Chapter II: Part 2

"Gentlemen," cried Miss Ward facing the committee and ignoring Barden, "his statements are invidious. He is accusing me of jealousy, personal ambition, and egomania. This is not fair!"

"Miss Ward, I regret that you are not a man--or that I am not a woman. Then we would have an even chance before a committee of our contemporaries."

"Mr. Barden," she said in an icy voice, "I've been accused of flaunting my sex every time a question is raised. I've also been told by many that my position was gained in the same way. Just because I prefer to be a physicist instead of some man's housekeeper, I am viewed with suspicion, hatred, jealousy, and dislike. Well, Mr. Barden, you accuse me of using my sex. It is as much a hindrance as an aid, because I find that a woman has to be three times as good as the man in the same job in order to get the same recognition. If she isn't, nobody trusts her at all! Now," she said facing the committee, "I'll make my final plea. I've had mathematical physicists at work for almost a year. They agree with me. Thomas Barden has earned his position, I admit. But I still claim that he is moving forward along an unknown road because he is unable to make the necessary predictions. I've explained where this road leads to, and the consequences of following it blindly. He must be stopped!"

"Mathematics," said Barden, "and I quote Dr. Murdoch of the Board of Review of the Terran Physical Society: 'And may I add that when mathematics and experiment do not agree, it is the math that is changed. As witness Galileo's experiments with the falling bodies.' No one can make a certain prediction postulated on mathematics unless he has cognizance of every term. Miss Ward, are you aware of every factor?"

"No but--"

"Then your mathematics is faulty. And your opinion is, therefore, reduced to a personal opinion and not a scientific statement of fact. I've heard that a physicist is a learned one who leaps from an unfounded opinion to a foregone conclusion."

"You sound like an orator," snapped Edith Ward, "and orators seldom follow full fact unless it enhances their point."

"I'm sorry that you have that opinion," said Barden. "However, Miss Ward and gentlemen, regardless of what you do, of how you attempt to restrain me, I shall pursue this matter to the bitter end. If you deny me the right to work on Terra or any other solid body of the system, I shall take my laboratory into space and then we shall have two space laboratories--one of which will function in the medium for which it was named!"

Barden nodded affably, turned, and left the room.

One of the committeemen smiled sardonically and said: "I think he has just said, 'To Hell with us'!"

Another one nodded glumly and said: "Me, I think he's right. No one can stand in the way of progress."

Edith Ward blazed. "Progress! Progress! Is destruction progress? Well, if the ultimate goal of mankind is to go out in a blazing holocaust of his own making, then this is true progress. One proper step toward the final Gotterdammerung!"

The committeeman smiled at her tolerantly. "Twilight of the Gods, Miss Ward? Oh come now, we aren't gods and I daresay that the universe will continue to function without man's aid and abetment."

Edith Ward snorted through her patrician nose. "Correct," she snapped. "But after we leave, who's here to care?"

* * * * *

Dr. Edith Ward was surprised by his arrival at the Solar Space Laboratory. She didn't expect him. He had won his battle, and she knew he was not the kind of man to gloat over a defeated enemy. Therefore she reasoned that she might never see him again for certainly she would not go to his place to see him--and eventually the whole system would go up, triggered by the untrained hand of Thomas Barden.

Then to have him call--it bothered her. Why--?

He entered, carrying a small olive branch, and he smiled boyishly as he handed it to her with a small bow.

"A truce," he suggested.

"There can be no truce," she said stonily. "It will either be you or me that is shown right."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said with a smile. "Look, Miss Ward, I've never disregarded the possibility that you might be correct. All I've wanted was a chance to prove it instead of merely writing it off on the grounds of possible danger. One never knows what will happen until one tries. Therefore I wanted to continue. I've completed the ship and it is awaiting a trial. Any time we're ready."

"Is this a last attempt at mollification--a salving of your somewhat rusty conscience?"

"Not at all," he said. "I want you to go along with me as a qualified observer."

"To observe what? Terra going up in flames?"

"Nope. Not necessary. The ship still retains its normal drive. We'll take it out beyond the orbit of Pluto by a couple of billion miles and let it go out there. I daresay that if you are correct, the fury of a few hundred tons of spacecraft going up in sheer energy will not damage the solar system much. Especially from that distance. Then if it does run, we're also on our way to one of the nearby stars. Like?"

"Sounds reasonable."

"Certainly," he said. "Frankly I've considered that ever since you mentioned the problem."

"I wonder if my informant considered it, too?" she said slowly.

"Probably."

"Then his warning was truly helpful."

"Iffen and providen again," he grinned. "But if he is so nicely altruistic, why didn't he tell us how to get a real superspeed drive?"

"Maybe there is none."

"Then," said Barden, "why knock out a solar system that is so far away that nothing it does can have any effect upon you?"

"A very valid point," said Edith Ward. Her eyes opened wide and her jaw fell slack. "Goodness," she breathed.

"Are we?" he asked hollowly. His expression was one of wonder and amazement.

"Well, if we win and it works, they've hazarded nothing and still have their science. If we lose, they will not miss us in the first place and also they'll quickly abandon that point."

"Guinea pigs," snorted Edith. She stood up and put one slim hand in his. She gave it a hearty shake and a firm grasp. "I'm in--from right now to the point where the whole cosmos goes up in a cloud of nuclear particles! I'll be at your place in the morning with my case packed for a six months' trip. Now I'm getting a whole case of feminine curiosity!"

