Campbell-BIInfinite-mo.prc (60 page)

In a few moments the ship was ready again. Opening the shield somewhat, Arcot was able to determine that no rays were being played on it, for no energy fields disclosed as distorting the opened field, other than the field of the sun and planet.

Arcot opened it. The battleship was searching vainly about the mountains, and was now some miles distant. His last view of Arcot's ship had been a suddenly contracting ship, one that vanished in infinite distance, the infinite distance of another space, though he did not know it.

Arcot turned three powerful heat beams on the Thessian ship, and drove down toward it, accompanying them with molecular rays. The Thessian shield stopped the moleculars, but the heat had already destroyed the eyes of the ship. By some system of magnetic or electrostatic locating devices, the enemy guns and rays replied, and so successfully that Arcot was again blinded.

He had again been driving in a line straight toward the enemy, and now he threw in the entire power of his huge magnetic field-rays. The induction ray disappeared, and the heat, light and cannons stopped.

“Worked again,” grinned Arcot. A new set of eyes was inserted automatically, and the screen again lighted. The Thessian ship was spinning end over end toward the ground. It landed with a tremendous crash. Simultaneously from the rear of the
Ancient Mariner
came a terrific crash, an explosion that drove the Terrestrian ship forward, as though a giant hand had pushed it from behind.

The
Ancient Mariner
spun like a top, facing the direction of the explosion, though still traveling in the direction it had been pursuing, but backward now. Behind them the air was a gigantic pool of ionization. Tremendous fragments of what obviously had been a ship were drifting down, turning end over end. And those fragments of the wall showed them to be fully four feet of solid relux.

“Enemy got up behind somehow while the eyes were out, and was ready to raise merry hell. Somebody blew them up beautifully. Look at the ground down there-it's red hot. That's from the radiated heat of our recent encounter. Heat rays reflected, light bombs turned off, heat escaping from ions-nice little workout-and it didn't seriously bother our defenses of two-inch relux. Now tell me: what will blow up four-foot relux?” asked Arcot, looking at the fragments. “It seems to me those fellows don't need any help from us; they may decline it with thanks."

“But they may be willing to help us,” replied Afthen, “and we certainly need such help."

“I didn't expect to come out alive from that battleship there. It was luck. If they knew what we had, they could insulate against it in an hour,” added Arcot.

“Let's finish those fellows over there-look!” From the wreck of the ship they had downed, a stream of men in glistening relux suits were filing. Any men comparable to humans would have been killed by the fall, but not Thessians. They carried peculiar machines, and as they drove out of the ship in dive that looked as though they had been shot from a cannon, they turned and landed on the ground and proceeded to jump back, leaping at a speed that was bewildering, seemingly impossible in any living creature.

They busied themselves quickly. It took less than thirty seconds, and they had a large relux disc laid under the entire group and machines. Arcot turned a molecular ray down. The rock and soil shot up all about them, even the ship shot up, to fall back into the great pit its ray had formed. But the ionization told of the ray shield over the little group of men. A heat ray reached down, while the men still frantically worked at their stubby projectors. The relux disc now showed its purpose. In an instant the soil about them was white hot, bubbling lava. It was liquid, boiling furiously. But the deep relux disc simply floated on it. The enemy ship began sinking, and in a moment had fallen almost completely beneath the white hot rock.

A fountain of the melted lava sprung up, and under Arcot's skillful direction, fell in a cloud of molten rock on the men working. The suits protected, and the white hot stuff simply rolled off. But it was sinking their boat. Arcot continued hopefully.

Meanwhile a signaling machine was frantically calling for help and sending out information of their plight and position.

Then all was instantly wiped out in a single terrific jolt of the magnetic beam. The machines jumped a little, despite their weight, and the ray shield apparatus slumped suddenly in blazing white heat, the interior mechanism fused. But the men were still active, and rapidly spreading from the spot, each protected by a ray shield pack.

