‘In that, youngster, you were entirely wrong,’ said Orlon, stopping the reproduction for a moment. ‘The entire planet was listening to you very attentively – we were enjoying it as no music has been enjoyed for thousands of years.’
‘The whole planet!’ gasped Margaret. ‘Were you broadcasting it? How could you?’
‘Easy,’ grinned Seaton. ‘They can do practically anything.’
‘When you have time, in some period of labor, we would appreciate it very much if you four would sing for us again, would give us more of your vast store of youthful music, for we can now preserve it exactly as it is sung. But much as we enjoyed the quartette, Mrs Seaton, it was your work upon the violin that took us by storm. Beginning with tomorrow, my companion intends to have you spend as many periods as you will, playing for our records. We shall now have your music’
‘If you like it so well, wouldn’t you rather I’d play you something I hadn’t played before?’
‘That is labor. We could not …’
‘Piffle!’ Dorothy interrupted. ‘Don’t you see that I could really play right now, to somebody who really enjoys music; whereas if I tried to play in front of a recorder I’d be perfectly mechanical?’
‘’At-a-girl, Dot! I’ll get your fiddle.’
‘Keep your seat, son,’ instructed Orlon, as the case containing the Stradivarius appeared before Dorothy, borne by a pencil of force. ‘While that temperament is incomprehensible to one of us, it is undoubtedly true that the artistic mind does operate in that manner. We listen.’
Dorothy swept into ‘The Melody in F’, and as the poignantly beautiful strains poured forth from that wonderful violin she knew that she had her audience with her. Though so intellectual that they themselves were incapable of producing music of real depth of feeling, they could understand and could enjoy such music with an appreciation impossible to a people of lesser mental attainments; and their profound enjoyment of her playing, burned into her mind by the telepathic, almost hypnotic power of the Norlaminian mentality, raised her to heights she had never before attained. Playing as one inspired she went through one tremendous solo after another – holding her listeners spellbound, urged on by their intense feeling to carry them further and ever further into the realm of pure emotional harmony. The bell which ordinarily signaled the end of the period of relaxation did not sound; for the first time in thousands of years the planet of Norlamin deserted its rigid schedule of life – to listen to one Earthwoman, pouring out her very soul upon her incomparable violin.
The final note of ‘Memories’ died away in a diminuendo wail, and the musician almost collapsed into Seaton’s arms. The profound silence, more impressive far than any possible applause, was broken by Dorothy.
‘There – I’m all right now, Dick. I was about out of control for a minute. I wish they could have had that on a recorder – I’ll never be able to play like that again if I live to be a thousand years old.’
‘It is on record, daughter. Every note and every inflection is preserved, precisely as you played it,’ Orlon assured her. ‘That is our only excuse for allowing you to continue as you did, almost to the point of exhaustion. While we cannot really understand an artistic mind of the peculiar type to which yours belongs, yet we realized that each time you play you are doing something no one, not even yourself, can ever do again in precisely the same subtle fashion. Therefore we allowed, in fact encouraged, you to go on as long as that creative impulse should endure – not merely for our own pleasure in hearing it, great though that pleasure was; but in the hope that our workers in music could, by a careful analysis of your product, determine quantitatively the exact vibrations or overtones which make the difference between emotional and intellectual music.’
11
Into a Sun
As Rovol and Seaton approached the physics laboratory at the beginning of the period of labor, another small airboat occupied by one man drew up beside them and followed them to the ground. The stranger, another white-bearded ancient, greeted Rovol cordially and was introduced to Seaton as ‘Caslor, the First of Mechanism.’
‘Truly, this is a high point in the course of Norlaminian science, my young friend,’ Caslor acknowledged the introduction smilingly. ‘You have enabled us to put into practice many things which our ancestors studied in theory for many a wearisome cycle of time.’ Turning to Rovol he went on: ‘I understand that you require a particularly precise directional mechanism? I know well that it must indeed be one of exceeding precision and delicacy, for the controls you yourself have built are able to hold upon any point, however moving, within the limits of our solar system.’
‘We require controls a million times as delicate as any I have constructed, therefore, I have called your surpassing skill into cooperation. It is senseless for me to attempt a task in which I would be doomed to failure. We intend to send out a fifth-order projection, which, with its inconceivable velocity of propagation, will enable us to explore any region in the galaxy as quickly as we now visit our closest sister planet. Knowing the dimensions of this our galaxy, you can readily understand the exact degree of precision required to hold upon a point at its outermost edge.’
‘Truly, a problem worthy of any man’s brain,’ Caslor replied after a moment’s thought. ‘Those small circles,’ pointing to the forty-foot hour and declination circles which Seaton had thought the ultimate in precise measurement of angular magnitudes, ‘are of course useless. I shall have to construct large and accurate circles, and in order to produce the slow and fast motions of the required nature, without creep, slip, play, or backlash, I shall require a pure torque, capable of being increased by infinitesimal increments … Pure torque.’
