VI.
Far out in the depths of the intergalactic void there sped along upon its strange course the newly materialized planet of the intellectuals. Desolate and barren it was, and apparently destitute of life; but life was there—eternal, disembodied life, unaffected by any possible extreme of heat or cold, requiring for its continuance neither water nor air, nor, for that matter, any material substance whatsoever. And from somewhere in the vacuum above that planet's forbidding surface there emanated a thought—a thought coldly clear, abysmally hopeless.
"I have but one remaining aim in this life. While I have failed again, as I have failed innumerable times in the past, I shall keep on trying until I succeed in assembling in sufficient strength the exact forces necessary to disrupt this sixth-order pattern which is I."
"You speak foolishly, Eight, as does each of us now and again," came instant response. "There is much more to see, much more to do, much more to learn. Why be discouraged or disheartened? An infinity of time is necessary in which to explore infinite space and to acquire infinite knowledge."
"Foolish I may be, but this is no simple recurrent outburst of melancholia. I am definitely weary of this cycle of existence, and I wish to pass on to the next, whatever of experience or of sheer oblivion it may bring. In fact, I wish that you, One, had never worked out the particular pattern of forces that liberated our eleven minds from the so-called shackles of our material bodies. For we cannot die. We are simply patterns of force eternal, marking the passage of time only by the life cycles of the suns of the Galaxies.
"Why, I envy even the creatures inhabiting the planets throughout the Galaxy we visited but a moment ago. Partially intelligent though they are, struggling and groping, each individual dying after only a fleeting instant of life; born, growing old, and passing on in a minute fraction of a millionth of one cycle—yet I envy even them."
"That was the reason you did not dematerialize those you accompanied briefly while they were flitting about in their crude space ship?"
"Yes. Being alive for such an infinitesimal period of time, they value life highly. Why hurry them into the future that is so soon to be theirs?"
"Do not dwell upon such thoughts, Eight," advised One. "They lead only to greater and greater depths of despondency. Consider instead what we have done and what we shall do."
"I have considered everything, at length," the entity known as Eight thought back stubbornly. "What benefit or satisfaction do we get out of this continuous sojourn in the cycle of existence from which we should have departed æons ago? We have power, it is true, but what of it? It is barren. We create for ourselves bodies and their material surroundings, like this"—the great hall came into being, and so vast was the mentality creating it that the flow of thought continued without a break—"but what of it? We do not enjoy them as lesser beings enjoy the bodies which to them are synonymous with life.
"We have traveled endlessly, we have seen much, we have studied much; but what of it? Fundamentally we have accomplished nothing and we know nothing. We know but little more than we knew countless thousands of cycles ago, when our home planet was still substance. We know nothing of time; we know nothing of space; we know nothing even of the fourth dimension save that the three of us who rotated themselves into it have never returned. And until one of us succeeds in building a neutralizing pattern we can never die—we must face a drab and cheerless eternity of existence as we now are."
"An eternity, yes, but an eternity neither drab nor cheerless. We know but little, as you have said, but in that fact lies a stimulus; we can and shall go on forever, learning more and ever more. Think of it! But hold—what is that? I feel a foreign thought. It must emanate from a mind powerful indeed to have come so far."
"I have felt them. There are four foreign minds, but they are unimportant."
"Have you analyzed them?"
"Yes. They are the people of the space ship which we just mentioned; projecting their mentalities to us here."
"Projecting mentalities? Such a low form of life? They must have learned much from you, Eight."
"Perhaps I did give them one or two hints," Eight returned, utterly indifferent, "but they are of no importance to us."
"I am not so sure of that," One mused. "We found no others in that Galaxy capable of so projecting themselves, nor did we find any beings possessing minds sufficiently strong to be capable of existence without the support of a material body. It may be that they are sufficiently advanced to join us. Even if they are not, if their minds should prove too weak for our company, they are undoubtedly strong enough to be of use in one of my researches."
At this point Seaton cut off the projections and began to muster his sixth-order defenses, therefore he did not "hear" Eight's outburst against the proposal of his leader.
"I will not allow it, One!" the disembodied intelligence protested intensely. "Rather than have you inflict upon them the eternity of life that we have suffered I shall myself dematerialize them. Much as they love life, it would be infinitely better for them to spare a few minutes of it than to live forever."
But there was no reply. One had vanished; had darted at utmost speed toward the Skylark. Eight followed him instantly. Light-centuries of distance meant no more to them than to Seaton's own projector, and they soon reached the hurtling space ship; a space ship moving with all its unthinkable velocity, yet to them motionless—what is velocity when there are no reference points by which to measure it?
"Back, Eight!" commanded One abruptly. "They are inclosed in a nullifying wall of the sixth order. They are indeed advanced in mentality."
"A complete stasis in the sub-ether?" Eight marveled, "That will do as well as the pattern—"
"Greetings, strangers!" Seaton's thought interrupted. Thoughts as clear as those require no interpretation of language. "My projection is here, outside the wall, but I might caution you that one touch of your patterns will cut it off and stiffen that wall to absolute impenetrability. I assume that your visit is friendly?"
