Campbell, John W Jr - Invaders From the Infinite

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JOHN W. CAMPBELL Books in Ace editions:
THE BLACK STAR PASSES (F-346)
THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE (F-364)
ISLANDS OF SPACE (M-143)
THE PLANETEERS & THE ULTIMATE WEAPON (G-585)
INVADERS FROM THE INFINITE
by
JOHN W. CAMPBELL
ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036
INVADERS FBOM THE INFINITE
Copyright, 1961, by John W. Campbell, Jr.
An earlier version Copyright, 1932, by Experimenter Pub. Co.
An Ace Book, by arrangement with the Author.
All Rights Reserved
Cover by Gray Morrow.
Printed in U.S.A.
Chapter I INVADERS
Russ EVANS, Pilot 3497, Rocket Squad Patrol 34, unsnapped his seat belt, and with a slight push floated "up" into the air
inside the weightless ship. He stretched himself, and yawned broadly.
"Red, how soon do we eat?" he called.
"Shut up, you'll wake the others," replied a low voice from the rear of the swift little patrol ship. "See anything?"
"Several million stars," replied Evans in a lower voice. "And—" His tone became suddenly severe. "Assistant Murphy,
remember your manners when addressing your superior officer. I've a mind to report you."
A flaming head of hair topping a grinning face poked around the edge of the door. "Lower your wavelength, lower your
wavelength! You may think you're a sun, but you're just a planetoid. But what I'd like to know, Chief Pilot Russ Evans, is
why they locate a ship in a forlorn, out of the way place like this—three-quarters of a billion miles, out of planetary plane.
No ships ever come out here, no pirates,
not a chance to help a wrecked ship. All we can do is sit here and watch the other fellows do the work."
"Which is exactly why we're here. Watch—and tell the other ships where to go, and when. Is that chow ready?" asked Russ
looking at a small clock giving New York time.
"Uh—think she'll be on time? Come on an' eat."
Evans took one more look at the telectroscope screen, then snapped it off. A tiny, molecular towing unit in his hand, he
pointed toward the door to the combined galley and lunch room, and glided in the wake of Murphy.
"How much fuel left?" he asked, as he glided into the dizzily spinning room. A cylindrical room, spinning at high speed,
causing an artificial "weight" for the foods and materials in it, made eating of food a less difficult task. Expertly, he
maneuvered himself to the guide rail near the center of the room, and caught the spiral. Braking himself into motion, he
soon glided down its length, and landed on his feet. He bent and flexed his muscles, waiting for the now-busied assistant to
get to the floor and reply.
"They gave us two pounds extra. Lord only knows why. Must expect us to clean up on some fleet. That makes four pound
rolls left, untouched, and two thirds of the original pound. We've been here fifteen days, and have six more to go. The main
driving power rolls have about the same amount left, and three pound rolls in each reserve bin," replied Red, holding a
curiously moving coffee pot that strove to adjust itself to rapidly changing air velocities as it neared the center of the room.
"Sounds like a fleet's power stock. Martian lead or the terrestrial isotope?" asked Evans, tasting warily a peculiar dish
before him. "Say, this is energy food. I thought we didn't get any more till Saturday." The change from the energy-less,
flavored pastes that made up the principal bulk of a space-pilot's diet, to prevent over-eating, when no energy was used in
walking in the weightless ship, was indeed a welcome change.
"Uh-huh. I got hungry. Any objections?" grinned the Irishman.
"None!" replied Evans fervently, pitching in with a will.
Seated at the controls once more, he snapped the little switch that caused the screen to glow with flashing, swirling colors
as the telectroscope apparatus came to We. A thousand tiny points of flame appeared scattered on a black field with a
suddenness that made them seem to snap suddenly into being. Points, tiny dimensionless points of light, save one, a tiny
disc of blue-white flame, old Sol from a distance of close to one billion miles, and under slight reverse magnification. The
skillful hands at the controls were turning adjustments now, and that disc of flame seemed to leap toward him with a
hundred light-speeds, growing to a disc as large as a dime in an instant, while the myriad points of the stars seemed to
scatter like frightened chickens, fleeing from the growing sun, out of the screen. Other points, heretofore invisible,
appeared, grew, and rushed away.
The sun shifted from the center of the screen, and a smaller reddish-green disc came into view—a planet, its atmosphere
coloring the light that left it toward the red. It rushed nearer, grew larger. Earth spread as it took the center of the screen. A
world, a portion of a world, a continent, a fragment of a continent as the magnification increased, boundlessly it seemed.
Finally, New York spread across the screen; New York seen from the air, with a strange lack of perspective. The buildings
did not seem all to slant toward some point, but to stand vertical, for, from a distance of a billion miles, the vision lines
were practically parallel. Titanic shafts of glowing color in the early summer sun appeared; the hot rays from the sun, now
only 82,500,000 miles away, shimmering on the colored metal walls.
The new Airlines Building, a. mile and a half high, supported at various points by actual spaceship driving units, was a riot
of shifting, rainbow hues. A new trick in construction had been used here, and Evans smiled at it. Arcot, inventor of the
ship that carried him, had suggested it to Fuller, designer of that ship, and of that building. The colored berylium metal of
the wall had been ruled
with 20,000 lines to the inch, mere scratches, but nevertheless a diffraction grating. The result was amazingly beautiful.
The sunlight, split up to its rainbow colors, was reflected in millions of shifting tints.
In the air, supported by tiny packs strapped to their backs, thousands of people were moving, floating where they wished,
in any direction, at any elevation. There were none of the helicopters of even five years ago, now. A molecular power suit
was far more convenient, cost nothing to operate, and but $50 to buy. Perfectly safe, requiring no skill, everyone owned
them. To the watcher in space, they were mere moving, snaky lines of barely distinguishable dots that shivered and seemed
to writhe in the refractions of the air. Passing over them, seeming to pass almost through them in this strange
perspectiveless view, were the shadowy forms of giant space liners, titanic streamlined hulls. They were streamlined for no
good reason, save that they looked faster and more graceful than the more efficient spherical freighters, just as passenger
liners of two centuries earlier, with their steam engines, had carried four funnels and used two. A space liner spent so
minute a portion of its journey in the atmosphere that it was really inefficient to streamline them.
