Chapter II
CANINE PEOPLE
"And that," said Arcot between puffs, "will certainly be a great boon tothe Rocket Patrol, you must admit. They don't like dueling with thesespace-pirates using the molecular rays, and since molecular rays havesuch a tremendous commercial value, we can't prohibit the sale of rayapparatus. Now, if you will come into the 'workshop,' Fuller, I'll givea demonstration with friend Morey's help."
The four friends rose, Morey, Wade and Fuller following Arcot into hislaboratory on the thirty-seventh floor of the Arcot Research Building.As they went, Arcot explained to Fuller the results and principles ofthe latest product of the ingenuity of the "Triumvirate," as Arcot,Morey and Wade had come to be called in the news dispatches.
"As you know, the molecular rays make all the molecules of any piece ofmatter they are turned upon move in the desired direction. Since theysupply no new energy, but make the body they are turned upon supply itsown, using the energy of its own random molecular motion of heat, theyare practically impossible to stop. The energy necessary for molecularrays to take effect is so small that the usual type of filter letsenough of it pass. A ship equipped with filters is no better off whenattacked than one without. The rays simply drove the front end into therear, or _vice versa_, or tore it to pieces as the pirates desired. TheRocket Patrol could kill off the pirates, but they lost so many men inthe process, it was a Phyrric victory.
"For some time Morey and I have been working on something to stop therays. Obviously it can't be by means of any of the usual metallic energyabsorption screens.
"We finally found a combination of rays, better frequencies, that didwhat we wanted. I have such an apparatus here. What we want you to do,of course, is the usual job of rearranging the stuff so that theapparatus can be made from dies, and put into quantity production. Asthe Official Designer for the A.A.L. you ought to do that easily." Arcotgrinned as Fuller looked in amazement at the apparatus Arcot had pickedup from the bench in the "workshop."
"Don't get worried," laughed Morey, "that's got a lifting unitcombined--just a plain ordinary molecular lift such as you see by thehundreds out there." Morey pointed through the great window wherethousands of those lift units were carrying men, women and childrenthrough the air, lifting them hundreds, thousands of feet above thestreets and through the doors of buildings.
"Here's an ordinary molecular pistol. I'm going to put the suit on, andrise about five feet off the floor. You can turn the pistol on me, andsee what impression it makes on the suit."
Fuller took the molecular ray pistol, while Wade helped Arcot into thesuit. He looked at the pistol dubiously, pointed it at a heavy castingof iron resting in one corner of the room, and turned the ray at lowconcentration, then pressed the trigger-button. The casting gave out alow, scrunching grind, and slid toward him with a lurch. Instantly heshut off the power. "This isn't any ordinary pistol. It's got seven oreight times the ordinary power!" he exclaimed.
"Oh yes, I forgot," Morey said. "Instead of the fuel battery that theearly pistols used, this has a space-distortion power coil. This pistolhas as much power as the usual A-39 power unit for commercial work."
By the time Morey had explained the changes to Fuller, Arcot had thesuit on, and was floating five or six feet in the air, like a grotesquecaptive balloon. "Ready, Fuller?"
"I guess so, but I certainly hope that suit is all it is claimed to be.If it isn't--well I'd rather not commit murder."
"It'll work," said Arcot. "I'll bet my neck on that!" Suddenly he wassurrounded by the faintest of auras, a strange, wavering blue light,like the hazy corona about a 400,000-volt power line. "Now try it."
Fuller pointed the pistol at the floating man and pushed the trigger.The brilliant blue beam of the molecular ray, and the low hum of theair, rushing in the path of the director beam, stabbed out toward Arcot.The faint aura about him was suddenly intensified a million times tillhe floated in a ball of blue-white fire. Scarcely visible, the air abouthim blazed with bluish incandescence of ionization.
"Increase the power," suggested Morey. Fuller turned on more power. Theblue halo was shot through with tiny violet sparks, the sharp odor ofozone in the air was stifling; the heat of wasted energy was making theroom hotter. The power increased further, and the tiny sparks werewaving streamers, that laced across the surface of the blue fire. Littlejets of electric flame reached out along the beam of the ray now.Finally, as full power of the molecular ray was reached, the entire halowas buried under a mass of writhing sparks that seemed to leap up intothe air above the man's head, wavering up to extinction. The room wasunbearably hot, despite the molecular ray coolers absorbing the heat ofthe air, and blowing cooled air into the room.
Fuller snapped off the ray, and put the pistol on the table beside him.The halo died, and went out a moment later, and Arcot settled to thefloor.
