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 strong enough 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 subether?” 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 or not 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 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 im. palpable, 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 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