The Black Star Passes

by Jr. John W. Campbell

  IV

  Suddenly the blazing sun was gone and they were floating in a vast worldof rolling mists--mists that brushed the car with tiny clicks, which,with the millions of particles that struck simultaneously, merged into asteady roar.

  "Ice--ice clouds!" Morey exclaimed.

  Arcot nodded. "We'll drop below the clouds; they're probably miles deep.Look, already they're changing--snow now--in a moment it will bewater--then it'll clear away and we'll actually see Venus!"

  For ten miles--an endless distance it seemed--they dropped throughclouds utterly impenetrable to the eye. Then gradually the cloudsthinned; there appeared brief clear spots, spots into which they couldsee short distances--then here and there they caught glimpses of greenbelow. Was it water--or land?

  With a suddenness that startled them, they were out of the clouds,shooting smoothly and swiftly above a broad plain. It seemed to stretchfor endless miles across the globe, to be lost in the far distance toeast and west; but to the north they saw a low range of hills that roseblue and misty in the distance.

  "Venus! We made it!" Morey cried jubilantly. "The first men ever toleave Earth--I'm going to start the old sender and radio back home!Man--look at that stretch of plain!" He jumped to his feet and startedacross the control room. "Lord--I feel like of ton of lead now--I suream out of condition for walking after all that time just floating!"

  Arcot raised a restraining hand. "Whoa--wait a minute there, Morey--youwon't get anything through to them now. The Earth is on the other sideof Venus--it's on the night side, remember--and we're on the day side.In about twelve hours we'll be able to send a message. In the meantime,take the controls while I make a test of the air here, will you?"

  Relieved of the controls, Arcot rose and walked down the corridor to thepower room where the chemical laboratory had been set up. Wade hadalready collected a dozen samples of air, and was working on them.

  "How is it--what have you tested for so far?" asked Arcot.

  "Oxygen and CO_{2}. The oxygen is about twenty-two per cent, orconsidering the slightly lower air pressure here, we will have justabout the right amount of oxygen. The CO_{2} is about one-tenth of oneper cent. The atmosphere is O.K. for terrestrial life apparently; thatmouse there is living quite happily. Whatever the other seventy-five percent or so of diluting gas is, I don't know, but it isn't nitrogen."

  Briefly Arcot and Wade discussed the unusual atmosphere, finallydeciding that the inert gas was argon.

  "No great amount of nitrogen," Arcot concluded. "That means that lifewill have a sweet time extracting it from the air--but wherever there islife, it finds a way to do the impossible. Test it more accurately, willyou--you try for nitrogen and I'll try the component inert gasses."

  They ran the analyses rapidly, and in a very short time--less than anhour--their results stood at 23 per cent oxygen, .1 per cent carbondioxide, 68 per cent argon, 6 per cent nitrogen, 2 per cent helium, 5per cent neon, .05 per cent hydrogen, and the rest krypton and xenonapparently. The analyses of these inert gasses had to be done ratherroughly in this short time, but it was sufficient to balance fairlyaccurately.

  The two chemists reported back to the control cabin.

  "Well, we'll be able to breathe the atmosphere of Venus with ease. Ibelieve we can go on now. I have been surprised to see no water insight, but I think I see my mistake now. You know the Mississippi hasits mouth further from the center of the Earth than its source; it flowsup hill! The answer is, of course, that the centrifugal force of theEarth's spin impels it to flow that way. Similarly, I am sure now thatwe will find that Venus has a vast belt of water about the middle, andto the north and south there will be two great caps of dry land. We areon the northern cap.

  "We have the microphone turned way down. Let's step up the power a bitand see if there are any sounds outside," said Arcot and walked over tothe power control switch. An instant later a low hum came from theloudspeaker. There was a light breeze blowing. In the distance, forminga dull background for the hum, there came a low rumbling that seemedpunctuated now and then by a greater sound.

  "Must be a long way off," said Arcot, a puzzled frown on his face."Swing the ship around so we can see in what direction the sound isloudest," he suggested.

  Slowly Morey swung the ship around on its vertical axis. Without adoubt, something off in the direction of the hills was making aconsiderable noise.

