E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne

by E. E. 'Doc' Smith

  ‘That might be better, at that,’ and Seaton went to the door to welcome the guests. Seaton instructed them to lie flat, and put on all the acceleration they could bear. It was not long until they were back in Kondal, where Roban, the karfedix, and Taman, the karbix, accepted Seaton’s invitation and entered the Skylark, unarmed. Back out in space, the vessel stationary, Seaton introduced the emperors and commanders-in-chief to each other – introductions which were acknowledged almost imperceptibly. He then gave each a headset, and ran the complete record of the Fenachrone brain.

  ‘Stop!’ shouted Roban, after only a moment. ‘Would you, the Overlord of Osnome, reveal such secrets as this to the archenemies of Osnome?’

  ‘I would. I have taken over the Overlordship of the entire green system for the duration of this emergency, and I do not want two of its planets engaged in civil war.’

  The record finished, Seaton tried for some time to bring the four green warriors to his way of thinking, but in vain. Roban and Tarnan remained contemptuous. They would have thrown themselves upon him but for the knowledge that no fifty unarmed men of the green race could have overcome his strength, to them supernatural. The two Urvanians were equally obdurate. This soft Earthbeing had given them everything, they had given him nothing and would give him nothing. Finally Seaton rose to his full height and stared at them in turn, wrath and determination blazing in his eyes.

  ‘I have brought you four together, here in a neutral vessel in neutral space, to bring about peace between you. I have shown you the benefits to be derived from the peaceful pursuit of science, knowledge, and power, instead of continuing this utter economic waste of continual war. You close your senses to reason. You of Osnome accuse me of being an ingrate and a traitor; you of Urvania consider me a soft-headed, sentimental weakling who may safely be disregarded – all because I think the welfare of the numberless peoples of the universe more important than your narrow-minded, stubborn, selfish vanity. Think what you please. If brute force is your only logic, know now that I can, and will, use brute force. Here are the seven disks,’ and he placed the bracelet upon Roban’s knee.

  ‘If you four leaders are short-sighted enough to place your petty enmity before the good of all civilization I am done forever with Overlordship and with friendship. I have deliberately given you Urvanians precisely the same information that I have given the Osnomians – no more and no less. I have given neither of you all that I know, and I shall know much more than I do now before the time of the conquest shall have arrived. Unless you four men, here and now, renounce this war and agree to a perpetual peace between your worlds, I shall leave you to your mutual destruction. You do not yet realize the power of the weapons I have given you: when you do realize it you will know that mutual destruction is inevitable if you continue this internecine war. I shall continue upon other worlds my search for the one secret standing between me and a complete mastery of power. That I shall find that secret I am confident; and, having found it, I shall without your aid destroy the Fenachrone.

  ‘You have several times remarked with sneers that you are not to be swayed by empty threats. What I am about to say is no empty threat – it is a most solemn promise, given by one who has both the will and the power to fulfill his every given word. Now listen carefully to this, my final utterance. If you continue this warfare and if the victor should not be utterly destroyed in its course, I swear as I stand here, by the great First Cause, that I shall myself wipe out every trace of the surviving nation as soon as the Fenachrone shall have been obliterated. Work with each other and with me and we all will, in all probability, continue to live – fight on and both your nations, to the last person, will most certainly die. Decide now which it is to be. I am done talking.’

  Roban took up the bracelet and clasped it again about Seaton’s arm, saying, ‘You are more than ever our Overlord. You are wiser than we are, and stronger. Issue your commands and they shall be obeyed.’

  ‘Why did not you say those things first, Overlord?’ asked the Urvanian emperor, as he saluted and smiled. ‘We could not in honor submit to a weakling, no matter what the fate in store. Having convinced us of your strength, there can be no disgrace in fighting beneath your screens. An armlet of seven symbols shall be cast and ready for you when you next visit us. Roban of Osnome, you are my brother.’

