The Antolians gave back! Their spheres had been halved in number by our fierce attack and they fled abruptly in the direction of Uranus.
"On to Uranus and Neptune and Pluto!" came Julud's cry from the televisors. "We must repel them there too!"
Our ships rushed on toward Uranus, the next world in the column. A fight still was raging around its moons, but as we attacked the Antolians there they fled ahead.
Now all our ships, with those of Uranus too, sped on toward Neptune and Pluto. We found Neptune already deserted by the invaders, but when we reached Pluto found that world in bad straits. Hosts of the spheres were overwhelming and destroying the Plutonian ships.
"Here's our chance to show Tolarg how we of the inner planets can fight!" came Hurg's yell from my televisor as we shot into the battle.
* * * *
If the battle at Saturn had been fierce, the one at Pluto was terrific. The Antolians were in far greater numbers and seemed fiercely resolved to capture at least this one planet. They had concentrated their forces there now, and the fight that followed our reaching them was of the maddest kind.
Ships of every one of our nine worlds, Venerians and Mercurians and Earthmen, Jovians and Saturnians, ships with the square of Uranus or the oval of Neptune or the black bar of Pluto on them, dashed against the Antolian spheres in that tremendous battle. It seemed impossible that any ship could continue to exist in that hell of flying flame-disks and dancing atom-blasts. Wrecked spheres and ships rained in ruin upon the surface of Pluto.
But the Antolians could not stand the terrific onslaught we men of the nine worlds made upon them. They gave back into space from Pluto, then turned and dashed back toward their sun. From those in our ships came wild cheers as we saw them flee toward Antol. Then while our fleets continued to guard our advancing worlds, we nine of the Council descended at Julud's command to meet in the Pluto control-tower.
"That attack nearly captured four of our worlds," Julud exclaimed. "They would have done so had it not been for the aid of the inner planets."
"Yes, they of Mercury and Venus and the rest came in time." Tolarg conceded. "But why did these Antolians attack us? Why did they want to capture those four planets?"
"Some of the Antolians were captured," Runnal said. "We could question one telepathically and find out their reason."
"We'll do it," Julud said. "Have one of them brought in."
* * * *
One of the Antolian prisoners was soon brought before us. The creature was utterly grotesque looking. It was like the others we had glimpsed, a liquid creature whose body was simply a pool of thick, viscous black liquid. In this floated two eyes, and it could extend arms and limbs at will from its viscous mass. It was utterly unlike anything we had ever seen.
"It looks intelligent enough to receive and project thought," Julud said.
He projected a thought at the thing. "You are one of the inhabitants of the four worlds of Antol—the yellow sun ahead?"
"Yes," came the thing's thought-answer. "Our race is a mighty one and covers with its numbers all of those four worlds."
"Why did you attack our planets?"
"We saw them coming through space and wished to capture four of them, so that we could leave our sun in them," the Antolian answered.
"Leave your sun?" Julud repeated. "Why do you want to do that? Doesn't Antol give your worlds sufficient warmth and light?"
"It does," the Antolian replied, "but it is about to become a nova."
Cries burst from us. Antol about to become a nova! That meant that the sun would explode, expanding out to far greater size with inconceivable speed and destroying planets or anything else near to it!
"So that's why you want to leave it?" Hurg asked.
"Yes, for when it becomes a nova, which it will do very soon, it will destroy our worlds. We thought if we captured four of your travelling worlds we could move on them to another sun."
Julud looked at us. "We must not stop at Antol but go on toward another sun, then," he said.
It was so decided and we returned to our own planets. Then Pluto veered aside and after it our other planets until all were veering away from Antol. We had decided to head toward the next nearest sun, the orange sun Mithak, which lay not a great distance from Antol. As we drew away from Antol we expected another attack by the Mithak.
Looking back, we could see from disturbances in its physical appearance that the sun Antol was very near the point of explosion into a nova. Then not long after we left it, the explosion came. From a large yellow star behind us, Antol expanded suddenly into a terrific, dazzling sphere of light! It had burst into a sun hundreds of times larger than it had formerly been!