"Won't be long!" muttered Russ, grinning cheerily at the familiar, sunlit city. His eyes darted to the chronometer beside
him. The view seemed to be taken from a ship that was suddenly scudding across the heavens like a frightened thing, as it
ran across from Manhattan Island, followed the Hudson for a short way, then cut across into New Jersey, swinging over the
great woodland area of Kittatiny Park, resting finally on the New Jersey suburb of New York nestled in the Kittatinies,
Blairtown. Low apartment buildings, ten or twelve stories high, nestled in the waving green of trees in the old roadways.
When ground traffic ceased, the streets had been torn up, and parkways substituted.
Quickly the view singled out a single apartment, and the great smooth roof was enlarged on the screen to the absolute
maximum clarity, till further magnification simply resulted in worse stratospheric distortion. On the broad roof
were white strips of some material, making a huge V followed by two I's. Russ watched, his hand on the control steadying
the view Under the Earth's complicated orbital motion, and rotation, further corrections for the ship's orbital motion making
the job one requiring great skill. The view held the center with amazing clarity. Something seemed to be happening to the
last of the I's. It crumpled suddenly, rolled in on itself and disappeared.
"She's there, and on time," grinned Russ happily.
He tried more magnification. Could he—
He was tired, terribly, suddenly tired. He took his hands from the viewplate controls, relaxed, and dropped off to sleep.
"What made me so tired-wonder-GOD!" He straightened with a jerk, and his hands flew to the controls. The view on the
machine suddenly retreated, flew back with a velocity inconceivable. Earth dropped away from the ship with an apparent
velocity a thousand times that of light; it was a tiny ball, a pinpoint, gone, the sun—a minute disc —gone—then the
apparatus was flashing views into focus from the other side of the ship. The assistant did not reply. Evans' hands were
growing ineffably heavy, his whole body yearned for sleep. Slowly, clumsily he pawed for a little stud. Somehow his hand
found it, and the ship reeled suddenly, little jerks, as the code message was flung out in a beam of such tremendous power
that the sheer radiation pressure made it noticeable. Earth would be notified. The system would be warned. But light, slow
crawling thing, would take hours to cross the gulf of space, and radio travels no faster.
Half conscious, fighting for his faculties with all his will, the pilot turned to the screen. A ship! A strange, glistening thing
streamlined to the nth degree, every spare corner rounded till the resistance was at the irreducible minimum. But, in the
great pilotport of the stranger, the patrol pilot saw faces, and gasped in surprise as he saw them! Terrible faces, blotched,
contorted. Patches of white skin, patches of brown, patches of black, blotched and twisted across the
faces. Long, lean faces, great wide flat foreheads above, skulls strangely squared, more box-like than man's rounded skull.
The ears were large, pointed tips at the top. Their hair was a silky mane that extended low over the forehead, and ran back,
spreading above the ears, and down the neck.
Then, as that emotion of surprise and astonishment weakened his will momentarily, oblivion came, with what seemed a
fleeting instant of memories. His life seemed to flash before his mind in serried rank, a file of events, his childhood, his
life, his marriage, his wife, an image of smiling comfort, then the years, images of great and near great men, his knowledge
of history, pictures of great war of 2074, pictures of the attackers of the Black Star—then calm oblivion, quiet blankness.
The long, silent ship that had hovered near him turned, and pointed toward the pinhead of matter that glowed brilliantly in
the flaming jewel box of the heavens. It was gone in an instant, rushing toward Sun and Earth at a speed that outraced the
flying radio message, leaving the ship of the Guard Patrol behind, and leaving the Pilot as he leaves our story.
Chapter II CANINE PEOPLE
"Am) THAT," said Arcot between puffs, "will certainly be a great boon to the Rocket Patrol, you must admit. They don't
like dueling with these space-pirates using the molecular rays, and since molecular rays have such a tremendous
commercial value, we can't prohibit the sale of ray apparatus. Now, if you will come into the 'workshop,' Fuller, I'll give a
demonstration with friend Morey's help."
The four friends rose, Morey, Wade and Fuller following Arcot into his laboratory on die thirty-seventh floor of the Arcot
Research Building. As they went, Arcot explained to Fuller the results and principles of the latest* product of
the ingenuity of the "Triumvirate," as Arcot, Morey and Wade had come to be called in the news dispatches.
"As you know, the molecular rays make all the molecules of any piece of matter they are turned upon move in the desired
direction. Since they supply no new energy, but make the body they are turned upon supply its own, using the energy of its
own random molecular motion of heat, they are practically impossible to stop. The energy necessary for molecular rays to
take effect is so small that the usual type of filter lets enough of it pass. A ship equipped with filters is no better off when
attacked than one without. The rays simply drove the front end into the rear, or vice versa, or tore it to pieces as the pirates
desired. The Rocket Patrol could kill off the pirates, but they lost so many men in the process, it was a Phyrric victory.
"For some time Morey and I have been working on something to stop the rays. Obviously it can't be by means of any of the
usual metallic energy absorption screens.
"We finally found a combination of rays, better frequencies, that did what we wanted. I have such an apparatus here. What
we want you to do, of course, is the usual job of rearranging the stuff so that, the apparatus can be made from dies, and put
into quantity production. As the Official Designer for the A.A.L. you ought to do that easily." Arcot grinned as Fuller
looked in amazement at the apparatus Arcot had picked up from the bench in the "workshop."
"Don't get worried," laughed Morey, "that's got a lifting unit combined—just a plain ordinary molecular lift such as you see
by the hundreds out there." Morey pointed through the great window where thousands of those lift units were carrying
men, women and children through the air, lifting them hundreds, thousands of feet above the streets and through the doors
of buildings.
"Here's an ordinary molecular pistol. I'm going to put the suit on, and rise about five feet off the floor. You can turn the
pistol on me, and see what impression it makes on the suit."
Fuller took the molecular ray pistol, while Wade helped Arcot into the suit. He looked at the pistol dubiously, pointed
It at a heavy casting of iron resting in one corner of the room, and turned the ray at low concentration, then pressed the
trigger-button. The casting gave out a low, scrunching grind, and slid toward him with a lurch. Instantly he shut off the
power. "This isn't any ordinary pistol. It's got seven or eight times the ordinary power!" he exclaimed.
