The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell (read e book .txt) 📕

comes the little gang I asked to help us. You can direct them.” Arcot paused and scowled with annoyance. “Hang it all⁠—when they drill into the outer wall, we’ll lose the vacuum between the two walls, and all that hot air will come in. This place will be roasting in a short time. We have the molecular motion coolers, but I’m afraid they won’t be much good. Can’t use the generator⁠—it’s cut off from the main room by vacuum wall.

“I think we’d better charge up the gas tanks and the batteries as soon as this is done. Then tonight we’ll attack the Kaxorian construction camp. I’ve just learned that no spy reports have been coming in, and I’m afraid they’ll spring a surprise.”

Somewhat later came the sound of drills, then the whistling roar as the air sucked into the vacuum, told the men inside that the work was under way. It soon became uncomfortably hot as, the vacuum destroyed, the heat came in through all sides. It was more than the little molecular coolers could handle, and the temperature soon rose to about a hundred and fifteen. It was not as bad as the Venerian atmosphere, for the air seemed exceedingly dry, and the men found it possible to get along without cooling suits, if they did not work. Since there was little they could do, they simply relaxed.

It was nearly dark before the Lanorians had finished their work, and the gas tanks had been recharged. All that time Arcot had spent with Tonlos determining the position of the Kaxorian construction camp. Spy reports and old maps had helped, but it was impossible to do very accurate work by these means.

It was finally decided that the Kaxorian construction camp was about 10,500 miles to the southwest. The Solarite was to start an hour after dark. Travelling westward at their speed, they hoped to reach the camp just after nightfall.

VIII

The Solarite sped swiftly toward the southwest. The sky slowly grew lighter as the miles flashed beneath them. They were catching up with the sun. As they saw the rolling ocean beneath them give way to low plains, they realized they were over Kaxorian land. The Solarite was flying very high, and as they showed no lights, and were not using the invisibility apparatus, they were practically undetectable. Suddenly they saw the lights of a mighty city looming far off to the east.

“It’s Kanor. Pass well to the west of it. That’s their capital. We’re on course.” Arcot spoke from his position at the projector, telling Wade the directions to follow on his course to the berth of the giant planes.

The city dropped far behind them in moments, followed by another, and another. At length, veering southward into the dusk, they entered a region of low hills, age-old folds in the crust of the planet, rounded by untold millennia of torrential rains.

“Easy, Wade. We are near now.” Mile after mile they flashed ahead at about a thousand miles an hour⁠—then suddenly they saw far off to the east a vast glow that reached into the sky, painting itself on the eternal clouds miles above.

“There it is, Wade. Go high, and take it easy!”

Swiftly the Solarite climbed, hovering at last on the very rim of the cloud blanket, an invisible mote in a sea of gray mist. Below them they saw a tremendous field carved, it seemed, out of the ancient hills. From this height all sense of proportion was lost. It seemed but an ordinary field, with eighteen ordinary airplanes resting on it. One of these now was moving, and in a moment it rose into the air! But there seemed to be no men on all the great field. They were invisibly small from this height.

Abruptly Arcot gave a great shout. “That’s their surprise! They’re ready far ahead of the time we expected! If all that armada gets in the air, we’re done! Down, Wade, to within a few hundred feet of the ground, and close to the field!”

The Solarite flashed down in a power dive⁠—down with a sickening lurch. A sudden tremendous weight seemed to crush them as the ship was brought out of the dive not more than two hundred feet from the ground. Close to blacking out, Wade nevertheless shot it in as close to the field as he dared. Anxiously he called to Arcot, who answered with a brief “Okay!” The planes loomed gigantic now, their true proportions showing clearly against the brilliant light of the field. A tremendous wave of sound burst from the loudspeaker as the planes rolled across the ground to leap gracefully into the air⁠—half a million tons of metal!

From the Solarite there darted a pale beam of ghostly light, faintly gray, tinged with red and green⁠—the ionized air of the beam. It moved in a swift half circle. In an instant the whirr of the hundreds, thousands of giant propellers was drowned in a terrific roar of air. Great snowflakes fell from the air before them; it was white with the solidified water vapor. Then came a titanic roar and the planet itself seemed to shake! A crash, a snapping and rending as a mighty fountain of soil and rock cascaded skyward, and with it, twisting, turning, hurled in a dozen directions at once, twelve titanic ships reeled drunkenly into the air!

For a barely perceptible interval there was an oppressive silence as the ray was shut off. Then a bedlam of deafening sound burst forth anew, a mighty deluge of unbearable noise as the millions of tons of pulverized rock, humus and metal fell back. Some of it had ascended for miles; it settled amid a howling blizzard⁠—snow that melted as it touched the madly churned airfield.

High above there were ten planes flying about uncertainly. Suddenly one of these turned, heading for the ground far below, its wings screaming their protest as the motors roared, ever faster, with the gravity of the