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Title: The voice of the void
Author: Jr. John W. Campbell
Release date: June 29, 2024 [eBook #73952]
Language: English
Original publication: Jamaica, NY: Experimenter Publications Inc, 1930
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOICE OF THE VOID ***
The Voice of the Void
_By_ John W. Campbell, Jr.
_Author of "The Metal Horde," "Piracy Preferred," etc._
Illustrated by WESSO
_The science of astronomy concerns itself with the great and
the small. The distances in the stellar world are inconceivable
by man--so much so that the astronomer's unit of measurement
is the light year. And within the suns of space, the ultimate
smallest units of matter figure--the molecule is broken up and the
smaller atom is formed, only to be disintegrated into electrons
and protons. Energy and mass enter into the strange cycle. Our
young author, who has already become a favorite with readers of
scientific fiction, has woven a captivating romance out of the
world of ultra-physics--captivating in its adventurousness as well
as in its science._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories Quarterly Summer 1930.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Perhaps you or I would have hesitated to call him human, this strange
small man. He seemed lost in the great dim-lighted observatory. On all
sides of the room panels of some polished black material glistened
in the ruddy light, and on all their great surfaces were instruments
and faintly glowing screens. High above the smooth floor a great
transparent roof was flung in a half-glimpsed arch, glasslike it was,
but the lack of beams told of a strength and toughness no glass ever
knew. Through it came every vibration that struck it, infra-light or
ultra-light. Now in its center there glowed a great mass of lambent
red flame, the dying sun. To Hal Jus, astronomer, the room was flooded
with the light of the noon-day sun. The dull red glow that gave even
his pale face a ruddy glow was to him pure white. But then Hal Jus
could see heat, and to him blue light was a scientific term for a thing
beyond human vision.
Ten billion years had wrought strange changes in the human race. For
ten thousand thousand millenniums they had lived on the planets of
the solar system, but now the mighty sun was dying. There had been no
decadence in this race, through all their history had come a constant
fight with a persistent enemy, Nature. But it was a kindly enemy, for
the contest had constantly developed man to meet the new emergencies.
Ten thousand years ago the sun had grown too cool to supply heat enough
for man; it was no longer possible to live on the frozen planets, and
the two greatest of them had been hurled across the system to feed the
dying fires. Jupiter and Saturn had been sacrificed. Neptune and Uranus
had long since escaped from the weakened clutches of the vanishing
sun, and now of the family of original wheeling planets, only four
were left: Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury. And now again the fires of
the system were dying too low. One and a half million tons of matter
must be destroyed every second in that titanic furnace to supply a
comfortable amount of heat. In our day three million tons of matter
vanish every second, to be poured out as a mighty flood of heat and
light that sweeps across the depths of space to us. The inner planets
had been drawn far closer to the parent body, but even these heroic
measures were failing.
Hal Jus worked at the controls of the electroscope for a moment and on
one of the lambently glowing screens an image began to form, grayish at
first, then quickly taking form and color. A great sphere swam on the
screen; slowly as Hal Jus increased the power the body seemed to come
nearer--it grew larger; it filled the screen, then rapidly there came
a picture of low, age-old hills, worn low till they scarcely lifted
their heads above the surrounding country. A mighty city of glistening
metal buildings rising tier on tier a few miles north seemed to dwarf
the hills into utter insignificance. Once a hill had lifted its proud
head far into the blue of a two-hundred mile thick belt of atmosphere,
but now the once mighty Mt. Everest alone remained as a relic of the
high-flung mountains that old Earth had once known.
High in the jet black sky, a scant hundred miles from the ground below,
a mighty space-freighter was taking off for Venus. The thin belt of
atmosphere permitted it to reach a high speed quickly. Already it was
in full stride and heading at 1,000 miles a second for Venus.
The scene on the screen blurred, grew gray, and faded out. Hal Jus
was shifting the great electroscope tube. Again the screen glowed,
and again an image appeared. It cleared quickly, then suddenly leaped
into full life and color. The scene showed mighty machines working in
a great pit of freshly tumbled soil. It was a land of intense shadow
and where the dim red light of the distant sun did not touch, there was
intense, utter blackness. There was no atmosphere here. And now, as a
great freighter swung low, a machine on the ground below turned on a
ray that stabbed out sharp and brilliant; a moment later the freighter
tug lifted a half-million-ton piece of the planet on its attractor
beams and rapidly gained headway as it shot off toward distant Venus.
The view became wider, the figure of the machines smaller. Then, as Hal
Jus increased the observation distance, the entire planet came into
view, as much of the planet Mars as was left. The great excavations
were extended over all the surface. They were paring it down from all
sides lest they disturb the balance of the planet.
Again the scene went blank. Now there formed on it a view of the starry
heavens with glowing pinpoint stars. Suddenly this began to expand;
star after star was forced from the field as the growing picture
centered on one that burned bright in the center of the field. Mighty
Betelguese glowed in the center of the field. It was a blurred image,
like a tiny disc, but tremendous as was the power of the instrument,
it could not have enlarged the image to that extent. The disc-like
appearance was due to the tremendous brightness of the star spreading a
bit on the sensitive vision receiver cell.
Slowly the mighty instrument swept over the field. Here and there a
star would leap out of the darkness to form a burning disc, as one
of the stars distant less than a dozen light years, swept across the
field. Then at last came a star that blazed out as a burning disc an
inch and a half across, emitting long tongues of shooting flame. Slowly
it crept across the field. The instrument was adjusted for the motion
of the Earth and this slow creeping was due to the motion of the star
through space. Around it, far off across the field, circled a lone,
small planet. Hal Jus watched it a while, then turned with a call of
greeting, snapping off the current in the mighty instrument as several
men walked in. They were seated now in several rows of chairs before
the largest of the screens that were suspended on the walls of the room.