"Yes?" he said cheerfully. "What, this time?"

"Well, if your informant was tossing us an experiment, hoping to get an answer, then why did mine warn me? They'll never see a spaceship burst at a distance of a half dozen light-years. They might never really know."

"We'll find out," he said firmly. "There is something about both sides that I do not like!"

* * * * *

True to her word, Edith Ward turned up at the first glimmer of daylight with her case of personal belongings. "Where'll I have it put?" she asked.

"Ship Two, Stateroom Three," he said. "I have two crates fixed up so that if you're right, we can still get home without taking to the lifecraft."

One hour later, the two ships lifted on their ordinary space drive and sped with constant acceleration directly away from the sun. At three times gravity they went, and as the seconds and the minutes and the hours passed, their velocity mounted upward. In both ships, the men worked quietly on their instruments, loafed noisily, and generally killed time. Everything had been triply checked by the time that turnover came, six days after the start. Then for six more days the ships decelerated at three gravities while the sun dwindled in size. Between Tom Barden and Edith Ward there was much talk, but no solution to the problem. They covered nearly all aspects of the possibilities and came up with the same result: Insufficient evidence to support any postulate.

About the only thing that came to complete agreement was the statement that there was more to this than was clear, and it was suspicious.

The feud that had existed faded away. It may have been the common interest, or if you will, the common menace. For though no true menace had shown, it was a common bond between Barden and Ward against a question that annoyed them simultaneously. It may have been simply the fact that man and woman find it hard to continue a dislike when they have something in common. Nature seems to have made it so. It may have been the thrill of adventure, prosaic as it was to be racing through unchangeable space for hour upon hour and day upon day with nothing but the sheerest of boredom outside of the ship. Perhaps it might have been that the sight out of any window was exactly the same today as it was yesterday and would be tomorrow or a hundred years from now--or even a thousand, for though the stars do move in their separate paths, the constellations are not materially different. The utter constancy of the sky without may have turned them inward to seek the changing play of personality.

Regardless of the reason, by the time they reached that unmarked spot outside of the orbit of Pluto where the ships became close to motionless with respect to Sol--there was no way of telling true zero-relative motion and true zero was not important anyway--they were friends.

The ships were rather closer together than they'd anticipated, and it took only a couple of hours of juggling to bring them together. Then the skeleton crew of the one was transferred to the other ship. It drew away--and away and away.

"We've got more radio equipment aboard these crates than the Interplanetary Network owns," grinned Barden. "Everything on the darned crate is controlled and every meter, instrument, and ding-bat aboard her will ship the answer back here. There must be a million radio-controlled synchros aboard these ships, and cameras on both to read every factor."

"That's fine," answered Edith with a smile. "What happens if it works like a charm and takes off at superspeed? How do your radio-controlled gadgets work then?"

"We'd lose the ship, of course, if we didn't have a time clock on the drive. If all goes well, the first drive will run for exactly ten seconds. Then we'll have about a ten-day flight to find it again because it will be a long way from here--straight out!" He smiled. "Of course, if we want to take a small chance, we could turn it on its own primary drive and superspeed it back if all goes well. But the radio controls will be as sluggish as the devil because there should be about a three or four hour transmission delay."

* * * * *

The other ship was a minute speck in the distance. Then a ship-alarm rang and the entire crew came to the alert. Barden said: "This is it!" in a strained voice and he pulled the big switch.

Along the wall was the bank upon bank of synchrometers, reading every possible factor in the controlled ship. Before the panel were trained technicians, each with a desk full of controls. Behind them were the directors with the master controls, and behind them stood Barden and Edith Ward. From holes above peeked the lenses of cameras recording the motions of every technician, and behind the entire group, more cameras pointed at the vast master panel. The recorders took down every sound, and the entire proceeding was synchronized by crystal-controlled clocks running from a primary standard of frequency.

At the starting impulse, the warm-up time pilot lit and the relays clicked as one, like a single, sharp chord of music. When the warm-up period ended the pilot changed from red to green and another bank of relays crashed home with a flowing roar, each tiny click adding to the thunder of thousands of others like it.

"That's the end of the rattle," observed Barden. "From here on in we're running on multi-circuit thyratrons."

The meter panel flashed along its entire length as the myriad of Ready lights went on. The automatic starter began its cycle, and the synchrometers on the vast panel began to indicate. Up climbed the power, storing itself in the vast reservoir bit by bit like the slow, inexorable winding of a mighty clock spring. Up it went, and the meters moved just above the limit of perception, mounting and passing toward the red mark that indicated the critical point.

As slow as their climb was, each meter hit the red mark at the same instant.

There was a murmur of low voices as each technician gave his notes to the recorders. No scribbling here, the voice itself with its inflection, its ejaculation, and its personal opinion under stress would be set down.

Then the master switch went home with a tiny flare of ionized gases--

And silently every panel went dead.

* * * * *

"Oh!" said Edith Ward in a solemn tone.

"Not yet," Barden objected. "This may be success."

"But--?"

"How do you hope to control a radio-controlled drone that is traveling higher than the velocity of propagation?"

"But how will you ever know?"

