The universe wreckers

by Edmond Hamilton

Gazing toward it, we could see clearly the great ice caps of the poles of Mars, brilliant white upon its dull red sphere, and could see clearly also the long straight markings upon it, a network of inter-connecting lines, that for long had been the subject of discussion and disputation among Earth's astronomers. It was with fascinated eyes that we gazed toward the red planet as we drew nearer to it, and now Randall had joined us, moving with great efforts against the acceleration-pressure inside the flier. Marlin, though, had turned the telescope by that time toward the crimson planet, was gazing intently toward it. Minutes he gazed before he straightened, shaking his head.

"There can be no doubt that those canals—those lines—are the work of intelligent creatures," he said. "I saw great geometrical forms that seemed structures of some sort, but our space-flier is moving at such tremendous speed that it's all but impossible to get a clear focus on the planet in the telescope."

We stared toward the red disk and its dark markings. "If we could but stop there—who knows what wonders Mars may hold, what science——," Whitely mused.

Marlin nodded thoughtfully. "Neptune's our goal, and we can't stop for Mars now, whatever may be there. But if we succeed in our great task, if Earth is saved from this doom that Neptune's beings are loosing on the solar system, we'll come yet to Mars—and to all the others."

"In the meantime," I told them, "Mars is pulling our flier out of its course more and more. I thought our speed would take us by it, but it seems we'll have to use another ray."

For even as we had gazed toward the red planet, I had noted from the dials before Randall that the gravitational pull of Mars upon our space-flier from the left was becoming more and more powerful as we approached it to pass it, and that it was pulling us slowly toward it out of our course toward Neptune. Our deviation to the left was not great as yet, but even the slightest deviation we could not permit, since not only must we head as straight toward Neptune as possible to save time, but it was necessary that we avoid also the colossal force-ray which was stabbing from Neptune across the solar system toward the sun's edge, which was turning that sun ever faster. That great force-ray, invisible to us, but lying away to our left, we knew; would mean death for us if we blundered into it, would drive our flier with titanic force and speed straight into the sun!

So that now, as our space-flier moved nearer and nearer toward the distant red shield of Mars, pulled farther and farther out of its path toward Neptune, I swiftly manipulated the ray-direction dials on the control-panel, then grasped and threw open another of the six ray-opening switches. At once there leaped from our racing flier's side, from one of its ray-openings there, a second great force-ray like that which stabbed from the flier's rear toward Earth. This second ray, though, vaguely visible like the first at its source, but fading into invisibility in space, shot out toward the red sphere of Mars, away to our left. And in a moment more, as that light-swift ray reached Mars and pressed against the red planet with all its force, our flier was being pushed away from it, was being pushed back to the right, back into its original line of flight! Thus we hurtled on, the great rear ray of the flier pushing back with terrific force and sending us hurtling on through space, while the side-ray, striking Mars with lesser force, was sufficient to keep us out of the red planet's grip as we flashed onward.

Within a few hours more Mars was behind us, its red sphere fading rapidly into a crimson spot of light to the left and behind. The planet's two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, we had not yet seen despite our nearness to it, but it was with something of regret that we saw the crimson world and all the strange mysteries that we felt existed upon it, dropping behind us. Neptune alone, as Marlin had said, was our goal, and on toward its calm green light-dot we were rushing. I turned off our side-ray, therefore, which was no longer needed to counteract Mars's pull, and we gave all our attention to the panorama ahead. Save for Neptune's distant green dot, the only planets now visible amid the brilliant hosts of stars before us were Jupiter and Saturn. Saturn was shining ever more brightly to the left, its strange ring-formation already becoming visible to our eyes. But it was Jupiter that now dominated all the scene before us, his mighty sphere, its oblateness plainly visible, moving in majestic white splendor at the center of his four great moons.

It was not the planets ahead that held my attention now, though, as our throbbing flier raced onward, Mars and its orbit dropping behind. "The asteroids!" I exclaimed. "We're almost into their region now—will be among them soon!"

"And they're one of the greatest perils we'll encounter," Marlin said. "Hold ready to the controls, Hunt, for if we crash into one it means our end—the end of Earth's chance!"