For ages men had known that the sun was dying. In our day men can tell
that within the next ten or eleven billion years it will become a
closed star--not a cold star but a closed star. The energy of the sun
comes from the destruction of the matter of which it is composed, which
becomes floods of energy. This change is possible at a temperature of
40,000,000 degrees C., but below that it cannot take place. Thus, at
the center of the sun, where this change is taking place, the matter
is at that terrific temperature. As the sun grows older, more and more
of the matter sinks into the center and reaches the region of awful
heat. The atoms are so violently colliding with each other at that
temperature, that the atoms themselves are knocked to pieces by the
violence of their collision. If the molecules of a substance collide
sufficiently violently, they are broken up. Thus, at 5000 degrees, the
molecules of water collide so violently that they cannot maintain
themselves, and the shocks break them down into hydrogen and oxygen
atoms. But at 40,000,000 degrees the atoms collide so violently they
are decomposed into protons and electrons. At this temperature, a
further, subtle change takes place, and the electrons and the protons
suddenly are gone, and in their place is an equal mass of energy. For
energy in any form has mass, and mass in any form is a measure of the
energy content. Thus to say "one gram" is an easier way of saying "nine
hundred million million million ergs," but the two mean the same to
Nature. Now an atom is something like a porcupine with his quills up;
it is much bigger in looks than in fact, only an atom has much longer
"quills." An atom has much more empty space than anything else. Suppose
our porcupines have quills a mile long. If all those quills are on end
we won't be able to pack the animals very closely, but if we can induce
them to become more friendly and lay the quills down, then the density
of our imaginary population of porcupines will be greatly increased.
Similarly the atoms, with the electrons revolving in wide orbits,
occupy a much greater space than they really need. In the tremendous
heat of the Sun, the atoms are so battered, the electrons are knocked
off the nuclear protons, and we can imagine the quills now lying down.
The density will be far greater. This is demonstrated by the density of
some stars which are now known to have a density of over 1000. This is
the result of packing the electrons and protons in the center, which is
gradually going on in all stars.
Gravity increases four times if the distance is halved. As the matter
inside becomes denser and denser, the star contracts, till finally its
density reaches a tremendous figure.
The Sun in Hal Jus's day was becoming a closed star. Long since the
X-rays had ceased. Gradually the ultra-light and the blue light had
diminished; the red and infra- reds had been accentuated; for the light
was changed by the passage through that intense gravitational field.
Hal Jus had, less than two thousand years ago, predicted the exact
time of the Sun's final decay. After ten more years the Sun would be
unable to support its family. The planets they now inhabited--Earth,
Venus and Mercury--were supported artificially. The atmospheres of all
the planets had long since slowly dissipated into space, and with them
had gone the water. These vital things were being replaced constantly
by transmutation of the elements of the rocks of the planets. Long
ages ago Earth had had a large satellite, which had been used through
the ages to supply energy for the factories of man, and to supply the
necessary atmosphere. The satellites of Mars had gone as had Saturn
with its rings, Jupiter with its satellites, along with the asteroids;
but before it escaped, much of Neptune had been freighted to the
habitable planets. And now, since Mars had grown too cold, it too, was
being sacrificed. Already it was honeycombed with great caverns that
had been used as sources of materials and energy. Now it was being
split up into small parts, and freighted to the other planets. Already
the work was well under way. Mars was furthest from the sun, and
smaller than either Venus or Earth.
But when men were assured that there was no hope of life in the solar
system for more than half a lifetime, they began an even more frantic
search for still another way to overcome this last crushing blow of
Nature.
But at last a thing was announced that switched the endeavor of the
scientists to a new line. The impossible was done. Einstein had said
that it was impossible to signal faster than light. But it had at last
been done. A scientist had signaled the seventy-five million miles from
Earth to Venus in so short a time that the carefully prepared cathode
ray oscillograph could not detect it. The signal was sent by radio and
by the new method exactly simultaneously, and when they reached the
station on Venus, the difference in time was just long enough for the
radio to make the trip. It was a modification of something that we
know in our day, a modification possible only to these descendants of
ten billion years of science. Phase velocity we know. When X-Rays pass
through certain materials, the index of refraction is less than one,
and this can only be true if the velocity in those materials is greater
than the velocity of light. The true velocity of the rays is not,
but there is a second velocity, the phase velocity, that under those
circumstances is greater than the velocity of light.
Phase velocity is due to a wave traveling along the wave chain. A man
can go faster than the train he is riding on by walking toward the
engine, but practically speaking he cannot reach the station before the
train. Similarly, the phase velocity cannot reach the station before
the light or X-Rays do. But for countless ages the light has poured
forth from the sun, and a message sent down that long train would be
able to go many, many trillions of miles at a speed far greater than
that of light. That was the new hope of life. For man must escape from
the dying sun or perish with it. And now the experiments were pushed
forward with new hope.
Then a brilliant young physicist, scarcely through the seventy-year
course in one of the great technical institutes, devised a new machine
that brought the idea considerably closer to complete success.
Television had been invented many years ago and constantly improved.
Long since had they gotten away from the scanning apparatus, and the
principle was well nigh forgotten, but in some dusty, neglected volume
Morus Tol discovered the diagrams. And, with a simple arrangement of
known machines, he made a wonderful mechanism that had been worked on
for many, many ages. He made a scanning machine that worked in the
fourth dimension, thereby being enabled to scan all the other three
simultaneously. His first experiments led to amazing images, which,
thrown on a fourth dimensional screen, could be seen to pick up solid
bodies. The work of lifting them was done by the motor driving the
fourth dimensional projector. The drag of the body's weight tended to
throw the image out of adjustment, but by making a very powerful motor,
they could show the image of a man lifting thousands of pounds! The
images were absolutely solid. The man did no work.
And then came new developments. The experiments were safer now.
Wherever danger was incurred, the scientist merely made his image do
the actual experiment! But Morus Tol still led the field. It was he who
finally developed the apparatus that could project the images and have
them come into three dimensions, being without the aid of a projector
at the receiving end. Already the machines had been used in connection
with the phase-velocity signaling system.
* * * * *
It was while he was working on the development of his apparatus that
the fatal accident occurred and killed him. Luckily he had kept a
careful record of all his experiments, and men were able to duplicate
them with the aid of the remnants of his apparatus. He had been working
on the actual making of the images; he wanted to be able to keep them
real without the machine; in other words, he wanted to give them actual
existence; he wanted to reconstruct, atom for atom, the object under
his fourth dimensional scanner.
He had been trying to find some ray that would respond to the
individual characteristics of the atoms under consideration. He had
found it, but finding it he had met his death. The ray had attacked
him somehow. It does not seem likely that he experimented on himself
without trying it on some inanimate body first. But perhaps he did.
At any rate, it did what he hoped, it scanned him, and recognized
each individual atom, and each separate molecule, and as far as it
went, it was successful. But in scanning him the ray released all the
energy in the atoms of his body. He was killed instantly and most of
his apparatus was utterly ruined. However, enough was saved to make a
beginning possible for the others. And on this basis they built.
