The Black Star Passes

by Jr. John W. Campbell

  PROLOGUE

  Taj Lamor gazed steadily down at the vast dim bulk of the ancient cityspread out beneath him. In the feeble light of the stars its mightymasses of up-flung metal buildings loomed strangely, like the shells ofsome vast race of crustacea, long extinct. Slowly he turned, gazing nowout across the great plaza, where rested long rows of slender, yetmighty ships. Thoughtfully he stared at their dim, half-seen shapes.

  Taj Lamor was not human. Though he was humanoid, Earth had never seencreatures just like him. His seven foot high figure seemed a bitungainly by Terrestrial standards, and his strangely white, hairlessflesh, suggesting unbaked dough, somehow gave the impression ofnear-transparency. His eyes were disproportionately large, and the blackdisc of pupil in the white corneas was intensified by contrast. Yetperhaps his race better deserved the designation _homo sapiens_ thanTerrestrians do, for it was wise with the accumulated wisdom ofuncounted eons.

  He turned to the other man in the high, cylindrical, dimly lit towerroom overlooking the dark metropolis, a man far older than Taj Lamor,his narrow shoulders bent, and his features grayed with his years. Hissingle short, tight-fitting garment of black plastic marked him as oneof the Elders. The voice of Taj Lamor was vibrant with feeling:

  "Tordos Gar, at last we are ready to seek a new sun. Life for our race!"

  A quiet, patient, imperturbable smile appeared on the Elder's face andthe heavy lids closed over his great eyes.

  "Yes," he said sadly, "but at what cost in tranquility! The discord, theunrest, the awakening of unnatural ambitions--a dreadful price to payfor a questionable gain. Too great a price, I think." His eyes opened,and he raised a thin hand to check the younger man's protest. "I know--Iknow--in this we do not see as one. Yet perhaps some day you will learneven as I have that to rest is better than to engage in an endlessstruggle. Suns and planets die. Why should races seek to escape theinevitable?" Tordos Gar turned slowly away and gazed fixedly into thenight sky.

  Taj Lamor checked an impatient retort and sighed resignedly. It was thisattitude that had made his task so difficult. Decadence. A race on anages-long decline from vast heights of philosophical and scientificlearning. Their last external enemy had been defeated millennia in thepast; and through easy forgetfulness and lack of strife, ambition haddied. Adventure had become a meaningless word.

  Strangely, during the last century a few men had felt the stirrings oflong-buried emotion, of ambition, of a craving for adventure. These werethrowbacks to those ancestors of the race whose science had built theirworld. These men, a comparative handful, had been drawn to each other bythe unnatural ferment within them; and Taj Lamor had become theirleader. They had begun a mighty struggle against the inertia of ages ofslow decay, had begun a search for the lost secrets of ahundred-million-year-old science.

  Taj Lamor raised his eyes to the horizon. Through the leaping curve ofthe crystal clear roof of their world glowed a blazing spot of yellowfire. A star--the brightest object in a sky whose sun had lost itslight. A point of radiance that held the last hopes of an incrediblyancient race.

  The quiet voice of Tordos Gar came through the semidarkness of theroom, a pensive, dreamlike quality in its tones.

  "You, Taj Lamor, and those young men who have joined you in this futileexpedition do not think deeply enough. Your vision is too narrow. Youlack perspective. In your youth you cannot think on a cosmic scale." Hepaused as though in thought, and when he continued, it seemed almost asthough he were speaking to himself.

  "In the far, dim past fifteen planets circled about a small, red sun.They were dead worlds--or rather, worlds that had not yet lived. Perhapsa million years passed before there moved about on three of them thebeginnings of life. Then a hundred million years passed, and thosefirst, crawling protoplasmic masses had become animals, and plants, andintermediate growths. And they fought endlessly for survival. Then moremillions of years passed, and there appeared a creature which slowlygained ascendancy over the other struggling life forms that fought forthe warmth of rays of the hot, red sun.

  "That sun had been old, even as the age of a star is counted, before itsplanets had been born, and many, many millions of years had passedbefore those planets cooled, and then more eons sped by before lifeappeared. Now, as life slowly forced its way upward, that sun was nearlyburned out. The animals fought, and bathed in the luxury of its rays,for many millennia were required to produce any noticeable change in itslife-giving radiations.

  "At last one animal gained the ascendancy. Our race. But though onespecies now ruled, there was no peace. Age followed age whilesemi-barbaric peoples fought among themselves. But even as they fought,they learned.

