The sine qua non of warfare is power, and of that commodity we have no lack. True,
without knowledge of how to apply that power our cause would be already lost, but we
are not without knowledge of the application. Many of our peace-time tools are readily
transformed into powerful engines of destruction. Quedrin Radnor, besides possessing a
unique ability in the turning of old things to new purposes, has studied exhaustively the
patterns of force employed by the enemy and understands thoroughly their generation,
their utilization, and their neutralization.
“Finally, the mining and excavating machinery of the Chlorans has been dismantled and
studied, and its novel features have been incorporated in several new mechanisms of our
own devising. Twenty days is none too long a time in which to complete a program of this
magnitude and scope, but that is all the time we have. You wish to ask a question,
Councilor Quedrin?”
“If you please. Shall we not have more than twenty days? The ship to be loaded will
return in that time, it is true, but we can deal with her easily enough. Their ordinary space
ships are no match for ours. That fact was proved so conclusively during our one
engagement in space that they did not even follow me back here. They undoubtedly are
building vessels of vastly greater power, but it seems to me that we shall be safe until
those heavier vessels can arrive.”
“I fear that you are underestimating the intelligence of our foes,” replied the coordinator.
“In all probability they know exactly what we are doing, and were their present space
ships superior to yours we would have ceased to exist ere this. It is practically certain
that they will attack as soon as they have constructed craft of sufficient power to insure
success. In fact, they may be able to perfect their attack before we can complete our
defense, but that is a chance which we must take.
“In that connection, two facts give us ground for optimism. First, theirs is an undertaking
of greater magnitude than ours, since they must of necessity be mobile and operative at
a great distance from their base, whereas we are stationary and at home. Second, we
started our project before they began theirs. This second fact must be allowed but little
weight, however, for they may well be more efficient than we are in the construction of
engines of war.
“The exploring vessel is unimportant. She may or may not call for her load of ore; she
may or may not join in the attack which is now inevitable. One thing only is certain -we
must and we will drive this program through to completion before she is due to dock at
the mine. Everything else must he subordinated to the task; we must devote to it every
iota of our mental, physical, and mechanical power. Each of you knows his part. The
meeting is adjourned sine die.”
There ensued a world-wide activity unparalleled in the annals of the planet. During the
years immediately preceding the cataclysm there had been hustle and bustle,
misdirected effort, wasted energy, turmoil and confusion; and a certain measure of
success had been wrested out of chaos only by the ability of a handful of men to think
clearly and straight. Now, however, Valeron was facing a crisis infinitely more grave, for
she had but days instead of years in which to prepare to meet it. But now, on the other
hand, instead of possessing only a few men of vision, who had found it practically
impossible either to direct or to control an out-and-out rabble of ignorant, muddled, and
panic-stricken incompetents, she had a population composed entirely of clear thinkers,
who, requiring a very little direction and no control at all, were able and eager to work
together whole-heartedly for the common good.
Thus, while the city and its environs now seethed with activity, there was no confusion or
disorder. Wherever there was room for a man to work, a man was working, and the
workers were kept supplied with materials and with mechanisms. There were no
mistakes, no delays, no friction.
Each man knew his task and its relation to the whole, and performed it with a smoothly
efficient speed born of a racial training in cooperation and coordination impossible to any
member of a race of lesser mental attainments.
To such good purpose did every Valeronian do his part that at dawn of The Day
everything was in readiness for the Chloran visitation. The immense fortress was
complete and had been tested in every part, from the ranked batteries of gigantic
converters and generators down to the most distant outlying visiray viewpoint. It was
powered, armed, equipped, provisioned, garrisoned. Every once-populated city was
devoid of life, its inhabitants having dispersed over the face of the globe, to live in
isolated groups until it had been decided whether the proud civilization of Valeron was to
triumph or to perish.
Promptly as that sunrise the Chloran explorer appeared at the lifeless mine, and when he
found the loading hoppers empty he calmly proceeded to the nearest city and began to
beam it down. Finding it deserted he cut off, and felt a powerful spy ray, upon which he
set a tracer. This time the ray held up and he saw the immense fortress which had been
erected during his absence; a fortress which he forthwith attacked viciously, carelessly,
and with the loftily arrogant contempt which seemed to characterize his breed.
But was that innate contemptuousness the real reason for that suicidal attempt? Or had
that vessel’s commander been ordered by the Great Ones to sacrifice himself and his
command so that they could measure Valeron’s defensive power? If so, why did he visit
the mine at all and why did he not know beforehand the location of the fortress?
Camouflage? In view of what the Great Ones of Chlora must have known, why that
commander did what he did that morning no one of Valeron ever knew.
The explorer launched a beam-just one. Then Quedrin Radnor pressed a contact and out
against the invader there flamed a beam of such violence that the amoebus had no time
to touch his controls, that even the automatic trips of his zone of force-if he had such
trips-did not have time in which to react. The defensive screens scarcely flashed, so
rapidly did that terrific beam drive through them, and the vessel itself disappeared almost
instantly-molten, vaporized, consumed utterly. But there was no exultation beneath
Valeron’s mighty dome. From the Bardyle down, the defenders of their planet knew full
well that the real attack was yet to come, and knew that it would not be long delayed.
Nor was it. Nor did those which came to reduce Valeron’s far-flung stronghold in any way
resemble any form of space ship with which humanity was familiar. Two stupendous
structures of metal appeared, plunging stolidly along, veritable flying fortresses, of such
enormous bulk and mass that it seemed scarcely conceivable for them actually to
support themselves in air.
Simultaneously the two floating castles launched against the towering dome of defense
the heaviest beams they could generate and project. Under that awful thrust Valeron’s
mighty generators shrieked a mad crescendo and her imponderable shield radiated a
fierce, eye-tearing violet, but it held. Not for nothing had the mightiest minds of Valeron
wrought to convert their mechanisms and forces of peace into engines of war; not for
nothing had her people labored with all their mental and physical might for almost
twoscore days and nights, smoothly and efficiently as one mind in one body. Not easily
did even Valeron’s Titanic defensive installation carry that frightful load, but they carried
it.
Then, like mythical Jove hurling his bolt-like, that is, save that beside that Valeronian
beam any possible bolt of lightning would have been as sweetly innocuous a caress as
young love’s first kiss-Radnor drove against the nearer structure a beam of concentrated
fury; a beam behind which was every volt and every ampere that his stupendous
offensive generators could yield.
The Chloran defenses in turn were loaded grievously, but in turn they also held; and for
hours then there raged a furiously spectacular struggle. Beams, rods, planes, and
needles of every known kind and of every usable frequency of vibratory energy were
driven against impenetrable neutralizing screens. Monstrous cannon, hurling shells with a
velocity and of an explosive violence far beyond anything known to us of Earth, radio-
beam-dirigible torpedoes, robot manned drill planes, and many other lethal agencies of
ultrascientific war-all these were put to use by both sides in those first few frantic hours,
but neither side was able to make any impression upon the other. Then, each realizing
the other’s defenses had been designed to withstand his every force, the intensive
combat settled down to a war of sheer attrition.
Radnor and his scientists devoted themselves exclusively to the development of new and