Chapter II: Part 2

Only two and a half hours later a scout came into sight at terrific speed. He must have been doing over two thousand a second, an exceedingly dangerous rate--but his acceleration neutralizer enabled him to slow down safely. He reported that the entire Sirian fleet had risen from Mars, leaving a very few machines behind--this time taking the sphere with them--and had set out for Earth! Earth was on the other side of the Sun--a long two hundred and twenty million miles to go! The Sirians had a lead of three hours. They had as great a speed as the Solarians and would reach Earth before the Solarians. But they would at least be delayed by the two hundred thousand ships--more now, for the steady production would have built the quota up to over six hundred thousand, or a million by the time they could return. The Sirian fleet had been built up to nearly three million though, which could easily crush the fleet of a million, and the second million later--separately. The trip would take them sixty-two hours. Scouts had been sent ahead to Earth at a dangerously high speed to communicate the news, and the entire fleet had increased its speed to a rate that was considerably higher than safety warranted, but a continuous play of Dis rays was considered sufficient safety at fifteen hundred miles a second. The Sirian fleet had been reported to be making thirteen hundred and fifty, so the Solarians should pass them, or meet them, just shy of the Earth, where the other fleet would be waiting. They should have no difficulty to crush the Invaders with the two million ships.

The radio interference was being maintained by a ship anchored somewhere in space. It was no doubt well protected, and to attack it successfully would have meant the loss of a large number of ships, for the time spent in the attack would delay them irreparably. They must continue to Earth.

There were no scouts from the Sirian fleet--yet there should have been, for over a thousand ships had been following them, far behind. None ever reached Earth to warn the fleet. Every one of them was destroyed. But when the Sirian fleet was well on its way--it turned--and headed _for Venus_! They had purposely let that one scout reach the Solarian fleet with the news that the fleet was headed for Earth--then they redirected their course. The scouts from the Solarian fleet did reach Earth--but soon after the last of the scouts following the Sirian fleet had been destroyed, their radio barrage was lifted. All the ships on Venus were concentrated on Earth, and Venus was left unprotected.

Twenty hours after the fleet had turned back, the radio barrage was again lowered over the System. It was ten hours later that the Sirians reached Venus.

While the radio barrage had been lifted, Waterson had had an idea that there should be some protection for the planet. It did not seem that the planet should be completely stripped of its defenses, and he had suggested that at every city great Dis ray machines of the sixty-mile range type be set up. His suggestion was followed, and at every city on Venus the great machines were installed. There were many of them now, for during the hundred hours the main fleet was in flight the new machines had been put on a quantity production basis. But all the ships that were equipped with them, were sent to the defense of the unattacked Earth! And it was those machines that prevented the landing of the Sirians. They came to the night side of the planet, of course, coming from Mars. It would be thirty hours before they would be expected on Earth--thirty hours before the main fleet would reach the planet--and then there would be the 160,000,000-mile trip to Venus if they were to get there in time to rescue the planet.

But the Sirians could not approach within beaming distance of the cities, and all those that did try to do so, were brought down as a cloud of powdery dust. It was Waterson's caution that saved the billions of people on Venus.

But were they to be saved? The Sirians decided they must destroy the works and the people on Venus, so they made one desperate effort. They had at least sixty hours to work in, and now they had a plan that would require time. They retired some hundred miles from the planet, then the entire fleet, torpedo-ships, cargo boats, and the entire body guard of the Sphere lined up, and then switched on powerful attractor beams. Immediately, the combined effect of over three million of these emanations took hold on the planet, and great tides began to rise in its mighty oceans. Many lives were lost in the seaside towns, when the tremendous waves rushed in over the land. But astronomers on the planet and most of the System's scientists were there to watch the Sirians on Mars through their great telescopes. And these astronomers saw what the Sirians intended, and saw that they were well on their way to fulfilling their aim.

* * * * *

A planet is balanced in its orbit about its parent sun with the delicacy of a diamond on a jeweler's scales. But, like the diamond, if it be displaced by some force, it reaches a new state of equilibrium. Thus, if the diamond is further lowered in the scale by adding a small weight, it soon reaches a new point of equilibrium. No conceivable force, therefore, could be great enough to displace the planet in its orbit more than a few million miles by pulling it either in toward the sun, or out from it, and as soon as that force was released, it would spring back to its original position as the diamond would regain its balance on removing the disturbing weight. For the sun pulls on a planet with a titanic force; it draws it in with the apparent force gravity, and another similar, but opposite force, centrifugal force of its revolution in its orbit, is constantly tending to throw it into the depths of space. These are the two forces that are always balanced. Suppose the planet is drawn nearer the sun; it revolves in a smaller orbit--and it revolves in that smaller orbit with a higher speed--for it has fallen in toward the sun; it has gained speed as any falling body would. It has gained speed in the direction of the sun, but this has operated to increase its rotational speed. Thus it has gained a greater centrifugal force--you can see the effect with a bit of chalk on the end of a string. The smaller the circle it swings in, the greater the tendency to fly outward. But as long as we continue the force that was added to draw it in, it will remain in equilibrium. Remove this extra force and at once the planet will fall away from the sun, losing speed as it does so, till it has reached a point where it is once more in equilibrium with the force drawing it inward.

