Islands of Space

  XIII

  The _Ancient Mariner_ hung high in the air, poised twenty-five milesabove the surface of the little lake. Wade, as chemist, tested the airwhile the others readied the distillation and air condensationapparatus. By the time they had finished, Wade was ready with hisreport.

  "Air pressure about 20 psi at the surface; temperature aroundninety-five Fahrenheit. Composition: eighteen percent oxygen,seventy-five percent nitrogen, four-tenths of one percent carbondioxide, residue--inert gasses. That's not including water vapor, ofwhich there is a fair amount.

  "I put a canary into the air, and the bird liked it, so I imagine it'squite safe except for bacteria, perhaps. Naturally, at this altitude theair is germ-free."

  "Good," said Morey, "then we can take our swim and work without worryingabout spacesuits."

  "Just a minute!" Fuller objected. "What about those germs Wadementioned? If you think I'm going out in my shorts where some flock ofbacteria can get at my tender anatomy, you've got another think coming!"

  "I wouldn't worry about it," Wade said. "The chances of organismsdeveloping along the same evolutionary line is quite slim. We may findthe inhabitants of the same shape as those of another world, because thehuman body is fairly well constructed anatomically. The head is in aplace where it will be able to see over a wide area and it's in a safeplace. The hand is very useful and can be improved upon but little.True, the Venerians have a second thumb, but the principle is the same.

  "But chemically, the bodies are probably very different. The people ofVenus are widely different chemically; the bacteria that can make aVenerian deathly ill is killed the instant it enters our body, or elseit starves to death because it can't find the kind of chemical food itneeds to live. And the same thing happens when a Venerian is attacked byan Earthly microorganism.

  "Even on Earth, evolution has produced such widely varying types of lifethat an organism that can feed on one is totally incapable of feeding onanother. You, for instance, couldn't catch tobacco mosaic virus, and thetobacco plant can't catch the measles virus.

  "You couldn't expect a microorganism to evolve here that was capable offeeding on Earth-type tissues; they would have starved to death longago."

  "What about bigger animals?" Fuller asked cautiously.

  "That's different. You would probably be indigestible to an aliencarnivore, but he'd probably kill you first to find out. If he ate you,it might kill him in the end, but that would be small consolation.That's why we're going to go out armed."

  Arcot dropped the ship swiftly until they were hovering a bare hundredfeet over the waters of the lake. There was a little stream winding itsway down the mountainside, and another which led the clear overflowaway.

  "I doubt if there's anything of great size in that lake," Arcot saidslowly and thoughtfully. "Still, even small fish might be deadly. Let'splay safe and remove all forms of life, bacterial and otherwise. Alittle touch of the molecular motion ray, greatly diffused, will do thetrick."

  Since the molecular ray directed the motion of the molecules of matter,it prevented chemical reactions from taking place, even when greatlydiffused; all the molecules tend to go in the same direction to such anextent that the delicate balance of chemical reactions that is life isupset. It is too delicate a thing to stand any power that upsets thereactions so violently. All things are killed instantly.

  As the light haze of the ionized air below them glowed out in a hugecone, the water of the lake heaved and seemed to move in its depths, butthere was no great movement of the waters; they lost only a fraction oftheir weight. But every living thing in that lake died instantly.

  Arcot turned the ship, and the shining hull glided softly over to oneside of the lake where a little sandy beach invited them. There seemedno indication of intelligent life about.

  Each of them took a load of the supplies they had brought, and carriedthem out under the shade of an immense pine-like tree--a gigantic columnof wood that stretched far into the sky to lose its green leaves in awaving sea of foliage. The mottled sunlight of the bright star abovethem made them feel very much at home. Its color, intensity, and warmthwere all exactly the same as on Earth.

  Each of the men wore his power suit to aid in carrying the things theyhad brought, for the gravity here was a bit higher than that of Earth.The difference in air pressure was so little as to be scarcelynoticeable; they even adjusted the interior of the ship to it.

  They had every intention of staying here for awhile. It was pleasant tolie in the warm sun once more; so pleasant that it became difficult toremember that they were countless trillions of long miles from their ownhome planet. It was hard to realize that the warm, blazing star abovethem was not Old Sol.

  Arcot was carrying a load of food in a box. He had neutralized hisweight until, load and all, he weighed about a hundred pounds. This wasnecessary in order to permit him to drag a length of hose behind himtoward the water, so it could be used as an intake for the pumps.

  Morey, meanwhile, was having trouble. He had been carrying a load ofassorted things to use--a few pneumatic pillows, a heavy iron pot forboiling the water, and a number of other things.

  He reached his destination, having floated the hundred or so feet fromthe ship by using his power suit. He forgot, momentarily, and droppedhis load. Immediately, he too began to "drop"--upward! He had abuoyancy of around three hundred pounds, and a weight of only two fifty.In dropping the load, the sudden release had caused the power unit tojerk him upward, and somehow the controlling knob on the power pack wastorn loose.

