Public-domain ebook
The metal horde
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In: Science-Fiction & Fantasy·Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #73679.
The opening · free to read
Illustrated by DE PAUW
What with calculating machines and robots and now perhaps even mechanical airplane pilots, there seems no limit to the possibilities in the realm of working machinery. We have seismographs that can locate the place of distant earthquakes, and machines that can solve, in a comparatively short period, problems in the higher calculus that would otherwise take brilliant mathematicians an endless time to do. It seems to us quite logical that machines might some day, perhaps in the distant future, be developed to solve for our scientists now apparently insoluble problems. Or they might even be made to state their own problems and work them out--in other words, it might some day be possible to have a machine with almost a working brain. According to our author, this will be possible and his final explanation of his idea is exceedingly clever and novel. There is no question Mr. Campbell knows his science and he has by this time proved his ability to weave a great deal of sound science into an absorbing scientific fiction story of exceeding plausibility.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April 1930. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It would seem lack of generalship that permitted them to be discovered so soon, for had we not picked up those signals from the ether we should not have received that warning that meant so much to us, and it might well have been that this system would have acquired a new population. For it would have needed but little to shift the balance the other way! Once I watched Steven Waterson save the civilization of the Earth, but now I saw him in a greater rôle, for it was he who made possible the defeat of the Sirians. But even had his brilliant mind succeeded in working out the problem of the de-activating field without the precious hours gained by that warning, many millions more would have died before they could have escaped from Mars.
I was in his laboratory at the time he received the messages from the System government telling the import of those strange tone-signals out there in space. I seem fated to be with that man every time some great event breaks on the System. I was with him when Dr. Downey announced his discovery of the secret of old age--or, better, its prevention. Waterson was forty-two now, in years, but in body he was still twenty-eight for it was late in 1947 that he had taken Dr. Downey's treatment.
Those strange tone-signals had been heard faintly for days, but it was not until July 8th, 1961, that they were located in space, and then man began to realize something of the message they might bear.
Waterson asked me to accompany him to the System Capital on Venus, and I was present at that first Cabinet meeting, and at each succeeding meeting. Again I was close to the facts--and again Waterson has asked me to write a chronicle of that terrible War.
It was not till the signals had definitely been located as originating far out in space that man began to take more than a mildly curious interest in them. They were coming from the Metal Horde that was even then sweeping across space at a thousand miles a second to the planets ahead.
Their goal of ages was in sight. Sixteen hundred years of ceaseless rushing flight had at last brought them near.
When our ancestors were beginning to grumble under their Roman lords, in the time of Horlak San, when his mighty armies were sweeping their way across Mars under the newly developed heat rays, spreading death and civilization at one time, that menace started on its expedition.
When the Normans invaded England, when the mighty empire that the San dynasty had maintained over all Mars was crumbling, that journey was half done.
When Columbus first set foot on the shores of America, when Koral Nas formed the great union of the federated nations of Mars, that trip was three-quarters done.
But it was seven-eighths completed when Mars developed the first crude atomic engines, and when Priestly of England discovered oxygen. And during the two centuries of flight that remained before they reached their goal, there developed on those tiny planets the instruments that were to throw that mighty force down to defeat.
But I am to tell you of that war as I saw it; we have all seen it--all too closely! It was really but a little more than a month that that Menace of Metal hung over us there on Mars, but to us it seemed years, except to the frantically working scientists, striving desperately to discover some weapon to defeat them. David Gale.
A tiny glistening mote in space it was, as it sped toward the shining planet before it--the rapid flight of the car aided by the gravity of Venus. The call had been urgent, and the Earth had been in superior conjunction, that meant a full twenty-hour trip, even at 1000 miles a second, but now they were approaching the planet and the pilot was losing speed as rapidly as possible. There was a limit to what he could stand, though, and it took him many thousands of miles to bring the machine down to a speed compatible with atmospheric conditions of the planet.
The air of the planet seemed thick with traffic, mighty half-million ton lift freighters and passenger ships setting out toward Earth, smaller private machines, but none were slower nor faster than the others, for all were limited only by the acceleration they could stand. There was only one speed limit, that of economical, safe operation, for with all space to move in, there was no need of speed laws. Yet it seemed impossible to make any more than two thousand miles an hour through this slow moving air traffic--then there shone a little emblem on the bow of the little iridescent metal ship, and a huge freighter swerved respectfully aside. As by magic a lane opened through the thick traffic as the sign of the System President shone out.