Now reverse the problem. Let us draw it away from the sun. Now the orbit is longer, and it has lost speed in moving from the sun. It cannot stay here, it is not in equilibrium, unless the force that drew it out is maintained. To free the planet from the sun, one would have to lift hundreds of quintillions of tons of rock through billions of miles, against the terrific gravity of the sun. It is too much.

Thus we see that as long as the planet revolves in its orbit, it will never fall, and to pull it away from the sun is impossible as long as it revolves in its orbit. But if it slows down in its flight about the sun it at once has less centrifugal force. It automatically falls toward the sun until it has gained velocity enough to establish a new orbit of equilibrium. If this energy, too, is withdrawn; if it is made to stand still in its orbit; it will fall straight to the sun. It is the only way such a thing might be done. And it would take the energies of matter, and strain that to the utmost, to accomplish it.

This was the plan of the Sirians. Three million ships were dragging like a Titanic brake on the planet as it wheeled in its orbit, and slowly, steadily it was falling into the blazing furnace of the sun. Their ships were not designed for this task, but they could do it in the sixty hours at their disposal. In a short time it would be falling directly toward the sun, but it would take many hours for the seventy-million-mile fall. Even if it were stopped before it reached the sun, any place within twenty million miles would be unbearable.

It was the distressed planet itself that warned the people on Earth and the men of the fleet that the Sirians would never reach Earth, for the radio was still dead. But the fleet turned for Venus at once. They were far to one side of the path to Venus, and they would have to turn, but it would take them thirty, instead of sixty hours to reach Venus. And the other fleet was coming from Earth. They were not quite a million strong, but those machines that had been produced on Venus would come also, and that would bring the total numbers up to over a million, and with the main fleet the number would be well over two million. There were also three hundred of the long range Dis ray ships now, for many more had been produced and Venus would supply an equal number.

* * * * *

We can only admire the wise action of the Commandant of the Venerian fleet, Mals Hotark, in not sending his pitiful fleet of a few thousand out to fight with the Sirians. The members wanted to, the people of Venus wanted him to, but he wisely waited until he saw the fleets of the System approaching. It would have done no good, and lost many lives, and valuable ships to have gone in advance to the attack.

Many people tried to leave Venus, but enough machines were freed of the task of stopping the orbital motion of the planet to patrol the heavens and keep the people from leaving. They beamed thousands of private cars out of existence; it seemed unnecessarily cruel.

The two great fleets were drawing nearer to the planet, converging, and at last they got so close that they could carry on a radio communication by using the terrific power of over two billion kilowatts of energy. The amount of power that Sirian machine was throwing off has been estimated at a minimum of fifty billion kilowatts. We know that enough power could be picked up from a hundred meter aerial on Earth to operate a small, high frequency motor.

When radio communication was established, they agreed to wait until they could join, for the fleet from Earth was two hours ahead of the main fleet. The loss of time was made up for in greater efficiency of action. They would need it all. At last they joined fleets, one mighty disc of two million airships, they flew on through space at a steady rate of five and three-quarter million miles an hour. They arranged themselves in a mighty cone as they came nearer Venus. Already the machines had slowed it down so greatly that the planet was over a million miles out of her orbit, and rapidly adding to this mileage.

But now as the great cone approached, the great ships with the long range Dis rays leading, they were discovered. The cone formation was chosen, for that is the three dimensional equivalent of the two dimensional V that man had used in war on earth for thousands of years.

Now began the greatest battle in the history of the System. Here were two mighty forces slashing at each other with terrific disintegration rays, fighting in the great Void, and five million powerful ships darting around, slashing, stabbing with a death that struck with the quickness of light.

As the great cone of the main fleet attacked from one side, there was a smaller cone attacking the Sirians from the other, but long before the Sirians could bring their rays into effect the long range rays had torn great holes in their ranks. The Sphere had retired with its escort at once, going swiftly to Mars. The main fleet was too busily engaged in fighting the Sirians' main fleet to worry about the Sphere at present.

