As she spoke, they had filed up the corridor, and climbed into the dome again, where Midos Ken was waiting.
“Where are we going now?” Dick demanded. “Are we off to the Dark Star?”
“Not in this flier,” Thon told him. “She is too slow. Such a long flight would take a year!”
“Slow!” Dick ejaculated. “And here we have already gone so far the sun looks like a star!”
“You don’t realize cosmic distances yet,” Midos Ken put in. “We are hardly half a light year from the sun. And it is at least one hundred thousand light years to the Dark Star.”
“Then how are we going? What’s the good in having the Ahrora unless we use her?”
“We shall ship the flier on a K-ray liner to the sun nearest the Dark Star,” Thon said. “That way, we can cover the hundred thousand light years in a day. And it will only take a week or so to reach the Dark Star.”
“I see,” Dick agreed. “But I wouldn’t have accused the Ahrora of being slow!”
“And now we go back to Bardon,” Midos Ken said, “to get a few instruments I must have. And you might load a few coffers of your diamond tokens in the storeroom, Dick. In two hours, we fly from the space-port on the mountain!”
With a skill that hinted of much practise, Thon drove the flier back until the sun was no longer merely a bright star. With almost the speed of light she circled about the earth, entered the atmosphere, and flashed down beside the great building of silver towers.
The angry black pall of the storm still hung over the mountain valley in the east, but here the warm, fragrant air was undisturbed. And the huge green dome upon the farther range of peaks, with the purple paths of the K-ray jetting from it, was still in view, like a wondrous crown of emerald and amethyst.
Midos Ken shut off the apparatus he had set to trap any invisible man who might attempt to molest their belongings in their absence. Quickly the scientific equipment of the old man, and Dick’s remaining coffers of tokens, were loaded on the Ahrora.
AND here, the action of our story leaves the earth.
l. What follows is a narrative of adventure in space, and on other worlds. The history of the great quest for the secret of life! There will be room for little more comment on the daily life and customs, the laws and the social institutions of futurity.
I have tried to give the reader some idea of that future age, and of the lives of its people. Most of the three hundred thousand words of Dick’s notes is relative to such topics. But I feel that I have failed. The adventure part of the story has run away with me, in a manner of speaking. And I shall leave it as it is. Such other topics as the political and economic structure of the future state are tremendously interesting, of course. But they must be left to the coming book, “A Vision of Futurity.”
There are a thousand things I have no space to mention here. The system of education, for example. Thon once explained it to Dick, took him to visit schools and nurseries. Most children were received by them at the age of a few months, though parents who were competent to do so could secure permission to raise their children in their own homes. It seems that those children of the future were reared more happily than those of our own day, and with greater psychological understanding. Their lives were free and natural—they were not imprisoned by repressions and inhibitions, by unjust laws and outworn conventions, false ideals and intolerant religions, as are children of our own time. This universal education was the foundation of that wonderful social system of the future. Without ideals and capacities rightly developed, liberty would have meant anarchy.
But I must leave such subjects.
THE three boarded the Ahrora again. Thon piloted her swiftly to the leveled mountain top, of the colossal green dome from which dazzling purple rays spurted into the sky. The little flier was landed on the floor within the lofty, incredible building, beneath the prodigious crystal tubes from which the K-ray liners were shot on the purple beams to the planets of other suns.
Thon and Dick left the Ahrora, carrying a coffer of the diamond tokens. They descended an elevator to a series of vast chambers cut in the living rock of the mountain, compared to which the Grand Central Station of our knowledge seemed like a country railroad depot.
There, in a confused rush of millions of hurrying travelers, they found a ticket office, and arranged to ship the Ahrora on the next liner toward a certain sun, and to take passage themselves. Dick was rather dazed—he remembers little of the procedure, except that most of the contents of the coffer had to be counted out, to pay their fare and the freight on the flier.
“The Dark Star is in the same general direction as the Green Star,” Thon told Dick as the elevator was carrying them back up, with the lightened coffer. “That is, they both lie in that section of the heavens designated as Perseus. The Green Star, as poor Don Galeen named it, is much farther away, of course, being outside the Galaxy. Our K-ray liner goes to Anral, which is a sun only six light years from the Dark Star.”
They had reached the door of the flier. In a few minutes an official in blue uniform approached them. He came aboard and into the bridge room. Following his directions, Thon maneuvered the flier up beside one of the enormous, transparent tubes. There lines were fastened to it, and it was drawn through the sliding door in the side of the tube, and into the hold of the immense vessel of silvery metal that filled most of the tube’s interior.
There they left it, fastened down with the lines, with bales and boxes of cargo piled about it. They reached the passengers’ apartments above, in the central part of the great vessel, through a curious elevator in which gravity was shut off, allowing them to be lifted by a swiftly moving current of air.
Dick had paid for a rather luxurious suite—a drawing room, with Thon’s stateroom, and a larger one occupied by both Dick and Midos Ken, opening from it. Meals were taken in the vast, magnificent dining room, with the rest of the passengers.
