Jr. John W. Campbell

“ And in almost the exact center, they saw a looming mass of buildings—a great city!
"Look!" cried Morey. "I told you it was inhabited!"
Arcot winced. "Yes, but if you shout in my ear like that again, you'll have to write things out for me for ever after." He was just as excited as Morey, nevertheless.
The great mass of the city was shaped like a titanic cone that stood half mile high and was fully a mile and a half in radius. But the remarkable thing about it was the perfect uniformity with which the buildings and every structure seemed to conform to this plan. ”

“ Out in space, a star is a hard, brilliant, dimensionless point of light. But a nebula glows with a faint mistiness; they are so far away that they never have any bright glow, such as stars have, but they are so vast, their dimensions so great, that even across millions of light years of space they appear as tiny glowing discs with faint, indistinct edges. As the men looked out of the clear lux metal windows, they saw the tiny blur of light on the soft black curtain of space. ”

“ It's too gigantic to grasp; we can't imagine the things that the ever-expanding mind of man will discover."
Arcot's voice slowed, and a far-off look came in his eyes.
"You might say there can be no greater energy than that of matter annihilation. I doubt that. I have seen hints of something new—an energy so vast—so transcendently tremendous—that it frightens me. The energies of all the mighty suns of all the galaxies—of the whole cosmos—in the hand of man! The energy of a billion billion billion suns! And every sun pouring out its energy at the rate of quintillions of horsepower every instant! ”

“ Arcot thought. "They have learned that no body can go faster than the speed of light—is that not so?"
"Yes. Such, they say, is the fact. To have made this trip, you must, of necessity, be not less than twenty million years old!"
"Tell them that there are some things they do not yet know about space. The velocity of light is a thing that is fixed by the nature of space, right?"
Torlos consulted with the scientists again, then turned back to Arcot. "They agree that they do not know all the secrets of the Universe, but they agree that the speed of light is fixed by the nature of space." ”

“ Feel that heat," said Arcot in awe. "We'd better watch ourselves; that thing is giving off plenty of ultraviolet. We could end up with third-degree sunburns if we're not careful." Suddenly he stopped and looked around in surprise. "Hey! Morey! I thought you said this was a double star! Look over there! That's no white dwarf—it's a planet!"
"Ridiculous!" snapped Morey. "It's impossible for a planet to be in equilibrium about a double star! But—" He paused, bewildered. "But it is a planet! But—but it can't be! We've made too many measurements on this star to make it possible!" ”

“ Arcot led Torlos through the main engine room, and was going into the main coil room when Torlos stopped him.
"Is this all your drive apparatus?" he thought.
"Yes, it is," Arcot projected.
"It is smaller than the power equipment of a small private machine!" His thoughts radiated surprise. "How could you make so great a distance?"
"Power," said Arcot. "Look!" He drew his molecular ray pistol. "This alone is powerful enough to destroy all your battle fleet without any danger on our part. And, despite your strength, you are helpless against me!"
Arcot touched a switch on his belt and vanished. ”

“ As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. ”

“ Torlos seemed to be relaxing in the soft, warm sunlight of his native world. It had been years since he had seen that yellow sun except from the windows of a space flier. Now he could walk around in the clear air of the planet of his birth.
Arcot explained to him the precautions they had taken against trouble here, and Torlos smiled. "You have certainly learned greater caution. I can't blame you. We certainly seem little different from the men of Sator; we can only stand on trial. But I know you will be safe." ”

“ Arcot watched the dull red spark of Sirius become increasingly dimmer. Then, quite suddenly, a pale violet disc in front of them ballooned out of nowhere and slid off to one side.
The spaceship reeled, perking the men around in the control seats. Heavy safety relays thudded dully; the instruments flickered under a suddenly rising surge of power—then they were calm again. Arcot had snapped over the power switch.
"That," he said quietly, "is not so good."
"Threw the gyroscopes, didn't it?" asked Morey, his voice equally as quiet. ”

“ What chance had man, or the works of man against such? What mattered a tiny planet when those rays could hurl one mighty sun into another, to blaze up in an awful conflagration that would light up space for a million light years around with a mighty glare of light! ”

“ It's rather like traveling in time."
"If that's so," asked Fuller, suddenly worried, "what is our time in relation to Earth?"
"If we moved by the space-strain drive at all times," Arcot explained, "we would return at exactly the same time we left. Time is passing normally on Earth as it is with us right now, but whenever we use the space-strain, we move instantaneously from one point to another as far as Earth and the rest of the universe is concerned. It seems to take time to us because we are within the influence of the field. ”