"When we--"

He was interrupted by the chatter of the radiation counter. Light splashed in through the tiny ports in a brilliant flare.

"Well, we won't," said Barden helplessly.

"Won't what?"

"Ever catch up with it! Not where it's gone!"

"So--?"

"So we've solved that problem," he said bitterly. "Your informant was right. From what the counter says, that was a vicious number. Well, I guess I am licked, finally. I admit it."

"Somehow," said Edith solemnly, "I know I should feel elated. But I am not. Fact of the matter is, I am ashamed that there is a portion of my brain that tells me that I am proven correct. I ... fervently wish it were not so."

"Thanks," he said. "I wish but one thing."

"What?"

"I'd have preferred to have been aboard that crate!"

"Tom!" she said plaintively. "Not--oblivion."

"No," he said with a wistful smile. "At superspeed, my recording instruments could record nothing. Perhaps if I'd been aboard I could have found out what really happened. There is no way."

"But what can we do?"

"Build another one and spend my time trying to find out how to get a recording from a body that isn't really existent in this space at all."

"That sounds impossible."

"Then there is but one answer," he said, "and that is to go out with it and hope that by some machination I can control the reaction before it gets beyond stopping."

"Tom," she said quietly, "you are still convinced that such a thing is possible?"

"I am," he said. And then he stopped as his face filled with wonder.

"What?" she asked, seeing the change.

"Look," he said, his voice rising in excitement. "We caught radiation. Right?"

"Right."

"That means that the ship was not exceeding the velocity of light when it went up!"

"Yes, but--?"

"Then on the instantaneous recorders there must be a complete record of what every instrument _should have been reading_ but did not due to the mechanical inertia of these meters! Right?"

"But suppose--"

"Look, Edith. The theory of the drive is based upon the development of a monopolar magnetic field that incloses space in upon itself like a blister, twisted off from the skin of a toy balloon. Now that field would collapse if the fission started, because the fission is initiated as you claim by magnetostrictive alignment of the planetary orbits of the field-electrons in the atoms. Obviously the magnetostrictive effect is more pronounced near to the center of the monopolar generator. Ergo that would go first, dropping the speed of the ship to below the velocity of light by a considerable amount. Then as the fission continued, spreading outward, the various instruments would go blooey--but not until they'd had ... did you say thirteen microseconds after initiation the major fission took place?"

"Yes."

"Give it twelve microseconds to drop the ship below the speed of light and I have still one full microsecond for recordings!"

* * * * *

Edith Ward looked up in admiration. "And you'll bet your life on what your instruments can see in one millionth of a second?"

"Shucks," he grinned. "Way way back they used microsecond pulses to range aircraft, and they got to the point where a microsecond of time could be accurately split into several million parts of its own. Besides, I made those instruments!"

"Q.E.D." said Edith Ward quietly. "But how are you going to develop a monopolar magnetic field without the magnetostrictive effect? The prime consideration is not the field, but the fact that aligning the planetary orbits means that two things tend to occupy the same place at the same time. That isn't--they tell me--possible."

"Too bad the reverse isn't true," he said.

"You mean the chance of something occupying two places at the same time?"

"Uh-huh."

"What then?"

"Then we could develop two monopolar fields of opposing polarity to inclose the twin-ship proposition. Then the atomic orbits would not be affected since they would receive the bipolar urge."

"Couldn't you change from one to the other very swiftly?"

"Not without passing through zero on the way. Every time we passed through zero we'd end up at sub-speed. The ship would really jack rabbit."

"Oh."

"But," he said thoughtfully, "what happens if the monopolar field is generated upon a true square wave?"

"A true square wave is impractical."

"You mean because at the moment of transition, the wave front must assume, simultaneously, all values between zero and maximum?"

"Yes," she said, "and it is impossible to have any item operating under two values."

"That is an existent item," said Barden with a smile. "Bringing back H. G. Wells' famous point of whether an instantaneous cube could exist."

"This I do not follow."

"Look, Edith," said Tom patiently. "Any true square wave must have a wave front in which the rise is instantaneous, and assuming all values between zero and maximum for the duration of an instant. An instant is the true zero-time, with a time-quantum of nothing--the indivisible line that divides two adjoining events. Just as a true line has no thickness.

"Now," he went on, "generating the monopolar field on a true square wave would flop us from one field to the other in true no-time. At that instant, we would be existing in all values from maximum negative to maximum positive, at the same time at zero--_but not truly assigned a real value_. Therefore we should not stop.

"However," he went on, "that is an impossibility because the true instant of no duration is impossible to achieve with any mechanism, electrical or otherwise. However, the fields set up to make possible this square wave do permit the full realization of the problem. For a practical duration, however small, the value of the wave does actually assume all values from maximum negative to maximum positive!"

She looked at him with puzzlement. "I thought they taught you only this one science," she said.

"That would have been useless," he grinned. "As useless as trying to teach a Hottentot the full science of electronics without giving him the rest of physics as a basis. No, little lady, I got the full curriculum, including a full training in how to think logically! How else?"

"You win," she said solemnly. "Fudge up your true square wave, and I'll buy a ticket back home in your crate!"

"Thanks, Edith," he said. "That's a high compliment. But there's more of us than we-all. I'll have to take a vote."

