The star Sol was as as Sirius, but no it was nearly a light-year away and of not in with that sun. The Milky Way coldly. All the without any in their light, from the to the dot. The was round. There were above and and and and to the right and left. There was nothing which was solid, and nothing which was opaque. There were only remote, of light, but there were thousands of millions of them. Everywhere there were of red and and yellow and green; of all the colors that be imagined. Yet all the from all the added up to no more than darkness. The of objects would not faintly, dimly, feebly. There was no warmth. This was space, imagining; thinking; empty. It was spread out in the light of many stars.
In such cold and it would that nothing be, and there was nothing to be seen. But now and again a pattern of a little. It a and then returned to its original appearance. The of the star-patterns moved, as a disturbance, in courses. They were like in space.
There no for these ripplings. But there were powerful in the void, so powerful as to space and the through them. These gravity-fields moved with an speed. There were ten of them, in a pattern which was spread out as an unit which moved than the light their space-twisting distorted.
They undetectable, such minute light-ripplings as they were left them. The ten ships which these force-fields were small. They were no larger than ships on the of one in the toward which they sped. They were less than in infinity. They would travel for only a more days, now, and then would through the which was their target. They should its planet—four light-hours away—and eight minutes more past and through the worlds and the sun. They would the plane of the at nearly a right angle, and they should the and the yellow star Sol in self-destruction them. Then they would onward, than the they follow.
The on the world to be would have no warning. One would be as it had always been. The next, the ground would and out flames, and more than two thousand beings would know that anything had they were destroyed.
There was no purpose to be by the world that it was to die. The of the nations had that it was to let men and look at each other and rejoice, they had all their them. It was that children should be let play valorously, and and be tended. It was for to move under and sunshine-filled than that they should up at white clouds, or in still at the night from which would presently come.
In the one place where there was foreknowledge, no attention at all was paid to the doom. Burke about corridors, things. He out to Sandy to answer him, and might have her to to him. He the cold walls. He up and the in which she had vanished, and it, and returned to the place where she had disappeared, and on solid to see if there be some through which she had been abducted. It that his must stop for pure anguish. He such an of as he had before.
Presently method in his searching. Whatever had happened, it must have been close to the tall with the large metal plate in its and the lights overhead. Sandy not have been more than twenty from him when she was seized. When he her gasp, he was at this spot. Exactly this spot. He'd whirled, and she was gone. She not have been than the door the archway, or else the one it. He into the most one. It was a perfectly storage-room. He'd hundreds of them. It was empty. He it with a intentness. His hands shook. His whole was taut. He moved jerkily.
Nothing. He the and the room opposite. There was a of in one corner. He and it. Nothing. He came out, and there was the tall archway, lighted. The other had no light-tubes. Being for only, they would not need to be to be and of they should contain. But the was very lighted.
He into it, his hand-weapon with the in him. There was the metal plate on the floor. It was large—yards in extent. He a of the walls. Halfway around, he that the were masonry. Not native rock, like every other place in the fortress. This had been made! He about. On the opposite there was a small thing with a on it, to be moved up or down. It was a metal with a handle, set in the masonry.
He himself across the room to it. He was with terror for Sandy, which would turn into more-than-murderous if he her harmed. The metal floor-plate between. He on the plate....
The around him. The and misty. Simultaneously other appeared mistily, then solidified.
He was in the open air, with a and about and him. This was not emptiness, but the surface of a world. Over his there was a sky. Before him there was grass, and that a horizon, and to his left there was and off ahead there was a hill which he was not a natural hill at all. There was a moon in the sky, a half-moon with that he remembered. There were trees, too, and they were trees with long, such as on Earth.
He for long instants, and a second, smaller moon came up over the and across the sky. It was and in shape.
Then came from to his rear. They were familiar sounds. They had pitch, which from one to another, and they were of different like half-notes and quarter-notes in music. And they had a quality which have been elfin.
