The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell Jr

Author:John W. Campbell, Jr.
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-06-27T03:33:15.673109+00:00

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VII

Slowly they cruised back to Sonor, Arcot still engrossed in thought. Would it be that Venus would fall before the attack of the mighty planes, that they would sweep out across space, to Earth--to Mars--to other worlds, a cosmic menace? Would the mighty machines soon be circling Earth? Guided missiles with atomic warheads could combat them, perhaps, as could the molecular motion machines. Perhaps these could be armored with twenty-inch steel walls, and driven into the great propellers, or at miles a second, into the ship itself! But these ships would require long hours, days, even weeks to build, and in that time the Kaxorian fleet would be ready. It would attack Earth within six days now! What hope was there to avert incalculable destruction--if not outright defeat?

In despair Arcot turned and strode quickly down the long hallway of the Solarite. Above him he could hear the smooth, even hum of the sweetly functioning generator, but it only reminded him of the vastly greater energies he had seen controlled that night. The thudding relays in the power room, as Wade maneuvered the ship, seemed some diminutive mockery of the giant relays he had seen in the power room of the Kaxorian plane.

He sat down in the power room, looking at the stacked apparatus, neatly arranged, as it must be, to get all this apparatus in this small space. Then at last he began to think more calmly. He concentrated on the greatest forces known to man--and there were only two that even occurred to him as great! One was the vast energies he had that very night learned of; the other was the force of the molecules, the force that drove his ship.

He had had no time to work out the mathematics of the light compression, mathematics that he now knew would give results. There remained only the molecular motion. What could he do with it that he had not done?

He drew out a small black notebook. In it were symbols, formulas, and page after page of the intricate calculus that had ended finally in the harnessing of this great force that was even now carrying him smoothly along.

Half an hour later he was still busy--covering page after page with swiftly written formulas. Before him was a great table of multiple integers, the only one like it known to exist in the System, for the multiple calculus was an invention of Arcot's. At last he found the expression he wanted, and carefully he checked his work, excitedly though now, with an expression of eager hope--it seemed logical--it seemed correct--

"Morey--oh, Morey," he called, holding his enthusiasm in check, "if you can come here--I want you to check some math for me. I've done it--and I want to see if you get the same result independently!" Morey was a more careful mathematician than he, and it was to him Arcot turned for verification of any new discovery.

Following the general directions Arcot gave him, Morey went through the long series of calculations--and arrived at the same results.

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