CHAPTER XV
The Extra-Galactic Duel
Loaded until her outer skin almost bulged with tightly packed bars ofuranium and equipped to meet any emergency of which the combined effortsof the mightiest intellects of Norlamin could foresee even the slightestpossibility, _Skylark Three_ lay quiescent. Quiescent, but surchargedwith power, she seemed to Seaton's tense mind to share his own eagernessto be off; seemed to be motionlessly straining at her neutral controlsin a futile endeavor to leave that unnatural and unpleasant environmentof atmosphere and of material substance, to soar outward into absolutezero of temperature and pressure, into the pure and undefiled etherwhich was her natural and familiar medium.
The five human beings were grouped near an open door of their cruiser;before them were the ancient scientists, who for so many days had beenlaboring with them in their attempt to crush the monstrous race whichwas threatening the Universe. With the elders were the Terrestrials'many friends from the Country of Youth, and surrounding the immensevessel in a throng covering an area to be measured only in square mileswere massed myriads of Norlaminians. From their tasks everywhere hadcome the mental laborers; the Country of Youth had been leftdepopulated; even those who, their lifework done, had betaken themselvesto the placid Nirvana of the Country of Age, returned briefly to theCountry of Study to speed upon its way that stupendous Ship of Peace.
The majestic Fodan, Chief of the Five, was concluding his address:
"And may the Unknowable Force direct your minor forces to a successfulconclusion of your task. If, upon the other hand, it should by someunforeseen chance be graven upon the Sphere that you are to pass in thissupreme venture, you may pass in all tranquillity, for the massedintellect of our entire race is here supporting me in my solemnaffirmation that the Fenachrone shall not be allowed to prevail. In thename of all Norlamin, I bid you farewell."
Very slowly at first, the unimaginable mass of the vesselfloated lightly upward.]
Crane spoke briefly in reply and the little group of Earthly wanderersstepped into the elevator. As they sped upward toward the control room,door after door shot into place behind them, establishing a manifoldseal. Seaton's hand played over the controls and the great cruiser ofthe void tilted slowly upward until its narrow prow pointed almostdirectly into the zenith. Then, very slowly at first, the unimaginablemass of the vessel floated lightly upward, with a slowly increasingvelocity. Faster and faster she flew--out beyond measurable atmosphere,out beyond the outermost limits of the green system. Finally, ininterstellar space, Seaton threw out super-powered detector andrepelling screens, anchored himself at the driving console with a force,set the power control at "molecular" so that the propulsive forceaffected alike every molecule of the vessel and its contents, and, allsense of weight and acceleration lost, he threw in the plunger switchwhich released every iota of the theoretically possible power of thedriving mass of uranium.
Staring intently into the visiplate, he corrected their course from timeto time by minute fractions of a second of arc; then, satisfied at last,he set the automatic forces which would guide them, temporarily out oftheir course, around any obstacles, such as the uncounted thousands ofsolar systems lying in or near their path. He then removed therestraining forces from his body and legs, and with a small pencil offorce wafted himself over to Crane and the two women.
"Well, bunch," he stated, matter-of-fact, "we're on our way. We'll bethis way for some time, so we might as well get used to it. Any littlething you want to talk over?"
"How long will it take us to catch 'em?" asked Dorothy "Traveling thisway isn't half as much fun as it is when you let us have some weight tohold us down."
"Hard to tell exactly, Dottie. If we had precisely four times theiracceleration and had started from the same place, we would of courseovertake them in just the number of days they had the start of us, sincethe distance covered at any constant positive acceleration isproportional to the square of the time elapsed. However, there areseveral complicating factors in the actual situation. We started out notonly twenty-nine days behind them, but also a matter of five hundredthousand light-years of distance. It will take us quite a while to getto their starting-point. I can't tell even that very close, as we willprobably have to reduce this acceleration before we get out of theGalaxy, in order to give detectors and repellers time to act on starsand other loose impediments. Powerful as those screens are and fast asthey work, there is a limit to the velocity we can use here in thiscrowded Galaxy. Outside it, in free space, of course we can open her upagain. Then, too, our acceleration is not exactly four times theirs,only three point nine one eight six. On the other hand, we don't have tocatch them to go to work on them. We can operate very nicely at fivethousand light-centuries. So there you are--it'll probably be somewherebetween thirty-nine and forty-one days, but it may be a day or so moreor less."
"How do you know they are using copper?" asked Margaret. "Maybe theirscientists stored up some uranium and know how to use it."