All this was so to him that it should have been shocking, but he was in such an of for Sandy that he not to it. His terror for her was breath-stopping. He his in his hand. He to call her name, but he not speak.
The long, of the trees to and in a breeze. And then Burke saw a the foliage. He who it was. The was almost pain than his terror had been. It was such an as Burke had only feebly, in his dream. He gave a great and to meet Sandy, out again as he ran.
Then he had his arms about her, and she to him with that ability have to themselves to they've been for, when they come unexpectedly. He her feverishly, about the he'd felt, her fast.
Presently somebody at his elbow. It was Holmes. He said drily, "I know how you feel, Burke. I the same way just now. But there are to be looked into. It'll be dark soon and we don't know how long night lasts here. Have you a match?"
Pam the two of them with a of in her eyes. Keller was there too, still by an which for him had no attached.
Burke Sandy and for his cigarette lighter. He foolish, but Sandy no of embarrassment.
"There was a matter-transposer," she said, "and we it, and we all came through it."
Keller said awkwardly, "I on the to base. It must have been a matter-transposer. I thought, in the instrument-room, that it was only a communicator."
Holmes moved away. He came sticks, which were from trees. He them and for more. In minutes he had a fire and a big of to keep it up, but he for still more.
"It ways," Sandy. "Or something does! There must be another metal plate here to go to the fortress. That huge, bird I saw in the gravity-generator room must have come from here. He on the plate it was and—"
"You've got your pistol?" Burke.
The sky was darkening. The larger, moon ever-so-slightly nearer to the zenith. The small and moon had gone on out of sight.
"I have," said Sandy. "Pam gave hers to Holmes. But that's all right. There won't be savages. Over there, the trees, there's a metal railing, old and corroded. But no would metal alone. I don't think there's here but us."
Burke at something away that looked like a hill.
"There's a building, or the of one. No lights. No smoke. Savages would it. We're alone, all right! I wonder where? We be a hundred or five hundred light-years from Earth."
"Then," said Sandy comfortably, "we should be safe from the Enemy."
"No," said Burke. "If the Enemy has an weapon, one won't be enough. They'll every one that used. Which this one. They'll be here eventually. Not at once, but later. They'll come!"
He looked at the small fire. There were curious, familiar in the air. Over to the west the sun in a of red and gold. The larger moon in the sky.
"I'm afraid," said Pam, "that we won't eat tonight unless we can to the and the ship. I we're from our dinners than most people get. Did you say five hundred light-years?"
"Ask Keller," Burke. "I've got to think."
Far off in the new night there was something like a birdsong, though it might come from anything at all. Much nearer there were noises. They as if they might come from a bird with a of a bill and stumpy, wings. There was a noise, very away indeed, and Burke that the of dogs on Earth was as much a as the of mankind. There were no wild of either race. Perhaps there had been dogs with the of the fortress, which might be five hundred light-years away, in one sense, but not be more than a yards, in another.
Holmes by the fire and it up to brightness. Keller came to the circle of light. His was creased.
"The constellations," he said unhappily. "They're gone!"
"Which would mean," Burke told him absently, "that we're more than light-years from home. They'd all be at that distance."
Holmes seated himself Pam. They had an understanding. Burke's in their direction. Holmes to speak in a low tone, and Pam at him. Burke his to at Sandy.
"I think I something. Should I ask you again to me? Or do I take it for that you will?—if we live through this?" He didn't wait for her answer. "Things have changed, Sandy," he said gruffly. "Mostly me. I've of an and a fixation—on you."
"There," said Sandy warmly, "there speaks my Joseph! Yes, I'll you. And we will live through this! You'll something out, Joe. I don't know how, but you will!"
"Yes-s-s," said Burke slowly. "Somehow I that I've got something away in my that should apply. I need to it out and look it over. I don't know what it is or where it came from, but I've got something...."
He into the fire, Sandy against him. She put her hand in his. The wind warm and through the trees. Presently Holmes the fire.
