The Three Planeteers

by Edmond Hamilton

  "Stand back, all of you!” he panted.

  His trembling hands moved rapidly among the switches and relays of the panel. And the power-chambers below the gleaming sphere began to throb with mounting energy.

  Louder and louder throbbed the massive chambers as the radite was disintegrated inside them to produce such concentrated power as had never before been produced in one place. And now the proton-turbines of the great generators were droning loud, adding to the deafening throb of the chambers.

  Blaine watched his gauges with feverish eyes, while the Planeteers and their companions stood rigid, watching

  "Almost voltage enough,” Blaine murmured hoarsely. “Almost—now!"

  He closed another switch. And then—

  * * * *

  Blackness! An utter darkness that enveloped them in a split-second of time, a rayless obscurity such as none of them had ever experienced before.

  Thorn looked up bewilderedly, toward where the sun should be blazing down through the ceiling-window. But there was no sunlight now—no light of any kind—nothing but blackness.

  "Blaine, what's gone wrong?” he cried hoarsely. “This darkness—"

  "Nothing has gone wrong!” shrilled Philip Blaine's thin voice triumphantly. “My neutralizer, my great invention, has succeeded! I knew it would if I had power enough!"

  "You mean that it's this machine that has killed all the light here in the cavern?” John Thorn cried.

  "It's done more than that!” Blaine exclaimed. “It's killed all light everywhere! I've blacked out the whole Solar System!"

  A babel of cries of terror rose from the throng in the cavern, above the thunderous throb and drone of the great machine.

  "Killed all light in the solar system?” Thorn gasped. “Impossible!"

  "The neutralizer has done it, I tell you!” Blaine shrilled exultantly.

  "It broadcasts a damping wave that neutralizes and kills all vibrations in the electromagnetic spectrum from three to eight ten-thousandths of a millimeter in wave-length. That includes the whole range of visible light, and the terrific power of this radite-powered generator casts its vibrations out over a radius of eight billion miles, embracing the whole Solar System.

  "There is not one ray of light now in the whole system, on any world, anywhere-neither sunlight or starlight nor artificial light of any kind. Every world and every mile of space in the system has been plunged into utter darkness. And it will remain in darkness as long as the neutralizer is kept on!"

  The stupefied Thorn felt Blaine shove something into his hand. It was a small pair of eye-lenses.

  "Put those on!” Blaine's voice came in the darkness.

  John Thorn put the lenses over his eyes. He cried out in amazement, He could see, through the lenses, by a dusky red light that seemed to permeate everything. The sun blazed crimson and weird in the heavens above the glassite window.

  Sual Av and Gunner, and Lana and old Stilicho were also staring wildly up through the lenses the little physicist had given them. Blaine himself wore the lenses on his eyes.

  "You are seeing by light normally invisible to your retinas, light above the wave-length of ordinary light,” Blaine told them. “The so-called infra-red vibrations, which are unaffected by my neutralizer, and which are made visible to your eyes by these fluorescent lenses."

  "But what good will blacking out the whole solar system do the Alliance navies?” Gunner Welk cried. “The League fleet won't be able to see or maneuver, but neither will our ships!"

  "The Alliance ships will be able to see!” Blaine retorted. “Each Alliance cruiser has been furnished with a supply of these fluorescent lenses, during the last year. They were given secretly to each cruiser's captain, without telling him anything except he was to use them in case of sudden darkness in space. They'll use them now, there off Mercury, and—"

  "And they'll be able to see and to overpower the blinded League ships without a struggle!” Saul Av shouted.

  John Thorn's heart bounded with wild, newborn hope. He clutched Lana feverishly to his side.

  "If it works!” he prayed. “If it only works!"

  They gathered around Blaine's audio. Out of it, as the physicist turned it on, came panic-stricken calls from worlds plunged into absolute darkness, from blinded populations.

  The whole system was seething in a turmoil of mad fear. Crowds stumbling blindly through the darkness of lightless streets were screaming that the end of the universe had come. Others were wailing that they had been suddenly stricken with blindness.

  An hour passed. The intensity of the group around the audio increased. Appalling news of hysterical panic was growing.

  "This can't go on!” Lana exclaimed shakenly. “It's destroying all civilization in the system—"

  "Listen!” Thorn cried suddenly.

  Out of the audio came a hoarse, familiar voice—the voice of Richard Hoskins, Chairman of Earth.

  "Blaine! Philip Blaine!” he was calling. “This is the Chairman! We've won! Commander Leigh has just audioed me that his Alliance forces off Mercury have captured the whole League armada! Every League ship, its men utterly blinded, was forced to surrender under threat of being destroyed by our own cruisers.

  "And I've called authorities on the outer planets. They've agreed to declare the war ended, to terminate Trask's rule and set up popular government again, and to dissolve the League of Cold Worlds into four independent planets again!"

  "Trask himself is dead!” John Thorn called back into the instrument.

  "You Planeteers are safe?” cried the Chairman's voice. It throbbed with emotion as he added, “I knew you would bring the radite in time, Thorn. I knew you would!"

  "Shall I turn off the neutralizer now?” Philip Blaine asked, and the answer came back swiftly.

  "Yes! Give the system light again, Blaine!"

  The little physicist leaped to his control-panel. His switches clicked. The droning of the generators and the throbbing thunder of the power-chambers died.

  And suddenly light blazed about them! Not the dusky red infra-red rays by which they had been seeing through the lenses, but brilliant, blessed sunlight pouring through the window in the ceiling.

  "We've won!” Sual Av was shouting, his ugly face wild with joy., “The Alliance safe now—the menace of the League gone forever!"

  "And that machine did it. That thing in front of us did it!” whispered Gunner Welk, incredulously staring.