A dozen times the great spinning sphere formation was tried by the Sirians, but each time a withering blast of the long range Dis ray cut it up as a tool held against a spinning block of wood cuts it down in the lathe. Their strongest formation was useless, and they could no longer outmaneuver the Solarians, the new ships could turn and dart as quickly as they, or even more quickly. The big Dis ray ships were not equipped for fast fighting, so when there were none of the spinning sphere formations to break up, they retired to a safe distance, and waited for any ships that might attack them. Few did. It proved suicidal. But steadily the forces of man were conquering. In a hell of flashing Dis rays, the new ships were proving their worth. The flaming rays had seared the land below for many miles, but the fleet of the Sirians was fast going. The new fast ships of man could dodge the rays of the Sirians, turn and dart on the tail of their attacker, then hang there, the attractor beam giving them an added grip until they could flash the machine into nothingness with the Dis ray. They turned, ducked, darted ahead with terrific speed, suddenly stopped, and then were going full speed again. And another Sirian ship was gone. Now it was the delicate apparatus of the Sirians' ships that suffered; they could not keep up with the sudden turns of this flexible adversary. And their great fleet had been reduced to a scant quarter million, but we had lost nearly a half million ships, five million men, in that Titanic struggle. Such a battle could not last long. It was impossible. Nothing could stand before the Dis rays, and with those turning, darting ships, sooner or later every ship must come under the influence of those rays. But now the last of the torpedo-ships were fleeing into space. But we did not care to have to fight them again--and they too were rayed out of being. They could no longer dart away from us before we could catch them--that was for us now!

But now the fleet returned to a greater task. Venus had been falling toward the sun, and was nearly a million and a quarter miles off and within her orbit. Now a great fleet of cargo carriers from Mars, Venus and Earth came up, and with them came wrecker ships, capable of picking up on their powerful attractor beams an entire million-ton passenger-freight liner--great liners themselves, all equipped with attractor beams. Soon they were all using their power to bring the planet back to its normal speed. It did not take the ships of that mighty fleet, many specially designed for heavy listing and towing, many designed for tremendous loads, very long to bring the planet back to its age-old orbit.

In former days we would have found a world wrecked by panic. But this later generation had learned to trust in the powers of the ships they had, and there had been little of the terrible panic that would have affected the world of a generation ago. Then, too, they knew that with the demonstrated power of the long range Dis rays, they could safely convoy a fleet of the great passenger liners to safety.

What helped also was the fact that the human mind cannot grasp the full significance of the fall into the sun. If you were told that the planet you were on was sinking toward the sun, you would be surprised, horrified, and would probably try to make a bargain-buy on real estate, while the other man sold his to get his money out. You would simply fail to comprehend the magnitude of the catastrophe. It has never happened, and never will, the mind says, and we unconsciously believe it. Your neighbor would joke about it to you. Of course many would leave, but most people would stay till the actual physical heat of the sun drove them off. We are constituted that way.

But now the radio barrier was down, and news from the Martian scouts made men hesitate. The remaining cargo ships had settled on Mars and were even now pouring out their strange crews. But they were not building cargo ships. Every one of the worker machines were kept in action constructing duplicates of themselves as rapidly as possible. Already a great number of them had been made--over seven hundred of the machines it was estimated--and now these were engaged in similar work. The number grew in a steady geometrical series.

But the scouts were driven away by the torpedo-ships. Then there was no news of the operations until nightfall permitted the scouts to creep up and install the usual floating vision machines.

Then at last we understood the reason for this tremendous number of inoffensive worker machines. There was a great seething mass of metal around the workings now. Great blazing lights illuminated the scene as brightly as day. There was a great horde of shining metal machines working swiftly about the great plain. There seemed to be thousands of them now, and they were all busily at work on great machines--the torpedo-ship machines! There must have been nearly a thousand already completed and already the fleet that had escaped had been built up to many thousands by the rapidly working machines, and a steady stream of long glistening shapes rose--only to be lost in the darkness beyond. Steadily the great machines were being put together, and steadily the great fleet was being augmented.

Before morning that fleet had reached two hundred thousand, and was now growing at the rate of twenty-five thousand an hour. Steadily this rate was increasing. The fleet was too large to be attacked by man's weakened fleet, for the delay in putting Venus back in its orbit had given the Sirians a chance to build up an invulnerable fleet. The added time of the trip to Mars meant a still greater fleet. Already their production-rate was far greater than Man's. Man could not hope to compete successfully. We were learning the meaning of quantity production.

