Crane walked over to the educator in silence. He examined it, felt the changed coils and transformers, and gently shook the new insulating base of the great power-tube. Still in silence he turned his back, walked around the instrument board, read the meters, then went back and again inspected the educator.
‘It was real, and not a higher development of hypnotism, as I thought at first that it must be,’ he reported seriously. ‘Hypnotism, if sufficiently advanced, might have affected us in that fashion, even to teaching us all a strange language, but by no possibility could it have had such an effect upon copper, steel, bakelite, and glass. It was certainly real, and while I cannot begin to understand it, I will say that your imagination has certainly vindicated itself. A race who can do such things as that can do almost anything. You have been right, from the start.’
‘Then you can beat those horrible Fenachrone, after all!’ cried Dorothy, and threw herself into her husband’s arms.
‘Do you remember, Dick, that I hailed you once as Columbus at San Salvador?’ asked Margaret unsteadily from Crane’s encircling arms. ‘What could a man be called who from the sheer depths of his imagination called forth the means of saving from destruction all the civilizations of millions of entire worlds?’
‘Don’t talk that way, please, folks,’ Seaton was plainly uncomfortable. He blushed, the burning red tide rising in waves up to his hair as he wriggled in embarrassment, like any schoolboy. ‘Mart’s done most of it, anyway, you know; and even at that, we aren’t out of the woods yet, by forty-seven rows of apple trees.’
‘You will admit, will you not, that we can see our way out of the woods, at least, and that you yourself feel rather relieved?’ asked Crane.
‘I’ll say I’m relieved! We ought to be able to take ’em, with the Norlaminians backing us. If they haven’t already got the stuff we need, they will know how to make it – even if that zone actually is impenetrable, I’ll bet they’ll be able to work out some solution. Relieved? That don’t half tell it, guy – I feel like I’d just pitched off the Old Man of the Sea who’s been riding on my neck! What say you girls get your fiddle and guitar and we’ll sing us a little song? I feel good – they had me worried – it’s the first time I’ve felt like singing since we cut that warship up.’
Dorothy brought out her ‘fiddle’ – the magnificent Stradivarius, formerly Crane’s, which he had given her – Margaret her guitar, and they sang one rollicking number after another. Though by no means a Metropolitan Opera quartette, their voices were all better than mediocre, and they had sung together so much that they harmonized readily.
‘Why don’t you play us some real music, Dottie?’ asked Margaret, after a time. ‘You haven’t practiced for ages.’
‘Right. This quartette of ours ain’t so hot,’ agreed Seaton. ‘If we had any audience except Shiro, they’d probably be throwing eggs by this time.’
‘I haven’t felt like playing lately, but I do now,’ and Dorothy stood up and swept the bow over the strings. Doctor of music in violin, an accomplished musician, playing upon one of the finest instruments the world has ever known, she was lifted out of herself by relief from the dread of the Fenachrone invasion and that splendid violin expressed every subtle nuance of her thought.
She played rhapsodies and paeans, and solos by the great masters. She played vivacious dances, then ‘Traumerei’ and ‘Liebestraum’. At last she swept into the immortal ‘Meditation’, and as the last note died away Seaton held out his arms.
‘You’re a blinding flash and a deafening report, Dottie Dimple, and I love you,’ he declared – and his eyes and his arms spoke volumes that his light utterance had left unsaid.
Norlamin close enough so that its images almost filled number six visiplate, the four wanderers studied it with interest. Partially obscured by clouds and with polar regions two glaring caps of snow – they would be green in a few months, when the planet would swing inside the orbit of its sun around that vast central luminary of that complex solar system – it made a magnificent picture. They saw sparkling blue oceans and huge green continents of unfamiliar outlines. So terrific was the velocity of the space-cruiser that the image grew larger as they watched it, and soon the field of vision could not contain the image of the whole disk.
‘Well, I expect Orlon’ll be showing up pretty quick now,’ remarked Seaton; and it was not long until the projection appeared in the air of the control room.
‘Hail, Terrestrials!’ he greeted them. ‘With your permission, I shall direct your flight.’