"Oh yes, I forgot," Morey said. "Instead of the fuel 'battery that the early pistols used, this has a space-distortion power
coil. This pistol has as much power as the usual A-39 power unit for commercial work."
By the time Morey had explained the changes to Fuller, Arcot had the suit on, and was floating five or six feet in the air,
like a grotesque captive balloon. "Ready, Fuller?"
"I guess so, but I certainly hope that suit is all it is claimed to be. If it isn't—well I'd rather not commit murder."
"It'll work," said Arcot. "I'll bet my neck on that!" Suddenly he was surrounded by the faintest of auras, a strange, wavering
blue light, like the hazy corona about a 400,000-volt power line. "Now try it."
Fuller pointed the pistol at the floating man and pushed the trigger. The brilliant blue beam of the molecular ray, and the
low hum of the air, rushing in the path of the director beam, stabbed out toward Arcot. The faint aura about him was
suddenly intensified a million times till he floated in a ball of blue-white fire. Scarcely visible, the air about him blazed
with bluish incandescence of ionization.
"Increase the power," suggested Morey. Fuller turned on more power. The blue halo was shot through with tiny violet
sparks, the sharp odor of ozone in the air was stifling; the heat of wasted energy was making the room hotter. The power
increased further, and the tiny sparks were waving streamers, that laced across the surface of the blue fire. Little jets of
electric flame reached out along the beam of the ray now. Finally, as full power of the molecular ray was reached, the
entire halo was buried under a mass of writhing sparks that seemed to leap up into the air above the man's head, wavering
up to extinction. The room was unbearably hot, des-
pite the molecular ray coolers absorbing the heat of the air, and blowing cooled air into the room.
Fuller snapped off the ray, and put the pistol on the table beside him. The halo died, and went out a moment later, and
Arcot settled to the floor.
"This particular suit will stand up against anything the ordinary commercial sets will give. The system now: remember that
the rays are short electrical waves. The easiest way to stop them is to interpose a wave of opposite phase, and cause
interference. Fine, but try to get in tune with an unknown wave when it is moving in relation to your center of control. It is
impossible to do it before you yourself have been rayed out of existence. We must use some system that will automatically,
instantly be out of phase.
"The Hall effect would naturally tend to make the frequency of a wave through a resisting medium change, and lengthen. If
we can send out a spherical wave front, and have it lengthen rapidly as it proceeds, we will have a wave front that is, at all
points, different. Any entering wave would, sooner or later, meet a wave that was half a phase out, no matter what the
motion was, nor what the frequency, as long as it lies within the comparatively narrow molecular wave band. What this
apparatus, or ray screen, consists of, is a machine generating a spherical wave front of the nature of a molecular wave, but
of just too great a frequency to do anything. A second part generates a condition in space, which opposes that wave. After
traveling a certain distance, the wave has lengthened to molecular wave type, but is now beyond the machine which
generated it, and no longer affects it, or damages it. However, as it proceeds, it continues to lengthen, till eventually it
reaches the length of infra-light, when the air quickly absorbs it, as it reaches one of the absorption bands for air molecular
waves, and any molecular wave must find its half-wave complement somewhere in that wedge of waves. It does, and is at
once choked off, its energy fighting the energy of the ray screen, of course. In the air, however, the screen is greatly
helped by the fact that before the half-wave frequency is met in the ray-wedge, the molecular ray is buried in ions, leaving
the ray screen little work to do.
"Now your job is to design the apparatus in a form that machines can make automatically. We tried doing it ourselves for
the fun of it, but we couldn't see how we could make a machine that didn't need at least two humans to supervise."
"Well," grinned Fuller, "you have it all over me as scientists, but as economic workers—two human supervisors to make
one product!"
"All right—we agree. But no, let's see you—Lord! What was that?" Morey started for the door on the run. The building
was still trembling from the shock of a heavy blow, a blow that seemed much as though a machine had been wrecked on
the armored roof, and a big machine at that. Arcot, a flying suit already on, was up in the air, and darting past Morey in an
instant, streaking for the vertical shaft that would let him out to the roof. The molecular ray pistol was already in his hand,
ready to pull any beams off unfortunate victims pinned under them.
In a moment he had flashed up through the seven stories, and out to the roof. A gigantic silvery machine rested there,
streamlined to perfection, its hull dazzingly beautiful in the sunlight. A door opened, and three tall, lean men stepped from
it. Already people were collecting about the ship, flying up from below. Air patrolmen floated up in a minute, and seeing
Arcot, held the crowd back.
The strange men were tall, eight feet or more in height. Great, round, soft brown eyes looked in curiosity at the towering
multicolored buildings, at the people floating in the air, at the green trees and the blue sky, the yellowish sun.
Arcot looked at their strangely blotched and mottled heads, faces, arms and hands. Their feet were very long and narrow,
their legs long and thin. Their faces were kindly; the mottled skin, brown and white and black, seemed not to make them
ugly. It was not a disfigurement; it seemed oddly familiar and natural in some reminiscent way.
"Lord, Arcot-queer specimens, yet they seem familiar!" said Morey in an undertone.
"They are. Their race is that of man's first and best friend, the dog! See the brown eyes? The typical teeth? The feet still
show the traces of the dog's toe-step. Their nails, not flat like human ones but rounded? The molded skin, the ears—look,
one is advancing."
One of the strangers walked laboriously forward. A lighter world than Earth was evidently his home. His great brown eyes
fixed themselves on Arcot's. Arcot watched them. They seemed to expand, grow larger; they seemed to fill all the sky.
Hypnotism! He concentrated his mind, and the eyes suddenly contracted to the normal eyes of the stranger. The man reeled
back, as Arcot's telepathic command to sleep came, stronger than his own will. The stranger's friends caught him, shook
him, but he slept. One of the others looked at Arcot; his eyes seemed hurt, desperately pleading.
Arcot strode forward, and quickly brought the man out of the trance. He shook his head, smiled at Arcot, then, with
desperate difficulty, he enunciated some words in English, terribly distorted.
