by Eando Binder
"One against six billions—and I will win!" he boasted. Once again his super-ego had found something on which to feed itself.
2
SOMEWHERE, far out in interstellar space, Anton York, a man-made god, roamed the uncharted deeps of the void. Immortal and wise beyond human understanding, he plunged on in a timeless lethargy, taking pleasure in observing the slow majesty of the cosmos. The stars surrounded him like silver studs in the celestial vault. With him was his immortal mate, Vera York.
Their earth-born love had transformed itself into a spiritual bond that made them almost one. They did not need food or air; their bodies were in a state of suspended animation. They lived only in the mind, exchanging thoughts by telepathy. Their ship drew illimitable power from the vast storehouse of energy with which space was crammed, the cosmic rays. Subtle warpings of the gravitational lines of giant, distant suns gave the ship lightning motion. Unbound by the blind rules of Earthly science, they had often, and at will, exceeded the speed of light. On and on they had gone, nomads of the cosmos.
At times they had slowed and visited other planetary systems, had held concourse with alien races. Life exhibited itself to them in a hundred strange, incredible ways. Minds existed in the Universe whose thought processes were unfathomably queer. Never had they felt any kinship with other intelligences. And never, in all their Brobdingnagian journeying, had they found any planet system quite like the Sun's, nor any world quite like Earth.
Suddenly they knew what it was. Immortal they might be, abhuman and superhuman, children of space itself, but they could not deny what it was—nostalgia! They had lived in space five times as long as on their birthworld, yet on the way back they knew they were heading home!. A warm pulse-beat rose in their brains as they neared the little yellow-white star buried near the hub of the gigantic pin wheel of the Milky Way Galaxy.
When the Sun had begun to enlarge among the stars, Anton York willed himself out of his hypnotic state of bodily suspension. Mind-controlled relays turned on the various mechanisms that supplied heat, air, and artificial gravity. His lungs took in a deep, shuddering breath, the first in several years. His heart suddenly began rumbling in his chest. Congealed blood, bearing the Elixir-enzyme, began to circulate to body cells whose radiogens drew life-energy from the cosmic rays.
His wife, Vera, joined him a moment later. They embraced, and drank the thrill of corporeal existence. The ship was once again a living room, after being a cold, preserved coffin for the years of their swift journey through remotest space.
York consulted his instruments and made rapid mental calculations.
"We've been gone from the Solar System just one thousand and one years, Earth scale," he announced. "When we left here we were thirty-five years old, physically. And that’s exactly how old we are on our return—physically. Of course mentally, spiritually, we're much, much older. We've lived some, haven't we, Vera?"
"Gloriously, Tony!"
"Odd that we've come back here, to this drab little planet system. Remember the grand system of the triple suns—one white, one orange, one red—with its fifty-six gigantic planets? And yet, in a way, I'm glad to be back here."
"There's no place like home," quoted Vera gaily. She knew she was going to enjoy the revival of old memories and associations.
York wheeled the ship in a course high above the plane of the Solar System, as they approached, adopting a wide swinging parabolic course. Soon dark and gloomy Pluto appeared among, the stars, grew to high magnitude, then faded in the rear. Pinkish Neptune with its one great moor paraded past their ports, like a will-o'-wisp. Steel-grey Uranus with its smoky atmosphere, exhibited four huge satellites considerably off to one side.
York, cut obliquely and swept over xanthic Saturn with its brilliant rings and brood of moons, Vera studied the sight with their ship telescope, remarking that for sheer beauty the Saturnian system was unmatched in all space.
Cyclopean Jupiter hove to, an agate striped with brownish bands, the largest of planets with the largest number of satellites. They had seen monster planets beside which Jupiter would be a pea, but somehow, for sheer impressiveness, this great planet was second to none. Vera, gazing at it through the telescope, expressed her admiration. The four largest moons glinted brightly not far out from their primary. The smaller satellites were fainter, but distinguishable from the pinpoint stars by their small discs.
