Guy Maynard was on his way to the top. Ertene was a dim remembrance by now, and though he could almost pick out the spot of the nomad planet’s present position, it occurred to him only at odd intervals. Ertene was gone. But the strength of Ertene’s knowledge was serving both him and Terra, and her brief visit was not wasted.
Maynard lost himself in reverie for a half hour, relaxing in the luxury of the master’s office aboard the mighty Oriona. Then Guy’s active mind asserted itself, and he called the chief technician for a conference.
Senior Executive Martin Carrington entered the office and stood at attention, and Guy recalled briefly that on his first command, he had been of the same rank as his chief technician now. Then he asked Carrington to be seated.
“Carrington, I’ve been worrying.”
“Worrying, sir?”
“Suppose we are attacked by a sub-ship? How may we detect him?”
“You are supposing that the Martians gain the secret.”
“I fear they will, some day. We haven’t all the brains, you know.” “But a Martie, sir?”
“They may capture one of ours by a fluke. Then we’d all be bear meat.”
“Hardly possible, sir.”
“Then accept it as hypothetical, Carrington. Take off from there and answer my question.”
“That I cannot do, sir. Frankly, I do not know.”
“Then listen. I have an idea; I want you to pass on its value.”
“I shall try, sir.”
“Carrington, is it possible to establish a celestial globe that is capable of giving a negative action? No, wait, I’ll explain. Our present celestial globe is positive; it operates by three-dimensional fluorescence in the sphere, glowing when a positive radiation comes in from a spaceship. What I want is a negative indication; one that will glow in any location from which there comes absolutely zero radiation. Is that possible?”
“Hm-m-m,” mused Carrington. “Our present level of detection is based upon the maximum level of celestial radiation, which is fairly constant in all directions save Sol-ward, Your supposed sphere would operate on the celestial radiation— with the normal globe the entire sphere would glow—and be dark everywhere except in a place where all radiation were absorbed. It would be devilishly ticklish, sir.” “You follow my reasoning?”
“Oh certainly. Your idea is to prepare a sphere that glows with no signal. That can be done with a local signal, which is cut when no-radiation enters. Hard to say in words, isn’t it?’’
Maynard laughed cheerfully. “As long as you get my thought, I don’t care how you say it. The barrier-screen absorbs all radiation. Therefore any position holding a sub-ship would produce zero radiation. It would then show on the negative sphere. Right?”
“I think that’s about it,” said Carrington.
“Good. We agree on that. Want to work on it?”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s yours, then. Go ahead and make it tick.”
“That I’ll do, sir. We’ll have it by the time we hit Pluto.”
“One more thing, Carrington. Keep it under your hat. It’s a military’ secret, you know.”
“I’ll say nothing.”
“Check. I’ll be down and see you later.”
Carrington left, and as he went back to his quarters, He told several of his contemporaries that the new commander was everything that they had ever heard of him.
Finding Pluto was a good job of work for the combined efforts of the astrogator and the chief pilot. Pluto was completely hidden just as Ertene was, and Maynard knew the completeness of that shield. It was done gropingly, by sheer hit and miss effort, but finally a black circle in the starry sky established above them, and as the pilot announced his success, it began to spread from a minute spot to mightiness. Then they passed through the barrier, and Pluto was a warm, greenish planet above them, much the same as Terra as seen from Luna.
The Orionad dropped onto the spaceport; the entire trip without incident.
Maynard signed his command into the base marshal’s office and ordered his chief executive officer to grant planet liberty as he saw fit. Space Marshal Lincoln smiled at the younger man and told him: “I think you’ll be interested in the experiments going on in the radiation laboratory.”
“Yes?”
“They’re having a bit of trouble on one of your gadgets.”
“Which one?”
“The stellar light filter. Somehow, it doesn’t work as you predicted.”
“Why didn’t they ask for me sooner?” wondered Maynard. “It’s been six years since I thought that one up—they’ve had plenty of time.”
