Empire

“I wish you could see it my way, Manning, he said. There's no place for me on earth. No place for me in the solar system. You see, I tried and failed. I'm just a has-been back there. He laughed quietly. Somehow, I can't imagine myself coming back in the role of the defeated tribal leader, chained to your chariots, so to speak.”

“Man doesn't want to live under scientific government. He doesn't want to be protected against blunders. He wants what he calls freedom. The right to do things he wants to do, even if it means making a damn fool of himself. The right to rise to great heights and tumble to equally low depths. That's human nature. I rule it out. Bet you can't rule out human nature.”

“With the new material-energy engines, life on every planet would be possible now, even easy. The cost of manufacture, mining, shipping, across the vast distances between the planets, would be only a fraction of what it had been when man had been forced to rely upon the unwieldy, expensive accumulator system of supplying life-giving power. Now Mars would have power of her own, even Pluto could generate her own.”

“There would be trips back to the earth for sentimental reasons, to see the place where one's ancestors were born and had lived, to goggle at the monument which marked the point from which the first spaceship had taken off for the moon, to visit old museums and see old cities and breathe the air that men and women had breathed for thousands of years before they found the power to take them anywhere. In the end, earth would be just a worn-out planet.”

“Think of what criminal uses could be made of the tele-transport. No vault, no net of charged wires, nothing could stop a thief from taking anything he wanted. Prisons would cease to be prisons. Criminals could reach in and pick up their friends, no matter how many guards there were. Prisons and bank vaults and national treasuries could be cleaned out in a single day.”

“Simple, said Craven. They were just fields that had more energy packed into a certain portion of space than space could take. Space-fields that had far more than their share of energy, more than they could hold. A super-saturated solution will crystallize almost immediately after the tiniest crystal put into it. Those fields acted the same way. They crystallized instantly into hyperspace the moment they came into contact with other energy.”

“The Revolution was over. Interplanetary officials and army heads had fled to the sanctuary of Earth. Interplanetary was ended, ended for ever, for on every world, including Earth, material energy engines were humming. The people had power to burn, to throw away. Power so cheap that it was practically worthless as a commodity, but invaluable as a way to a new life, a greater life, a fuller life, a broader destiny for the human race.”

“They probably found another G-type star and are heading for that. They must thank its old soul. That sounds like it, said Greg. We spun all over the map to throw Craven off, and looped several times so we'd lose all sense of direction. Naturally, he would be lost. But he's evidently got something, Russ pointed out. We left him marooned, dead centre, out where he didn't have too much radiation, and couldn't get leverage on any single body. Yet he's moving, and getting farther away all the time.”

“Greg rubs his fist indecisively along the desk. I can't do it, Russ. We took them out there, we marooned them. We have to get them back, or I couldn't sleep nights. Russ laughed quietly, watching the bleak face that stared at him. I knew that's what she'd say.”

“A streak of terrible light was striking at them from the Interplanetarian, blinding white light, and along that highway of light swarmed a horde of little green figures, like squirming green amoebas, swarming toward the invincible, stretching out hungry pale green pseudopods towards the inversion barrier, and eating through it. Wherever they touched, holes appeared. They drifted through the inversion screen easily, and began drilling into the inner screen of anti-entropy, eating their way into the anti-entropy, into a state of matter which Russ and Greg had thought would resist all change.”

“You sent the televisor back in time. You got it inside the endoplanetarian, before Craven had run up his screen, and then you brought it forward. You guessed it, said Russ, tamping the tobacco into the bowl. We should have thought of that long ago. We have a time factor there. In fact, the whole thing revolves around time. We move the televisor, we use the teletransport by giving the objects we wish to move an acceleration in time.”

“Stutzman, he said, you have four hours of air. That will give you four hours to think, to make your peace with death. He turned toward the other two. Chambers nodded grimly. Craven said nothing. And now, said Greg to Craven, if you will fasten down his helmet. The helmet clanged shut, shutting out the pleas and threats that came from Stutzman's throat.”

“I'll make it easy for you, Manning, Chambers said. I know that all of us are guilty. Guilty in the eyes of the people and the law. Guilty in your eyes. If we had won, there would have been no penalty. There's never a penalty for the one who wins. Penalty? said Greg, his eyes half-smiling. Why, yes, I think there is. I'm going to order you aboard the Invincible, for something to eat and to get some rest.”

“Manning thinks he can keep us out here, but he's wrong. We'll be in the solar system less than a week after he gets there. Chambers stifled a gasp, tried to speak calmly. You mean this? Of course I mean it. I don't waste my time with foolish jokes. You have the secret of material energy. Not that, the scientist growled. But I have something else as valuable. I have the secret of Manning's drive. I know what it is that enables him to exceed the speed of light, to go ten thousand times as fast as light.”

“Spectroscopic examination. That collector-field of ours gathers energy just like a burning-glass. You've seen a burning-glass, haven't you? He stared at Stutzman, directing the question at him. Stutzman shuffled awkwardly, unhappily. Well, Craven went on, I use that for a telescope. Gathered the light from the suns, and analysed it.”

“The light varied with a periodic irregularity. The chronometers aren't working exactly right out here, so I can't give you any explanation in terms of hours, but I find a number irregularly recurring changes in light intensity and character, and that proves the presence of a number of planetary bodies circling the star. That's the only way one could explain the fluctuations for the G-type star is a steady type.”

