drove back toward the Central System, despite the raging protests of Dunark and of his
equally tempestuous fellow lieutenant.
And in his private office, which was also a complete control room, DuQuesne smiled at
Brookings-a hard, cold smile. “Now you see,” he said coldly. “Suppose I hadn’t spent all
this time and money on my defenses?”
“Well, why don’t you go out and chase ’em? Give ’em a scare, anyway?”
“Because it would be useless,” DuQuesne stated flatly. “That ship carries more stuff than
anything we have ready to take off at present. Also, Dunark does not scare. You might
kill him, but you can’t scarce him-it isn’t in the breed.”
“Well, what is the answer, then? You have tried to take Norlamin with everything you’ve
got-bombs, automatic ships, and projectors-and you haven’t got to first base. You can’t
even get through their outside screens. What are you going to do-let it go on as a
stalemate?”
“Hardly!” DuQuesne smiled thinly. “While I do not make a practice of divulging my plans, I
am going to tell you a few things now, so that you can go ahead with more understanding
and hence with greater confidence. Seaton is out of the picture, or he would have been
back here before this. The Fenachrone are all gone. Dunark and his people are
unimportant. Norlamin is the only known obstacle between me and the mastery of the
galaxy, therefore Norlamin must be either conquered or destroyed. Since the first
alternative seems unduly difficult, I shall destroy her.”
“Destroy Norlamin-how?” The thought of wiping out that world, with all its ancient culture,
did not appall-did not even affect-Brookings’ callous mind. He was merely curious
concerning the means to be employed.
“This whole job so far has been merely a preliminary toward that destruction,” DuQuesne
informed him levelly. “I am now ready to go ahead with the second step. The planet Pluto
is, as you may or may not know, very rich in uranium. The ships which we are now
building are to carry a few million tons of that metal to a large and practically uninhabited
planet not too far from Norlamin. I shall install driving machinery upon that planet and,
using it as a projectile which all their forces cannot stop, I shall throw Norlamin into her
own sun.”
* * * * *
Raging but impotent, Dunark was borne back to Norlamin; and, more subdued now but
still bitterly humiliated, he accompanied Urvan, Sacner Carfon, and the various Firsts to a
consultation with the Five.
As they strolled along through the grounds, past fountains of flaming color, past
fantastically geometric hedges intricately and ornately wrought of noble metal, past walls
composed of self-luminous gems so moving as to form fleeting, blending pictures of
exquisite line and color, Sacner Carfon eyed Drasnik in unobtrusive signal and the two
dropped gradually behind.
“I trust that you were successful in whatever it was you had in mind to do while we set up
the late diversion?”
Carfon asked quietly, when they were out of earshot.
Dunark and Urvan, his fierce and fiery aids, had taken everything that had happened at
its face value, but not so had the leader. Unlike his lieutenants, the massive Dasorian had
known at first blast that his expedition against DuQuesne was hopeless. More, it had
been clear to him that the Norlaminians had known from the first that their vessel,
enormous as she was and superbly powerful, could not crush the defenses of Earth.
“We knew, of course, that you would perceive the truth,” the First of Psychology replied
as quietly. “We also knew that you would appreciate our reasons for not taking you fully
into our confidence in advance. Tarnan of Osnome also had an inkling of it, and I have
already explained matters to him. Yes; we succeeded. While DuQuesne’s whole
attention was taken up in resisting your forces and in returning them in kind, we were
able to learn much that we could not have learned otherwise. Also, our young friends
Dunark and Urvan, through being chastened, have learned a very helpful lesson. They
have seen themselves in true perspective for the first time; and, having fought side by
side in a common and so far as they know a losing cause, they have become friends
instead of enemies. Thus it will now be possible to inaugurate upon those two backward
planets a program leading toward true civilization.”
In the Hall of the Five the Norlaminian spokesman voiced thanks and appreciation for the
effort just made, concluding:
“While as a feat of arms the expedition may not have been a success, in certain other
respects it was far from being a failure. By its help we were enabled to learn much. and I
can assure you now that the foe shall not be allowed to prevail-it is graven upon the
Sphere that civilization is to go on.”
“May I ask a question, sir?” Urvan was for the first time in his bellicose career speaking
diffidently. “Is there no way of landing a real storming force upon Earth? Must we leave
DuQuesne in possession indefinitely?”
“We must wait, son, and work,” the chief answered, with the fatalistic calm of his race.
“At present we can do nothing more, but in time . . .”
He was interrupted by a deafening blast of sound-the voice of Richard Seaton,
tremendously amplified.
“This the Skylark calling Rovol of Norlamin . . . Skylark calling Rovol of Norlamin . . . ” it
repeated over and over, rising to a roar and diminishing to a whisper as Seaton’s
broadcaster oscillated violently through space.
Rovol laid a beam to the nearest transmitter and spoke: “I am here, son. What is it?”
“Fine! I’m away out here in…”
“Hold on a minute, Dick!” Dunark shouted. He had been humble and sober- enough since
his return to Norlamin, realizing as he never had before his own ignorance in comparison
with the gigantic minds about him; the powerlessness of his entire race in comparison
with the energies he had so recently seen in action. But now, as Seaton’s voice came
roaring in and Rovol and his brain-brother were about to indulge so naively and so
publicly in a conversation which certainly should not reach DuQuesne’s ears, his spirits
rose. Here was something he could do to help.
“DuQuesne is alive, has Earth completely fortified, and is holding it against everything we
can give him,” Dunark went on rapidly. “He’s got everything we have, maybe more, and
he’s undoubtedly listening to every word we’re saying. Talk Mardonalian-I know for a fact
that DuQuesne can’t understand that. They’ve got an educator here and I’ll give it to
Rovol right now-all right, go ahead.”
“I’m clear out of the galaxy,” Seaton’s voice went on, now speaking the language of the
Osnomian race which had so recently been destroyed. “So many hundreds of millions of
parsecs away that none of you except Orlon could understand the distance. The speed
of transmission is due to the fact that we have perfected and I am using a sixth-order
projector, not a fifth. Have you a ship fit for really long-distance flight-as big as Three
was, or bigger?”
“Yes; we have a vessel twice her size.”
“Fine! Load her up and start. Head for the Great Nebula in Andromeda-Orlon knows
what and where that is. That isn’t very close to my line, but it will do until you get some
apparatus set up. I’ve got to have Rovol, Drasnik, and Orlon, and I would like to have
Fodan; you can bring along anybody else that wants to come. I’ll sign on again in an hour
-you should be started by then.”
Besides the four Norlaminians mentioned, Caslor, First of Mechanism, and Astron, First
of Energy, also elected to make the stupendous flight, as did many “youngsters” from the
Country of Youth. Dunark would not be left behind, nor would adventurous Urvan. And
lastly there was Sacner Carfon the Dasorian, who remarked that he “would have to go
along to make the boys behave and to steer the ship in case the old professors forget
to.” The space ship was well on its way when at the end of the hour Seaton’s voice again
was heard.
“All right, put me on a recorder and I’ll give you the data,” he instructed, when he had
made sure that his signal was being received.
“DuQuesne has been trying to put a ray on us and he may try to follow us,” Dunark put
in.
“Let him,” Seaton shot back grimly, then spoke in English: “DuQuesne, Dunark says that
you’re listening in. You have my urgent, if not cordial, invitation to follow this Norlaminian
ship. If you follow it far enough, you’ll take a long, long ride, believe me!”
Again addressing the voyagers, he recounted briefly everything that had occurred since
the abandonment of Skylark Three, then dived abruptly into the fundamental theory and
practical technique of sixth-order phenomena and forces.