* * * * *

There was a roar at Barden's explanation. And his head technician stood up, waving for silence. "There's enough lifecraft aboard," he shouted over the noise. "Anybody who wants to get out can take 'em. They can make Terra from here in a couple of months in a lifecraft if they want to."

That got a roar of approval.

"Lucky I had two ships all fitted out," said Tom. "Also, with all this spare junk for radio-controlling the other crate we've got a shipload of spare parts. Probably take about a week flat to tinker it together, but it is far better to do it out here than to go all the way home to Terra--that'd take about four weeks."

"I wonder why they didn't think of that square-wave idea," said Edith.

"Lord only knows."

"That's what bothers me," she said.

"Why?"

"Because we are playing with the other man's cards, remember. We're not leading authorities in this art. You got both the square-wave generator and the monopolar field out of them. Now why hadn't they tried it before?"

"On the theory that no beginner ever has a valid idea? No soap. Maybe they've been too close to the woods to see anything but them trees. Of course, there's another little angle we've not considered."

"Go on. First it was a political difference between factions for and against subjugation. Then I came in and threw in my two cents which sort of hardened the argument a bit. We didn't know whether my stuff was shoved in to stop production or to save Sol. We know now that your informant was telling the truth but not the whole truth. We know that mine was honest but not why he was. Then we came to the possibility that someone somewhere tossed us a fish because they were afraid to try it. Why the stopper on that?"

"Possibly they want us to really try it out and not total destruction."

"But--?"

"Look, Edith. Supposing you wanted to have something developed for you by a consulting laboratory. You've done that yourself at Solar Labs. Wouldn't you give them whatever information you had available?"

She nodded. "Nice explanation," she said solemnly. "Excepting that if I were doing it, I'd not call one man and start him experimenting on one pretext and then call another member of the laboratory and tell him that the information would lead to disaster."

"In other words, the big problem is motive."

"Precisely. And that's what we're up against. Try to figure out the hidden motives of extrasolar cultures."

"You believe there are two?"

Tom Barden nodded. "Uh-huh," he said. "And all the talking we can do from now until we find out won't help because we cannot interpret the thoughts of an alien culture in our own terms and hope to come out right!"

* * * * *

And that, of course, was that. It was definitely true. Reviewing all the evidence during the next ten days, they came up with a startlingly minute amount of fact. Barden had been given a scientific field because of a political argument; Edith Ward had been warned that the information was incomplete and would lead to disaster.

Build upon those slender bricks and they tumble all too quickly. Barden's story could be construed as an attempt to get consulting service on a dangerous project without danger to the alien race. Ward's informant might have been an attempt to give Sol a good chance to solve it in safety, but in solution there would be no proof--or even in failure. For there was no way of telling proof from failure at many light-years of distance unless the failure bloomed the entire system into a nova.

And regardless of any theoretical argument, it was still a technical impossibility to construct any spaceship capable of traversing light-years without some means of super speed. Not without a suitable crew to do a job when it arrived.

Then, to reverse the argument, supposing that Barden's tale was correct. The opposing faction might hope to forestall any work by issuing the warning.

But if Barden's tale were correct, why did the so-called altruists offer him a science that was dangerous to pursue?

Unless, perhaps, the political argument was conquest versus dominance. Both factions wanted conquest and dominance. One demanded the elimination of all races that might offer trouble. The other faction might argue that a completely dead enemy offers no real reward for conquest--for of what use is it to become king when the throne is safe only when all subjects are dead?

Yes, there's Paranoia. The paranoid will either become king of all or king of none--or none will remain to be king including himself. That theory is quite hard on rational people.

So went the arguments, and when the ten days were completed, they were no closer to the truth than they had been before.

Not entirely true, that. For they hoped to drive--somewhere--at a velocity higher than the speed of light.

* * * * *

With a firm hand, Tom Barden pressed the Start button. The relays clicked and the pilot lights flared red, and then after the warm-up period they turned green.

"This is it," he said, grasping the small lever that would start the automatic sequence.

Silence--almost silence came. From one corner came a small muttering and the click of beads. A throat was cleared unnecessarily, for it, like all others, was both dry and clear. A foot shuffled nervously--

"No!" shouted a voice.

Barden looked at Edith Ward. "Still--?" he said.

She nodded and put her hand over his on the lever. "Want me to prove it?" she said, pushing it home.

There was a tinnily musical note that crept up the scale from somewhere in the sub-audible, up through the audible scale and into the shrilling tones that hurt the ear. It was hard to really tell when it passed above the audible, for the imagination followed it for seconds after the ear ceased to function.

There was a creak that rang throughout the ship. A tiny cricket-voice that came once and changed nothing but to increase the feel of tenseness.

Then--nothing pertinent.

Except--

"Great Scott! Look at Sol!"

The already-tiny sun was dwindling visibly; it took less than three or four seconds for Sol's disk to diminish from visible to complete ambiguity against the curtain of the stars.

"We're in!" exploded Barden.

"Hey!" screamed a watcher at the side port. A flare whisked by, illuminating the scene like a photo-flash bulb. A second sun, passed at planetary distance. It joined the starry background behind.

Barden shut off the drive and the tense feeling stopped.

"Well, we're in!" he said in elation. "We're in!"