"This particular suit will stand up against anything the ordinarycommercial sets will give. The system now: remember that the rays areshort electrical waves. The easiest way to stop them is to interpose awave of opposite phase, and cause interference. Fine, but try to get intune with an unknown wave when it is moving in relation to your centerof control. It is impossible to do it before you yourself have beenrayed out of existence. We must use some system that will automatically,instantly be out of phase.
"The Hall effect would naturally tend to make the frequency of a wavethrough a resisting medium change, and lengthen. If we can send out aspherical wave front, and have it lengthen rapidly as it proceeds, wewill have a wave front that is, at all points, different. Any enteringwave would, sooner or later, meet a wave that was half a phase out, nomatter what the motion was, nor what the frequency, as long as it lieswithin the comparatively narrow molecular wave band. What thisapparatus, or ray screen, consists of, is a machine generating aspherical wave front of the nature of a molecular wave, but of just toogreat a frequency to do anything. A second part generates a condition inspace, which opposes that wave. After traveling a certain distance, thewave has lengthened to molecular wave type, but is now beyond themachine which generated it, and no longer affects it, or damages it.However, as it proceeds, it continues to lengthen, till eventually itreaches the length of infra-light, when the air quickly absorbs it, asit reaches one of the absorption bands for air molecular waves, and anymolecular wave must find its half-wave complement somewhere in thatwedge of waves. It does, and is at once choked off, its energy fightingthe energy of the ray screen, of course. In the air, however, the screenis greatly helped by the fact that before the half-wave frequency is metin the ray-wedge, the molecular ray is buried in ions, leaving the rayscreen little work to do.
"Now your job is to design the apparatus in a form that machines canmake automatically. We tried doing it ourselves for the fun of it, butwe couldn't see how we could make a machine that didn't need at leasttwo humans to supervise."
"Well," grinned Fuller, "you have it all over me as scientists, but aseconomic workers--two human supervisors to make one product!"
"All right--we agree. But no, let's see you--Lord! What was that?" Moreystarted for the door on the run. The building was still trembling fromthe shock of a heavy blow, a blow that seemed much as though a machinehad been wrecked on the armored roof, and a big machine at that. Arcot,a flying suit already on, was up in the air, and darting past Morey inan instant, streaking for the vertical shaft that would let him out tothe roof. The molecular ray pistol was already in his hand, ready topull any beams off unfortunate victims pinned under them.
In a moment he had flashed up through the seven stories, and out to theroof. A gigantic silvery machine rested there, streamlined toperfection, its hull dazzingly beautiful in the sunlight. A door opened,and three tall, lean men stepped from it. Already people were collectingabout the ship, flying up from below. Air patrolmen floated up in aminute, and seeing Arcot, held the crowd back.
The strange men were tall, eight feet or more in height. Great, round,soft brown eyes looked in curiosity at the towering mu
lticoloredbuildings, at the people floating in the air, at the green trees and theblue sky, the yellowish sun.
Arcot looked at their strangely blotched and mottled heads, faces, armsand hands. Their feet were very long and narrow, their legs long andthin. Their faces were kindly; the mottled skin, brown and white andblack, seemed not to make them ugly. It was not a disfigurement; itseemed oddly familiar and natural in some reminiscent way.
"Lord, Arcot--queer specimens, yet they seem familiar!" said Morey in anundertone.
"They are. Their race is that of man's first and best friend, the dog!See the brown eyes? The typical teeth? The feet still show the traces ofthe dog's toe-step. Their nails, not flat like human ones but rounded?The mottled skin, the ears--look, one is advancing."
One of the strangers walked laboriously forward. A lighter world thanEarth was evidently his home. His great brown eyes fixed themselves onArcot's. Arcot watched them. They seemed to expand, grow larger; theyseemed to fill all the sky. Hypnotism! He concentrated his mind, and theeyes suddenly contracted to the normal eyes of the stranger. The manreeled back, as Arcot's telepathic command to sleep came, stronger thanhis own will. The stranger's friends caught him, shook him, but heslept. One of the others looked at Arcot; his eyes seemed hurt,desperately pleading.
Arcot strode forward, and quickly brought the man out of the trance. Heshook his head, smiled at Arcot, then, with desperate difficulty, heenunciated some words in English, terribly distorted.
"Ahy wizz tahk. Vokle kohds ron. Tahk by breen."
Distorted as it was, Arcot recognized the meaning without difficulty. "Iwish (to) talk. Vocal cords wrong. Talk by brain." He switched tocommunication by the Venerian method, telepathically, but withouthypnotism.