As the ray scanned and recognized an atom it drew out its energy, to
leave it free. This had fused the apparatus, stopped the ray, and
killed the scientist. Knowing the danger, others experimented. By
draining the energy away safely they scanned a small object, and sent
the signals to another station where, by feeding the necessary energy
into the machine, they were able to reconstruct it. The first step had
been taken.
But it required many years to develop this apparatus. Now came the
greatest problem of all. They must find some means to send the material
image to a predestined terminal without having a station there to
receive it. This could be done with a three-dimensional shadow image.
Could they do it with the solid bodies?
The ten thousand years had dwindled steadily--five thousand had passed
before the development of the fourth dimensional scanning. Morus Tol
was still a young man when he was killed, but with four thousand two
hundred years yet to go, they met their hardest problem, and they were
without a genius to solve it.
The long years had dwindled to less than two centuries before there
came a man who solved the problem of a refinement of the vibration
control. It is as impossible for me to describe the machines of that
day as it would be for a blind man to describe red to another. It is
a thing inconceivable to each. But it was done--only to find that
the shock of the journey killed all living creatures. And then, ten
short years before the sun at last faded forever, the last bridge was
crossed. A man in a space ship was projected from a laboratory on
Earth to a point near Venus. All the System watched that demonstration
through the news machines.
Long since they had decided where they would go. Now that they could
travel with almost infinite speed, they chose a goal that would be safe
to life for aeons to come. BETELGUESE! It was their goal now.
And now out in space the great sending station was constructed. The
ship to be sent was put in position before it; the scanner viewed it;
and the signal for each atom and each molecule followed each other
in swift flight on the train of light waves that was their wire. One
billion miles from Betelguese the ship would be re-integrated from the
energy sent along the beam of the phase-velocity sender.
And now, in the observatory of Hal Jus, the greatest men of the
system had gathered to watch those men far out in space. With them
had been sent another machine to be operated by one man, a miniature
phase-velocity sender that could, if necessary, send the ship back.
This was to be stationed in space, going in an orbit about the mighty
star.
Now, above the soft whirr of the news-casters focussed on the great
screen, there came an audible sigh of excitement, as there flickered
on the great screen a dim gray image, blurred and indistinct. Well it
might be. Sent on the phase-velocity projector across the universe, it
was bringing them the scene within the recreated ship--suddenly the
great screen was filled with a brightly lighted scene, and through the
sound pick-up came a subdued hum of the mighty engines in the power
room. Through the windows of the ship they could see a brilliant shaft
of bluish light pouring over the floor. Out through the main pilot's
window they saw the blazing field of stars--and there they saw one dim
red one, barely discernible. Probably if they had been there they could
not have seen it. Only the super-sensitiveness of the machine made it
visible--their sun as it looked millenniums ago! For the light had been
traveling slowly for thousands of years to reach the distance their
machine had reached in less than an hour.
The men had been anesthetized before the process began, and now they
lay in deep sleep. The automatic controls were running the ship, taking
complete charge of it.
Strange those men would seem to us. They were under four feet in
height, with great barrel chests, long arms and short legs. The dying
planets had scant atmosphere, and economy advised a low pressure of the
precious gases, lest too much diffusion take place; and Mercury, the
smallest planet, put a distinct limit to the pressure. They journeyed
from one planet to the other so frequently that an equal pressure on
each was almost a requisite. The long arms ended in slender, delicate
fingers that were the most perfect tools ever developed. And the toes,
too, had become highly prehensile. The many machines that man had built
had required all his directing powers. The feet had at first been used
only to push pedals, but gradually there came other purposes. Those
members could be so useful!
The head was not much larger than ours, but the high, straight forehead
seemed much larger on the small man. The brain was deeply creased, the
convolutions so complex that, without increasing the size greatly, the
surface had been multiplied many times. And it is the surface area that
counts. Their large eyes seemed to hold a gentle benignity that would
so transcend us as to leave us contented to watch only; still, there
was in them a fire of ambition, of hope and of adventure. But we can no
more hope to understand their personality than a child of a few days
can understand us.
But now the men in the car out in space were stirring; consciousness
was returning. The Commander approached the view plate now.
"Sir, I wish to report a successful trip. Betelguese is within one
billion miles. One man has died, but the ship's doctor will have him
around shortly, as his body temperature is still above 95. We will head
for the nearest planet, connecting you now with the outside view plate."
The screen went dark a moment later; the gray surface showed thousands
of gleaming points, distant stars, and here and there were a few tiny
discs. These, then, must be planets of this mighty sun. Rapidly one of
them was growing, expanding. Soon it was an inch across; then it grew
rapidly till the shining disc covered all the glowing screen. They had
been approaching at 2000 miles a second, but they slowed down to the
more moderate pace of 100 miles per second.
Now they saw a strangely glowing light coming up from the planet
below. It seemed to approach quickly--then the screen went blank, to
be lighted a moment later by the scene within the ship. There was a
rapid but efficient scene of action. The commander stepped up to the
view plate. Just as he began to speak, the screen went gray, the image
blurred, then cleared for a moment; there was an expression of sudden
astonishment and surprise on the face of the young commander--then
again the screen was dark.
Three hours they waited, but there was no sign from the far-off ship.
Silently the men filed out. But day and night that screen was watched.
It was late in the evening of the second day that they were at last
rewarded for their vigilance. The screen was suddenly shot over with a
streak of brilliant red; it glowed green, then went dully gray. A few
minutes later it was again illumined, but now the gray field resolved
itself into distorted images; men seemed working frantically over the
instrument, then the queer chirping sounds of the voices suddenly
underwent a change. The screen cleared; then sharp and distinct came
the words across the void and the picture of that far-off scene. They
were looking from the top of a great rugged cliff of sharp rock such as
no living man had ever seen, and the scene beyond was even more strange
to their eyes! Great wooded hills rolled off into the distance, and
over the carpet of bright green was flung a marvelous canopy of blue,
in which there was set a wondrous jewel that flamed blue in majestic
splendor. As large as the sun from Mercury it was, but so bright one
could not look at it. And in the far distance there rolled a mighty
ocean of sparkling water. Such a scene no living eye had ever seen,
save in the ancient records, where there were shown the great space
flyers hanging over mighty stretches of such water. But in the center
of the field was that which riveted the attention of all. There they
could see the twisted wreck of the mighty flyer. The great beams were
bent and torn apart, the instruments and machinery were wrecked, and to
one side there was a great pit that the machinery had blasted in the
soil before it was shut off.