  The two emperors saluted each other and stared eye to eye for a long moment, and Seaton knew that the perpetual peace had been signed. Then all four spoke, in unison:

  ‘Overlord, we await your commands.’

  ‘Dunark of Osnome is already informed as to what Osnome is to do. Say to him that it will not be necessary for him to build the vessel for me; the Urvanians will do that. Urvan of Urvania, you will accompany Roban to Osnome, where you two will order instant cessation of hostilities. Osnome has many ships of this type, and upon some of them you will return your every soldier and engine of war to your own planet. As soon as possible you will build for me a vessel like that of the Fenachrone, except that it shall be ten times as large, in every dimension, and except that every instrument, control, and weapon is to be left out.’

  ‘Left out? It shall be so built – but of what use will it be?’

  ‘The empty spaces shall be filled after I have returned from my quest. You will build this vessel of dagal. You will also instruct the Osnomian commander in the manufacture of that metal, which is considerably more resistant than their arenak.’

  ‘But, Overlord, we have—’

  ‘I have just brought immense stores of the precious chemical and of the metal of power to Osnome. They will share with you. I also advise you to build for yourselves many ships like those of the Fenachrone, with which to do battle with the invaders in case I should fail in my quest. You will, of course, see to it that there will be a corps of your most efficient mechanics and artisans within call at all times in case I should return and have sudden need for them.’

  ‘All these things shall be done.’

  The conference ended, the four nobles were quickly landed upon Osnome and once more the Skylark traveled out into her element, the total vacuum and absolute zero of the outer void.

  ‘You certainly sounded savage, Dick. I almost thought you really meant it!’ Dorothy chuckled.

  ‘I did mean it, Dot. Those fellows are mighty keen on detecting bluffs. If I hadn’t meant it, and if they hadn’t known that I meant it, I’d never have got away with it.’

  ‘But you couldn’t have meant it, Dick! You wouldn’t have destroyed the Osnomians, surely – you know you wouldn’t.’

  ‘No, but I would have destroyed what was left of the Urvanians, and all five of us knew exactly how it would have turned out and exactly what I would have done about it – that’s why they pulled in their horns.’

  ‘I don’t know what would have happened,’ interjected Margaret. ‘What would have?’

  ‘With this new stuff the Urvanians would have wiped the Osnomians out. They are an older race, and so much better in science and mechanics that the Osnomians wouldn’t have stood much chance, and knew it. Incidentally, that’s why I’m having them build our new ship. They’ll put a lot of stuff into it that Dunark’s men would miss – maybe some stuff that even the Fenachrone haven’t got. However, though it might seem that the Urvanians had all the best of it, Urvan knew that I had something up my sleeve besides my bare arm – and he knew that I’d clean up what there was left of his race if they polished off the Osnomians.’

  ‘What a frightful chance you were taking, Dick!’ gasped Dorothy.

  ‘You have to be hard to handle those folks – and believe me, I was a forty-minute egg right then. They have such a peculiar mental and moral slant that we can hardly understand them at all. This idea of cooperation is so new to them that it actually dazed all four men, ever to consider it.’

  ‘Do you suppose they will fight, anyway?’ asked Crane.

  ‘Absolutely not. Both nations have an inflexible code of honor, such as it is, and lying is against
both codes. That’s one thing I like about them – I’m sorta honest myself, and with either of these races, you need nothing signed or guaranteed.’

  ‘What next, Dick?’

  ‘Now the real trouble starts. Mart, did you devote the imponderable force of the massive intellect to that problem – and have you got the answer?’

  ‘What problem?’ asked Dorothy. ‘You didn’t tell us anything about a problem.’

  ‘No, I told Mart. I want the best physicist in this entire solar system – and since there are only one hundred and twenty-five planets around these seventeen suns, it should be simple to yon phenomenal brain. In fact, I expect to hear him say, “Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary!”’