Burke looked up with a start as Sandy said, "I've of something, Joe! Do you that of yours? I know what it was!"
"What?"
"It came from a black cube," said Sandy, "which was a that somebody from the took to Earth. And what of would they take? They wouldn't take drill-instruction cubes! They wouldn't take telling them how to service the or the or else the has! Do you know what they'd take?"
He his head.
"Novels," said Sandy. "Fiction stories. Adventure tales. To—experience on long winter or asleep by a campfire. They were men, Joe, those of ours. They wouldn't about science, but they'd like a good, love or a or was the of a Western twenty thousand years ago. You got of a page in a love story, Joe!"
"Probably," he growled. "But if I it again I'll know who's those branches. You." Then, surprised, he said, "There were when I came through the matter-transposer. They've stopped."
"They when I came through, too. And when Pam and Holmes and Keller came. Do you know what I think they are?" Sandy up at him. "'You have on the Sanda. Surface-travel to the left, banking service and to the right, and ahead.' We may know, Joe, but it be that!"
He an and at the fire again. She silent. Soon Keller was dozing. Holmes away and came branches. He a lean-to for Pam, to the of the fire upon her. She up, at him, and to sleep. A long time later Sandy herself yawning. She her from Burke's hand and settled Pam.
Burke not to notice. He was busy. He very carefully, through the he'd from the black cubes. He from of the for a to the problem of the Enemy. If it was to be solved, it would be by a mind without strain, just as a word that the memory is best when one no longer to it.
Twice the Holmes the about them with suspicion, his hand on the small Pam had passed to him. But nothing happened. There were like bird calls, and like those of insects, and wind in the trees. But there was nothing else.
When in the east, Burke himself. The small moon rose and across the sky.
"Holmes," said Burke reflectively. "I think I've got what we want. You know how gravity's made, what the is like."
To but Holmes and Keller, the would have idiotic. It would have to them, not too long before. But Holmes nodded.
"Yes. Of course. Why?"
"There's a chooser-circuit in the globes," said Burke carefully, "that up from an Enemy ship, and it and it back. The that the to with has to be to it, as the it out while its own beam."
"Naturally," said Holmes. "What about it?"
"The point is," said Burke, "that one a gravity-field as radiation. Not a one, of course. But one that increased, fast. Like the gravity-fields of the Enemy ships, moving than light toward our sun."
"Hmmmm," said Holmes. "Yes. That be done. But something that's traveling than light—"
"They're traveling in a line," said Burke, "except for around each other every hours. There's no faster-than-light velocity; just straight-line velocity. And with the they've got, they couldn't dodge. If we got some up to a of gravity-field at the Enemy ships, there might be resonance, and there's a that one might hit, too."
Holmes considered.
"It might take an hour to the circuit," he observed. "Maybe less. There'd be no way in the world to test them. But they might work. We'd want a of them on the job, though, to give the idea a chance."
Burke up, a little from long immobility.
"Let's for the way to the fortress," he said. "There is a way. At least two were around in the fortress' corridors."
Holmes again. They a search. Matter from the fortress—specifically, the five of them—came out in a nearly three-walled in the of what had once been a building. Now it was with the and of trees and which out of every window-opening. There were other, alcoves, as if other matter-transposers to other or other worlds had been here. They were looking for one that a plump, bird might into among the stones.
They a metal plate arched-over by in the very next alcove. They at the rock. Presently the way was clear.
"Come along!" called Burke. "We've got a job to do! You girls want to and we want to to work. We've a hundred light-years to we can have our coffee."
Somehow he no whatever. The five of them walked onto the metal plate together, and the sky and of tube-lights appeared and brilliant, and they off the plate into a one from the sending-transposer which had them all, successively, to they had been.
And matter-of-factly. The three men to the room where metal by hundreds waited for the of the to make use of them. They were practical, those globes. There were small into their so a man climb to their and or the within.