The projector now showed the members of the crew of the ship working
busily at the makeshift apparatus. They were using hand disintegrators
for power supplies. The apparatus was that which they could salvage
from the wreck, and faulty. Frequently as they watched they would
see the connections arc across, the scene would fade, then come back
as quick work repaired the connection. The disintegrator power units
were much overloaded and heated so badly that they had to run them in
relays. They could not attach more; there was insufficient cable.
"Sir, we were attacked by hundreds of strange beings. They seemed
pools of force, living, sentient beings, but the electronic activity
indicators indicated a frequency that denotes atomic forces. I believe
they are beings living on atomic energy. They have no material body.
Heat rays do not affect them in the least. They shed disintegration
rays as a repulsor screen does meteorites. They are unaffected by our
most powerful explosives. They have tremendous power. One of them
took our space ship and threw it violently away with so terrific
an acceleration that the neutralizer was damaged overcoming it. We
tried to flee from them, but they seem to be able to go with a speed
approaching that of light, and easily overtook us. Finally they forced
us near this, the sixth of the ten planets, and threw us down. The
machine was wrecked, but the neutralizer, crippled as it was, saved us.
The matter disintegrator was broken open, and the power ray tore up
the ground a bit. The atomic creatures are hunting us, I believe--they
are--there they come--they can blanket our power somehow----"
The screen went gray-black. Never again did they hear from that
expedition. But that voice across the void had served as a warning to
those that followed.
* * * * *
It was scarcely a month later that a second expedition of ten ships was
projected, one after the other, across the infinite void. These ships
were fully armed, but they had come to investigate, not to fight. The
enemy seemed to have some strange weapon that they could control from a
distance; it was a weapon not inconceivable to these people, merely one
unknown. That the Things were in truth living beings was incredible;
it was the terrible shock of the sudden attack that must have made the
men engender any such strange belief. But the expedition now on its way
would solve the problem, no doubt. Again came that silent meeting in
Hal Jus's great domed laboratory. The greatest men of the System had
assembled; they were being called in in consultation to examine the
weapon of the enemy. Hanlos Tonn, the System's greatest Moleculist, as
they called chemists, was there. Tal Nos, the genius of Physics, and
Tornok Lor, the great Atomist, and the greatest specialists in every
line were present at that conference.
And now before them the great screens glowed mistily. Then slowly they
cleared to show in gray outline the interior of the far-off ships. Each
ship was represented by a great screen. And now, as the ship gained
solidity, the screens cleared, the images became sharp and strong,
color filled them out with greater detail. Then slowly the men stirred.
They moved with returning consciousness, and took over the control of
the ships from the automatic controls. One by one they reported back to
headquarters. There was only forty-seven seconds' delay in the time of
transmission of signals now, so they maintained two-way communication.
The outside projectors were switched on and the fleet fell into a
small cone formation. With the flagship in the lead, they set out
to investigate the planets from a distance. The electroscope on the
flagship should permit them to make fairly close surface examinations
from a safe distance.
Ten planets they found circling the mighty star.
Three of the planets would be directly habitable for man. But on none
did they find the great cities they had expected to see. They only
saw strange globes of lambent fire darting about. From planet to
planet they went, the red glow lighting a great sphere twenty feet in
diameter, but for a hundred feet about it the air glowed purple under
the ionizing force of some strange radiance. When they moved, they
were shooting comets, with brilliantly glowing heads of red and long
tails of blue. But they seemed to live on all the planets. Even in
the blazing minor star they lived, darting in and coming out of its
flames as unconcernedly as a Solarian ship would dart in or out of an
atmosphere. Could it be that those men had spoken the truth? It seemed
incredible--impossible--but these men had learned millions of years ago
that nothing is impossible, and were ready to credit anything if they
had reason to believe it so.
For two days those great ships wheeled above the planets, deep in
space, undetected. Then one of the glowing Force beings passed close--a
scant ten thousand miles away, and through the electroscope, and by
means of the electronic activity meters, by spectroscope and pyrometer,
by all the complex instruments of their age, they studied him. And
the result was conclusive. They were living, sentient beings--Force
creatures, conscious pools of titanic energies, forces so great they
lived by, that no material body could serve them, and their limbs
were the forces that nature had given them. Those forces, which man
had spent thousands of years in discovering, a kind nature had given
these beings. But in return she seemed to have decided that they
needed no brains, for they possess no intelligence. Had man waited
another billion years, there might have been intelligence developed in
these strange creatures. What an intelligence it would have been--an
intelligence based on forces of atomic nature!
But they too had been discovered. In some strange way the creature had
sensed them, and sent a call to his friends, for across all the system
they could see the strange creatures racing at a velocity that could
not be much short of that of light, for while the men were material,
and as such could not travel at that speed, the force beings, by their
very natures akin to light, could very probably attain to that motion.
* * * * *
The battle was on. At first the force beings hung in a sphere, a
three-dimensional cordon, about the ships, then suddenly their lambent
red glowed more strongly, and the screens in the far-off laboratory
went dark. They had in some way prevented the transmission of further
messages. The men at once formed the ships in a great tube, with the
one scanner ship in the center, and then one by one they dropped out
and were sent across the void--back to the Sun.
Then one of the watching creatures darted forward, toward one of
the great ships hanging there in space. As he came within range a
disintegration ray flashed out, touched him, and was shed from him
in great leaping sparks as the energy was met and opposed. A heat
ray leaped forth--the creature paid no attention to that, did not
even bother to oppose it--only circled closer. A stream of explosive
bullets were launched at it, but they affected it no more than the
heat ray. It seemed hopeless. And now the creature hung there, and
suddenly he underwent a strange change. In the glowing center of his
strange force-pool there suddenly appeared a strange nucleus of glowing
violet light, a nucleus that spread throughout the twenty-foot sphere
of lambent red force. But it was shot through by strange streamers of
waving angry red. Then these strange streamers of fiery red seemed to
condense to two main streamers that reached out and out--and touched
the great ship. There was a blinding flash of red light--and in place
of the great ship there floated a slow cloud of fine, fine dust that
glowed softly in the light of the blazing sun. Then the strange
streamers seemed to contract, to lessen, and with them the strange
purple light from the creature. Slowly, gently he floated away. Of the
fleet of ten great ships, and the accompanying matter-sender, six ships
returned. The rest floated out there in the interplanetary space around
Betelguese.