“Just a little matter of variation in the alloy, Graven explained, crystallization of the alloy, forming those little prisms and pyramids. As a result, you get a surface thousands of times greater than in the old type. Helps you absorb every bit of the energy.”

“His brain hummed with dreams. Old dreams revived again. Old dreams of conquest and of empire. Dreams of a power that held a solar system in its grip.”

“Stutzman's face twisted into an even more exaggerated grin. This, he said, is mutiny. I'm taking over. He laughed at them. No, you're calling the crew. They're with me. Damn you! shouted Chambers, taking a step forward. He halted as Stutzman jerked the pistol up. Forget it, Chambers, you're just second man from now on.”

“That, said Craven, isn't our sun. It has planets, but it isn't our sun. Chambers stepped quickly to Craven, reached out a hand, and hoisted him from the chair, shook him. You must be joking. That has to be the sun. Craven struggled free from Chambers' clutch, spoke in an even voice. I never joke. We made a mistake, that's all, I hadn't meant to tell you yet.”

“The ship itself was plunging spaceward, streaking like a runaway star for the depths of space beyond the solar system, and behind it, caught tight, gripped, and held, Craven's ship trailed at the end of a tractor-field that bound it to the space-rocketing Invincible. The acceleration compensator, functioning perfectly, had taken up the slack as the ship had plunged from a standing start into a speed that neared the pace of light. But it had never been built to stand such sudden, intense acceleration, and for an instant Russ and Greg seemed to be crushed by a mighty weight that struck at them.”

“Why not let Jupiter help us? he asked. He could be a lot of help. Russ stared for a moment, uncomprehending. Then, with a sob of gladness, he reached out a hand, shoved over a lever. Mirrors of anti-entropy shifted, assumed different angles, and the Invincible sheered off. They were no longer retreating directly from the sun, but at an angle, quartering off across the solar system. Greg grinned. We're falling behind Jupiter now. Letting Jupiter run away from us, as he circles his orbit, following the sun, adds miles per second to our velocity of retreat, even if it doesn't show on the dial.”

“Suddenly the invincible shuddered and seemed to totter in space. As if something, some mighty force, had struck the ship a terrific blow. The needle swung swiftly backward, reached one mile a second, dipped a half a mile. Russ sat bolt upright, holding his breath, his teeth clenched with the death grip upon the pipe-stem. Craven had blasted with everything he had. He had used every trickle of power in the accumulators, all the power he had been storing up. Russ leapt from the chair and raced to the periscopic mirror. Stooping he stared into it. Far back in space, like a silver bauble, swung Craven's ship.”

“Just what was our top speed? he demanded. Russ grinned. Ten thousand times the speed of light, he said. Greg whistled soundlessly. A long way from home. Far away the stars were tiny pinpoints, like little crystals shining by the reflection of a light.”

“No joke, said Greg grimly. I thought you might have guessed. I'm going to leave you here. Leave us here, rode Stuttsman. Keep your shirt on, snapped Greg, just for a while, until we can go back to the solar system and finish a little job we're doing. Then we'll come back and get you.”

“There had been a day when men had maintained one couldn't go faster than light. Also men had claimed that it would be impossible to force nature to give up the secret of material energy. But here they were, speeding along faster than light, their engines roaring with the power of material energy. They were ploughing a new space road, staking out a new path across the deserts of space, pioneering far beyond the last frontier.”

“It was a weird revolution. There were few battles, little blood shed. There seemed to be no secret plots. There were no skulking leaders, no passwords, nothing that in former years had marked rebellion against tyranny. It was a revolution carried out with utter boldness. Secret police were helpless, for it was not a secret revolution.”

“Government propagandists spread the word that the material-energy engines were not safe. Reports were broadcast that on at least two occasions the engines had blown up, killing the men who operated them. But this propaganda failed to gain credence, for in the cities that were in the rebel hands, technicians were at work manufacturing and setting up the material engines. Demonstrations were given. The people saw them, saw what enormous power they developed.”

“He really must have something this time, Ross agreed. He's blanketing out the entire Jovian system. There's a space field of low intensity surrounding all of Jupiter, enclosing all the moons. He keeps shifting the intensity so that, even though we can force our way through his field, the irregular variations make it impossible to line up anything.”

“The mechanical shadow, the little machine that always tells us where Craven is, as long as he's wearing his glasses. He always wears them, said Russ crisply. He's as blind as a bat without them. Greg set the machine down on the table. When we find Craven, we'll find the contraption that's blanketing Jupiter and its moons.”

“He's carrying photocells and several thousand tons of accumulator stacks. Not much power left in them. He could pour a billion horsepower into them for hours and still have room for more. Greg nodded wearily. All we've been doing is feeding him.”

“Craven, said Greg Grimley, he let us have everything he had. He simply drained his accumulator stacks and threw it all into our face. But he's done now. That was his only shot. He'll have to build up power now, and that will take a while. But we couldn't have taken much more.”

“And yet the ten engines bellowed like things insane, as Craven struck with flaming bolts, utilising the power he had absorbed from the fifty billion horsepower Greg had thrown at him. The first screen stopped all material things, the second stopped radiations by refracting them into the fourth dimension, the third shield was akin to the anti-entropy field, which stopped all matter.”