Suddenly Vera looked up.
"Tony," she asked puzzledly, "how many moons did Jupiter have?"
"Ten—and still should have,"
"That's what I thought." Vera bent her eyes to the binocular sights again. "Strange," she declared after a moment, "only nine moons are there now!"
"What? That's nonsense!"
"Look for yourself."
York looked, and counted. He saw the first small Jovian moon, close to the planet like a tiny silver flea preparing to land. Further out, in order, were the four largest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Seven times as far was another small moon. Twice as far out as this were two still smaller satellites. And a little further out, the last. Their total was nine. Obviously, one was missing. But which one was it?
Not trusting to memory—memory that would have had to reach back a thousand years--York rummaged through his chart closet and retrieved an old astronomical book. He turned to a diagrammatic picture of the Jovian system and compared the printed orbits to imaginary ones in the telescopic view. The missing moon was number six, a small one of perhaps a hundred miles diameter, whose orbit had been more than seven million miles from Jupiter's surface.
"Some mystery here," York muttered, straightening up. "A moon just can't go disappearing like that. We've been away a thousand years, yes, but that moon revolved in its orbital groove for millions of years before that!"
What did the missing moon of Jupiter signify? A clue revealed itself several hours later, as the Jovian planet drew steadily nearer. York had turned on his powerful radio receiver and listened to the amazingly clipped speech that vibrated through the ether. Evidently the English language, though universally used, had suffered considerable alteration. Listening carefully, York realized it had been brightened and made more flowing. Undoubtedly their speech would sound archaic to these people of the 31st Century.
Suddenly a powerful, booming voice had blanketed other stations and vibrated throbbingly from the loudspeaker. Its production must have cost a fortune in power. It was a cold, hard, emotionless voice, with arrogant inflections.
"People of the Solar System!" it said. "And particularly, Councillors of Jove! You are aware, undoubtedly, that the number six satellite of Jupiter has vanished from its age-long orbit about its primary. Where is it, you ask. It is at present a good many millions of miles from its former position and is still moving away. This phenomenon is unprecedented. You wonder what inconceivable, but natural, force has done this."
The speaker paused and then went on dramatically: "It is not a natural force! It is man-made! Your lost Moon has been dragged away from its primary—literally—by means of a force-beam and a supremely powerful engine. I, the Immortal, built this super-engine and moved a world! My price for the return of this satellite will be complete rule of the Solar System!"
The voice became ominous: "I have demonstrated that I have in my hands illimitable power. If I can move worlds, I can destroy worlds! My demands are not unreasonable, for I have the wisdom of ages, far more than any other living man. I have lived more than a thousand years. I am immortal, and all-powerful. You will have twenty-four hours in which to discuss this matter, and arrange to call a council at which I will be made emperor. The Immortal waits."
"Did you hear that—the Immortal!" gasped Vera. "Is it possible that he is one of Vinson's group? or has the Elixir been rediscovered?'
"It's one or the other," mused York. "The removal of a satellite from its orbit is no bluff. It's quite a feat, even though it is a comparatively small body. Whoever that person is, he's dangerous."
H
e stroked his brow thoughtfully.
"Vera, I had planned to go directly to Earth, to spend a few quiet years there. Incognito, of course, and then to stock up on supplies. But instead I think we'll hover around Jupiter and see the outcome of these amazing circumstances." His eyes narrowed. "Unless the human race has changed a lot since our time, there's going to be resistance to the Immortal's challenge for supremacy. And after that trouble!."
Promptly when the twenty-four hours were up—Earthscale being standard in the System—the Immortal's booming radio voice came again from the depths of space, demanding to know if his ultimatum had been accepted. York listened carefully for the reply, which came after a certain time lapse because of the distances involved.
"'The council of Jove, representing the Supreme Council of Earth and the Solar System, declines to accept your terms.
"You, the Immortal, are hereby declared an outlaw and a traitor. As such, you will be hunted and destroyed by our Space Patrol. If you will restore the sixth satellite of Jupiter to its rightful position, and give your person into custody, the ultimate sentence will be lightened."