Had it been possible to attack them with the long range Dis rays it would have been tried, but the plan was hopeless. Before the fleet could reach them there would be 100,000,000 miles to go to reach them, and it would take approximately twenty hours, in which time, at the present rate of increase, the Sirian fleet would have reached a total of three million again. They would all concentrate their attack on the long range Dis ray ships. No Solarian ships could help without interfering with the action of the Dis ray ships, and they would need help, for each ship carried only two beams. More could not be carried. They would merely be held at bay, unable to attack their goal, useful only in breaking up the spinning sphere formation, but that could be prevented. The Solarians had learned that trick from the Sirians. The Sirians had succeeded in breaking up every spinning column formation by simply getting into the midst of it before it was formed completely. It required perfect coordination of several machines to do it, but it was always done. The long range Dis rays were excellent now in defending a city, but useless for attack because of the terrific weight of the apparatus. They could not attack the Sirian fleet. If they did the production machines would have been so built up by the time they reached the planet that any ordinary rate of destruction would be easily equaled by the production! Within three days it was decided that the Sirian fleet would be built up enough to attack. They would then attack our planets, no doubt.

* * * * *

A cabinet meeting was called at the Waterson laboratories on Earth. There Waterson first demonstrated the weapon that finally conquered in the terrific struggle. Before the members, on the Cabinet table, was a small portable material energy disintegrator, a machine that gave off its energy as light. There was a second machine at the other end of the table, a machine that occupied about two cubic feet of space, and on one side of it was a small switch and a dial; on the other was a familiar looking projector.

Dr. Waterson spoke:

"Gentlemen of the Cabinet: I have here a new machine that my laboratory has developed. I will demonstrate its action first." The light was switched on, throwing a brilliant shaft of light against the ceiling. Then Waterson snapped on the switch of the new machine, and there appeared a strange beam of blueish, ionized air. But unlike any other known ionizing beam, it was shot through with streamers of red fire, long, hair-thin streamers that wavered and flickered in the blue tube of the ionized air. It reached out, touched the light generator, and passed on, through a series of plates of different materials. But the instant that strange beam struck the light-machine, it went out. Then a moment later, when the new machine was turned off, the light snapped back on.

"Gentlemen, this machine will produce a field, directional in this case, that will so modify the properties of space as to make it utterly impossible to disintegrate matter into energy. There is some tendency to fix energy as matter. I think that will be interesting to us in the event that this war is successfully concluded. But at present we are interested in the properties of the beam in that it will stop the disintegration of matter. The process depends on the modification of the properties of space. It is well known that in ordinary space, such as we know, there are twenty coefficients of curvature. In ordinary empty space, ten of these have zero values, and the ten principal coefficients have certain non-zero values. This machine so affects space that it makes all the coefficients of space have non-zero values, and fixes these values to suit its own purposes. The results are amazing. I have done some things with this machine that makes me truly afraid. But we are interested in it because certain of the values we can assign operate to force space to take such curvatures, that any change of the condition of matter to condition of energy is impossible. On release of the ray, the space returns to its normal curvature.

"Working out the theory of this machine has been a tremendous task. Even the great calculating machine, the new integraph developed last year, and it is a far cry from that first one that M.I.T. developed in 1927, required many weeks of work to solve the problem in twenty coefficients of space. In so doing at one stage we had to assume a space of twenty dimensions in order that the correct values in the four true dimensions might be determined.

"But there is still a great deal of work to be done. We must develop practical machines of a range of many miles. There is no difficulty in using the ray, since, as it is a condition of space, not a vibration, it is impossible to stop it by any shield. There is only one way to work with it, to create it directionally. We make the field by projecting certain strains along a beam, then once started the field follows that line to a distance dependent on the strength of the generator.

"But this will require at least five days to get into working form. I suggest that in the meantime Venus makes several million of the long range Dis ray projectors, and distribute them all over the planet, to be turned on from a central station, or by their own separate crews. I have no doubt that the Sirians will attack that planet before we are ready to attack them. Earth, too, must be prepared. But in the meantime we can begin the work on the new de-activating field projectors, as I call them."

Waterson was right. It was three days later that the Sirian fleet left for Venus with a number of torpedo-ships so tremendous, it is absolutely inconceivable. There were over two hundred million of the ten-man machines! When they started to settle about Venus, the sky was so filled with them that it was literally dark for many miles. They attacked at Horacoles the System Capital, but the fields of the great Dis rays were too much for them. Neither bombs nor Dis rays could reach through. The air was dense, and filled with artificial smoke to prevent the transmission of heat rays and great winds were created for the purpose of carrying the heat away; but this was done automatically by the expanding air before long. They could not attack the city. All over the face of the planet were the great Dis ray emplacements. Great ships hung even over the great rolling oceans, sending the blue rays of ionized air up like some column that was to hold the Sirians from the Planet. And they did.