The scanning room went wild. They gave voice to their feelings in a yell of sheer exuberance and then started pounding one another on the back. Barden chinned himself on a cross-brace and then grabbed Edith Ward about the waist and danced her in a whirling step across the floor. The crew caught up with them; separating them. They piled into Barden, ruffling his hair and rough-housing him until he went off his feet, after which someone produced a blanket and tossed him until the blanket ripped across. Then they carried him to the desk and set him unceremoniously across it, face down, and left him there to catch his breath.

"Like New Year's Eve," he grunted.

The crowd opened to let Edith through. She came toward the desk as Tom unraveled himself and sat on the top. "A fine bunch of wolves," she chuckled gleefully. "Tom, have you ever been kissed by twenty-two men?"

"Wouldn't care for it," he said. "They're not my type. And besides, it's twenty-three." He made the correction himself.

Then things calmed down. They were--as one man put it--"a long way from home!"

"But what I want to know is why we can see the sun when we're going away from it at several times the velocity of light?" demanded Tom.

"Well, your own problem answers your own question," said Edith, patting her hair back into place. "Remember the square-wave problem? Well, in the transition-period, you are simultaneously obtaining all degrees from maximum negative to maximum positive including zero. Zero is where the ship, being out of space-warp, must drop below the speed of light. The sun receding is due to the persistence of vision that lasts between transition periods. Lord only knows how far we travel between each transition."

"We can find out," said Tom. "I'd hoped to develop a velocimeter by using the doppler effect, but that's not possible, I guess. I'd suggest that we find out where we are and then head back for Sol. Might as well get for home and start the real thing cooking."

"What was that sun we passed?"

"I'll not tell you now," said Tom. "One of the nearby stars but I don't know which. We might stop, though, and take a closer look at an alien star from close up."

* * * * *

The ship was turned and the drive was applied until the star expanded into a true sun. At about a billion miles, they stopped to inspect it sketchily. They were not equipped to make any careful observations of stellar data.

They watched it like sightseers viewing Niagara Falls for an hour. There was really nothing to see that could not be taken in at a glance, but the idea of being near to one of the extrasolar systems was gratifying in itself.

Then, as the realization that they could watch that silently blazing star for years without producing anything of interest or value, Barden called a halt to the self-hypnosis and they resumed their stations. The drive was applied again, and they passed the star, picking up speed as they went.

Somewhere ahead was Sol, lost in the starry curtain of the sky. But they were not lost, for they were headed in roughly the right direction and eventually Sol would emerge and stand out before them in plenty of time to correct their course.

The entire group, their period of strain over, stood idly looking out of the ports. There was nothing to see save that star, passing into the background. But their work was finished and they were loafing. It looked like an excellent time to just stand and do nothing. Barden was inspecting the superdrive unit with a paternal smile, noting with some gratification that it was even smaller than the normal driving gear of the ship. Dr. Edith Ward had gone to her room to repair the damage done during the celebration. Jerry Brandt, the manual pilot, was sitting idly, playing a senseless game with the myriad of switches on his disconnected board as the autopilot controlled the ship.

Two of the crew were matching pennies in front of the meter panel, and three more were watching a chess game between two of the others who were using various-shaped radio tubes as men. All was set for a quiet journey home.

Their first alien sun dwindled and was soon lost. Before them, the stars were immobile until one at near center swelled visibly. Jerry Brandt idly kicked his switches into neutral and switched over to manual drive long enough to correct the course; the swelling star and the rest of the sky swiveled about the ship until Sol was on the cross-hairs.

This time there were no days of flight from Terra to beyond-Pluto. Their ship plunged sunward at a dangerous pace, dropping below the speed of light at the tick of an instant at about the orbit of Jupiter. At under the speed of light but far above the normal speeds of spacecraft, the ship headed Terraward, and slowed as it went. The superdrive was turned off a few thousand miles above Terra and the rest of the voyage to the surface of the planet took actually longer than the quick run across interstellar space.

They landed in the huge construction yard at the Barden Laboratories.

A success--

"Yeah," said Tom Barden dryly. "A success. But who did what to whom and why?"

Edith Ward nodded in puzzlement. "You don't suppose it was just some nearby star wanting to observe a nova at close proximity?"

"Seems to me that wouldn't tell 'em anything," said Barden. "That would be a completely artificial nova and lacking of true data. Of course, I'm no astronomer and don't know beans about the subject at all. I admit it. I'd be lost trying to find my way home from out there if I couldn't retrace my steps. I wouldn't recognize Sol from Sirius if I were on Arcturus, and I'd not know how to go about it."

"Spectral lines, and stellar data--" said Edith.

"I have a hunch that whoever--in fact I'm certain--gave me this information was uncertain as to whether I was in the next stellar system or halfway across the universe."

"That would depend upon the range of whatever gadget they used to implant the information--and whether it were beamed. Also, Tom, there's another interesting item. You say there was a mental conversation in your case. That means that the velocity of propagation of that medium is instantaneous! Either that or he was right here on Terra."

"Got me. But if he were right here, why didn't he meet me in person, or make a future date?"

"I pass," said Edith. "I have a fair working knowledge of astrogation. I wonder if it is complete enough for my fellow to have positioned us. On the other hand, mine came strictly as information without chitchat. Like someone handing me a telegram full of data."

Barden considered the problem a moment as the girl went on.