For answer, a grating laugh came from the Immortal. "I have been declared an outlaw by several other provisional governments in the past thousand years, but I have never been apprehended." The voice suddenly spat fire: "You will take the consequences of your answer. The missing satellite is thirty millions of miles from Jupiter. It will be returned to you—as a projectile! At the speed of a thousand miles a second, it will crash into Ganymede and destroy it! That is my answer!"
York snapped off the radio and turned to Vera with horrified eyes.
"He's a madman!" exclaimed Vera. "Tony, can't we do something about this? After all, these are our people, this is the world of our birth. We can't stand by and see an inhabited world destroyed!" York sprang to his feet. "We will do something!"
3
York bent over an instrument whose readings Indicated that the Immortal's message had come from the direction of the Sun. Then he stepped to the telescope and scoured the region thirty million miles sunward from Jupiter. He discovered it among the numberless stars, in the belt of Orion near giant blue Betelgeuse—a small half-disc. It was the lost moon.
York then seated himself at the pilot board and touched studs that guided huge gravitational stresses through his engine. Following a course he had already calculated in his mind, he drove his ship in smooth acceleration toward the tiny, lost moon. Like a ball from some cosmic musket, the ship hurtled sunward.
Inside, nothing was felt of the tremendous, crushing acceleration York had applied. He had long before solved the secret of inertia-suspension. They could have leaped from a cruise to the speed of light in one second without the slightest discomfort.
An hour later their destination loomed large in their front port. It had moved position—toward Jupiter. The Immortal had already begun its furious thrust, aimed it like a titanic cannonball for Ganymede. He had said he was doing it by means of a force-beam—a closed beam of artificial force which could be made more rigid and gripping than a solid bar of steel York had used small force-beams himself, at times, to anchor his ship above strange worlds whose surfaces were not attractive for landing.
But this Immortal's force-beam was one designed to move a world. Only one force was capable of moving a world—another world's gravity field. He was either pulling it, or pushing it, by means of some great gravity field. If pulling, he was using Jupiter's gravity field. If pushing, he was drawing power from the distant Sun's field. Figuring rapidly, York decided he was probably doing the former, since Jupiter was so much nearer and more effective.
He slowed his ships mad pace and took up an orbital path around its Jupiter side. If the Immortal was on this side at all, he must be at one certain spot—the spot bisected by an imaginary line drawn from the center of the moon to the position in Jupiter's orbit where Jupiter would be in twelve hours, and where Ganymede would be an hour later.
His quarry's distance from the moon's surface was one factor York could not foretell. It, depended purely on the design of the force-beam projector he used. Thus, although York had the search narrowed down geographically, he had to hunt hit-or-miss in the third dimension spaceward from the lost moon's surface.
York wasted four precious hours searching for the invisible, silent, undetectable space-tractor with which the Immortal was catapulting the lost moon homeward. He spent only an hour on the sunward side, where the sunlight would have quickly revealed any lurking ship. All this while the derelict moon's speed increased and it had already negotiated half the distance to Jupiter. In another five hours—
"The proverbial needle in the hay-stack," York muttered to his wife. His face was strained. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "We’ll have to take a chance," he said grimly,
The chance of being crushed by the terrific force-beam itself, designed to handle millions of tons of mass, with toy-like ease. York simply shuttled his ship back and forth over the general area under which the force-beam must be anchored. He rode ten miles over the surface, to give himself leeway. His weaving course would eventually run him into the path of the force-beam.
It came finally--a furious wrench that made the entire ship groan and creak. It spun violently and dashed ground-ward at lightning speed, caught in the world-moving force of the beam. Securely strapped in their seats, York and Vera felt as though they were being torn apart. Their inertia-suspension was not equipped to neutralize rotary motion.
Vera fainted.. York, with an effort of will, clawed at the controls and stopped their twisting plunge a hundred feet above the brittle, rocky surface of the lost moon. Vera came to almost immediately, smiling gamely. York was exultant.