“ They soon thawed out the frozen gasses by playing the energy of three powerful searchlights upon them, and in a few minutes the glint of gold showed through the melting ice and show.
"It looks," said Wade, "as though they have an outer wall of gold over a strong wall of iron or steel to protect it from corrosion. Certainly gold doesn't have enough tensile strength to hold itself up under this gravity—not in such masses as that."
Arcot brought the ship down beside the tower and the men once more went out through the airlock into the cold of the almost airless world. ”

“ There were no pillars, only a vast, smooth floor.
"They had good architecture," said Morey. "No pillars under all the vast load of that building."
"And the load is even greater under this gravity," remarked Arcot.
In the center of the room was a great, golden bronze globe resting on a platform of marble. It must have been new when this world froze, for there was no sign of corrosion or oxidation. The men flew over to it and stood beside it, looking at the great sphere, nearly fifteen feet in diameter.
"A globe of their world," said Fuller, looking at it with interest. ”

“ Hundreds of years ago, on Nansal, there had lived a wise and brilliant teacher named Norus. He had developed an ideal, a philosophy of life, a code of ethics. He had taught the principles of nobility without arrogance, pride without stubbornness, and humility without servility.
About him had gathered a group of men who began to develop and spread his ideals. As the new philosophy spread across the planet, more and more Nansalians adopted it and began to raise their children according to its tenets.
But no philosophy, however workable, however noble, can hope to convert everyone. ”

“ We are ten million light years apart, but the universe is not to be measured in space anymore, but in time. We are five days apart. I will be nearer to you at all times than is Sator!
"If you wish, others of my race shall come, too. But if you do not want them to come, they will not. I alone have Tharlano's photographs of the route, and I can lose them."
For a moment, the Three spoke together, then the Scientist was again thinking at Arcot.
"Perhaps you are right. It is obvious your people know more than we. They have the molecular ray, and they know no wars; they do not destroy each other. ”

“ Projecting from the surface of the bronze globe was a little silver tower.
"They want us to go there," continued Morey. "This was erected only shortly before the catastrophe; they must have put relics there that they want us to get. They must have guessed that eventually intelligent beings would cross space; I imagine they have other maps like this in every large city.
"I think it's our duty to visit that cairn."
"I quite agree," assented Arcot. "The chance of other men visiting this world is infinitely small."
"Then let's leave this City of the Dead!" said Wade. ”

“ They fled to the second planet, where the ship crashed and the builder, Sator, was killed. For hundreds of years, nothing was heard of the emigrants, and the people of Nansal believed them dead. Nansal was at peace.
But the Satorians managed to live on the alien world, and they built a civilization there, a civilization based on an entirely different system. It was a system of cunning. To them, cunning was right. The man who could plot most cunningly, gain his ends by deceiving his friends best, was the man who most deserved to live. ”

“ There was the familiar tension in the air as the space field built up and they were hurled suddenly forward; the star-like dot of the planet suddenly expanded as they rushed forward at a speed far greater than that of light. In a moment, it had grown to a disc; Arcot stopped the space control. Again they were moving forward on molecular drive. ”

“ The great cities of the Nigrans were beginning to bloom on the once bleak plains of the planet. The mighty blaze of Sirius had warmed Pluto, vaporizing its atmosphere and thawing its seas. The planet that the Black Star had stolen from the Solar System was warmer than it had been for two billion years.
"Well, that's it," said Arcot when they had finished taking the necessary photographs. "We can prove we went faster than light easily, now. The astronomers can take up the work of classifying the planets and getting details of the orbits when we get back. ”

“ Perhaps that was what made Fuller ask: "If this happened to a star so much like our sun, why couldn't it happen to Sol?"
"Perhaps it may," said Morey softly. "But the eternal optimism of man keeps us saying: 'It can't happen here.' And besides—" He put a hand on the wall of the ship, "—we don't ever have to worry about anything like that now. Not with ships like this to take us to a new sun—a new planet."
Arcot lifted the ship and flew over the cold, frozen ground beneath them, following the route indicated on the great globe in the dead city. ”

“ Morey, too, had realized the futility of trying to overcome the guards by wrestling. The only thing to do was dodge and punch. The guards were trying to take the Earthmen alive, but, because of their greater weight, they couldn't move quite as fast as Arcot and Morey.
Torlos was still in action. He had seen the success of the Earthmen who, weak as they were, had been able to knock a man out with a blow to the jaw. Driving his own fists like pistons, he imitated their blows with deadly results; every man he struck went down forever. ”

“ Because the light rays are bent. Why are they bent? Because as each wave front moves from air to water, it slows down. The electromagnetic and gravitational fields between those atoms are strong enough to increase the curvature of the space between them. Now, what happens if we reverse that effect?"
"Oh," said Fuller softly. "I get it. By changing the curvature of the space surrounding you, you could get any velocity you wanted. But what about acceleration? It would take years to reach those velocities at any acceleration a man could stand."
Arcot shook his head. ”