"But my knowledge of astrogation is merely the angular constants of the Marker-Stars and how to recognize them from their constellation-positions. He might be able to set up a model of this hunk of sky and reach the right answer--only if he sought the information, however. I did not give it, and he seemed uninterested--as I say, it was like getting a phonograph record or a radiogram."

They entered Barden's office and as they did, Tim Evans came running in. Barden nodded and said: "Miss Ward, this is Tim Evans, my head mathematical physicist. Tim, this is Dr. Ward."

They acknowledged the introduction, but Tim was excited. "Look, Tom, did it work?"

"We had trouble on Ship One but we fudged Two up and made it sing like an angel." Barden explained sketchily.

"Oh," said Evans, his face falling slightly.

"Why?"

"Because I've been thinking along another line and I've come up with another kind of superdrive. If yours didn't work, this one is certain."

"Yes? Go on."

"No need to," said Evans. "Yours is far more efficient and less bulky. Mine would get you there but it would take up a lot of extra space. Besides, it doesn't offer the chance to see where you're going directly, but only through a new type of celestial globe. Furthermore, it wouldn't move as fast. So, forget it."

"New type of celestial globe?" asked Barden. "We could use it, maybe. We can see out all right, but that's due to the intermittence. The present celestial globe system is an adaptation of the pulse-ranging transmission-time presentation, you know. When you're running above light the globe is useless."

"But look, Tom," objected Edith. "You won't need one at superspeed. You'll not be maneuvering, and if you hit something a few million miles ahead in the globe, you're past it before anything could work anyway."

"Admitted," he said. "But I'd like to have one, anyway. Look, Evans, how does this thing work?"

"On a magneto-gravitic principle. Gravity, I am beginning to understand, is not a matter of wave propagation at all. It is a factor of matter--and it is either there or it isn't."

"I wouldn't know."

"Well, that's the theory. So we utilize an artificial manifestation of gravity, beamed. It also seems that gravitational effects are mutual. In other words, the attraction between Terra and Sol is the combination of mutual attractions. So our beam, increasing the attraction between the object and the beam also causes the increase of the attraction between the beam and the object. For beam read transmitter; I always think of the radiating element as being the beam instead of what I should. Anyway, when the attraction is increased, it affects a detector in the radiating elements. That gives you your indication."

"How about ranging."

"Still a matter of the inverse-square of the distance. We know accurately the attraction-factor of our beam. Whatever reflects will have distance-diminishment which we can measure and use."

"But it is also proportional to the mass, isn't it?" asked Barden.

"It'll take a nice bunch of circuits," grinned Evans, "but we can check the mass with another beam's attraction to it and differentiate. An integrating system will solve for range on the basis of mass and distance. The celestial search and presentation systems will be the same."

"O.K.--how about communications?"

"Sure," said Evans.

"You rig 'em up," said Barden. "And Tim, tell Eddie to refurbish the ship. We're going out again. And I want three or four of the original space drives put aboard as working spares."

"Working spares?" asked Evans.

"Yeah, mount 'em on girder-frameworks complete with atomic units. I'm going to prove the next point."

"What next point?" asked Dr. Edith Ward.

"I want to find out if your informant was telling the truth," said Tom Barden. "Interested?"

* * * * *

Edith shuddered a little. "That's a big responsibility," she said. "You intend to destroy a whole stellar system?"

"I don't know. I'm going to see whether that stuff would actually start an overall sustaining fission-reaction in a planet after the minor fission got under way. If it does, then it is no worse for me to blow up a dead system than it would be for my little informant getting us to blow up ours."

"You sound rather positive about it."

"One or the other," said Barden. "I'm bothered. No matter how you look at it, we ... or I, was like a small child given matches to play with in a nitrocellulose storehouse. Unless you'd come up with yours, I'd have most certainly blown us sky high."

"Right. I think we owe my friends a debt of gratitude."

"I'll agree to that. But for this test, we'll ramble until we find a relatively unimportant star with only one or two planets, devoid of life. Then we'll try it."

"But even with dead system, you're taking a lot upon yourself."

"How?"

"There will, from that time on, be a monument to the memory of Thomas Barden. You'll be the object of argument and of both admiration and hatred. Flag-wavers will either point with pride or view with alarm, depending upon their politics. Why not wait until the thing is discussed?"

"Forever? No, Edith. None of us can afford it. We must know. If this works, Sol has a rather dangerous weapon against any possible conquesting races in the galaxy. Regardless of what has gone before, Sol is in a position to go out and make her mark upon the galaxy. It is best to go prepared, and if we fear nothing, we neither need fear subjugation."

"But destroying a stellar system--"

"Who'll miss it?" he asked.

She looked blank. "I don't know," she said. "It just seems so big. It doesn't seem right that one man should be able to go out and destroy a stellar system. One that has been stable for million upon million of years. Superstition, perhaps," she said thoughtfully. "I'm not a religious woman, Tom. I am not sacrilegious, either. Somehow, somewhere, there must be a God--"

"Who made the universe. With a density of ten to the minus twenty-eighth power and an average temperature of matter about twenty million degrees? For the benefit of Terrans. Well if so, Edith, He is willing to see one of His experiments used to further mankind in his struggle. _Ad astra per aspera_, my dear!"

Edith agreed solemnly but was obviously unconvinced.