  "They moved from caves into structures of wood and stone--andengineering had its beginning. With the buildings came little chemicalengines to destroy them; warfare was developing. Then came the firstcrude flying-machines, using clumsy, inefficient engines. Chemicalengines! Engines so crude that one could watch the flow of their fuel!One part in one hundred thousand million of the energy of theirpropellents they released to run the engines, and they carried fuel insuch vast quantities that they staggered under its load as they left theground! And warfare became world-wide. After flight came other machinesand other ages. Other scientists began to have visions of the realmsbeyond, and they sought to tap the vast reservoirs of Nature's energies,the energies of matter.

  "Other ages saw it done--a few thousand years later there passed outinto space a machine that forced its way across the void to anotherplanet! And the races of the three living worlds became as one--butthere was no peace.

  "Swiftly now, science grew upon itself, building with ever faster steps,like a crystal which, once started, forms with incalculable speed.

  "And while that science grew swiftly greater, other changes took place,changes in our universe itself. Ten million years passed before thefirst of those changes became important. But slowly, steadily ouratmosphere was drifting into space. Through ages this gradually becameapparent. Our worlds were losing their air and their water. One planet,less favored than another, fought for its life, and space itself wasablaze with the struggles of wars for survival.

  "Again science helped us. Thousands of years before, men had learned howto change the mass of matter into energy, but now at last the processwas reversed, and those ancestors of ours could change energy intomatter, any kind of matter they wished. Rock they took, and changed itto energy, then that energy they transmuted to air, to water, to thenecessary metals. Their planets took a new lease of life!

  "But even this could not continue forever. They must stop that loss ofair. The process they had developed for reformation of matter admittedof a new use. Creation! They were now able to make new elements,elements that had never existed in nature! They designed atoms as, longbefore, their fathers had designed molecules. At last their problem wassolved. They made a new form of matter that was clearer than anycrystal, and yet stronger and tougher than any metal known. Since itheld out none of the sun's radiations, they could roof their worlds withit and keep their air within!

  "This was a task that could not be done in a year, nor a decade, but alltime stretched out unending before them. One by one the three planetsbecame tremendous, roofed-in cities. Only their vast powers, theirmighty machines made the task possible, but it was done."

  The droning voice of Tordos Gar ceased. Taj Lamor, who had listened witha mixture of amusement and impatience to the recital of a history heknew as well as the aged, garrulous narrator, waited out of the inbornrespect which every man held for the Elders. At length he exclaimed: "Isee no point--"

  "But you will when I finish--or, at least, I hope you will." TordosGar's words and tone were gently reproving. He continued quietly:

  "Slowly the ages drifted on, each marked by greater and greater triumphsof science. But again and again there were wars. Some there were inwhich the population of a world was halved, and all space for a billionmiles about was a vast cauldron of incandescent energy in whichtremendous fleets of space ships sw
irled and fused like ingredients insome cosmic brew. Forces were loosed on the three planets that sent eventheir mighty masses reeling drunkenly out of their orbits, and spaceitself seemed to be torn by the awful play of energies.

  "Always peace followed--a futile peace. A few brief centuries or a fewmillennia, and again war would flame. It would end, and life wouldcontinue.

  "But slowly there crept into the struggle a new factor, a darkeningcloud, a change that came so gradually that only the records ofinstruments, made during a period of thousands of years, could show it.Our sun had changed from bright red to a deep, sullen crimson, and everless and less heat poured from it. It was waning!

  "As the fires of life died down, the people of the three worlds joinedin a conflict with the common menace, death from the creeping cold ofspace. There was no need for great haste; a sun dies slowly. Ourancestors laid their plans and carried them out. The fifteen worlds wereencased in shells of crystal. Those that had no atmosphere were givenone. Mighty heating plants were built--furnaces that burned matter,designed to warm a world! At last a state of stability had been reached,for never could conditions change--it seemed. All external heat andlight came from far-off stars, the thousands of millions of suns thatwould never fail.

  "Under stress of the Great Change one scarcely noticed, yet almostincredible, transformation had occurred. We had learned to live witheach other. We had learned to think, and enjoy thinking. As a species wehad passed from youth into maturity. Advancement did not stop; we wenton steadily toward the goal of all knowledge. At first there was anunderlying hope that we might some day, somehow, escape from thesedarkened, artificial worlds of ours, but with the passing centuries thisgrew very dim and at length was forgotten.