“It’s possible,” admitted Lincoln. “But you forget that it was extremely complex and highly theoretical. Also, no good use has ever been found for it. Unlike your other inventions, this seems to be an experiment in pure research. So we didn’t start on it until last, and it’s been three years in the building,”
“So long?”
“Oh yes. Some of the parts were entirely unheard-of before, and many of the major components had to be built of parts that were designed for the job. When you design the minor components to assemble the major components— which also require design—you pyramid the time and difficulty.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that well.” “I wish you’d go over and tell them what’s wrong. Kane, the publisher came in for the unveiling of the thing, and we’d hate to present him with a complete failure, in spite of its uselessness.”
“Kane’s here? Good, I’ll go right over.”
Maynard was youthful enough to be amazed that the weight of his rank opened a path through the grouped technicians to the complex instrument that lined the entire wall of the huge laboratory. Kane was near the center, and the only one in the group that knew Guy Maynard well enough to call him by his first name; therefore he was the first to speak.
“You invented this thing, Guy. Can you make it work?”
Guy blushed. “I didn’t invent it—” he started and then saw Kane’s puzzled look, which caused him to pause; then he nodded and finished: “—I merely worked on it theoretically. I did not have enough equipment in the lifeship to build any more than a few of the more complex circuits.”
“Good enough,” laughed Kane. “Well, you may know more than-we do at that. After all,” he said in defense of his statement, “these men have been working on it for a couple of years.”
A man with the rayed stars of a senior executive offered; “That’s not strictly true, Mr. Kane. We started to work on it about three days ago—if you consider the instrument as a whole. There have been many groups working on the components separately, building them up, We assembled the whole last week.”
“Take a swing at it, Guy.”
“It’s a maze to me,” admitted Guy. “Let me see the circuits.”
It took Maynard some time to figure them out. He was working from memory now, and it was none too good, plus the fact that he had memorized the complex circuit in Ertinian symbols and in Ertinian constants, and they all required conversion to Terran terms. He called for the group leaders of the various components, and asked them to report on the functions of their parts.
Together, they pinned the error down, and corrected it. Then Maynard turned the thing on himself.
The broad plate took on a gray-green background, mottled with huge circular blotches of white. He turned the focusing knob, and the mottling contracted into individual circles of intense, flaming white. He reduced the intensity control, and the eye-searing brightness dimmed to a more comfortable level. More fiddling with the focus, with alternate adjustment of the intensity, for they were inter-reacting, and the plate took on the appearance of the sky.
“So far so good. Now for the shaping control,” said Maynard. He drove the left hand end swirling upward on the plate with one knob, stretched the stars across the top of the plate, and compressed them along the right side. He caused them to whirl circularly, and gradually the distortion dropped until the
constellations appeared.
“There you are,” he told the chief technician.
“Fine. Now what can we do?” “Well, there aren’t too many planets,” said Maynard. “We can decrease the response of celestial bodies that shine by reflected light. That one,” he said needlessly, since they all knew it well, “is Jupiter. Watch him fade!” and Maynard turned the knob. After the demonstration, he returned it to its original position again.
“On the other hand, we have a lot of stars,” he said, turning the other knob. The starry heavens faded, leaving a widely scattered group of pinpricks grouped about a deeper black disk. He pointed to the disk and said: “Since it is the brightest, we may expect it to be the darkest too. Can’t beat Sol from here-At any rate, this knob causes the fading of all bodies that shine by intrinsic light. The reflected-light bodies remain so.” “Marshal, sir, there are nine of them,” said the technician.
“Well,” interrupted Kane, “there are nine planets, aren’t there?” “Not from one of them,” answered the technician. “Or,” he asked Maynard, “would we appear along with the rest?”
“No,” said Maynard slowly. “You’re right. There are nine planets, which counting the one we’re on makes a total of ten.”