A brilliant stab of molecular ray shot at each from either of two of the
Ancient Mariner'
s projectors as Morey aided Arcot. Their little packs flared brilliantly for an instant under the thousands of horsepower of energy lashing at the screen, then flashed away, and the opalescent relux yielded a moment later, and the figure went twisting, hurtling away. Meanwhile Wade was busy with the magnetic apparatus, destroying shield after shield, which either Arcot or Morey picked off. The fall from even so much as half a mile seemed not sufficient to seriously bother these supermen, for an instant later they would be up tearing away in great leaps on their own power as their molecular suits, blown out by the magnetic field, failed them.

It was but a matter of minutes before the last had been chased down either by the rays or the ship. Then, circling back, Arcot slowly settled beside the enemy ship.

“Wait,” called Arcot sharply as Morey started for the door.

“Don't go out yet. The friends who wrecked that little sweetheart who crept up behind will probably show up. Wait and see what happens.” Hardly had he spoken, when a strange apparition rose from behind a rock scarcely a quarter of a mile away. Immediately Arcot intensified the vision screen covering him. He seemed to leap near. There was one man, and he held what was obviously a sword by the blade, above his head, waving it from side to side.

“There they are-whatever they are. Intelligent all right-what more universally obvious peace sign than a primitive weapon such as a knife held in reverse position? You go with Zezdon Afthen. Try holding a carving knife by the blade."

Morey grinned as he got into his power suit, on Wade's O.K. of the atmosphere. “They may mistake me for the cook out looking for dinner, and I wouldn't risk my dignity that way. I'll take the baseball bat and hold it wrong way instead."

Nevertheless, as he stepped from the ship, with Afthen close behind, he held the long knife by the blade, and Afthen, very awkwardly operating his still rather unfamiliar power suit, followed.

Into the intensely blue sunlight the men stepped. Their skin and clothing took on a peculiar tint under the strange sunlight.

The single stranger was joined by a second, also holding a reversed weapon, and together they threw them down. Morey and Zezdon Afthen followed suit. The two parties advanced toward each other.

The strangers advanced with a swift, light step, jumping from rock to rock, while Morey and Afthen flew part way toward them. The men of this world were totally unlike any intelligent race Morey had conceived of. Their head and brain case was so small as to be almost animalish. The nose was small and well formed, the ears more or less cup-shaped with a remarkable power of motion. Their eyes were seemingly huge, probably no larger than a Terrestrian's, though in the tiny head they were necessarily closely placed, protected by heavy bony ridges that actually projected from the skull to enclose them. Tiny, childlike chins completed the head, running down to a scrawny neck.

They were short, scarcely five feet, yet evidently of tremendous strength for their short, heavy arms, the muscle bulging plainly under the tight rubber-like composition garments, and the short legs whose stocky girth proclaimed equal strength were members of a body in keeping with them. The deep, broad chest, wide, square shoulders, heavy broad hips, combined with the tiny head seemed to indicate a perfect incarnation of brainless, brute strength.

“Strangers from another planet, enemies of our enemies. What brings you here at this time of troubles?” The thoughts came clearly from the stocky individual before them.

“We seek to aid, and to find aid. The menace that you face, attacks not alone your world, but all this star cluster,” replied Zezdon Afthen steadily.

The stranger shook his head with an evident expression of hopelessness. “The menace is even greater than we feared. It was just fortune that permitted us to have our weapon in workable condition at the time your ship was attacked. It will be a day before the machine will again be capable of successful operation. When in condition for use, it is invincible, but-one blow in thirty hours-you can see we are not of great aid.” He shrugged.

An enemy with evident resources of tremendous power, deadly, unknown rays that wiped out entire cities with a single brief sweep-and no defense save this single weapon, good but once a day! Morey could read the utter despair of the man.

“What is the difficulty?” asked Morey eagerly.

“Power, lack of power. Our cities are going without power, while every electric generator on the planet is pouring its output into the accumulators that work these damnable, hopeless things. Invincible with power-helpless without."

“Ah!” Morey's face shone with delight-invincible weapon-with power. And the
Ancient Mariner
could generate unthinkable power.

