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

by E. E. 'Doc' Smith

  ‘’Smatter? Something wrong?’ demanded Seaton.

  ‘Not at all, everything is working perfectly. The substance is now so dense that it is becoming opaque to rays of the fourth order, so that we are now partially displacing the medium instead of moving through it without friction. At the point where we can barely see to work; that is, when our carriers will be so retarded that they can no longer carry the heterodyned light waves without complete distortion, we shall stop automatically, as the material at that depth will have the required density to refract the fifth-order rays to the correct degree.’

  ‘How can our foundations stand it? This stuff must be a hundred times as dense as platinum already, and we must be pushing a horrible load in going through it.’

  ‘We are exerting no force whatever upon our foundations nor upon Norlamin. The force is transmitted without loss from the power-plant in our laboratory to this secondary projector here inside the star, where it is liberated in the correct band to pull us through the mass, using all the mass ahead of us as an anchorage. When we wish to return, we shall simply change the pull into a push. Ah! We are now at a standstill – now comes the most important moment of the entire project.’

  All apparent motion had ceased, and Seaton could see only dimly the outlines of the faidon, now directly before his eyes. The structure of force slowly warped around until its front portion held the faidon as in a vise. Rovol pressed a lever and behind them, in the laboratory, four enormous plunger switches drove home. A plane of pure energy, flaming radiantly even in the indescribable incandescence of the core of that seething star, bisected the faidon neatly, and ten gigantic beams, five upon each half of the jewel, rapidly molded two sections of a geometrically-perfect hollow lens. The two sections were then brought together by the closing of the jaws of the mighty vise, their edges in exact alignment. Instantly the plane and the beams of energy became transformed into two terrific opposing tubes of force – vibrant, glowing tubes whose edges in contact coincided with the almost invisible seam between the two halves of the lens.

  Like a welding arc raised to the nth power those two immeasurable and irresistible forces met exactly in opposition – a meeting of such incredible violence that seismic disturbances occurred throughout the entire mass of that dense, violet-white star. Sunspots of unprecedented size appeared, prominences erupted to hundreds of times their normal distances, and although the two scientists deep in the core of the tormented star were unaware of what was happening upon its surface, convulsion after titanic convulsion wracked the mighty globe and enormous masses of molten and gaseous material were riven from it and hurled far out into space.

  Seaton felt his air-supply grow hot. Suddenly it became icy cold, and knowing that Rovol had energized the refrigerator system, Seaton turned away from the fascinating welding operation for a quick look around the laboratory. As he did so he realized Rovol’s vast knowledge and understood the reason for the new system of relief-points and ground-rods, as well as the necessity for the all-embracing schemes of refrigeration.

  Even through the practically opaque goggles he could see that the laboratory was one mass of genuine lightning. Not only from the relief-points, but from every metallic corner and protuberance the pent-up losses from the disintegrating bar were hurling themselves upon the flaring, blue-white, rapidly-volatilizing ground-rods; and the very air of the room, renewed second by second though it was by the powerful blowers, was beginning to take on the pearly luster of the highly-ionized corona. The bar was plainly visible, a scintillating demon of pure violet radiance, and a momentary spasm of fear seized him as he saw how rapidly that great mass of copper was shrinking – fear that their power would be exhausted with their task still uncompleted.

  But the calculations of the aged physicist had been accurate. The lens was completed with some hundreds of pounds of copper to spare, and that geometrical form, with its precious content of near-neutronium, was following the secondary projector back toward the green system. Rovol left his seat, discarded his armor, and signaled Seaton to do the same. ‘I’ve got to hand it to you, ace – you’re a blinding flash and a deafening report!’ Seaton exclaimed, writhing out of his insulating suit. ‘I feel like I’d been pulled halfway through a knothole and riveted over on both ends! How big a lens did you make, anyway? Looked like it’d hold a couple of liters, maybe three.’

  ‘Its contents are almost exactly three liters.’