“You realize what you’re saying?” stammered Kane. “That means you’ve discovered a new planet with this gadget.”
Maynard shook his head in dazed unbelief. “Another planet?” Then he shook off the amazement and said: “It may be so. But before we shout too loud, we must investigate and be certain.”
“Of course.”
Maynard turned the stellar intensity knob up slightly, bringing the stellar background into faint light. “Get the constants of that planet, and we’ll check. Kane, you’ll come along as a representative of the Terran Press?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world itself,” said Kane. “Any chance of missing it?”
“If we get the linear constant of that planet from Pluto, here, we’ll line-drive out there, Once within a few million miles, passing by if need be, we’ll know it.”
“Couldn’t we pack this thing aboard the Orionad?”
“Not unless we tear the side out of the ship,” grinned Maynard. “We’ll fly this blind, and that won’t be too hard.”
“And then we may find that planet is but a flyspeck,” said Kane.
“It could be,” agreed Maynard. But he knew better. He was thinking of a huge panel; a brilliant painting in a vast hall lined with paintings. The one he faced showed Sol—and ten planets.
And Maynard had patiently waited for all these years for the stellar light-filter to be built. He knew that the unknown planet was so far from Sol and at such an angle that it would remain unseen until they made the filter work. After all, it had been unseen for hundreds of years during the advent of space travel, and for hundreds of years of pure stellar research from Terra before space travel gave the astronomers a chance to prove their planetary theories. He had not been worried that his find would be found too soon, but he would have broken all rules to get to Pluto at the time he did. Luckily, there was no reason to break rules.
Now he could go anywhere and do anything except the short periods when he was under explicit orders.
He wondered whether his action had been too abrupt, and then remembered that his position permitted a large amount of snap-decision and some eccentricity. The quickness of his action would add to the legends of one Guy Maynard, and would cover up the fact that he had been planning this particular party for years.
At the end of the usual landing duration, Guy gave orders for the Orionad to go out to the new planet.
X.
Die-straight, the Orionad flew. On a course tangent to the orbit of Pluto, on and on and on beyond the limits of the Solar System, out to a position almost twice the distance from Pluto to Sol; a distance of 7,180,000,000 miles. And there Maynard looked down upon the globe of another world.
“There it is,” he said to Kane in what he hoped to sound like awe.
“I’d never have believed it,” breathed Kane.
“The funny part,” said Maynard in a surprised tone, “is that this planet is about the correct distance for agreement with Bode’s Law for Pluto, which is not met. Wonder why it never occurred to the brass hats to look in the ‘Bode Position’ all the way around.”
“Neptune sort of screwed Bode’s Law up,” smiled Kane. “It is the fly in the ointment. If you set up Bode’s Law and check for Neptune, you find that Pluto occupies that position, while Neptune is in a supposedly unoccupied position. Neptune is an interloper.”
“Wonder why he came,” mused Maynard.
“Probably got here and couldn’t leave,” said Kane. “Well, Guy, if nothing else, you’ve re-established the value of Bode’s Law. Proper continuity on either side of a discontinuous section—Neptune—indicates to me that the Law is correct. It is the presence of an alien planet that is the troublemaker.”
“Is there anything on that planet?”
“I wouldn’t know. Has three moons, though. Guy, how could anything live on this planet . . . you’re entitled to name it, you know, since you discovered it.”
“I discovered it?”
“You’ll get the credit, and not without reason, Guy.”
Guy shrugged. “We’ll call him Mephisto. I’m going to run in close, Kane. I’d like some initial information on this planet before we return.” He called into the communicator : “Marshal to Executive: Until further notice, we shall call this planet ‘Mephisto.’ Therefore, circle Mephisto at one thousand miles. Have the technician’s crew take all data possible. Have the astrogator check his constants, and if possible, get an initial estimate of Mephisto’s velocity, orbit, and ecliptic angle.”
“Executive to Marshal: Check.”