  "Gradually as millennia passed, much ancient knowledge was alsoforgotten. It was not needed. The world was unchanging, there was nostrife, and no need of strife. The fifteen worlds were warm, andpleasant, and safe. Without fully realizing it, we had entered a periodof rest. And so the ages passed; and there were museums and librariesand laboratories; and the machines of our ancestors did all necessarywork. So it was--until less than a generation ago. Our long lives werepleasant, and death, when it came, was a sleep. And then--"

  "And then," Taj Lamor interrupted, a sharp edge of impatience in histone, "some of us awakened from our stupor!"

  The Elder sighed resignedly. "You cannot see--you cannot see. You wouldstart that struggle all over again!" His voice continued in what TajLamor thought of as a senile drone, but the younger man paid scantattention. His eyes and thoughts were centered on that brilliant yellowstar, the brightest object in the heavens. It was that star, noticeablybrighter within a few centuries, that had awakened a few men from theirmental slumbers.

  They were throwbacks, men who had the divine gift of curiosity; andsparked by their will to know, they had gone to the museums and lookedcarefully at the ancient directions for the use of the telectroscope,the mighty electrically amplified vision machine, had gazed through it.They had seen a great sun that seemed to fill all the field of theapparatus with blazing fire. A sun to envy! Further observation hadrevealed that there circled about the sun a series of planets, five,definitely; two more, probably; and possibly two others.

  Taj Lamor had been with that group, a young man then, scarcely more thanforty, but they had found him a leader and they had followed him as heset about his investigation of the ancient books on astronomy.

  How many, many hours had he studied those ancient works! How many timeshad he despaired of ever learning their truths, and gone out to the roofof the museum to stand in silent thought looking out across the awfulvoid to the steady flame of the yellow star! Then quietly he hadreturned to his self-set task.

  With him as teacher, others had learned, and before he was seventy therewere many men who had become true scientists, astronomers. There wasmuch of the ancient knowledge that these men could not understand, forthe science of a million centuries is not to be learned in a few briefdecades, but they mastered a vast amount of the forgotten lore.

  They knew now that the young, live sun, out there in space, was speedingtoward them, their combined velocities equalling more than 100 mileseach second. And they knew that there were not seven, but nine planetscircling about that sun. There were other facts they discovered; theyfound that the new sun was far larger than theirs had ever been; indeed,it was a sun well above average in size and brilliance. There wereplanets, a hot sun--a home! Could they get there?

  When their ancestors had tried to solve the problem of escape they hadconcentrated their work on the problem of going at speeds greater thanthat of light. This should be an impossibility, but the fact that theancients had tried it, seemed proof enough to their descendants that itwas possible, at least in theory. In the distant past they had neededspeeds exceeding that of light, for they must travel light years; butnow this sun was coming toward them, and already was less than twohundred and fifty billion miles away!

  They would pass that other star in about seventy years. That wasscarcely more than a third of a man's lifetime. They could make thejourney with conceivable speeds--but in that brief period they mustprepare to move!

  The swift agitation for action had met with terrific resistance. Theywere satisfied; why move?

  But, while some men had devoted their time to arousing the people tohelp, others had begun doing work that had not been done for a long,long time. The laboratories were reopened, and workshops began hummingagain. They were making things that were new once more, not merelycopying old designs.

  Their search had been divided into sections, search for weapons withwhich to defend themselves in case they were attacked, and search forthe basic principles underlying the operation of their space ships. Theyhad machines which they could imitate, but they did not understand them.Success had been theirs on these quests. The third section had been lesssuccessful. They had also been searching for secrets of the apparatustheir forefathers had used to swing the planets in their orbits, to moveworlds about at will. They had wanted to be able to take not only theirspace ships, but their planets as well, when they went to settle onthese other worlds and in this other solar system.

  But the search for this secret had remained unrewarded. The secret ofthe spaceships they learned readily, and Taj Lamor had designed thesemighty ships below there with that knowledge. Their search for weaponshad been satisfied; they had found one weapon, one of the deadliest thattheir ancestors had ever invented. But the one secret in which they weremost interested, the mighty force barrage that could swing a world inits flight through space, was lost. They could not find it.

  They knew the principles of the driving apparatus of their ships, and itwould seem but a matter of enlargement to drive a planet as a ship, butthey knew this was impossible; the terrific forces needed would easilybe produced by their apparatus, but there was no way to apply them to aworld. If applied in any spot, the planet would be torn asunder by theincalculable strain. They must apply the force equally to the entireplanet. Their problem was one of application of power. The rotation ofthe planet made it impossible to use a series of driving apparatus, evencould these be anchored, but again the sheer immensity of the task madeit impossible.