“What power source do you use-how do you generate your power?"

“Combining oxidizing agent with reducing agents releases heat. Heat used to boil liquid and the vapor runs turbines."

“We can give you power. What wattage have you available?"

Only Morey's thoughts had to translate “watts” to “How many man-weights can you lift through your height per time interval, equal to this.” He gave the man some impression of a second, by counting. The man figured rapidly. His answer indicated that approximately a total of two billion kilowatts were available.

“Then the weapon is invincible hereafter, if what you say is true. Our ship alone can easily generate ten thousand times that power.

“Come, get in the ship, accompany us to your capital."

The men turned, and retreated to their position behind the rocks, while Morey and Zezdon Afthen waited for them. Soon they returned, and entered the ship.

“Our world,” explained the leader rapidly, “is a single unified colony. The capital is ‘Shesto,’ our world we call ‘Talso.'” His directions were explicit, and Arcot started for Shesto, on Talso.

CHAPTER VIII

UNDEFEATABLE OR UNCONTROLLABLE?

Fifteen minutes after they started, they came to Shesto. They were forced to land, and explain, for their relux ship was decidedly not the popular Talsonian idea of a life-saver.

Shesto was defended by two of the machines, and each machine had been equipped with two fully charged accumulators. Their four possible shots were hoped to be sufficient protection, and, so far, had been. The city had been attacked twice, according to Tho Stan Drel, the Talsonian: once by a single ship which had been instantly destroyed, and once by a fleet of six ships. The interval had permitted time to recharge the discharged accumulator, and the fleet had been badly treated. Of the six ships, four had been brought down in rapid succession, and the remaining two ships had fled.

When the first city had been wiped out, with a loss of life well in the hundreds of thousands, the other cities had, to limit of their abilities, set up the protective apparatus. Apparently the Thessians were holding off for the present.

“In a way,” said Morey seriously, “it was distinctly fortunate that we were attacked almost at once. Their instantaneous system of destruction would have worked for the one shot needed to send the
Ancient Mariner
to eternal blazes.” He laughed, but it was a slightly nervous laugh.

The Terrestrial ship landed in a great grassy court, and out of respect for the parklike smoothness of the turf, Arcot left the ship on its power units, suspended a bit above the surface. Then he, Morey and the Talsonian left the ship. Zezdon Afthen was left with the ship and with Wade in charge, for if some difficulties were encountered, Wade would be able to help them with the ship, and Zezdon Afthen with the tremendous power of his thought locating apparatus, was busy seeking out the Thessian stronghold.

A party of men of Talso met the Terrestrians outside the ship.

“Welcome, Men of another world, and to you go our thanks for the destruction of one of our enemies.” The clear thoughts of the spokesman evinced his ability to concentrate.

“And to your world must go our thanks for saving of our lives, and more important, our ship,” replied Arcot. “For the ship represents a thing of enormous value to this entire star-system."

“I see-understand-your-thoughts that you wish to learn more of this weapon we use. You understand that it is a question among us as to whether it is undefeatable, uncontrollable or just un-understandable. We have had fair success with it. It is not a weapon, was not developed as such; it was an experiment in the line of electric-waves. How it works, what it is, what happens-we do not know.

“But men who can create so marvelous a ship as this of yours, capable of destroying a ship of the Thessians with their own weapons must certainly be able to understand any machine we may make-and you have power?” he finished eagerly.

“Practically infinite power. I will throw into any power line you suggest, all the direct current you wish.” Arcot's thoughts were pure reflection, but the Talsonian brightened at once.

“I feared it might be alternating-but we can handle direct current. All our transmission is done at high voltage direct current. What potential do you generate? Will we have to install changers?"

“We generate D.C. at any voltage up to fifty million, any power up to that needed to lift ten trillion men through their own height in this time a second.” The power represented approximately twenty trillion horsepower.

The Talsonian's face went blank with amazement as he looked at the ship. “In that tiny thing you generate such power?” he asked in amazement.