I looked to see the little light-flashes that would mark the destruction of its four planets in its fires, but saw nothing of the sort. Then I suddenly looked more intently. There against the fiery brilliance of Antol's fiery new sphere were four dark little points, coming on in a little column after us! They were the four worlds of Antol!
"The four Antolian worlds!" I cried into the televisor. "They're coming after us—they escaped their sun's explosion!"
"Impossible!" Julud cried. "How could they move their worlds away from their sun?"
"In the same way we moved our worlds!" I cried. "They've imitated us and fitted atom-blasts on their worlds—they're following us and will dispute possession with our worlds of any sun we reach!"
* * * *
"Mithak a disappointment too, now that we've reached it! And the four Antolian worlds still following us! How long are our planets to continue this quest?"
It was Wald of Jupiter speaking in my televisor, and I heard Murdat answer from Uranus. "We can't go on indefinitely like this," he said. "Our peoples can't exist much longer on this terrible journey."
"I feared it would be so," said Wald. "Nugat unsuitable, Antol unsuitable, and now Mithak unsuitable—one sun after another we've reached and still we have to go on. Are our worlds to go on vainly searching space for a sun for themselves until all life on them is dead? Better to have stayed at our old sun, where at least we could have lived a little longer."
"Why this discouragement?" I demanded. "It's true that Mithak is impossible as a sun for us, but there are still Walaz and Vita beyond. One of them may be the sun we seek!"
"I say the same, Lonnat!" exclaimed Hurg of Venus.
But there came Tolarg's mocking voice from Pluto. "It's all right for you, Lonnat, your planet doesn't amount to much if it is lost."
"And what about those four Antolian worlds following us?" Murdat asked. "If we do find a suitable sun they'll try to take it from us and will make terrible enemies."
Julud intervened. "As to the Antolian worlds, they may stop at another sun than the one we settle at, and in any case we'll take things one at a time. It is true that Mithak is impossible as a sun for us, but there still lie Walaz and Vira beyond. One of them may be the sun we seek."
We stared silently for a time toward the sun Mithak. Since leaving Antol our nine worlds had marched steadily on toward Mithak, hoping that the orange sun would prove satisfactory and that our great voyage would end at it. But our hope had ended now that we had almost reached Mithak. For we found that it was surrounded by numberless vast belts and zones of whirling meteors, the only satellites the sun had, a tremendous storm of stone ceaselessly circling it.
To venture our nine worlds into that terrific zone of meteors would be to destroy them almost at once, to turn them into semi-molten condition by the impact of the thousands of great meteoric masses that would strike them in minutes. No, Mithak was not the sun at which our weary worlds could rest. We must go on, to Walaz or Vira. And so worn by the hardships of the voyage through sunless space on our frozen worlds were our peoples that we might not even be able to reach those suns.
Nevertheless, go on we must, as it was impossible to turn back. So at Julud's order, Tolarg turned Pluto away from Mithak and toward Walaz. Walaz was a yellowish-red sun that shone in the heavens
as a variable star, regularly increasing and decreasing its brilliance. One by one we turned our worlds after Pluto until all our chain was moving in the direction of Walaz.
I looked back into space along the way we had come. There I could see by means of our telescopes the four little light-points that were the four worlds of the Antolians, marching on after us, following us. They seemed moving even faster than our worlds, no doubt because they had been fitted with more atom-blasts than ours. Somberly I looked back at them. Even if we did find a sun for our nine worlds, those pursuing planets would seek to share it with us, and we had seen enough of the liquid-bodied Antolians to know that they would make terrible foes and might be able to wrest our own worlds from us.
So our nine worlds moved on toward Walaz, with the Antolians' planets behind and our fate ahead. On a day when we had almost reached Walaz, we looked back and saw that by then the four Antolian worlds had reached Mithak. We watched to see if they would stop at that sun, but they came on past it and after us. No more than we would they destroy their worlds in that cosmic stone-storm around Mithak.
