Invaders from the Infinite Read online

  INVADERS FROM THE INFINITE

  by

  JOHN W. CAMPBELL

  Ace Books, Inc.1120 Avenue of the AmericasNew York, N.Y. 10036

  Copyright, 1961, by John W. Campbell, Jr.An earlier version Copyright, 1932, by Experimenter Pub. Co.An Ace Book, by arrangement with the Author.All Rights ReservedCover by Gray Morrow.Printed in U.S.A.

  GALAXIES IN THE BALANCE

  The famous scientific trio of Arcot, Wade and Morey, challenged by themost ruthless aliens in all the universes, blasted off on anintergalactic search for defenses against the invaders of Earth and allher allies.

  World after world was visited, secret after secret unleashed, and turnedto mighty weapons of intense force--and still the Thessian enemy seemedto grow in power and ferocity.

  Mighty battles between huge space armadas were but skirmishes in thegalactic war, as the invincible aliens savagely advanced and the Earthteam hurled bolt after bolt of pure ravening energy--until it appearedthat the universe itself might end in one final flare of furioustorrential power....

  Chapter I

  INVADERS

  Russ Evans, Pilot 3497, Rocket Squad Patrol 34, unsnapped his seat belt,and with a slight push floated "up" into the air inside the weightlessship. He stretched himself, and yawned broadly.

  "Red, how soon do we eat?" he called.

  "Shut up, you'll wake the others," replied a low voice from the rear ofthe swift little patrol ship. "See anything?"

  "Several million stars," replied Evans in a lower voice. "And--" Histone became suddenly severe. "Assistant Murphy, remember your mannerswhen addressing your superior officer. I've a mind to report you."

  A flaming head of hair topping a grinning face poked around the edge ofthe door. "Lower your wavelength, lower your wavelength! You may thinkyou're a sun, but you're just a planetoid. But what I'd like to know,Chief Pilot Russ Evans, is why they locate a ship in a forlorn, out ofthe way place like this--three-quarters of a billion miles, out ofplanetary plane. No ships ever come out here, no pirates, not a chanceto help a wrecked ship. All we can do is sit here and watch the otherfellows do the work."

  "Which is exactly why we're here. Watch--and tell the other ships whereto go, and when. Is that chow ready?" asked Russ looking at a smallclock giving New York time.

  "Uh--think she'll be on time? Come on an' eat."

  Evans took one more look at the telectroscope screen, then snapped itoff. A tiny, molecular towing unit in his hand, he pointed toward thedoor to the combined galley and lunch room, and glided in the wake ofMurphy.

  "How much fuel left?" he asked, as he glided into the dizzily spinningroom. A cylindrical room, spinning at high speed, causing an artificial"weight" for the foods and materials in it, made eating of food a lessdifficult task. Expertly, he maneuvered himself to the guide rail nearthe center of the room, and caught the spiral. Braking himself intomotion, he soon glided down its length, and landed on his feet. He bentand flexed his muscles, waiting for the now-busied assistant to get tothe floor and reply.

  "They gave us two pounds extra. Lord only knows why. Must expect us toclean up on some fleet. That makes four pound rolls left, untouched, andtwo thirds of the original pound. We've been here fifteen days, and havesix more to go. The main driving power rolls have about the same amountleft, and three pound rolls in each reserve bin," replied Red, holding acuriously moving coffee pot that strove to adjust itself to rapidlychanging air velocities as it neared the center of the room.

  "Sounds like a fleet's power stock. Martian lead or the terrestrialisotope?" asked Evans, tasting warily a peculiar dish before him. "Say,this is energy food. I thought we didn't get any more till Saturday."The change from the energy-less, flavored pastes that made up theprincipal bulk of a space-pilot's diet, to prevent over-eating, when noenergy was used in walking in the weightless ship, was indeed a welcomechange.

  "Uh-huh. I got hungry. Any objections?" grinned the Irishman.

  "None!" replied Evans fervently, pitching in with a will.

  Seated at the controls once more, he snapped the little switch thatcaused the screen to glow with flashing, swirling colors as thetelectroscope apparatus came to life. A thousand tiny points of flameappeared scattered on a black field with a suddenness that made themseem to snap suddenly into being. Points, tiny dimensionless points oflight, save one, a tiny disc of blue-white flame, old Sol from adistance of close to one billion miles, and under slight reversemagnification. The skillful hands at the controls were turningadjustments now, and that disc of flame seemed to leap toward him with ahundred light-speeds, growing to a disc as large as a dime in aninstant, while the myriad points of the stars seemed to scatter likefrightened chickens, fleeing from the growing sun, out of the screen.Other points, heretofore invisible, appeared, grew, and rushed away.

  The sun shifted from the center of the screen, and a smallerreddish-green disc came into view--a planet, its atmosphere coloring thelight that left it toward the red. It rushed nearer, grew larger. Earthspread as it took the center of the screen. A world, a portion of aworld, a continent, a fragment of a continent as the magnificationincreased, boundlessly it seemed.

  Finally, New York spread across the screen; New York seen from the air,with a strange lack of perspective. The buildings did not seem all toslant toward some point, but to stand vertical, for, from a distance ofa billion miles, the vision lines were practically parallel. Titanicshafts of glowing color in the early summer sun appeared; the hot raysfrom the sun, now only 82,500,000 miles away, shimmering on the coloredmetal walls.