Permission granted, the figure floated across the room to the board and the rays of force centered the visiplate, changed the direction of the bar a trifle, decreased slightly their negative acceleration, and directed a stream of force upon the steering mechanism.
‘We shall alight upon the grounds of my observatory upon Norlamin in seven thousand four hundred twenty-eight seconds,’ he announced presently. ‘The observatory will be upon the dark side of Norlamin when we arrive, but I have a force operating upon the steering mechanism which will guide the vessel along the required curved path. I shall remain with you until we land, and we may converse upon any topic of interest to you.’
‘We came in search of you specifically to discuss a matter in which you will be as much interested as we are. But it would take too long to tell you about it – I’ll show you.’
He brought out the magnetic brain record, threaded it into the machine and handed the astronomer a headset. Orlon put it on, touched the lever, and for an hour there was unbroken silence. There was no pause in the motion of the magnetic tape, no repetition – Orlon’s brain absorbed the information as fast as it could be sent, and understood that frightful recording in every particular.
As the end of the tape was reached a shadow passed over Orlon’s face.
‘Truly a depraved evolution – it is sad to contemplate such a perversion of a really excellent brain. They have power, even as you have, and they have the will to destroy, which is a thing that I cannot understand. However, if it is graven upon the Sphere that we are to pass, it means only that upon the next plane we shall continue our searches – let us hope with better tools and with greater understanding than we now possess.’
‘’Smatter?’ snapped Seaton savagely. ‘Going to take it lying down, without putting up any fight at all?’
‘What can we do? Violence is contrary to our very natures. No man of Norlamin could offer any but passive resistance.’
‘You can do a lot if you will. Put on that headset again and get my plan, offering any suggestions your far abler mind may suggest.’
As the human scientist poured his plan of battle into the brain of the astronomer, Orlon’s face cleared.
‘It is graven upon the Sphere that the Fenachrone shall pass,’ he said finally. ‘What you ask of us we can do. I have only a general knowledge of rays, as they are not in the province of the Orlon family; but the student Rovol, of the family Rovol of Rays, has all present knowledge of such phenomena. Tomorrow I will bring you together, and I have little doubt that he will be able, with the help of your metal of power, to solve your problem.’
‘I don’t quite understand what you said about a whole family studying one subject, and yet having only one student in it,’ said Dorothy, in perplexity.
‘A little explanation is perhaps necessary. First, you must know that every man of Norlamin is a student, and most of us are students of science. With us, “labor” means mental effort, that is, study. We perform no physical or manual labor save for exercise, as all our mechanical work is done by forces. This state of things having endured for many thousands of years it long ago became evident that specialization was necessary in order to avoid duplication of effort and to insure complete coverage of the field. Soon afterward, it was discovered that very little progress was being made in any branch, because so much was known that it took a lifetime to review that which had already been accomplished, even in a narrow and highly-specialized field. Many points w
ere studied for years before it was discovered that the identical work had been done before, and either forgotten or overlooked. To remedy this condition the mechanical educator had to be developed. Once it was perfected a new system was begun. One man was assigned to each small subdivision of scientific endeavor, to study it intensively. When he became old each man chose a successor – usually a son – and transferred his own knowledge to the younger student. He also made a complete record of his own brain, in much the same way as you have recorded the brain of the Fenachrone upon your metallic tape. These records are all stored in a great central library, as permanent references.
‘All these things being true, now a young person need only finish an elementary education – just enough to learn to think, which takes only about twenty-five or thirty years – and he is ready to begin actual work. When that time comes he receives in one day all the knowledge of his specialty which has been accumulated by his predecessors during many thousands of years of intensive study.’
‘Whew!’ Seaton whistled. ‘No wonder you folks know something! With that start, I believe I might know something myself! As an astronomer, you may be interested in this star-chart and stuff – or do you know all about that already?’
