The Airlords of Han Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  Han Electrono-Ray Science

  At this period the Hans of Nu-Yok had only one airship equipped withtheir new armored repeller ray, their latest defense against our tacticsof shooting rockets into the repeller rays and letting the latter hurlthem up against the ships. They had developed a new steel alloy oftremendous strength, which passed their _rep_ ray with ease, but wasvirtually impervious to our most powerful explosives. Their supplies ofthis alloy were limited, for it could be produced only in the Lo-Tanshops, for it was only there that they could develop the degree ofelectronic power necessary for its manufacture.

  This ship shot out toward our lines just as the last of the groundshipsturned turtle and was blown to pieces. As it approached, the rockets ofour invisible and widely scattered gunners in the forest below began toexplode beneath its _rep_ ray plates. The explosions caused the greatship to plunge and roll mightily, but otherwise did it no serious harmthat I could see, for it was very heavily armored.

  Occasionally rockets fired directly at the ship would find their markand tear gashes in its side and bottom plates, but these hits were few.The ship was high in the air, and a far more difficult target than wereits _rep_ ray columns. To hit the latter, our gunners had only to gaugetheir aim vertically. Range could be practically ignored, since the_rep_ ray at any point above two-thirds the distance from the earth tothe ship would automatically hurl the rocket upward against the _rep_ray plate.

  As the ship sped toward us, rocking, plunging and recovering, it beganto beam the forest below. It was equipped with a superbeam too, whichcut a swathe nearly a hundred feet wide wherever it played.

  With visions of many a life snuffed out below me, I surrendered to theimpulse to stage a single-handed attack on this ship, feeling quitesecure in my floating shell of inertron. I nosed up vertically, androcketed for a position above the ship. Then as I climbed upward, as yetunobserved in my tiny craft that was scarcely larger than myself, Itrained my telultroscope on the Han ship, focussing through to a view ofits interior.

  Much as I had imbibed of this generation's hatred for the Hans, I wasforced to admire them for the completeness and efficiency of thismarvelous craft of theirs.

  Constantly twirling the controls of my scope to hold the focus, Iexamined its interior from nose to stern.

  * * * * *

  It may be of interest at this point to give the reader a layman'sexplanation of the electronic or ionic machinery of these ships, and oftheir general construction, for today the general public knows little ofthe particular application of the electronic laws which the Hans used,although the practical application of ultronics are well understood.

  Back in the Twentieth Century I had, like literally millions of others,dabbled a bit in "radio" as we called it then; the science of the Hanswas simply the superdevelopment of "electricity," "radio," and"broadcasting."

  It must be understood that this explanation of mine is not technicallyaccurate, but only what might be termed an illustrative approximation.

  The Hans' power-stations used to broadcast three distinct "_powers_"simultaneously. Our engineers called them the "_starter_," the"_pullee_" and the "_sub-disintegrator_." The last named had nothing todo with the operation of the ships, but was exclusively the powerizer ofthe disintegrator generators.

  The "_starter_" was not unlike the "radio" broadcasts of the TwentiethCentury. It went out at a frequency of about 1,000 kilocycles, had anamperage of approximately zero, but a voltage of two billion. Properlyamplified by the use of _inductostatic_ batteries (a development of theprinciple underlying the earth induction compass applied to the controlof static) this current energized the _"A" ionomagnetic_ coils on theairships, large and sturdy affairs, which operated the _AttractoreflexReceivers_, which in turn "pulled in" the second broadcast power knownas the "_pullee_," absorbing it from every direction, literallyexhausting it from surrounding space. The "_pullee_" came in at about ahalf-billion volts, but in very heavy amperage, proportional to thecapacity of the receiver, and on a long wave--at audio frequency infact. About half of this power reception ultimately actuated the_repeller ray_ generators. The other half was used to energize the _"B"ionomagnetic_ coils, peculiarly wound affairs, whose magnetic fieldsconstituted the only means of insulating and controlling the circuits ofthe three "powers."

  The repeller ray generators, operating on this current, and inconjunction with "twin synchronizers" in the power broadcast plant,developed two rhythmically variable ether-ground circuits of oppositepolarity. In the "X" circuit, the negative was grounded along anultraviolet beam from the ship's repeller-ray generator. The positiveconnection was through the ether to the "X synchronizer" in the powerplant, whose opposite pole was grounded. The "Y" circuit travelled thesame course, but in the opposite direction.

  The rhythmic variables of these two opposing circuits, as nearly as Ican understand it, in heterodyning, created a powerful material "push"from the earth, up along the violet ray beam against the _rep_ raygenerator and against the two synchronizers at the power plant.

  This push developed molecularly from the earth-mass-resultant to thegenerator; and at the same fractional distance from the _rep_ raygenerator to the power plant.

  * * * * *

  The force exerted upward against the ship was, of course, highlyconcentrated, being confined to the path of the ultraviolet beam. Air orany material substance, coming within the indicated section of the beam,was thrown violently upward. The ships actually rode on columns of airthus forcefully up-thrown. Their "home berths" and "stations" wereconstructed with air pits beneath. When they rose from ordinary groundin open country, there was a vast upheaval of earth beneath theirgenerators at the instant of take-off; this ceased as they got wellabove ground level.

  Equal pressure to the lifting power of the generator was exerted againstthe synchronizers at the power plant, but this force, not beingconcentrated directionally along an ultraviolet beam, involved apractical problem only at points relatively close to the synchronizers.

  Of course the synchronizers were automatically controlled by theoperation of the generators, and only the two were needed for any numberof ships drawing power from the station, providing their protection wasrugged enough to stand the strain.

  Actually, they were isolated in vast spherical steel chambers with thickwalls, so that nothing but air pressure would be hurled against them,and this, of course, would be self-neutralizing, coming as it did fromall directions.

  The "sub-disintegrator power" reached the ships as an ordinary broadcastreception at a negligible amperage, but from one to 500 "quints"(quintillions) voltage, controllable only by the fields of the _"B"ionomagnetic_ coils. It had a wave-length of about ten meters. In the_dis_ ray generator, this wave-length was broken up into an almostunbelievably high frequency, and became a directionally controlled waveof an infinitesimal fraction of an inch. This wave-length, actuallyidentical with the diameter of an electron, that is to say, beingaccurately "tuned" to an electron, disrupted the orbital paths andbalanced pulsations of the electrons within the atom, so desynchronizingthem as to destroy polarity balance of the atom and causing it to ceaseto exist as an atom. It was in this way that the ray reduced matter to"nothingness."

  This destruction of the atom, and a limited power for its reconstructionunder certain conditions, marked the utmost progress of the Han science.