Walaz loomed ahead of us. And almost the last of our resolution fled when we saw its nature. It was a variable star; that we had known. We saw now the reason. Walaz had a dark companion, a dead star as large as itself. The dead star and the yellow-red sun revolved around each other and so the dark one regularly eclipsed the bright one. It meant that this sun was no haven for our planets either. For if our planets circled these two companions, the dark one would constantly be cutting off by its regular eclipses the warmth and light of the bright one. We must go on still farther.
* * * *
Julud again gave the order and our planets turned from Walaz and headed toward Vira. Vira, the blue-white sun that shone brightly in the distance, was now our last hope. For beyond it there were no suns for a vast distance. If for any reason Vira was unsuitable, then we were doomed. It might even be that our peoples could not continue existence until Vira was reached, so numbed and weakened were they by the intense cold and darkness of sunless space.
We drove our planets forward toward Vira at the highest possible speed. Forgotten now were the Antolian worlds pursuing us, forgotten everything but the blue-white sun ahead. Our worlds lurched and bucked as we fired blast after blast, urged them on at greater and greater speed. What we found Vira to be would mean life or death for us, and hungrily, tensely, we watched the sun as we sped on toward it.
Behind us at speed even greater than ours, the four Antolian worlds came steadily on our track. They were now drawing near to the sun Walaz. Walaz should be suitable, we thought, for the four Antolian worlds and they would stop there. In any case, we were not thinking now of them but of the sun ahead. Steadily now we were drawing nearer to Vira.
What a cosmic trail we had blazed across the void in our stupendous voyage! Since leaving our own sun, our worlds had touched at four others: at the deadly radio-active sun of Nugat; at Antol, on the brink of explosion, where we had fought its creatures; at Mithak with its awful zones of whirling meteors; and at Walaz with its huge dead companion. And now our worlds were racing on toward a fifth sun at which their fate would be decided, with four worlds of alien beings thundering through the void behind us.
Vira grew larger, larger, as we drew closer. Then when within ten billion miles of it, Hurg of Venus went ahead with a scouting force of ships.
Tensely we waited for Hurg's report, the news that meant life or death. When he returned he gave it at once to us.
"Vira seems entirely satisfactory!" Hurg cried. "It has no harmful radiations or surrounding meteors, and it has no planets! It is a young sun that will warm our worlds for ages!"
"We've won, then!" cried Zintnor of Mars. "We've found a sun at last!"
Julud's face gleamed in the televisor. "Make ready all of you to turn your worlds in around this sun. Tolarg, when we draw nearer you will turn Pluto first into an orbit of four billion miles radius, and Neptune and Uranus and the others will follow in successively closer orbits."
"All ready here on Pluto," Tolarg reported. "But what about those four Antolian worlds following us?"
"They'll not come on to Vira when they see us already settled here—they'll stop at the sun Walaz," said Julud. "The thing for us to do now is to bring our planets safely into orbits around Vira."
An utter tenseness held us as our worlds moved closer to Vira. The great blue-white sun was a stupendous sight, an awesome ball of fire pouring out light and heat that already warmed our nearing worlds.
As we came closer to the sun our tenseness increased. This was the most critical part of the whole vast voyage, we knew. If we made a misstep in bringing our planets into orbits around this sun it would mean that some or all of them would crash into the sun and be destroyed. Every movement of our worlds must be calculated with nicety so that they would follow a safe path in around the sun.
Our column of worlds drew nearer to Vira, passing the sun on one side. Then when a little past it, Pluto turned in around the sun. We saw the planet's side-blasts fire rapidly as Tolarg turned his world, and rapidly Pluto curved in and as it felt the full force of Vira's attraction took up a circular orbit around the sun. Almost at the same time Neptune also turned, taking up an orbit not far inside that of Pluto's.
Rapidly our other planets followed. Murdat and Julud swung Uranus and Saturn without difficulty into correct orbits. But when Wald turned Jupiter it seemed for a moment that disaster lay ahead. Wald had underestimated the force needed to turn his huge planet and had to fire his side-blasts frantically to get it into the proper path. Even so, Jupiter's outer moons barely grazed past Saturn as the great world curved inward.