[Illustration: _Then these strange streamers of fiery red seemed to
condense to two main streamers, reached out and out--touched the great
ships._]
The men of the system had data to work on, but a great deal of work
was yet to be done. They must find some way to destroy these pools of
force. Only forces could affect them, and they must find one that was
fatal to them. Only ten short years remained to them, so, although no
weapon had been developed, a great battle fleet was started, that the
ships might be ready when at last the weapon was developed.
And on all the worlds great works were to be done. The records of
a civilization ten thousand thousand thousand years old must be
collected and prepared for their journey across the void. The exhibits
from museums, ages old, must be packed with tenderest care. They had
strange exhibits there of the first beginnings of civilization, tools
and weapons of savage man, strange things that killed or injured by
throwing small bits of metallic matter at the enemy. Strange clumsy
vehicles they had, made of metals that corroded so rapidly as to fall
to pieces in a brief 1,000 years or so, unless they were preserved in
an atmosphere of argon and driven by great clumsy engines tapping the
slight energy of molecules with an efficiency of hardly 10 per cent.
Other machines that had been intended to drag man through the air, not
supported by forces, but held up by air! Then came the first ancient
antigravitors; then the swifter machines propelled by the energy of
matter.
Exhibits unutterably ancient they had, and these must be sent across
all that void. Invaluable archives they were.
But with them must go their own great machines, mighty mechanisms
for producing their foods, for making their ships; the thousand and
one things that went to make up the great structure of their age-old
civilization. And huge sending stations of inconceivable power had to
be erected to transmit them. Titanic projectors capable of sending a
machine weighing a quarter of a million tons in one scanning. Other
machines were so huge that they must be cut into sections and sent in
pieces.
* * * * *
A greater work--a quieter, invisible work--was being done by tireless
workers in the laboratories. Fifty-three hours a day they worked in
the great government laboratories on Earth. On Venus the shorter day
made shorter hours desirable. But steadily the scientists were working
on their problem. At last the Minus Energy was developed. They were to
try it out before equipping the entire fleet with it. At last ten ships
were equipped and sent with a scanner machine to Betelguese.
Now they courted an encounter with the Force Giants. They were soon
satisfied, for thousands of them came at terrific speed the moment they
attacked one. That first one had floated into range as they threw a
searchlight on it; then, as it began to color with the deadly violet
and red destruction, a tiny projectile was launched at it. Not more
than six inches long by two in diameter it raced at its target at
nearly a thousand miles a second. It was carefully followed by the
anxious watchers at the ship's electroscopes--it reached the floating
Thing, and exploded.
But perhaps you or I would not have termed that action explosive. That
little projectile contained several pounds of half-destroyed matter. It
had been used as a fuel in an industrial plant, till it had been about
half annihilated, and now it was in that curious, borderline condition,
when it had a tremendous tendency to absorb energy and become matter
again, and an equally tremendous tendency to release its energy and
become free energy as light or heat. The conditions determined one or
the other, and the new Minus Force shells were used under conditions
of space that made them exert a tremendous tendency to become matter.
Billions of billions of ergs of energy they could absorb, and would
absorb. They drew it from all the surrounding ether so rapidly that it
had the effect on all surrounding substance or sources of energy of
being in contact with something at a temperature far below absolute
zero. The result was obvious. When it was set off, all light, heat,
or any other energy within a region of ten miles or so, was instantly
drawn to it, until it had been satisfied. It was an energy vacuum shell.
That first Atomic Giant did not last long enough to warn the others. It
was an entirely unexpected form of attack, and when the light of the
mighty sun could once more be seen through the spot where the Minus
Force had been sent, the Atomic Creature was not there, all its great
forces had been drained from it. And, being only a pool of force, it
vanished.
But now there came from all directions great streams of the Atomic
Giants. They seemed to suddenly appear close at hand, apparently coming
from nowhere. They traveled as fast as light, therefore they reached
them as soon as the light, so that their approach was invisible. Only
when they slowed down could they be seen. And now, from each ship
came steady streams of these Minus Force shells. Thousands of the
energy-absorbing projectiles flew in amongst the massed attackers--and
many of them took effect, drawing the energy from the great creatures,
destroying them utterly. The weapon was a success! They fired a second
volley when others of the creatures came within sighting range--but
they did not affect the Atomic Giants this time. Great dark patches
appeared, but the creatures that had been there before, were there now,
as powerful as ever, quite uninjured! What did it mean?
They did not know. They only knew that the enraged creatures
were closing in on them, closer and closer--and now the
ships were being sent back to the system as rapidly as
possible--one--two--three--four--but more could not get through--the
others were cornered, marooned in infinity by the destruction of the
sender. The Force Creatures, utterly immune to the Minus Force shells,
attacked unchecked, gripped it with strange forces, limbs, hands or
gripping force, that tore through the foot-thick alloy like so much
tissue paper, metal, which was fifty times as strong as our frail
steel, a metal whose molecules had been designed by the scientists of
the race millions of years ago, and in all those ages no stronger,
more inert metal had ever been found. But now that tough envelope was
torn open, for the forces of atoms were greater than the forces of
molecules, and the creatures used those forces.
But those marooned ships were lost--destroyed soon by the vengeful
giants. And the forces of man on the far-off planets of a far-off sun
were worried anew. Their weapon was a failure after all. Some new thing
must be developed. But how did it happen that the first attempts were
successful? The scientists believed it was due to the fact that the
first attempts were utter surprises to the creatures--they were taken
before they could prevent the loss of their energy. In some way they
were able to build a barrier about themselves that prevented the loss
of energy, even as it prevented the penetration of the energy of the
disintegration ray.
But man must develop some new, some stronger weapon. The time was
getting too short for more failures. For Hal Jus had announced a
discovery that made men even more anxious to abandon their age-old
home. The Sun was to become a nova. These flaming stars had been known
and studied for ages. Dim, old stars they were that suddenly flared up
for a brief period of intense activity, then quickly faded back even
lower than before. It behooved man to move quickly. A mighty people
that for ten billion years had slowly built up the mighty structure of
their science had to move.
Many weapons were tried, many expeditions of two or three ships made
the trip, and attempted to destroy the creatures. Some succeeded
moderately well, others met with ghastly failure.