  "Arcot, if that's a fight between two animals--two of those giantanimals that you said might be here--I don't care to get near them!"Fuller's narrowed eyes strove to penetrate the haze that screened thelow hills in the blue distance.

  The microphone was shut off while the _Solarite_ shot swiftly forwardtoward the source of the sound. Quickly the hills grew, the bluemistiness disappearing, and the jagged mounds revealing themselves asbleak harsh rock. As they drew nearer they saw beyond the hills,intermittent flashes of brilliant light, heard shattering blasts ofsound.

  "A thunderstorm!" Wade began, but Arcot interrupted.

  "Not so fast, Wade--Fuller's animal _is_ there--the only animal in allcreation that can make a noise like that! Look through thetelescope--see those dots wheeling about there above the flashinglights? The only animal that can make that racket is man! There are menover there--and they aren't in a playful mood! Turn on the invisibilitywhile we can, Morey--and let's get nearer!"

  "Look out--here we go!" Morey began to close a tiny switch set in oneside of the instrument panel--then, before the relay below could move,he had flipped it back.

  "Here, you take it, Arcot--you always think about two steps ahead ofme--you're quicker and know the machine better anyway."

  Quickly the two men exchanged places.

  "I don't know about that, Morey," said a voice from vacancy, for Arcothad at once thrown the ship into invisibility. "The longer we're here,the more mistakes I see we made in our calculations. I see what put meoff so badly on my estimate of the intelligence of life found here! Thesun gives it a double dose of heat--but also a double dose of otherradiations--some of which evidently speed up evolution. Anyway, we maybe able to find friends here more quickly if we aid one side or theother in the very lively battle going on there. Before we go anyfurther, what's our decision?"

  "I think it is a fine idea," said Fuller. "But which side are we toaid--and what are the sides? We haven't even seen them yet. Let's gonearer and take a good look."

  "Yes--but are we going to join either side after looking?"

  "Oh, that's unanimous!" said Wade, excitedly.

  The invisible ship darted forward. They sped past the barrier of lowhills, and were again high above a broad plain. With a startled gasp,Arcot cut their speed. There, floating high in the air, above amagnificent city, was a machine such as no man had ever before seen! Itwas a titanic airplane--monstrous, gargantuan, and every other word thatdenoted immensity. Fully three-quarters of a mile the huge metal wingsstretched out in the dull light of the cloudy Venerian day; a machinethat seemed to dwarf even the vast city beneath it. The roar of itsmighty propellers was a rumbling thunder to the men in the _Solarite_.From it came the flashing bursts of flame.

  On closer inspection, the watchers saw what seemed to be a swarm of tinygnats flying about the mighty plane. They appeared to be attacking thegiant as vainly as gnats might attack an eagle, for they could notdamage the giant machine. The flashing bombs burst in blasts of yellowflame as harmlessly as so many firecrackers.

  All that mighty plane was covered with heavy metal plates, fully teninches thick, and of metal so tough that when the powerful bombs hit itthey made no impression, though they blasted tremendous craters in thesoil below. From it poured a steady stream of bombs that burst with agreat flash of heat and light, and in an instant the tiny planes theystruck streaked down as incandescent masses of metal.

  Yet the giant seemed unable to approach the city--or was it defendingit? No, for it was from the city that the vainly courageous little shipspoured out. But certainly it was not these ships that kept the titanicbattleship
of the air at bay!

  Tensely the men watched the uneven conflict. The rain of bombscontinued, though all fell short of the city. But slowly around themetropolis there appeared an area of flaring, molten lava, and steadilythis moved toward the beautiful buildings. Suddenly the battleshipturned toward the city and made a short dash inward on its circlingpath. As though awaiting this maneuver, a battery of hissing, flamingswords of white light flashed upward, a few hundred feet from the ringof molten rock. As the titanic plane rolled, side-slipped out of theway, they passed, harmlessly, barely missing a monstrous wing.

  "Which?" Arcot demanded. "I say the city. No one should destroy anythingso magnificent."

  Not a dissenting voice was raised, so Arcot sent the _Solarite_ nearer.

  "But what in the world can we do to that huge thing?" Fuller's voicecame eerily out of the emptiness. "It has perfect invulnerabilitythrough size alone."

