George O. Smith

“ Ellen nodded slowly. Her dream of untold wealth dimmed somewhat. Yet she knew that supervision of the zonium metal would insure its safety. It had been so with the original fission of uranium and plutonium.
What had been made before could be made again. She would let Jim Forrest destroy it and then set about getting it rebuilt again in the government laboratory. What could any one man do to stop the development of any single phase of science? ”

“ Ellen looked pleading. "Dad discovered zonium," she said. "Dad predicted it and spent six months producing the single crystal we have. Then because of laws, Dad was deprived of the possible benefits of his study and work. Is that fair?"
"Who is to judge fairness?" asked Turner. "It has been the law for seventy years that any product of the uranium piles is the exclusive property of the government. That is because danger might attend any individual experimentation on unknown materials. ”

“ So if she loves you in the first place, why does she break the law you've sworn to uphold? To heck with appearances, Turner. You know in your own mind that if you condone her theft of the crystal you might as well throw that fancy black and gold suit into the converter and join her in a life of—well, she's no criminal save for one breach—petty crime. No doctor ever got along with a medicophobe for a wife. No policeman ever spent a happy married life with a she-pickpocket. ”

“ A stasis existed during all the years of its dust-collecting stay in the laboratory, a stasis that merely was a threat to the future. For destruction must be complete!
"Supposing I merely hurled the thing into space at a velocity high enough to send it, eventually, into the gravitational grasp of some distant star. A nova would result—a nova with the Solar Phoenix gone wild and with a sample of zonium upon which to build uncounted tons of more zonium, which in explosion would be hurled throughout the universe! A chain-fission extending to every star in the universe, given time! ”

“ Jim Forrest paled. He walked over to her and pushed her aside. He took the zonium crystal from the box and hefted it while Ellen looked on in fear that he would destroy it then and there.
"Ellen Haynes," he said solemnly, "this much zonium if hurled into the sun would create a nova!"
"But it is so small."
"Yes, but zonium is a strange metal," he said. "The mass-energy relation is carefully disregarded by zonium. In normal matter, energy equals the mass times the square of the speed of light in centimeters per second." ”

“ I'll lock you in the living-suite below, where you will have all the comforts of a celibate home excepting the means with which to get out. In sixty hours your velocity will be zero with respect to Mars and the warning-radio will hurl out your own personal distress call."
"You're...!" blazed Turner.
"Yes, I know," smiled Forrest. "A criminal. Well, kidnaping a Guardsman is merely adding to my long and checkered career. But you see, Turner, I want that crystal. You can also add theft of an official Guardship to my roster of criminal acts. So, lead the way to the living-suite below." ”

“ The whole roster of natural elements is accepted as being built by offshoots of the Solar Phoenix."
"And zonium?" asked Turner.
"The ability of zonium to withstand the blaster beam," said Forrest, "is due to the fact that zonium is really an element from another universe!"
"Another universe?" exploded Ellen Haynes.
"Right," he said. "A universe which operates differently from our own but which produces elements fundamentally constructed of the standard atomic particles of energy, which are basic. Zonium will not combine chemically with any Terran element. ”

“ Yes, I am planning on fifty million galactic years, with Sol grown cold and dead ere man is united throughout the universe. It must have its chance!"
"But why the penny's worth of plotting?" asked Turner.
"I had to do that which would bring you two together," smiled Forrest. "The silent inert threat of zonium in the laboratory was bad enough but stabilized. I could watch that. Knowing that Ellen Haynes would try to take it eventually, I merely spent my time keeping tabs on the young and attractive lady until she swiped it. ”

“ By this time, Jim Forrest was beside the girl. He chopped down on her arm viciously. She dropped the blaster and he kicked it into the corner. Then, using his weight, he crowded her into the pilot's seat and reached over and slammed on a full five gravities.
"I can take that and move," he told her. "But you can't. Ellen Haynes, we're heading for Ganymede."
"Captain Turner will kill you," she snapped.
"Captain Turner will have to catch me first." He laughed. "And in the meantime perhaps we can come to some agreement."
"I'll never deal with a common criminal," she told him. ”

“ He saw Jim Forrest and Ellen Haynes, busily engaged in working over the cyclotron-target.
He lifted the blaster and said, "Up with 'em!"
They turned and blinked.
Then Forrest smiled.
"Well," he said in amusement. "Now the picture is complete! We have three factions present. One that wants to make zonium work. One who wants to destroy it utterly. One who wants it to sit in a laboratory case and moulder. Now what, Captain Turner?" ”

“ That's what I've been cheated of!"
"They may yet investigate it," said Turner.
"I'd prefer the rewards before I'm a hundred years old," said Ellen.
"Look," said Turner after a moment's thought. "Admittedly the government lab ignored zonium for more important things. The government was not interested in zonium until it was stolen. But consider—this crystal has been stolen by people who have experimental experience.
"The government will wonder just why it is so important that an individual will break interplanetary law to possess it. ”

“ The tiny beam seared the air and drilled a tiny hole in the broad green muzzle-crystal of Turner's blaster. It heated to dull-red almost instantly, and Turner hurled the weapon from him with a shock of unexpected pain. The weapon charred the floor as it landed.
Following the beam as fast as he could Jim Forrest threw his Sunday punch while Turner was still reacting from the burn-shock The flying fist caught Turner on the jaw and the guardsman went down like a pole-axed steer. He came to as Forrest was snapping the Guardsman's own handcuffs on him.
"I'm no murderer," he told Turner. ”