"Nope, that's out like a light. First, Mart and I saw only copper barsin their ship. Second, copper is the most efficient metal found inquantity upon their planet. Third, even if they had uranium or any metalof its class, they couldn't use it without a complete knowledge of, andability to handle, the fourth and fifth orders of rays."
"It is your opinion, then, that destroying this last Fenachrone vesselis to prove as simple a matter as did the destruction of the others?"Crane queried, pointedly.
"Hm-m-m. Never thought about it from that angle at all, Mart.... You'restill the ground-and-lofty thinker of the outfit, ain't you? Now thatyou mention it, though, we may find that the Last of the Mohicans ain'tentirely toothless, at that. But say, Mart, how come I'm as wild andcock-eyed as I ever was? Rovol's a slow and thoughtful old codger, andwith his accumulation of knowledge it looks like I'd be the same way."
"Far from it," Crane replied. "Your nature and mine remain unchanged.Temperament is a basic trait of heredity, and is neither affected noracquired by increase of knowledge. You acquired knowledge from Rovol,Drasnik, and others, as did I--but you are still the flashing genius andI am still your balance wheel. As for Fenachrone toothlessness: now thatyou have considered it, what is your opinion?"
"Hard to say. They didn't know how to control the fifth order rays, orthey wouldn't have run. They've got real brains, though, and they'llhave something like seventy days to work on the problem. While itdoesn't stand to reason that they could find out much in seventy days,still they may have had a set-up of instruments on their detectors thatwould have enabled them to analyze our fields and thus compute thestructure of the secondary projector we used there. If so, it wouldn'ttake them long to find out enough to give us plenty of grief--but Idon't really believe that they knew enough. I don't quite know what tothink. They may be easy and they may not; but, easy or hard to get,we're loaded for bear and I'm plenty sure that we'll pull their corks."
"So am I, really, but we must consider every contingency. We know thatthey had at least a detector of fifth-order rays...."
"And if they did have an analytical detector," Seaton interrupted,"they'll probably slap a ray on us as soon as we stick our nose out ofthe Galaxy!"
"They may--and even though I do not believe that there is anyprobability of them actually doing it, it will be well to be armedagainst the possibility."
"Right, old top--we'll do that little thing!"
* * * * *
Uneventful days passed, and true to Seaton's calculations, the awfulacceleration with which they had started out could not be maintained. Afew days before the edge of the Galaxy was reached, it became necessaryto cut off the molecular drive, and to proceed with an accelerationequal only to that of gravitation at the surface of the Earth. Tired ofweightlessness and its attendant discomforts to everyday life, thetravelers enjoyed the interlude immensely, but it was all too short--toosoon the stars thinned out ahead of "_Three's_" needle prow. As soon asthe way ahead of them was clear, Seaton again pu
t on the maximum powerof his terrific bars and, held securely at the console, set up a longand involved integral. Ready to transfer the blended and assembledforces to a plunger, he stayed his hand, thought a moment, and turned toCrane.
"Want some advice, Mart. I'd thought of setting up three or four coursesof five-ply screen on the board--a detector screen on the outside ofeach course, next to it a repeller, then a full-coverage ether-rayscreen, then a zone of force, and a full-coverage fifth-order ray-screenas a liner. Then, with them all set up on the board, but not out, throwout a wide detector. That detector would react upon the board at impactwith anything hostile, and automatically throw out the courses it foundnecessary."
"That sounds like ample protection, but I am not enough of aray-specialist to pass an opinion. Upon what point are you doubtful?"
"About leaving them on the board. The only trouble is that the reactionisn't absolutely instantaneous. Even fifth-order rays would require amillionth of a second or so to set the courses. Now if they were usingether waves, that would be lots of time to block them, but if they_should_ happen to have fifth-order stuff it'd get here the same timeour own detector-impulse would, and it's just barely conceivable thatthey might give us a nasty jolt before the defenses went out. Nope, I'mdeveloping a cautious streak myself now, when I take time to do it.We've got lots of uranium, and I'm going to put one course out."
"You cannot put everything out, can you?"
"Not quite, but pretty nearly, I'll leave a hole in the ether screen topass visible light--no, I won't either. You folks can see just as well,even on the direct-vision wall plates, with light heterodyned on thefifth, so we'll close all ether bands, absolutely. All we'll have toleave open will be the one extremely narrow band upon which ourprojector is operating, and I'll protect that with a detector screen.Also, I'm going to send out all four courses, instead of only one--thenI'll _know_ we're all right."