Two brief years now remained to them. Expeditions to many of the
younger stars within range of their great projectors were made, but
always they brought back bad news. Here they found no habitable
planets; there the sun had not yet developed planets, and there was
no time to stop to make and cool off a planet. That would require
a century, even for one as small as Mercury. They must migrate to
Betelguese. But Toralk, the mighty sun without planets, was kept in
mind. If necessary, they could make the planet, and while it cooled,
float in space, living in their mighty ships, making air and food and
all their needs from matter torn from the sun. The great battle fleet
of thirty thousand ships was ready. Each ship, two thousand one hundred
feet long and three hundred feet beam, was ready to start. They merely
awaited the hoped-for weapon.
At last it was discovered. Another of the test trips was made. Three
small ships went, and one sender, that they might return.
In the depths of space they were re-integrated, and now they slowly
proceeded to the blazing star before them, then hovered near one of
the circling planets. In a moment they were discovered, and literally
thousands of the glowing creatures darted up from the green, brightly
lighted world below. These creatures had learned that these ships were
hostile and as they drew near, they were already changing to that fatal
violet, streaked with red. Great flaming streamers of force reached
out to the ships, but in that instant the ships suddenly seemed to
shimmer, as an object seen through heated air, and around them there
was a strange, pale radiance, a radiance that seemed to have substance.
It seemed to flow, to move, yet always remained as a strange,
half-visible, milky shroud, that surrounded the ships. And then the
streamers of glowing death reached out--touched it--and disappeared!
The creature leaped back, as though in pain, writhing away. The usual
color of the creature was suffused by a pale, but growing green--then
as the red was more and more overcome by the rising green, the glowing
shape grew misty--then like a puff of vapor before a breeze it was
gone--the great Atomic Giant had been mortally wounded and before
their eyes, had died. Instantaneous dissolution had taken place.
The others held back in fear. There was something new to combat and
they went cautiously. Now there leapt out from the nose of the ship
a long beam of the milky, glowing ray--it touched one of the great
creatures--there was a slight flash of light--and it was gone. Then the
glowing ray swept around and erased those forms there in space, erased
them as one might wipe the image from the screen with the flick of the
switch. And then, precipitately they fled. They were beaten; they could
not attack this new ship.
* * * * *
Across the void it was sent, while the few men left in the ray machine
awaited the coming of the mighty battle fleet that would soon be
ready. Around them glowed a pale, scarcely visible field of light.
Defenseless they seemed as they lived and slept in the car swinging in
its orbit about the blazing sun, but many of the Atomic Giants found
the mighty strength that lay hidden in that thin wall of scarcely
visible vibration. And constantly the men were observing the planets
and communicating the data to the leaders on Earth and Venus.
And in the System wild activity was going on. The entire force of the
machines of all the planets was concentrated on the production of the
great generators of this new force. It was simple in principle. The
Atomic Giants lived by using as their "fuel" the energy of the atoms.
We live by burning the carbon and hydrogen of our foods with the oxygen
of the air. If the supply of either oxygen or food were cut off, the
incombustibility results and we die. If oxygen is cut off, we die
because the carbon compounds will no longer burn. If food is cut off,
we die because there is nothing to consume the oxygen with.
The Atomic Giants needed no oxygen or carbon--any element would do.
But they needed elements that they could decompose for their energy.
Any atom under normal conditions would do, but if that atom was made
incombustible they too died. This new force that was so deadly to them,
was a force created by the energy of matter. The electrons of matter
were altered by the application of terrific spatial strains, and they
would no longer react in the same way and would not decompose as did
the normal electron. They merely prevented the use of atomic energy
wherever they were. Thus the "fuel" of the Atomic Giants was made
incombustible and they died.
But there was a tremendous amount of work to be done before they could
be ready for the great offensive to be carried across space. The
great ships were rapidly being equipped with the electron projectors
and assembled in long rows outside the great transmitting stations,
awaiting the final start.
It was nearly two weeks before the great fleet was ready. Then they
were all assembled, ready to start. The control ship went first.
Since the cessation of the release of atomic energy did not affect
the release of material energy, they did not have to worry for the
safety of the men when projected out into space. They would regain
consciousness soon enough, and the wonderful automatic devices that ran
the complex mechanism would hold it in place, maintain its temperature
and the distance of the one ship from the other. The protective shield
of the strained electrons would protect them.
In the darkened observatory on Venus, many men were watching in
silence. The room was absolutely silent; only the smooth, gentle hum of
the smoothly operating news-casters marred the utter quiet. They had
come to observe, not to comment, and they waited quietly.
There was a flash of light on the screen and the image became clear
and sharp. They seemed to be in a huge room, the walls were lined with
small electro-vision boards, tier above tier of balconies ran around
the sides of the great room, and in the center rose a mighty cylinder.
The entire wall area of the great room was covered with the projectors,
and before each one sat a man. But the mighty cylinder in the center
was carefully walled off. Now, as they watched it, it suddenly glowed
faintly bluish--the air about it was being ionized--there arose a
faint, deep hum; then there appeared about it an intense corona of
air, ionized under the titanic forces within it--tiny shooting sparks
crackled blue over all its polished surface----
[Illustration: _The entire wall area of the great room was covered with
projectors, and before each one sat a man, but the mighty cylinder in
the center was carefully railed off._]
The view faded; another replaced it. Now they seemed to be in a smaller
room, a room whose front wall was lined with a series of large view
boards. Twenty of these boards there were, and on each was the image
of a room whose metal walls glistened in the light of the dull red
sun. They were looking into the operating room of the greatest of
the ships--the flagship. This ship, unlike the others, was a cube,
surmounted by a smaller cube control-top. The mighty cylinder inside
generated a field that surrounded all the ship with the protecting
force, but triply intense. The fighting machines were two thousand
one hundred feet long, and three hundred beam. These carried powerful
protective force generators, but also they carried fourteen sets of the
projectors, three along each side, the top and the bottom, and one at
each end. Inside, the terrific energy needed to operate these was being
generated in smoothly humming machines. Titanic they loomed above the
tiny men tending them. These same giant machines would, later, with a
few simple adjustments, furnish the power for the receiver machines to
receive the things from the Solar System. But now they were engines of
war. Over each thousand of these great ships was a division leader. The
twenty division leaders were represented by the twenty view boards in
the flagship. The individual ships were each represented by one of the
boards in the central control room, so that in any case they knew the
fate of every ship, and aid could be sent them.
Now the scene on Hal Jus's screen became misty--the ship was being sent
into space. It would be close to an hour before the scene reappeared.
