by E. C. Tubb
“Good morning, Mister Hurst,” the Master greeted. “Please be seated.”
“Master.…” Leslie Hurst gave a slight bow of acknowledgement and then settled in the chair at the opposite side of the Master’s desk.
“I have here your dossier on the Eastern crisis,” the Master continued, motioning languidly to the papers. “You apparently believe a good deal of trouble is brewing in that hemisphere?”
“I am convinced of it, Master—so much so I felt that, in my capacity as ambassador to the East, I should deliver that dossier to you personally and not risk the possibility of agents getting at it.”
“Very commendable, Mister Hurst. And what exactly is the Eastern position?”
“The same old trouble of concessions,” Hurst replied bitterly. “Lan Ilof, President of the Eastern Government, is still insisting that half of Mars should belong to them and the other half to us. It’s sheer bluff, of course, since we were the first to set up a base on Mars, and claim the entire planet for its value in mineral resources. Ilof claims that at a date before we arrived, their own expedition had already been there. He has supplied photographic proof to me, but I don’t believe any of it. The whole thing boils down to him wanting half of Mars so that he can replenish certain mineral stocks of which the East is short.”
“And if he does not get this concession from us he threatens war?”
“Yes.” Leslie Hurst was silent for a moment or two, his young but powerful face troubled. “And I think he could give us a run for our money too,” he added.
“How so?” There was an undisturbed calm upon the face of the Master that belied his quick-thinking brain.
“I happen to know that he has been building up formidable stocks of weapons and missiles with atomic warheads. Our agents have given me the facts. I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I said his intercontinental missiles outnumber ours by nearly three to one. There are also many secret armaments. The scientists have never been deficient of scientific ingenuity as you know.”
“President Ilof has never seemed to me the kind of man who would favor war as a means of gaining his end,” the Master mused. “I have met him several times, and I found him most cordial, and highly intelligent.”
“No doubt of it,” Hurst agreed, “but he is in the unfortunate position of having to bow to certain factions in his government. Generals Zoam and Niol are, as is well known, two of the biggest warmongers ever. Their greatest ambition is to dominate Earth and now Mars. I know, because an ambassador hears many things. The Generals have never said as much openly, preferring to use President Ilof as their mouthpiece. That is the situation, Master,” Hurst finished. “Nothing in the nature of an ultimatum has been presented yet, but I have the feeling it may happen before long. When it does I wish to be in a position to answer quickly, so what are your instructions?”
Calmly the Master answered: “Tell them that we shall not make any concessions whatever. Not an inch! And if they wish to fight over it we will use every available means to defeat them. I am aware that it means war between hemispheres, global war on a far-reaching, devastating scale. Even that is better than meekly kneeling down before the dictates of a Government that has no legal right to make such a claim. Against the possibility of war breaking out I will instruct the necessary experts in the west to prepare armaments and defensive measures to meet the storm, should it come.”
“That is your final decision, Master?”
“It is. You may return to your post as ambassador, Mister Hurst, and any serious change in the situation must be notified immediately by secret transmission.… A pity indeed that matters have to come to such a pass,” the Master added, musing. “Particularly so as we are all now essentially a single race, the product of nearly one thousand years of world peace and inter-marriage—before the creation of a new iron curtain between hemispheres in the last century, for reasons that are now obscure.”
“Their comparative isolation in the last century seems to have bred a race of malcontents and war-mongers,” Hurst commented.
The Master brooded, then said: “Thank you, Ambassador Hurst. That will be all.”
Hurst rose, inclined his head, and took his departure. He had not been gone five minutes before the Master again pressed a button on his desk, and this time it was a thick-necked young man with broad shoulders, powerful hands, and a slightly intelligent forehead who came into the office. He had the easy stride of a man used to physical activity and, though well-dressed, gave the impression that he would have been happier in. an open-necked shirt and working slacks.
“You have been trying to see me for some time, Mister Bradley,” the Master commented, eyeing him. “I have admired your persistence, but not until now have I deemed it worth my while to grant you an interview. Take a seat.”
“Thank you, Master.” Clem Bradley sat down, his sharp gray eyes on the Master’s tired, intellectual features.
“I understand,” the Master continued, “that you are the technical chief of the Roton Gun Engineering Company?”
“That’s right, Master. At the moment it is a very small company, I’m afraid, but at least I appreciate your kindness in granting me a license to get started.”
“That was not kindness, Mister Bradley. You were granted a license because it appeared to me, and my technical experts that you had developed a blast gun with significant possibilities. It would have been foolish to baulk you in your efforts to use this revolutionary gun. I am glad your little company is on its feet. What kind of contracts have you been getting?”
Clem shrugged. “Oh, small ones. Doing a little mining in one place, blasting away ancient buildings in another. But we’ll grow. I’ve got the business knowledge and my partner Buck Cardew is the right one to handle men. Between us we’ll have a powerful company one day.”
“I am glad to hear it.” The Master consulted a file and then sat back in his chair. “However, Mister Bradley, I did not of course summon you here to congratulate you upon your company. I am going to assign to you a project which calls exclusively for blasting equipment such as you possess.”
