of each of those titanic ships was nothing but a single ray-projector of awful power.

  All fleets were ordered to make way for them. Forward they hurtled until they were far in front of the gathering host. There, evenly spaced from each other, they formed themselves into a wall of ships one vessel thick.

  Orders leaped from fleet to fleet. Outward to where the novas flared they began to move. From the projectors of the super-giant cylinders there began pouring forth an impenetrable barrier of etheric vibrations that disintegrated all matter united in molecular form.

  The forces of the Confederation at the other side of the cluster sighted the approaching Magellanian host. In turn the invaders sighted the countless fleets of the Confederation. Never had they opposed such a force before. Numerous as their own host was that vast gathering of fleets that were sweeping out to them.

  The closely packed ranks of giant ships that made up the vanguard of each force swiftly annihilated the distance between them. Rays, darting across the intervening void, clashed. Soon they were followed by ships meeting in headlong collision.

  For a seemingly endless period of time they fought, neither side retreating. A maelstrom of flaming gases and flying metal began to spread in every direction for countless millions of miles. Each moment new fleets hurtled forward to add their quota of destructive forces. No chance was there for individual ships to duel with their rays and projectiles. It was fleet against fleet, and as such units they met their doom. Life and intelligence at the controls, seeing annihilation in front, went to meet it unafraid.

  Both invaders and defenders fought more like mindless machines than beings endowed with reasoning. Death, swift and certain, was the fate of all who approached within millions of miles of the front ranks; still they drove their mighty space craft forward. For a time it appeared as if each force would annihilate the other. Then there came a falling off of the forces of destruction from the Magellanian side. The invaders were drawing back. Scenting victory, forward moved the host bearing the emblem of the Confederation. The invaders turned and fled.

  In the meantime, on the other side of the cluster, the gathering of fleets of the Confederation preceded by the mighty cylinders were nearing the third division of the invading column. The front ranks of Magellanian ships were almost within range of those titanic cylinders. Another few hours and the rays would reach them. The mightiest ray-projectors the invaders possessed were mere toys in comparison to the single projector each cylinder carried.

  The invaders, ignorant of their foe’s new superengine of destruction, swept confidently nearer to the force that was hurtling outward to meet them. Then the front ranks of the Magellanian ships came within range of those titanic projectors. As fast as they rushed within those rays, they were dissipated into their original atoms. Unable to come near enough to use their own weapons of lesser power, they turned and fled. Fully a quarter of their countless ships was destroyed before their column could swing round and flee.

  Those in the lead of the fleeing invaders shifted the direction of their flight until their galaxies lay straight ahead, then their speed increased. The fleets of the Confederation were in hot pursuit. As soon as they reached their greatest speed it became impossible to overhaul them. The Supreme Council ordered the fleets back.

  With the aid of paralyzing beams, a number of Magellanian ships were captured. The captains of those ships were brought before a representative of the Supreme Council. Coldly he sent his thoughts into their brains. They were to be given life and freedom. The Supreme Council had seen it fit to spare them so that they could deliver an ultimatum to the commanders of their own kind:

  “If ever they dared send an expedition across intergalactic space again, the forces of the Confederation would not only utterly destroy their metal-clad species, but also destroy every world in their tiny galaxies, so as to prevent similar forms of life from ever spawning there again!”

  THE END

  OUT AROUND RIGEL

  Robert H. Wilson

  An astounding chronicle of two Lunarians’ conquest of time and interstellar space.

  Editor’s Note: The manuscript, of which a translation is here presented, was discovered by the rocket-ship expedition to the moon three years ago. It was found in its box by the last crumbling ruins of the great bridge mentioned in the narrative. Its final translation is a tribute at once to the philological skill of the Earth and to the marvelous dictionary provided by Dunal, the Lunarian. Stars and lunar localities will be given their traditional Earth names; and measures of time, weight, and distance have been reduced, in round numbers, to terrestrial equivalents. Of the space ship described, the Comet, no trace has been found. It must be buried under the rim of one of the hundreds of nearby Lunar craters—the result, as some astronomers have long suspected and as Dunal’s story verifies, of a great swarm of meteors striking the unprotected, airless moon.

  THE sun had dropped behind the Grimaldi plateau, although for a day twilight would linger over the Oceanus Procellarum. The sky was a hazy blue, and out over the deeper tinted waves the full Earth swung. All the long half-month it had hung there above the horizon, its light dimmed by the sunshine, growing from a thin crescent to its full disk three times as broad as that of the sun at setting. Now in the dusk it was a great silver lamp hanging over Nardos, the Beautiful, the City Built on the Water. The light glimmered over the tall white towers, over the white ten-mile-long adamantine bridge running from Nardos to the shore, and lit up the beach where we were standing, with a brightness that seemed almost that of day.

  “Once more, Garth,” I said. “I’ll get that trick yet.”

  The skin of my bare chest still smarted from the blow of his wooden fencing sword. If it had been the real two-handed Lunarian dueling sword, with its terrible mass behind a curved razor edge, the blow would have produced a cut deep into the bone. It was always the same, ever since Garth and I had fenced as boys with crooked laths. Back to back, we could beat the whole school, but I never had a chance against him. Perhaps one time in
ten—

  “On guard!”

  The silvered swords whirled in the Earth-light. I nicked him on one wrist, and had to duck to escape his wild swing at my head. The wooden blades were now locked by the hilts above our heads. When he stepped back to get free, I lunged and twisted his weapon. In a beautiful parabola, Garth’s sword sailed out into the water, and he dropped to the sand to nurse his right wrist.

  “Confound your wrestling, Dunal. If you’ve broken my arm on the eve of my flight—”

  “It’s not even a sprain. Your wrists are weak. And I supposed you’ve always been considerate of me? Three broken ribs!”

  “For half a cent—”

  HE was on his feet, and then Kelvar came up and laid her hand on his shoulder. Until a few minutes before she had been swimming in the surf, watching us. The Earth-light shimmered over her white skin, still faintly moist, and blazed out in blue sparkles from the jewels of the breastplates and trunks she had put on.

  When she touched Garth, and he smiled, I wanted to smash in his dark face and then take the beating I would deserve. Yet, if she preferred him—And the two of us had been friends before she was born. I put out my hand.

  “Whatever happens, Garth, we’ll still be friends?”

  “Whatever happens.”

  We clasped hands.

  “Garth,” Kelvar said, “it’s getting dark. Show us your ship before you go.”

  “All right.” He had always been like that—one minute in a black rage, the next perfectly agreeable. He now led the way up to a cliff hanging over the sea.

  “There,” said Garth, “is the Comet. Our greatest step in conquering distance. After I’ve tried it out, we can go in a year to the end of the universe. But, for a starter, how about a thousand light-years around Rigel in six months?” His eyes were afire. Then he calmed down. “Anything I can show you?”