"Eminently so," replied One. "I offer you the opportunity of joining us; or, at least, the opportunity of being of assistance to science in the attempt at joining us."
"They want us to join them as pure intellectuals, folks." Seaton turned from the projector, toward his friends. "How about it, Dottie? We've got quite a few things to do yet in the flesh, haven't we?"
"I'll say we have, Dickie—don't be an idiot!" She chuckled.
"Sorry, One!" Seaton thought again into space. "Your invitation is appreciated to the full, and we thank you for it, but we have too many things to do in our own lives and upon our own world to accept it at this time. Later on, perhaps, we could do so with profit."
"You will accept it now," One declared coldly. "Do you imagine that your puny wills can withstand mine for a single instant?"
"I don't know; but, aided by certain mechanical devices of ours, I do know that they'll do a terrific job of trying!" Seaton blazed back.
"There is one thing that I believe you can do," Eight put in. "Your barrier wall should be able to free me from this intolerable condition of eternal life!" And he hurled himself forward with all his prodigious force against that nullifying wall.
Instantly the screen flamed into incandescence; converters and generators whined and shrieked as hundreds of pounds of power uranium disappeared under that awful load. But the screens held, and in an instant it was over. Eight was gone, disrupted into the future life for which he had so longed, and the impregnable wall was once more merely a tenuous veil of sixth-order vibrations. Through that veil Seaton's projection crept warily; but the inhuman, monstrous mentality poised just beyond it made no demonstration.
"Eight committed suicide, as he has so often tried to do," One commented coldly, "but, after all, his loss will be felt with relief, if at all. His dissatisfaction was an actual impediment to the advancement of our entire group. And now, feeble intellect, I will let you know what is in store for you, before I direct against you forces which will render your screens inoperative and therefore make further interchange of thought impossible. You shall be dematerialized; and, whether your minds are strong enough to exist in the free state, your entities shall be of some small assistance to me before you pass on to the next cycle of existence. What substance do you disintegrate for power?"
"That is none of your business, and since you cannot drive a ray through this screen you will never find out!" Seaton snapped.
"It matters little," One rejoined, unmoved. "Were you employing pure neutronium and were your vessel entirely filled with it, yet in a short time it would be exhausted. For, know you, I have summoned the other members of our group. We are able to direct cosmic forces which, although not infinite in magnitude, are to all intents and purposes inexhaustible. In a brief time your power will be gone, and I shall then confer with you again."
The other mentalities flashed up in response to the call of their leader, and at his direction arranged themselves all about the far-flung outer screen of the Skylark. Then from all space, directed inward, there converged upon the space ship gigantic streamers of force. Invisible streamers, and impalpable, but under their fierce impacts the defensive screens of the Terrestrial vessel flared into even more frenzied displays of pyrotechnic incandescence than they had exhibited under the heaviest beams of the superdreadnought of the Fenachrone. For thousands of miles space became filled with coruscantly luminous discharges as the uranium-driven screens of the Skylark dissipated the awful force of the attack.
"I don't see how they can keep that up for very long." Seaton frowned as he read his meters and saw at what an appalling rate their store of metal was decreasing. "But he talked as though he knew his stuff. I wonder if—um—um—" He fell silent, thinking intensely, while the others watched his face in strained attention; then went on: "Uh-huh, I see—he can do it—he wasn't kidding us."
"How?" asked Crane tensely.
"But how can he, possibly, Dick?" cried Dorothy. "Why, they aren't anything, really!"
"They can't store up power in themselves, of course, but we know that all space is pervaded by radiation—theoretically a source of power that outclasses us as much as we outclass mule power. Nobody that I know of ever tapped it before, and I can't tap it yet; but they've tapped it and can direct it. The directing is easy enough to understand—just like a kid shooting a high-power rifle. He doesn't have to furnish energy for the bullet, you know—he merely touches off the powder and tells the bullet where to go.
"But we're not quite sunk yet. I see one chance; and even though it's pretty slim, I'd take it before I would knuckle down to his nibs out there. Eight said something a while ago, remember, about 'rotating' into the fourth dimension? I've been mulling the idea around in my mind. I'd say that as a last resort we might give it a whirl and take a chance on coming through. See anything else that looks at all feasible, Mart?"
"Not at the present moment," Crane replied calmly. "How much time have we?"
"About forty hours at the present rate of dissipation. It's constant, so they've probably focused everything they can bring to bear on us."
"You cannot attack them in any way? Apparently the sixth-order zone of force kills them?"
"Not a chance. If I open a slit one kilocycle wide anywhere in the band they'll find it instantly and it'll be curtains for us. And even if I could fight them off and work through that slit I couldn't drive a zone into them—their velocity is the same as that of the zone, you know, and they'd simply bounce back with it. If I could pen them up into a spherical—um—um—no use, can't do it with this equipment. If we had Rovol and Caslor and a few others of the Firsts of Norlamin here, and had a month or so of time, maybe we could work out something, but I couldn't even start it alone in the time we've got."
"But even if we decide to try the fourth dimension, how could you do it? Surely that dimension is merely a mathematical concept, with no actual existence in nature?"