  ‘Hardly that, Dick, but I have found out a few things. There are some eighty planets which are probably habitable for beings like us. Other things being equal, it seems reasonable to assume that the older the sun, the longer its planets have been habitable, and therefore the older and more intelligent the life …’

  ‘“Ha! ha! It was elementary,” says Sherlock,’ Seaton interrupted. ‘You’re heading directly at that largest, oldest, and most intelligent planet, then, I take it, where I can catch me a physicist?’

  ‘Not directly at it, no. I am heading for the place where it will be when we arrive there. That is elementary, my dear Watson.’

  ‘Ouch! That got to me, Mart, right where I live. I’ll be good.’

  ‘But you are getting ahead of me, Dick – it is not as simple as you have assumed from what I have said so far. The Osnomian astronomers have done wonders in the short time they have had, but their data, particularly on the planets of the outer suns, is as yet necessarily very incomplete. Since the furthermost outer sun is probably the oldest, it is the one in which we are most interested. It has seven planets, four of which are probably habitable, as far as temperature and atmosphere are concerned. However, nothing exact is yet known of their masses, motions, or places. Therefore I have laid our course to intercept the closest one to us, as nearly as I can from what meager data we have. If it should prove to be inhabited by intelligent beings, they can probably give us more exact information concerning their neighboring planets. That is the best I can do.’

  ‘That’s a darn fine best, old top – narrowing down to four from a hundred and twenty-five. Well, until we get there, what to do? Let’s sing us a song, to keep our fearless quartette in good voice.’

  ‘Before you do anything,’ said Margaret seriously, ‘I would like to know if you really think there is a chance of defeating those monsters.’

  ‘In all seriousness, I do. In fact, I am quite confident of it. If we had two years I know that we could lick them cold; and by shoveling on the coal I believe we can get the dope in less than the six months we have to work in.’

  ‘I know that you are serious, Dick. Now you know that I do not want to discourage anyone, but I can see small basis for optimism.’ Crane spoke slowly and thoughtfully. ‘I hope that you will be able to control the zone of force – but you are not studying it yourself. You seem to be certain that somewhere in this system there is a race who already knows all about it. I too would like to know your reasons for thinking that such a race exists.’

  ‘They may not be upon this system; they may have been outsiders, as we are – but I have reasons for believing them natives of this system, since they were green. You are as familiar with Osnomian mythology as I am – you girls in particular have read Osnomian legends to Osnomian children for hours. Also identically the same legends prevail upon Urvania. I read them in that lieutenant’s brain – in fact, I looked for them. You also know that every folk-legend has some basis, however tenuous, in fact. Now, Dottie, tell teacher about the battle of the gods, when Osnome was a pup.’

  ‘The gods came down from the sky,’ Dorothy recited. ‘They were green, as were men. They wore invisible armor of polished metal, which appeared and disappeared. They stayed inside the armor and fought outside it with swords and lances of fire. Men who fought against them cut them through and through with swords, and they struck the men with lances of flame so that they were stunned. So the gods fought in days long gone and vanished in their invisible armor, and …’

  ‘That’s enough,’ interrupted Seaton. ‘The little red-haired girl has her lesson perfectly. Get it, Mart?’

  ‘No, I cannot say that I do.’

  ‘Why, it doesn’t even make sense!’ exclaimed Margaret.

  ‘All right, I’ll elucidate. Listen!’ Seaton’s voice grew tense with earnestness. ‘Visitors came down out of space. They were green, as were men. They wore zones of force, which they flashed on and off. They stayed inside the zones and projected their images outside, and used weapons through the zones. Men who fought against the images cut them through and through with swords, but could not harm them since they were not actual substance; and the images directed forces against the men so that they were stunned. So the visitors fought in days long gone, and vanished in their zones of force. How does that sound?’

  ‘You have the most stupendous imagination the world has ever seen – but there may be some slight basis of fact there, after all,’ Crane said, slowly.