"Ahy wizz tahk. Vokle kohds ron. Tahk by breen.
Distorted as it was, Arcot recognized the meaning without difficulty. "I wish (to) talk. Vocal cords wrong. Talk by brain."
He switched to communication by the Venerian method, telepathically, but without hypnotism.
"Good enough. When you attempted to hypnotize me, I didn't known what you wanted. It is not necessary to hypnotize to
carry on, communication by the method of the second world of this system. What brings you to our system? From what
system do you come? What do you wish to say?"
The other, not having learned the Venerian system, had great difficulty in communicating his thoughts, but Arcot learned
that they had machines which would make it easier, and the terrestrian invited them into his laboratory, for the crowd was
steadily growing.
The three returned to their ship for a moment, coming
out with several peculiar headsets. Almost at once the ship started to rise, going up more and more swiftly, as the people
cleared a way for it.
Then, in the tiniest fraction of a second, the ship was gone; it shrank to a point, and was invisible in the blue vault of the
sky.
"Apparently they intend to stay a while," said Wade. "They are trusting souls, for their line of retreat is cut off. We
naturally have no intention of harming them, but they can't know that."
"I'm not so sure," said Arcot. He turned to the apparent leader of the three and explained that there were several stories to
descend, and stairs were harder than a flying unit. "Wrap your arms about my legs, when I rise above you, and hold on till
your feet are on the floor a-gain," he concluded.
The stranger walked a little closer to the edge of the shaft, and looked down. White bulbs illuminated its walls down its
length to the ground. The man talked rapidly to his friends, looking with evident distaste at the shaft, and the tiny pack on
Arcot's back. Finally, smiling, he evinced his willingness. Arcot rose, the man grasped his legs, and then both rose. Over
the shaft, and down to his laboratory was the work of a moment.
Arcot led them into his "consultation room," where a number of comfortable chairs were arranged, facing each other. He
seated them together, and his own friends facing them.
"Friends of another world," began Arcot, "we do not know your errand here, but you evidently have good reason for
coming to this place. It is unlikely that your landing was the result of sheer chance. What brought you? How came you to
this point?"
"It is difficult for me to reply. First we must be en rapport. Our system is not simple as yours, but more effective, for yours
depends on thought ideas, not altogether universal. Place these on your heads, for only a moment. I must induce temporary
hypnotic coma. Let one try first if you
desire." The leader of the visitors held out one of the several headsets they had brought, caplike things, made of laminated
metal apparently.
Arcot hesitated, then with a grin slipped it on.
"Relax," came a voice in Arcot's head, a low, droning voice, a voice of command. "Sleep," it added. Arcot felt himself
floating down an infinite shaft, on some superflying suit that did not pull at him with its straps, just floating down lightly,
down and down and down. Suddenly he reached the bottom, and found to his surprise that it led directly into the room
again! He was back. "You are awake. Speak!" came the voice.
Arcot shook himself, and looked about. A new voice spoke now, not the tonelessly melodious voice, but the voice of an
individual, yet a mental voice. It was perfectly clear, and perfectly comprehensible. "We have traveled far to find you, and
now we have business of the utmost import. Ask these others to let us treat them, for we must do what we can in the least
possible time. I will explain when all can understand. I am Zezdon Fentes, First Student of Thought. He who sits on my
right is Zezdon Afthen, and he beyond him, is Zezdon Inthel, of Physics and of Chemistry, respectively."
And now Arcot spoke to his friends.
"These men have something of the greatest importance to tell us, it seems. They want us all to hear, and they are in a hurry.
The treatment isn't at all annoying. Try it. The man on the extreme right, as we face them, is Zezdon Fentes of Thought,
Zezdon apparently meaning something like professor, or 'First Student of.' Those next him are Zezdon Aften of Physics
and Zezdon Inthel of Chemistry."
Zezdon Afthen offered them the headsets, and in a moment everyone present was wearing one. The process of putting them
en rapport took very little time, and shortly all were able to communicate with ease.
"Friends of Earth, we must tell our strange story quickly for the benefit of your world as well as ours, and others, too. We
cannot so much as annoy. We are helpless to combat them.
"Our world lies far out across the galaxy; even with incalculable velocity of the great swift thing that bore us, three
long months have we traveled toward your distant worlds, hoping that at last the Invaders might meet their masters.
"We landed on this roof because we examined mentally the knowledge of a pilot of one of your patrol ships. His
mind told us that here we would find the three greatest students of Science of this Solar System. So it was here we
came for help.
"Our race has arisen," he continued, "as you have so surely determined from the race you call canines. It was
artificially produced by the Ancient Masters when their hour of need had come. We have lost the great science of the
Ancient Ones. But we have developed a different science, a science of the mind."
"Dogs are far more psychic than are men. They would naturally tend to develop such a civilization," said Arcot
judiciously.
Chapter III A QUARTER OF A MILLION LIGHT YEARS
"OuR CIVILIZATION/' continued Zezdon Afthen, "is built largely on the knowledge of the mind. We cannot have
criminals, for the man who plots evil is surely found out by his thoughts. We cannot have lying politicians and unjust
rulers.
"It is a peaceful civilization. The Ancient Masters feared and hated War with a mighty aversion. But they did not
make our race cowards, merely peaceful intelligence. Now we must fight for our homes, and my race will fight
mightily. But we need weapons.
"But my story has little to do with our race. I will tell the story of our civilization and of the Ancient Ones later when
the time is more auspicious.
"Four months ago, our mental vibration instruments detected powerful emanations from space. That could only
mean that a new, highly intelligent race had suddenly appeared within a billion miles of our world. The directional
devices quickly spotted it as emanating from the third planet of our system. Zezdon Fentes, with my aid, set up some
special apparatus, which would pick up strong thoughts and make them visible. We had used this before to see not
only what an enemy looked upon, but also what he saw in that curious thing, the eye of the mind, the vision of the
past and the future. But while the thought-amplification device' was powerful, the new emanations were hard to
separate from each other.
"It was done finally, when all but one man slept. That one we were enable to tune sharply to. After that we could
reach him at any time. He was the commander. We saw him operate the ship, we saw the ship, saw it glide over the
barren, rocky surface of that world. We saw other men come in and go out. They were strange men. Short, squat,
bulky men. Their arms were short and stocky. But their strength was enormous, unbelievable. We saw them bend
solid bars of steel as thick as my arm. With perfect ease!