  The new Airlines Building, a mile and a half high, supported at variouspoints by actual spaceship driving units, was a riot of shifting,rainbow hues. A new trick in construction had been used here, and Evanssmiled at it. Arcot, inventor of the ship that carried him, hadsuggested it to Fuller, designer of that ship, and of that building. Thecolored berylium metal of the wall had been ruled with 20,000 lines tothe inch, mere scratches, but nevertheless a diffraction grating. Theresult was amazingly beautiful. The sunlight, split up to its rainbowcolors, was reflected in millions of shifting tints.

  In the air, supported by tiny packs strapped to their backs, thousandsof people were moving, floating where they wished, in any direction, atany elevation. There were none of the helicopters of even five yearsago, now. A molecular power suit was far more convenient, cost nothingto operate, and but $50 to buy. Perfectly safe, requiring no skill,everyone owned them. To the watcher in space, they were mere moving,snaky lines of barely distinguishable dots that shivered and seemed towrithe in the refractions of the air. Passing over them, seeming to passalmost through them in this strange perspectiveless view, were theshadowy forms of giant space liners, titanic streamlined hulls. Theywere streamlined for no good reason, save that they looked faster andmore graceful than the more efficient spherical freighters, just aspassenger liners of two centuries earlier, with their steam engines, hadcarried four funnels and used two. A space liner spent so minute aportion of its journey in the atmosphere that it was really inefficientto streamline them.

  "Won't be long!" muttered Russ, grinning cheerily at the familiar,sunlit city. His eyes darted to the chronometer beside him. The viewseemed to be taken from a ship that was suddenly scudding across theheavens like a frightened thing, as it ran across from Manhattan Island,followed the Hudson for a short way, then cut across into New Jersey,swinging over the great woodland area of Kittatiny Park, resting finallyon the New Jersey suburb of New York nestled in the Kittatinies,Blairtown. Low apartment buildings, ten or twelve stories high, nestledin the waving green of trees in the old roadways. When ground trafficceased, the streets had been torn up, and parkways substituted.

  Quickly the view singled out a sing
le apartment, and the great smoothroof was enlarged on the screen to the absolute maximum clarity, tillfurther magnification simply resulted in worse stratospheric distortion.On the broad roof were white strips of some material, making a huge Vfollowed by two I's. Russ watched, his hand on the control steadying theview under the Earth's complicated orbital motion, and rotation, furthercorrections for the ship's orbital motion making the job one requiringgreat skill. The view held the center with amazing clarity. Somethingseemed to be happening to the last of the I's. It crumpled suddenly,rolled in on itself and disappeared.

  "She's there, and on time," grinned Russ happily.

  He tried more magnification. Could he--

  He was tired, terribly, suddenly tired. He took his hands from theviewplate controls, relaxed, and dropped off to sleep.

  "What made me so tired--wonder--GOD!" He straightened with a jerk, andhis hands flew to the controls. The view on the machine suddenlyretreated, flew back with a velocity inconceivable. Earth dropped awayfrom the ship with an apparent velocity a thousand times that of light;it was a tiny ball, a pinpoint, gone, the sun--a minute disc--gone--thenthe apparatus was flashing views into focus from the other side of theship. The assistant did not reply. Evans' hands were growing ineffablyheavy, his whole body yearned for sleep. Slowly, clumsily he pawed for alittle stud. Somehow his hand found it, and the ship reeled suddenly,little jerks, as the code message was flung out in a beam of suchtremendous power that the sheer radiation pressure made it noticeable.Earth would be notified. The system would be warned. But light, slowcrawling thing, would take hours to cross the gulf of space, and radiotravels no faster.

  Half conscious, fighting for his faculties with all his will, the pilotturned to the screen. A ship! A strange, glistening thing streamlined tothe nth degree, every spare corner rounded till the resistance was atthe irreducible minimum. But, in the great pilotport of the stranger,the patrol pilot saw faces, and gasped in surprise as he saw them!Terrible faces, blotched, contorted. Patches of white skin, patches ofbrown, patches of black, blotched and twisted across the faces. Long,lean faces, great wide flat foreheads above, skulls strangely squared,more box-like than man's rounded skull. The ears were large, pointedtips at the top. Their hair was a silky mane that extended low over theforehead, and ran back, spreading above the ears, and down the neck.

  Then, as that emotion of surprise and astonishment weakened his willmomentarily, oblivion came, with what seemed a fleeting instant ofmemories. His life seemed to flash before his mind in serried rank, afile of events, his childhood, his life, his marriage, his wife, animage of smiling comfort, then the years, images of great and near greatmen, his knowledge of history, pictures of great war of 2074, picturesof the attackers of the Black Star--then calm oblivion, quiet blankness.

  The long, silent ship that had hovered near him turned, and pointedtoward the pinhead of matter that glowed brilliantly in the flamingjewel box of the heavens. It was gone in an instant, rushing toward Sunand Earth at a speed that outraced the flying radio message, leaving theship of the Guard Patrol behind, and leaving the Pilot as he leaves ourstory.