Mars and Earth followed, cutting in smoothly across the paths of the other planets and taking up orbits closer to the great sun. Hurg was already swinging Venus in inside the path of Earth. And then it was my turn. It was a ticklish job for me to take Mercury in to its orbit, for I had to take my world closer to the glaring blue sun than any of the others. But I manipulated side-blasts and back-blasts until Mercury had glided in and was moving smoothly in an orbit comparatively close to the sun Vira.
A cheer broke from all of us as we saw that on Mercury and on all our worlds the frozen-air blanket was melting into vapor, as our atmospheres thawed. And the snows that had long covered our worlds now were melting too, even those on Pluto and the outer planets. For from great Vira a tremendous outpouring of warmth and light bathed our worlds such as they had not known for many ages.
But into our exultation broke suddenly a sharp cry from Runnal of Earth. In the televisor his face was tense.
"Look back!" he cried. "The four Antolian worlds are passing the sun Walaz! They're coming on to Vira!"
* * * *
We started, our triumph frozen. In the telescopes the four Antolian planets were plainly visible, passing Walaz and moving on with mounting speed toward us.
"We must do something!" Hurg cried. "If those Antolian worlds reach this sun and take up orbits around it, it means endless war with them, war that may result in our destruction!"
"We can not stop them from coming on," Julud said sadly. "I had hoped they would stop their worlds at Walaz, but they are coming on."
"If there were only some way to stop them before they get here!" Runnal exclaimed.
An idea seared across my brain. "There is a way of stopping them!" I cried. "I can stop them with my world, with Mercury!
"Don't you understand?" I said. "All of Mercury's inhabitants can be transferred to other of our worlds and then I'll take Mercury out and crash it head-on into those four oncoming worlds!"
"Good, and I'll go with you, Lonnat!" cried Hurg.
"And I too!" said Tolarg, eyes gloaming.
Immediately Julud ordered the transfer of Mercury's people to other worlds as I requested. All our worlds' ships swarmed to Mercury and engaged in transporting Mercury's people to the other planets.
It was so tremendous a task that by the time Tolarg an
d Hurg and I with my assistants in the control-tower were the only people left on Mercury, the four oncoming worlds of the Antolians had almost reached Vira.
Quickly I opened up Mercury's propulsion-blasts and sent the little planet hurtling out from Vira, back along the way we had come toward the four nearing worlds. Tensely I and Tolarg and Hurg held it toward them. Outside the control-tower were our waiting ships.
Toward each other, booming through space with immense speed, thundered Mercury and the four oncoming worlds. The Antolian worlds loomed larger and larger before us. Then they veered to one side.
"They're veering! They're trying to escape the collision!" cried Hurg.
"It'll do them no good!" I exclaimed. I swung Mercury aside in the same direction to meet them.
Again the column of four planets veered as they rushed closer, seeking desperately to escape the oncoming doom. Again I swung Mercury to meet them. Then the foremost of the oncoming Antolian worlds loomed immense in the heavens before our rushing planet.
"They're going to crash!" I cried. "Up and away before they meet!"
"Up and away!" yelled Tolarg and Hurg as we threw ourselves from the control-tower into the ships.
Our ships darted up like lightning. The rushing globe of Mercury was almost to the oncoming sphere of the first Antolian world. And then as we shot away from them into space, they met!
There was no sound in the soundless void, but there was a blinding, dazing glare of light that darkened even the great sun behind us for the moment, and then the two worlds became glowing red, molten, blazing with doom! A wave of force struck through space that rocked our fleeing ships.
And behind the first Antolian world the other three of the column came on and crashed into that glowing mass! One by one they crashed and were destroyed; and then the four worlds were one white-hot mass that veered off into space at right-angles to Vira and away from it. The four colliding worlds had become a new small sun!
Golden Age Science Fiction Classics (2011) Page 14