Islands of Space Page 3

  II

  The many books and papers they had collected were hastily put into thebriefcases, and the four men took the elevator to the landing area onthe roof.

  "We'll take my car," Morey said. "The rest of you can just leave yourshere. They'll be safe for a few days."

  They all piled in as Morey slid into the driver's seat and turned on thepower.

  They rose slowly, looking below them at the traffic of the great city.New York had long since abandoned her rivers as trade routes; they hadbeen covered solidly by steel decks which were used as public landingfields and ground car routes. Around them loomed titanic structures ofglistening colored tile. The sunlight reflected brilliantly from them,and the contrasting colors of the buildings seemed to blend togetherinto a great, multicolored painting.

  The darting planes, the traffic of commerce down between the greatbuildings, and the pleasure cars above, combined to give a series ofchanging, darting shadows that wove a flickering pattern over the city.The long lines of ships coming in from Chicago, London, Buenos Airesand San Francisco, and the constant flow from across the Pole--fromRussia, India, and China, were like mighty black serpents that woundtheir way into the city.

  Morey cut into a Northbound traffic level, moved into the high-speedlane, and eased in on the accelerator. He held to the traffic patternfor two hundred and fifty miles, until he was well past Boston, then heturned at the first break and fired the ship toward their goal inVermont.

  Less than forty-five minutes since they had left New York, Morey wasdropping the car toward the little mountain lake that offered them aplace for seclusion. Gently, he let the ship glide smoothly into theshed where the first molecular motion ship had been built. Arcot jumpedout, saying:

  "We're here--unload and get going. I think a swim and some sleep is inorder before we start work on this ship. We can begin tomorrow." Helooked approvingly at the clear blue water of the little lake.

  Wade climbed out and pushed Arcot to one side. "All right, out of theway, then, little one, and let a man get going." He headed for the housewith the briefcases.

  Arcot was six feet two and weighed close to two hundred, but Wade wasanother two inches taller and weighed a good fifty pounds more. His armsand chest were built on the same general plan as those of a gorilla. Hehad good reason to call Arcot little.

  Morey, though still taller, was not as heavily formed, and weighed onlya few pounds more than Arcot, while Fuller was a bit smaller than Arcot.

  Due to several factors, the size of the average human being had beensteadily increasing for several centuries. Only Wade would have beenconsidered a "big" man by the average person, for the average man wasover six feet tall.

  They relaxed most of the afternoon, swimming and indulging in a fewwrestling matches. At wrestling, Wade consistently proved himself notonly built like a gorilla but muscled like one; but Arcot proved thatskill was not without merit several times, for he had found that if hecould make the match last more than two minutes, Wade's huge muscleswould find an insufficient oxygen supply and tire quickly.

  That evening, after dinner, Morey engaged Wade in a fierce battle ofchess, with Fuller as an interested spectator. Arcot, too, was watching,but he was saying nothing.

  After several minutes of uneventful play, Morey stopped suddenly andglared at the board. "Now why'd I make that move? I intended to move myqueen over there to check your king on the red diagonal."

  "Yeah," replied Wade gloomily, "that's what I wanted you to do. I had asure checkmate in three moves."

  Arcot smiled quietly.

  They continued play for several moves, then it was Wade who remarkedthat something seemed to be influencing his play.

  "I had intended to trade queens. I'm glad I didn't, though; I think thisleaves me in a better position."

  "It sure does," agreed Morey. "I was due to clean up on the queen trade.You surprised me, too; you usually go in for trades. I'm afraid myposition is hopeless now."

  It was. In the next ten moves, Wade spotted the weak points in everyattack Morey made; the attack crumbled disastrously and white was forcedto resign, his king in a hopeless position.

  Wade rubbed his chin. "You know, Morey, I seemed to know exactly why youmade every move, and I saw every possibility involved."

  "Yeah--so I noticed," said Morey with a grin.

  "Come on, Morey, let's try a game," said Fuller, sliding into the chairWade had vacated.

  Although ordinarily equally matched with Fuller, Morey again went downto disastrous defeat in an amazingly short time. It almost seemed as ifFuller could anticipate every move.

  "Brother, am I off form today," he said, rising from the table. "Comeon, Arcot--let's see you try Wade."

  Arcot sat down, and although he had never played chess as extensively asthe others, he proceeded to clean Wade out lock, stock, and barrel.

  "Now what's come over you?" asked Morey in astonishment as he saw a verycomplicated formation working out, a formation he knew was far betterthan Arcot's usual game. He had just worked it out and felt very proudof it.

  Arcot looked at him and smiled. "That's the answer, Morey!"

  Morey blinked. "What--what's the answer to what?"

  "Yes--I meant it--don't be so surprised--you've seen it done before. Ihave--no, not under him, but a more experienced teacher. I figured itwould come in handy in our explorations."

  Morey's face grew more and more astonished as Arcot's strange monologuecontinued.

  Finally, Arcot turned to Wade, who was looking at him and Morey inwide-eyed wonder. And this time, it was Wade who began talking in amonologue.

  "You _did_?" he said in a surprised voice. "When?" There was a longpause, during which Arcot stared at Wade with such intensity that Fullerbegan to understand what was happening.