  ‘Hm … m … m. Seven and a half million kilograms – say eight thousand tons. Some mass, I’d say, to put into a gallon jug. Of course, being inside the faidon it won’t have any weight, and while the inertia may not be … that’s why you’re taking so long to bring it in?’

  ‘Yes. The projector will now bring it here into the laboratory without any further attention from us. The period of labor is about to end, and tomorrow we shall find the lens awaiting us when we arrive to begin work.’

  ‘How about cooling it off? It had a temperature of something like forty or fifty million degrees Centigrade before you started working on it; and when you got done with it, it must have been hot.’

  ‘You are forgetting again, son. Remember that the hot, dense material is entirely enclosed in an envelope impervious to all vibrations longer than those of the fifth order. You could put your hand upon it now, without receiving any sensation either of heat or of cold.’

  ‘That’s right – I did forget. I noticed that I could take a faidon right out of an electric arc and it wouldn’t even be warm. I couldn’t explain why it was, but I see now. So that stuff inside that lens will always stay as hot as it is right now! Zowie! Here’s hoping she never explodes! Well, there’s the bell – for once in my life, I’m ready to quit when the whistle blows,’ and arm in arm the young Terrestrial chemist and the aged Norlaminian physicist strolled out to their waiting airboat.

  12

  Flying Visits – Via Projection

  ‘Now what?’ asked Seaton as he and Rovol entered the laboratory. ‘Tear down this fourth-order projector and tackle the big job? I see the lens is here, on schedule.’

  ‘We shall have further use for this mechanism. We shall need at least one more lens of this dense material, and other scientists also may have need of one or two. Then, too, the new projector must be so large that it cannot be erected in this room.’

  As he spoke Rovol seated himself at his control desk and ran his fingers lightly over the keys. The entire wall of the laboratory disappeared, hundreds of beams of force darted here and there, seizing and working raw materials, and in the portal there grew up, to Seaton’s amazement, a keyboard and panel installation such as the Earthman, in his wildest moments, had never imagined. Bank upon bank of typewriter-like keys; row upon row of keys, pedals, and stops resembling somewhat those of the console of a gigantic pipe-organ; panel upon panel of meters, switches, and dials – all arranged about two deeply-cushioned chairs and within reach of their occupants.

  ‘Whew! That looks like the combined mince-pie nightmares of a whole flock of linotype operators, pipe-organists, and hard-boiled radio hams!’ exclaimed Seaton when the installation was complete. ‘Now that you’ve got it, what are you going to do with it?’

  ‘There is not a control system upon Norlamin adequate for the task we face, since the problem of the projection of rays of the fifth order has heretofore been of only academic interest. Therefore it becomes necessary to construct such a control. This mechanism will, I am confident, have a sufficiently wide range of application to perform any operation we shall require of it.’

  ‘It looks as though it could do anything, provided the man behind it knows how to play a tune on it – but if that rumble seat is for me, you’d better count me out. I followed you for about fifteen seconds, then lost you completely.’

  ‘That is, of course, true, and is a point I was careless enough to overlook.’ Rovol thought for a moment, then got up, crossed the room to his control desk, and continued, ‘We shall dismantle the machine and rebuild it at once.’r />
  ‘Oh, no – too much work!’ protested Seaton. ‘You’ve got it about done, haven’t you?’

  ‘It is hardly started. Two hundred thousand bands of force must be linked to it, each in its proper place, and it is necessary that you should understand thoroughly every detail of this entire projector.’

  ‘Why? I’m not ashamed to admit that I haven’t got brains enough to understand a thing like that.’

  ‘You have sufficient brain capacity; it is merely undeveloped. There are two reasons why you must be as familiar with this mechanism as you are with the controls of your own Skylark. The first is that a similar control is to be installed in your new space-vessel, since by its use you can attain a perfection of handling impossible by any other system. The second, and more important reason, is that neither I nor any other man of Norlamin could compel himself, by any force of will, to direct a ray that would take away the life of any fellow-man.’