  Morey shot up into the air, showing a fair rate of progress toward hislate abode--space! And he had no way to stop himself. His hand powerunit was far too weak to overcome the pull of his power-pack, and he wasrising faster and faster!

  He realized that his friends could catch him, and laughingly calleddown: "Arcot! Help! I'm being kidnapped by my power suit! To therescue!"

  Arcot looked up quickly at Morey's call and realized immediately thathis power control had come off. He knew there was twenty miles or so ofbreathable air above, and long before Morey rose that far, he couldcatch him in the _Ancient Mariner_, if necessary.

  He turned on his own power suit, using a lift of a hundred pounds, whichgave him double Morey's acceleration. Quickly he gathered speed thatshot him up toward his helpless friend, and a moment later, he hadcaught up with him and passed him. Then he shut off his power anddrifted to a halt before he began to drop again. As Morey rose towardhim, Arcot adjusted the power in his own suit to match Morey's velocity.

  Arcot grabbed Morey's leg and turned his power down until he had aweight of fifty pounds. Soon they were both falling again, and whentheir rate of fall amounted to approximately twenty miles per hour,Arcot cut their weight to zero and they continued down through theirmomentum. Just short of the ground, he leaped free of Morey, who,carried on by momentum, touched the ground a moment later. Wade at oncejumped in and held him down.

  "Now, now! Calm yourself," said Wade solicitously. "Don't go up in theair like that over the least little thing."

  "I won't, if you'll get busy and take this damned thing off--or fastensome lead to my feet!" replied Morey, starting to unstrap the mechanism.

  "You'd better hold your horses there," said Arcot. "If you take that offnow, we sure will need the _Ancient Mariner_ to catch up with it. Itwill produce an acceleration that no man could ever stand--something onthe order of five thousand gravities, if the tubes could stand it. Andsince that one is equipped with the invisibility apparatus, you'd be outone good invisibility suit. Restrain yourself, boy, and I'll go get anew knob control.

  "Wade, get the boy a rock to hold him down. Better tie it around hisneck so he won't forget it and fly off into space again. It's a nuisancelocating so small an object in space and I promised his father I'd bringthe body back if there was anything left of it." He released Morey asWade handed him a large stone.

  A few minutes later, he returned with a new adjustment dial and repairedMorey's apparatus. The strain
was released when he turned it, and Moreyparted with the rock with relief.

  Morey grunted in relief, and looked at the offending pack.

  "You know, that being stuck with a sky-bound gadget that you can't turnoff is the nastiest combination of feeling stupid, helpless, comical,silly and scared I've hit yet. It now--somewhat late--occurs to me thatthis is powered with a standard power coil, straight off the productionline, and that it has a standard overload cut-out for protection ofassociated equipment. I want to install an emergency cutoff switch, incase a knob, or something else, goes sour. But I want to have theemergency overload where I can decide whether or not an emergencyoverload is to be accepted. I'd feel a sight more than silly if thatoverload relay popped while I was a couple thousand feet up.

  "Trouble with all this new stuff of ours is that we simply haven't hadtime to find out all the 'I never thought of that' things that can gowrong. If the grid resistor on that oscillator went out, for instance,what would it do?"

  Arcot cocked an eye at the power pack, visualizing the circuits. "Fullblast, straight up, and no control. But modern printed resistors don'tfail."

  "That's what it says in all the books." Wade nodded wisely. "And youshould see the stock of replacement units every electronics shop stocksfor purposes of replacing infallible units, too. You've got a point, myfriend."

  "I can see four ways we can change these things to fail-safe operation,if we add Morey's emergency cut-off switch. If it did go on-full then,you could use intermittent operation and get down," Arcot acknowledged.

  "Anybody know what silly fail-unsafe tricks we overlooked in the_Ancient Mariner_?" Fuller asked.

  "That," said Wade with a grimace, "is a silly question. The 'I didn'tthink of that' type of failure occurs because I didn't think of that,and the reason I didn't think of it is because it never occurred to me.If we'd been able to think of 'em, we would have. We'll probably getstuck with a few more yet, before we get back. But at least we can cleanup a few bugs in these things now."

  "Forget it for now, Wade, and get that chow on," suggested Fuller. Hewas lying on his back, clad only in a pair of short trunks, completelyrelaxed and enjoying life. "We can do that when it's dark here."

  "Fuller has the right idea," said Morey, looking at Fuller with ajudicious eye. "I think I'll follow his example."

  "Which makes three in favor and one on the way," said Arcot, as he cameout of the ship and sank down on the soft sand of the beach.

  They lay around for a while after lunch, and then decided to swim in thecool waters of the lake. One of them was to stand guard while the otherswent in swimming. Standing guard consisted of lying on his back on thesoft sand, and staring up at the delightful contrast of lush greenfoliage and deep blue sky.