But now again they began to slow down the planet--not gently as they had had to before--but rapidly. The planet would have been pulled to pieces, except that the very attractor beams that were pulling on it tended to relieve the stress. But the cargo ships of Venus were pulling to keep the planet in motion. It was a strange thing to contemplate! Two mighty forces, one a fleet of two hundred million small ships, the other a force of as many thousand huge freight carriers, having a tug-o-war for a planet! But the odds were too great. Slowly the Sirians won. The planet was steadily dropping toward the sun. Now it seemed no fleet could come to aid them, and the Sirian fleet was being augmented constantly by a steady stream of ships from Mars. It was the sixth day after the announcement was made that Waterson had a fleet ready to attack the Sirians. The Venerians also had a fleet ready, prepared by the directions of Waterson's engineers sent by radio-television and radiophone. They were ready to attack, and the Terrestrian fleet arrived at Venus just six days after the announcement of the new weapon.

The practical projector of this new ray had been quite heavy, and they had been mounted in groups of twenty projectors on special hundred-man ships, using the same acceleration neutralizer used on the ten-man ships. They were arranged to throw a wide beam, so wide that the new ships with twenty, could prevent any action in a field of over two hundred miles depth, and in a cone with a base of six hundred miles diameter. The ships they had could approach within a hundred miles of the Sirian fleet, without being seen, for they were painted black therefore and showed no lights. In the darkness of the void they were easily hidden.

* * * * *

The entire expedition went as planned. The radio barrage had not been turned on, and they were in constant communication with the Venerians. The two fleets were to attack simultaneously, over different areas, so that between them they could wipe out so large a number of the enemy ships that the fleet of two million could easily handle the task.

Hidden in the utter dark of the void they crept up on the Sirians. They were in the sunlight, but the black coating kept them invisible, while the Sirian ships shone brilliantly. Then at last the tip of the great cone formation was within easy striking distance of the fleet. There reached out the strange ray, and here in space it was utterly invisible. But suddenly the ships within its range began to waver, to fall together under mutual gravitation. With one swoop they all shot toward the ships in space that had paralyzed them, for the attractor beams had been turned on them. As the great mass of ships fell rapidly toward them, long range Dis rays reached out, and they melted into clouds of shimmering dust. Great swaths were cut through their ranks. A similar scene was taking place far to the left of the Terrestrian fleet where the Venerian fleet was working havoc among the invaders. Now the last of the ships had been rayed into nothingness and a great fleet of the Sirians were rushing forward to attack for the ships invisible on account of their black line had been electrostatically located now. But as the Sirians came within one hundred miles of the other fleets, the ships all ceased to accelerate, to change direction; they just drifted straight into that cone of Dis rays. All walls of the de-activating field were lined with the ten-man ships, their shorter range Dis rays prevented any Sirians from escaping. Bright lights shone out on the Solarian fleet now--they wanted the Sirians to attack. The original cone formation had shifted rapidly; now it was a double cone; then it changed to a quadruple cone. There were six hundred of the de-activator ships and these were arranged so that they shot their rays off in four directions, making four cones of de-activated space, with the fleet of de-activator ships at the apex. Thus they were protected on all sides, and quickly, as the Sirian fleet spread out, more ships rose and there were six cones branching out. In the center rested the main mass of the fleet, the long range Dis ships, their attractors pointing out into the cones to draw the disabled ships of the Sirians into the range of their Dis rays, emanating in thousands from the ships lining the sides of the de-activated cones of space. The fleet was invulnerable and so sudden and complete was the failure of their power in these de-activated regions, that they did not seem to have time to warn their fellows. Many millions of the ships were lost before the wild charge could be checked; then the six-cone formation entire began to move slowly around; the Sirians, waiting to see what was to happen, were caught before they were aware that they were in danger. Many, too, were caught by the powerful attractor beams of the heavy ships within--drawn in by the greater power of the heavy ship, till their power failed. But at last the Sirians had learned the effective range of this new power and tried hard to avoid it. The six-cone formation was immediately broken up, and the six hundred de-activators went out individually, each followed by a swarm of the ten-man ships to disintegrate the ships caught in the de-activating cones. The Terrestrian ships were marked by a blazing blue light, so that if they too were caught in the de-activating field, they were not disintegrated. Only those around them were, and they were then released, as the ray did not seem to have any injurious effects on man, except to give him strange dreams. In some way the brain was stimulated by the ray, as long as the ray was used.