  While Rovol was speaking he had reversed his process, and soon the component parts of the new control had been disassembled and piled in orderly array about the room.

  ‘Hm … m … m. Never thought of that. It’s right, too,’ mused Seaton. ‘How’re you going to get it into my thick skull – with an educator?’

  ‘Exactly,’ and Rovol sent a beam of force after his highly developed educational mechanism. Dials and electrodes were adjusted, connections were established, and the beams and pencils of force began to reconstruct the great central controlling device. But this time, instead of being merely a bewildered spectator, Seaton was an active participant in the work. As each key and meter was wrought and mounted; there were indelibly impressed upon his brain the exact reason for and function of the part; and later, when the control itself was finished and the seemingly interminable task of connecting it up to the output force bands of the transformers had begun, he had a complete understanding of everything with which he was working, and understood all the means by which the ends he had so long desired were to be attained. For to the ancient scientist the tasks he was then performing were the merest routine, to be performed in reflex fashion, and he devoted most of his attention to transferring from his own brain to that of his young assistant all of his stupendous knowledge which the smaller brain of the Terrestrial was capable of absorbing. More and more rapidly as the work progressed the mighty flood of knowledge poured into Seaton’s mind. After an hour or so, when enough connections had been made so that automatic forces could be so directed as to finish the job, Rovol and Seaton left the laboratory and went into the living room. As they walked, the educator accompanied them, borne upon a beam of force.

  ‘Your brain is behaving very nicely indeed, much better than I would have thought possible from its size. In fact, it may be possible for me to transfer to you all the knowledge I have which might be of use to you. That is why I took you away from the laboratory. What do you think of the idea?’

  ‘Our psychologists have always maintained that none of us ever uses more than a minute fraction of the actual capacity of his brain,’ Seaton replied after a moment’s thought. ‘If you think you can give me even a percentage of your knowledge without killing me, I don’t need to tell you how glad I would be to have it.’

  ‘Knowing that you would be, I have already requested Drasnik, the First of Psychology, to come here, and he has just arrived,’ answered Rovol, and as he spoke, that personage entered the room.

  When the facts had been set before him the psychologist nodded his head.

  ‘That is quite possible,’ he said with enthusiasm, ‘and I will be only too glad to assist in such an operation.’

  ‘But listen!’ protested Seaton. ‘You’ll probably change my whole personality – Rovol’s brain is three times the size of mine!’

  ‘Tut-tut – nothing of the kind,’ Drasnik reproved him. ‘As you have said you are using only a minute portion of the active mass of your brain. The same thing is true with us – many millions of cycles would have to pass before we would be able to fill the brains we now have.’

  ‘Then why are your brains so large?’

  ‘Merely a provision of Nature that no possible accession of knowledge shall find her storehouse too small,’ replied Drasnik, positively. ‘Ready?’

  All three donned the headsets and a wave of mental force wept into Seaton’s mind, a wave of such power that the Terrestrial’s every sense wilted under the impact. He did not faint, he did not lose consciousness – he simply lost all control of every nerve and fiber as his entire brain passed into the control of the immense mentality of the First of Psychology and became a purely receptive, plastic medium upon which to impress the knowledge of the aged physicist.

  Hour after hour the transfer continued, Seaton lying limp as though lifeless, the two Norlaminians tense and rigid, every faculty concentrated upon the ignorant, virgin brain exposed to their gaze. Finally the operation was complete and Seaton, released from the weird, hypnotic grip of that stupendous mind, gasped, shook himself, and writhed to his feet.

  ‘Great Cat!’ he exclaimed, his eyes wide with astonishment. ‘I wouldn’t have believed there was as much to know in the entire universe as I know right now. Thanks, fellows, a million times – but say, did you leave any open space for more? In one way, I seem to know less than I did before, there’s so much more to find out. Can I learn anything more, or did you fill me up to capacity?’

