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

With his hand on the switch, Arcot spoke to the other two. “I won’t say there’s no danger, since we haven’t done this before; and if all the energy should be released at once, it’ll blow the top out of the building. But I’m reasonably sure that it will work safely. Any objections?”

Wade shook his head, and Morey said: “I can’t see any flaws in our work.”

Arcot nodded, and unconsciously tensing, he closed the switch. This put the powerful Arcot oscillator tubes into action, and the power was ready for application.

Slowly he closed the rheostat and put the power into the coil. The little sliver of metal on the slide seemed to throb a bit, and its outline grew hazy; but at last, with full power on, the release was so slow as to be imperceptible.

“Guess we need the magnet after all; I’ll put it on this time.”

He opened the coil circuit and closed the magnet circuit at half voltage, then again he increased the current through the rheostat. This time the plate throbbed quite violently, it took the appearance of a bit of iodine. Dense vapors began pouring from it, and instantly those vapors became a blindingly brilliant flood of light. Arcot had snapped open the switch the moment he saw this display start, and it had had little time to act, for the instant the circuit was opened, it subsided. But even in that brief time, the light aluminum screen had suddenly become limp and slumped down, molten! The room was unbearably hot, and the men were half blinded by the intensity of the light.

“It works!” yelled Wade. “It works! That sure was hot, too⁠—it’s roasting in here.” He flung open a window. “Let’s have some air.”

Arcot and Morey gripped hands with a broad grin. That display meant that Earth and Venus would have space ships with which to fight space ships. Reason enough for their joy.

Though they had made an unusual amount of progress already, there was still a great deal of development work to be done. Fuller was needed, Arcot decided, so he called the elder Morey and requested his services if he could be spared from his present work. He could, and would arrive later that day.

When Fuller appeared about mid-afternoon, he found the three friends already at work on the development of a more compact apparatus than the makeshift hookup used in making that first release mechanism.

“And so you can see,” said Arcot as he finished his summary of their work to that point, “we still have quite a job ahead of us. I’m now trying to find some data for you to work on, but I can tell you this: We’ll need a ship that has plenty of strength and plenty of speed. There will be the usual power plant, of course; the generators, the power-tube board, and the electromagnetic relays for the regular molecular motion controls. Then, in addition, we must have controls for the ray projector, though that must wait a while, for Dad is working on a method of doubling our range⁠ ⁠… Oh yes, the driving units will be inside the ship now, for all our power will come from the energy of the light-matter.”

They spent the next hour in discussing the manifold details involved in the design of their space ship: the mechanism involved in transferring the light-energy to the drivers; a means of warming the ship in interstellar space; a main horizontal drive for forward and backward motion as well as braking; three smaller vertical power units to give them freedom of direction in climb or descent; other smaller horizontal power units for turning and moving sideways.

The ships, they decided, must be capable of six or seven thousand miles a second. They would need three types of ships: a small single-man speedster, without bunk or living quarters, simply a little power plant and weapon. Designed for speed and mobility, it would be very hard to hit, and because of its own offensive power would be dangerous to the enemy. They would need a fleet of mother ships⁠—ships that would hold both the speedsters and their pilots⁠—say thirty to a cruiser. There would also be some ten-man scouts, operating in the same manner as the larger cruisers, but with a smaller fleet of speedsters dependent on them.

“For defense,” Arcot concluded, “we’ll have to depend on armor as heavy as we can make and still remain within the bounds of practical construction. I don’t believe we’ll be able to build up enough mass to insulate against their negative catalysis ray. We’ll have to depend on mobility and offense.

“But now let’s get back to work. I think, Fuller, that you might call in the engineers of all the big aircraft and machine tool manufacturers and fabricators, and have them ready to start work at once when the plans are finally drawn up. You’d better get in touch with the Venerian producers, too. Those new works in Sorthol, Kaxor, will certainly be able to help a lot.

“I suppose the Interplanetary Patrol men will have something to say, so they better be called in. Likewise the Venerian Council. Morey, maybe your dad can handle some of this.”

As one they arose and set to work on their respective tasks⁠—the planning and building of the Earth-Venus war fleet.

Despite their utmost endeavor and the hard work of the industrial might of two worlds, it was nearly six weeks before the fleet had grown to a thing of importance. The tests to which they subjected the tiny speedsters had been more than satisfactory. They behaved wonderfully, shooting about at terrific speed, and with all the acceleration a pilot could stand. These speedsters were literally piloted projectiles, and their amazing mobility made them a powerful arm of offense.

There came into being a special corp dubbed, oddly enough, the “Rocket Squad,” a group of men who could stand plenty of G’s. This “Rocket Squad” was composed solely of Terrestrians,