‘No, the Fenachrone are far ahead of us in that subject, because of their observatories out in open space and because of their gigantic reflectors, which cannot be used through any atmosphere. We are further hampered in having darkness for only a few hours at a time and only in winter, when our planet is outside the orbit of our sun around the great central sun of our entire system. However, with the Rovolon you have brought us, we shall have real observatories far out in space; and for that I personally will be indebted to you more than I can ever express. As for the chart, I hope to have the pleasure of examining it while you are conferring with Rovol of Rays.’
‘How many families are working on rays – just one?’
‘One upon each kind of rays. That is, each of the ray families knows a great deal about all kinds of vibrations of the ether, but is specializing upon one narrow field. Take, for instance, the rays you are most interested in; those able to penetrate a zone of force. From my own slight and general knowledge I know that it would of necessity be a ray of the fifth order. These rays are very new – they have been under investigation only a few thousands of years – and the Rovol is the only student who would be at all well informed upon them. Shall I explain the orders of rays more fully than I did by means of the educator?’
‘Please. You assumed that we knew more than we do, so a little explanation would help.’
‘All ordinary vibrations – that is, all molecular and material ones, such as light, heat, electricity, radio, and the like – were arbitrarily called waves of the first order, in order to distinguish them from waves of the second order, which are given off by particles of the second order, which you know as protons and electrons, in their combination to form atoms. Your scientist Millikan discovered these rays for you, and in your language they are known as Millikan, or Cosmic, rays.
‘Some time later, when sub-electrons of the first and second levels were identified, the energies given off by their combinations or disruptions were called rays of the third and fourth orders. These rays are most interesting and most useful; in fact, they do all our mechanical work. They as a class are called protelectricity, and bear the same relation to ordinary electricity that electricity does to torque – both are pure energy, and they are interconvertible. Unlike electricity, however, it may be converted into many different forms by fields of force, in a way comparable to that in which white light is resolved into colors by a prism – or rather, more like the way alternating current is changed to direct current by a motor-generator set, with attendant changes in properties. There are two complete spectra, of about five hundred and fifteen hundred bands, respectively, each as different from the others as red is different from green. Thus, the power that propels your space-vessel, your attractors, your repellors, your object-compass, your zone of force – all these things are simply a few of the fifteen hundred wave-bands of the fourth order, all of which you doubtless would have worked out for yourselves in time. Since I know practically nothing of the fifth – the first sub-ethereal level – and since that order is to be your prime interest, I will leave it entirely to Rovol.’
‘If I knew a fraction of your “practically nothing” I’d think I knew a lot. But about this fifth order – is that as far as they go?’
‘My knowledge is slight and very general; only such as I must have in order to understand my own subject. The fifth order certainly is not the end – it is probably scarcely a beginning. We think now that the orders extend to infinite smallness, just as the galaxies are grouped into larger aggregations, which are probably in their turn only tiny units in a scheme infinitely large.
‘Over six thousand years ago the last fourth order rays were worked out; and certain peculiarities in their behavior led the then Rovol to suspect the existence of the fifth order. Successive generations of the Rovol proved their existence, determined the conditions of their liberation, and found that this metal of power was the only catalyst able to liberate them in usable quantity. This metal, which was called Rovolon after the Rovol, was first described upon theoretical grounds and later was found, by spectroscopy, in certain stars, notably in one star only eight light-years away; and a few micrograms have been obtained from meteorites. Enough for study, and to perform a few tests, but not enough to be of any practical use.’
‘Ah … I see. Those visits, then were real – you Norlaminians did operate through a zone of force on Osnome and Urvania.’
‘In a very small way, yes. On those planets and elsewhere, specifically to attract the attention of such visitors as you. And ever since that time the family Rovol have been perfecting the theory of the fifth order and waiting for your coming. The present Rovol, like myself and many others whose work is almost at a standstill, is waiting with all-consuming eagerness to greet you as soon as the Skylark can be landed upon our planet.’
‘Neither your rocket-ships nor projections could get you any Rovolon?’