On the way, Burke to Keller. The were designed to be targets, and they would remain. They'd be set out in the path of the Enemy ships, which not their courses. Their would be to the as radiation, so that they would project a of the same energy, and then it to with the ships. There was a possibility that if be out in space, that at the least they might one enemy ship and so the closely grouping. From that possibility, the slimmer, but the results to be for increased.
Keller nodded, brightly. He'd used the reading more than else. He understood. Moreover, his mind was to work in just this field.
When they the room of the many he for Burke and Holmes to wait. He the of one globe, its top, and looked inside. The were three-inch of pure silver. He in and did this and that. He and for Burke and Holmes to look.
It took them long to what he'd done. But with his knowledge of what be done, once he was told what was needed, he'd three new and the was to Burke's new specifications.
Instead of days to the circuits, the three of them had a hundred of the over an hour. Then Keller up to the instrument-room and the system. He the while Holmes and Burke the change-over task. They joined him in the instrument-room when the last of the metal rose a from the of the magazine and over to the of the launching-tube they hadn't noticed before.
"Three hundred," said Keller in a pleased tone, later. "All going out at full to meet the Enemy. And there are six observer-globes in the lot."
"Observers," said Burke grimly. "That's right. We can't anything the would come at the speed of light. But if we lose, the Enemy will arrive we can know we've lost."
Keller his reproachfully.
"Oh, no! Oh, no! I just understood. There are of electric energy, too. Very tiny. In the observers."
Burke stared. But it was only logical. If be of places, energy-transposers were not impossible. The energy would no more travel than would move. It would be transposed. The would see what the observer-globes saw, at the they saw it, no what the distance!
Keller at the ten-foot with its many small lights and the bright-red which were the Enemy gravity-ships. There was something like a of understood, now. The red had been not from the disk's when the space call out to Earth. They were nearer the center when the here. They were very, very near the center now.
"Five days," said Burke in a hard voice. "Where will the meet them?"
"They're using full acceleration," Keller him gently. "One hundred sixty gravities."
"A mile a second acceleration," said Burke. Somehow he was not astonished. "In an hour, thirty-six hundred miles second. In ten hours, thirty-six thousand miles second. If they at that speed, they'd a moon! They'll a billion miles in ten hours—but that's not enough! It's only a of the way to Pluto! They won't be to Uranus!"
"They'll have fifty-six hours," said Keller. The need to him almost articulate. "Not on the plane of the ecliptic. Their is along the line of the sun's axis. Meeting, seven times Pluto's distance. Twenty billion miles. Two days and a half. If they miss we'll know."
Holmes growled, "If they miss, what then?"
"I here," said Keller, mildly. "I won't everybody. I'd be lonely." Then he gave a quick, embarrassed smile. "Breakfast must be ready. We can do nothing but wait."
But waiting was not easy.
On the day there came a of from Earth. Why had they cut off communication? Answer! Answer! Answer! What be done about the Enemy ships? What be done to save lives? If a be and take off the shattered, would the be too? Could a dozen of Earth to make their way to the and there? Should the be to the world?
The last question that the of Earth were rattled. It was not a for Burke or Keller or Holmes to decide. They transmitted, in code, an exact of the sending of the to try to the Enemy gravity-ships. But it was not possible for people with no knowledge of to that anything so as a sun be by a ten-foot at it!
Then there came a of on Earth. The truth was too to believe, so it was not to it. And therefore into public print, Burke for having the end of the world from his safe in Asteroid M-387. They how he must be not only but wrong.
But these were the knowledge the public had of the thing denounced. Some people some people the worst, at all times. Some the of the who Burke. Some were and many to do this or that in order to be saved. Get-rich-artists in non-existent they had been in of the disaster. They would accept only paper in small bills. What value paper money would have after the of Earth was not explained, but people paid it. Astronomers that no gave any of the sun-sized en to Earth. Government officials in their to the because, after all, one didn't want the half-civilized part of nations to Earth's last days.