"Look," he hastened to add, "if all this was put here for the benefit of Terrans, we're expected to use it. If we are incidental in some grand plan encompassing a billion suns in a thousand galaxies, loss of one sun won't matter."

"I suppose that's logic," she said. "I'd prefer not to talk about it too much. I know it should be done, but it still seems all wrong somehow."

"We've got to know. Remember there's a lot of truth in the whole thing," he said thoughtfully. "And also a lot of untruth. They did tell me the way to interstellar travel--in a slightly slaunchwise fashion. They told you about the disintegration-process. Now, darn it, Edith, did they scare us away from planetary tries because they knew it would damage the system or for another reason? How do we know the thing would ruin a planet and ultimately the system? Answer, we do not."

She nodded glumly. "I suppose that it is a step toward the final solution."

"Right, and as soon as we can get a nice system, we'll try it!"

* * * * *

"This is Procyon," said Tom Barden. "Or so they tell me, I wouldn't know."

The star was a small disk almost dead ahead; its light shone down through the fore dome of the ship augmenting the lights in the observation room.

"Sentiment again," she said. "I'd prefer a system more distant."

"If this has the right kind of planets, Procyon it is," said Barden flatly. "If it has planets unsuited for life, what possible good can it do Terra? Plus the fact that the instability that follows the nova for a few years will act as a nice sign-post toward Terra from all parts of the galaxy. Remember, men will really be spreading out with the new drive."

"Again you're right. But have you no sentiment?"

He looked at her. "Not when it interferes with practicality--"

They were coasting along at half the speed of light, under the superdrive. On all sides were running cameras. One coast across the system with the moving picture cameras covering the sky would bring any planets into ken; the parallax of planetary bodies would show against the fairly constant sky. There was also visual observation for interest's sake.

At the far side, the ship came to a stop with respect to Procyon, and while the films were developing, Jerry Brandt swapped ends and ran the ship nearer the center of the system. Procyon, from one side port, looked about as large as Sol from Terra and it seemed about as bright and warm.

It was here that they met the alien ship. It came from nowhere and passed them slantwise at a terrific velocity. As it passed, a stabbing beam darted once, and the beam-end burst into a coruscation of sheer energy.

"That," blubbered Barden, "was close!"

Jerry Brandt swore thoroughly, and whipped the ship around slightly, cramming on the superdrive but keeping the drivers below the speed of light. He set his switches carefully, and seconds later the alien ship appeared for one brief instant and then was gone. While it was there, eye-visible in the sky, one of the ship's own cutting planes sheared out and sliced the driving tubes from the bottom of the ship.

Then it was gone and Brandt fought the switches, stopping the ship.

"What--was that?"

"We've got a nice way of retaliating," said Barden harshly. "We use the intermittent generator of the superdrive but we stay below the velocity of light. Jerry has calibrated the intermittence and the rep-rate to a nice precision. We appear in true space, slash out, and disappear again to reappear God knows how many miles farther on. Now we'll go back and see whether that bird wants more." He spoke to Jerry: "Take care!"

"Easy she goes," replied Brandt. "Did you see that joker? He tried to ruin us!"

* * * * *

They came up as the inert alien came into view. It stabbed again with that beam but missed. Jerry Brandt swore again and cut the ship from end to end with his cutting plane. This time there was no response save a swirl of smoke from the cleft sides of the ship.

"We've used these to cut asteroids into stove lengths," he told Barden sharply. "I wonder how many of them have been used likewise on some hapless enemy."

"I don't have any way of knowing," said Barden. "And I don't care whether it is a proper weapon to use or not. It worked."

"What are you going to do?" asked Dr. Ward.

He smiled at her. "He didn't like us--apparently for no reason than we were alien. If he'd come in peaceable, we'd have made talky-talk. As it is, he fired first but not too well. Now we'll just grab his ship and see what he's got, who he is, where he's from--and possibly why."

It was a small ship outside, in space. But getting it into the vast cargo-hold of Barden's ship required some more trimming. The alien ship finally lay in eight sections, stacked. The cargo-hold was now jammed with alien ship and much of the spare equipment and supplies were jettisoned.

Then they went in warily to examine the alien. They found the alien crew--four of them. They were spacesuited but unconscious.

"Hope they breathe air at twenty-per cent oxygen," growled Barden. They opened the suits and laid the unconscious aliens on tables in one of the operations rooms.

They were squat and wide, almost humanoid save for large eyeballs under the closed double lids. Their noses were almost nonexistent, and each hand splayed wide with seven stubby fingers. These hands were symmetrical, but despite a thumb on either side, the Terrans doubted that they were more dextrous than Terrans because of their shorter fingers.

Their shoulders were very wide, but also quite thin, indicating a long, unfavorable leverage with less muscle.

"Ugly looking--" started Jerry Brandt, who shut himself off as he remembered Edith Ward.

She looked up at him and flushed. "They are," she said with a slight smile. Brandt blushed with embarrassment and spluttered incoherently for a moment. The pilot might have spluttered for some time had not the foremost alien stirred, causing a diversion.

They crowded him as he awoke and looked about him. His expression was undecipherable, though there was quite a change in facial composure as he saw the kind of white-faced animals that surrounded him. He looked, and then he clutched rapidly at a device on his belt. Barden swung a fist and caught the creature on the forearm, causing him to drop the half-drawn weapon. Brandt stooped over and picked it up, and the rest of the crew proceeded to disarm the other three.