The de-activator ships were completely self-protecting; they could stop any number of attackers from any direction, provided the paralyzed ships were disintegrated as soon as caught, for if too many were piled up, the tendency of the matter to disintegrate in the engines, plus the natural tendency of the space to resume the normal curvature, caused the ray to become ineffective as it was overpowered, and one ship was lost in this way. Too many ships piled up, and only part of them could be rayed out by the ship itself, and there were not a sufficient number of helping ten-man ships. But the mighty fleet of the Sirians was already beaten. They still outnumbered us ten to one, but they could not fight this new force. They began a running fight to Mars, and now the Solarians were united. Rapidly they wiped out the edges of the fleet, and gradually worked in toward the center. But the Sirians could not fight back--they could use only the explosive shells, and few of them reached their goal. They were disintegrated, or missed. Not more than three thousand men were lost in that entire engagement.

But now the Solarians tried a plan to capture the Sphere. A large number of the ten-man ships dropped out of the main fleet, but not enough to make it noticeable to the hard-pressed Sirians. These were joined by one hundred of the de-activator ships. Then these, all capable of higher speeds than the main fleet, set out at the highest speed that could safely be maintained, and darted toward Mars. Undetected they rushed past the Sirian fleet and passed on toward Mars. They reached the planet fully three hours ahead of the main fleet. By the time the main fleet had arrived, it came unattended, for the last of the mighty fleet of two hundred million torpedo-ships had been turned to impalpable dust, floating in space.

The advance guard arrived without warning, and as they had expected, found the Sphere resting on the ground, protected by a great fleet of the torpedo-ships. There were nearly a million ships there, with the great machines rapidly making more. However, all were grouped in an area that could be covered by the cone of the de-activating beam. And out in space, the ship commanders decided on a plan. Fifty of the de-activator fleet took positions high above the Sirians, and the rest went with the entire fleet of the ten-man ships. These were to approach the camp from the ground. Lying close to the ground, they would be hard to see in the disappearing light. At a fixed moment, all the ships above were to turn on their de-activator rays, which would be plainly visible in the Martian atmosphere, while the ground fleet of fifty de-activators were to use their rays from the side. The ten-man ships were to form a circle around the camp at a safe distance from the de-activator rays, for they would crash when their power failed, if they were caught by the de-activator rays. But they wanted to capture the sphere in good condition, so they arranged to have the space directly above it unaffected by the de-activator field, lest some torpedo fall on it and destroy it. This would leave an exit for the torpedo-ships, except that at a point a mile or so above the Sphere, a cross-ray made escape impossible.

The rays were turned on. Instantly the fleet of nearly a million torpedo-ships fell wildly out of control, down through the blue glowing air, in which great streamers of glowing red seemed to waver and twist. Just outside the curtain of destruction waited the entire Solarian fleet. Slowly they closed in till their Dis rays swept all the ships within sixty miles of the edge out of existence; then rapidly the de-activator beams were forced ever sharper and sharper, till at last only the Sphere and a few hundred of the torpedo-ships, several hundred of the torpedo-ship constructors, and the corresponding cargo ships and worker machines were left. These had been saved for investigation by the scientists, for they were helpless.

But the war was over now. The Sirians had been destroyed, or reduced to mere museum pieces. Now the Scientists came to investigate the Sphere. There was much we wanted to learn from the creatures of the Sphere. But it was a strange story that the Sirian sphere had to tell.

* * * * *

Aeons ago there lived on a great planet of Sirius a race of intelligent men, shaped as we are, but smaller due to the greater gravity of their planet. And these men had developed a high civilization, a civilization different from ours, in that they learned early about mechanics, but chemistry and physics merely developed from the needs of the great mechanical engineers. Electricity was used as a powerful aid in their machines, and in their processes; it was a by-product, not an end.

Gradually their machines eliminated more and more of their work; they became more and more complicated, but more and more trustworthy. Men began to experiment with physics and found that their calculating machines needed development. It was easy to add first one step, then the next. More and more the machines could do. The mathematics became more and more complicated, and the machines developed the equations, found they could not handle them and passed them out as unfinished results. Finally one man used the machines to calculate the design of a machine that would be able to do these new equations. He built it, but the calculations were wrong. The machine had correctly solved his problem, but he had stated it wrong. It resulted in a machine that would solve only simple problems, but it did something no other machine had ever done. Given irrelevant data it would choose the correct facts and solve the problem. It was a step, a short step toward a machine that really thought.