Clem’s expression changed suddenly. “You—you mean a Government contract, sir?”
“Obviously. I wonder if you recall, some little while ago, there being talk of a protective tower for this city in case of missile attack? You may remember that it was suggested we should have a mile-high tower, its summit equipped with every known radiation, the projectors emitting them to have universal movement to protect the city below on every side.”
“I remember it vaguely,” Clem admitted. “It was not given a very big public airing.”
“For obvious reasons. The public at that time would have reacted unfavorably to such an expenditure of money. Today, when hints keep leaking out of an impending crisis with the East, it is only sensible that we look to our defenses. So the Protection Tower—to give it its correct name—will come into being. The plans were drawn up long ago and I shall instruct the necessary engineers to go to work, immediately. Before they can do so the foundation shafts must be made, and for a tower a mile high they must of necessity be extremely deep.”
“You want the Roton Gun Company to drill them?” Clem asked eagerly.
“Exactly. The site we have selected, some fifteen miles from the southern coast, has a great deal of bedrock in it, chiefly to hold the tower foundations secure, and only the very finest blasting equipment will be able to make an impression. I am giving you the chance, Mister Bradley. When complete the tower will dominate the city at its southern end and also be the guardian of the sea as well. Now, here is the sketch plan of the foundation depth.”
Clem leaned forward, and from that moment onwards for the next half-hour he and the Master were in deep consultation. By the time he left Clem was not quite sure whether he was dreaming or not. A Government contract was the one thing needed to put any scientific business on its feet, and it seemed that the miracle had happened.
It definitely had, for the next day
Clem, and his burly, iron-fisted partner Buck Cardew, transferred their men and equipment to the selected site fifteen miles from the south coast and began operations.
It was on the ninth day that they ran into difficulties, though when the morning shift began, there was no hint of trouble. Clem, looking about him on the surging activity deep below ground, mopped his face with his sweat-rag and settled his steel helmet more comfortably on his head.
“Another thousand feet ought to see this foundation space fully cleared,” he commented. “We’ve been cutting clean since we started and the next push should finish it.”
Square-jawed Buck Cardew nodded. In appearance there was little to choose between him and Clem—except that Clem was obviously the man with the brains whereas, for handling gangs of men and moving equipment, there couldn’t have been a better man anywhere than Buck Cardew.
“The Company’s on its feet to stay,” Buck grinned. “Thanks to the Master and his mile-high building—” He broke off and released a throaty bellow. “Hey there? What in hell are you boys wasting time about over there? Don’t you realize we’ve got a deadline? Stop standing around and get on with the job.”
“Can’t!” the ganger called back through his radiophone. “There’s a barrier here which even the blast-gun won’t cut. Come and take a look.”
“He’s crazy,” Clem growled. “That gun of mine will blast anything in earth or space. Maybe they’re just plain sick of groping around down here, and I wouldn’t blame ’em. A surface demolition’s much more interesting and healthy.”
“They’re paid to work, and they will!” Buck retorted. “I’ll soon settle ’em! Let’s see what they’re grousing about.”
Together he and Clem strode through the loose rubble of the floodlit space where the men were standing around the drilling apparatus. Buck put his hands on his hips and stared at the barrier facing the gun’s blunted nozzle.
“Turn it on there!” he ordered.
A blasting, ear-shattering roar instantly followed, but that stream of livid, tearing energy which had been known to go through successive walls of steel, granite and diamond simply deflected itself in a coiling streamer of brilliant blue sparks.
“Kill it!” Clem yelled. “What do you want to do? Blow us up with a backlash?”
Then as the commotion died down he clambered to the barrier and examined it carefully. It seemed to be dead black. “Put out those lights!” he ordered.
The moment they went out and darkness descended it became clear that the barrier was not black but swarming with violet radiance. There seemed to be a multitude of pinpricks floating around in a vast bowl.
“What in blazes is it?” Buck Cardew demanded, as the lights returned.
“As a scientist,” Clem answered slowly, “I’d say that it is force!”
“Huh? Force? But how did it get there?”
“Don’t ask me. But I believe it is force built up into a resilient wall that simply deflects our gun-blast, much the same as the force-shields on our modern spaceships deflect meteorites. Looks as if we’ve run into something unusual. Have to weigh it up.”
Clem stepped back and started making a rough plan and sketch of the situation. Then, under his direction, prompted by Buck Cardew’s bellowing voice, the gun was trained until it struck ordinary rock around the edge of the area. Gradually a way was cut round until the blue-black circle remained isolated.
Mystified, Clem and Buck clambered through into a deep cavern and stood staring in the light of their helmet lamps.
“Take a look at that!” Buck exclaimed suddenly, pointing.
Clem swung. Then his mouth opened in surprise as he found himself gazing through an impenetrable wall, which had deflected the force-gun. There was a girl visible, strapped to a table, her eyes staring unseeingly, her pretty face terrified.
“She isn’t moving,” Buck whispered blankly. “Say, she looks as if she’s imprisoned inside a globe of force! Who on earth is she, anyway?” he went on in amazement. “Look at her clothes! Girls haven’t worn things like that for centuries!”
