Part 5

"Whew--Dave, they almost got us that time! That was a stunt I had never thought of--though I can see how it is done. They have tremendously powerful alternating current magnets on each of those ships. This car is non-magnetic, but a conductor, so there are induced in it powerful currents. You notice how hot it has grown in here--you can scarcely breathe--they induced terrific currents in our outer as well as in our inner shell. The result was that we were repelled from the powerful magnets. They were placed at the corners of a cube, so the only place that we could stay in equilibrium was in the exact center. When I tried to escape, I had to go nearer one of the poles, and the repelling force became greater. Then the ships on the far side shut off their magnets, so that they no longer repelled me--and I started to fall back--but I was able to pull out. The terrific acceleration I got just after leaving the cube was due to the repulsion of their magnets. You see it was very sizable! Had I had atomic energy only, I would never have gotten out of that field of force. I can, because of my material energy, escape every time. See--they are going to try again--let them--when they get close, we can turn on the disintegration ray and pick off the top ships. Then the bottom ships!"

Again the "Terrestrian" was held in that titanic field of force--that field was so great that all magnetic compasses all over the Earth were deflected, and the currents induced in the telephone lines, telegraph lines, power transformers and all other apparatus were so great that many lines in the vicinity were melted. The cube contracted to a mile dimension before the glowing, iridescent ray of death reached out to dissolve that first ship--then a second--a third--a fourth--and the Martians were in the wildest confusion--the cathode rays prevented the "Terrestrian's" bombs from striking, but it also made their own projectiles useless. They had been sent to conquer this new planet for their race--and they were failing. They could not rush that tiny ship--for the deadly disintegration ray would only destroy the ship before they had had a chance to crash into the "Terrestrian." It seemed hopeless, but they tried once more.

Now from every side the ships of the Martians came at their tiny opponent, mighty hurtling hulks of hundreds of thousands of tons--it seemed they must get that tiny ship--there seemed no opening. The three damaged ships had joined in this last attempt--and as the seven gargantuan ships charged down at the "Terrestrian," there sprang from it again the pale beam of disintegration--and one of the four remaining undamaged ships ceased to exist. The gap was closed--another ship was gone--and a third flashed into nothingness as the tiny opponent swung that deadly beam--then it was free--and turning to meet the four remaining Martians.

But now they turned--and started up--up--up. They were leaving Earth! And now, as the blazing sun sank below the far horizon of distant purple hills, one faltered, the burning violet spheres went dark, and it plunged faster and faster into the darkness below--down from the glowing light of the ruddy sun into the deep shadow far below--down to the shadow of Death--for the damaged generators had failed. And as that last great ship crashed on the far sands, the violet globes of light of the others were dying in the rare air far from Earth. The Martians had come, had seen and had been conquered!

"Steve--they are going--we have won. This planet is ours now--man has proven it. But they may bring reinforcements--are you going to let them go?"

"No, Dave, I have one more thing I want to do. I want to give an object lesson."

The tiny ship set off in the wake of the defeated giants--faster and faster. It was overhauling them--and at last it did--just beyond the orbit of the Moon. The undamaged ship was leading the train of four ships as they went back. Their world must have been watching--must have seen that battle--must have known. And now they were returning.

* * * * *

As the tiny ship came up to them the Martians turned at bay it seemed--and waited. Then from the tiny ship before them there came a new ray--invisible here in space--but a ray that caught and pulled the great ship it touched--the undamaged ship. In an instant it was falling toward the "Terrestrian"--then its great cathode tubes were turned on--invisible here in space also. Now it stopped, started away--but greater and greater became the force on it. It was a colossal tug of war! The giant seemed an easy victor--but the giant had the forces of atoms--and the smaller had the energy of matter to drive against it. It was a battle of Titanic forces, with space itself the battleground, and the great ship of the Martians was pulling, not against the small ship, but against space itself, for the equalizing space distorting apparatus took all tension from the "Terrestrian" itself. The great cathode ray tubes were working at full power now, yet still, inexorably, the Martian was following the "Terrestrian!" Faster they were going now--accelerating--despite the mighty cathode rays of the Martians!

