pleading a press of work upon their new projectors, buried themselves in Radnor’s
laboratory, leaving it to their wives to bear the brunt of Valeronian adulation.
“How do you like being a heroine, Dot?” Seaton asked one evening, as the two women
returned from an unusually demonstrative reception in another city.
“We just revel in it, since we didn’t do any of the real work-it’s just too perfectly gorgeous
for words,” Dorothy replied shamelessly. “Especially Peggy.” She eyed staid Margaret
mischievously and winked furtively at Seaton. “Why, you ought to see her-she could just
simply roll it up on a fork and eat it, as though it were that much soft fudge!”
Since the scientific and mechanical details of the construction of a fifth-order projector
have been given in full elsewhere there is no need to repeat them here. Seaton built his
neutronium lens in the core of the near-by white dwarf star, precisely as Rovol had done
it from distant Norlamin. He brought it to Valeron and around it there began to come into
being a duplicate of the immense projector which the Terrestrials had been obliged to
leave behind them when they abandoned gigantic Skylark Three to plunge through the
fourth dimension in tiny Two.
“Maybe it’s none of my business, Radnor,” Seaton turned to the Valeronian curiously
during a lull in their work, “but how come you’re still simply shooing away those Chloran
vessels by making them put out their zones of force? Why didn’t you hop over there on
your projector and blow their whole planet over into the next solar system? I would have
done that long ago if it had been me, I think.”
“We did visit Chlora once, with something like that in mind, but our attempt failed
lamentably,” Radnor admitted sheepishly. “You remember that peculiar special sense,
that mental force that Siblin tried to describe to you? Well, it was altogether too strong
for us. My father, possessing one of the strongest minds of Valeron, was in the chair, but
they mastered him so completely that we had to recall the projection by cutting off the
power to prevent them from taking from his mind by force the methods of transmission
which you taught us and which we were then using.”
“Hmmm! So that’s it, huh?” Seaton was greatly interested. “As soon as I get this fifth-
order outfit done I’ll have to see what it can do about them.”
True to his word, Seaton’s first use of the new mechanism was to assume the offensive.
He first sought out and destroyed the Chloran structure then in space-now an easy task,
since zones of force, while impenetrable to any etherborne phenomena, offer no
resistance whatever to forces of the fifth-order, propagated as they are in that inner
medium, the sub-ether. Then, with the Quedrins standing by, to cut off the power in case
he should be overcome, he invaded the sanctum sanctorum of all Chlora-the private
office of the Supreme Great One himself-and stared unabashed and unaffected into the
enormous “eye” of the monstrous ruler of the planet.
There ensued a battle royal. Had mental forces been visible, it would have been a
spectacular meeting indeed! Larger and larger grew the “eye” until it was transmitting all
the terrific power generated by that frightful, visibly palpitating brain. But Seaton was not
of Valeron, nor was he handicapped by the limitations of a fourth-order projector. He was
now being projected upon a full beam of the fifth, by a mechanism able to do full justice
to his stupendously composite brain.
The part of that brain he was now employing was largely the contribution of Drasnik, the
First of Psychology of ancient Norlamin; and from it he was hurling along that beam the
irresistible sum total of mental power accumulated by ten thousand generations of the
most profound students of the mind that our galaxy has ever known.
The creature, realizing that at long last it had met its mental master, must have emitted
radiations of distress, for into the room came crowding hordes of the monstrosities, each
of whom sought to add his own mind to those already opposing the intruder. In vain-all
their power could not turn Seaton’s penetrating glare aside, nor could it wrest from that
glare’s unbreakable grip the mind of the tortured Great One.
And now, mental means failing, they resorted to the purely physical. Hand rays of highest
power blasted at that figure uselessly; fiercely driven bars, spears, axes, and all other
weapons rebounded from it without leaving a mark upon it, rebounded bent, broken, and
twisted. For that figure was in no sense matter as we understand the term. It was pure
force-force made palpable and coherent by the incomprehensible power of disintegrating
matter; force against which any possible application of mechanical power would be
precisely as effective as would wafted thistledown against Gibraltar.
Thus the struggle was brief. Paying no attention to anything, mental or physical, that the
other monstrosities could bring to bear, Seaton compelled his victim to assume the shape
of the heretofore-despised human being. Then, staring straight into that quivering brain
through those hate-filled, flaming eyes, he spoke aloud, the better to drive home his
thought:
“Learn, so-called Great One, once and for all, that when you attack any race of humanity
anywhere, you attack not only that one race, but all the massed humanity of all the
planets of all the galaxies! As you have already observed, I am not of the planet Valeron,
nor of this solar system, nor even of this galaxy; but I and my fellows have come to the
aid of this race of humanity whom you were bold enough to attack.
“I have proved that we are your masters, mentally as well as scientifically and
mechanically. Those of you who have been attacking Valeron have been destroyed, ships
and crews alike. Those enroute there have been destroyed in space. So also shall be
destroyed any and all expeditions you may launch beyond the limits of your own foul
atmosphere.
“Since even such a repellent civilization as yours must have its place in the great Scheme
of Things, we do not intend to destroy your planet nor such of your people as remain
upon it or near it, unless such destruction shall become. necessary for the welfare of the
human race. While we are considering what we shall do about you, I advise you to heed
well this warning!”
20 THE FIRST UNIVERSE IS MAPPED
The four terrestrials had discussed at some length the subject of Chlora and her
outlandish population.
“It looks as though you were perched upon the horns of a first-class dilemma,” Dorothy
remarked at last. “If you let them alone there is no telling what harm they will do to these
people here, and yet it would be a perfect shame to kill them all-they can’t help being
what they are. Do you suppose you can figure a way out of it, Dick?”
“Maybe-I’ve got a kind of a hunch, but it hasn’t jelled into a workable idea yet. It’s tied in
with the sixth-order projector that we’ll have to have, anyway, to find our way back home.
Until we get that working I guess we’ll just let the amoebuses stew in their own juice.”
“Well, and then what?” Dorothy prompted.
“I told you it’s nebulous yet, with a lot of essential details yet to be filled in . . .” Seaton
paused, then went on, doubtfully: “It’s pretty wild-I don’t know whether . . . ”
“Now you must tell us about it, Dick,” Margaret urged.
“I’ll say you’ve got to,” Dorothy agreed. “You’ve had a lot of ideas wild enough to make
any sane creature’s head spin around in circles, but not one of them was so hair-raising
that you were backward in talking about it. This one must be the prize brainstorm of the
universe–spill it to Red-Top!”
“All right, but remember that it’s only half baked and that you asked for it. I’m doping out
a way to send them back to their own solar system, planet and all.”
“What!” exclaimed Margaret.
Dorothy simply whistled-a long, low whistle highly eloquent of incredulity.
“Maintenance of temperature? Time? Power? Control?” Crane, the imperturbable, picked
out unerringly the four key factors of the stupendous feat.
“Your first three objections can be taken care of easily enough,” Seaton replied
positively. “No loss of temperature is possible through a zone of force-our own discovery.
We can stop time with a stasis-we learned that from watching those four-dimensional
folks work. The power of cosmic radiation is practically infinite and eternal-we learned
how to use that from the pure intellectuals. Control is the sticker, since it calls for
computations and calculations at present impossible; but I believe that when we get our
mechanical brain done, it will be able to work out even such a problem as that.”
“What d’you mean, mechanical brain?” demanded Dorothy.
“The thing that is going to run our sixth-order projector,” Seaton explained. “You see, it’ll