"Their brains were tremendously active, but they were evil, selfishly evil. Nothing that did not benefit them counted.
At one time our instruments went dead, and we feared that the commander had detected us, but we saw what
happened a little later. The second in command had killed him.
"We saw them examine the world, working their way across it, wearing heavy suits, yet, for all the terrific gravity of
that world, bouncing about like rubber balls, leaping and jumping where they wanted. Their legs would drive out like
pistons, and they soared up and through the air.
"They were tired while they made those examinations, and slept heavily at night.
"Then one night there was a conference. We saw then what they intended. Before we had tried desperately to signal
them. Now we were glad that we had failed.
"We saw their ship rise (in the thoughts of the second in command) and sail out into space, and rush toward our
world. The world grew larger, but it was imperfectly sketched in, for they did not know our world well. Their telescopes
did not have great power as your electric telescopes have.
"We saw them investigate the planet. We saw them plan to destroy any people they found with a ray which was as follows:
'the ray which makes all parts move as one.' We could not understand and could not interpret. Thoughts beyond our
knowledge have, of course, no meaning, even when our mental amplifiers get them, and bring them to us."
"The Molecular ray!" gasped Morey in surprise. "They will be an enemy."
"You know it! It is familiar to you! You have it? You can fight it?" asked Zezdon Afthen excitedly.
"We know it, and can fight it, if that is all they have."
"They have more—much more I fear," replied Zezdon Afthen. "At any rate, we saw what they intended. If our world was
inhabited, they would destroy every one on it, and then other men of their race were to float in on their great ships, and
settle on that largest of our worlds.
"We had to stop them so we did what we could. We had powerful machines, which would amplify and broadcast our
thoughts. So we broadcast our thought-waves, and implanted in the mind of their leader that it would be wise to land, and
learn the extent of the civilization, and the weapons to be met. Also, as the ship drew nearer, we made him decide on a
certain spot we had prepared for him.
"He never guessed that the thoughts were not his own. Only the ideas came to him, seeming to spring from his own mind.
"He landed—and we used our one weapon. It was a thing left to one group of rulers when the Ancient Masters left us to
care for ourselves. What it was, we never knew; we had never used it in the fifteen thousand years since the Great Masters
had passed—never had to. But now it was brought out, and concealed behind great piles of rock in a deep canyon where
the ship of the enemy would land. When it landed, we turned the beam of the machine on it, and the
apparatus rotated it swiftly, and a cone of the beam's ray was formed as the beam was swung through a small circle in the
vertical plane. The machine leaped backward, and though it was so massive that a tremendous amount of labor had been
required to bring it there, the push of the pencil of force we sent out hurled it back against a rocky cliff behind it as though
it were some child's toy. It continued to operate for perhaps a second, perhaps two. In that, time two great holes had been
cut in the enemy ship, holes fifteen feet across, that ran completely through the hull as though a die had cut through the
metal of the ship, cutting out a disc of metal.
"There was a terrific concussion, and a roar as the air blasted out of the ship. It did not take us long to discover that the
enemy were dead. Their terrible, bloated corpses lay everywhere in the ship. Most of the men we were able to recognize,
having seen them in the mentovisor. But the colors were distorted, and their forms were peculiar. Indeed, the whole ship
seemed strange. The only time that things ever did seem normal about that strange thing, when the angles of it seemed
what they were, when the machines did not seem out of proportion, out of shape, twisted, was when on a trial trip we
ventured very close to our sun."
Arcot whistled softly and looked at Morey. Morey nodded. "Probably right. Don't interrupt."
"That you thought something, I understood, but the thoughts themselves were hopelessly unintelligible to me. You know
the explanation?" asked Zezdon Afthen eagerly.
"We think so. The ship was evidently made on a world of huge size. Those men, their stocky, block legs and arms, their
entire build and their desire for the largest of your planets, would indicate that. Their own world was probably even
larger—they were forced to wear pressure suits even on that large world, and could jump all over, you said. On so huge a
sphere as their native world seems to be, the gravity would be so intense as to distort space. Geometry, such as yours seems
to be, and such as ours was, could never be developed, for you assume the existence of a straight
line, and of an absolute plane surface. These things cannot exist in space, but on small worlds, far from the central sun's
mass, the conditions approach that without sufficient discrepency to make the error obvious. On so huge a globe as their
world the space is so curved that it is at once obvious that no straight line exists, and that no plane exists. Their geometry
would never be like ours. When you went close to your sun, the attraction was sufficient to curve space into a semblance of
the natural conditions on their home planet, then your senses and the ship met a compromise condition which made it seem
more or less normal, not so obviously strange to you.
"But continue." Arcot looked at Afthen interestedly.
"There were none left in their ship now, and we had been careful in locating the first hole, that it should not damage the
propulsive machinery. The second hole was accidental, due to the shift of the machine. The machine itself was wrecked
now, crushed by its own reaction. We forgot that any pencil of force powerful enough to do what we wanted, would tear
the machine from its moorings unless fastened with great steel bolts into the solid rock.
"The second hole had been far to the rear, and had, by ill-luck, cut out a portion of the driving apparatus. We could not
repair that, though we did succeed at last in lifting the great discs into place. We attempted to cut them, and put them back
in sections. Our finest saws and machines did not nick them. Their weight was unbelievable, and yet we finally succeeded
in lifting the things into the wall of the ship. The actual missing material did. not represent more than a tiny cut, perhaps as
wide as one of your credit-discs. You could slip the thin piece of metal in between them, but not so much as your finger.
"Those slots we welded tight with our best steel, letting a flap hang over on each side of the cut, and as the hot metal
cooled, it was drawn against the shining walls with terrific force. The joints were perfectly airtight.
"The machines proper were repaired to the greatest possi-
ble extent. It was a heartbreaking task, for we must only guess at what machines should be connected together. Much
damage had been done by the rushing air as it left, for it filled the machines, too, and they were not designed to resist the
terrific air pressure that was on them when the pressure in the ship escaped. Many of the machines had been burst open,
and these we could repair when we had the necessary elements and knew their construction from the remnants, or could
find unbroken duplicates in the stock rooms.