Of that awful trip through space and the terrible moments we had in the depths of space, you know. At times it seemed we must annihilate our giant prisoner, but always Waterson's skilful dodging avoided the bull rushes of the Martian. He would strain back with all available tubes, then suddenly turn all his force the other way--try to crash into us. It was a terrible trip--but toward the end he had decided to follow--and came smoothly. The strain of expecting some treachery kept us in suspense. Two weeks that long trip to Venus took. Two of the most awful weeks of my life. But two weeks in which I learned to marvel at that ship--learned to wonder at the terrific and constantly changing tugs it received--terrific yanks to avoid the hurtling tons of the Martian. I thought it must surely weaken under that continued strain, but it held. We had to get whatever sleep we could in the chairs. No food could be cooked, the sudden jerks threw us in all directions when we least expected it--but at last we reached the hot, steaming planet. Glad I was to see it, too!

The "Terrestrian" left its giant prisoner there, and as it rose through the hot, moist air it rose in a blaze of glowing color, for every available projector on its tiny surface had been turned on as a light projector--it was a beautiful salute as we left, red, blue, orange, green--every color of the spectrum blazed as a great, glowing finger of colored light in the misty air.

It took us but three days to return--Waterson admitted he went at a rate that was really unsafe--he had to put in another charge in the fuel distributer--water--and it held nearly a pint, too.

When at last we reached Arizona again, Wright was there to greet us--and so were delegates of every nation. It was supposed to be a welcoming committee, but every one of the delegates had something to say about why the secret of material energy should really be given to his country.

Waterson refused to give out the secret of that energy though. He demanded that the nations scrap every instrument of war, and then meet in the first Terrestrial Congress and write laws that might apply material energy to the ends of man, not to the ending of man!

It seems strange, the persistence with which the governments of the world held fast to those old battleships and guns! They were hopelessly useless now, yet they would not agree to that term of the agreement! It required Waterson's famous ultimatum to bring action.

"To the Governments of the Earth:

"For centuries and millenniums man has had wars. One reason has been that he has had the tools of war. The tools of war are going to be abolished now. Every armored cruiser, battleship, destroyer, submarine, aircraft carrier and all other types of war craft will be taken to the nearest port, and every gun, cannon or other weapon of more than one mile range loaded on those ships. They will then be taken to the nearest ocean, and sunk in water of a depth of at least one mile.

"In the first place the weapons would be useless. The ship I now have, has shown that. There will be no economic loss as the type of power they use is now obsolete. The iron and other materials they contain can be produced directly by new methods that are simpler than salvaging that metal. They are, however, curiosities that the future will be interested in. The navy department of Japan will select the finest ship of each type from each of the navies of any other country, and I will then transport that ship to a selected spot well toward the center of the Sahara desert where they will be set up as museums of naval history.

"This is to be done within seven days, or the 'Terrestrian' will do it more completely. It must be done for the good of our race, and at last there is a power that can get it done--the 'Terrestrian!'"

Needless to say, it was done. We all know the result. No armies meant no national spirit--no race jealousies can exist unless there is some one to stir them up, and now it is to the benefit of no one to do so!

The laws that made possible the application of Waterson's new energies are well known--and this manuscript is not the place for quotation of international and interplanetary law. It was a great problem, and we must acknowledge the aid of the Martians in solving it. Their experience in the application of atomic energy was immensely valuable. The light beam communication that Waterson made possible has done as much for us as have the energies he released.

And the peace that exists between these two races must always exist, for they are the only neighbors Earth can ever have. And they did not damage us much. We still feel a bit of dread of them I suppose, but statistics have shown that the trouble man himself caused in his wild panics did far more damage than did the Martian heat rays.

May God help these twin races, so close both in bodily form and place of birth, to climb on in friendly rivalry toward better things through the æons, as long as our sun can yet support life on the globes that wheel around it, migrating from planet to planet as the race grows, and the planets cool, settling on them as the Martians have settled on Venus.

And thanks to Stephen Waterson's foresight and vision in establishing the Supreme Council of Solar System Scientists, we dare hope this may come true.

The End