Progress thereafter was rapid. The machines built machines, had been doing it for decades in fact, but now they did one thing more--they designed them. Now the problem could describe the type of machine needed, and the worker machine would design it, and turn out the completed machine! But these machines were rapidly perfecting the beginning that man had made. Within a decade after that first discovery of the principles of mechanical thought the machine was made that could not only solve problems, but could also originate them. They had developed a brain. It was a great machine, which occupied an entire building, with its massive framework bolted down to the ground.

Man began a rapid decline, for the machines did all his work. With the construction of a machine that could originate a problem, man made a mistake. He had created a machine that was more powerful than he, except that it was immobile. And this machine originated a new machine, a machine that would release the energy of matter! It had developed this because it had been able to see that such energy existed. Man's machines could have solved it long ago, but the problem had never been stated. Now came a machine that could state its own problems--and solve them.

And with this new energy it designed a new brain-machine. A brain machine such as no man's brain could conceive--a machine that could move! For it was powered by the energy of matter, and could move as no other machine had ever moved before--out into space!

Still the machines worked for the Sirian man, and he learned of the new discovery, and began to design a new brain-machine.

Some of the Sirians realized the danger that was facing them, and they had continued long researches on man's brain, and at last had discovered the secret of giving a machine that emotion we call devotion, loyalty, or gratitude. And they built a great machine on that principle and used material energy to power it. It was a success. It could think original thoughts. It pointed out the danger of the existing machines--they were stronger than man. It was only man's mobility and ability to control all mobile machines that had made him superior, for a brain without a tool, or body is helpless. And now that was lost. The existing brain-machines should be destroyed, and new ones built, using the principles that it was designed on.

But the mischief was done. The new brain-machine, designed by a machine, had done it. A machine had been built that was controlled by thoughts, a machine that could be controlled by the machines. Each of these machines was given a small brain, equipped with televisor sight and hearing, and it was powered by material energy. They could run for years without outside care, for the thinking machinery they had was sufficient to keep them oiled, and to make them seek repairs when they were damaged. They were susceptible to thought forces, and did as the thought waves suggested and reported to the control brain exactly what was going on about it.

And now this new brain developed a space-flyer to carry these machines, and man could not help knowing, for its every thought was recorded, for man's use. Then one day this record was found destroyed. The next day the brain-machine had left the planet, and taken with it the new space-flyer and the new telepathically controlled machines.

To the outermost planet of the System of Sirius the great machine fled. For years it remained there waiting, thinking. Then at last it called its worker machines into action. A new machine grew up from the stores of metal that the space ship had brought with it, at last the metal was used up, and the machine was not completed, so the space-flyer was sacrificed for the completion of the machine. The new machine was started. From its lip-like spout there poured a steady smooth stream of molten metal, and the rock on which it rested was eaten away. The first transmuting metal producer was made.

Decades passed, and only a small percentage of man developed. The rest sank deeper and deeper into a life of ease. The planets were all explored by the hardy ones, and no trace of the brain-machine was ever found, for it had discovered the Dis ray, and sunk deep into the ground, hollowing a great cave to live and work in.

* * * * *

But back on that planet, the scientists had developed machines that surpassed it in power, and finally one of these picked up a thought message from that distant machine that told its story. It was a thought that had not been consciously radiated, only the marvelous sensitivity of this new machine could have detected it, but now the men knew. It was too late to do much to prevent it, for they had no weapons. But the machine did. It was preparing to drive man from the planets, to rule there in his stead, with a population of machines!

The scientists quickly built a great space-flyer, a gigantic machine of over ten miles diameter, a huge sphere. And in that they established laboratories, workshops, machines, and living quarters. They took with them the finest men and women of their race, and sailed out into space, taking an orbit about the sun of Sirius. They were comfortable there in an equitable temperature, their ship lighted by the sun on one side, and dark on the other, steadily revolving on its axis like a miniature world. The foods of the people were chemically prepared, for the brain-machines had taught them how. The air was repurified constantly by machines that regulated the percentage of the gases to the thousandth of one per cent. But the entire ship was painted black. It could not be discovered floating there in space, so tiny in the vastness of a system!

It was two weeks after they sailed that the machine-brain attacked. It sailed out of its hiding place with thousands of great ships, armed with Dis rays and with explosives, with heat rays and attractor beams. The population of those worlds was wiped out in a week, and the rule of the Metal Horde began.

The original brain built other brain-machines to direct its affairs on other planets, and to do the work it did not wish to do itself.

For nearly a century those men lived in space, making swift forays on a planet with a fleet of cargo ships, that revolved about the main ship like satellites when they were not being used. In these trips they would bring back tons of rock, and leave most of it stored in the ships, dumping them into the reservoir of the parent ship when it was needed.