"Suppose they find our one band, narrow as it is? Of course, if thatwere shut off automatically by the detector, we'd be safe; but would wenot be out of control?"
"Not necessarily--I see you didn't get quite all this stuff over theeducator. The other projector worked that way, on one fixed band out ofthe nine thousand odd possible. But this one is an ultra-projector, animprovement invented at the last minute. Its carrier wave can be shiftedat will from one band of the fifth order to any other one; and I'll beta hat that's _one_ thing the Fenachrone haven't got! Any othersuggestions?... all right, let's get busy!"
A single light, quick-acting detector was sent out ahead of four coursesof five-ply screen, then Seaton's fingers again played over the keys,fabricating a detector screen so tenuous that it would react to nothingweaker than a copper power bar in full operation and with so nearlyabsolute zero resistance that it could be driven at the full velocity ofhis ultra-projector. Then, while Crane watched the instruments closelyand while Dorothy and Margaret watched the faces of their husbands withonly mild interest, Seaton drove home the plunger that sent thatprodigious and ever-widening fan ahead of them with a velocityunthinkable millions of times that of light. For five minutes, untilthat far-flung screen had gone as far as it could be thrown by theutmost power of the uranium bar, the two men stared at the unresponsiveinstruments, then Seaton shrugged his shoulders.
"I had a hunch," he remarked with a grin. "They didn't wait for us asecond. 'I don't care for some,' says they, 'I've already had any.'They're running in a straight line, with full power on, and don't intendto stop or slow down."
"How do you know?" asked Dorothy. "By the distance? How far away arethey?"
"I know, Red-Top, by what I didn't find out with that screen I just putout. It didn't reach them, and it went so far that the distance isabsolutely meaningless, even expressed in parsecs. Well, a stern chaseis proverbially a long chase, and I guess this one isn't going to be anyexception."
* * * * *
Every eight hours Seaton launched his all-embracing ultra-detector, butday after day passed and the instruments remained motionless after eachcast of that gigantic net. For several days the Galaxy behind them hadbeen dwindling from a mass of stars down to a huge bright lens; down toa small, faint lens; down to a faintly luminous patch. At the previouscast of the detector it had still been visible as a barely-perceptiblepoint of light in the highest telescopic power of the visiplate. Now, asDorothy and Seaton, alone in the control room, stared into thatvisiplate, everything was blank and black; sheer, indescribableblackness; the utter and absolute absence of everything visible ortangible.
"This is awful, Dick.... It's just too darn horrible. It simply scaresme pea-green!" she shuddered as she drew herself to him, and he sweptboth his mighty arms around her in a soul-satisfying embrace.
"'Sall right, darling. That stuff out there'd scare anybody--I'm scaredpurple myself. It isn't in any finite mind to understand anythinginfinite or absolute. There's one redeeming feature, though,cuddle-pup--we're together."
"You chirped it, lover!" Dorothy returned his caresses with all herold-time fervor and enthusiasm. "I feel lots better now. If it gets toyou that way, too, I know it's perfectly normal--I was beginning tothink maybe I was yellow or something ... but maybe you're kidding me?"she held him off at arm's length, looking deep into his eyes: then,reassured, went back-into his arms. "Nope, you feel it, too," and herglorious auburn head found its natural resting-place in the curve of hismighty shoulder.
"Yellow!... You?" Seaton pressed his wife closer still! and laughedaloud. "Maybe--but so is picric acid; so is nitroglycerin; and so ispure gold."
"Flatterer!" Her low, entrancing chuckle bubbled over. "But you know Ijust revel in it. I'll kiss you for that!"
"It _is_ awfully lonesome out here, without even a star to look at," shewent on, after a time, then laughed again. "If the Cranes and Shiroweren't along, we'd be really 'alone at last,' wouldn't we?"
"I'll say we would! But that reminds me of something. According to myfigures, we might have been able to detect the Fenachrone on the lasttest, but we didn't. Think I'll try 'em again before we turn in."
Once more he flung out that tenuous net of force, and as it reached theextreme limit of its travel, the needle of the micro-ammeter flickeredslightly, barely moving off its zero mark.
"Whee! Whoopee!" he yelled. "Mart, we're on 'em!"
"Close?" demanded Crane, hurrying into the control room upon his beam.
"Anything but. Barely touched 'em--current something less than athousandth of a micro-ampere on a million to one step-up. However, itproves our ideas are O. K."