Clem’s mind switched instantly to the scientific implications. He prowled around the cavern, examining it carefully, the astounded engineers piling in after him and dazedly contemplating the girl in the globe.
At last Clem halted, rubbing his jaw. “Bits and pieces lying around suggest that this cavern was once a laboratory, but heaven knows how long ago. Even bits of iron and steel have rusted into ferrous oxide powder in the interval. Hundreds of years, maybe. What we’ve got to do is break down this globe of force somehow.”
“How?” Buck demanded. “If a blast gun won’t do it it’s certain nothing else will.”
Clem thought for a moment, and then answered: “If, as is probable, it was created artificially, it can be un-created.” He turned to the waiting men. “Okay, boys, do your job. We’ve still a time-schedule to keep, remember. “I’ll use instruments on this and see what I can find out.”
The ganger nodded and blasting resumed, cutting a vast path at the back of the place. Clem gave quick instructions and had various instruments brought in to him. He figured steadily from their readings, quite oblivious to the shattering din and human shouts going on around him. After a while Buck came to his side, hands on hips.
“Well?” His keen eyes aimed eager questions. “Any clues?”
“I think so, and most of them incredible.” Clem’s voice had a touch of awe in it. “It looks as though somebody way back in the past solved a scientific problem which still puzzles us even today. That globe, if the readings here are true, registers zero! It isn’t there!”
“Are you crazy, or am I?” Buck demanded. “Of course it’s there! We can see it!”
Clem motioned to the instruments. Sure enough they all registered zero. Clem gave a grim smile as he saw Buck rubbing the back of his beefy neck.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “And these instruments are the best that money can buy.”
“Surely. Nothing wrong with those.”
“Then what’s the explanation?”
“It’s something, as far as I can work out, that has no entropy. If that be so it means that it has reached absolute equilibrium. There is no interchange of energy to register. A little universe all on its own, which has achieved the state our own universe will one day attain. It is the same now, possibly, as when it came into being. For that very reason it is apart from all known forces. It is divorced from light, radiation, heat—everything. You see, it cannot assimilate anything more because it is assimilated to maximum. Nothing can go into the globe and nothing can come out of it.”
Buck was looking completely bewildered. “Then how do we smash it up? Or open it?”
“‘Only one thing we can perhaps do, and that is warp it. Gravitation alone is independent of all other forces. Today we know that for certain. Gravity is a warp in the space-time continuum: it is not a force, as such. Down here we have gravitator-plates for shifting rocks. Maybe twin stresses brought to focus would warp this ball of absolute force and cause a rupture. Yes, it’s worth trying!” Clem decided. “This is quite the weirdest thing I ever struck.”
He gave further instructions and gravitator-screens of vast size were erected in the positions he directed. A past-master in stresses and strains, he knew just what he was doing, whether it would work on the globe or not was problematical.
It was an hour before he was satisfied, Buck Cardew becoming more and more impatient at such painstaking thoroughness; but at last Clem was satisfied and raised his hand in a signal. Simultaneously the power was switched on, a power exactly duplicating the etheric warp of gravitation itself. What happened then none of the men could afterwards clearly remember.
The globe burst with an explosion that hurled the engineers flat against the wall, pinning them there under an out-flowing wave of gigantic, hair-bristling force. The screens overturned and went crashing against the rocks. A rumble as of deep thunder rolled throughout the underground cavern and died a
way in the far distance.
Slowly the sense of released electrical tension began to subside, leaving the cavern heavy with the smell of ozone. Clem stood up gradually, turned, expecting to see the girl blasted to pieces. But instead she was definitely alive and wriggling to free herself!
“…do this to me!” she cried desperately, straining at the straps.
“Not only alive, but fighting mad,” Buck whispered, seizing Clem’s arm and, staring at her. “Why didn’t she die when that thing blew up?”
“Because the force expanded outwards from her. She was as safe as though in the epicenter of a cyclone.”
Clem strode forward and gazed at the girl’s face. A most extraordinary expression came over her delicate features as she stared into the grimy visages under the steel helmets. Her dark-blue eyes widened in further alarm.
“What— Who are you?” she breathed weakly, going limp in the straps. “Where’s Bryce?”
“Bryce?” Clem gave her a baffled glance; then leaning forward he unbuckled the straps and raised the girl gently. He fished in his hip-pocket, spun the top from a flask with his teeth, then held the opening to the girl’s lips. The fiery liquid, something she had never tasted before, went through her veins like liquid dynamite, setting her heart and nerves bounding with vigorous life.
Flushed, breathing hard, she looked in bewilderment at the puzzled men.
“Where’s Bryce?” she demanded. “Bryce Fairfield. He locked me in here with the threat that he was going after Reggie.”
“Oh?” Clem tried not to look too vague. “Matter of fact, miss, I’ve never heard of Bryce—nor Reggie. That reminds me!” Clem broke off. “When you recovered a moment ago you said something. What was it?”
“I said: ‘Bryce, you can’t do this to me!’”
Clem shook his head. “No! You only said: ‘do this to me!’ There was no beginning to your sentence. I noticed at the time that it sounded odd. I assume this Bryce Fairfield was in here when you started your sentence?”