  ‘I’m convinced of it, for one reason in particular. Notice that it says specifically that the visitors stunned the natives. Now that thought is absolutely foreign to all Osnomian nature – when they strike they kill, and always have. Now if that myth has come down through so many generations without having that “stunned” changed to “killed”, I’m willing to bet a few weeks of time that the rest of it came down fairly straight, too. Of course, what they had may not have been the zone of force as we know it, but it must have been a pure force of some kind – and believe me, that was one educated and talented force. Somebody certainly had something, even way back in those days. And if they had anything at all back there, they must know a lot by now. That’s why I want to look ’em up. As for working on this problem myself – I know just enough to realize exactly how hopeless it would be for me to try to do anything with it in six months. If a dozen of the best physicists on Earth were working on it and had twenty years, I’d say go ahead – as it is we’ve got to locate that race that knows all about it already.’

  ‘But suppose they want to kill us off at sight?’ objected Dorothy. ‘They might be able to do it, mightn’t they?’

  ‘Sure, but they probably wouldn’t want to – any more than you would step on an ant who asked you to help him move a twig. That’s about how much ahead of us they probably are. Of course, we struck a pure mentality once who came darn near dematerializing us entirely, but I’m betting that these folks haven’t got that far along yet. By the way, I’ve got a hunch about those pure intellectuals.’

  ‘Oh, tell us about it!’ laughed Margaret. ‘Your hunches are the world’s greatest brainstorms!’

  ‘Well, I pumped out and re-jeweled the compass we put on that funny planet – as a last resort, I thought we might maybe visit them and ask that bozo we had the argument with to help us out. I thought maybe he – or it – would show us everything about the zone of force we want to know. I don’t think that we’d be dematerialized, either, because the situation would give him something more to think about for another thousand cycles; and thinking seemed to be his main object in life. However, to get back to the subject, I found that even with the new power of the compass the entire planet was still out of reach. Unless they’ve dematerialized it, that means about ten billion light-years as an absolute minimum. Think about that for a minute! … I’ve got a kind of a hunch that maybe they don’t belong in this galaxy at all – that they might be from some other galaxy, planet and all; just riding around on it like we are riding in the Skylark. Is the idea conceivable to a sane mind, or not?’

  ‘Not!’ decided Dorothy, promptly. ‘We’ d better go to bed. One more such idea, in progression with the last two you’ve had, would certainly give you a compound fracture of the skull. ’Night, Cranes – sweet dreams!’

  7

/>   DuQuesne’s Voyage

  Far from our solar system a cigar-shaped space-cruiser slackened its terrific acceleration to a point at which human beings could walk and two men got up, exercised vigorously to restore the circulation to their numbed bodies, and went into the galley to prepare their first meal since leaving the Earth some eight hours before.

  Because of the long and arduous journey he had decided upon, DuQuesne had had to abandon his custom of working alone, and had studied all the available men with great care before selecting his companion and relief pilot. He finally had chosen ‘Baby Doll’ Loring – so called because of his curly yellow hair, his pink and white complexion, his guileless blue eyes, his slight form of rather less than medium height. But never did outward attributes more belie the inner man! The yellow curls covered a brain agile, keen, and hard; the girlish complexion neither paled nor reddened under stress; the wide blue eyes had glanced along the barrels of so many lethal weapons that in various localities the noose yawned for him; the slender body was built of rawhide and whalebone and responded instantly to the dictates of that ruthless brain. Under the protection of Steel he flourished, and in return for that protection he performed quietly, and with neatness and despatch, such odd jobs as were in his line.

  When they were seated at an excellent breakfast of ham and eggs, buttered toast, and strong, aromatic coffee, DuQuesne broke the long silence.

  ‘Do you want to know where we are?’

  ‘I’d say we were a long ways from home, by the way this elevator of yours has been climbing all night.’

  ‘We are a good many millions of miles from the Earth, and we are getting farther away at a rate that would have to be measured in millions of miles per second.’ DuQuesne, watching the other narrowly as he made this startling announcement and remembering the effect of a similar one upon Perkins, saw with approval that the coffee cup in mid-air did not pause or waver in its course. Loring noted the bouquet of his beverage and took an appreciative sip before he replied.