Burke her, to the spot. He had a small metal box in his hand. He didn't notice her that she trembled.
"I may have something," he said with calm. "The case had this in it. There's a black in the box. The case to have been to and call attention to this cube. I'll take it up to the instrument-room and use a reader on it."
He the way. Sandy followed, her dry. She knew, of course, that he was under almost strain. He'd her along to be with her for a moments, but he was so that he think of nothing personal to say. Now it was not possible for him to talk of anything at all.
Yet Sandy that under the that pressed upon him, he'd asked her to go look for in the gravity-machine room she'd spoken of possible in the opening of the case. He'd her away while he opened it.
When they the ship-lock he said briefly, "I want to hurry, Sandy. Wait for me in the ship?"
She nodded, and to the small which had them all from Earth.
When she saw Pam, inside, she said shakily, "Is—anybody else here?"
"No," said Pam. "Why?"
Sandy sat and shivered.
"I think," she said through teeth, "I think I'm going to have hysterics. L-listen, Pam! I—I saw something alive! It was like a bird this high and big as a—There aren't any like that! There can't be anything alive here but us! But I saw it! And it saw me and ran away!"
Pam and asked questions, at ones. But presently she was saying indignantly, "I do it! That's near the place where I fresh air!"
Of course, fresh air in the asteroid, two hundred and seventy miles from Earth, was as as what Sandy had seen.
Holmes came in presently, and tired. He'd been his mind with the of black cubes. He how cooking was done in the of the fortress, some since. He how to prepare for of the by a high-ranking officer. He was with the bugle-calls once used in the in the place of a public-address loud-speaker system. But he'd no hint of how the its supplies, how the air was freshened, how of men used to the asteroid. He was and and weary.
"Sandy," said Pam challengingly, "saw a live bird, than a goose, in the gravity-machine room."
Holmes shrugged.
"Keller's fidgeting," he observed, "because he thinks he's movements in the vision-plates that different views of this thing. But he isn't sure that he's anything move. Maybe we're all going out of our minds."
"Then Joe's closest," said Pam darkly. "He about Sandy!"
"And very reasonably," said Holmes tiredly. "Pam, this of that there's something on the way and nothing to do about it—it's got me down!"
He in a chair. Pam at him. Sandy sat perfectly still, her hands clenched.
Burke came twenty minutes later. His was calm.
"I've out where the went," he said matter-of-factly. "I'm we can't any help from them. Or else."
Sandy looked at him mutely. He was self-controlled, and he did not look like a man to despair, but Sandy him. To her it that his had a little in his head.
"Apparently there's nobody left on the world the came from," said Burke in the of someone saying perfectly things, "so they didn't go there and there's no use in our trying to make a with that world. This was an fortress, you know. It was from away, and out and to an enemy that didn't attack it for itself, but to at the world or worlds that it."
He with calm, "I the home world of that has two in its sky and something off at the that looks like a hill, but isn't."
"But—"
"The left," Burke, "because it was abandoned. It was left to off the Enemy, and the it to moved away. It was left without supplies, without equipment, without hope. It was left without to abandonment, its members had been by black and only how to do their own special jobs by rote. They were just ordinary soldiers, like the Roman left when the south from Hadrian's Wall and for Gaul. So when there was nothing left for them to do but their post or starve—because they couldn't the that had them—they left. The in the box was a message they set up for their and fellow-citizens if they returned. It's not a message!"
Sandy swallowed.
"Where'd they go? What to them?"
"They to Earth," said Burke tonelessly. "By and and dozens, in the service ships that came out with meat, and took passengers. The service ships had been to out what meat the hunting-parties kill. They took men who were and to or tooth or anything else. Just the same, they left a to call them if the Enemy came again. But it didn't come in their lifetimes, and their forgot. But the remembered. It called to them. And—we were the ones to answer!"
Sandy a moment.
"But if the to Earth," she said dubiously, "what of them? There aren't any traces—"
"We're traces," said Burke. "They were our of ten or twenty thousand years ago. They couldn't a civilization. They were men! Could the Romans left at Hadrian's Wall keep up the of Rome? Of not! The to Earth and savage, and their children's children's children up a new civilization. And for here and for now, we're it. We've got to the Enemy and drive him back."