  The psychologist, who had been listening to the exuberant youth with undisguised pleasure, spoke calmly.

  ‘The mere fact that you appreciate your comparative ignorance shows that you are still capable of learning. Your capacity to learn is greater than it ever was before, even though the waste space has been reduced. Much to our surprise, Rovol and I gave you all of his knowledge that would be of any use to you, and some of my own, and still theoretically you can add to it more than nine times the total of your present knowledge.’

  The psychologist departed, and Rovol and Seaton returned to the laboratory, where the forces were still merrily at work. There was nothing that could be done to hasten the connecting, and it was late in the following period of labor before they could begin the actual construction of the projector. Once started, however, it progressed with amazing rapidity. Now understanding the system, it did not seem strange to Seaton that he should merely actuate a certain combination of forces when he desired a certain operation performed; nor did it seem unusual or worthy of comment that one flick of his finger would send a force a distance of hundreds of miles to a factory where other forces were busily at work, to seize a hundred angle-bars of transparent purple metal that were to form the backbone of the fifth-order projector. Nor did it seem peculiar that the same force, with no further instruction, should bring those hundred bars back to him, in a high loop through the atmosphere; should deposit them gently in a convenient space near the site of operations; and then should disappear as though it had never existed! With such tools as that, it was a matter of only a few hours before the projector was done – a task that would have required years of planning and building upon Earth.

  Two hundred and fifty feet it towered above their heads, a tubular network of braced and latticed I-beams, fifty feet in diameter at the base and tapering smoothly to a diameter of about ten feet at the top. Built of a metal thousands of times as strong and as hard as any possible steel, it was not cumbersome in appearance, and yet was strong enough to be almost absolutely rigid. Ten enormous forces held the lens of neutronium in the center of the upper end; at intervals down the shaft similar forces held variously-shaped lenses and prisms shaped from zones of force; in the center of the bottom or floor of the towering structure was the double controlling system, with a universal visiplate facing each operator.

  ‘So far, so good,’ remarked Seaton as the last connection was made. ‘Now we hop in and give the baby a ride over to the Area of Experiment. Caslor must have the mounting done, and we’ve got time enough left in this period to try her out.’

  ‘In a moment. I am setti
ng the fourth-order projector to go out to the dwarf star after an additional supply of neutronium.’

  Seaton, knowing that from the data of their first journey the controls could be so set as to duplicate their feat in every particular without supervision, stepped into his seat in the new controller, pressed a key, and spoke.

  ‘Hi, Dottie, doing anything?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Dorothy’s clear voice answered. ‘Got it done and can I see it?’

  ‘Sure – sit tight and I’ll send a flitabout after you.’

  As he spoke Rovol’s flier darted into the air and away; and in two minutes it returned, slowing abruptly as it landed. Dorothy stepped out, radiant, and returned Seaton’s enthusiastic caresses with equal fervor before she spoke.

  ‘Lover, I’m afraid you violated all known speed laws getting me here. Aren’t you afraid of getting pinched?’

  ‘Nope – not here. Besides, I didn’t want to keep Rovol waiting – we’re all ready to go. Hop in here with me, this left-hand control’s mine.’

  Rovol entered the tube, took his place, and waved his hand. Seaton’s hands swept over the keys and the whole gigantic structure wafted into the air. Still upright, it was borne upon immense rods of force toward the Area of Experiment, which was soon reached. Covered as the Area was with fantastic equipment, there was no doubt as to their destination, for in plain sight, dominating all the lesser installations, there rose a stupendous telescopic mounting, with an enormous hollow tube of metallic lattice-work which could be intended for nothing else than their projector. Approaching it carefully, Seaton deftly guided the projector lengthwise into that hollow receptacle and anchored it in the optical axis. Flashing beams of force made short work of welding the two tubes together immovably with angles and lattices of the same purple metal, the terminals of the variable-speed motors were attached to the controllers, and everything was in readiness for the first trial.