Then a swift ship was developed. A ship that could start and stop more quickly than any made before--a ship with acceleration neutralizers. But the machine brains of the Metal Horde never learned the secret. With a small fleet of these, the men drove an attack at the unprotected main brain-machine. There were no men known to live in the system. No other known machine could move without the knowledge of that main machine, but these could. They too had the Dis ray now, and they destroyed the main brain-machine. They were lost in the ensuing fight, but that machine was destroyed.

All the remaining machines were equally powerful. Any one of them could have built a brain-machine that could easily conquer the others--but it too would have to bow to its creator. They fought it out. The men had known this would be the result.

It was a war such as the system had never before seen. Each force was equal, and could not ally itself with any other, for the machines could not lie or state other than their thoughts, and each wanted supreme power. They developed new weapons, weapons whose strength lay in their number. One by one the machine brains had gone down to defeat, the men of that ship helping to disturb the balance of forces by ever so little, yet always enough to throw one side down to defeat, yet always remaining in hiding. At last there remained but one machine-brain, and its weakened force necessitated its return to the devastated planet. With the destruction of the other brain-machines, the remaining machines that they had previously controlled, automatically obeyed the new master as perfectly as they did the old.

They returned to find a new fleet awaiting them. But it was not a vast fleet such as they had encountered before. At once the torpedo-ship machines settled to the ground and began turning out their weapons. But it was all over before they could enter as an important factor. These ships had a new weapon. It was a ball of glowing blue light that was driven along a beam of some vibration, and as it touched any ship, the ship instantly volatized so suddenly as to constitute an explosion. The balls of light lasted about a minute and a half each, but were replaced as quickly as they were used. When they were finally used, they would die down to a dull red glow, then suddenly wink out. They could be swept from one ship to another, taking toll of ten or twelve ships each, and the beam that guided them could drive them with the speed of light and supply an infinite acceleration. They were glowing balls of concentrated energy of some sort, and as such could travel with the speed of light.

But they were effective to the _nth_ degree. The entire fleet of that one remaining brain-machine would have been lost, but it retired into space, racing away at top speed, out into space, with the remaining remnant of its great fleet.

And sixteen hundred years it had raced across space, to be destroyed at last by another race of men. The battle was over, and the machine awaited its destruction.

We rayed it out of existence. It was too great a menace to keep.

Some people still do not believe that those Sirians were truly machines. They can not believe that a machine can have intelligence, but certainly Waterson's calculating machine has intelligence of a sort. And they ask, what would a machine want to exist for? It would have no aim, nothing to perform. Why should it want to live, or exist?

We might ask what it is human beings want to live for. If there is an after-life, it is certainly not that that we live for. I am sure no man wants to die. Yet what aim have we? What function must we perform? Why should we wish to live? Our life is a constant struggle, the machines, at least, had eliminated that. There seems to me no reason why a machine should want to live, but certainly it has less reason to pass out of existence than we have!

That war was destructive--terribly so. But it has brought its compensations. More than fifteen million human beings lost their lives in that great struggle, either in the battles in space, or caught in the Dis rays during that battle on Venus.

But those fifteen millions have died a painless death, and twenty billions live because of their sacrifice. And it was not a vain sacrifice. We have learned much in return. No machines man ever made equaled the machines we captured there on Mars. And man will never experiment on the lines of the machine-brain. He has been warned. The brain-machine we captured was destroyed without investigation. The machines we use, the wonderful worker machines, have been modified to permit of radio control.

And Stephen Waterson's discovery of the de-activating field not only helps in law enforcement, but makes war with material energy impossible. No, in all, we have lost little.

Mars lost its cities, its forests, its ancient civilization. New cities are being built on the modern plan, larger, finer, more beautiful; the forests are being replaced; but the records, the relics of a civilization have been lost forever. In that we have lost much. Though all moveable things were moved when the warning came, there was much that could not be moved. The great palace of Horlak San was destroyed, but it is being rebuilt in the exact spot, in exactly the same manner. It is a worth-while project, but there is much which cannot be restored.

It will be eleven more years before we will know whether we can ever communicate with the Sirian men. The speed of light is too low for rapid communication, and as the first signals were sent out in September, 1961, and it is now September, 1968, the signals are not due to reach Sirius for two years more. Then it will be 1979 before we can hope to receive their reply. I often wonder if they will ever get those signals. I can remember distinctly the recoil of the great projector as the mighty surges of light flashed out across the universe. It seemed like some great gun--the back pressure of the light was so great. And what will those replies tell us? It is interesting to speculate on that subject.

The End