"Good enough. When you attempted to hypnotize me, I didn't known whatyou wanted. It is not necessary to hypnotize to carry on communicationby the method of the second world of this system. What brings you to oursystem? From what system do you come? What do you wish to say?"
The other, not having learned the Venerian system, had great difficultyin communicating his thoughts, but Arcot learned that they had machineswhich would make it easier, and the terrestrian invited them into hislaboratory, for the crowd was steadily growing.
The three returned to their ship for a moment, coming out with severalpeculiar headsets. Almost at once the ship started to rise, going upmore and more swiftly, as the people cleared a way for it.
Then, in the tiniest fraction of a second, the ship was gone; it shrankto a point, and was invisible in the blue vault of the sky.
"Apparently they intend to stay a while," said Wade. "They are trustingsouls, for their line of retreat is cut off. We naturally have nointention of harming them, but they can't know that."
"I'm not so sure," said Arcot. He turned to the apparent leader of thethree and explained that there were several stories to descend, andstairs were harder than a flying unit. "Wrap your arms about my legs,when I rise above you, and hold on till your feet are on the flooragain," he concluded.
The stranger walked a little closer to the edge of the shaft, and lookeddown. White bulbs illuminated its walls down its length to the ground.The man talked rapidly to his friends, looking with evident distaste atthe shaft, and the tiny pack on Arcot's back. Finally, smiling, heevinced his willingness. Arcot rose, the man grasped his legs, and thenboth rose. Over the shaft, and down to his laboratory was the work of amoment.
Arcot led them into his "consultation room," where a number ofcomfortable chairs were arranged, facing each other. He seated themtogether, and his own friends facing them.
"Friends of another world," began Arcot, "we do not know your errandhere, but you evidently have good reason for coming to this place. It isunlikely that your landing was the result of sheer chance. What broughtyou? How came you to this point?"
"It is difficult for me to reply. First we must be _en rapport_. Oursystem is not simple as yours, but more effective, for yours depends onthought ideas, not altogether universal. Place these on your heads, foronly a moment. I must induce temporary hypnotic coma. Let one try firstif you desire." The leader of the visitors held out one of the severalheadsets they had brought, caplike things, made of laminated metalapparently.
Arcot hesitated, then with a grin slipped it on.
"Relax," came a voice in Arcot's head, a low, droning voice, a voice ofcommand. "Sleep," it added. Arcot felt himself floating down an infiniteshaft, on some superflying suit that did not pull at him with itsstraps, just floating down lightly, down and down and down. Suddenly hereached the bottom, and found to his surprise that it led directly intothe room again! He was back. "You are awake. Speak!" came the voice.
Arcot shook himself, and looked about. A new voice spoke now, not thetonelessly melodious voice, but the voice of an individual, yet a mentalvoice. It was perfectly clear, and perfectly comprehensible. "We havetraveled far to find you, and now we have business of the utmost import.Ask these others to let us treat them, for we must do what we can in theleast possible time. I will explain when all can understand. I am ZezdonFentes, First Student of Thought. He who sits on my right is ZezdonAfthen, and he beyond him, is Zezdon Inthel, of Physics and ofChemistry, respectively."
And now Arcot spoke to his friends.
"These men have something of the greatest importance to tell us, itseems. They want us all to hear, and they are in a hurry. The treatmentisn't at all annoying. Try it. The man on the extreme right, as we facethem, is Zezdon Fentes of Thought, Zezdon apparently meaning somethinglike professor, or 'First Student of.' Those next him are Zezdon Afthenof Physics and Zezdon Inthel of Chemistry."
Zezdon Afthen offered them the headsets, and in a moment everyonepresent was wearing one. The process of putting them _en rapport_ tookvery little time, and shortly all were able to communicate with ease.
"Friends of Earth, we must tell our strange story quickly for thebenefit of your world as well as ours, and others, too. We cannot somuch as annoy. We are helpless to combat them.
"Our world lies far out across the galaxy; even with incalculablevelocity of the great swift thing that bore us, three long months havewe traveled toward your distant worlds, hoping that at last the Invadersmight meet their masters.
"We landed on this roof because we examined mentally the knowledge of apilot of one of your patrol ships. His mind told us that here we wouldfind the three greatest students of Science of this Solar System. So itwas here we came for help.
"Our race has arisen," he continued, "as you have so surely determinedfrom the race you call canines. It was artificially produced by theAncient Masters when their hour of need had come. We have lost the greatscience of the Ancient Ones. But we have developed a different science,a science of the mind."
"Dogs are far more psychic than are men. They would naturally tend todevelop such a civilization," said Arcot judiciously.
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