He stopped, and said in a that was almost and no hint of despair, "It's going to be a job. But it's an emergency. We've got to manage it somehow."
There was also an on Earth, not as in space by having somebody like Burke accept the of meeting it. The from the that despite the best of the air arm of the United States, Burke and the others had out to space. They'd the M-387. Naturally. The United States took for this most achievement. Inevitably. And it was and for space-imperialism, space-monopoly, and space-exploitation.
But when Keller's for the of gravity-field Earth, these less plausible. The United States passed on the instructions. The was so new that nobody it, but it was so that many men a that they had not of it before. Nobody question a natural law which was so once it was stated. And the of the device next to no time at all.
Within days then, where the had a single ten-foot instrument, the United States had a ten-foot, a thirty-foot and a sixty-foot gravity-field available to researchers. The new gave data such as no had for before. The thirty-foot disk, for range, pictured every in the system. A unguessed-at Saturnian moon, in the ring, up. All the be at one instant. The of the of Pluto was solved hours of on the thirty-foot device.
When the sixty-foot on, to take in a hundred light-years of space, the was a on it. But four dark stars, one with planets, and twenty-odd were a day. On that same day, though, a to Keller. What, said the query, was the meaning of crawling, bright-red in exact relationship to each other, which were visibly in motion and much closer to Earth than Alpha Centaurus? Alpha Centaurus had always been the of all to Earth. Under the bright-red and their paths as if about a common center of gravity. If such a thing were not impossible, it would be that they were so close together as to about one another hours. Even more preposterously, they moved through space at a which was a of the speed of light. Thirty light-speeds, of course, not be. And the direction of their motion to be directly toward the which the Earth. All this was absurd. But what was the of this report from the new device?
Keller out very neatly, "The here the same phenomenon. Its much away the here to send the to Earth. Data red gravity-fields to space and produce new higher speed for light, hence possible higher speed for generators. Request this possibility."
Pam it and sent it to Earth. And presently, on Earth, looked at each other helplessly. Because Keller had the only possible explanation. Objects like suns, if so close together, would tear each other to and in novas. Moreover, the pattern of motion of the red-spark-producing objects not have come into being of itself. It was artificial. There was a group of Things in motion toward Earth's system. They would arrive so many days. They were millions of miles apart, but their gravity-fields were so that they each other hours. If they had gravity-fields, they had mass, which be as as their gravity. And, about each other in the of dances, ten through the nothing but them.
Oddly enough, the ships that those gravity-fields might be so small as to be the power of a to at a thousand miles. The of all the and the sun itself might be by motes. They would not need to use power for destruction. Gravitation is not any more than magnetism, when something is by it. The gravity-fields would only need to be up. They had been. Once created, they without need for added power, just as the sun and do not power for their attraction, and as the Earth parts with no energy to keep its moon a captive.
The newspapers did not this news. But, very quietly, every government on Earth got for the making of a gravity-field detector. Most had them built. And then for the time in history there was an and attempt to all knowledge and all for a common end. For once, no the in on one's dignity. For once, the public and while the of visibly.
Naturally some of the people in the that the five in the solve the problem all the science of Earth not attack. Incredible of out to Burke and Keller and Holmes. Keller read the and to answer the questions that to make sense. Holmes all his time in the that by accident he might come upon something useful. Pam, scowling, and without pause. And Sandy looked at Burke.
"I'm going to ask you to do something for me," she said. "When we to the Lower Levels, I I saw something moving. Something alive."
"Nerves," said Burke. "There couldn't be anything alive in this place. Not after so many years without air."
"I know," Sandy. "I know it's ridiculous. But Pam's creepy, too, as if there were something in the rooms we've been in."
Burke moved his impatiently. "Well?"
"Holmes some hand-weapons," said Sandy. "They don't work, of course. Will you one for Pam and one for me so that they do?" She paused and added, "Of it doesn't we're or not, considering. It doesn't there is something alive. It doesn't if we're killed. But it would be not to defenseless."
Burke shrugged. "I'll them."
She put three of the transparent-barreled him and said, "I'm going up to the instrument-room and help Pam with her coding."