As on the Ahrora, there was no sense of motion or acceleration. Most of the passengers did not know just when the ship left the tube. Thon and Dick, however, were standing at one of the portholes through which they could look out. All at once the colossal green dome vanished above them, and they were plunging through space at such a rate that the stars looked like streaks of light, instead of points. There were other interesting optical phenomena, such as changes in color and displacement of the stars, due to the fact that their velocity was many times that of light. Dick enters into a discussion of them in his notes, but he uses unfamiliar scientific terms of futurity, which he does not explain. I do not follow him completely. His notes will be quoted in full in “A Vision of Futurity,” of course; but I shall not attempt to deal with the matter here.
The first day of the voyage Dick enjoyed immensely. He dined with Thon and her father in the splendid saloon. He danced with the lovely girl, to the fine music provided by the ship’s orchestra. They played at some game resembling tennis. Thon, like most of the people of that future day, was a superb athlete. They bathed in the great pool of the ship—Dick was by this time well enough accustomed to the changed conventions of futurity so that he was only momentarily disconcerted at the idea of public bathing without a costume.
Midos Ken remained in his stateroom most of the time, sunk in deep thought. Such thought was necessary, Dick agreed, if they were to succeed in the attempt to rescue Don Galeen from the power of the Lord of the Dark Star. But, as he said, he didn’t know enough about the Dark Star to even think about it.
Twenty-seven hours after the start, when the liner was only an hour’s run from port on the major planet of Anral, sudden catastrophe came.
The captain, dining with the passengers at the head of the main table, was suddenly struck down by an invisible knife. He fell forward upon the table, scarlet blood from his heart crimsoning the spotless cloth.
An instant later, an explosion was heard from the direction of the bridge. Then, from various parts of the mighty vessel, came screams and curses, sounds of fighting.
Some of the junior officers of the vessel, seated near the captain, rose and started on a run across the great saloon, toward the elevator that led to the bridge. The cold violet light of an El Ray flashed about them, from an invisible source!
The elements that composed their bodies suddenly turned into water; the men vanished in huge clouds of white, condensing steam.
The thousands seated at the tables had been paralyzed with horror and fear. Now they surged to their feet, a wild, panic-stricken herd, ready to plunge for the nearest exit.
“Stop! Sit down!” A harsh, commanding voice rang out.
One or two passengers, nearest the door, puffed explosively into huge, billowing white clouds. The others recoiled, trembling and horror-struck, sank weakly into the seats they had just vacated.
“I am invisible!” the unpleasant, gutteral voice spoke again. “You cannot see me. I can strike down any one of you at will. But you need not be alarmed unduly. The control of the liner has passed into other hands, but they are competent to take you safely to your destination.
“And your destination is the Dark Star!
“You may consider yourselves prisoners of Garo Nark, Lord of the Dark Star!”
CHAPTER VII
On the Dark Star
DICK, with Thon and Midos Ken, was seated at a little side table, hidden from the rest of the lofty, columned room by a row of potted plants—tall plants, unfamiliar to Dick, with graceful fern-like fronds of a rich, vivid green, and long, spiked clusters of tiny red flowers, crimson and brilliant.
Through the screen of plants, they saw what had happened. But, unlike most of the other passengers, they did not make a sudden dash for the door. Thon and Dick looked at each other, and old Midos Ken bent his head, listening intently.
“Again I have let Garo Nark score over me!” the blind scientist groaned. “I had protected our persons from any enemy on board. But I did not dream that there might be enough invisible men among us to seize the ship!”
“I wish I had the atomic automatic down in the Ahrora!” Dick muttered.
He had been looking at Thon Ahrora. Her lovely face was flushed a little with excitement. Her blue eyes were bright. She was breathing quickly. To his surprise, there was an odd smile on her face, a smile almost of pleasure.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered to her. “You aren’t glad it happened, are you?”
“What’s the difference?” she asked him, still smiling. “We were going to the Dark Star. We should be as comfortable on this liner as on the little flier. I don’t know just what’s going to happen, but it will be fun!”
Dick grinned at her. A wonderful girl! Brave and resourceful! A girl who could fight! And one worth fighting for!
He peered out again through the screen of plants. The passengers were seated again, but tense, anxious, frightened. Silence had fallen over the great room, broken only by furtive whispers, or by the occasional scream or hysterical laugh of a scared woman.
But suddenly the orchestra—obeying a low-voiced order from an unseen man—struck up a quick, lively air. At the same time the agitated stewards, returning to their duty, were busy bringing drinks. In a few minutes the tension had lessened somewhat.
Then the harsh voice of an invisible man spoke again.
“The liner has already left the K-ray beam,” it said. “We are now bound for the Dark Star, under our own emergency K-ray generators. The voyage will take two weeks.
“The routine life of the ship will go on as before. The stewards will continue their duties as usual, under penalty of death. The passengers are urged to make the best of circumstances and to enjoy themselves. The ship is well provisioned. There is plenty of alcoholic beverages among the stores to keep us all feeling merry.” A low, mocking laugh rang out from apparently empty air. “Many of the lady passengers are by no means hard upon the eyes. The orchestra is unsurpassed. So, with wine, women, and song, what is there to worry about?”
