The Black Star Passes

by Jr. John W. Campbell

  III

  It was shortly after noon when the newly christened _Solarite_ left onits first trip into space. The sun was a great ball of fire low in thewest when they returned, dropping plummet-like from the depths of space,the rush of the air about the hull, a long scream that mounted from ahalf-heard sound in the outer limits of the Earth's atmosphere, to aroar of tortured air as the ship dropped swiftly to the field and shotinto the hanger. Instantly the crew darted to the side of the greatcylinder as the door of the ship opened.

  Fuller appeared in the opening, and at the first glimpse of his face,the hanger crew knew something was wrong. "Hey, Jackson," Fuller called,"get the field doctor--Arcot had a little accident out there in space!"In moments the man designated returned with the doctor, leading himswiftly down the long metal corridor of the _Solarite_ to Arcot's roomaboard.

  There was a mean-looking cut in Arcot's scalp, but a quick, sureexamination by the doctor revealed that there appeared to be no seriousinjury. He had been knocked unconscious by the blow that made the cut,and he had not yet recovered his senses.

  "How did this happen?" asked the doctor as he bathed the cut and deftlybandaged it.

  Morey explained: "There's a device aboard whose job it is to get us outof the way of stray meteors, and it works automatically. Arcot and Iwere just changing places at the controls. While neither of us wasstrapped into our seats, a meteor came within range and the rocket tubesshot the car out of the way. We both went tumbling head over heels andArcot landed on his ear. I was luckier, and was able to break my fallwith my hands, but it was a mean fall--at our speed we had about doubleweight, so, though it was only about seven feet, we might as well havefallen fourteen. We took turns piloting the ship, and Arcot was about tobring us back when that shock just about shook us all over the ship. Wewill have to make some changes. It does its job--but we need warningenough to grab hold."

  The doctor was through now, and he began to revive his patient. In amoment he stirred and raised his hand to feel the sore spot. In tenminutes he was conversing with his friends, apparently none the worseexcept for a very severe headache. The doctor gave him a mild opiate,and sent him to bed to sleep off the effects of the blow.

  * * * * *

  With the ship fully equipped, tested and checked in every possible way,the time for leaving was set for the following Saturday, three days off.Great supplies of stores had to be carried aboard in the meantime. Carehad to be exercised in this work, lest the cargo slip free under varyingacceleration of the _Solarite_, and batter itself to bits, or even wrecksome vital part of the ship. At noon on the day chosen, the first shipever to leave the bounds of the Earth's gravity was ready to start!

  Gently the heavily laden _Solarite_ rose from the hangar floor, andslowly floated out into the bright sunshine of the early February day.Beside it rode the little ship that Arcot had first built, piloted bythe father of the inventor. With him rode the elder Morey and a dozennewsmen. The little ship was badly crowded now as they rose slowly, highinto the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. The sky about themwas growing dark--they were going into space!

  At last they reached the absolute ceiling of the smaller ship, and ithung there while the _Solarite_ went a few miles higher; then slowly,but ever faster and faster they were plunging ahead, gathering speed.

  They watched the radio speedometer creep up--1-2-3-4-5-6--steadily itrose as the acceleration pressed them hard against the back of theseats--8-9--still it rose as the hum of the generator became a lowsnarl--10-11-12--they were rocketing at twelve miles a second, thetenuous air about the ship shrieking in a thin scream of protest as itparted on the streamlined bow.

  Slowly the speed rose--reached fifteen miles a second. The sun's pullbecame steadily more powerful; they were falling toward the fierysphere, away from the Earth. A microphone recessed in the outer wallbrought them the fading whisper of air from outside. Arcot shouted asudden warning:

  "Hold on--we're going to lose all weight--out into space!"

  There was a click, and the angry snarl of the overworked generator diedin an instant as the thudding relays cut it out of the circuit.Simultaneously the air scoop which had carried air to the generatorswitched off, transferring to solar heat as a source of power. Theyseemed to be falling with terrific and ever-increasing speed. Theylooked down--saw the Earth shrinking visibly as they shot away at morethan five miles a second; they were traveling fifteen miles a secondahead and five a second straight up.