"Now we have him located!" he cried.
He adopted a course perpendicular to the spot they had nearly crashed upon, crawled up into the starry vault. Twenty-five miles above the surface the Immortal's ship appeared among the stars. It was a gigantic thing with two enormous, bulging tubes at its back. From one of these was projected the force-beam. It returned to the other tube--after passing into the center of the planet below and firmly gripping it.
The motion of this moon-and-ship system was accomplished by creating an unbalanced strain of its appreciable gravitational field in relation to mighty Jupiter. As a stretched rubber-band tends to snap together, so the distended force-field strained to close the gap between.
With lights out in his cabin, York pulled close to the dark ship. Into his meteor-screen he phased in another screen, one that was supersensitive to electromagnetic waves of high power. It would allow transmission of the low-power radio waves, but any radiation of high power would cause it to snap on instantaneously an impenetrable blanket screen. This protective wizardry had many times saved York out in space among hostile races.
Idling next to the huge space-tug, York radioed across.
"Anton York calling the Immortal. I am just outside your side ports, a hundred feet away. Reduce speed immediately and reverse your force-beam."
Evidently the Immortal had had his radio set open and heard, for his laugh sounded.
"The Space Patrol, eh?" his voice hissed. "Take that—"
There was a sharp click in York's cabin, which cut off the radio voice abruptly. An eye-searing shower of sparkles blossomed where the Immortal's lethal beam of exploding neutrons had impinged on the protective screen. Again the sparkles cast a lurid glare over the two ships, and revealed an amazed face at one of the larger ship's ports. A third time the high-powered beam expended itself against the impenetrable screen of York's ship.
York broadcast as the trigger-touch relay screen released the stronger one.
"You can't destroy me. My screen is beam-proof. But I can destroy you, Immortal!"
A gasp came from the radio.
"What did you say your name was?" asked the Immortal, as though suddenly realizing he had heard the strange name before.
"Anton York."
"Anton York! Not the—"
>
"Yes, the same Anton York who left the Solar System a thousand years ago. The York who annihilated the armada of the Immortals, of which you are apparently a survivor. Remember the weapon I had—the one which turned the Immortals' ships to black dust? I still have that weapon!"
"W-what do you want?" came the Immortal's cowed voice.
"I told you before. Reverse your force-beam and slow down the moon you are dragging. Then you will take up the course I plot, which will return this moon to its former orbit as the sixth satellite of Jupiter. One slightest infraction of my orders and I will turn you and your ship to—black dust!"
Ten hours later the lost moon of Jupiter was restored to its age-old berth in the Jovian system, none the worse for its strange journey. It had not been inhabited nor even exploited for minerals. When York was satisfied that it had been given the right orbital speed to continue revolving properly, he allowed the Immortal to disengage the force-beam.
"You are coming with me now," stated York. "You have been branded an outlaw and must be turned over to the courts for sentence. Be thankful your crime hasn't been the destruction of Ganymede, as you originally intended."
But Mason Chard, recovering from his first awe and fear at the appearance of the legendary York, had been thinking —and scheming. When he released his force-beam from the planetoid, he coincidently shortened its focus. Then he made his ship wobble as though he were clumsy at the controls. At the proper moment, when York's ship was at his back, he jerked the levers and clamped his force-beam to it. Yelling in triumph, Mason Chard twisted his ship in circles, whirling York's like a stone at the end of a string. He released it suddenly.
It receded into the starry background and dwindled to nothingness. Chard hastily rammed full power into his engines, to make good his escape. He took a course directly away from York's ship, eager to put as much distance between as possible. That, he realized soon after, was a mistake.
When York was able to stop the flight of his ship and return to the spot where his prisoner had been, the other ship was long out of sight. It angered him that he had been tricked so easily. On the long chance that the other's psychology had been to dash the other way, York immediately gunned his ship in the same line, with furious acceleration.