She out. Burke took the three hand-weapons and looked at them without interest. But in a of any there is always some response to a problem. A thing like a hand-weapon out of order Burke's attention it did not to the disaster.
He the hand-grip plates and looked at the the weapons. There was a battery, of course. In thousands of years its had evaporated. Burke replaced it from the water stores of the ship. He did the same to the other two weapons. Then, curious, he out of the ship's air-lock and at the ship-lock wall. He pressed the trigger. There was a and a of fell. He the others. They something. It was not a bullet. The of the weapons, on inspection, were not hollow. They were solid. The a thrust, a push, an which was on a spot. They punched, with nothing solid to do the punching.
"Probably a right through a man," said Burke, reflectively.
He took the three and toward the instrument-room. On the way, his mind to the destruction. It was arbitrary. The Enemy had no to the in this system. Men, here, had all of their and all memory of memory began. If any of the fortress, even, it would be in of a Golden Age Pandora was, or of an Age of Innocence when all came without effort. Those were out of all to their foundations, of course, as ever-more-ignorant and ever-more-unsophisticated them. Perhaps the Golden Age was a memory of a time when performed for men—before the out and not be replaced without other to make them. Perhaps the slow of tools, with which men did that did for them, the of times when men did not need to use tools. Even the everywhere-present of a long, long in a boat—the legends—might be the last of grand-sires' about a to Earth. It would have been by who not a through emptiness, and therefore a as a more scientific and for with and superstition.
Burke into the instrument-room as Sandy was asking, "But how did they? We haven't any ship-lock the one we came in by! And if a ship can't travel than light without about itself ..."
Holmes had taken off his He said doggedly, "There's nothing about ships in the cubes. Anyhow, the nearest other sun is four light-years away. Nobody'd try to all the food a whole would need from as away as that! If they'd used ships for supply, there'd have been gardens all over the place to the the ships had to carry! There was some other way to here!"
"Whatever it was, it didn't meat from Earth. That was out, to the of service-boats."
"Another thing," Holmes said. "There were thousands of people in the garrison, here. How did the air renewed? Nobody's any mention of air-purifying in the cubes. There's been no of any! An air-supply, yes. It was let when we came into the ship-lock. But there's no regular for the air and into it and the CO2!"
"Won't anyone I fresh air yesterday?" Pam asked plaintively.
No one commented. It not be believed. Burke Sandy one of the weapons. He gave Pam a second.
"They work very much like the ship-drive, which was from them. A in the them so they use the they to make a without a kick-back. They'll cold after a dozen or so shots."
He sat and Holmes on almost angrily, "The had to food here. It didn't come in ships. They had to the air. They've nothing to do it with! How did they manage?"
Keller faintly. He pointed to a on the wall.
"If that worked, we ask. It is to be with base. It is on. Nothing happens."
"Do you know what I'm thinking?" Holmes. "I'm of a matter-transmitter! It's been pointed out that we'll the in limited to one light-speed. What good would be that ten, twenty, or fifty years each way? But if there be matter-transmitters—"
Keller said gently, "Transmitters, no. Transposers, yes."
It was a familiar distinction. To an object into electric and it at some place would be a self-defeating operation. It have no value. To a hundred and fifty of electric energy—the weight of a man into current—would the of bus-bars for a conductor, and months of time if it was not to out from overload. The of as electric energy would be absurd. But if an object be from one place to another; if it be from place to place; if it of surroundings.... That would be a different matter! Transposition would be instantaneous. Translation would no time. Substitution of position—a man who was here this would be there the next—would have no aspect. Such a would make anything possible. A ship might a to last a century. If a matter-transposer were a part of it, it be with fuel and air and on its voyage. Its be and it was desired. And when it a planet-fall a hundred years and more from home, why, home would still be just around the transposer. With matter-transposition an and thrive, though limited to the speed of light for its ships. But a spread over hundreds of light-years would be without something its parts.
"All right!" said Holmes doggedly. "Call them transposers! This had to be supplied. We've no that ships were used to supply it. It needed to have its air and refreshed. We've no of anything but stores of air in case some unknown air-supply failed. What's the with looking for a matter-transposer?"
Burke said, "In a way, a telephone sound-waves from one place to another. Sound-waves aren't along wires. They're here, and then they're there. But there has to be a sending and station at each end. When the here was 'cut off' from home it be that its supply-system down."