  Taj Lamor gazed down again at the great ships in the plaza below. Theirmighty bulks seemed to dwarf even the huge buildings about them. Yetthese ships were his--for he had learned their secrets and designedthem, and now he was to command them as they flew out across space inthat flight to the distant star.

  He turned briefly to the Elder, Tordos Gar. "Soon we leave," he said, afaint edge of triumph in his voice. "We will prove that our way isright."

  The old man shook his head. "You will learn--" he began, but Taj Lamordid not want to hear.

  He turned, passed through a doorway, and stepped into a littletorpedo-shaped car that rested on the metal roof behind him. A momentlater the little ship rose, and then slanted smoothly down over the edgeof the roof, straight for the largest of the ships below. This was theflagsh
ip. Nearly a hundred feet greater was its diameter, and its mileand a quarter length of gleaming metal hull gave it nearly three hundredfeet greater length than that of the ships of the line.

  This expedition was an expedition of exploration. They were prepared tomeet any conditions on those other worlds--no atmosphere, no water, noheat, or even an atmosphere of poisonous gases they could rectify, fortheir transmutation apparatus would permit them to change those gases,or modify them; they knew well how to supply heat, but they knew too,that that sun would warm some of its planets sufficiently for theirpurposes.

  Taj Lamor sent his little machine darting through the great airlock inthe side of the gigantic interstellar ship and lowered it gently to thefloor. A man stepped forward, opened the door for the leader, salutinghim briskly as he stepped out; then the car was run swiftly aside, to beplaced with thousands of others like it. Each of these cars was to beused by a separate investigator when they reached those other worlds,and there were men aboard who would use them.

  Taj Lamor made his way to a door in the side of a great metal tube thatthreaded the length of the huge ship. Opening the door he sat down inanother little car that shot swiftly forward as the double door shutsoftly, with a low hiss of escaping air. For moments the car spedthrough the tube, then gently it slowed and came to rest oppositeanother door. Again came the hissing of gas as the twin doors opened,and Taj Lamor stepped out, now well up in the nose of the cruiser. As hestepped out of the car the outer and inner doors closed, and, ready nowfor other calls, the car remained at this station. On a ship so long,some means of communication faster than walking was essential. Thislittle pneumatic railway was the solution.

  As Taj Lamor stepped out of the tube, a half-dozen men, who had beentalking among themselves, snapped quickly to attention. Following theplans of the long-gone armies of their ancestors, the men of theexpedition had been trained to strict discipline; and Taj Lamor wastheir technical leader and the nominal Commander-in-Chief, althoughanother man, Kornal Sorul, was their actual commander.

  Taj Lamor proceeded at once to the Staff Cabin in the very nose of thegreat ship. Just above him there was another room, walled on all sidesby that clear, glass-like material, the control cabin. Here the pilotsat, directing the motions of the mighty ship of space.

  Taj Lamor pushed a small button on his desk and in a moment a gray discbefore him glowed dimly, then flashed into life and full, natural color.As though looking through a glass porthole, Taj Lamor saw the interiorof the Communications Room. The Communications Officer was gazing at asimilar disc in which Taj Lamor's features appeared.

  "Have they reported from Ohmur, Lorsand, and Throlus, yet, Morlus Tal?"asked the commander.

  "They are reporting now, Taj Lamor, and we will be ready within two andone half minutes. The plans are as before; we are to proceed directlytoward the Yellow Star, meeting at Point 71?"

  "The plans are as before. Start when ready."

  The disc faded, the colors died, and it was gray again. Taj Lamor pulledanother small lever on the panel before him, and the disc changed,glowed, and was steady; and now he saw the preparations for departure,as from an eye on the top of the great ship. Men streamed swiftly inordered columns all about and into the huge vessels. In an incrediblyshort time they were in, and the great doors closed behind them.Suddenly there came a low, dull hum through the disc, and the soundmounted quickly, till all the world seemed humming to that dull note.The warning!

  Abruptly the city around him seemed to blaze in a riot of colored light!The mighty towering bulks of the huge metal buildings were polished andbright, and now, as the millions of lights, every color of the spectrum,flashed over all the city from small machines in the air, on the ground,in windows, their great metal walls glistening with a riot of flowingcolor. Then there was a trembling through all the frame of the mightyship. In a moment it was gone, and the titanic mass of glistening metalrose smoothly, quickly to the great roof of their world above them. Onan even keel it climbed straight up, then suddenly it leaped forwardlike some great bird of prey sighting its victim. The ground beneathsped swiftly away, and behind it there came a long line of ships,quickly finding their position in the formation. They were headingtoward the giant airlock that would let them out into space. There wasbut one lock large enough to permit so huge a ship to pass out, and theymust circle half their world to reach it.