He thought deeply for a time, then went on: ‘No gear-train or chain mechanism can be built of sufficient tightness, since in any mechanism there is some freedom of motion, however slight, and for this purpose the drivers must have no freedom of motion whatever. We must have a pure torque – and the only possible force answering our requirements is band number fourteen hundred sixty-seven of the fourth order. I shall therefore be compelled to develop that band, which, having Rovolon, I can now do. The director must, of course, have a full equatorial mounting, with circles some two hundred fifty feet in diameter. Must your projector tube be longer than that, for correct design?’
‘That length will be ample.’
‘The mounting must be capable of rotation through the full circle of arc in either plane, and must be driven in precisely the motion required to neutralize the motion of our planet, which, as you know, is somewhat irregular. Additional fast and slow motions must of course be provided to rotate the mechanism upon each graduated circle at the will of the operator. It is my idea to make the outer supporting tube quite large, so that you will have full freedom with your inner, or projector tube proper. It seems to me that dimensions X37 B42 J867 would perhaps be as good as any.’
‘Perfectly satisfactory. You have the apparatus well in mind.’
‘These things will consume some time. How soon will you require this mechanism?’
‘We also have much to do. Two periods of labor, let us say; or, if you require them, three.’
‘It is well. Two periods will be ample time: I was afraid that you might need it today, and the work cannot be accomplished in one period of labor. The mounting will, of course, be prepared in the Area of Experiment. Farewell.’
‘You aren’t going to build the final projector here, then?’ Seaton asked as Caslor’s flier disappeared.
‘We shall build it here, then transport it to the Area, where its dirigible housing will be ready to receive it. All mechanisms of that type are set up there. Not only is the location convenient to all interested, but there are to be found all necessary tools, equipment, and material. Also, and not least important for such long-range work as we contemplate, the entire Area of Experiment is anchored immovably to the solid crust of the planet, so that there can be not even the slightest vibration to affect the direction
of our beams of force, which must of course be very long.’
He closed the master switches of his power-plants and the two resumed work where they had left off. The control panel was soon finished. Rovol then plated an immense cylinder of copper and placed it in the power plant. He next set up an entirely new system of refractory relief-points and installed additional ground-rods, sealed through the floor and extending deep into the ground below, explaining as he worked.
‘You see, son, we must lose one-thousandth of one percent of our total energy, and provision must be made for its dissipation in order to avoid destruction of the laboratory. These air-gap resistances are the simplest means of disposing of the wasted power.’
‘I understand – but how about disposing of it when we are out in space? We picked up pretty heavy charges in the Skylark – so heavy that I had to hold up several times in the ionized layer of an atmosphere somewhere while they leaked off – and this kind of apparatus will burn up tons of copper where ours used ounces.’
‘In the projected space-vessel we shall install converters to utilize all the energy, so that there will be no loss whatever. Since such converters must be designed and built especially for each installation, and since they require a high degree of precision, it is not worthwhile to construct them for a purely temporary mechanism, such as this one.’
The walls of the laboratory were opened, ventilating blowers were built, and refrigerating coils were set up everywhere, even in the tubular structure and behind the visiplates. After assuring themselves that everything combustible had been removed the two scientists put on, under their helmets, goggles whose protecting lenses could be built up to any desired thickness. Rovol then threw a switch, and a hemisphere of flaming golden radiance surrounded the laboratory and extended for miles upon all sides.
‘Why such a light?’ asked Seaton.
‘As a warning. This entire area will be filled with dangerous radiations, and that light is a warning for all uninsulated persons to give our theater of operations a wide berth.’
‘I see. What next?’
‘All that remains to be done is to take our lens-material and go,’ replied Rovol, as he took from a cupboard the largest faidon that Seaton had ever seen.
‘Oh, that’s what you’re going to use! You know, I’ve been wondering about that stuff. I took one back with me to the Earth to experiment on. I gave it everything I could think of, and couldn’t touch it. I couldn’t even make it change its temperature. What is it, anyway?’
‘It is not matter at all, in the ordinary sense of the word. It is almost pure crystallized energy. You have of course noticed that it looks transparent, but that it is not. You cannot see into its substance a millionth of a micron – the illusion of transparency being purely a surface phenomenon, and peculiar to this one form of substance. I have told you that the ether is a fourth-order substance. The faidon also is a fourth-order substance, but it is crystalline, whereas the ether is probably fluid and amorphous. You might call this faidon crystallized ether without being too wrong.’
‘But it should weigh tons, and it is hardly heavier than air – or no, wait a minute. Gravitation is also a fourth-order phenomenon, so it might not weigh anything at all – but it would have terrific mass – or would it, not having protons? Crystallized ether would displace fluid ether, so it might – I’ll give up! It’s too deep for me!’
‘Its theory is abstruse, and I cannot explain it to you any more fully than I have until after we have given you at least a working knowledge of the fourth and fifth orders. Pure fourth-order material would be without weight and without mass; but these crystals as they are found are not absolutely pure. In crystallizing from the magma they entrapped sufficient numbers of particles of other orders to give them the characteristics which you have observed. The impurities, however, are not sufficient in quantity to offer any point of attack to ordinary reagents.’
‘But how could such material possibly be formed?’