"Once we connected the wrong things. This will show you what we dealt with. They were the wrong poles—two
generators, connected together in the wrong way. There was a terrific crash when the switch was thrown, and huge sheets
of electric flame leaped from one of them. Two men were killed, incinerated in an instant, even the odors one might expect
were killed in that flash of heat. Everything save the shining metal and clear glass within ten feet of it was instantly wiped
out. And there was a fuse link that gave. The generator was ruined. One was left, and several small auxiliary generators.
"Eventually, we did the job. We made the machine work. And we are here.
"We have come to warn you, and to ask aid. Your system also has a large planet, slightly smaller than the largest of our
system, but yet attractive. There are approximately 50,000 planetary systems in this universe, according to the records of
the Invaders. Their world is not of this system. It is the World Thett, sun Antseck, Universe Venone. Where that is, or even
what it means, we do not know. Perhaps you understand.
"But they investigated your world, and its address, according to their records, was World 3769-8482730-3. This, I believe,
means, Universe 3769, sun 8482730, world 3. They have been investigating this system now for nearly three centuries. It
was close to 200 years ago that they visited your world—two "hundred years of your time."
"This is 2129-which makes it about the year 1929-30 that they floated around here investigating. Why haven't they done
anything?" Arcot asked him.
"They waited for an auspicious time. They are afraid now, for recently they visited your world, and were utterly amazed to
find the unbelievable progress your people have made. They intend to make an immediate attack on all worlds known to be
intelligently populated. They had made the mistake of letting one race leam too much; they cannot afford to let it happen
again.
"There are only twenty-one inhabited worlds known, and their thousands of scouts have already investigated nearly all the
central mass of this universe, and much of the outer rings. They have established a base in this universe. Where I do not
know. That, alone, was never mentioned in the records. But of all peoples, they feared only your world.
"There is one race in the universe far older than yours, but they are a sleeping people. Long ago their culture decayed. Still,
now they are not far from you, and perhaps it will be worth the few days needed to learn more about them. We have their
location and can take you there. Their world circles a dead star—"
"Not any more," laughed Morey grimly. "That's another surprise for the enemy. They had a little jog, and they certainly are
wide awake now. They are headed for big things, and they are going to do a lot."
"But how do you know these things? You have ships that can go from planet to planet, I know, but the records of the
enemy said you could not leave the system of your sun. They alone knew that secret."
"Another surprise for them," said Morey. "We can—and we can move faster than your ship, if not faster than they. The
people of the dead star have moved to a very live star —Sirius, the brightest in our heavens. And they are as much alive
now as their new sun. They can move faster than light, also. We had a little misunderstanding a while back, when their star
passed close to ours. They came off second
best, and we haven't spoken to them since. But I think we can make valuable allies there."
For all Morey's jocular manner, he realized the terrible import of this announcement. A race which had been able to cross
the vast gulf of intergalactic space in the days when Terrestrians were still developing the airplane—and already they had
mapped Jupiter, and planned their colonies! What developments had come? They had molecular rays, .cosmic rays, the
energy of matter, then—what else had they now? Lux and Relux, the two artificial metals, made of solidified light, far
stronger than anything of molecular structure in nature, absolutely infusible, totally inert chemically, one a perfect
conductor of light and of all radiation in space, the other a perfect reflector of all radiations—save molecular rays. Made
into the condition of reflection by the action of special frequencies • in its formation from light, molecular frequencies
were, unfortunately, able to convert it into perfectly transparent lux metal, when the protective value was gone.
They had that. All Earth had, perhaps.
"There was one other race of some importance, the others were semi-civilized. They rated us in a position between these
races and the high races—yours, those of the dead star, and those of world 3769-37:478:326:894-6. Our science had been
investigated two hundred or so years ago.
"This other race was at a great distance from us, greater than yours, and apparently not feared as greatly as yours. They
cannot cross to other worlds, save in small ships driven solely by fire, which the Thessians have called a "hopelessly
inefficient and laughably awkward thing to ride in.'"
"Rockets," grinned Morey. "Our first ship was part rocket."
Zezdon Fentes smiled. "But that is all. Wd have brought you warning, and our plea. Can you help us?"
"We cannot answer that. The Interplanetary Council must act. But I am afraid that it will be all we can do to protect our
own world if this enemy attacks soon, and I fear they will. Since they have a base in this universe, it is impossi-
ble to believe that all ships did not report back to the home world at stated intervals. That one is missing will soon be
discovered, and it will be sought. War will start at once. Three months it took you to reach us—they should come soon.
"Those men who left will be on their way back from the home world from which they came. What do you call your planet,
friend?"
"Ortol is our home," replied Zezdon Inthel.
"At any rate, I can only assure you that your world will be given weapons that will permit your people to defend
themselves and I will get you to your home within twenty-four hours. Your ship—is it in the system?"
"It waits on the second satellite of the fourth planet," replied Zezdon Afthen.
"Signal them, and tell them to land where a beacon of intense light, alternating red and blue, reaches up from—this point
on the map." Arcot pointed out the spot in Vermont where their private lake and laboratory were.
He turned to the others, and in rapid-fire English, explained his plans. "We need the help of these people as much as they
need ours. I think Zezdon Fentes will stay here and help you. The others will go with us to their world. There we shall have
plenty of work to do, but on the way we are going to stop at Mars and pick up that valuable ship of theirs and make a
careful examination for possible new weapons, their system of speed-drive, and their regular space-drive. I'm willing to
make a bet right now, that I can guess both. Their regular drive is a molecular drive with lead disintegration apparatus for
the energy, cosmic ray absorbers for the hearing, and a drive much like ours. Their speed drive is a time distortion
apparatus, I'll wager. Time distinction offers an easy solution of speed. All speed is relative-relative to other bodies, but
also to time-speed. But we'll see.
"I'm going to hustle some workmen to installing the biggest spare power board I can get into the storerooms of the An-
cient Mariner, and pack in a ray-screen. It will be useful. Let's move."
"Our ship," said Zezdon Afthen, "will land in three of your hours."