“ Rescue in Space
Not very far behind them, Captain Jack Turner of the Solar Guard was following the little cruiser grimly. When it leaped in acceleration to five gravities, he assumed that they knew he was following them and decided that stealth was no longer necessary.
He crammed his power on, getting a full six gravities out of the Guardship. From time to time he considered the problem that confronted him. His—well, she was not his fiancée, but she meant more to him than the word 'friend' implies—was in possession of material labeled contraband. ”

“ Who or what will attack a Guardship? There is no common enemy loose in the Solar System and we know that there are no extra-solar races capable of any massed attack on Sol's family—so far, anyway. There is an occasional, wild-eyed pirate but he is usually tracked down within a few weeks after he takes his first victim. With zonium armor there could be piracy because a pirate could then laugh at the heavily-armed Guardships. ”

“ To return the zonium crystal to its rightful owner."
Forrest laughed harshly. "Nice sophistry," he said with a sneer. "You'll omit the fact that your definition differs from that of Miss Haynes as to the term 'rightful owner'? She thinks it belongs to her, you know."
"When she returns the crystal," said Turner, "her intent will be shown by act regardless of her statement—or your statements for that matter."
Forrest smiled. "The scales of justice seem to have become unbalanced by the added weight of a lipstick," he said cynically. "I hope you two will be very unhappy together." ”

“ Forrest went on to explain in detail the effects of zonium on the sun. "Zonium came into being by unhappy accident," he said. "Only the furious energy of transmutation can breach the dividing energy-levels between the universes of the Cosmos. It takes place under high magnetic, electric, and optical conditions.
"These effects took place, according to my theory, at a coincidental instant when the element under bombardment was adjacent in space-time with a small crystal of zonium in the other universe. ”

“ But it looks pleasant anyway.
"Zonium," said Forrest, "is a rarity. Do you know where the elements of the universe come from?"
"Do you?" asked Ellen skeptically.
"According to established theory," replied Forrest, "the sun is running due to the so-called Solar Phoenix. Carbon is forced to combine atomically with hydrogen under the pressure-temperature conditions of the sun, releasing a gamma quantum, and producing nitrogen thirteen which is unstable and by ejecting a positron returns to carbon thirteen.
"Carbon thirteen takes on another hydrogen, becoming nitrogen fourteen, which is stable. ”

“ But intrinsic velocity of this nature never harmed a soul and the action as he saw it, was that the ship was stable and he was falling with Terran constants towards the tail.
He waited, counting off the minutes by his watch. The spacecraft dwindled and was finally lost in the distance. Yet he waited, for the first use of his suit-drive would raise a spot on the pilot's celestial sphere, giving warning. ”

“ Throw it into the sun where the radiation-energy output is some four million tons of energy per second and zonium increases its apparent mass by a factor of the cube—one exponential power for each axis accepting and passing radiation—of the mass of the zonium times the factorial expansion of the energy passing through it. ”

“ If he said 'yes' he'd be talking like a hypocrite—if he said 'no' he would almost be admitting that he might have been mistaken in sending the desired crystal out under the supervision of the one who had initially stolen it. His training and loyalty to the Guard made him believe that a man dedicated to the interests of the law was under more compulsion than a mere citizen without an oath. ”

“ Forrest smiled.
"You two people are very much involved," he said. "You are attracted to one another, which is itself good. Yet your viewpoints differed greatly. So long as the zonium existed you could not but let it mar your love. Ellen felt deprived of possible benefits. Jack was a symbol of that which barred Ellen and Ellen was a symbol of that which resented everything that Captain Turner of the Space Guard held honorable.
"It is certain that the future existence of Sol depends upon the destruction of this crystal. ”

“ When it is under the influence of a magnetic field passing through the magnetic axis—an electrical current through the electrical axis—and a beam of light through the optical axis its mass increases according to some exponential function of the energy levels of the radiation that is passing through it. ”

“ He'd welded the switch shut so that opening the auxiliary lock hadn't flipped the warning lamp on the pilot's panel.
Then the masked man stepped out of the airlock into empty space, kicking himself away from the side of the spacecraft. At once he became a separate celestial body, and the motion of the ship with regard to his present status was an acceleration of one gravity, though his velocity was intrinsically that of the spacecraft upon his instant of severance. ”

“ You can go up and back, adding hydrogen, to make every known element.
"The curve of elemental stability peaks across iron. Elements lower than iron are more easily built up and elements above iron are more easily broken down. ”

“ He did not believe that Turner could break out and he thought that if he did, the Guardsman would repair to Mars anyway to get himself a new Guardship. There was little sense in a Guardsman trying to fight an armed Guardship in Jim Forrest's unarmed sports cruiser. ”

“ The kitchen quarters produced a couple of sharp knives, which he employed to some advantage, but their very-long blades left Turner with too little leverage until he broke them off short. Cutting three-sixteenths aluminum alloy panel was no job for a knife. ”

“ The lock was obviously intended to keep out only honest men and the door was of the same manufacture. He took a tiny fountain-pen-sized implement from a loop in his belt and applied the business end to the door. ”