  The men watched with intensest interest as the heavens opened up beforethem--they could see stars now a scant degree from the sun itself, forno air diffused its blinding glory. The heat of the rays seemed to burnthem; there was a prickling pleasantness to it now, as they looked atthe mighty sea of flame through smoked glasses. The vast arms of thecorona reached out like the tentacles of some fiery octopus throughthousands of miles of space--huge arms of flaming gas that writhed outas though to reach and drag back the whirling planets to the parentbody. All about the mighty sphere, stretching far into space, a wan glowseemed to ebb and flow, a kaleidoscope of swiftly changing color. It wasthe zodiacal light, an aurora borealis on a scale inconceivable!

  Arcot worked rapidly with the controls, the absence of weight that gavethat continued sense of an unending fall, aiding him and his assistantsin their rapid setting of the controls.

  At last the work was done and the ship flashed on its way under thecontrol of the instruments that would guide it across all the millionsof miles of space and land it on Venus with unerring certainty. Thephoto-electric telescopic eye watched the planet constantly, keeping theship surely and accurately on the course that would get them to thedistant planet in the shortest possible time.

  Work thereafter became routine requiring a minimum of effort, and themen could rest and use their time to observe the beauties of the skiesas no man had ever seen them during all the billions of years of timethat this solar system has existed. The lack of atmosphere made itpossible to use a power of magnification that no terrestrial telescopemay use. The blurred outlines produced by the shifting air prohibitsmagnifications of more than a few hundred diameters, but here in spacethey could use the greatest power of their telescope. With it they couldlook at Mars and see it more clearly than any other man had ever seenit, despite the fact that it was now over two hundred million milesaway.

  But though they spent much time taking photographs of the planets and ofthe moon, and in making spectrum analyses of the sun, time passed veryslowly. Day after day they saw measured on the clocks, but they stayedawake, finding they needed little sleep, for they wasted no physicalenergy. Their weightlessness eliminated fatigue. However, theydetermined that during the twelve hours before reaching Venus they mustbe thoroughly alert, so they tried to sleep in pairs. Arcot and Moreywere the first to seek slumber--but Morpheus seemed to be a mundane god,for he did not reward them. At last it became necessary for them totake a mild opiate, for their muscles refused to permit their tiredbrains to sleep. It was twelve hours later when they awoke, to relieveWade and Fuller.

  They spent most of the twelve hours of their routine watch in playinggames of chess. There was little to be done. The silver globe beforethem seemed unchanging, for they were still so far away it seemed littlelarger than the moon does when seen from Earth.

  But at last it was time for the effects of the mild drug to wear off,and for Wade and Fuller to awaken from their sleep.

  "Morey--I've an idea!" There was an expression of perfect innocence onArcot's face--but a twinkle of humor in his eyes. "I wonder if it mightnot be interesting to observe the reactions of a man waking suddenlyfrom sleep to find himself alone in space?" He stared thoughtfully atthe control that would make the ship perfectly transparent, perfectlyinvisible.

  "I wonder if it would?" said Morey grasping Arcot's idea. "What do yousay we try it?" Arcot turned the little switch--and where there had beenthe ship, it was no more--it was gone!

  Fuller stirred uneasily in his bed,
tightly strapped as he was. Theeffects of the drug were wearing off. Sleepily he yawned--stretched, andblindly, his heavy eyes still closed, released the straps that held himin bed. Yawning widely he opened his eyes--with a sudden start satupright--then, with an excellent imitation of an Indian on the warpath,he leaped from his bed, and started to run wildly across the floor. Hiseyes were raised to the place where the ceiling should have been--hecalled lustily in alarm--then suddenly he was flying up--and crashedheavily against the invisible ceiling! His face was a picture of utterastonishment as he fell lightly to the floor--then slowly it changed,and took on a chagrined smile--he understood!

