Invaders from the Infinite - John W. Campbell (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📗

has to feed the time continuously. They have no coils like ours. When they advance their time, they’re weakened every other way.

“We need that new ship. Are we going to make it?” demanded Arcot.

“Take weeks at best. What chance?” asked Morey.

“Plenty; watch.” As he spoke, Arcot pulled open the time controls, and spun the ship about. They headed off toward a tiny point of light far beyond. It rushed toward them, grew with the swiftness of an exploding bomb, and was suddenly a great, rough fragment of a planet hanging before them, miles in extent.

“Eros,” explained Wade laconically to Torlos. “Part of an ancient planet that was destroyed before the time of man, or life on Earth. The planet got too near the sun when its orbit was irregular, and old Sol pulled it to pieces. This is one of the pieces. The other asteroids are the rest. All planetary surfaces are made up of great blocks; they aren’t continuous, you know. Like blocks of concrete in a building, they can slide a bit on each other, but friction holds them till they slip with a jar and we have earthquakes. This is one of the planetary blocks. We see Eros from Earth intermittently, for when this thing turns broadside it reflects a lot of light; edge on it does not reflect so much.”

It was a desolate bit of rock. Bare, airless, waterless rock, of enormous extent. It was contorted and twisted, but there were no great cracks in it for it was a single planetary block.

Arcot dropped the ship to the barren surface, and anchored it with an attractive ray at low concentration. There was no gravity of consequence on this bit of rock.

“Come on, get to work. Space suits, and rush all the apparatus out,” snapped Arcot. He was on his feet, the power of the ship in neutral now. Only the attractor was on. In the shortest possible time they got into their suits, and under Arcot’s direction set up the apparatus on the rocky soil as fast as it was brought out. In all, less than fifteen minutes were needed, yet Arcot was hurrying them more and more. Torlos’ tremendous strength helped, even on this gravitationless world, for he could accelerate more quickly with his burdens.

At last it was up for operation. The artificial matter apparatus was operated by cosmic power, and controlled by mental operation, or by mathematical formula as they pleased. Immediately Arcot set to work. A giant hollow cylinder drilled a great hole completely through the thin, curved surface of the ancient planetary block, through twelve miles of solid rock⁠—a cylinder of artificial matter created on a scale possible only to cosmic power. The cylinder, half a mile across, contained a huge plug of matter. Then the artificial matter contracted swiftly, compressing the matter, and simultaneously treating it with the tremendous fields that changed its energy form. In seconds it was a tremendous mass of cosmium.

A second smaller cylinder bored a plug from the rock, and worked on it. A huge mass of relux resulted. Now other artificial matter tools set to work at Arcot’s bidding, and cut pieces from his huge masses of raw materials, and literally, quick as thought, built a great framework of them, anchored in the solid rock of the planetoid.

Then a tremendous plane of matter formed, and neatly bisected the planetoid, two great flat pieces of rock were left where one had been⁠—miles across, miles thick⁠—planetary chips.

On the great framework that had been constructed, four tall shafts of cosmium appeared, and each was a hollow tube, up the center of which ran a huge cable of relux. At the peak of each mile-high shaft was a great globe. Now in the framework below things were materializing as Arcot’s flying thoughts arranged them⁠—great tubes of cosmium with relux element⁠—huge coils of relux conductors, insulated with microscopic but impenetrable layers of cosmium.

Still, for all his swiftness of mind and accuracy of thought, he had to correct two mistakes in all his work. It was nearly an hour before the thing was finished. Then, two hundred feet long, a hundred wide, and fifty in height, the great mechanism was completed, the tall columns rising from four corners of the greater framework that supported it.

Then, into it, Arcot turned the powers of the cosmos. The stars in the airless space wavered and danced as though seen through a thick atmosphere. Tingling power ran through them as it flowed into the tremendous coils. For thirty seconds⁠—then the heavens were as before.

At last Arcot spoke. Through the radio communicators, and through the thought-channels, his ideas came as he took off the headpiece. “It’s done now, and we can rest.” There was a tremendous crash from within the apparatus. The heavens reeled before them, and shifted, then were still, but the stars were changed. The sun shone weirdly, and the stars were altered.

“That is a time shifting apparatus on a slightly larger scale,” replied Arcot to Torlos’ question, “and is designed to give us a chance to work. Come on, let’s sleep. A week here should be a few minutes of Earthtime.”

“You sleep, Arcot. I’ll prepare the materials for you,” suggested Morey. So Arcot and Wade went to sleep, while Morey and the Talsonian and Torlos worked. First Morey bound the Ancient Mariner to the frame of the time apparatus, safely away from the four luminous balls, broadcasters of the time field. Then he shut off the attractive ray, and bound himself in the operator’s seat of the apparatus of the artificial matter machine.

A plane of artificial matter formed, and a stretch of rock rose under its lift as it cleft the rock apart. A great cleared, level space resulted. Other artificial matter enclosed the rock, and the fragments cut free were treated under tremendous pressure. In a few moments a second enormous mass of cosmium was formed.

For three hours Morey worked steadily, building a tremendous reserve of materials. Lux metal he did not