Islands of Space - John W. Campbell (pdf to ebook reader TXT) 📗

are more easily beaten off. They are forced to live off our commerce while they are here. Before we invented the magnetic storage device, they were forced to get fuel from our ships in order to make the return journey; they could not carry enough for the round trip.”

Suddenly his smile broadened, and he pointed out the forward window. “Our city is behind that next range of mountains!”

They were flying at a height of twenty miles, and the range Torlos indicated was far off in the blue distance, almost below the horizon. As they approached them, the mountains seemed to change slowly as their perspective shifted. They seemed to crawl about on one another like living things, growing larger and changing from blue to blue-green, and then to a rich, verdant emerald.

Soon the ship was rocketing smoothly over them. Ahead and below, in the rocky gorge of the mountains, lay a great cone city, the largest the Earthmen had yet seen. As they approached, they could see another cone behind it⁠—the city was a double cone! They resembled the circus tents of two centuries earlier, connected by a ridge.

“Ah⁠—home!” smiled Torlos. “See⁠—that twin cone idea is new. It was not thus when I left it, years ago. It is growing, growing⁠—and in that new section! See? They have bright colors on all the buildings! And already they are digging foundations out to the left for a third cone!” He was so excited that it was difficult for Arcot to read his thoughts coherently.

“But we won’t have to build more fortifications,” Torlos continued, “if you will give us the secret of the rays you use!

“But, Arcot, you must hide in the hills now; drop down and deposit me in the hills. I will walk to the city on foot.

“I will be able to identify myself, and I will soon be inside the city, telling the Supreme Three that I have salvation and peace for them!”

“I have a better idea,” Arcot told him. “It will save you a long walk. We’ll make the ship invisible, and take you close to the city. You can drop, say ten feet from the ship to the ground, and continue from there. Will that be all right?”

Torlos agreed that it would.

Invisible, the Ancient Mariner dove down toward the city, stopping only a few hundred feet from the base of the magnetic wall, near one of the gigantic beam stations.

“I will come out in a one-man flier, slowly, and at low altitude, toward that mountain there,” Torlos told Arcot, pointing. “Then you may become visible and follow me into the city.

“You need fear no treachery from my people,” he assured them. Then, smiling: “As if you need fear treachery from the hands of any people! You have certainly proven your ability to defend yourselves!

“Even if my people were treacherously inclined, they would certainly have been convinced by your escape from the Satorians. And they have undoubtedly heard all about it by now through the secret radios of our spies. After all, I was not the only Nansalian spy there, and some of the others must surely have escaped in the ships that ran away after I destroyed the city.” Arcot could feel the sadness in his mind as he thought of the fact that his inadvertent destruction of the city had undoubtedly killed some of his own people.

Torlos paused a moment, then asked: “Is there any message you wish me to give the Supreme Council of Three?”

“Yes,” replied Arcot. “Repeat to them the offer we so foolishly made to the Commanding One of Sator. We will give them the molecular ray which tore the city out of the ground, and, as your people have seen, also tore a mountain down. We will give them our heat beam, which will melt anything except the material of which this ship is made. And we will give them the knowledge to make this material, too.

“Best of all, we will give them the secret of the most terrific energy source known to mankind; the energy of matter itself. With these in your hands, Sator will soon be peaceful.

“In return, we ask only two things. They will cost you almost nothing, but they are invaluable to us. We have lost our way. In the vastness of space, we can no longer locate our own galaxy. But our own Island Universe has features which could be distinguished on an astronomical plate, and we have taken photographs of it which your astronomers can compare with their own to help us find our way back.

“In addition, we need more fuel⁠—lead wire. Our space control drive does not use up energy except in the presence of a strong gravitational field; most of it is drained back into our storage coils, with very little loss. But we have used it several times near a large sun, and the power drainage goes up exponentially. We would not have enough to get back home if we happened to run into any more trouble on the way.”

Arcot paused a moment, considering. “Those two things are all we really need, but we would like to take back more, if your Council is willing. We would like samples of your books and photographs and other artifacts of your civilization to take back home to our own people.

“That, and peace, are all we ask.”

Torlos nodded. “The things you ask, I am sure the Council will readily agree to. It seems little enough payment for the things you intend to do for us.”

“Very well, then. We will wait for you. Good luck!”

Torlos turned and jumped out of the airlock. The ship rose high above him as he suddenly became visible on the plain below. He was running toward the city in great leaps of twenty feet⁠—graceful, easy leaps that showed his tremendous power.

Suddenly, a ship was darting down from the city toward him. As it curved down, Torlos stopped and made certain signals with his arms, then he stood quietly with his hands