A sigh of relief escaped thousands who had expected an immediate end, though the words of the unseen speaker roused little applause.
“Passengers and crew will be expected to keep their regular places,” the voice went on. “We will occupy the bridge and the officer’s quarters. Anyone venturing outside his alloted part of the ship is likely—well, to have an unpleasant experience.”
The voice fell silent.
In a moment the orchestra was playing again. A few couples already fortified, left their glasses to dance. A harassed steward hurried up to the table where Dick sat with Thon and her father, and left brimming glasses of wine.
“Did Garo Nark know we were aboard?” Dick asked as he sipped the fragrant drink. “Or is he taking the ship in the line of his regular profession?”
“I don’t know,” Midos Ken answered reflectively. “The capture of the ship must have been planned well in advance. And Garo Nark probably doesn’t know that we escaped his storm. The liner would undoubtedly have been captured anyhow. But it is possible that the pirates know we are aboard.
“It is twenty years,” he added, “since he has taken a ship. Then there was a long war, when Garo Nark attacked the planet of Anral, the sun which was our destination. He had just come to the throne of his pirate planet. It is said that he murdered his father to hasten his accession.
“A long Avar it was. Nark’s ships defeated the fleet of the Union. He seemed victorious. Then I presented the Patrol a little scientific trick. A device which charged matter with a sort of electronic energy, protecting it from the El Ray. Nark could do nothing against it. He was pretty thoroughly defeated.
“He had not ventured to attempt any more piracy. But he has been busy, planning a revenge upon Thon and myself, it seems. Now, I suppose, he is throwing down the gage.
“Nark may know that we are on board. If he doesn’t, he will be pleased to discover it.”
“Then there is great danger—for Thon?” Dick’s voice was apprehensive. He looked nervously across at the girl, to find hope and courage in her eyes.
“The Lord of the Dark Star hasn’t beaten us yet!” she told him. “Dad still has his scientific tricks. The Ahrora is still safe in the hold. Nark can’t hurt us personally—unless he has invented a new weapon.”
Presently they retired to their suite, where they were unmolested.
Two days went by.
The invisible pirates, who controlled the ship, were not much in evidence. Frequently the footsteps of an unseen person were heard. Sometimes a door opened without visible cause. The stewards and others of the ship’s crew frequently heard low-toned orders from empty air, which they hastened feverishly to obey. Only one man was killed—a passenger who went insane and attempted to storm the bridge with a table knife. He vanished in a billowing cloud of steam.
THE passenger life went on as usual—except that, in their attempts to forget anxiety that oppressed them, many became reckless. There was much drinking, much mad music, much wild dancing. Love making there was, of a feverish, abstracted, passionate sort. Men and women gambled for high stakes, quarreled and fought. Blood was shed on several occasions—though every brawl was stopped promptly by an uncanny voice speaking from transparent air.
Few were sure what would happen at the end of the voyage. Many feared the worst and were prepared to get the most out of life, while they enjoyed it in the luxurious surroundings of the liner.
Thon, Dick and Midos Ken, having, if not more courage, at least more confidence and purpose than most of the passengers, spent much of the time in their suite, trying to plan a course of action. Nothing had happened to show that their identity was suspected.
On the evening of the second day, Dick was struck with an idea.
“Do you suppose we could get down in the hold to the Ahrora?” he asked Thon. “We might hide in it, and make a dash for liberty when the liner lands on the Dark Star and the hold is opened.”
“A good idea,” the girl agreed. “Only if we could get aboard the little flier, we wouldn’t have to wa
it for the liner to land. We could smash a way out through the hull. With the power of our own generators and that neutronium hull, it would be easy.”
“But that would let the air out of the liner, and kill all these thousands of passengers!” Dick objected. “We couldn’t do that!”
“There are airtight bulkheads,” Midos Ken told him. “They would hold the air in the passenger’s compartments. The Ahrora could break through the hull quite easily. It would let the air out of the cargo hold, of course. But that would do no great harm, and the crew could repair the break in a few hours.
“I had been thinking over the plan before you suggested it,” he added. “The difficulty seems to be to get down to the flier. Once aboard, Ave are safe. You recall that the pirates promised something unpleasant to any passengers who leave the regular quarters. But we will make the attempt, at least, if you are willing.”
“Of course!” Dick said. He turned to Thon.
“When?” the girl asked her father, after a quick smile at Dick.
“Twelve tonight,” said the old man. “It is now just after ten. That gives us nearly two hours to make any necessary preparations. At that time our fellow passengers should be at the height of their revel—they ought to divert attention from us.”
“I suppose we go down an elevator?” Dick asked.
“There are two tubes through the center of the ship,” Thon told him. “We came up one of them. No gravity plates there, so we are weightless. A current of air flows up one tube, down the other, moving the passengers.”
“The first difficulty will come at the entrance to the shaft,” Midos Ken said. “There is a locked door there. And it may have an invisible guard.”
There was little to be done in preparation for the adventure, as all of their more bulky possessions had been left in the Ahrora. Midos Ken produced three little devices resembling wrist watches. One he fastened on his own arm; one of the others he presented to Thon; and one to Dick.
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