‘Except for the minute quantities already mentioned, no. Every hundred years or so someone develops a new type of rocket that he thinks may stand a slight chance of making the journey to that Rovolon-bearing solar system, but not one of those venturesome youths has as yet returned. Either that sun has no planets or else the rocket-ships have failed. Our projections are useless, as they can be driven only a very short distance upon our present carrier wave. With a carrier of the fifth order we could drive a projection to any point in the galaxy, since its velocity would be millions of times that of light and the power necessary would be reduced accordingly – but as I said before, such waves cannot be generated without the metal Rovolon.’
‘I hate to break this up – I’d like to listen to you talk for a week – but we’re going to land pretty quick, and it looks as though we were going to land pretty hard.’
‘We will land soon, but not hard,’ replied Orlon confidently, and the landing was as he had foretold. The Skylark was falling with an ever-decreasing velocity, but so fast was the descent that it seemed to the watchers as though they must crash through the roof of the huge, brilliantly-lighted building toward which they were dropping. But they did not strike the observatory. So incredibly accurate were the calculations of the Norlaminian astronomer and so inhumanly precise were the controls he had set upon their bar that as they touched the ground after barely clearing the domed roof, the passengers felt only a sudden decrease in acceleration, like that following the coming to rest of a rapidly-moving elevator after it has completed a downward journey.
‘I shall join you in person very shortly,’ Orlon said, and the projection vanished.
‘Well, we’re here, folks, on another new world. Not quite as thrilling as the first one was, is it?’ and Seaton stepped toward the door.
‘How about the air composition, density, gravity, temperature,
and so on?’ asked Crane. ‘Perhaps we should make a few tests.’
‘Didn’t you get that on the educator? Thought you did. Gravity a little less than seven-tenths, Air composition, same as Osnome and Dasor. Pressure, halfway between Earth and Osnome. Temperature, like Osnome most of the time, but fairly comfortable in the winter. Snow now at the poles, but this observatory is only ten degrees from the equator. They don’t wear clothes enough to flag a hand-car with here, either, except when they have to. Let’s go!’
He opened the door and the four travelers stepped out upon a close-cropped lawn – a turf whose blue-green softness would shame an Oriental rug. The landscape was illuminated by a soft and mellow, yet intense green light which emanated from no visible source. As they paused and glanced about them they saw that the Skylark had alighted in the exact center of a circular enclosure a hundred yards in diameter, walled by row upon row of shrubbery, statuary, and fountains, all bathed in ever-changing billows of light. At only one point was the circle broken. There the walls did not come together, but continued on to border a lane leading up to a massive structure of cream-and-green marble, topped by its enormous, glassy dome – the observatory of Orlon.
‘Welcome to Norlamin, Terrestrials,’ the deep, calm voice of the astronomer greeted them, and Orlon in the flesh shook hands cordially in the American fashion with each of them in turn and placed around each neck a crystal chain from which depended a small Norlaminian chronometer-radiophone. Behind him there stood four other old men.
‘These men are already acquainted with each of you, but you do not as yet know them. I present Fodan, Chief of the Five of Norlamin. Rovol, about whom you know. Astron, the First of Energy. Satrazon, the First of Chemistry.’
Orlon fell in beside Seaton and the party turned toward the observatory. As they walked along the Earthpeople stared, held by the unearthly beauty of the grounds. The hedge of shrubbery, from ten to twenty feet high, and which shut out all sight of everything outside it, was one mass of vivid green and flaring crimson leaves; each leaf and twig groomed meticulously into its precise place in a fantastic geometrical scheme. Just inside this boundary there stood a ring of statues of heroic size. Some of them were single figures of men and women; some were busts; some were groups in natural or allegorical poses – all were done with consummate skill and feeling. Between the statues there were fountains, magnificent bronze and glass groups of the strange aquatic denizens of this strange planet, bathed in geometrically-shaped sprays, screens, and columns of water. Winding around between the statues and the fountains there was a moving, scintillating wall, and upon the waters and upon the wall there played torrents of color, cataracts of harmoniously-blended light. Reds, blues, yellows, greens – every color of their peculiar green spectrum and every conceivable combination of those colors writhed and flamed in ineffable splendor upon those deep and living screens of falling water and upon that shimmering wall.
E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne Page 35