The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (14 page)

Slowly understanding came to him. The rays which the twentieth century had imagined but never known were a myth no longer. Not like the spaceship, gradually and over many years, had they come upon the world. In secrecy, during the seventy years of peace, they had been conceived and brought to perfection.

The dome on the plain was a fortress, such a one as no earlier man had ever dreamed of before. Its defences must have gone into action immediately the first beams of the enemy reacted upon them but for many minutes it made no attempt at retaliation. Nor yet was it in any position to do so, for under the blazing shield that protected them Fletcher and his colleagues were fighting time as well as the Federation.

Then Wheeler noticed a faint brush discharge on either side of the dome—that was all. But the screens of the cruisers turned cherry-red, then blue-white, then a colour he knew but had never thought to see on any world—the violet-white of the giant suns. So breathtaking was the sight that he gave no second thought to his deadly peril. Only imminent personal danger could move him now—whatever the risk, he must see the battle to its end.

Jamieson’s anxious voice startled him when it came again over the speaker. ‘Hello, Con! What’s happening?’

‘The fight’s started—come up and see.’

For a few seconds Jamieson struggled against his natural caution. Then he emerged from the cleft and side by side the two men watched the greatest of all battles rising to its climax.

VI

Millions of years ago the molten rock had frozen to form the Sea of Rains and now the weapons of the ships were turning it once more to lava. Out by the fortress clouds of incandescent vapour were being blasted into the sky as the beams of the attackers spent their fury against the unprotected rocks.

Ever and again a salvo of rocket torpedoes would lance toward the Moon and a mountain would rise slowly from the plain and settle back in fragments. None of the material projectiles ever reached their target, for the fields of the fortress deflected them in great spirals that sent many hurtling back into space.

Not a few were caught in the beams of the defenders and detonated many miles above the ground. The utter silence of their explosions was unnerving. Wheeler found himself continually preparing for the concussion that could never come—not on the atmosphereless Moon.

It was impossible to tell which side was inflicting more damage. Now and again a screen would flare up as a flicker of heat passed over white-hot steel. When that happened to one of the cruisers it would move with an acceleration that could not be followed by the eye and it would be several seconds before the focusing devices of the fort could find it again.

The fort itself had to take all the punishment the ships could give it. After the battle had been on for a very few minutes it was impossible to look toward the south because of the glare. Ever and again the clouds of rock vapour would go sailing up into the sky, falling back to the ground like luminous steam. And all the while a circle of lava was creeping out from the base of the fortress, melting down the hills like lumps of wax.

During the whole of the engagement the two men spoke scarcely a dozen words. This was no time for talk—they knew that they were witnessing a battle of which all the ages to come would speak with awe. Even if they were killed by the stray energies reflected from the screens of the fortress it would have been worth it to have seen so much.

They were watching the cruisers, for it was possible now and then to look at them without being blinded, when suddenly they realised that the glare to the south had doubled its intensity. The battleship, which until now had taken no part in the action, had risen above Pico and was blasting at the fortress with all the weapons she possessed.

From where he was standing Wheeler could see the throats of her bow projectors—little pits of flame that looked as if they had been carved from the Sun. The summit of the mountain had been caught in those beams. It did not have time to melt—the peak vanished and only a ragged smoking plateau was left.

Wheeler was going to risk no further damage to his eyes, which were already paining him. With a word of explanation to Jamieson he raced back to the tractor and returned a few minutes later with a set of heavy-duty filters.

The relief was immense. No longer were the screens of the cruisers like artificial suns and they could look once more in the direction of the fortress. Though he could see only the ray-shields against which the beams of the battleships were still splashing in vain it seemed to Wheeler that the hemisphere had lost its original symmetry during the battle.

At first he thought one of the generators might have failed. Then he saw that the lake of lava was at least a mile across and he knew that the whole fort had floated off its foundations. Probably the defenders were scarcely aware of the fact. Their insulation was taking care of solar heat and would hardly notice molten rock.

