Chapter 2

“It would remove more than that. Remember the explosion in our
laboratory, that blew an entire mountain into impalpable dust? Draw in
your mind a nice, vivid picture of one ten times the size in each of our
plants and in this building. I know that you are fool enough to go ahead
with your own ideas, in spite of everything I’ve said; and, since I do
not yet actually control Steel, I can’t forbid you to, officially. But
you should know that I know what I’m talking about, and I say again that
you’re going to make an utter fool of yourself; just because you won’t
believe anything possible that hasn’t been done every day for a hundred
years. I wish that I could make you understand that Seaton and Crane
have got something that we haven’t—but for the good of our plants, and
incidentally for your own, you must remember one thing, anyway; for if
you forget it we won’t have a plant left and you personally will be
blown into atoms. Whatever you start, kill Seaton first, and be
absolutely certain that he is definitely, completely, finally, and
totally dead before you touch one of Dorothy Seaton’s red hairs. As long
as you only attack him personally he won’t do anything but kill every
man you send against him. If you touch her while he’s still alive,
though—Blooie!” and the saturnine scientist waved both hands in an
expressive pantomime of wholesale destruction.

“Probably you are right in that,” Brookings paled slightly. “Yes, Seaton
would do just that. We shall be very careful, until after we succeed in
removing him.”

“Don’t worry—you won’t succeed. I shall attend to that detail myself,
as soon as I get back. Seaton and Crane and their families, the
directors and employees of their plants, the banks that by any
possibility may harbor their notes or solutions—in short, every person
and every thing standing between me and a monopoly of ‘x’—all shall
disappear.”

“That is a terrible program, Doctor. Wouldn’t the late Perkins’ plan of
an abduction, such as I have in mind, be better, safer, and quicker?”

“Yes—except for the fact that it will not work. I’ve talked until I’m
blue in the face—I’ve proved to you over and over that you can’t abduct
her now without first killing him, and that you can’t even touch him. My
plan is the only one that will work. Seaton isn’t the only one who
learned anything—I learned a lot myself. I learned one thing in
particular. Only four other inhabitants of either Earth or Osnome ever
had even an inkling of it, and they died, with their brains
disintegrated beyond reading. That thing is my ace in the hole. I’m
going after it. When I get it, and not until then, I’ll be ready to take
the offensive.”

“You intend starting open war upon your return?”

“The war started when I tried to pick off the women with my attractor.
That is why I am leaving at midnight. He always goes to bed at
eleven-thirty, and I will be out of range of his object-compass before
he wakes up. Seaton and I understand each other perfectly. We both know
that the next time we meet one of us is going to be resolved into his
component ultra-microscopic constituents. He doesn’t know that he’s
going to be the one, but I do. My final word to you is to lay off—if
you don’t, you and your ‘competent authorities’ are going to learn a
lot.”

“You do not care to inform me more fully as to your destination or your
plans?”

“I do not. Goodbye.”

C H A P T E R 2

Dunark Visits Earth

Martin Crane reclined in a massive chair, the fingers of his right hand
lightly touching those of his left, listening attentively. Richard
Seaton strode up and down the room before his friend, his unruly brown
hair on end, speaking savagely between teeth clenched upon the stem of
his reeking, battered briar; brandishing a sheaf of papers.

“Mart, we’re stuck—stopped dead. If my head wasn’t made of solid blue
mush I’d’ve had a way figured out of this thing before now, but I can’t.
With that zone of force the _Skylark_ would have everything
imaginable—without it, we’re exactly where we were before. That zone is
immense, man—terrific—its possibilities are unthinkable—and I’m so
damned dumb that I can’t find out how to use it intelligently—can’t use
it at all, for that matter. By its very nature it is impenetrable to any
form of matter, however applied; and this calc here,” shaking the sheaf
of papers viciously, “shows that it must also be opaque to any wave
whatever, propagated through air or through ether, clear down to cosmic
rays. Behind it we would be blind and helpless, so we can’t use it at
all. It drives me frantic! Think of a barrier of pure force, impalpable,
immaterial, and exerted along a geometrical surface of no thickness
whatever—and yet actual enough to stop a radiation that travels a
hundred million light-years and then goes through twenty-seven feet of
solid lead just like it was so much vacuum! That’s what we’re up
against! However, I’m going to try out that model, Mart, right now.
Let’s go!”

“You are getting idiotic again, Dick,” Crane rejoined calmly, without
moving. “You know, even better than I do, that you are playing with the
most concentrated essence of energy that the world has ever seen. That
zone of force probably can be generated . . .”

“Probably, nothing!” barked Seaton. “It’s just as evident a fact as that
stool,” kicking the unoffending bit of furniture half-way across the
room as he spoke. “If you’d’ve let me I’d’ve shown it to you yesterday.”

“Undoubtedly, then. Grant that it is impenetrable to all matter and to
all known wave-lengths. Suppose that it should prove impenetrable also
to gravitation and to magnetism? Those phenomena probably depend upon
the ether, but we know nothing fundamental of their nature, nor of that
of the ether. Therefore your calculations, comprehensive though they
are, cannot predict the effect upon them of your zone of force. Suppose
that that zone actually does set up a barrier in the ether, so that it
nullifies gravitation, magnetism, and all allied phenomena; so that the
power bars, the attractors and repellors, cannot work through it? Then
what? As well as showing me the zone of force, you might well have shown
me yourself flying off into space, unable to use your power and helpless
if you released the zone. No, we must know more of the fundamentals
before you try even a small-scale experiment.”