  On three other worlds there were other giant ships racing thus to meetbeyond their solar system. There were fifty ships coming from eachplanet; two hundred mighty ships in all made up this Armada of Space,two hundred gargantuan interstellar cruisers.

  One by one the giant ships passed through the airlock and out intospace. Here they quickly reformed as they moved off together, each shipfalling into its place in the mighty cone formation, with the flagshipof Taj Lamor at the head. On they rushed through space, their speed evermounting. Suddenly there seemed to leap out of nowhere another mass ofshining machines that flew swiftly beside them. Like some strange,shining ghosts, these ships seemed to materialize instantly beside andbehind their fleet. They fell in quickly in their allotted positionbehind the Flagship's squadron. One--two more fleets appeared thussuddenly in the dark, and together the ships were flashing on throughspace to their goal of glowing fire ahead!

  Hour after hour, day after day the ships flashed on through the awfulvoid, the utter silence relieved by the communications betweenthemselves and the slowly weakening communications from the far-off homeplanets.

  But as those signals from home grew steadily weaker, the sun before themgrew steadily larger. At last the men began to feel the heat of thoserays, to realize the energy that that mighty sea of flame poured forthinto space, and steadily they watched it grow nearer.

  Then came a day when they could make out clearly the dim bulk of aplanet before them, and for long hours they slowed down the flying speedof the ships. They had mapped the system they were approaching; therewere nine planets of varying sizes, some on the near and some on thefar side of the sun. There were but three on the near side; one thatseemed the outermost of the planets, about 35,000 miles in diameter, wasdirectly in their path, while there were two more much nearer the sun,about 100,000,000 and 70,000,000 miles distant from it, each about sevento eight thousand miles in diameter, but they were on opposite sides ofthe sun. These more inviting and more accessible worlds were numbers twoand three of the planetary system. It was decided to split theexpedition into two parts; one part was to go to planet two, and theother to three. Taj Lamor was to lead his group of a hundred ships tothe nearer planet at once.

  In a very brief time the great ships slanted down over what seemed to bea mighty globe of water. They were well in the northern hemisphere, andthey had come near the planet first over a vast stretch of rollingocean. The men had looked in wonder at such vast quantities of thefluid. To them it was a precious liquid, that must be made artificially,and was to be conserved, yet here they saw such vast quantities ofnatural water as seemed impossible. Still, their ancient books had toldof such things, and of other strange things, things that must have beenwondrously beautiful, though they were so old now, these records, thatthey were regarded largely as myths.

  Yet here were the strange proofs! They saw great masses of fleecy watervapor, huge billowy things that seemed solid, but were blown lightly inthe wind. And natural air! The atmosphere extended for hundreds of milesoff into space; and now, as they came closer to the surface of thisworld the air was dense, and the sky above them was a beautiful blue,not black, even where there were stars. The great sun, so brilliantlyincandescent when seen from space, and now a glowing globe ofreddish-yellow.

  And as they came near land, they looked in wonder at mighty masses ofrock and soil that threw their shaggy heads high above the surroundingterrain, huge masses that rose high, like waves in the water, till theytowered in solemn grandeur miles into the air! What a sight for thesemen of a world so old that age long erosion had washed away the lasttraces of hills, and filled in all of the vall
eys!

  In awe they looked down at the mighty rock masses, as they swung lowover the mountains, gazing in wonder at the green masses of the strangevegetation; strange, indeed, for they for uncounted ages had grown onlymushroom-like cellulose products, and these mainly for ornament, for alltheir food was artificially made in huge factories.

  Then they came over a little mountain lake, a body of water scarcelylarge enough to berth one of their huge ships, but high in the clear airof the mountains, fed by the melting of eternal snows. It was amagnificent sapphire in a setting green as emerald, a sparkling lake ofclear water, deep as the sea, high in a cleft in the mountains.

  In wonder the men looked down at these strange sights. What a marveloushome!

  Steadily the great machines proceeded, and at last the end of the giantmountain was reached, and they came to a great plain. But that plain wasstrangely marked off with squares, as regularly as though plotted with adraftsman's square. This world must be inhabited by intelligent beings!