"Its air-system didn't," said Holmes. "It hadn't used up its air-supply. We're it!"
"Anyhow we try to a broken-down transposer," said Sandy.
"You try," said Burke. "Keller's been looking for something for me in the cubes. I'll here and help him look."
Sandy the he'd her.
"Pam says she's fresh air, where there can't be any. Mr. Keller he saw movements in the vision-plates, where there can't be any. I still I saw something alive in the gravity-machine room, where such a thing is impossible. We're going to look, Pam and I."
Holmes to his feet.
"I'll come, too. And I'll to you against anything that has the ten thousand years or so that this place was without air. My head's tired, after all those cubes."
He the way. Burke as the two girls him and closed the door them.
"What have you found, Keller?"
"A about globes," said Keller. "Very interesting."
"Nothing on with base?"
Keller his head.
Burke said evenly, "I out three for us—all ones. The was to the when the radio didn't and it or its to help. I the garrison—on Earth. No help there. The second was the that had this fortress. It looks like it's collapsed. There's been time for a new to started, but it's away. The third is the of all. It's together something to with."
Keller out over the of that had been by Holmes and himself while using the from the cube-library. One had been set aside. Keller put it in place on the and it to Burke.
"Try it," said Keller.
Burke put the on his head.
He was in this same instrument-room, but he a and he sat at an instrument-board. He that there were service-boats ten thousand miles out, a hundred. They'd been out to make a attack on the fortress. Counter-tactics men them. There was for worry. Three times, now, to be Enemy ships had past the screen of set out to prevent just such an evasion. Once, one of the had touched the of the fortress' surface. This was for the counter-tactics crew, but it was proof that an Enemy ship have out the and all its a hundred times over.
Burke sweated. There was a with a yellow ring about it. It was a globe, and to in any direction if an Enemy detection-device it. The did not go an Enemy. They themselves where they would be sought. They set themselves up as targets. But when a radar-pulse touched them, they themselves at its source, their chooser-circuits power into a of the same as the radar-touch. That beam, of course, or out the Enemy device necessarily to it. And the at the thing which had them. They at a hundred and sixty and high would be if they it. Nothing their impact. Nothing!
But in three had them. The counter-tactics men the drones, of course, as it was the Enemy did not. But it should not be possible to to the fortress! If the was vulnerable, so was the Empire. If the Empire was vulnerable, the Enemy would its worlds, blast its cities, its population and only would in the Galaxy.
On the monitor-board a light flashed. A line of green light across the screen. It was the path of a toward something that had touched it with a radar-frequency signal. The of the was breathtaking. It to toward its target.
But this nothing. It on and on.... A second sprang. It also nothing. It away to emptiness. Its path that of the first. A third and fourth and fifth.... Each one itself at the of some of radiation. Their at the same spot. But there was nothing there....
Burke up a of switches, the under his control. Five had themselves away, at something which but did not exist. Something which was not solid. Which was not a ship an Enemy. They'd an illusion....
At the control-board. Burke his and at the surface him. An illusion! Of course!
Cunningly, he adjustments. He had five left. He one and the setting of its chooser-circuit. It would now. It would up only radiation—induction from a ship with its drive on.
The globe's light flashed. A train of green fire appeared. A of flame. A hit! The was destroyed. He the setting of the of the rest. Two! Three! Three in twice as many seconds.
He his forehead. This was only a drill, but when the Enemy came it would be the of such problems that would the of the and the of the Enemy.
He reported his success crisply.
Burke took off the helmet.
Keller said mildly, "What did he do?"
Burke considered.
"The drone, to be an enemy, had something out into space. Metal powder, perhaps. It a cloud in emptiness. Then the off and a radar-beam on the cloud of metal particles. The in all directions. When a it up, it for the metal-powder target. It right through and off into space. Other for the same trick. When they were all gone, the have come right up to the fort."
He was almost interested. He'd felt, at least, the of an unknown of this garrison, some thousands of years, as he to make a good in a drill.
"So he the circuits," Burke added. "He stopped his from on frequencies. He them home on that wouldn't bounce." Then he said in surprise, "But they didn't hit, at that! The up the got to them! They were from the burning-out of all their the got there!"
