But, after giving simple operating instructions to the students, Arcot and Morey went with Stel Felso Theu to his laboratory.
“Here,” Stel Felso Theu explained, “is the original apparatus. All these other machines you see are but replicas of this. How it works, why it works, even what it does, I am not sure of. Perhaps you will understand it. The thing is fully charged now, for it is, in part, one of the defenses of the city. Examine it now, and then I will show its power."
Arcot looked it over in silence, following the great silver leads with keen interest. Finally he straightened, and returned to the Talsonian. In a moment Morey joined them.
The Talsonian then threw a switch, and an intense ionization appeared within the tube, then a minute spot of light was visible within the sphere of light. The minute spot of radiance is the real secret of the weapon. The ball of fire around it is merely wasted energy.
“Now I will bring it out of the tube.” There were three dials on the control panel from which he worked, and now he adjusted one of these. The ball of fire moved steadily toward the glass wall of the tube, and with a crash the glass exploded inward. It had been highly evacuated. Instantly the tiny ball of fire about the point of light expanded to a large globe.
“It is now in the outer air. We make the-thing, in an evacuated glass tube, but as they are cheap, it is not an expensive procedure. The ball will last in its present condition for approximately three hours. Feel the exceedingly intense heat? It is radiating away its vast energy.
“Now here is the point of greatest interest.” Again the Talsonian fell to work on his dials, watching the ball of fire. It seemed far more brilliant in the air now. It moved, and headed toward a great slab of steel off to one side of the laboratory. It shifted about until it was directly over the center of the great slab. The slab rested on a scale of some sort, and as the ball of fire touched it, the scale showed a sudden increase in load. The ball sank into the slab of steel, and the scale showed a steady, enormous load. Evidently the little ball was pressing its way through as though it were a solid body. In a moment it was through the steel slab, and out on the other side.
“It will pass through any body with equal ease. It seems to answer only these controls, and these it answers perfectly, and without difficulty.
“One other thing we can do with it. I can increase its rate of energy discharge."
The Talsonian turned a fourth dial, well off to one side, and the brilliance of the spot increased enormously. The heat was unbearable. Almost at once he shut it off.
“That is the principle we use in making it a weapon. Watch the actual operation."
The ball of fire shot toward an open window, out the window, and vanished in the sky above. The Talsonian stopped the rotation of the dials. “It is motionless now, but scarcely visible. I will now release all the energy.” He twirled the fourth dial, and instantly there was a flash of light, and a moment later a terrific concussion.
“It is gone.” He left the controls, and went over to his apparatus. He set a heavy silver bladed switch, and placed a new tube in the apparatus. A second switch arced a bit as he drove it home. “Your generator is recharging the accumulators."
Stel Felso Theu took the backplate of the control cabinet off, and the Terrestrians looked at the control with interest.
“Got it, Morey?” asked Arcot after a time.
“Think so. Want to try making it up? We can do so out of spare junk about the ship, I think. We won't need the tube if what I believe of it is true."
Arcot turned to the Talsonian. “We wish you to accompany us to the ship. We have apparatus there which we wish to set up."
Back to the ship they went. There Arcot, Morey and Wade worked rapidly.
It was about three-quarters of an hour later when Arcot and his friends called the others to the laboratory. They had a maze of apparatus on the power bench, and the shining relux conductors ran all over the ship apparently. One huge bar ran into the power room itself, and plugged into the huge power-coil power supply.
They were still working at it, but looked up as the others entered. “Guess it will work,” said Arcot with a grin.
There were four dials, and three huge switches. Arcot set all four dials, and threw one of the switches. Then he started slowly turning the fourth dial. In the center of the room a dim, shining mist a foot in diameter began to appear. It condensed, solidified without shrinking, a solid ball of matter a foot in diameter. It seemed black, but was a perfectly reflective surface-and luminous!
“Then-then you had already known of this thing? Then why did you not tell me when I tried to show it?” demanded the Talsonian.