Edith found a length of wire and made a loop of it. She held it in front of the alien.

He relaxed, splaying his hands and holding them wide from his body. Her action had been understood and the creature did not want his hands tied.

"Jerry," said Barden. "Set the controls for superspeed towards anywhere in the universe, and get us away from here."

"Solward?"

"No. He should get as little information as possible."

Jerry left, and the ship soon turned slightly and started off. Barden waved the creature to the port and pointed out Procyon, which was diminishing swiftly. The alien grew excited, and made wondering motions.

"That ... thing ... knows what the score is, partly," observed Edith.

"That ... thing ... had better behave," said Barden flatly. "And while we're wondering about him, I hate to think of him being called a Procyonian."

"Call 'em _Pokeys_," said Tim Evans.

"O.K. Now let's show him his ship."

The alien's excitement changed to dismay as he viewed the wreckage. He looked at it, and then as if wiping it off as finished, he turned away.

There was but one cargo lock in Barden's ship. And though the alien craft had been trimmed, and considerable of it trimmed away and left, it was still packed in with most of the remaining spares. These included the four superdrive motors, mounted on their girders with the atomic units. The alien saw these and went over to inspect them, and Barden let him go.

What possibly could have been familiar they did not know. The chances of an alien gasoline engine being instantly recognizable as such by a Terran is problematical. A simple electric motor might be--especially if connected to a storage battery, or even by a wire cable to a wall outlet. Doubtless, the electron tube would be recognized by a spider-man from the other end of the galaxy, for the handling of electrons must be similar no matter where they are used. There will be cathodes and grids and anodes and connecting prongs, wires, or terminals.

The unprotected superdrive motor was not incased. It had been a job intended for test-stand operation and, therefore, it could be inspected fairly well. Something about it was familiar, and one spot of familiarity was sufficient for the alien to reconstruct the rest.

He nearly exploded with frantic gestures. He ran to Barden--his run was a swift waddle due to the wide leg-base--and clutched Tom's arm. He pointed to the cut-apart spaceship and indicated that he wanted to go up into that pile to find something. Barden shrugged and nodded, and then followed the alien.

* * * * *

It was difficult for Barden, for the alien was sure-footed in his climb up the jagged edges to one section near the middle of the pile. He disappeared inside and found a piece of equipment, which he brought out. He set this upon the floor and returned with other equipment which he added to the original piece. Then taking the whole bunch in his arms, he led them up to the operations room.

Here he put it on a table. Then he opened the main piece and drew out a two-pronged plug which he waved in Barden's face, made plugging gestures into the blank wall, and then made searching motions.

Barden pointed to the nearest convenience outlet, and the creature waddled to it with the rest of his equipment.

He probed into the openings with test-leads and read the results on meters of his own. He showed Barden exactly what the meters should read.

Barden nodded and they set to work matching their line-current to the alien's specifications. It turned out to be one hundred ninety-three volts at seventy cycles. Meanwhile, one of Barden's men replaced the alien's plug with a Terran-type and they inserted it gingerly. The alien put a temple-set over his head and handed one to Barden.

"This," came the thought, "is an instrument used to extract information from enemies. It will serve as a means of communication."

"Why did you fire on us?" thought Barden.

"You are alien. We are at war; in fact have been at war with the devils from that star--" and here came a mixed-impression of a distorted constellation that was not familiar to Barden, who was not too familiar with astronomy anyway, and so he passed it over. He stopped the alien momentarily, to send one of the men to tell Jerry Brandt to return to within a light-year or so of Procyon.

"But," continued the alien, "you are not using--that?"

"Not exactly," said Barden.

"No, for that means death."

"We were going to try it out," was Barden's calm thought.

"On--NO!" came the terrified reply.

"Well," returned Barden, "we're never pleased with red-hots who shoot at us!"

"But an entire system?" came the pleading exclamation.

"Filled with people of the same ilk," returned Barden, unimpressed.

"But even warfare must not be annihilation," objected the alien. "For of what value is a dead enemy?"

"They are no longer any bother." Barden grunted. "We dislike being bothered, and our will happens to be that we want to go wherever we choose at any time we please. A favorable attitude upon the part of any other culture is one that permits us our will. A dead culture will never obstruct us, for one thing. It will never revert to its original attitude of belligerency, for the second thing. And for the third thing, alien, with the interstellar drive we have, we can find those cultures in the galaxy which see exactly as we do, therefore it is to our advantage to eliminate any malcontents right now."

"But what do you intend to do?" demanded the creature.

"My system has been the tool of some other culture. The purpose is not clear, though the outcome might have been quite disastrous. I intend to find both that culture and their reasons and extract full payment!"

"But how--?"

Barden smiled in a hard manner. "I intend to plant one of these unprotected space motors on one of your planets," he said. "That is for my own protection. Then we'll collect one of the enemy, and do likewise with his system. Then you and he will have your little talk--and you'll first call off this war or you'll both be enjoying novas in your own backyards. It's about time that people learned how to get along with one another!"

"But I have little authority."

"_I_ have," smiled Barden in a completely self-satisfied manner. "I have all the authority necessary to demand that your superiors and your scientists meet their contemporaries of your enemy--and peacefully."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"Do you know both languages?"