Eando Binder: Anton York, Immortal

What did the missing moon of Jupiter signify? A clue revealed itself several hours later, as the Jovian planet drew steadily nearer. York had turned on his powerful radio receiver and listened to the amazingly clipped speech that vibrated through the ether. Evidently the English language, though universally used, had suffered considerable alteration. Listening carefully, York realized it had been brightened and made more flowing. Undoubtedly their speech would sound archaic to these people of the 31st Century.

Suddenly a powerful, booming voice had blanketed other stations and vibrated throbbingly from the loudspeaker. Its production must have cost a fortune in power. It was a cold, hard, emotionless voice, with arrogant inflections.

“People of the Solar System!” it said. “And particularly, Councillors of Jove! You are aware, undoubtedly, that the number six satellite of Jupiter has vanished from its age-long orbit about its primary. Where is it, you ask. It is at present a good many millions of miles from its former position and is still moving away. This phenomenon is unprecedented. You wonder what inconceivable, but natural, force has done this.”

The speaker paused and then went on dramatically: “It is not a natural force! It is man-made! Your lost Moon has been dragged away from its primary—literally—by means of a force-beam and a supremely powerful engine. I, the Immortal, built this super-engine and moved a world! My price for the return of this satellite will be complete rule of the Solar System!”

The voice became ominous: “I have demonstrated that I have in my hands illimitable power. If I can move worlds, I can destroy worlds! My demands are not unreasonable, for I have the wisdom of ages, far more than any other living man. I have lived more than a thousand years. I am immortal, and all-powerful. You will have twenty-four hours in which to discuss this matter, and arrange to call a council at which I will be made emperor. The Immortal waits.”

“Did you hear that—the Immortal!” gasped Vera. “Is it possible that he is one of Vinson’s group? or has the Elixir been rediscovered?’

“It’s one or the other,” mused York. “The removal of a satellite from its orbit is no bluff. It’s quite a feat, even though it is a comparatively small body. Whoever that person is, he’s dangerous.”

He stroked his brow thoughtfully.

“Vera, I had planned to go directly to Earth, to spend a few quiet years there. Incognito, of course, and then to stock up on supplies. But instead I think we’ll hover around Jupiter and see the outcome of these amazing circumstances.” His eyes narrowed. “Unless the human race has changed a lot since our time, there’s going to be resistance to the Immortal’s challenge for supremacy. And after that trouble!”

Promptly when the twenty-four hours were up—Earthscale being standard in the System—the Immortal’s booming radio voice came again from the depths of space, demanding to know if his ultimatum had been accepted. York listened carefully for the reply, which came after a certain time lapse because of the distances involved.

“The council of Jove, representing the Supreme Council of Earth and the Solar System, declines to accept your terms.

“You, the Immortal, are hereby declared an outlaw and a traitor. As such, you will be hunted and destroyed by our Space Patrol. If you will restore the sixth satellite of Jupiter to its rightful position, and give your person into custody, the ultimate sentence will be lightened.”

For answer, a grating laugh came from the Immortal. “I have been declared an outlaw by several other provisional governments in the past thousand years, but I have never been apprehended.” The voice suddenly spat fire: “You will take the consequences of your answer. The missing satellite is thirty millions of miles from Jupiter. It will be returned to you—as a projectile! At the speed of a thousand miles a second, it will crash into Ganymede and destroy it! That is my answer!”

York snapped off the radio and turned to Vera with horrified eyes.

“He’s a madman!” exclaimed Vera. “Tony, can’t we do something about this? After all, these are our people, this is the world of our birth. We can’t stand by and see an inhabited world destroyed!” York sprang to his feet. “We will do something!”

York bent over an instrument whose readings Indicated that the Immortal’s message had come from the direction of the Sun. Then he stepped to the telescope and scoured the region thirty million miles sunward from Jupiter. He discovered it among the numberless stars, in the belt of Orion near giant blue Betelgeuse—a small half-disc. It was the lost moon.

York then seated himself at the pilot board and touched studs that guided huge gravitational stresses through his engine. Following a course he had already calculated in his mind, he drove his ship in smooth acceleration toward the tiny, lost moon. Like a ball from some cosmic musket, the ship hurtled sunward.

Inside, nothing was felt of the tremendous, crushing acceleration York had applied. He had long before solved the secret of inertia-suspension. They could have leaped from a cruise to the speed of light in one second without the slightest discomfort.

An hour later their destination loomed large in their front port. It had moved position—toward Jupiter. The Immortal had already begun its furious thrust, aimed it like a titanic cannonball for Ganymede. He had said he was doing it by means of a force-beam—a closed beam of artificial force which could be made more rigid and gripping than a solid bar of steel York had used small force-beams himself, at times, to anchor his ship above strange worlds whose surfaces were not attractive for landing.

But this Immortal’s force-beam was one designed to move a world. Only one force was capable of moving a world—another world’s gravity field. He was either pulling it, or pushing it, by means of some great gravity field. If pulling, he was using Jupiter’s gravity field. If pushing, he was drawing power from the distant Sun’s field. Figuring rapidly, York decided he was probably doing the former, since Jupiter was so much nearer and more effective.

He slowed his ships mad pace and took up an orbital path around its Jupiter side. If the Immortal was on this side at all, he must be at one certain spot—the spot bisected by an imaginary line drawn from the center of the moon to the position in Jupiter’s orbit where Jupiter would be in twelve hours, and where Ganymede would be an hour later.

His quarry’s distance from the moon’s surface was one factor York could not foretell. It, depended purely on the design of the force-beam projector he used. Thus, although York had the search narrowed down geographically, he had to hunt hit-or-miss in the third dimension spaceward from the lost moon’s surface.

York wasted four precious hours searching for the invisible, silent, undetectable space-tractor with which the Immortal was catapulting the lost moon homeward. He spent only an hour on the sunward side, where the sunlight would have quickly revealed any lurking ship. All this while the derelict moon’s speed increased and it had already negotiated half the distance to Jupiter. In another five hours—

“The proverbial needle in the hay-stack,” York muttered to his wife. His face was strained. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. “We’ll have to take a chance,” he said grimly.

The chance of being crushed by the terrific force-beam itself, designed to handle millions of tons of mass, with toy-like ease. York simply shuttled his ship back and forth over the general area under which the force-beam must be anchored. He rode ten miles over the surface, to give himself leeway. His weaving course would eventually run him into the path of the force-beam.