Now they were swinging over mighty oceans, gigantic patches of water that were large enough to cover all the surface of their smaller globes, for this planet was large as the long gone Neptune, or Uranus. How wonderful those vast areas of magnificent blue water, sparkling brilliantly in the light of the gigantic sun, seemed to them. Each man, before he started on this expedition, had his eyes treated that the new light would not be too bright and that it might appear white to him, so that now they could fully appreciate the wondrous beauty of the scene beneath.
And wondrous it was to men who had never seen water except as it had been manufactured in their great plants for community use. No oceans, no rivers, no lakes had there been in their system for over five billion years.
Now they were following a mighty river, a river larger than any that Earth had ever seen, for it drained a vast area of a humid planet. Yet it was a new planet, with mighty mountain ranges, mountains that towered in mighty snowcapped peaks in the blue distance, over wide ranges of green forest! What a sight it was for the eyes of these men! What a wondrous country! And now, as they rounded the bend in the great river, they cried out in excited wonder, for before them the great river, vaster than three Amazons, was pouring over a mighty ledge of rock, nearly four hundred feet in height; and from it rose a tremendous wave of sound that made the great ships tremble with the force of it, as they slowed to a few hundred miles an hour to watch the gigantic cascade. Then on again—There was much to do ere they could claim this beautiful country.
And on a low ridge among the mighty mountains they came upon a grim reminder that it was not theirs yet. A great hole lay carved out in bare soil—a sharp contrast with the rich green of the country. Here and there they saw scattered brightly shining bits of metal and a section of heavy metal armor plate, torn and twisted by some enormous strain. To one side lay a heavy girder, torn and bent into a U. They recognized the spot whence the voice of the lost expedition had come across the void to them. Careful electroscopic and photographic studies of the spot were made ere they moved on.
The Atomic Creatures feared them now, it seemed, for though they had come even to one of the planets, they had seen none of the enemy. Surely there must be many hiding!
On the other side of the great mountain range they found their answer. Here, too, was a vast area of green, rolling meadow, but far out across it they could see a great bare spot, where only the dark, raw soil was visible. They swung the armada toward it, and shot forward to investigate, but before they had come within a thousand miles of the spot there suddenly appeared as from nowhere an army of the Atomic Giants. No doubt this bare spot was their home, and from the great area it seemed that they must inhabit it in great numbers. The powerful radioactive effects of their force-fields no doubt killed every plant.
These creatures were not entirely defenseless, for if their numbers were great enough they could exert a powerful interfering force and break down the protective field. But they knew that many would be required. And now all in an instant the battle for this world was on, the great creatures striving to destroy the ships, while burning rays of milk radiance stabbed and slashed at their strange glowing force-pools. Soon they found the vulnerable point of the ships and began to attack single ships in numbers. Slowly, slowly, the milky radiance would contract, while the smooth purring of the mighty generators rose to a throaty hum, then became a vicious snarling roar. The great electron distorter cylinder would become a mass of shooting sparks, crackling, snapping till the atmosphere about it was alive with twisting streamers of flame twelve to twenty-four inches long. Then slowly it would heat—and if the attack was still unbroken, there would be a queer sighing hum from the generator, and a slight explosion—and the ship was gone. The generators, however, would withstand the attacks of ten or eleven of the creatures safely, and the other ships would come to the rescue—but many times there were no free ships in the neighborhood, and all available power must be turned into the ray generators, the slashing beams cutting at the many opponents. Even the propulsion apparatus was robbed of energy that every last meg-erg might be fed into the ray generators. Thousands of the Atomic Giants were destroyed, their color turning that strange green, then they suddenly were snuffed out. But sixty-two ships were lost. Still many remained when at last the Atomic enemy fled suddenly into space. There was no way of following their motion, they merely disappeared, going off with the speed of light. Then the visitors explored all that world, and nowhere did they find any more creatures.
But now the reports from all the other planets were coming in, and in every case eventual victory was secured. On two planets the issue was for a time in doubt, for there seemed to be great centers of the creatures here. However, there was no difficulty in discovering where the remnant had fled to! The electronic activity readings of the outermost planet, the minor sun, had risen 12.5 per cent. Since a star does not depend on atomic energy, it was easy to see that the creatures had sought refuge here. The range of the present ray was too short to permit attack on that planet. The blazing furnace drove them back to a distance of a million miles as the least distance of safe approach. They could not attack the creatures here. What could they do? They must exterminate them before the people moved to their new planets, for the creatures could make a raid, destroy a city, and be gone before the battleships could leave their docks.
The control ship proceeded directly to the most pleasant of the planets, with its guard, and the other ships were sent to watch the planets lest the Atomic Creatures return. Then on the planet the men began to set up one of the great receiving stations. From the sides of the ships ran mighty power cables to the powerful station. Then across space there came expert engineers, workmen, instruments and tools, working machines, constructor robots, and then great pieces of machinery so huge they could send only one section at a time. With these a new station was built to replace the temporary one.