The next day--_Skylark III_ was running on Eastern Standard Time, of theTerrestrial United States of America--the two mathematicians coveredsheet after sheet of paper with computations and curves. After checkingand rechecking the figures, Seaton shut off the power, released themolecular drive, and applied acceleration of twenty-nine point six ohtwo feet per second; and five human beings breathed as one a profoundsigh of relief as an almost-normal force of gravitation was restored tothem.
"Why the let-up?" asked Dorothy. "They're an awful long ways off yet,aren't they? Why not hurry up and catch them?"
"Because we're going infinitely faster than they are now. If we kept upfull acceleration, we'd pass them so fast that we couldn't fight them atall. This way, we'll still be going a lot faster than they are when weget close to them, but not enough faster to keep us from maneuveringrelatively to their vessel, if things should go that far. Guess I'lltake another reading on 'em."
"I do not believe that I should," Crane suggested, thoughtfully. "Afterall, they may have perfected their instruments, and yet may not havedetected that extremely light touch of our ray last night. If so, whyput them on guard?"
"They're probably on guard, all right, without having to be putthere--but it's a sound idea, anyway. Along the same line I'll releasethe fifth-order screens, with the fastest possible detector on guard.We're just about within reach of a light copper-driven ray right now,but it's a cinch they can't send anythin
g heavy this far, and if theythink we're overconfident, so much the better."
"There," he continued, after a few minutes at the keyboard. "All set. Ifthey put a detector on us, I've got a force set to make a noise like aNew York City fire siren. If pressed, I'd reluctantly admit that in myopinion we're carrying caution to a point ten thousand degrees below theabsolute zero of sanity. I'll bet my shirt that we don't hear a yip outof them before we touch 'em off. Furthermore...."
* * * * *
The rest of his sentence was lost in a crescendo bellow of sound.Seaton, still at the controls, shut off the noise, studied his meterscarefully, and turned around to Crane with a grin.
"You win the shirt, Mart. I'll give it to you next Wednesday, when myother one comes back from the laundry. It's a fifth-order detector ray,coming in beautifully on band forty-seven fifty, right in the middle ofthe order."
"Aren't you going to put a ray on 'em?" asked Dorothy in surprise.
"Nope--what's the use? I can read theirs as well as I could one of myown. Maybe they know that too--if they don't we'll let 'em think we'recoming along, as innocent as Mary's little lamb, so I'll let their raystay on us. It's too thin to carry anything, and if they thicken it upmuch I've got an axe set to chop it off." Seaton whistled a merrylilting refrain as his fingers played over the stops and keys.
"Why, Dick, you seem actually pleased about it." Margaret was plainlyill at ease.
"Sure am. I never did like to drown baby kittens, and it kinda goesagainst the grain to stab a guy in the back, when he ain't even looking,even if he is a Fenachrone. If they can fight back some I'll get madenough to blow 'em up happy."
"But suppose they fight back too hard?"
"They can't--the worst that can possibly happen is that we can't lickthem. They certainly can't lick us, because we can outrun 'em. If wecan't get 'em alone, we'll beat it back to Norlamin and bring upre-enforcements."
"I am not so sure," Crane spoke slowly. "There is, I believe, atheoretical possibility that sixth-order rays exist. Would an extensionof the methods of detection of fifth-order rays reveal them?"
"_Sixth_? Sweet spirits of niter! Nobody knows anything about them.However, I've had one surprise already, so maybe your suggestion isn'tas crazy as it sounds. We've got three or four days yet before eitherside can send anything except on the sixth, so I'll find out what I cando."
He flew at the task, and for the next three days could hardly be tornfrom it for rest; but
"O. K., Mart," he finally announced. "They exist, all right, and I candetect 'em. Look here," and he pointed to a tiny receiver, upon which asmall lamp flared in brilliant scarlet light.
"Are they sending them?"
"No, fortunately. They're coming from our bar. See, it shines blue whenI put a grounded shield between it and the bar, and stays blue when Iattach it to their detector ray."
"Can you direct them?"
"Not a chance in the world. That means a lifetime, probably manylifetimes, of research, unless somebody uses a fairly complete patternof them close enough to this detector so that I can analyze it. 'Sa gooddeal like calculus in that respect. It took thousands of years to get itin the first place, but it's easy when somebody that already knows itshows you how it goes."
"The Fenachrone learned to direct fifth-order rays so quickly, then, byan analysis of our fifth-order projector there?"
"Our secondary projector, yes. They must have had some neutronium instock, too--but it would have been funny if they hadn't, atthat--they've had intra-atomic power for ages."