  Suddenly Taj Lamor saw strange specks off in the far horizon to thesouth, specks that seemed to grow in size with terrific velocity; thesemust be ships, the ships of these people, coming to defend their home.The strangely pallid face of Taj Lamor tightened into lines of grimresolution. This was a moment he had foreseen and had dreaded. Was he towithdraw and leave these people unmolested, or was he to stand and fightfor this world, this wonderfully beautiful home, a home that his racecould live in for millions of years to come? He had debated thisquestion many times before in his mind, and he had decided. There wouldnever, never be another chance for his people to gain a new home. Theymust fight.

  Swiftly he gave his orders. If resistance came, if an attack were made,they were to fight back at once, with every weapon at their disposal.

  The strangers' ships had grown swiftly larger to the eye, but still,though near now, they seemed too small to be dangerous. These giantinterstellar cruisers were certainly invulnerable to ships so small;their mere size would give them protection! These ships were scarcely aslong as the diameter of the smaller of the interstellar ships--a baretwo hundred and fifty feet for the largest.

  The interstellar cruisers halted in their course, and waited for thelittle ships to approach. They were fast, for they drew alongsidequickly, and raced to the front of the flagship. There was one small onethat was painted white, and on it there was a large white banner,flapping in the wind of its passage. The rest of the ships drew off asthis came forward, and stopped, hanging motionless before the controlroom of the giant machine. There were men inside--three strange men,short and oddly pink-skinned--but they were gesturing now, motioningthat the giant machine settle to the ground beneath. Taj Lamor wasconsidering whether or not to thus parley with the strangers, whensuddenly there leaped from the white craft a beam of clear white--a beamthat was directed toward the ground, then swung up toward the greatcruiser in a swift arc!

  As one, a dozen swift beams of pale red flared out from the giant andbathed the pigmy craft. As they reached it, the white ray that had beensweeping up suddenly vanished, and for an instant the ship hung poisedin the air; then it began to swing crazily, like the pendulum of aclock--swung completely over--and with a sickening lurch sped swiftlyfor the plain nearly five miles below. In moments there came a briefflare, then there remained only a little crater in the soft soil.

  But the red beams had not stopped with the little ship; they had dartedout to the other machines, trying to reach them before they could bringthose strange white rays into play. The cruisers obviously must win, forthey carried dozens of projectors, but they might be damaged, theirflight delayed. They must defeat those strangers quickly. The rays ofTaj Lamor's ship lashed out swiftly, but almost before they hadstarted, all the other ships, a full hundred, were in action, and theflagship was darting swiftly up and away from the battle. Below, thosepale red rays were taking a swift toll of the little ships, and nearlytwenty of them rolled suddenly over, and dashed to destruction farbelow.

  But now the little ships were in swift darting motion. Because of theirsmall size, they were able to avoid the rays of the larger interstellarcruisers, and as their torpedo-shaped hulls flashed about withbewildering speed, they began to fight back. They had been taken utterlyby surprise, but now they went into action with an abandon and swiftnessthat took the initiative away from the gigantic interstellar liners.They were in a dozen places at once, dodging and twisting, unharmed, outof the way of the deadly red beams, and were as hard to hit as so manydancing feathers suspended over an air jet.

  And if the pilots were skillful in avoiding enemy rays, their ray menwere as accurate in placing theirs. But then, with a target of such vastsize, not so much skill was necessary.

  These smaller vessels were the ships of Earth. The people of the darkstar had entered the solar system quite unannounced, except that theyhad been seen in passing the orbit of Mars, for a ship had been outthere in space, moving steadily out toward Neptune, and the greatinterstellar cruisers, flashing in across space, away from that frigidplanet, had not seen the tiny wanderer. But he had seen those mightyhulks, and had sent his message of danger out on the ether, warning themen of Earth. They had relayed it to Venus, and the ships that had gonethere had received an equally warm reception, and were even now findingtheir time fully occupied trying to beat off the Interplanetary Patrol.

  The battle ended as swiftly as it began, for Taj Lamor, in his machinehigh above, saw that they were outclassed, and ordered them to withdrawat once. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed, yet they had lost twenty-twoof their giant ships.

  The expedition that had gone to Venus reported a similarly activegreeting. It was decided at once that they should proceed cautiously tothe other planets, to determine which were inhabited and which were not,and to determine the chemical and physical conditions on each.

  The ships formed again out in space, on the other side of the sun,however, and started at once in compact formation for Mercury.

  Their observations were completed without further mishap, and they setout for their distant home, their number depleted by forty-one ships,for nineteen had fallen on Venus.