The Mysterious Planet

CHAPTER 13 The World of Thule

VALIN ASSURED BOB that they did indeed have a library, that the language course had included reading, and that there were such things as newspapers to be had in the library. He tagged along on the excuse of showing Bob the way, and then quietly disappeared with a book of his own, leaving the Federation captive surrounded by several books and a pile of the pamphlets which served as newspapers.

Bob had selected the books himself. He was sure that the people of Thule might want to fool him, but equally sure that the whole city wasn’t a hoax. That meant that the library was genuine. Books for a people’s own use might have some propaganda in them, but they’d be altogether more honest than anything he would get by asking questions.

He sat studying through their histories and recent Thule happenings for the rest of the day, except once when Valin had wandered in to suggest that they eat. The food at the nearest food department wasn’t anything Bob could rave about, but he found it edible, and there were a couple of things he even liked. Then he went back to his reading. By the time the library closed and Valin guided him back to the hotel, he had a fair idea of what Thule was all about.

Thule had originally been a planet around another star, almost eighty light-years away. It had had a climate similar to that of Earth; the sun had been bigger and hotter, but the distance to Thule had been greater, to make up for it. Life there had pursued a pattern similar to that on Earth, beginning some billions of years ago and evolving through all its various forms until there were men.

And again, history had been similar. Egypt and Rome had their types, though never quite the same. Actually, the difference began in what might be called the Rome of their history.

Instead of declining into an empire, it had split into two separate republics, one of which had been forced to compete against the other with smaller manpower and less resources. The competition had gotten science started far in advance of Earth’s history, and at a more rapid pace.

A thousand years after the first split, the two republics had again been united into one, this time over the whole world. Ships fled from planet to planet—and their sun had nearly five times as many planets as the sun of Earth.

Then disaster had come. Another star was moving toward their sun. The two would come close—so close that both would erupt toward each other, filling the space with flaming magma, and both probably going through a stage where they blew up completely shortly after separation. Such “novas” occurred regularly, but knowing that it was normal didn’t help them to bear it. In the nova stage, a sun would spread out until it covered nearly all of its planets, before gradually sinking back to its normal size.

All life was sure to be destroyed. At first, they tried the idea of building great spaceships to try to reach planets around another star. But rocket power simply wasn’t enough to accomplish this in any livable time; then, too, only a few could go. They began searching for other means than rockets for moving things.

Here Bob had done a double-take, since it had come so close to fitting with Juan’s theories.

Juan had been close, though wrong in some respects.

They had finally discovered that inertia was not an absolutely inevitable property of matter. It had something to do with the outer shell of electrons and other particles—shell, Bob thought, trying to translate it; it didn’t make much sense, since he had always considered such particles to be single things, not the complicated things the Thulians considered them. But the word was as close as he could get to a translation.

They had found that inertia could be adjusted. It could be made “thinner” in one direction than in others. This had meant that once beyond the field of strong gravity, even a gentle thrust might drive them at incredible rates. Normally in space, a man who weighed two hundred pounds and threw a two-pound weight away from him at one hundred feet a minute would drift back one foot per minute himself. But when inertia was made “thin” in the direction of the man’s drifting, the same weight at the same speed might make him drive along at a speed of anything from one to one hundred thousand times that of the weight!

They had long explanations as to why this didn’t violate the conservation of energy, but Bob skipped those. The result, anyhow, was that they could erect ships now of any size to travel at nearly any speed and distance. And having this discovery, they realized that their whole world could be a spaceship.

There had been many problems to solve first, of course. They had been forced to find some way of keeping the planet warm and lighted while away from the sun. This had come through some obscure work on light done years before, with the result that energy could be released directly into the air. Bob had noticed that there were no shadows on Thule. Now he understood. Each atom of the atmosphere contributed to the light, instead of it coming from above. Heat was generated in the same way.

It had taken them over a century to get ready, and they had developed other new devices, such as the method of using their energy directly against space, and not needing even tiny rockets. Then the invading star had been near, and they had sailed out beyond the widest limit of danger.

They had watched the stars come together, and had seen their own explode outward afterward. They had also watched it shrink back. But instead of returning to normal, it had become shrunken and cold, almost useless to them.

There had been despair at first, and then high courage. With full knowledge that they could not find enough sources of energy to make the whole trip, they had still plotted a course that would lead them to Earth’s sun, which they considered most suitable. And they had begun their great journey across nearly five hundred million million miles.

Before their energy began to run low, another discovery was made. One of their greatest scientists learned how to freeze and re-warm the tissues of bodies so rapidly that it would not harm them; the crystals had no time to form in the blood. And at nearly absolute zero, life would lie dormant. It could be wakened a thousand or a million years later without even realizing that time had passed.

All but a few of the inhabitants had the treatment and were carefully stored away in great underground vaults. Then the last few reversed the apparatus that put energy into the air. In a few brief minutes, the whole planet was covered with solid oxygen and all life other than human had been frozen as quickly as the men and women so carefully stored.

With their duty done, the last few were treated in automatic machines, and the planet drifted on through space without life. For nearly two thousand years it sailed on, drawing slowly nearer to the sun. And at last, when it was ten thousand million miles away, automatic alarms were tripped. The same men who had put the world to sleep were now revived. The energy that had been sucked from the atmosphere was restored just as quickly. In an hour, the grass was growing as if nothing had happened, and birds were singing in the trees. And still far away, but already bright in the sky, lay the new sun that was to be their home.

It was then that they had discovered that the sun already had planets. This was small cause for worry, of course. But the discovery that the planets were inhabited by creatures of intelligence had come as a profound shock. It had meant the possibility that their right to a new home would be contested.