Silent and grim, he seated himself at the console, and for an hour hewove an intricate pattern of forces upon the inexhaustible supply ofkeys afforded by the ultra-projector before he once touched a plunger.
"What are you doing? I followed you for a few hundred steps, but couldgo no farther."
"Merely a little safety-first stuff. In case they should send any realpattern of sixth-order rays this set-up will analyze it, record thecomplete analysis, throw out a screen against every frequency of thepattern, throw on the molecular drive, and pull us back toward thegalaxy at full acceleration, while switching the frequency of ourcarrier wave a thousand times a second, to keep them from shooting a hotone through our open band. It'll do it all in about a millionth of asecond, too--I want to get us all back alive if possible! Hm--m. They'veshut off their ray--they know we've tapped onto it. Well, war's declarednow--we'll see what we can see."
Transferring the assembled beam to a plunger, he sent out a secondaryprojector toward the Fenachrone vessel, as fast as it could be driven,close behind a widespread detector net. He soon found the enemy cruiser,but so immense was the distance that it was impossible to hold theprojection anywhere in its neighborhood. They flashed beyond it andthrough it and upon all sides of it, but the utmost delicacy of thecontrols would not permit of holding even upon the immense bulk of thevessel, to say nothing of holding upon such a relatively tiny object asthe power bar. As they flashed repeatedly through the warship, they sawpiecemeal and sketchily her formidable armament and the hundreds of menof her crew, each man at battle station at the controls of somefrightful engine of destruction. Suddenly they were cut off as a screenclosed behind them--the Earth-men felt an instant of unreasoning terroras it seemed that one-half of their peculiar dual personalities vanishedutterly. Seaton laughed.
"That was a funny sensation, wasn't it? It just means that they'veclimbed a tree and pulled the tree up after them."
"I do not like the odds, Dick," Crane's face was grave. "They have manyhundreds of men, all trained; and we are only two. Yes, only one, for Icount for nothing at those controls."
"All the better, Mart. This board more than makes up the difference.They've got a lot of stuff, of course, but they haven't got anythinglike this control system. Their captain's got to issue orders, whereasI've got everything right under my hands. Not so uneven as they think!"
* * * * *
Within battle range at last, Seaton hurled his utmost concentration ofdirect forces, under the impact of which three courses of Fenachronedefensive screen flared through the ultra-violet and went black. Therethe massed direct attack was stopped--at what cost the enemy aloneknew--and the Fenachrone countered instantly and in a manner totallyunexpected. Through the narrow slit in the fifth-order screen throughwhich Seaton was operating, in the bare one-thousandth of a second thatit was open, so exactly synchronized and timed that the screens did noteven glow as it went through the narrow opening, a gigantic beam ofheterodyned force struck full upon the bow of the _Skylark_, near thesharply-pointed prow, and the stubborn metal instantly flared blindingwhite and exploded outward in puffs of incandescent gas under the awfulpower of that Titanic thrust. Through four successive skins of inoson,the theoretical ultimate of possible strength, toughness, andresistance, that frightful beam drove before the automatically-reactingdetector closed the slit and the impregnable defensive screens, drivenby their mighty uranium bars, flared into incandescent defense. Drivenas they were, they held, and the Fenachrone, finding that particularattack useless, shut off their power.
"Wow! They sure have got something!" Seaton exclaimed in unfeignedadmiration. "They sure gave us a solid kick that time! We will now taketime out for repairs. Also, I'm going to cut our slit down to a width ofone kilocycle, if I can possibly figure out a way of working on thatnarrow a band, and I'm going to step up our shifting speed to a hundredthousand. It's a good thing they built this ship of ours in a lot oflayers--if that'd go through the interior we would have been puncturedfor fair. You might weld up those holes, Mart, while I see what I can dohere."
Then Seaton noticed the women, white and trembling, upon a seat.
"'Smatter? Cheer up, kids, you ain't seen nothing yet. That was just acouple of little preliminary love-taps, like two boxers kinda feelingeach other out in the first ten seconds of the first round."
"Preliminary love-taps!" repeated Dorothy, looking into Seaton's eyesand being
reassured by the serene confidence she read there. "But theyhit us, and hurt us badly--why, there's a hole in our _Skylark_ as bigas a house, and it goes through four or five layers!"
"Yes, but we're not hurt a bit. They're easily fixed, and we've lostnothing but a few tons of inoson and uranium. We've got lots of sparemetal. I don't know what I did to him, any more than he knows what hedid to us, but I'll bet my other shirt that he knows he's been nudged!"