Arcot was sending the globe, now perfectly non-luminous, about the room. It flattened out suddenly, and was a disc. He tossed a small weight on it, and it remained fixed, but began to radiate slightly. Arcot readjusted his dials, and it ceased radiating, held perfectly motionless. The sphere returned, and the weight dropped to the floor. Arcot maneuvered it about for a moment more. Then he placed his friends behind a screen of relux, and increased the radiation of the globe tremendously. The heat became intense, and he stopped the radiation.
“No, Stel Felso Theu, we do not have this on our world,” Arcot said.
“You do not have it! You look at my apparatus fifteen minutes, and then work for an hour-and you have apparatus far more effective than ours, which required years of development!” exclaimed the Talsonian.
“Ah, but it was not wholly new to me. This ship is driven by curving space into peculiar coordinates. Even so, we didn't do such a hot job, did we, Morey?"
“No, we should have—"
“What-it was not a good job?” interrupted the Talsonian. “You succeeded in creating it in air-in making it stop radiating, in making a ball a foot in diameter, made it change to a disc, made it carry a load-what do you want?"
“We want the full possibilities, the only thing that can save us in this war,” Morey said.
“What you learned how to do was the reverse of the process we learned. How you did it is a wonder-but you did. Very well-matter is energy-does your physics know that?” asked Arcot.
“It does; matter contains vast energy,” replied the Talsonian.
“Matter has mass, and energy because of that! Mass is energy. Energy in any known form is a field of force in space. So matter is ordinarily a combination of magnetic, electrostatic and gravitational fields. Your apparatus combined the three, and put them together. The result was-matter!
“You created matter. We can destroy it but we cannot create it.
“What we ordinarily call matter is just a marker, a sign that there are those energy-fields. Each bit is surrounded by a gravitational field. The bit is just the marker of that gravitational field.
“But that seems to be wrong. This artificial matter of yours seems also a sort of knot, for you make all three fields, combine them, and have the matter, but not, very apparently, like normal matter. Normal matter also holds the fields that make it. The artificial matter is surrounded by the right fields, but it is evidently not able to hold the fields, as normal matter does. That was why your matter continually disintegrated to ordinary energy. The energy was not bound properly.
“But the reason why it would blow up so was obvious. It did not take much to destroy the slight hold that the artificial matter had on its field, and then it instantly proceeded to release all its energy at once. And as you poured millions of horsepower into it all day to fill it, it naturally raised merry hell when it let loose."
Arcot was speaking eagerly, excitedly.
“But here is the great fact, the important thing: It is artificially created in a given place. It is made, and exists at the point determined by these three coordinated dials. It is not natural, and can exist only where it is made and nowhere else-obvious, but important. It cannot exist save at the point designated. Then, if that point moves along a line, the artificial matter must follow that moving point and be always at that point. Suppose no
w that a slab of steel is on that line. The point moves to it-through it. To exist, that artificial matter must follow it through the steel-if not, it is destroyed. Then the steel is attempting to destroy the artificial matter. If the matter has sufficient energy, it will force the steel out of the way, and penetrate. The same is true of any other matter, lux metal or relux-it will penetrate. To continue in existence it must. And it has great energy, and will expend every erg of that energy of existence to continue existence.
“It is, as long as its energy holds out, absolutely irresistible!
“But similarly, if it is at a given point, it must stay there, and will expend every erg staying there. It is then immovable! It is either irresistible in motion, or immovable in static condition. It is the irresistible and the immovable!
“What happens if the irresistible meets the immovable? It can only fight with its energy of existence, and the more energetic prevails."
* * *
CHAPTER X
IMPROVEMENTS AND CALCULATIONS
“It is still incredible. But you have done it. It is certainly successful!” said the Talsonian scientist with conviction.
Arcot shook his head. “Far from it-we have not realized a thousandth part of the tremendous possibilities of this invention. We must work and calculate and then invent.
