bodies. To no purpose. Those shelters had been designed and constructed to withstand
the attacks of Nature gone berserk, and futile indeed were the attempts of the frenzied
hordes to tear a way into their sacred recesses.
Thus died the devoted and high-souled band who had saved their civilization; but in that
death each man was granted the boon which, deep in his heart, he craved. They had
died quickly and violently, fighting for a cause they knew to be good. They did not die as
did the members of the insanely terror-stricken, senseless mob . . . in agony . . .
lingeringly . . . but it is best to draw a kindly veil before the horrors attendant upon that
riving, that tormenting, that cosmic outraging of a world.
* * * * *
The suns passed, each upon his appointed way. The cosmic forces ceased to war and
to the tortured and ravaged planet there at last came peace. The surviving children of
Valeron emerged from their subterranean retreats and undauntedly took up the task of
rebuilding their world. And to such good purpose did they devote themselves to the
problems of rehabilitation that in a few hundred years there bloomed upon Valeron a
civilization and a culture scarcely to be equaled in the universe.
For the new race had been cradled in adversity. In its ancestry there was no physical or
mental taint or weakness, all dross having been burned away by the fires of cosmic
catastrophe which had so nearly obliterated all the life of the planet. They were as yet
perhaps inferior to the old race in point of numbers, but were immeasurably superior to it
in physical, mental, moral, and intellectual worth.
Immediately after the Emergence it had been observed that the two outermost planets of
the system had disappeared and that in their stead revolved a new planet. This
phenomenon was recognized for what it was, an exchange of planets; something to give
concern only to astronomers.
No one except sheerest romancers even gave thought to the possibility of life upon other
worlds, it being an almost mathematically demonstrable fact that the Valeronians were
the only life in the entire universe. And even if other planets might possibly be inhabited,
what of it? The vast reaches of empty ether intervening between Valeron and even her
nearest fellow planet formed an insuperable obstacle even to communication, to say
nothing of physical passage. Little did anyone dream, as generation followed generation,
of what hideously intelligent life that interloping planet bore, nor of how the fair world of
Valeron was to suffer from it.
When the interplanetary invaders were discovered upon Valeron, Quedrin Vornel, the
most brilliant physicist of the planet, and his son Quedrin Radnor, the most renowned,
were among the first to be informed of the visitation.
Of these two, Quedrin Vornel had for many years been engaged in researches of the
most abstruse and fundamental character upon the ultimate structure of matter. He had
delved deeply into those which we know as matter, energy, and ether, and had studied
exhaustively the phenomena characteristic of or associated with atomic, electronic, and
photonic rearrangements.
His son, while a scientist of no mean attainments in his own right, did not possess the
phenomenally powerful and profoundly analytical mind that had made the elder Quedrin
the outstanding scientific genius of his time. He was, however, a synchronizer par
excellence, possessing to a unique degree the ability to develop things and processes of
great utilitarian value from concepts and discoveries of a purely scientific and academic
nature.
The vibrations which we know as Hertzian waves had long been known and had long
been employed in radio, both broadcast and tight-beam, in television, in beam-
transmission of power, and in receiverless visirays and their blocking screens. When
Quedrin the elder disrupted the atom, however, successfully and safely liberating and
studying not only its stupendous energy but also an entire series of vibrations and
particles theretofore unknown to science, Quedrin the younger began forthwith to turn the
resulting products to the good of mankind.
Intra-atomic energy soon drove every prime mover of Valeron and shorter and shorter
waves were harnessed. In beams, fans, and broadcasts Quedrin Radnor combined and
heterodyned them, making of them tools and instruments immeasurably superior in
power, precision, and adaptability to anything that his world had ever before known.
Due to the signal abilities of brilliant father and famous son, the laboratory in which they
labored was connected by a private communication beam with the executive office of the
Bardyle of Valeron. “Bardyle,” freely translated, means “coordinator.” He was neither
king, emperor, nor president; and, while his authority was supreme, he was not a
dictator.
A paradoxical statement this, but a true one; for the orders-rather, requests and
suggestions-of the Bardyle merely guided the activities of men and women who had
neither government nor laws, as we understand the terms, but were working of their own
volition for the good of all mankind. The Bardyle could not conceivably issue an order
contrary to the common weal, nor would such an order have been obeyed.
Upon the wall of the laboratory the tuned buzzer of the Bardyle’s beam-communicator
sounded its subdued call and Klynor Siblin, the scientist’s capable assistant, took the call
upon his desk instrument. A strong, youthful face appeared upon the screen.
“Radnor is not here, Siblin?” The pictured visitor glanced about the room as he spoke.
“No, sir. He is out in the space ship, making another test flight. He is merely circling the
world, however, so that I can easily get him on the plate here if you wish.”
“That would perhaps be desirable. Something very peculiar has occurred, concerning
which all three of you should be informed.”
The connections were made and the Bardyle went on:
“A semicircular dome of force has been erected over the ruins of the ancient city of
Mocelyn. It is impossible to say how long it has been in place, since you know the ruins
lie in an entirely unpopulated area. It is, however, of an unknown composition and
pattern, being opaque to vision and to our visibeams. It is also apparently impervious to
matter. Since this phenomenon seems to lie in your province I would suggest that you
three men investigate it and take such steps as you deem necessary.”
“It is noted, Bardyle,” and Klynor Siblin cut the beam.
He then shot out their heaviest visiray beam, poising its viewpoint directly over what, in
the days before the cataclysm, had been the populous city of Mocelyn.
Straight down the beam drove, upon the huge hemisphere of greenly glinting force; urged
downward by the full power of the Quedrins’ mighty generators. By the very vehemence
of its thrust it tore through the barrier, but only for an instant. The watchers had time to
perceive only fleetingly a greenish-yellow haze of light, but before any details could be
grasped their beam was snapped-the automatically reacting screens had called for and
had received enough additional power to neutralize the invading beam.
Then, to the amazement of the three physicists, a beam of visible energy thrust itself
from the green barrier and began to feel its way along their own invisible visiray. Siblin
cut off his power instantly and leaped toward the door.
“Whoever they are, they know something!” he shouted as he ran. “Don’t want them to
find this laboratory, so I’ll set up a diversion with a rocket plane. If you watch at all,
Vornel, do it from a distance and with a spy ray, not a carrier beam. I’ll get in touch with
Radnor on the way.”
Even though he swung around in a wide circle, to approach the strange stronghold at a
wide angle to his former line, such was the power of the plane that Siblin reached his
destination in little more than an hour. Keying Radnor’s visibeam to the visiplates of the
plane, so that the distant scientist could see everything that happened, Siblin again drove
a heavy beam into the unyielding pattern of green force.
This time, however, the reaction was instantaneous. A fierce tongue of green flame
licked out and seized the flying plane in mid-air. One wing and side panel were sliced off
neatly and Siblin was thrown out violently, but he did not fall. Surrounded by a vibrant
shell of energy, he was drawn rapidly toward the huge dome. The dome merged with the
shell as it touched it, but the two did not coalesce. The shell passed smoothly through the
dome, which as smoothly closed behind it. Siblin inside the shell, the shell inside the
dome.
16 WITHIN THE CHLORAN DOME
Siblin never knew exactly what happened during those first few minutes, nor exactly how
it happened. One minute, in his sturdy plane, he was setting up his “diversion” by
directing a powerful beam of force upon the green dome of the invaders. Suddenly his
rocket ship had been blasted apart and he had been hurled away from the madly