  "Well," said Wade, "if you've learned the trick so thoroughly, try itout. Let's see you project your thoughts! Go ahead!"

  Fuller, now understanding fully what was going on, burst out laughing."He _has_ been projecting his thoughts! He hasn't said a word to you!"Then he looked at Arcot. "As a matter of fact, you've said so littlethat I don't know how you pulled this telepathic stunt--though I'm quiteconvinced that you did."

  "I spent three months on Venus a while back," said Arcot, "studying withone of their foremost telepathists. Actually, most of that time wasspent on theory; learning how to do it isn't a difficult proposition. Itjust takes practice.

  "The whole secret is that everyone has the power; it's a very ancientpower in the human brain, and most of the lower animals possess it to agreater degree than do humans. When Man developed language, it gave histhoughts more concreteness and permitted a freer and more clearlyconceived type of thinking. The result was that telepathy fell intodisuse.

  "I'm going to show you how to do it because it will be invaluable if wemeet a strange race. By projecting pictures and concepts, you candispense with going to the trouble of learning the language.

  "After you learn the basics, all you'll need is practice, but watchyourself! Too much practice can give you the great-granddaddy of allheadaches! Okay, now to begin with ..."

  Arcot spent the rest of the evening teaching them the Venerian system oftelepathy.

  * * * * *

  They all rose at nine. Arcot got up first, and the others found itexpedient to follow his example shortly thereafter. He had brought alarge Tesla coil into the bedroom from the lab and succeeded in inducingsufficient voltage in the bedsprings to make very effective, thoughharmless, sparks.

  "Come on, boys, hit the deck! Wade, as chief chemist, you are tosynthesize a little coffee and heat-treat a few eggs for us. We havework ahead today! Rise and shine!" He didn't shut off the coil until hewas assured that each of them had gotten a considerable distance fromhis bed.

  "Ouch!" yelled Morey. "Okay! Shut it off! I want to get my pants! We'reall up! You win!"

  After breakfast, they all went into the room they used as a calculatingroom. Here they had two diff
erent types of integraph calculators andplenty of paper and equipment to do their own calculations and drawgraphs.

  "To begin with," said Fuller, "let's decide what shape we want to use.As designer, I'd like to point out that a sphere is the strongest, acube easiest to build, and a torpedo shape the most efficientaerodynamically. However, we intend to use it in space, not air.

  "And remember, we'll need it more as a home than as a ship during thegreater part of the trip."

  "We might need an aerodynamically stable hull," Wade interjected. "Itcame in mighty handy on Venus. They're darned useful in emergencies.What do you think, Arcot?"

  "I favor the torpedo shape. Okay, now we've got a hull. How about someengines to run it? Let's get those, too. I'll name the general thingsfirst; facts and figures can come later.

  "First: We must have a powerful mass-energy converter. We could use thecavity radiator and use cosmic rays to warm it, and drive the individualpower units that way, or we can have a main electrical power unit andwarm them all electrically. Now, which one would be the better?"

  Morey frowned. "I think we'd be safer if we didn't depend on any oneplant, but had each as separate as possible. I'm for the individualcavity radiators."

  "Question," interjected Fuller. "How do these cavity radiators work?"

  "They're built like a thermos bottle," Arcot explained. "The inner shellwill be of rough relux, which will absorb the heat efficiently, whilethe outer one will be of polished relux to keep the radiation inside.Between the two we'll run a flow of helium at two tons per square inchpressure to carry the heat to the molecular motion apparatus. The neckof the bottle will contain the atomic generator."

  Fuller still looked puzzled. "See here; with this new space straindrive, why do we have to have the molecular drive at all?"

  "To move around near a heavy mass--in the presence of a stronggravitational field," Arcot said. "A gravitational field tends to warpspace in such a way that the velocity of light is lower in its presence.Our drive tries to warp or strain space in the opposite manner. The twowould simply cancel each other out and we'd waste a lot of power goingnowhere. As a matter of fact, the gravitational field of the sun is sointense that we'll have to go out beyond the orbit of Pluto before wecan use the space strain drive effectively."

  "I catch," said Fuller. "Now to get back to the generators. I think thepower units would be simpler if they were controlled from one electricalpower source, and just as reliable. Anyway, the molecular motion poweris controlled, of necessity, from a single generator, so if one is aptto go bad, the other is, too."

  "Very good reasoning," smiled Morey, "but I'm still strong fordecentralization. I suggest a compromise. We can have the main powerunit and the main verticals, which will be the largest, controlled byindividual cosmic ray heaters, and the rest run by electric power units.They'd be just heating coils surrounded by the field."

  "A good idea," said Arcot. "I'm in favor of the compromise. Okay,Fuller? Okay. Now the next problem is weapons. I suggest we use aseparate control panel and a separate generating panel for the powertubes we'll want in the molecular beam projectors."