Chapter IV THE FIRST MOVE
THE ORTOLIANS were standing on a low, green-clad hill. Below them stretched the green flank of the little rise, and beyond
lay ridge after ridge of the broad, smooth carpet of the beautiful Vermont hills.
"Man of Earth," said Zezdon Afthen, turning at last to Wade, who stood behind him. "It took us three months of constant
flight at a speed unthinkable, through space dotted with the titanic gems of the Outer Dark, stars gleaming in red, and blue
and orange, some titanic lighthouses of our course, others dim pinpoints of glowing color. It was a scene of unspeakable
grandeur, but it was so awesomely mighty in its scope, one was afraid, and his soul shriveled within him as he looked at
those inconceivable masses floating forever alone in the silence of the inconceivable nothingness of eternal cold and
eternal darkness. One was awed, suppressed by their sheer magnitude. A magnificent spectacle truly, but one no man could
love.
"Now we are at rest on a tiny pinpoint of dust in a tiny bit of a tiny corner of an isolated universe, and the magnitude and
stillness is gone. Only the chirpings of those strange birds as they seek rest in darkness, the soft gurgling of the Bttle stream
below^ and the rustle of countless leaves, break the silence with a satisfying existence, while the loneliness of that great
star, your sun, is lost in its tintings of soft color, the fleeciness of the clouds, and the seeming companionship of green hills.
The beauty of boundless space is awe-inspiring in its magnitude. The beauty of Earth is something man can love.
"Man of Earth, you have a home that you may well fight for with all the strength of your arms, all the forces of your brain,
and all the energies of Space that you can call forth to aid you. It is a wondrous world." Silently he stood in the gathering
dusk, as first Venus winked into being, then one by one the stars came into existence in the deepening color of the sky.
"Space is awesomely wonderful; this is—lovable." He gazed long at the heavens of this world so strange, so beautiful to
him, looking at the unfamiliar heavens, as star after star flashed into the constellations so familiar to terrestrians and to
those Venerians who had been above the clouds of Venus' eternal shroud.
"But somewhere off there in space are other races, and far beyond the power of our eyes to see is the star that is the sun of
my world, and around it circles that little globe that is home to me. What is happening there now? Does it still exist? Are
there people still living on it? Oh, Man of Earth, let us reach that world quickly, you cannot guess the pangs that attack me,
for if it be destroyed, think—forever I am without home—without friends I knew. However kind your people may be to
me, I would be forever lonely.
"I will not think of that—only it is time your ship was ready, is it not?"
"I think we had better return," replied Wade softly, his English words rousing thoughts in his mind intelligible to the
Ortolians.
The three rose in the air on the molecular suits and drove quickly down toward the blue gem of the lake to the east, nestled
among still other green hills. Lights were showing in the great shop, where the Ancient Mariner was being fitted with the
ray-shields, and all possible weapons. Men streaming through her were hastily stocking her with vast quantities of foods,
stocks of fuel, all the spare parts they could cram into her stock rooms.
When the men arrived from the hilltop, the work was practically done, and Wade stepped up to Morey, busily checking off
a list of required items.
"Everything you ordered came through?" he asked.
"Yes—thanks to the pull of a two-billion dollar private fortune. Who says credit-units don't have their value? This
expedition never would have gotten through, if it hadn't been for that.
"But we have the main space distortion power bank, and the new auxiliary coils full. Ten tons of lead aboard for fuel.
There's one thing we are afraid of. If the enemy have a system of tubes that is able to handle more power than our last
tube—we're sunk. These brilliant people that suggest using more tubes to a ray-power bank forget the last tube has to
handle the entire output of all the others, and modulate it correctly. If the enemy has a better tube—it will be too bad for
us." Morey was frankly worried.
**My end is all set, Morey. How soon will you be ready?" Arcot asked.
'Bout ten-fifteen minutes." Morey lit a cigarette and watched as the last of the stuff was carried aboard.
At last they were ready. The Ancient Mariner, originally built for intergalactic exploration, was kept in working condition.
New apparatus had been incorporated in it, as their research had led to improvements, and it was constantly in condition,
ready for a trip. Many exploration trips to the nearer stars had already been made.
The ship was backed out from the hangar now, and rested on the great smooth landing field, its tremendous quarter million
ton mass of lux and relux sinking a great, smooth depression in the turf of the field. They were waiting now for the arrival
of the Ortolian ship. Zezdon Afthen assured them it would be there in a few minutes.
High in the sky, came the whining whistle of an approaching ship, coming at terrific velocity. It came nearer the field,
darting toward the ground at an unheard of speed, flashing down at a speed of well over three thousand miles an hour, and,
only in the last fifty feet slowed with a sickening deceleration. Even so it landed with a crash of fully two hundred miles of
speed. Arcot gasped at the terrible landing the pilot had made, fully expecting to see
the great hull dent somewhat, even though made of solid relux. And certainly the jar would kill every man on board. Yet
the hull did not seem harmed by the crash, and even the ground under the ship was but slightly disturbed, though, at a
distance of some thirty feet, the entire block of soil was crushed, and cracked by the terrific impact of hundreds of
thousands of tons striking with terrific energy.
"Lord, it's a wonder they didn't kill themselves. I never saw such a rotten landing," exclaimed Morey with disgust. "Don't
be too sure. I think they landed gently, and at very low speed. Notice how little the soil directly under them was dented?"
replied Arcot, walking forward. "They have time control, as I suspected. Ask them. They drifted in gently. Their time rate
was speeded up tremendously, so that what was hundreds of miles per hour to us was feet per minute to them. But come
on, get the handlers to bring that junk up to the door—they are coming out."
One of the tall, kindly-faced canine people was standing in the doorway now, the white light streaming out around him into
the night, casting a grotesque shadow on the landing field, for all the flood lights bathing in it.
Zezdon Afthen came up and spoke quickly to the man evidently in command of the ship. The entire party went into the
ship, and the cream of their laboratory instruments was brought in.
For hours Arcot, Morey and Wade worked at the apparatus in the ship, measuring, calculating, following electrical and
magnetic and sheer force hook-ups of staggering complexity. They were not trying to find the exact method of
construction, only the principles involved, so that they could perform calculations of their own, and duplicate the results of
the enemy. Thus they would be far more thoroughly familiar with the machinery when done.
