Islands of Space Read online

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  As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void betweengalaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like avast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own islanduniverse. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, "We madegood time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on atonly half power...."

  Arcot pushed the control lever all the way to full power. The shipfilled with the strain of flowing energy, and sparks snapped in the airof the control room as they raced at an inconceivable speed through thedarkness of intergalactic space.

  But suddenly, far off to their left and far to their right, they saw twoshining ships paralleling their course! They held grimly to the courseof the Earth ship, bracketing it like an official guard.

  The Earth scientists stared at them in wonder. "Lord," muttered Morey,"where can they have come from?"

  * * * * *

  John W. Campbell first started writing in 1930 when his first shortstory, _When the Atoms Failed_, was accepted by a science-fictionmagazine. At that time he was twenty years old and still a student atcollege. As the title of the story indicates, he was even at that timeoccupied with the significance of atomic energy and nuclear physics.

  For the next seven years, Campbell, bolstered by a scientific backgroundthat ran from childhood experiments, to study at Duke University and theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote and sold science-fiction,achieving for himself an enviable reputation in the field.

  In 1937 he became the editor of _Astounding Stories_ magazine andapplied himself at once to the task of bettering the magazine and thefield of s-f writing in general. His influence on science-fiction sincethen has been great. Today he still remains as the editor of thatmagazine's evolved and redesigned successor, _Analog_.

  ISLANDS

  OF

  SPACE

  by

  JOHN W. CAMPBELL

  ACE BOOKS, INC.1120 Avenue of the AmericasNew York, N.Y. 10036

  ISLANDS OF SPACE

  Copyright, 1956, by John W. Campbell, Jr.Copyright, 1930, by Experimenter Publications, Inc.

  An Ace Book, by arrangement with the author.

  All Rights Reserved

  _Cover by McKeon_

  _Also by John W. Campbell In Ace editions_:

  THE BLACK STAR PASSES (F-346)THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE (F-364)

  Printed in U.S.A.

  PROLOGUE

  In the early part of the Twenty Second Century, Dr. Richard Arcot,hailed as "the greatest living physicist", and Robert Morey, hisbrilliant mathematical assistant, discovered the so-called "molecularmotion drive", which utilized the random energy of heat to produceuseful motion.

  John Fuller, designing engineer, helped the two men to build a shipwhich used the drive in order to have a weapon to seek out and capturethe mysterious Air Pirate whose robberies were ruining TranscontinentalAirways.

  The Pirate, Wade, was a brilliant but neurotic chemist who haddiscovered, among other things, the secret of invisibility. Cured of hisinstability by modern psychomedical techniques, he was hired by Arcot tohelp build an interplanetary vessel to go to Venus.

  The Venusians proved to be a humanoid race of people who used telepathyfor communication. Although they were similar to Earthmen, their blueblood and double thumbs made them enough different to have causeddistrust and racial friction, had not both planets been drawn togetherin a common bond of defense by the passing of the Black Star.

  The Black Star, Nigra, was a dead, burned-out sun surrounded by aplanetary system very much like our own. But these people had beenforced to use their science to produce enough heat and light to stayalive in the cold, black depths of interstellar space. There was nothingevil or menacing in their attack on the Solar System; they simply wanteda star that gave off light and heat. So they attacked, not realizingthat they were attacking beings equal in intelligence to themselves.

  They were at another disadvantage, too. The Nigrans had spent longmillennia fighting their environment and had had no time to fight amongthemselves, so they knew nothing of how to wage a war. The Earthmen andVenusians knew only too well, since they had a long history of war oneach planet.

  Inevitably, the Nigrans were driven back to the Black Star.[A]

  The war was over. And things became dull. And the taste of adventurestill remained on the tongues of Arcot, Wade, and Morey.

  [Footnote A: See "_The Black Star Passes_", Ace Books, F-346.]