And now a strange thing was beginning to happen. The rays with which the battle was being fought were no longer quite invisible, for the fortress was no longer in a vacuum. Around it the boiling rock was releasing enormous volumes of gas through which the paths of the rays were as clearly visible as searchlights on Earth on a misty night.

At the same time Wheeler began to notice a continual hail of tiny particles around him. For a moment he was puzzled. Then he realised that the rock vapour was condensing after it had been blasted up into the sky. It seemed too light to be dangerous and he did not mention it to Jamieson.

As long as it was not too heavy the insulation of the space-suits could deal with it.

Accustomed though they were to the eternal silences of the Moon both men felt a sense of unreality at the sight of those tremendous weapons blasting overhead without a whisper of sound. Now and then there would be a hammerblow underfoot as a torpedo crashed, deflected by the fields of the fort. But most of the time there was absolute silence, even when there were half a dozen rockets detonating in the sky at once. It was like watching a television programme when the sound had failed.

They never knew why the fortress waited so long before it used its main weapon. Possibly Fletcher could not get it into action earlier or perhaps he was waiting for the attack to slacken so that some energy could be diverted from the screens. For it was during a lull in the engagement that the polaron beam operated for the first time in history.

The two watchers saw it strike upward like an inverted lightning flash. It was clearly visible along its whole length, not merely in patches where it passed through dust and gas. Even in that brief instant of time Wheeler noticed this staggering violation of the laws of optics and wondered at its implications. Not until many years later did he learn how a polaron beam radiates some of its energy at right angles to its direction of propagation so that it can be seen even in a vacuum.

The beam went through the
Phlegethon
as if she did not exist. The most terrible thing Wheeler ever saw in his life was the way the screens of that great ship suddenly vanished as her generators died, leaving her helpless and unprotected in the sky. The secondary weapons of the fortress were at her instantly, tearing out great gashes of metal and boiling away her armour layer by layer.

Then, quite slowly, she began to settle towards the Moon, still on an even keel. No one will ever know what stopped her—probably some short-circuit in her controls since none of her crew could have been left alive. For suddenly she went off to the west in a long flat trajectory.

By that time most of her hull had been boiled away and the steel skeleton of her framework was almost completely exposed. The crash came minutes later as she plunged into the mountains beyond Plato.

When Wheeler looked again for the cruisers they were so far away that their screens had shrunk to little balls of fire against the stars. At first he thought they were retreating—then abruptly the screens began to expand as they came down in an attack under terrific vertical acceleration. Around the fortress the lava was throwing itself madly into the sky as the beams tore into it.

The cruisers came out of their dives about a mile above the fort. For an instant they were motionless—then they went back into the sky together. But the
Eridanus
had been mortally wounded though the two watchers knew only that one of the screens was shrinking much more slowly than the other.

With a feeling of helpless fascination they watched the stricken cruiser fall back toward the Moon. About twenty miles up her screens seemed to explode and she hung unprotected, a sleek torpedo of black metal, visible only as a shadow against the stardust of the Milky Way.

Almost instantly her light-absorbing paint and the armour beneath were torn off by the beams of the fortress. The great ship turned cherry-red, then white. She swung over so that her prow pointed toward the Moon and began her last dive.

Wheeler felt his friend’s grip upon his arm and Jamieson’s voice rang through the speakers. ‘Back to the cleft for God’s sake!’

He never knew how they reached the cleft in time and had no recollection of entering it. The last thing Wheeler saw was the remaining cruiser dwindling into space and the
Eridanus
coming down at him like an onrushing meteor. Then he was lying flat on his face among the rocks, expecting every moment to be his last.

She landed nearly five miles away. The impact threw Wheeler a yard off the ground and set the boulders dancing in the cleft. The whole surface of the plain quivered for seconds before the rocks settled back to rest.