Repairs completed and the changes made in the method of projection,Seaton actuated the rapidly-shifting slit and peered through it at theenemy vessel. Finding their screens still up, he directed acomplete-coverage attack upon them with four bars, while with the entiremassed power of the remaining generators concentrated into onefrequency, he shifted that frequency up and down the spectrum, probing,probing, ever probing with that gigantic beam of intolerableenergy--feeling for some crack, however slight, into which he couldinsert that searing sheet of concentrated destruction. Although much ofthe available power of the Fenachrone was perforce devoted to repellingthe continuous attack of the Terrestrials, they maintained an equallycontinuous attack offensive, and in spite of the narrowness of the openslit and the rapidity with which that slit was changing from frequencyto frequency, enough of the frightful forces came through to keep theultra-powered defensive screens radiating far into the violet--and, theutmost power of the refrigerating system proving absolutely uselessagainst the concentrated beams being employed, mass after mass of inosonwas literally blown from the outer and secondary skins of the _Skylark_by the comparatively tiny jets of force that leaked through themomentarily open slit from time to time, as exact synchronization wasaccidentally obtained.
Seaton, grimly watching his instruments, glanced at Crane, who, calm butwatchful at his console, was repairing the damage as fast as it wasdone.
"They're sending more stuff, Mart, and it's getting hotter to handle.That means they're building more projectors. We can play that game, too.They're using up their fuel reserves fast; but we're bigger than theyare, carry more metal, and it's more efficient metal, too. Only one wayout of it, I guess--what say we put in enough generators to smother themdown by brute force, no matter how much power it takes?"
"Why don't you use some of those awful copper shells? Or aren't we closeenough yet?" Dorothy's low voice came clearly, so utterly silent wasthat frightful combat.
"Close! We're still better than two hundred thousand light-years apart!There may have been longer-range battles than this somewhere in theUniverse, but I doubt it. And as for copper, even if we could get it tothem, it'd be just like so many candy kisses compared to the stuff we'reboth using. Dear girl, there are fields of force extending for thousandsof miles from each of these vessels beside which the exact center of thebiggest lightning flash you ever saw would be a dead area!"
He set up a series of integrals and, machine after machine, in a spaceleft vacant by the rapidly-vanishing store of uranium, there appearedinside the fourth skin of the _Skylark_ a row of gigantic generators,each one adding its hellish output to the already inconceivable streamof energy being directed at the foe. As that frightful flow increased byleaps and bounds, the intensity of the Fenachrone attack diminished, andfinally it ceased altogether as every iota of the enemy's power becamenecessary for the maintenance of the defenses. Still greater grew thestream of force from the _Skylark_, and, now that the attack had ceased,Seaton opened the slit wider and stopped its shifting, in order stillfurther to increase the efficiency of his terrible weapon. Face set in afighting mask and eyes hard as gray iron, deeper and deeper he drove hisnow irresistible forces. His flying fingers were upon the keys of hisconsole; his keen and merciless eyes were in a secondary projector nearthe now doomed ship of the Fenachrone, directing masterfully histerrible attack. As the output of his generators still increased, Seatonbegan to compress a searing hollow sphere of seething energy upon thefuriously-straining defensive screens of the Fenachrone. Course aftercourse of the heaviest possible screen was sent out, driven by massedbatteries of copper now disintegrating at the rate of tons in everysecond, only to flare through the ultra-violet and to go down beforethat dreadful, that irresistible onslaught. Finally, as the inexorablesphere still contracted, the utmost efforts of the defenders could notkeep their screens away from their own vessel, and simultaneously theprow and the stern of the Fenachrone cruiser was bared to that awfulfield of force, in which no possible substance could endure for even themost infinitesimal instant of time.
There was a sudden cessation of all resistance, and those Titanicforces, all directed inward, converged upon a point with a power behindwhich there was the inconceivable energy of four hundred thousand tonsof uranium, being disintegrated at the highest possible rate, short ofinstant disruption. In that same instant of collapse, the enormous massof power-copper in the Fenachrone cruiser and the vessel's every atom,alike of structure and contents, also exploded into pure energy at thetouch of that unimaginable field of force.
In that awful moment before Seaton could shut off his power it seemed tohim that space itself must be obliterated by the very concentration ofthe unknowable and incalculable forces there unleashed--must beswallowed up and lost in the utterly indescribable brilliance of thefield of radiance driven to a distance of millions upon incandescentmillions of miles from the place where the last representatives of themonstrous civilization of the Fenachrone had made their last standagainst the forces of Universal Peace.