  It was several hours before they gathered up their things and returnedto the ship. They felt more rested than they had before their exercise.They had not been tired before, merely restless, and the physicalexercise had made them far more comfortable.

  They gathered again in the control room. All the apparatus had beentaken in; the tanks were filled, and the compressed oxygen replenished.They closed the airlock and were ready to start again.

  As they lifted into the air, Arcot looked at the lake that was shrinkingbelow them. "Nice place for a picnic; we'll have to remember that place.It isn't more than twenty million light years from home."

  "Yes," agreed Morey, "it is handy. But suppose we find out where home isfirst; let's go find the local inhabitants."

  "Excellent idea. Which way do we go to look?" Wade asked.

  "This lake must have an outlet to the sea," Morey answered. "I suggestwe follow it. Most rivers of any size have a port near the mouth, and aport usually means a city."

  "Let's go," said Arcot, swinging the shining ship about and headingsmoothly down along the line of the little stream that had its beginningat the lake. They moved on across the mountains and over the greenfoothills until they came to a broad, rolling plain.

  "I wonder if this planet _is_ inhabited," Arcot mused. "None of thisland seems to be cultivated."

  Morey had been scanning the horizon with a pair of powerful binoculars."No, the land isn't cultivated, but take a look over there--see thatrange of little hills over to the right? Take a look." He handed thebinoculars to Arcot.

  Arcot looked long and quietly. At last he lowered the binoculars andhanded them to Wade, who sat next to him.

  "It looks like the ruins of a city," Arcot said. "Not the ruins that astorm would make, but the ruins that high explosives would make. I'd saythere had been a war and the people who once lived here had been drivenoff."

  "So would I," rejoined Morey. "I wonder if we could find theconquerors?"

  "Maybe--unless it was mutual annihilation!"

  They rose a bit higher and raised their speed to a thousand miles anhour. On and on they flew, high above the gently rolling plain, mileafter mile. The little brooklet became a great river, and the river keptgrowing more and more. Ahead of them was a range of hills, and theywondered how the river could thread its way among them. They found thatit went through a broad pass that twisted tortuously between highmountains.

  A few miles farther on, they came to a great natural basin in the pass,a wide, level bowl. And in almost the exact center, they saw a loomingmass of buildings--a great city!

  "Look!" cried Morey. "I told you it was inhabited!"

  Arcot winced. "Yes, but if you shout in my ear like that again, you'llhave to write things out for me for ever after." He was just as excitedas Morey, nevertheless.

  The great mass of the city was shaped like a titanic cone that stoodhalf mile high and was fully a mile and a half in radius. But theremarkable thing about it was the perfect uniformity with which thebuildings and every structure seemed to conform to this plan. It seemedas though an invisible, but very tangible line had been drawn in theair.

  It was as though a sign had been posted: "Here there shall be buildings.Beyond this line, no structure shall extend, nor any vehicle go!"

  The air directly above the city was practically packed with slim, long,needle-like ships of every size--from tiny private ships less thanfifteen feet long to giant freighters of six hundred feet and longer.And every one of them conformed to the rule perfectly!

  Only around the base of the city there seemed to be a slight deviation.Where the invisible cone should have touched the ground, there was aseries of low buildings made of some dark metal, and all about them theground appeared scarred and churned.

  "They certainly seem to have some kind of ray screen over that city,"Morey commented. "Just look at that perfect cone effect and those lowbuildings are undoubtedly the projectors."

  Arcot had brought the ship to a halt as he came through the pass in themountain. The shining hull was in the cleft of the gorge, and was, nodoubt, quite hard to see from the city.

  Suddenly, a vagrant ray of the brilliant sun reached down through abreak in the overcast of clouds and touched the shining hull of the_Ancient Mariner_ with a finger of gold. Instantly, the ship shone likethe polished mirror of a heliograph.

  Almost immediately, a low sound came from the distant city. It was apulsing drone that came through the microphone in a weird cadence; alow, beating drone, like some wild music. Louder and stronger it grew,rising in pitch slowly, then it suddenly ended in a burst of risingsound--a terrific whoop of alarm.

  As if by magic, every ship in the air above the city shot downward,dropping suddenly out of sight. In seconds, the air was cleared.

  "It seems they've spotted us," said Arcot in a voice he tried to makenonchalant.

  A fleet of great, long ships was suddenly rising from the neighborhoodof the central building, the tallest of the group. They went in acompact wedge formation and shot swiftly down along the wall of theinvisible cone until they were directly over the low building nearestthe _Ancient Mariner._ There was a sudden shimmer in the air. In aninstant, the ships were through and heading toward the _Ancient Mariner_at a tremendous rate.
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  They shot forward with an acceleration that was astonishing to the menin the spaceship. In perfect formation, they darted toward the lone,shining ship from far-off Earth!