  He spun around as loud cries suddenly resounded from Wade's room acrossthe hall--then there was a dull thud, as he too, forgetting theweightlessness, jumped and hit the ceiling. Then the cries were gone,like the snuffing of a candle. From the control room there rose loudlaughter--and a moment later they felt more normal, as they again sawthe four strong walls about them.

  Wade sighed heavily and shook his head.

  They were approaching the planet visibly now. In the twelve hours thathad passed they had covered a million miles, for now they were fallingtoward the planet under its attraction. It glowed before them now inwonderous splendour, a mighty disc of molten silver.

  For the last twenty-four hours they had been reducing their speedrelative to Venus, to insure their forming an orbit about the planet,rather than shoot around it and back into space. Their velocity had beenover a hundred miles a second part of the way, but now it had beenreduced to ten. The gravity of the planet was urging them forward atever increasing speed, and their problem became more acute moment bymoment.

  "We'll never make it on the power units alone, out here in space," saidArcot seriously. "We'll just shoot around the planet. I'll tell you howwe can do it, though. We'll circle around it, entering its atmosphere onthe daylight side, and shoot into the upper limits of its atmosphere.There the power units can find some heat to work on, and we can reallyslow down. But we'll have to use the rocket tubes to get theacceleration we'll need to drive the ship into the air."

  There was a sudden clanging of a bell, and everyone dived for a hold,and held on tightly. An instant later there was a terrific wrench as therocket jets threw the plane out of the way of a meteor.

  "We're getting near a planet. This is the third meteor we've met sincewe were more than a million miles from Earth. Venus and Earth and allthe planets act like giant vacuum cleaners of space, pulling intothemselves all the space debris and meteors within millions of miles bytheir gravitational attraction."

  Swiftly the planet expanded below them--growing vaster with each passingmoment. It had changed from a disc to a globe, and now, as the moltensilver of its surface seemed swiftly clouding, it turned grey; then theysaw its true appearance, a vast field of rolling, billowing clouds!

  The _Solarite_ was shooting around the planet now at ten miles a second,far more than enough to carry them away from the planet again, out intospace once more if their speed was not checked.

  "Hold on everybody," Arcot called. "We're going to turn toward theplanet now!" He depressed a small lever--there was a sudden shock, andall the space about them seemed to burst into huge, deep-red atomichydrogen flames.

  The _Solarite_ reeled under the sudden pressure, but the heavygyroscopic stabilizers caught it, held it, and the ship remained on aneven keel. Then suddenly there came to the ears of the men a long drawnwhine, faint--almost inaudible--and the ship began slowing down. The_Solarite_ had entered the atmosphere of Venus--the first man-mademachine to thus penetrate the air of another world!

  Quickly Arcot snapped open the control that had kept the rocketsflaming, turning the ship to the planet--driving it into the atmosphere.Now they could get their power from the air that each instant grew moredense about them.

  "Wade--in the power room--emergency control post--Morey--control boardthere--hang on, for we'll have to use some husky accelerations."

  Instantly the two men sprang for their posts--literally diving, for theywere still almost weightless.

  Arcot pulled another lever--there was a dull snap as a relay in thepower room responded--the lights wavered--dimmed--then the generator wasonce more humming smoothly--working on the atmosphere of Venus! In amoment the power units were again operating, and now as they sucked aplentitude of power from the surrounding air, they produced a force thatmade the men cling to their holds with almost frantic force. Around themthe rapidly increasing density of the air made the whine grow to a roar;the temperature within the ship rose slowly, warmed by friction withthe air, despite the extreme cold at this altitude, more thanseventy-five miles above the surface of the planet.

  They began dropping rapidly now--their radio-speedometer had fallen fromten to nine--then slowly, but faster and faster as more heat could beextracted from the air, it had fallen 8--7--6--5--4. Now they were wellbelow orbital speed, falling under the influence of the planet. Thestruggle was over--the men relaxed. The ship ran quietly now, the smoothhum of the air rushing over the great power units coming softly throughthe speaker to their ears, a humming melody--the song of a new world.