The Black Star Passes John W. Campbell (good novels to read in english TXT) š
- Author: John W. Campbell
Book online Ā«The Black Star Passes John W. Campbell (good novels to read in english TXT) šĀ». Author John W. Campbell
āBut now their original velocity reasserts itself, and having spiraled about each other for who can say how longā āa yearā āa million years seems more probableā ābut still only an instant in the life of a starā āthey begin to draw apart, and the flaming column is stretched out, and ever thinner it grows, and the two stars at last separate. But now the gas will never fall back into the sun. Like some giant flaming cigar it reaches out into space and it will stay thus, for it has been set in rotation about the sun at such a speed as is needed to form an orbit. The giant mass of gas is, however, too cool to continue to develop energy from matter, for it was only the surface of the sun, and cool. As it cools still further, there appear in it definite condensations, and the beginnings of the planets are there. The great filament that stretched from the sun to sun was cigar-shaped, and so the matter is more plentiful toward the center, and larger planets develop. Thus Jupiter and Saturn are far larger than any of the others. The two ends are tapering, thus Earth is larger than Venus, which is larger than Mercury, and Uranus and Neptune are both smaller than Saturn, Pluto being smaller than either.
āMars and the asteroids are hard to explain. Perhaps it is easier to understand when we remember that the planets thus formed must necessarily have been rotating in eccentric orbits when they were first born, and these planets came too near the sun while gaseous, or nearly so, and Mars lost much of its matter, while the other, which now exists only as the asteroids, broke up.
āBut now that other flaming star has retired, wandering on through space. The star has left its traces, for behind it there are planets where none existed before. But remember that it, too, must have planets now.
āAll this happened some 2,000 million years ago.
āBut in order that it might happen, it requires that two stars pass within the relatively short distance of a few billion miles of each other. Space is not overcrowded with matter, you know. The density of the stars has been compared with twenty tennis balls roaming about 8,000-mile sphere that the Earth fills upā ātwenty tennis balls in some 270 billion cubic miles of space. Now imagine two of those tennis ballsā āwith plenty of room to wander inā āpassing within a few yards of each other. The chances are about as good as the chances of two stars passing close enough to make planets.
āNow let us consider another possibility.
āThe Black Star, as I told you, has planets. That means that it must have thus passed close to another star. Now we have it coming close to another sun that has been similarly afflicted. The chances of that happening are inconceivably small. It is one chance in billions that the planets will form. Two stars must pass close to each other, when they have all space to wander about in. Then those afflicted stars separate, and one of them passes close by a new star, which has thus been similarly afflicted with that one chance in billionsā āwell, that is then a chance in billions of billions.
āSo my theory was called impossible. I donāt know but what it is. Besides, I thought of an argument the other men didnāt throw at me. Iām surprised they didnāt, tooā āthe explanation of the strange chemical constitution of these men of a solar system planet would not be so impossible. It is quite possible that they live on a planet revolving about the sun which is, nevertheless, a planet of another star. It is quite conceivable to me that the chemical constitution of Neptune and Pluto will be found to be quite different from that of the rest of our planets. The two filaments drawn out from the suns may not have mingled, though I think they did, but it is quite conceivable that, just before parting, our sun tore one planet, or even two or three, from the other star.
āAnd that would explain these strange beings.
āMy other ideas were accepted. The agreed-on plan for the release of energy, and the source of the power.ā Arcot puffed on his pipe meditatively for several moments, then stood up and stretched.
āHoā āI wish theyād let me go on active duty with the space fleet! A scientific reputation can be an awful handicap at times,ā he grinned. He had been rejected very emphatically when he had tried to enlist. The Interplanetary governments had stated flatly that he was too important as a scientist to be risked as a pilot of a space ship.
On two worlds the great construction plants were humming with activity. Civilian production of all but the barest essentials had been put aside for the duration of the emergency. Space ships were being turned out at top speed, getting their fuel from the wrecks of the invadersā cruisers. Each ship needed only a small amount of the light-metal, for the energy content was tremendous. And those ships had been gigantic.
Already there was a fleet of speedsters and mother ships out there in space, and with every passing hour others left the home planets, always adding to the fighting force that was to engage the attackers deep in space, where no stray ships might filter through to destroy the cities of Earth or Venus. Assembly lines were now turning out ships so rapidly that the training of their operators
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