The little ship darted along the ground a short way, then rose vertically, only to settle lightly on the roof of the great System Capitol. Two men came out and walked quickly to the elevator entrance, where three guards, armed with disintegration ray projectors, greeted them with a stiffly military salute. The larger of the men responded with a smile, and a brief salutation in the common language of the System, for these great men were Martians, each well over eight feet tall. They entered the lift, and quickly sank down one hundred and fifty stories to the Governmental Offices. They proceeded directly to the great Cabinet chamber, down through the long halls, lined on each side by huge murals depicting scenes in the history of the three planets. Then they came to the cabinet room and entered.
Thirty-nine men were seated there now, but as the two entered, they rose, and waited for the President to be seated. The forty greatest living men were in that room that day and all worked together, for they were scientists who had learned the value of cooperation. There was no rivalry, for each was the greatest in his own field and had no aspirations toward any other branch of science. And none but conceded the power of the Presidency gladly to the greatest of them, Steven Waterson of Earth.
"Gentlemen of the Cabinet, I am beginning to believe it is time we had something added to the Constitution forbidding Members of the Cabinet to rise on the entry of the President." Waterson deeply appreciated that compliment, as they all knew, but he could not feel at home in an atmosphere of diffidence. He was a scientist, a planner, not a diplomat. "I am sorry I was forced to make you gentlemen wait for me, but as you see," he continued, pointing to the great map of the System on the ceiling of the Cabinet chamber, where the slow motion of the planets in their orbits was being accurately traced, "Earth is in superior conjunction at present, and I could not make better time.
"I see from this memorandum that has been prepared for me that Mansol Korac, Martian Astro-physicist, is to be our first speaker. I take it you have had no official discussion as yet?"
He was correct in this assumption for the men had convened shortly before at his radio announcement that he would land within an hour.
Some years before there had been some agitation to have the Cabinet meetings carried on by Radio-vision plates, but the low speed of light had made the speeches a terrible failure, as they would frequently have to wait ten or even fifteen minutes while the radio messages were reaching them. Over short distances that method was practicable, but between planets light is too slow, it cannot be used.
"Some time ago our radio engineers developed a new instrument for detecting exceptionally short waves. They really came under the category of the longer heat radiations, but were detected electrically. While experimenting with this device they have been consistently picking up signals apparently originating in free space. At first these signals were exceedingly weak, but their intensity has grown uniformly and rapidly, and from the results some amazing conclusions have been drawn.
"They are originating at some source or sources out in space in the direction of the sun Sirius. I was asked to help the radiation engineers under Horus Mal in the calculation of the Astro-physical aspect of the problem. I believe that there are some man-made vehicles out there in space sending those signals. No man of the System has ever had reason to venture beyond the orbit of Neptune for any great distance; there would be no reason for it, as none of the outer planets are habitable. The rate of increase of the signal strength, coupled with observations made from Earth, Mars and Venus, have made it evident that they are at present about one and a quarter billion miles away, but approaching us at the rate of 1000 miles a second. This means that in approximately two weeks they will reach our planets.
"As to their point of origin we can only make guesses really. They are coming toward us with Sirius--and thousands of other stars--at their back. Of all, Sirius is the nearest, being approximately nine light years away. This means that they must have spent at least 1600 years on that trip across space. Dr. James Downey of Earth has recently shown us how to lengthen life almost indefinitely, so the problem of old age need not be considered. A supply of air and water would, of course, be no great problem with the Waterson apparatus for electrolyzing CO back to carbon and oxygen, using atomic energy fuel. Water, of course, is merely transmuted and recombined and thus automatically purified for use. A sufficient reserve of very dense materials could easily be carried that would make up for any losses by transmutation to the necessary gases. As yet we have not been able to make foods from energy, carbon, and oxygen and hydrogen, but I believe you, Dr. Lange, have made very considerable progress along that line, have you not?"
"I intended announcing at this meeting," said Dr. Lange, "the development of a commercial method of manufacturing any one of the sugars and several proteins directly from rock or water, by a transmutation and building-up process. The method has been developed."
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