  Lana's blue eyes were shining as she looked up at Thorn.

  "It means the realization of my dream and my father's dream, John. A new independent world built up in the Zone. You'll help me build it?” He held her close, tears standing in his eyes, unable to speak for the moment in the flood of his emotions.

  Then they all stared amazedly at Philip Blaine, who had crumpled down beneath his switch-panel with his face buried in his hands. The little physicist looked up shakenly at them.

  "I hope I never have to use the neutralizer to black out the system again!” he said hoarsely. “I felt when it was on that I was trespassing against the command of the One who said, ‘Let there be light!’”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Epilogue

  From Mercury to Pluto,

  From Saturn back to Mars—

  LUSTILY the old song of the Companions of Space was roaring from hundreds of throats, resounding across the huge sunlit spaceport of great New York, Lana's pirate followers, after being feasted and honored for weeks on Earth, were trooping out to their ships to follow their leader back to the Zone. And that roaring chorus that always before had inspired dread was now greeted by a tremendous cheer from the vast throng gathered around the spaceport.

  At the edge of the spaceport stood a little group—the Planeteers, Lana, old Stilicho Keene, and the big space dog that pressed close to its mistress. Facing them were Richard Hoskins, Chairman of Earth, little Philip Blaine, and grim-faced Commander Leigh. Drawn up to one side were solid ranks of gray-uniformed men of the Earth Navy, an hono
r-guard of many thousands.

  "I don't know what to say to you Planeteers,” the Chairman told them unsteadily. “You know what you've done, the whole system knows, and will never forget. But I wish you'd stay here."

  John Thorn smiled, his arm around the slender waist of the pirate girl.

  "We're going to be needed out there in the Zone, sir,” he answered. “It's not going to be so easy to bring law and order to those wild asteroids, even though you've caused all eight plants to recognize the Zone as a ninth independent world."

  "Curse me if I like this idea of me sidin’ with law and order after all these years,” grumbled old Stilicho, his wrinkled face dismayed. “All I know is piracy, and—"

  "You'll like it, Stilicho,” Lana told him fondly. “We'll need a strong space-police to cover the whole Zone, and it will take plenty of force to subdue some of the outlaw asteroids."

  "Plenty of fighting, ye say?” echoed the old Martian. He spat rial juice thoughtfully. “Well, maybe at that it might—"

  "Every world in the system will have only friendship for the Zone,” the Chairman told them earnestly. “Now that the League is gone forever, and popular government restored on the outer planets, I hope and pray that interplanetary war is over forever."

  "And the scientific expedition to Erebus?” John Thorn asked.

  "It rockets off next week,” the Chairman said, a deep sadness in his eyes. “It carries sufficient cyclotron equipment to bring dissolution and peaceful death to the doomed ones of Erebus."

  A hush fell upon them all. And then the Chairman, his fine face working with emotion, shook their hands in farewell.

  Lana started to move away, but Thorn checked her.

  "I've a wedding present for you, Lana,” he said diffidently. “I had the Chairman re-open the old case of your father's dismissal from the Earth Navy. The investigation was impartial, and showed that in fact Martin Cain was unjustly cashiered from the navy because of the conspiracy of a jealous cabal."

  Lana's eyes widened startledly, and clung to Thorn's.

  "John, you mean—"

  "Listen!” he said.

  Commander Leigh had turned and was loudly reading a paper to the solid gray ranks of naval officers and men.

  "Order of the Earth Naval Staff, June fourteenth, Twenty-nine-fifty-six: Martin Cain, deceased, is hereby posthumously returned to full rank of captain in the Earth Navy, and his name is ordered inscribed at Headquarters on the roll of officers who have served with honor."

  Lana was crying. “My father's name, where he always longed for it to be."

  The sixty pirate ships were waiting. They moved out to the Venture, and Stilicho climbed inside. But they were all surprised when Gunner Welk drew back from the door.

  "I'm not going with you, John,” the big Mercurian rumbled. “I didn't know how to tell you all before, but this is good-by."

  Thorn was startled. “Gunner, you're not going to separate from us now? Not after you and Sual Av and I have been so long together?"

  "What's the matter that you want to break us three up now, Gunner?” Sual Av asked, his ugly face distressed.

  Gunner avoided their eyes. He stared off into space with brooding cold blue eyes, his massive countenance queer.

  "You're getting married and that changes things,” he told Thorn. “It can't help but change things."

  His voice deepened. “There were three comrades from different worlds, and they raised a racket from Mercury to Erebus in their time—three Planeteers who did some things that the system won't soon forget. But one of them got married, and that was the end of the Planeteers."

  He shrugged heavily. “But I suppose we had to split up some time. Just because three fellows go through hell together with a grin doesn't mean that they have to stay together afterward. I'm wishing you good luck, John, and you, Sual."

  Lana stepped forward, and looked up with steady searching blue eyes into the Mercurian's massive, brooding face.

  "Gunner, when we fought together and spaced together, I did my part, didn't I?” she asked quietly.

  "Of course!” he rumbled. “I'd fight the man who says you're not the staunchest, bravest girl in the system."

  "Then John and I marrying isn't going to break up the Planeteers,” she told him. “It's going to give you another comrade, that's all. And all four of us together, won't be too many for the work of making a civilized world out of the Zone."

  Gunner stared at Lana, and slowly his craggy face relaxed. He looked from her to John Thorn.

  "Four of us together? And plenty of trouble ahead? Then I stick!"

  He turned toward Sual Av, and shoved the grinning Venusian toward, the door of the ship.

  "What the devil are you hanging back for?” he rumbled. “Don't you know that we're needed out in the Zone—we Four Planeteers!"

  THE END

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