Now they shifted the adjustment to watch the sending of the armada of
space.
With the many stations in operation, the work went along smoothly
and within two hours all were there. The twenty thousand ships had
automatically assumed the formation of a mighty cone; the three
dimensional equivalent of the flying wedge of their remote ancestors.
Gradually now the men within were awakening. The scene in the control
room shifted to the flagship's engine room, as clicking relays shifted
the connection to another viewplate on the distant ship. The mighty
engines loomed huge above the tiny cots of the sleeping engineers.
Here too was the mighty cylinder, but now it was seen as the core of
a gigantic coil, into which ran great cables from huge, soft-purring
generators. Even the forces of material energy required straining to
operate that great electron distorter.
Hal Jus pushed another button. Again the tiny relays out in space
reconnected him. The commander was awake. The control room was soon a
scene of the greatest activity. As soon as the necessary weapon had
been discovered, the plans for the great action had been sketched. The
formations were rapidly being worked out.
The great fleet was divided into ten parts of two thousand each, and to
each of the nine smaller, cool planets one of the ten divisions went.
The tenth stayed as a guard to the flagship. Now they went in ten great
cones of glistening ships, a mighty armada of space, coming across the
void to conquer the new universe for Mankind. And now they separated as
they drew closer to the System, for the ships had been re-formed nearly
four billion miles from the central sun, Betelguese.
* * * * *
The expeditions swept along over and close to the surface of the
planets they had been sent to investigate. Heat, cold, size, made no
difference to the Atomic Creatures and all the small planets would be
taken first. The smaller planets would be attacked first. The creatures
would probably flee to the outer planet, but it was necessary to plan
to attack them there.
Low over the sunlit surface of a great planet they were swinging;
below them there rapidly unrolled a terrain of mighty forests of green
trees, vast green meadows of gently rolling land, and all bathed in
the blinding glory of a blazing white sun. What a scene for eyes that
had been starved of light for countless years! What a land of hope
and promise and pleasure it seemed to these small gentle men. For
generations the only plants they had seen were the poor small things
raised artificially in the museums. Here they saw magnificent trees
that towered two-hundred feet into the air, in wondrous profusion of
leafy green.
Now they were swinging over mighty oceans, gigantic patches of water
that were large enough to cover all the surface of their smaller
globes, for this planet was large as the long gone Neptune, or Uranus.
How wonderful those vast areas of magnificent blue water, sparkling
brilliantly in the light of the gigantic sun, seemed to them. Each man,
before he started on this expedition, had his eyes treated that the new
light would not be too bright and that it might appear white to him, so
that now they could fully appreciate the wondrous beauty of the scene
beneath.
And wondrous it was to men who had never seen water except as it had
been manufactured in their great plants for community use. No oceans,
no rivers, no lakes had there been in their system for over five
billion years.
Now they were following a mighty river, a river larger than any that
Earth had ever seen, for it drained a vast area of a humid planet.
Yet it was a new planet, with mighty mountain ranges, mountains that
towered in mighty snowcapped peaks in the blue distance, over wide
ranges of green forest! What a sight it was for the eyes of these men!
What a wondrous country! And now, as they rounded the bend in the great
river, they cried out in excited wonder, for before them the great
river, vaster than three Amazons, was pouring over a mighty ledge of
rock, nearly four hundred feet in height; and from it rose a tremendous
wave of sound that made the great ships tremble with the force of it,
as they slowed to a few hundred miles an hour to watch the gigantic
cascade. Then on again--There was much to do ere they could claim this
beautiful country.
And on a low ridge among the mighty mountains they came upon a grim
reminder that it was not theirs yet. A great hole lay carved out in
bare soil--a sharp contrast with the rich green of the country. Here
and there they saw scattered brightly shining bits of metal and a
section of heavy metal armor plate, torn and twisted by some enormous
strain. To one side lay a heavy girder, torn and bent into a U. They
recognized the spot whence the voice of the lost expedition had come
across the void to them. Careful electroscopic and photographic studies
of the spot were made ere they moved on.
The Atomic Creatures feared them now, it seemed, for though they had
come even to one of the planets, they had seen none of the enemy.
Surely there must be many hiding!
On the other side of the great mountain range they found their answer.
Here, too, was a vast area of green, rolling meadow, but far out
across it they could see a great bare spot, where only the dark, raw
soil was visible. They swung the armada toward it, and shot forward
to investigate, but before they had come within a thousand miles of
the spot there suddenly appeared as from nowhere an army of the Atomic
Giants. No doubt this bare spot was their home, and from the great area
it seemed that they must inhabit it in great numbers. The powerful
radioactive effects of their force-fields no doubt killed every plant.
These creatures were not entirely defenseless, for if their numbers
were great enough they could exert a powerful interfering force and
break down the protective field. But they knew that many would be
required. And now all in an instant the battle for this world was
on, the great creatures striving to destroy the ships, while burning
rays of milk radiance stabbed and slashed at their strange glowing
force-pools. Soon they found the vulnerable point of the ships and
began to attack single ships in numbers. Slowly, slowly, the milky
radiance would contract, while the smooth purring of the mighty
generators rose to a throaty hum, then became a vicious snarling roar.
The great electron distorter cylinder would become a mass of shooting
sparks, crackling, snapping till the atmosphere about it was alive with
twisting streamers of flame twelve to twenty-four inches long. Then
slowly it would heat--and if the attack was still unbroken, there would
be a queer sighing hum from the generator, and a slight explosion--and
the ship was gone. The generators, however, would withstand the attacks
of ten or eleven of the creatures safely, and the other ships would
come to the rescue--but many times there were no free ships in the
neighborhood, and all available power must be turned into the ray
generators, the slashing beams cutting at the many opponents. Even the
propulsion apparatus was robbed of energy that every last meg-erg might
be fed into the ray generators. Thousands of the Atomic Giants were
destroyed, their color turning that strange green, then they suddenly
were snuffed out. But sixty-two ships were lost. Still many remained
when at last the Atomic enemy fled suddenly into space. There was no
way of following their motion, they merely disappeared, going off with
the speed of light. Then the visitors explored all that world, and
nowhere did they find any more creatures.