Wheeler turned over on to his back, breathless, and looked up at the gibbous Earth that was just visible from his position. He wondered what Earth had thought of the battle, which must have been clearly visible to the naked eye over the hemisphere facing the Moon. But his main feeling was relief at his escape. He did not know that the final paroxysm was yet to come.

Jamieson’s voice brought him back to life. ‘You all right, Con?’

‘Yes—I think so. That’s two of them gone. By the way she was travelling I don’t think number three will be coming back.’

‘Nor do I. Looks as if Earth’s won the first round. Shall we go back to the tractor?’

‘Just a minute—
what’s the matter with those rocks up there
?’

Wheeler glanced towards the northern face of the cleft, which was several feet higher than the other. Over the exposed surfaces of the rock waves of light were passing in slow undulations.

Jamieson was the first to realise the cause. ‘It’s the glare from that lava over by the fort. It will probably take a good while to cool off.’

‘It isn’t cooling. Look—
it’s getting brighter
!’

At first Wheeler had blamed his eyes but now there was no room for doubt. The rock was not merely reflecting light—it was turning cherry-red. Soon it was too bright to watch with the unprotected eye. With a feeling of sick helplessness he saw that everywhere the exposed rock surfaces were becoming incandescent.

Suddenly the appalling truth reached Wheeler’s brain. The generators of the wrecked ship had not yet detonated and the energy which it would have poured out in hours of continuous fighting was leaking away at a rate rising swiftly toward catastrophe. And he realised that all the atomic explosions of the past would be as nothing against what might happen now.

Then the Moon awoke from its sleep. The plain seemed to tear itself asunder and he could almost hear a mighty wind of radiation sweeping overhead. This was the last thing he knew before the quake reached him.

Ages later he was awakened by the glare of Earthlight in his eyes. For a long time he lay in a half dazed condition, knitting together the broken threads of memory. Then he recalled what had happened and began to look around for his friend.

It gave him a shock to discover that his torch was broken. There was no sign of Jamieson in the narrow portion of the cleft illuminated by the Earth and he could not explore the shadows without a light. As he lay there wondering what to do next, a strange sound began to intrude upon his consciousness. It was an unpleasant rasping noise that grew stronger minute by minute.

Not since his childhood, when night had once caught him in a strange wood far from home, had Wheeler known such real terror as he felt now. This was the airless Moon—there could be no sound here! Then his fuddled wits cleared and he burst into peals of relieved and half hysterical laughter.

Somewhere in the darkness near him Jamieson, still unconscious, was breathing heavily into his microphone.

Wheeler’s laughter must have aroused his friend, for suddenly he heard Jamieson calling unsteadily through the speaker. ‘Hello, Con—what the devil’s the matter?’

Wheeler took a firm grip of himself. ‘It’s okay, Sid—I’m just a bit giddy. Are you all right?’

‘Yes—at least I think so. But my head’s still ringing.’

‘So is mine. Do you think it’s safe to climb out now?’

‘I don’t see what else can happen now but I guess we’ll have to wait here for a while. Look at that rock.’

The walls overhead had been partly sheared away by the blast and were still glowing dully. The rock was too hot to touch and it was many minutes before the two men could crawl out of their refuge.

They were both prepared for a scene of devastation but the reality exceeded their wildest fears. Around them was a vision of the inferno. The whole landscape, from horizon to horizon, had altered beyond recognition. To the east the beautiful mountain that had been Pico was gone.

In its place was a sheared and blistered stump, only a fraction of its former height. It must have caught the full blast of that mammoth explosion. In all the plain, as far as the eye could see, there was no other outstanding projection. Of the fortress not a trace was left. Everything had been levelled by that final incredible blast of radiation.

That was Wheeler’s first impression. Then he realised that it was not completely correct. About five miles away to the west was another pool of lava, a mile or two across, and in its centre was a roughly hemispherical bulge. As he watched, it settled down into the molton rock until there was nothing left.