A ship had explored the new planet body quickly, and had returned with the report that the men there were even like the Thulians—and that the race was younger and more savage, but well along the road toward a technology that would soon be unconquerable.

By now, Bob was in the periodicals. Here he found a long debate on what should be done.

Thule could go on toward other stars, of course—but her energy supplies were running low, and pulling a world away from the gravity of a sun, even by using gravity deflecting means, which weren’t too efficient—took energy in great amounts.

They had determined that they must try to settle here, either in peace or by conquest. That had never been fully determined. Some felt that any peace was better than war, but most seemed to doubt that real peace was possible with the men of this sun, and that they would have to conquer first, and try to find peace later.

Then had come the question of reviving all the sleepers, and that was another matter which was postponed, rather than settled. Generally, they seemed to hope that they would not have to revive the others until they were sure it was possible to live here. There seemed to be some vague danger of mental shock to too many wakenings, readjustments, and sleepings again.

As a compromise, they had wakened only five million people out of the five billion population. With these, as they now saw it, it should be possible to settle the issue, one way or another.

Their reactions to the recent trouble were more interesting to Bob than anything else—and harder to figure out. Like men on Earth, they had a bad habit of taking it for granted that words could mean things they didn’t mean at all. To Earth, for instance, the word colony had long meant inferiority; and even today, to the Federation, alien meant something dangerous.

The Thulians had their own tricks.

They talked about peace, and attack, and all the other things in ways which showed that they meant more than just the words. Until Bob could get to know them fully, he wouldn’t be able to be sure of anything.

One thing was certain. The “attack” on Thule by the forces of Wing Nine had come as a profound shock. In their accounts, they had seen military ships arriving, without any accompanying ship which would carry an ambassador or other civilian who could speak for peace. Apparently, then, on Thule a military man dealt only in fighting, and peace was discussed by other groups, who did not have anything to do with military affairs. This might even have its advantages, Bob thought, but they took it for granted that peace was peace and war was war. This led to some strange results when applied to the Navy, whose biggest job was being ready for war in the hope of making permanent peace.

They had hoped that it was only a token force, since it was small, and that it was merely a group coming out to challenge them. (The act of challenge was a formal thing here, and anyone had a right to turn it down. Without it, fighting was considered something too horrible to indulge in.)

They had sent out a larger force, to show that they appreciated the courtesy. But they had then sent what would seem to be an obvious signal not to accept the challenge, and that they did not want to fight. This had been overlooked. Finally, their commander had gently picked up the Federation ships and turned them around, even giving them a good send-off of speed toward their own base. This was intended to show that they really meant not to accept the challenge, as well as to indicate that they bore no hard feelings toward the Federation.

Then right in the midst of this act of courtesy, the Federation ships had opened fire—and with weapons so terrible that they had long been outlawed on Thule— weapons which were dangerous to use, and to manufacture, since a few of them could ruin a whole planet. It had been a sneaking act, an act of pure treachery.

Thule had defended herself, as had been necessary. But when the Federation forces turned to flee, she had not followed them to demand that they be captives, as she had a right to do.

Instead, she had let them go back unharmed. That should have convinced them that she had no desire to fight, and that they should send no more forces until she could make up her mind what to do about the Federation.

But now ships were assembling on a moon of Neptune to attack Thule probably. After the challenge had been repeatedly refused, these strange humans were going ahead with a war anyhow. It was unthinkable.

And it seemed to prove once and for all that these humans could never be trusted. They were still savages at heart. The only safe thing to do, according to the views of the periodical, was to use their own weapons— to make the outlawed lithium bombs and to carry enough to all the planets to kill off life there. It would take years before the planets could be used by Thule, of course, but this was the only reasonable action.

Other writers differed, but there was no way of knowing which represented the majority. Bob saw only that all of them were shaken by what his father had tried as a method of finding peace and which they were completely convinced was an act of war, and it looked as if those who favored extermination of the human race might win the debate.

He wondered how a human account of the engagement would sound to a Thulian. On the way back, he tried to explain to Valin what had really happened.

The man listened politely. At the end he nodded thoughtfully. “I am glad all your people are not so discourteous, Bob. Your father sounds rather barbarous, but like an ethical man. Still… you admit your leaders cannot control your underleaders. Your father could not keep this captain from firing? Yes. And you admit that your people decided on war before they listened to his account in the first place? And you also admit that your race uses the same men to make peace as to start a war—which means that you do not really separate peace and war, but get them all confused?”

He shook his head sadly. “I’ll have to think this over. I have always hoped that we could learn to live with your people, Bob. But after your account, I wonder if they can accept peace with us, or whether we dare let them go on beside us.”

He turned into his own suite, still puzzled.

Bob had the answer as to how one Thulian, at least, reacted to man.

And the trouble was that he couldn’t be sure that Valin wasn’t right He’d seen that Thule had many confused ideas, and a mixture of strange sense and traditional nonsense. If they couldn’t help it, how could he help having false values of his own. Maybe clear logic would place the same interpretation on events as Valin had placed on them.

He suspected that the truth was somewhere in between, or that both were wrong. But this didn’t help any. Certainly he couldn’t go around explaining things to everyone here—it would only lead to more trouble.

As far as he could see, neither side wanted war. And yet both sides were being driven closer and closer to what they didn’t want. Each felt that the other was too dangerous for them to share a sun with.

And the way it was working out, both were right.

He remembered the idea of sending lithium bombs against the planets. With their ships, they might succeed; but not before some of the Federation forces had managed to send suicide squads in on Thule with the same medicine.

It might wind up with the sun having ten planets instead of nine, and no living intelligence on any of them!