"No; it's actual enough, I think—nature's a big field, you know, and contains a lot of unexplored territory. Remember how casually that Eight thing out there discussed it? It isn't how to get there that's biting me; it's only that those intellectuals can stand a lot more grief than we can, and conditions in the region of the fourth dimension probably wouldn't suit us any too well.
"However, we wouldn't have to be there for more than a hundred thousandth of a second to dodge this gang, and we could stand almost anything that long, I imagine. As to how to do it—rotation. Three pairs of rotating, high-amperage currents, at mutual right angles, converging upon a point. Remembering that any rotating current exerts its force at a right angle, what would happen?"
"It might, at that," Crane conceded, after minutes of narrow-eyed concentration; then, Crane-wise, began to muster objections. "But it would not so affect this vessel. She is altogether too large, is of the wrong shape, and—"
"And you can't pull yourself up by your own boot straps," Seaton interrupted. "Right—you've got to have something to work from, something to anchor your forces to. We'd make the trip in little old Skylark Two. She's small, she's spherical, and she has so little mass compared to Three that rotating her out of space would be a lead-pipe cinch—it wouldn't even shift Three's reference planes."
"It might prove successful," Crane admitted at last, "and, if so, it could not help but be a very interesting and highly informative experience. However, the chance of success seems to be none too great, as you have said, and we must exhaust every other possibility before we decide to attempt it."
For hours then the two scientists went over every detail of their situation, but could evolve no other plan which held out even the slightest gleam of hope for a successful outcome; and Seaton seated himself before the banked and tiered keyboards of his projector.
There he worked for perhaps half an hour, then called to Crane: "I've got everything set to spin Two out to where we're going, Mart. Now if you and Shiro"—for Crane's former "man" and the Skylark's factotum was now quite as thoroughly familiar with Norlaminian forces as he had formerly been with Terrestrial tools—"will put some forces onto the job of getting her ready for anything you think we may meet up with, I'll put in the rest of the time trying to figure out a way of taking a good stiff poke at those jaspers out there."
He knew that the zones of force surrounding his vessel were absolutely impenetrable to any wave propagated through the ether, and to any possible form of material substance. He knew also that the sub-ether was blocked, through the fifth and sixth orders. He knew that it was hopeless to attempt to solve the problem of the seventh order in the time at his disposal.
If he were to open any of his zones, even for an instant, in order to launch a direct attack, he knew that the immense mentalities to which he was opposed would perceive the opening and through it would wreak the Terrestrials' dematerialization before he could send out a single beam.
Last and worst, he knew that not even his vast console afforded any combination of forces which could possibly destroy the besieging intellectuals. What could he do?
For hours he labored with all the power of his wonderful brain, now stored with all the accumulated knowledge of thousands upon thousands of years of Norlaminian research. He stopped occasionally to eat, and once, at his wife's insistence, he snatched a little troubled and uneasy sleep; but his mind drove him back to his board and at that board he worked. Worked—while the hands of the chronometer approached more and ever more nearly the zero hour. Worked—while the Skylark's immense stores of uranium dwindled visibly away in the giving up of their inconceivable amounts of intra-atomic energy to brace the screens which were dissipating the inexhaustible flood of cosmic force being directed against them. Worked—in vain. At last he glanced at the chronometer and stood up. "Twenty minutes now—time to go," he announced. "Dot, come here a minute!"
"Sweetheart!" Tall though Dorothy was, the top of her auburn head came scarcely higher than Seaton's chin. Tightly but tenderly held in his mighty arms she tipped her head back, and her violet eyes held no trace of fear as they met his. "It's all right, lover. I don't know whether it's because I think we're going to get away, or because we're together; but I'm not the least bit afraid of whatever it is that's going to happen to us."
"Neither am I, dear. Some way, I simply can't believe that we're passing out; I've got a hunch that we're going to come through. We've got a lot to live for yet, you and I, together. But I want to tell you what you already know—that, whatever happens, I love you."
"Hurry it up, Seatons!"
Margaret's voice recalled them to reality, and all five were wafted upon beams of force into the spherical launching space of the craft in which they were to venture into the unknown.
That vessel was Skylark Two, the forty-foot globe of arenak which from Earth to Norlamin had served them so well and which had been carried, life-boatlike, well inside the two-mile-long torpedo which was Skylark Three. The massive doors were clamped and sealed, and the five human beings strapped themselves into their seats against they knew not what emergency.
"All ready, folks?" Seaton grasped the ebonite handle of his master switch. "I'm not going to tell you Cranes good-by, Mart—you know my hunch. You got one, too?"
"I cannot say that I have. However, I have always had a great deal of confidence in your ability. Then, too, I have always been something of a fatalist; and, most important of all, like you and Dorothy, Margaret and I are together. You may start any time now, Dick."
"All right—hang on. On your marks! Get set! Go!"
As the master switch was thrown a set of gigantic plungers drove home, actuating the tremendous generators in the holds of the massive cruiser of space above and around them; generators which, bursting into instantaneous and furious activity, directed upon the spherical hull of their vessel three opposed pairs of currents of electricity; madly spinning currents, of a potential and of a density never before brought into being by human devices.