The answer to Kane’s idle question as to the possibility of Mephisto being inhabited came with a distinctness that left no doubt. Not only was Mephisto inhabited, but Mephisto harbored intelligent life. And the intelligent life either resented the arrival of the Orionad. or thought that the Orionad was the vanguard of a special invasion.
At any rate, both were correct. And no matter what the inhabitants of Mephisto thought, they acted.
The detectors rang in alarm, and automatic circuits closed. The big% turrets of the Orionad whipped around with speed enough to warm their almost frictionless bearings in the brief arc. They threw their surge on the ordnance-supply lines, and the meters jumped high. The big AutoMacmillans emitted their energy silently and invisibly, and seven great gouts of flame bloomed in the space between Mephisto and Orionad.
They swiveled slightly and fired a second time, and four more blossoms of flame spread, this time closer to the Orionad. Upon the third attack, the flashes were very close to the super ship.
“Ships—or torpedoes?” asked Kane.
“Torpedoes.” said Maynard definitely.
“How can you tell?” asked Kane.
“Ships would have flared less brilliantly and more slowly.. It takes a well-loaded warhead to blast that way. The fierceness and the velocity of the blast give the answer to that one. Also, those things were coming up at better than a thousand G. all the way. That’s guessing that they all started at once or nearly so. In order to separate that much in the distance they covered, and to cover so much distance between the first, second, and third contacts, the acceleration must he about that high.” He snapped the communicator and asked: “Marshal to Executive:
What was the acceleration of the exploded bodies?”’
The answer came immediately. “Approximately. 941-G. according to the recorders on the detector circuits.”
“Good eye, Guy.”
“Lots of practice,” said Maynard. “Well, we’re heading back. I’m not going to risk the Orionad in a single-handed battle against a whole planet. Even if I won, they’d bust me flat. We’ll head for Terra and set us up a real punitive expedition. Then we’ll return and take Mephisto for Terra!”
Th
e Orionad based at Sahara Base and Maynard went into the Bureau of Exploration building. His entry into Malcolm Greggor’s office was easy, and he told the space marts all about his discovery. Greggor’s reaction was first doubt, but Maynard called Kane and his executive officer, and when Greggor was convinced, his excitement knew no bounds.
He called an immediate conference with the head of several bureaus, and told Maynard he was to remain, and then added Kane to the list. Once assembled, Maynard explained the details, complete, and Malcolm Greggor opened the discussion by stating: “This will be difficult. They resent us. If we go in at all, we must go in armed to the teeth, and expect trouble all the way.”
Mantley, of the Bureau of Ordnance, said: “You expect anything unique in ordnance, Maynard?”
“I hardly think so. On the other hand, they have space travel, as witness those torpedoes. They must have a definite isolation policy, otherwise they would have contacted us long ago.”
“Not necessarily,” objected the head of the Bureau of Exploration. “They may be alien—they must be utterly alien to inhabit a planet that far from Sol. What form they take, or what their chemistry might be, I have no idea. Furthermore, I don’t care, and if I ask about it, it’ll be academically only. They exist, they have science. They do not like us. Perhaps they know of us, and realize that any traffic with us of the inner worlds is impossible.”
“Their attitude in firing upon the Orionad gives us no alternative,” said Mantley. He turned to Garlinger, and asked: “We haven’t heard from the Bureau of Maneuvers, yet. Have any ideas?”
“It’ll be out and out war,” said Garlinger. “I’m certain that we made no warlike move in merely visiting them. They’ve been in preferred isolation, and now that we’ve discovered them, they fire on us, without provocation. My guess is that we’d not only be better off going in armed, but we’d best prepare for countermeasures, counterattack, and all the trimmings. Now that they’ve been smoked out, I’ll bet they won’t sit there on their icy planet and wait for us to come a-blasting,”
“How and why have they developed space travel,” asked Greggor, “if they care nothing for interplanetary commerce?”
Nomad (1944) Page 11