But now the reports from all the other planets were coming in, and
in every case eventual victory was secured. On two planets the issue
was for a time in doubt, for there seemed to be great centers of the
creatures here. However, there was no difficulty in discovering where
the remnant had fled to! The electronic activity readings of the
outermost planet, the minor sun, had risen 12.5 per cent. Since a star
does not depend on atomic energy, it was easy to see that the creatures
had sought refuge here. The range of the present ray was too short to
permit attack on that planet. The blazing furnace drove them back to
a distance of a million miles as the least distance of safe approach.
They could not attack the creatures here. What could they do? They must
exterminate them before the people moved to their new planets, for the
creatures could make a raid, destroy a city, and be gone before the
battleships could leave their docks.
The control ship proceeded directly to the most pleasant of the
planets, with its guard, and the other ships were sent to watch the
planets lest the Atomic Creatures return. Then on the planet the men
began to set up one of the great receiving stations. From the sides
of the ships ran mighty power cables to the powerful station. Then
across space there came expert engineers, workmen, instruments and
tools, working machines, constructor robots, and then great pieces of
machinery so huge they could send only one section at a time. With
these a new station was built to replace the temporary one.
* * * * *
Already a small city was developing it seemed. But back on the old
planets, mighty works were being undertaken. They were building two
thousand ships, the biggest ships that had ever been built. Millions
of tons they weighed, and each ship was one vast power plant. Down
through the heart of it ran a mighty cylinder of glistening metal. A
tiny control room, invisible among the titanic machines, governed all
its vast energies. It was a gargantuan projector of the nullifying
field, a mighty ship that could hurl its energies into space to form
a field of the force that could reach out across a million and a half
miles. Two thousand of these vast machines were being built. Gigantic
power plants they were. But these peacefully minded men designed them
so that, their work done, they could be easily converted into merchant
cargo ships, and the mighty generators could be used to light and heat
their cities.
In less than two weeks the great ships were ready, and were resting on
the surface of the great world out there across space, ready for the
attack. The last mighty form had but just floated, light as a feather,
from the huge receiving station, and now they lay in a row. So vast
they were that they seemed unreal, figments of some strange dream.
Mighty cigar-shaped hulls of four-foot armor plate, half sunken in
slight depressions they lay now, their terrific weight making the soil
flow like some semi-liquid mass. Nestled between two of the gargantuan
ships there rested the control ship. Now, one by one the fleet of the
mighty bulks rose gently, gracefully into the air, formed in a perfect
cone, with the control ship, scarcely visible in this congregation of
giants, following behind the leading ship.
Out to that minor sun they flashed, and around it they formed a great
sphere of ships. Then each of the mighty projectors, nose pointing to
the blazing sun below, turned loose its powers. Through special filters
they could watch the field forming. First it was a thin shell that
surrounded the entire planet as the projectors threw it into position.
Ten thousand small ships were occupied in maintaining the field of
electrons in place with their projectors. Already the shell of force
was thick and strong. Unless the Force Creatures made a concerted
effort at some one point, they would soon be doomed.
They did this. There must have been many, many thousands of them. The
field was almost broken, it was bulging out, scattering under the drive
of their energies. Soon they would have broken through, but one of
the great projector ships reached the spot before the field had quite
yielded, and condensing his field projector till it was a ray, they
could see the field suddenly fall in, driven in by the awful power of
that titanic driving.
It took them sixty-three hours to completely establish that mighty
energy field. Naturally the star, which made no use of Atomic energy,
was quite unaffected. But when, at the end of three weeks, the energy
field had slowly dissipated itself into space, there were no more of
the Atomic Giants.
Now the four habitable planets were at once settled upon. Already they
had been carefully mapped, and the Supreme Council had drawn up a plan
for the use of the vast planets. More area there was than they needed
now, by far, so the cities were scattered widely over the globes. Mere
planetary distances meant nothing to them. And all the areas between
were carefully preserved as vast, natural parks. Through them wound
roads for the little ground cars, so that the people might better see
the beauties of the place. And some of the harmless animals would be
permitted to live that the future population might know them. It was to
be the fulfilment of a millennium-old dream--a warm, sunlight world, a
kindly, young world where nature supplied the air, and the water, and
the warmth in great abundance.
It was a kindly nature they seemed to have met here. And the work began.
Dozens, hundreds of the great receiver stations were set up. And at
each station there would grow a great city. Now there poured across
the infinite void a mighty influx of machines and workers and tools.
These were the first, for they must build the cities for the billions
to come. Rapidly the work went on as the skilled artisans directed the
mighty machines in their labors, and on the surface of this new globe
there rose from the ground mighty walls of lustrous, gleaming metal,
reflecting the sun in a million different colors, a wondrous city of
flashing, changing light, for the metal walls were automatically ruled
with thousands of lines to the inch, a titanic diffraction grating that
sent up a rainbow of changing, flashing color. A mile and a half into
the air towered the buildings of the cities, and already the commerce
was building up as the great receiver stations discharged their steady
stream of immigrants.
One and a half years it took them to move all their treasures and
priceless records, all their goods, all their machines and themselves
across the void into their new cities. One and a half years of swift,
efficient labor that transformed these new worlds into civilized
planets.
But now they had twenty billion years to live ere these planets, too,
would be dark, cold and sunless. And then they could easily move to
some other distant system. But why wait till the Sun grew cold? They
were already making investigations. Out across space there still
glowed countless millions of unexplored stars! Now there would be no
population limit to their peoples; there would be expansion, and since
each man lived from two to three thousand years, the expansion could be
rapid.
Four of the planets were naturally habitable, but five there were which
should be so in the future. There was one yet a glowing planet, still
hot from its formation. Two were so far from the major sun that they
were cold to absolute zero, save when they were in conjunction with the
minor sun. These the engineers and astro-physicists had investigated.
They would be drawn nearer the sun when the population warranted,
and one more that turned on its axis but once a year could easily be
started rotating. Air and water it lacked, but that would be easy to
supply. And a last planet was so close to the mighty blazing Betelguese
that it was kept dull red by the titanic furnace so near it, a scant
thirty million miles away. That would be drawn to a more comfortable
distance. There was indeed room for much expansion in this system.
But still there was the urge of exploration, of adventure. There might
be other battles to fight, other worlds to conquer! Already mighty
exploration ships were being prepared to dispatch to half a dozen
systems. Perhaps they would bring commerce; perhaps it would be wider
domain. But it was that same lure of adventure that had driven the
first caveman from his rocky cliff to explore the wilder lands. It was
the love of adventure, another name for ambition. It would take more
than ten thousand thousand thousand years to kill that!
THE END
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