“Think of the possibilities as a shield-naturally if we can make the matter we should be able to control its properties in any way we like. We should be able to make it opaque, transparent, or any color.” Arcot was speaking to Morey now. “Do you remember, when we were caught in that cosmic ray field in space when we first left this universe, that I said that I had an idea for energy so vast that it would be impossible to describe its awful power? I mentioned that I would attempt to liberate it if ever there was need? The need exists. I want to find that secret."
Stel Felso Theu was looking out through the window at a group of men excitedly beckoning. He called the attention of the others to them, and himself went out. Arcot and Wade joined him in a moment.
“They tell me that Fellsheh, well to the poleward of here has used four of its eight shots. They are still being attacked,” explained the Talsonian gravely.
“Well, get in,” snapped Arcot as he ran back to the ship. Stel Felso hastily followed, and the Ancient Mariner shot into the air, and darted away, poleward, to the Talsonian's directions. The ground fled behind them at a speed that made the scientist grip the hand-rail with a tenseness that showed his nervousness.
As they approached, a tremendous concussion and a great gout of light in the sky informed them of the early demise of several Thessians. But a real fleet was clustered about the city. Arcot approached low, and was able to get quite close before detection. His ray screen was up and Morey had charged the artificial matter apparatus, small as it was, for operation. He created a ball of substance outside the Ancient Mariner, and thrust it toward the nearest Thessian, just as a molecular hit the Ancient Mariner's ray screen.
The artificial matter instantly exploded with terrific violence, slightly denting the tremendously strong lux metal walls. The pressure of the light was so great that the inner relux walls were dented inward. The ground below was suddenly, instantaneously fused.
“Lord-they won't pass a ray screen, obviously,” Morey muttered, picking himself from where he had fallen.
“Hey-easy there. You blinked off the ray screen, and our relux is seriously weakened,” called Arcot, a note of worry in his voice.
“No artificial matter with the ray screen up. I'll use the magnet,” called Morey.
He quickly shut off the apparatus, and went to the huge magnet control. The power room was crowded, and now that the battle was raging in truth, with three ships attacking simultaneously, even the enormous power capacity of the ship's generators was not sufficient, and the storage coils had been thrown into the operation. Morey looked at the instruments a moment. They were all up to capacity, save the ammeter from the coils. That wasn't registering yet. Suddenly it flicked, and the other instrument dropped to zero. They were in artificial space.
“Come here, will you, Morey,” called Arcot. In a moment Morey joined his much worried friend.
“That artificial matter control won't work through ray screens. The Thessians never had to protect against moleculars here, and didn't have them up-hence the destruction wrought. We can't take our screen down, and we can't use our most deadly weapon with it up. If we had a big outfit, we might throw a screen around the whole ship, and sail right in. But we haven't.
“We can't stand ten seconds against that fleet. I'm going to find their base, and make them yell for help.” Arcot snapped a tiny switch one notch further for the barest instant, then snapped it back. They were several millions miles from the planet. “Quicker,” he explained, “to simply follow those ships back home-go back in time."
With the telectroscope, he took views at various distances, thus quickly tracing them back to their base at the pole of the planet. Instantly Arcot shot down, reaching the pole in less than a second, by carefully maneuvering of the space device.
A gigantic dome of polished relux rose from rocky, icy plains. The thing was nearly half a mile high, a mighty rounded roof that covered an area almost three-quarters of a mile in diameter. Titanic-that was the only word that described it. About it there was the peculiar shimmer of a molecular ray screen.
Morey darted to the power room and set his apparatus into operation. He created a ball of matter outside the ship and hurled it instantly at the fort. It exploded with a terrific concussion as it hit the wall of the ray screen. Almost instantly a second one followed. The concussion was terrifically violent, the ground about was fused, and the ray screen was opened for a moment. Arcot threw all his moleculars on the screen, as Morey sent bomb after bomb at it. The coils supplied the energy, cracked the rock beneath. Each energy release disrupted the ray-screen for a moment, and the concentrated fury of the molecular beams poured through the opened screen, and struck the relux behind. It glowed opalescent now in a spot twenty feet across. But the relux was tremendously thick. Thirty bombs Morey hurled, while they held their position without difficulty, pouring their bombs and rays at the fort.