And Burke and the others looked at the images sent by the observer-globes traveling with the rest. The looked to the observer-globes just about the way it did from the fortress. There were of light of and colors. There was darkness. There was cold. And there was emptiness. The globe-fleet on away from the sun and from that plane near which all the revolve. Every second the spheres' by one mile second. Ten hours after Keller them, they had five hundred eighty-eight thousand thousand miles and the sun still as a disk. Twenty hours out, the had two billion six hundred miles and the sun was the star the note. Thirty hours out, and the of ten-foot had five billion eight hundred thirty-odd miles and the sun was no longer an in the universe.
Houses looked fine-drawn, now, and Pam was fidgety. Keller appeared to be normal. And Sandy was calm.
"I'll be when this is over," she said at dinner in the ship in the lock-tunnel. "I don't think any of you what this and the matter-transposer and the it took us to—I don't any of you what such can to people."
Burke waited. She at him and said briskly, "There's a for people to move to. People it once. They can do it again. Once it had a civilization. This was just one of its outposts. There were of other and other planets, and the people had away ahead of ours. And all those worlds, and ready, are waiting right now for us to come and use them."
Holmes said, "Yes? What to the people who on them?"
"If you ask me," said Sandy confidentially, "I think they the way of Greece and Rome. I think they got so that they got soft. They of fleets. They stopped of and of defenses, though they had to, after a fashion. But they of like the Rhine of the Romans, and Hadrian's Wall. Like the Great Wall of China, and the Maginot Line in France. When men and don't fleets, they're on the way down."
Burke said nothing. Holmes waited for more.
"It's my belief," said Sandy, "that many, many centuries ago the people who this sent a off with a matter-transposer on board. They replaced its while it on and on, and they gave it supplies, and its air, and it at the other of the Galaxy. And then the people here set up a matter-transposer and they all moved through it to the new, peaceful, world they'd found. All the that was left behind. The Enemy would them there! And I think they the matter-transposer that might have let the Enemy them—or the of this fort, for that matter! And I think that away the Milky Way there are the of those people. They're soft, and pretty, and useless, and they've likely let their knowledge die, and there aren't very many of them left. And I think it's good riddance!"
Pam said, "If we the Enemy there'll be no for on Earth. There'll be worlds to take all the population can imagine. There'll be for everybody. Joe, what do you think the will do for you if, on top of new worlds for everybody, you cap it by the Enemy with the globes?"
"I think," said Burke, "that most people will me very much. I'll be in the history books, but I'll be in small print. People who can they're will it, and those who can't will think I got famous in a fashion. In fact, if we go to Earth, I'll have to to keep from going bankrupt. If I manage to money for a living, it'll be by having somebody ghost-write a book for me about our here."
Keller mildly, "It's nearly time. We should watch."
Holmes up jerkily. Pam and Sandy rose almost reluctantly.
They out of the ship and through the metal door with corners. They along the long with the river of light-tubes in its ceiling. They passed the of the great room which had the globes. It looked empty, now.
On the next level they passed the mess-halls and bunk-rooms, and on the third the of which of electricity at a target, if the be ranged. They on up into the instrument-room by the final of stairs.
They settled there. That is, they did not leave. But too much on the next hour or less for to be still in either mind or body. Holmes and forth, his on the vision-screens that now what the observer-globes with the globe-fleet saw.
For a long time they at the of space. The picture was of an all-encompassing of of light. They did not move. They did not change. They did not waver. The observer-globes reported from nothingness, and they reported nothing.
Except one item. There were red of light and more ones. There were some which were violet. The had a so close to the speed of light that no available added power have pushed them the last of one faster. But they had no mass-fields to the of space and let them travel more swiftly. The Enemy ships did. But there was no of them. There be none on such a as the instrument-room had in its ten-foot disk.
Time passed, and passed. And passed. Finally, Burke the silence.
