Invaders from the Infinite John W. Campbell (free ebook reader for iphone .txt) 📖

two halves were instantaneously a billion miles apart, and that beautifully exact surface represents the point our space cut across.

“That being decided, the next question is how to fix this poor old wreck.” Morey grinned a bit. “Better, how to get out of here, and down to old Neptune.”

“Fix it!” replied Arcot. “Come on; you get in your space suit, take the portable telectroscope and set it up in space, motionless, in such a position that it views both our ship and the nose of the Thessian machine, will you, Wade? Tune it to⁠—seven-seven-three.” Morey rose with Arcot, and followed him, somewhat mystified, down the passage. At the airlock Wade put on his space suit, and the Ortolian helped him with it. In a moment the other three men appeared bearing the machine. It was practically weightless, though it would fall slowly if left to itself, for the mass of the Ancient Mariner and the front end of the Thessian ship made a considerable attractive field. But it was clumsy, and needed guiding here in the ship.

Wade took it into the airlock, and a moment later into space with him. His hand molecular-driving unit pulling him, he towed the machine into place, and with some difficulty got it practically motionless with respect of the two bodies, which were now lying against each other.

“Turn it a bit, Wade, so that the Ancient Mariner is just in its range,” came Arcot’s thoughts. Wade did so. “Come on back and watch the fun.”

Wade returned. Arcot and the others were busy placing a heavy emergency lead from the storeroom in the place of one of the broken leads. In five minutes they had it fixed where they wanted it.

Into the control room went Arcot, and started the power-room teleview plate. Connected into the system of view plates, the scene was visible now on all the plates in the ship. Well off to one side of the room, prepared for such emergencies, and equipped with individual power storage coils that would run it for several days, the view plate functioned smoothly.

“Now, we are ready,” said Arcot. The Talsonian proved he understood Arcot’s intentions by preceding him to the laboratory.

Arcot had two viewplates operating here. One was covering the scene as shown by the machine outside, and the other showed the power room.

Arcot stepped over to the artificial-matter machine, and worked swiftly on it. In a moment the power from the storage coils of the ship was flowing through the new cable, and into the machine. A huge ring appeared about the nose of the Thessian ship, fitting snugly over it. A terrific wrench⁠—and it was free of the Ancient Mariner. The ring contracted and formed a chunk of the stuff free of the broken nose of the ship.

It was carried over to the wall of the Ancient Mariner, a smaller piece snipped off as before, and carried inside. A piece of perhaps half a ton mass. “I hope they use good stuff,” grinned Arcot. The piece was deposited on the floor of the ship, and a disc formed of artificial matter plugged the hole in its side. Another took a piece of the relux from the broken Thessian ship, pushed it into the hole on the ship. The space about the scene of operation was a crackling inferno of energy breaking down into heat and light. Arcot dematerialized his tremendous tools, and the wall of the Ancient Mariner was neatly patched with relux smoothed over as perfectly as before. A second time, using some of the relux he had brought within the ship, and the inner wall was rebuilt. The job was absolutely perfect, save that now, where there had been lux, there was an outer wall of relux.

The main generator was crumpled up, and torn out. The auxiliary generators would have to carry the load. The great cables were swiftly repaired in the same manner, a perfect cylinder forming about them, and a piece of relux from the store Arcot had sliced from the enemy ship, welding them perfectly under enormous pressure, pressure that made them flow perfectly into one another as heat alone could not.

In less than half an hour the ship was patched up, the power room generally repaired, save for a few minor things that had to be replaced from the stores. The main generator was gone, but that was not an essential. The door was straightened and the job done.

In an hour they were ready to proceed.

XIV Intergalactic Space

“Well, Sirius has retreated a bit,” observed Arcot. The star was indeed several trillions of miles away. Evidently they had not been motionless as they had thought, but the interference of the Thessian ship had thrown their machine off.

“Shall we go back, or go on?” asked Morey.

“The ship works. Why return?” asked Wade. “I vote we go on.”

“Seconded,” added Arcot.

“If they who know most of the ship vote for a continuance of the journey, then assuredly we who know so little can only abide by their judgment. Let us continue,” said Zezdon Afthen gravely.

Space was suddenly black about them. Sirius was gone, all the jewels of the heavens were gone in the black of swift flight. Ten seconds later Arcot lowered the space-control. Black behind them the night of space was pricked by points of light, the infinite multitude of the stars. Before them lay⁠—nothing. The utter emptiness of space between the galaxies.

“Thlek Styrs! What happened?” asked Morey in amazement, his pet Venerian phrase rolling out in his astonishment.

“Tried an experiment, and it was overly successful,” replied Arcot, a worried look on his face. “I tried combining the Thessian high speed time distortion with our high speed space distortion⁠—both on low power. ‘There ain’t no sich animals,’ as the old agriculturist remarked of the giraffe. God knows what speed we hit, but it was plenty. We must be ten thousand light years beyond the galaxy.”

“That’s a fine way to start the