The Ray Cummings MEGAPACK ®: 25 Golden Age Science Fiction and Mystery Tales. Ray Cummings
other apparatus than those meteors, as we called them. Those he dropped to earth with the light-ray stored in them. They did discharge it properly—they seemed effective. The thing was merely a test. Tao was satisfied, and went back to arrange for this second preliminary venture in which he is engaged now.”
“I understand,” I said. “Go on about Miela.”
“Well, she and her mother went before the Scientific Society, she calls it—the men who own and control these vehicles in the Light Country. They called it suicide. No one could be found to come with her. Lua, her mother, wanted to, but Miela would not let her take the risk, saying she was needed more there in her own world.
“As a matter of fact, the thing, while difficult perhaps to understand in principle, in operation works very simply. Miela knew that, and merely asked them to show her how to operate it practically. This they did. She spent two days with them—she learns things rather easily, you know—and then she was ready.”
I waited in amazement.
“For practical purposes all she had to understand was the operation of these keys. The pressure of the light-ray in these coils”—he was standing beside a row of wire coils which in the semi-darkness I had not noticed before—“is controlled by the key-switches.” He indicated the latter as he spoke. “They send a current to the outer metal plates of the car which makes them repel or attract other masses of matter, as desired.
“All that Miela had to understand then was how to operate these keys so as to keep the base of the vehicle headed toward the earth. They took her to the outer edge of the atmosphere of Mercury over the Dark Country and showed her the earth. They have used terrestrial telescopes for generations, and since the invention of this vehicle telescopes for celestial observation have been greatly improved.
“All Miela had to do was keep the air in here purified. That is a simple chemical operation. By using this attractive and repellent force she allowed the earth’s gravity and the repelling power of the sun and Mercury to drive her here.”
He paused.
“But, doesn’t she—don’t you understand the thing in detail?” I asked finally.
“I think father and I understand it now better than she does,” he answered. “We have studied it out here and questioned her as closely as possible. We understand its workings pretty thoroughly. But the exact nature of the light-ray we do not understand, any more than we understand electricity. Nor do we understand this metallic substance which when charged with the current becomes attractive or repellent in varying degrees.”
“Yes,” I said. “That I can appreciate.”
“Father has a theory about the light-ray,” he went on, “which seems rather reasonable from what we can gather from Miela. The thing seems more like electricity than anything else, and father thinks now that it is generated by dynamos on Mercury, similar to those we use here for electricity.”
“Along that line,” I said, “can you explain why this light-ray, which will immediately set anything on fire that is combustible, and which acts through metal, like those artillery shells, for instance, does not seem to raise the temperature of the ground it strikes to any extent?”
“Because, like electricity, it is dissipated the instant it strikes the ground. The earth is an inexhaustible storehouse and receptacle for such a force. That is why the broken country around the Shoshone River protected Garland and Mantua from its direct rays.”
“Tell me about the details of this mechanism,” I said, reverting to our original subject. “You say you understand its workings pretty thoroughly now.”
“Yes, I do,” he admitted, “and so does father. But I cannot go into it now with you. You see,” he added hastily, as though he feared to hurt my feelings, “the scientific men of Mercury—some of them—objected to Miela’s coming, on the ground that the inhabitants of the earth, obtaining from her a knowledge that would enable them to voyage through space, might take advantage of that knowledge to undertake an invasion of Mercury.
“As a matter of fact, that was a remote possibility. I could explain to you all I know about this mechanism without much danger of your ever being able to build such a car. But Miela promised them that she would use all possible precautions, in the event of her having any choice in the matter, to prevent the earth people learning anything about it.
“Father and I have examined everything here closely. But no one else has—and I am sure Miela would prefer no one else did. You understand, Bob?”
I did understand; and of course I had to be satisfied with that.
“It seems to me,” I said when, later in the day, we were discussing affairs in Wyoming, “that with things in Mercury as we now know they are, it would help the situation tremendously if Tao and these Twilight People with him were prevented from ever returning.”
“That’s my idea exactly,” Professor Newland agreed.
I could see by the look on his face he was holding on to this thought as a possibility that might make Alan’s plan unnecessary.
“I’ve thought about it constantly,” the professor said, “ever since these facts first came to us through Miela. It would be important. With his expedition here a total failure, I think we might assume that nothing more would be done up there in attempting to conquer the earth. I’ve tried to make Alan see that we should give the authorities all the information we have. It might help—something might be accomplished—”
“Nothing would, father,” Alan interrupted. “There wouldn’t be time. And even if this expedition of Tao’s were destroyed, I don’t see why that’s any guarantee another attempt would not be made. Miela doesn’t, either, and she ought to know.
“Besides, don’t you see, Bob”—he turned to me earnestly—“I can’t have the eyes of the world turned on Miela and her affairs? Why, think of it—this little woman sent to Washington, questioned, photographed, written about, made sport of, perhaps, in the newspapers! And all for nothing. It is unthinkable.”
“You may be right, my boy,” said the professor sadly. “I am giving in to you, but I still—”
“The thing has come to me,” said Alan. “A duty—a responsibility put squarely up to me. I’ve accepted it. I’ll do my best all the way.”
A week after Alan and Miela were married the report came that the Mercutians had suddenly departed, abandoning, after partly destroying, their apparatus. The world for a few days was in trepidation, fearing a report that they had landed somewhere else, but no such report came.
Three days later Alan and Miela followed them into space.
Professor Newland, Beth and I went up the bayou with them that morning they left. We were a solemn little party, none of us seemingly wishing to voice the thoughts that possessed us all.
Professor Newland never spoke once during the trip. When the moment of final parting came he kissed Miela quietly, and, pressing Alan’s hand, said simply: “Good luck, my boy. We appreciate what you are doing for us. Come back, some day, if you can.”
Then he faced about abruptly and trudged back to the launch alone, as pathetic a figure as I have ever seen. We all exchanged our last good-bys, little Beth in tears clinging to Alan, and then kissing Miela and making her promise some day to come back with Alan when he had accomplished his mission.
Then they entered the vehicle. Its heavy door closed. A moment later it rose silently—slowly at first, then with increasing velocity until we could see it only as a little speck in the air above us. And then it was gone.
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