"Of the don't have to make direct hits. We hope! If they the gravity-field that them and shoot it hard enough, it ought to out the gravity-generators in the ships."
There was no answer. Pam the screens and at her nails.
Seconds by. Minutes. Tens of minutes....
"I fear," said Keller with some difficulty, "that something is wrong. Perhaps I in the globes—"
If he had a mistake, of course, the globe-fleet would be useless. It wouldn't stop the Enemy. It wouldn't do anything, and in a very time the sun and all its would with violence, and all the would itself to bits—and the Enemy would be away than possibly it.
Then, without warning, a line across one of the screens. A second. A third-fourth-fifth-twentieth-fiftieth—The screens came alive with of blue-green light.
Then something blew. A of light appeared on one of the screens. Instantly, it was by others with such that it was to tell which which. But there were ten of them.
The in the instrument-room was absolute. Burke to what had actually happened. The Enemy had been traveling at thirty times the speed of light, which was only possible of its which the properties of space to permit it. And then the and of that out. The ships stopped—so suddenly, so instantly, so that a part of a second would have been a thousand times longer than the needed interval.
The energy of that speed had to be dissipated. The ships as nothing had before. Even a super-nova would not with such violence. The of the Enemy ships itself not by to atoms, but by the themselves. And not did the apart, but the and and of which they were to exist. Nothing was left but pure energy—violet light. And it vanished.
Then there was nothing at all. What was left of the globe-fleet through space. It would go on and on and on. It would the of the and go on, and in thousands of millions of years some one or two or a dozen of the might some star-cloud millions of millions of light-years away.
In a pleased voice, Keller said, "I think is all right now."
And Sandy all to pieces. She to Burke, uncontrollably, herself close to him while she sobbed.
On Earth, of course, there was no such jubilation. It was that red in the gravity-field out. As hours and days by, it was noticed that the to exist, and that people alive. It that some part of the terror some people had was baseless. And naturally there was much against Burke he had so many people so much agitation.
Within two a of small plastic ships from the of Earth's north magnetic and presently on toward the asteroid. Burke was that he should prepare to the scientists they carried. He would be to coöperate in their investigations.
He when Pam him the sheet.
"It's outrageous!" Sandy. "It's ridiculous! They ought to on their to you, Joe, to thank you for what you've done!"
Burke his head.
"I don't think I'd like that. Neither would you. We'll make out, Sandy. There'll be a started on that world the matter-transposer us to. It might be fun there. What say?"
Sandy grumbled. But she looked at him with soft eyes.
"I'd be mixed up with—what you might call pioneers," said Burke, "than people with to and that are going to turn out to be all wrong. The in this and on that will make some red faces, on Earth. And there's another thing."
"What?" asked Sandy.
"This we've without doing anything to it," said Burke. "In fact, the Enemy. We haven't the least idea what they're like or anything at all about them that they go off and a thousand years cooking up something to at us. They out our ancestors. If they'd only it, they the by default. Our moved away to let the Enemy have its own way about this part of the galaxy, anyhow. And by past performances, the Enemy will just until they think of something more than sun-masses through our systems."
"Well?" she demanded. "What's to be done about that?"
"With the right of people around," said Burke meditatively, "we do a little of our own. And we a ship and think about looking them up and their ears in their own bailiwick, of waiting for them to take pot-shots at us."
Sandy gravely. She was a woman. She hadn't the idea of Burke take off into space again if she help it—unless, perhaps, for one occasion when she would herself off in a and a train, gloating.
But it had taken the Enemy a very long time to this last method of attack. When the time came to take the against them, at least a centuries would have passed. Five or six, anyhow. So Sandy did not against an idea that wouldn't result in action for some hundreds of years. Argument about Burke's in such an enterprise wait.
So Sandy him.
[A] Transcriber's Note: The has been at this point: "Interiors, Inc., would push the idea of a a bomb or in an where it would cation." This is a possible error. A later of this work also has this deleted.