Keller nodded. He said sorrowfully, "So clever, our ancestors. But not enough!"
"Of our chances," said Burke, "or what I think are chances, the least promising to be the idea of trying to something together to with." He considered, and then very faintly. "You saw movements you couldn't identify in the vision-plates? Sandy says she saw something alive. I wonder if something us answered the space-call and got into the by a different way, and has been out, of us."
Keller his head.
"I don't it either," Burke. "It crazy. But it might be true. It might. I'm the of the for to our problem."
Keller his again. Burke and out of the instrument-room. He the stairs and the long corridor, and past the long of in which were set the metal he'd cube-dreamed of using, but which would be of no use against speeding, whirling, artificial-gravity with the and the of suns.
He the last long on which the ship-lock opened. He saw the white of many of light, away without limit. And he saw a toward him. It was Sandy. She as she ran. She had already past endurance, but she on. Burke into a himself.
When he met her, she gasped, "Pam! She—vanished—down below! We were—looking, and Pam out. We ran to her. Gone! And we—heard noises! Noises! Holmes is now. She—screamed, Joe!"
Burke her him.
"Tell Keller," he harshly. "You've got that hand-weapon? Hold on to it! Bring Keller! We'll all search! Hurry!"
He into a run.
It might have that he should to help Sandy's sister in had her when they were the end of the whole system. In cold blood, it couldn't be to matter. But Burke ran.
He when he the to the of the asteroid. He the in which the power-generator high toward a light-laced ceiling.
"Holmes!" he shouted, and ran on. "Holmes!"
He'd been no than this, before, but he on into with only lines of light-tubes overhead, and he and his own voice in a manner which pure mockery. But as he ran he to shout.
And presently Holmes in return. There was a of echoes, and they met. Holmes was white. He something in his hands.
"Here!" he growled. "I this. I it. I killed it! What is it? Did like this catch Pam?"
Only a man himself have asked such a question. Holmes the of a bird with feathers. He'd its neck. He it aside.
"Where's Pam?" he fiercely. "What the hell's to her? I'll kill anything in that's to her!"
Burke questions. Inane ones. Where had Pam been last? Where were Holmes and Sandy when they missed her? When she out?
Holmes to him. But this part of the was a of with opening into compartments. Some of these were not empty, but neither Burke Holmes to machine-parts or of cases that would to at a touch. They like men, calling to Pam.
Keller and Sandy arrived. They'd passed the of the bird Holmes had killed, and Keller was white-faced. Sandy panted, "Did you her? Have you any sign?"
But she the answer. They hadn't Pam. Holmes was haggard, desperate, with a against thing had taken Pam away.
"Here!" Burke. "Let's some into this! Here's the case with the message-cube. It's our marker. We start from here! I'll this and the next one. You three take the next three going parallel. One each! Look in every doorway. When we the next cross-corridor we'll notes and make another marker."
He along the way he'd chosen, looking in every door. Cryptic of metal in one compartment. A of in another. Empty. Empty. A of metal furniture. Another empty. Still another.
Holmes appeared, his hands and unclenching. Sandy up, for self-control.
"Where's Keller?"
"I him call out," said Sandy breathlessly. "I he'd something and I hurried—"
He did not come. They shouted. They searched. Keller had disappeared. They the mark they'd started from and their steps. Burke Holmes startledly, but there were so many he not catch words.
Sandy met Burke. Holmes did not. He did not answer shouts. He was gone.
"We together," said Burke in an voice. "We've got hand-weapons. Keep yours to fire. I've got mine. Whatever out of is in this place, we'll kill it or it will kill us, and then—"
He did not finish. They close together, with Burke in the lead.
"We'll look in each doorway," he insisted. "Keep that pistol ready. Don't shoot the others if you see them, but shoot anything else!"
"Y-yes," said Sandy. She swallowed.
It was nerve-racking. Burke each as a possible ambush. He each one first, making sure that the it was empty. There was one extra-large to an extra-large compartment, their starting point and the next cross-corridor. It was empty, though there was a large metal plate on the floor. But it was lighted. Nothing in there.
Burke the beyond, and the one that.
He he Sandy gasp. He whirled, gun ready.
Sandy was gone.
