From the ancient records of Valeron, Radnor and the Bardyle had secured . complete
observational data of the cataclysm, which had made the task of finding the present
whereabouts of the Chlorans’ original sun a simple task. The calculations and
computations involved in the application of forces of precisely the required quantities to
insure the correct final orbit were complex in the extreme; but, as Seaton had foretold,
they had presented no insurmountable difficulties to the vast resources of the Brain.
Therefore, everything in readiness, the two Terrestrial scientists surrounded the inimical
planet with a zone of force and with a stasis of time. They then erected force-control
stations around it, adjusted with such delicacy and precision that they would direct the
planet into the exact orbit it had formerly occupied around its parent sun. Then, at the
instant of correct velocity and position, the control stations would go out of existence and
the forces would disappear.
As the immense ball of dazzlingly opaque mirror which now hid the unwanted world
swung away with ever-increasing velocity, the Bardyle, who had watched the
proceedings in incredulous wonder, heaved a profound sigh of relaxation.
“What a relief-what a relief!” he exclaimed.
“How long will it take?” asked Dorothy curiously.
“Quite a while-something over four hundred years of our time. But don’t let it bother you-
they won’t know a thing about it. When the forces let go they’ll simply go right on, from
exactly where they left off, without realizing that any time at all has lapsed-in fact, for
them, no time at all shall have lapsed. All of a sudden they will find themselves circling
around a different sun, that’s all.
“If their old records are clear enough they may be able to recognize it as their original
sun and they’ll probably do a lot of wondering as to how they got back there. One instant
they were in a certain orbit around this sun here, the next instant they will be in another
orbit around an entirely different sun! They’ll know, of course, that we did it, but they’ll
have a sweet job figuring out how and what we did-some of it is really deep stuff. Also,
they will be a few hundred years off in their time, but since nobody in the world will know
it, it won’t make any difference.”
“How perfectly weird!” Dorothy exclaimed. “Just think of losing a four-hundred-year chunk
right out of the middle of your life and not even knowing it!”
“I would rather think of the arrest of development,” meditated Crane. “Of the opportunity
of comparing the evolution of the planets already there with that of the returned
wanderer.”
“Yeah, it would be interesting-it’s a shame we won’t be alive then,” Seaton responded,
“but in the meantime we’ve got a lot of work to do for ourselves. Now that we’ve got this
mess straightened out I think we had better tell these folks good-by, get into Two, and
hop out to where Dot’s Skylark of Valeron is going to materialize.”
The farewell to the people of Valeron was brief, but sincere.
“This is in no sense good-by,” Crane concluded. “By the aid of these newly discovered
forces of the sixth order there shall soon be worked out a system of communication by
means of which all the inhabited planets of the galaxies shall be linked as closely as are
now the cities of any one world.”
Skylark Two shot upward and outward, to settle into an orbit well outside that of
Valeron. Seaton then sent his projection back to the capital city, fitted over his imaged
head the controller of the inner brain, and turned to Crane with a grin.
“That’s timing it, old son-she finished herself up less than an hour ago. Better cluster
around and watch this, folks, it’s going to be good.”
At Seaton’s signal the structure which was to be the nucleus of the new space traveler
lifted effortlessly into the air its millions of tons of dead weight and soared, as lightly as
little Two had done, out into the airless void. Taking up a position a few hundred miles
away from the Terrestrial cruiser, it shot out a spherical screen of force to clear the
ether of chance bits of debris. Then inside that screen there came into being a structure
of gleaming inoson, so vast in size that to the startled onlookers it appeared almost of
planetary dimensions.
“Good heavens-it’s stupendous!” Dorothy exclaimed.
“What did you boys make it so big for just to show us you could, or what?”
“Hardly! She’s just as small as she can be and still do the work. You see, to find our own
galaxy we will have to project a beam to a distance greater than any heretofore assigned
diameter of the universe, and to control it really accurately its working base and the
diameter of its hour and declination-circles would each have to be something like four
light-years long. Since a ship of that size is of course impracticable, Mart and I did some
figuring and decided that with circles one thousand kilometers in diameter we could chart
galaxies accurately enough to find the one we’re looking for-if you think of it, you’ll realize
that there are a lot of hundredth-millimeter marks around the circumference of circles of
that size-and that they would probably be big enough to hold a broadcasting projection
somewhere near a volume of space as large as that occupied by the Green System.
Therefore, we built the Skylark of Valeron just large enough to contain those thousand-
kilometer circles.”
As Skylark Two approached the looming planetoid the doors of vast airlocks opened.
Fifty of those massive gates swung aside before her and closed behind her before she
swam free in the cool, sweet air and bright artificial sunlight of the interior. She then
floated along above an immense, grassy park toward two well-remembered and beloved
buildings.
“Oh, Dick!” Dorothy squealed. “There’s our house-and Martin’s! It’s funny, though, to see
them side by side. Are they the same inside, too-and what’s that funny little low building
between them?”
“They duplicate the originals exactly, except for some items of equipment which would be
useless here. The building between them is the control room, in which are the master
headsets of the Brain and its lookouts. The Brain itself is what you would think of as
underground-inside the shell of the planetoid.”
The small vessel came lightly to a landing and the wanderers disembarked upon the
close-clipped, springy turf of a perfect lawn. Dorothy flexed her knees in surprise.
“How come we aren’t weightless, Dick?” she demanded. “This gravity isn’t-can’t be-
natural. I’ll bet you did that too!”
“Mart and I together did, sure. _ We learned a lot from the intellectuals and a lot more in
hyperspace, but we could neither derive the fundamental equations nor apply what
knowledge we already had until we finished this sixth order outfit. Now, though, we can
give you all the gravity you want-or as little-whenever and wherever you want it.”
“Oh, marvelous-this is glorious, boys!” Dorothy breathed. “I have always just simply
despised weightlessness. Now, with these houses and everything, we can have a
perfectly wonderful time!”
“Here’s the dining room,” Seaton said briskly. “And here’s the headset you put on to
order dinner or whatever is appropriate to the culinary department. You will observe that
the kitchen of this house is purely ornamental-never to be used unless you want to.”
“Just a minute, Dick,” Dorothy’s voice was tensely serious. “I have been really scared
ever since you told me about the power of that Brain, and the more you tell me of it the
worse scared I get. Think of the awful damage a wild, chance thought would do-and the
more an ordinary mortal tries to avoid any thought the surer he is to think it, you know
that. Really, I’m not ready for that yet, dear-I’d much rather not go near that headset.”
“I know, sweetheart,” his arm tightened around her. “But you didn’t let me finish. These
sets around the house control forces which are capable of nothing except duties
pertaining to the part of the house in which they are. This dining-room outfit, for instance,
is exactly the same as the Norlaminian one you used so much, except that it is much
simpler.
“Instead of using a lot of keyboards and force-tubes, you simply think into that helmet
what you want for dinner and it appears. Think that you want the table cleared and it is
cleared-dishes and all simply vanish. Think of anything else you want done around this
room and it’s done-that’s all there is to it.
“To relieve your mind I’ll explain some more. Mart and I both realized that that Brain
could very easily become the most terrible, the most frightfully destructive thing that the
universe has ever seen. Therefore, with two exceptions, every controller on this planetoid
is of a strictly limited type. Of the two master controls, which are unlimited and very