Chapter 26: Man, Creator and Destroyer

“What we must find,” said Arcot, between contented puffs, for he had slept well, and his breakfast had been good, “is some weapon which will attack them, but won’t attack us. The question is, what is it? And I think, I think--I know.” His eyes were dreamy, his thoughts so cryptically abbreviated that not even Morey could follow them.

“Fine--what is it?” asked Morey after vainly striving to deduce some sense from the formulas that were chasing through Arcot’s thoughts. Here and there he recognized them: Einstein’s energy formula, Planck’s quantum formulas, Nitsu Thansi’s electron interference formulas, Stebkowfski’s proton interference, Williamson’s electric field, and his own formulas appeared, and others so abbreviated he could not recognize them.

“Do you remember what Dad said about the way the Thessians made the giant forts out in space--hauled matter from the moon and transformed it to lux and relux. Remember, I said then I thought it might be a ray--but found it wasn’t what I thought? I want to to use the ray I was thinking of. The only question in my mind is--what is going to happen to us when I use it?”

“What’s the ray?”

“Why is it, Morey, that an electron falls through the different quantum energy levels, falls successively lower and lower till it reaches its ‘lowest energy level, ‘ and can radiate no more. Why can’t it fill another step, and reach the proton? Why has it no more quanta to release? We know that electrons tend to fall always to lower energy level orbits. Why do they stop?”

“And,” said Morey, his own eyes dreamily bright now, “what would happen if it did? If it fell all the way?”

“I cannot follow your thoughts, Earthmen, beyond a glimpse of an explosion. And it seems it is Thett that is exploding, and that Thett is exploding itself. Can you explain?” asked Stel Felso Theu.

“Perhaps--you know that electrons in their planetary orbits, so called, tend to fall away to orbits of lower energy, till they reach the lowest energy orbit, and remain fixed till more energy comes and is absorbed, driving them out again. Now we want to know why they don’t fall lower, fall all the way? As a matter of fact, thanks to some work I did last year with disintegrating lead, we do know. And thanks to the absolute stability of artificial matter, we can handle such a condition.

“The thing we are interested in is this: Artificial matter has no tendency to radiate, its electrons have no tendency to fall into the proton, for the matter is created, and remains as it was created. But natural matter does have a tendency to let the electron fall into the proton. A force, the ‘lowest energy wall, ‘ over which no electron can jump, caused by the enormous space distorting of the proton’s mass and electrical attraction, prevents it. What we want to do is to remove that force, iron it out. Requires inconceivable power to do so in a mass the size of Thett-but then--!

“And here’s what will happen: Our wall of protonic material won’t be affected by it in the least, because it has no tendency to collapse, as has normal matter, but Thett, beyond the wall, has that tendency, and the ray will release the energy of every planetary electron on Thett, and every planetary electron will take with it the energy of one proton. And it will take about one one-hundred-millionth of a second. Thett will disappear in one instantaneous flash of radiation, radiation in the high cosmics!

“Here’s the trouble: Thett represents a mass as great as our sun. And our sun can throw off energy at the present rate of one sol for a period of some ten million million years, three and a half million tons of matter a second for ten million years. If all of that went up in one one-hundred-millionth of a second, how many sols?” asked Morey.

“Too many, is all I can say. Even this ship couldn’t maintain its walls of energy against that!” declared Stel Felso Theu, awed by the thought.

“But that same power would be backing this ship, and helping it to support its wall. We would operate from--half a million miles.”

“We will. If we are destroyed--so is Thett, and all the worlds of Thett. Let that flood of energy get loose, and everything within a dozen light years will be destroyed. We will have to warn the Venonians, that their people on nearby worlds may escape in the time before the energy reaches them,” said Arcot slowly.

The Thought started toward one of the nearer suns, and as it went, Arcot and Morey were busy with the calculators. They finished their work, and started back from that world, having given their message of warning, with the artificial matter constructors. When they reached Thett, less than a quarter of an hour of Thessian time had passed. But, before they reached Thett, Arcot’s viewplates were blinded for an instant as a terrific flood of energy struck the artificial matter protectors, and caused them to flame into defense. Thett’s satellite was sending its message of instantaneous destruction. That terrific ray had reached it, touched it, and left it a shattered, glowing ball of hydrogen.

“There won’t be even that left when we get through with Thett!” said Arcot grimly. The apparatus was finished, and once more they were over the now fiery-red lava sea that had been mountains. The fort was still in action. Arcot had cut a sheet of sheer energy now, and as the triple-ray struck it, he knew what would happen. It did. The triple-ray shunted off at an angle of forty-five degrees in the energy field, and spread instantly to a diffused beam of blackness. Arcot’s molecular reached out. The lava was instantly black, and mountains of ice were forming over the struggling defenses of the fort. The molecular screen was working.

“I’d like to know how they make tubes that’ll stand that, Morey,” said Arcot, pointing to an instrument that read .01 millisols. “They have tubes now, that would have wiped us out in minutes, seconds before this.”

The triple-ray snapped off. They were realigning it to hit the ship now, correcting for the shield. Arcot threw out his protonic shield, and retreated to half a million miles, as he had said.