  There was sudden silence among the Terrestrials as one of the tinyplanes darted forward and dove at full speed directly toward one of thegiant's propellers. There were fifty of these strung along each greatwing. If enough of them could be destroyed, the plane must crash. Therecame a terrific crash--a flare of light--and splintered fragments offlaming wreckage plummeted down. Yet the mighty blades continuedwhirling as smoothly as ever!

  What could the _Solarite_ do against the giant monoplane? EvidentlyArcot had a plan. Under his touch their machine darted high into the skyabove the great plane. There was a full mile between them when hereleased the sustaining force of the _Solarite_ and let it drop,straight toward the source of the battle--falling freely, ever more andmore rapidly. They were rushing at the mighty plane below at a pace thatmade their hearts seem to pause--then suddenly Arcot cried out, "Holdon--here we stop!"

  They seemed a scant hundred feet from the broad metal wings of theunsuspecting plane, when suddenly there was a tremendous jerk, and eachman felt himself pressed to the floor beneath a terrific weight thatmade their backs crack with the load. Doggedly they fought to retaintheir senses; the blackness receded.

  Below them they saw only a mighty sea of roaring red flames--a hell ofblazing gas that roared like a score of bombs set off at once. The_Solarite_ was sitting down on her rocket jets! All six of the rockettubes in the base of the ship had been opened wide, and streaming fromthem in a furious blast of incandescent gas, the atomic hydrogen shotout in a mighty column of gas at 3500 degrees centigrade. Where the gastouched it, the great plane flared to incandescence; and in animmeasurable interval the fall of the _Solarite_ ended, and it reboundedhigh into the air. Arcot, struggling against the weight of sixgravities, pulled shut the little control that had sent those mightytorches blasting out. An instant later they sped away lest the planeshoot toward the gas columns.

  From a safe distance they looked back at their work. No longer was themighty plane unscathed, invulnerable, for now in its top gaped six greatcraters of incandescent metal that almost touched and coalesced. Thegreat plane itself reeled, staggering, plunging downward; but longbefore it reached the hard soil below, it was brought into level flight,and despite many dead engines, it circled and fled toward the south. Thehorde of small planes followed, dropping a rain of bombs into theglowing pits in the ship, releasing their fury in its interior. Inmoments the beings manning the marauder had to a large extent recoveredfrom the shock of the attack and were fighting back. In a moment--justbefore the ship passed over the horizon and out of sight--theTerrestrians saw the great props that had been idle, suddenly leap intomotion, and in an instant the giant had left its attackersbehind--fleeing from its invisible foe.

  Under Arcot's guidance the ship from Earth, still invisible, returned tothe approximate spot where they had destroyed the invulnerability of theGiant. Then suddenly, out of nothing, the _Solarite_ appeared. In aninstant a dozen of the tiny two-man planes darted toward it. Just thatthey might recognize it, Arcot shot it up a bit higher with the aid ofthe keel rockets at one-third power. The typical reddish flame of atomichydrogen, he knew, would be instantaneously recognizable.

  Little these planes were, but shaped like darts, and swifter than anyplane of Earth. They shot along at 1000 miles an hour readily, as Arcotsoon found out. It was not a minute before they had formed a long linethat circled the _Solarite_ at minimum speed, then started off in thedirection of the city. On impulse Arcot followed after them, andinstantly the planes increased their velocity, swiftly reaching 1000miles per hour.

  The city they were approaching was an inspiring sight. Mighty towersswept graceful lines a half mile in the air, their brightly coloredwalls gleaming in rainbow hues, giving the entire city the aspect of agigantic jewel--a single architectural unit. Here was symmetry andorder, with every unit in the city built around the gigantic centraledifice that rose, a tremendous tower of black and gold, a full halfmile in the air.

  The outer parts of the city were evidently the residential districts,the low buildings and the wide streets with the little green lawnsshowing the care of the individual owner. Then came the apartment housesand the small stores; these rose in gentle slopes, higher and higher,merging at last with the mighty central pinnacle of beauty. The city wasdesigned as a whole, not in a multitude of individually beautiful, butinharmonious units, like some wild mixture of melodies, each in itselfbeautiful, but mutually discordant.