Arcot threw the ship into space, moved, and reappeared suddenly nearly three hundred yards further on. A snap of the eyes, and he saw that the fleet was approaching now. He went again into space, and retreated. Discretion was the better part of valor. But his plan had worked.
He waited half an hour, and returned. From a distance the telectroscope told him that one lone ship was patrolling outside the fort. He moved toward it, creeping up behind the icy mountains. His magnetic beam reached out. The ship lurched and fell. The magnetic beam reached out toward the fort, from which a molecular ray had flashed already, tearing up the icy waste which had concealed him. The ray-screen stopped it, while again Morey turned the magnetic beam on-this time against the fort. The ray remained on! Arcot retreated hastily.
“They found the secret, all right. No use, Morey, come on up,” called the pilot. “They evidently put magnetic shielding around the apparatus. That means the magnetic beam is no good to us any more. They will certainly warn every other base, and have them install similar protection."
“Why didn't you try the magnetic ray on our first attack?” asked Zezdon Afthen.
“If it had worked, their sending apparatus would have been destroyed, and no message could have been sent to call their attackers off Fellsheh. By forcing them to recall their fleet I got results I couldn't get by attacking the fleet,” Arcot said.
“I think there is little more I can do here, Stel Felso Theu. I will take you to Shesto, and there make final arrangements till my return, with apparatus capable of overthrowing your enemies. If you wish to accompany me-you may.” He glanced around at the others of his party. “And our next move will be to return to Earth with what we have. Then we will investigate the Sirian planets, and learn anything they may have of interest, thence-to the real outer space
, the utter void of intergalactic space, and an attempt to learn the secret of that enormous power."
They returned to Shesto, and there Arcot arranged that the only generator they could spare, the one already in their possession, might be used till other Terrestrian ships could bring more. They left for Earth. Hour after hour they fled through the void, till at last old Sol was growing swiftly ahead of them, and finally Earth itself was large on the screens. They changed to a straight molecular drive, and dropped to the Vermont field from which they had taken off.
During the long voyage, Morey and Arcot had both spent much of the time working on the time-distortion field, which would give them a tremendous control over time, either speeding or slowing their time rate enormously. At last, this finished, they had worked on the artificial matter theory, to the point where they could control the shape of the matter perfectly, though as yet they could not control its exact nature. The possibility of such control was, however, definitely proven by the results the machines had given them. Arcot had been more immediately interested in the control of form. He could control the nature as to opacity or transparency to all vibrations that normal matter is opaque or transparent to. Light would pass, or not as he chose, but cosmics he could not stop nor would radio or moleculars be stopped by any present shield he could make.
They had signaled, as soon as they slowed outside the atmosphere, and when they settled to the field, Arcot's father and a number of very important scientists had already arrived.
Arcot senior greeted his son very warmly, but he was tremendously worried, as his son soon saw.
“What's happened, Dad-won't they believe your statements?"
“They doubted when I went to Luna for a session with the Interplanetary Council, but before they could say much, they had plenty of proof of my statements,” the older man answered. “News came that a fleet of Planetary Guard ships had been wiped out by a fleet of ships from outer space. They were huge things-nearly half a mile in length. The Guard ships went up to them-fifty of them-and tried to signal for a conference. The white ship was instantly wiped out-we don't know how. They didn't have ray screens, but that wasn't it. Whatever it was-slightly luminous ray in space-it simply released the energy of the lux metal and relux of the ship. Being composed of light energy simply bound by photonic attraction, it let go with terrible energy. They can do it almost instantly from a distance. The other Guards at once let loose with all their moleculars and cosmics. The enemy shunted off the moleculars, and wiped out the Guard almost instantly.
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