Little attention was paid to the actual driving plant, for it was a molecular drive with the same type of lead-fuel burner they
used in their own ship. The tubes of the power bank were, however, a puzzle to them. They were made of relux, so that it
was impossible to see the interior of the
tube. To open one was to destroy it, but calculations made from readings of their instruments showed that they were more
efficient, and could readily carry nearly half again the load that the best terrestrian tubes could sustain. This meant the
enemy could send heavier rays and heavier ray screens.
But finally they returned to the Ancient Mariner, and as the Ortolian ship whined its way out to space, the Ancient Mariner
started, rising faster and faster through the atmosphere till it was in the night of space. Then the molecular power was shut
off. The ship suddenly seemed to writhe, space was black and starless about them, then sparkling weirdly distorted stars, all
before them. They were moving already. Almost before the Ortolians fully realized what was happening, a dozen stars had
swung past the ship, driving on now at better than five light years in every second. At this speed, approximately fourteen
hours would be needed to reach Ortol.
"Now, Arcot, perhaps you will explain to me the secret of this ship," said Zezdon Afthen at last, turning from the great lux
pilot's window, to Arcot seated in the pilot's chair. "I know that only the broadest principles will be intelligible to me, for I
could not understand that ship we captured, after almost four months of study. Yet it crept through space compared with
this ship. Certainly no ship could outdistance this in a race I"
"As a matter of fact—watch!" Arcot pushed a little metal button along a slide to the extreme end. Again the ship seemed to
writhe. Space was no longer black, but faintly gray, and beside them, on either side, floated two exact replicas of their ship!
Zezdon Afthen stared. But in another moment, both were gone, and space was black, yet in but a few moments a grayness
was showing, and light was appearing from all about, growing gradually in intensity. For three seconds Arcot continued
thus, then he pulled the metal button down the slide, and flicked over another that he had pulled to cause the second
change. The stars were again before them, their colors changed beyond all recognition at that speed. But the orientation of
the stars behind them
had been familiar. Now an entirely different set of constellation showed.
"I merely opened the ship out to her maximum speed for a moment. I was able to see any large star 2000 light years in our
path, and there were none. Small stars do not bother us as I will explain. When I put on full power of the main power coils,
I drove the ship up to a speed of 30 light years a second. When I turned in the full power of the auxiliary coils as well I
doubled the power, and the speed was multiplied by eight. The result was that in the four seconds of racing, we made
approximately 1000 light years!"
Zezdon Afthen gasped. "Two hundred and forty light years per second'I He paused in bewilderment. "Suppose we had
struck a small sun, a dark star, even a meteor at that speed? What would have been the result?"
Arcot smiled. "The chances are excellent that we plowed through more than one meteor, more than one dark star, and more
than one small sun.
"But this is the secret: the ship attains the speed only by going out of space. Nothing in space can attain the speed of light,
save radiation. Nothing in normal space. But, we alter space, make space along patterns we choose, and so distort it that
the natural speed of radiation is enormously greater. In fact, we so change space that nothing can go slower than a speed we
fix.
"Morey—show Afthen the coils, and explain it all to him. I've got to stay here."
Morey rose, and diving through the weightless ship, went down to the power room, Zezdon Afthen following. Here, giant
pots five feet high were in close packed rows. The "pots" contained specially designed coils storing tremendous energy, the
energy of four tons of disintegrated lead, in the only form that energy may be stored, as a strain, or distortion in space.
These charged coils distorted only the space within themselves, making a closed field entirely within themselves. But in the
exact gravitational center of the quarter of a million ton ship was a single high coil of different design
that distorted space around it as well as the space within it. This, as Morey explained, was the control that altered the
constants of space to suit. The coils were charged, and the energy stored. Their energy could be pumped into the big coil,
and then, when the ship slowed to normal space, could be pumped back to them. The pumping energy, as well as any
further energy needed for recharging the coils could be supplied by three huge power generators.
"These energy-producers," More explained, "work on a principle known for hundreds of years on Earth. Lead, when
reduced to a temperature approaching absolute zero as closely as, for instance, liquid helium, has no electrical resistance. In
other words, no matter how great a current is sent through it, there is no resistance, and no heat is produced to raise the
temperature. What we do is to send a powerful current through a lead wire. The wire has a current density so huge that the
atoms are destroyed, and the protons and electrons coalesce into pure radiant energy. Re-hix, under the influence of a
magnetic field, converts this directly into electrical potential. Electricity we can convert to the spatial strain in the power
coils, and thus the ship is driven." Morey pointed out the huge molecular power cylinder overhead, where the main power
drive was located in the inertial center of the ship, or as near as the great space coil would permit.
The smaller power units for vertical lift, and for steering, were in the side walls, hidden under heavy walls of re-lux.
"The projectors for throwing molecular and heat rays are on the outside of course. Both of these projectors are protected.
The walls of the ship are made of an outer wall of heavy lux metal, a vacuum between, and an inner wall of heavy relux.
The lux is stronger than relux, and is therefore used for an outer shell. The inner shell of relux will reflect any dangerous
rays and serve to hold the heat in the ship, since a perfect reflector is a perfect non-radiator. The vacuum wall is to protect
the occupants of the ship against any undue heat. If we should get within the at-
mosphere of a sun, it would be disastrous if the physical conduction of heat were permitted, for though the relux will turn
out any radiated heat, it is a conductor of heat, and we would roast almost instantly. These artificial metals are both
absolutely infusible and non-volatile. The ship has actually been in the limb of a star tremendously hotter than your sun or
mine.
摘要：

JOHNW.CAMPBELLBooksinAceeditions:THEBLACKSTARPASSES(F-346)THEMIGHTIESTMACHINE(F-364)ISLANDSOFSPACE(M-143)THEPLANETEERS&THEULTIMATEWEAPON(G-585)INVADERSFROMTHEINFINITEbyJOHNW.CAMPBELLACEBOOKS,INC.1120AvenueoftheAmericasNewYork,N.Y.10036INVADERSFBOMTHEINFINITECopyright,1961,byJohnW.Campbell,Jr.Anearli...

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