  The molecular beam projector simply projected the field that causedmolecular motion to take place as wanted. As weapons, they wereterrifically deadly. If half a mountain is suddenly thrown into the airbecause all the random motion of its molecules becomes concentrated inone direction, it becomes a difficult projectile to fight. Or touch thebow of a ship with the beam; the bow drops to absolute zero and isdriven back on the stern, with all the speed of its billions ofmolecules. The general effect is similar to that produced by two shipshaving a head-on collision at ten miles per second.

  Anything touched by the beam is broken by its own molecules, twisted byits own strength, and crushed by its own toughness. Nothing can resistit.

  "My idea," Arcot went on, "was that since the same power is used forboth the beams and the drive, we'll have two separate power-tube banksto generate it. That way, if one breaks down, we can switch to theother. We can even use both at once on the drive, if necessary; themolecular motion machines will stand it if we make them of relux andanchor them with lux metal beams. The projectors would be able to handlethe power, too, using Dad's new system.

  "That will give us more protection, and, at the same time, full power.Since we'll have several projectors, the power needed to operate theship will be about equal to the power required to operate theprojectors.

  "And I also suggest we mount some heat beam projectors."

  "Why?" objected Wade. "They're less effective than the molecular rays.The molecular beams are instantly irresistible, while the heat beamstake time to heat up the target. Sure, they're unhealthy to deal with,but no more so than the molecular beam."

  "True enough," Arcot agreed, "but the heat beam is more spectacular, andwe may find that a mere spectacular display will accomplish as much asactual destruction. Besides, the heat beams are more local in effect. Ifwe want to kill an enemy and spare his captive, we want a beam that willbe deadly where it hits, not for fifty yards around."

  "Hold it a second," said Fuller wearily. "Now it's heat beams. Don't youguys think you ought to explain a little bit to the poor goon who'sdesigning this flying battlewagon? How did you get a heat beam?"

  Arcot grinned. "Simple. We use a small atomic cavity radiator at one endof which is a rough relux parabolic filter. Beyond that is a lux metallens. The relux heats up tremendously, and since there is no polishedrelux to reflect it back, the heat is radiated out through the lux metallens as a powerful heat beam."

  "Okay, fine," said Fuller. "But stop springing new gadgets on me, willyou?"

  "I'll try not to," Arcot laughed. "Anyway, let's get on to the mainpower plant. Remember that our condenser coil is a gadget for storingenergy in space; we are therefore obliged to supply it with energy tostore. Just forming the drive field alone will require two times ten tothe twenty-seventh ergs, or the energy of about _two and a half tons_of matter. That means a whale of a lot of lead wire will have to be fedinto our conversion generators; it would take several hours to chargethe coils. We'd better have two big chargers to do the job.

  "The controls we can figure out later. How about it? Any suggestions?"

  "Sounds okay to me," said Morey, and the others agreed.

  "Good enough. Now, as far as air and water go, we can use the standardspacecraft apparatus, Fuller, so you can figure that in any way you wantto."

  "We'll need a lab, too," Wade put in. "And a machine shop with plenty ofspare parts--everything we can possibly think of. Remember, we may wantto build some things out in space."

  "Right. And I wonder--" Arcot looked thoughtful. "How about theinvisibility apparatus? It may prove useful, and it won't cost much.Let's put that in, too."

  The apparatus he mentioned was simply a high-frequency oscillator tubeof extreme power which caused vibrations approaching light frequency tobe set up in the molecules of the ship. As a result, the ship becametransparent, since light could easily pass through the vibratingmolecules.

  There was only one difficulty; the ship was invisible, all right, but itbecame a radio sender and could easily be detected by a directionalradio. However, if the secret were unknown, it was a very effectivemethod of disappearing. And, since the frequency was so high, a specialdetector was required to pick it up.

  "Is that all you need?" asked Fuller.

  "Nope," said Arcot, leaning back in his chair. "Now comes the kicker. Isuggest that we make the hull of foot-thick lux metal and line it on theinside with relux wherever we want it to be opaque. And we want reluxshutters on the windows. Lux is too doggone transparent; if we came tooclose to a hot star, we'd be badly burned."

  Fuller looked almost goggle-eyed. "_A--foot--of--lux!_ Good Lord,Arcot! This ship would weigh a quarter of a million tons! That stuff is_dense_!"

  "Sure," agreed Arcot, "but we'll need the protection. With a ship likethat, you could run through a planetoid without hurting the hull. We'llmake the relux inner wall a
bout an inch thick, with a vacuum betweenthem for protection in a warm atmosphere. And if some tremendous forcedid manage to crack the outer wall, we wouldn't be left withoutprotection."

  "Okay, you're the boss," Fuller said resignedly. "It's going to have tobe a big ship, though. I figure a length of about two hundred feet and adiameter of around thirty feet. The interior I'll furnish with aluminum;it'll be cheaper and lighter. How about an observatory?"

  "Put it in the rear of the ship," Wade suggested. "We'll mount one ofthe Nigran telectroscopes."

  "Control room in the bow, of course," Morey chipped in.

  "I've got you," Fuller said. "I'll work the thing out and give you acost estimate and drawings."

  "Fine," said Arcot, standing up. "Meanwhile, the rest of us will workout our little exhibition to impress Mr. Morey and Dad. Come on, lads,let's get back to the lab."