‘It can be formed only in some such gigantic cosmic body as this, our green system, formed incalculable ages ago, when all the mass comprising it existed as one colossal sun. Picture for yourself the condition in the center of that sun. It has attained the theoretical maximum of temperature – some seventy million of your Centigrade degrees – the electrons have been stripped from the protons until the entire central core is one solid ball of neutronium and can be compressed no more without destruction of the protons themselves. Still the pressure increases. The temperature, already at the theoretical maximum, can no longer increase. What happens?’
‘Disruption.’
‘Precisely. And just at the instant of disruption, during the very instant of generation of the frightful forces that are to hurl suns, planets, and satellites millions of miles out into space – in that instant of time, as a result of those unimaginable temperatures and pressures, the faidon comes into being. It can be formed only by the absolute maximum of temperature and at a pressure which can exist only momentarily, even in the largest conceivable masses.’
‘Then how can you make a lens of it? It must be impossible to work it in any way.’
‘It cannot be worked in any ordinary way, but we shall take this crystal into the depths of that white dwarf star, into a region in which obtain pressures and temperatures only less than those giving it birth. There we shall play upon it forces which, under those conditions, will be able to work it quite readily.’
‘Hm … m … m. That I want to see. Let’s go!’
They seated themselves at the panels, and Rovol began to manipulate keys, levers, and dials. Instantly a complex structure of visible force – rods, beams, and flat areas of flaming scarlet energy – appeared at the end of the tubular, telescope-like network.
‘Why red?’
‘Merely to render them visible. One cannot work well with invisible tools, hence I have imposed a colored light frequency upon the invisible frequencies of the forces. We will have an assortment of colors if you prefer,’ and as he spoke each force assumed a different color, so that the end of the projector was almost lost beneath a riot of color.
The structure of force, which Seaton knew was the secondary projector, swung around as if sentient. A green beam extended itself, picked up the faidon, and lengthened out, hurling the jewel a thousand yards out through the open side of the laboratory. Rovol moved more controls and the structure again righted itself, swinging back into perfect alignment with the tube and carrying the faidon upon its extremity, a thousand yards beyond the roof of the laboratory.
‘We are now ready to start our projections. Be sure your suit and goggles are perfectly tight. We must see what we are doing, so the light-rays must be heterodyned upon our carrier wave. Therefore the laboratory and all its neighborhood will be flooded with dangerous frequencies from the sun we are to visit, as well as with those from our own generators.’
‘O.K., chief! All tight here. You say it’s ten light-years to that star. How long’s it going to take us to get there?’
‘About ten minutes. We could travel that far in less than ten seconds but for the fact that we must take the faidon with us. Slight as is its mass, it will require much energy in its acceleration. Our projections, of course, have no mass, and will require only the energy of propagation.’
Rovol flicked a finger, a massive pair of plunger switches shot into their sockets, and Seaton, seated at his board and staring into his visiplate, was astounded to find that he apparently possessed a dual personality. He knew that he was seated motionless in the operator’s chair in the base of the rigidly-anchored primary projector, and by taking his eyes away from the visiplate before him he could see that nothing in the laboratory had changed, except that the pyrotechnic display from the power-bar was of unusual intensity. Yet, looking into the visiplate, he was out in space in person, hurtling through space at a pace beside which the best effort of the Skylark seemed the veriest crawl. Swinging his controls to look backward, he gasped as he saw, so stupendous wa
s their velocity, that the green system was only barely discernible as a faint green star!
Again looking forward, it seemed as though a fierce white star had become separated from the immovable firmament and was now so close to the structure of force in which he was riding that it was already showing a disk perceptible to the unaided eye. A few moments more and the violet-white splendor became so intense that the watchers began to build up, layer by layer, the protective goggles before their eyes. As they approached still closer, falling with their unthinkable velocity into that incandescent inferno, a sight was revealed to their eyes such as man had never before been privileged to gaze upon. They were falling into a white dwarf star, could see everything visible during such an unheard-of journey, and would live to remember what they had seen! They saw the magnificent spectacle of solar prominences shooting hundreds of thousands of miles into space, and directly in their path they saw an immense sun-spot, a combined volcanic eruption and cyclonic storm in a gaseous-liquid medium of blinding incandescence.
‘Better dodge that spot, hadn’t we, Rovol? Mightn’t it be generating interfering fourth-order frequencies?’
‘It is undoubtedly generating fourth-order rays, but nothing can interfere with us, since we are controlling every component of our beam from Norlamin.’
Seaton gripped his hand-rail violently and involuntarily drew himself together into the smallest possible compass as, with their awful speed unchecked, they plunged through that flaming, incandescent photosphere and on, straight down, into the unexplored, unimaginable interior of that frightful mass. Through the protecting, golden, shielding metal, Seaton could see the structure of force in which he was, and could also see the faidon – in outline, as transparent diamonds are visible in equally transparent water. Their apparent motion slowed rapidly and the material about them thickened and became more and more opaque. The faidon drew back toward them until it was actually touching the projector, and eddy currents and striae became visible in the mass about them as their progress grew slower and slower.
E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne Page 38