Spacehounds of IPC | Page 9

world into one nation, so that wars could no longer
interfere with progress."
* * * * *
"With this introduction I can get down to fundamentals. Molecules are
particles of the first order, and vibrations of the first order include
sound, light, heat, electricity, radio, and so on. Second order,
atoms--extremely short vibrations, such as hard X-rays. Third order,
electrons and protons, with their accompanying Millikan, or cosmic,
rays. Fourth order, sub-electrons and sub-protons. These, in the
material aspect, are supposed to be the particles of the fourth order, and
in the energy aspect they are known as Roeser's Rays. That is, these
fourth-order rays and particles seem to partake of the nature of both
energy and matter. Following me?"
"Right behind you," she assured him. She had been listening intently,
her wide-spaced brown eyes fastened upon his face.
"Since these Roeser's Rays, or particles or rays of the fourth order,
seem to be both matter and energy, and since the rays can be converted
into what is supposed to be the particles, they have been thought to be
the things from which both electrons and protons were built. Therefore,
everybody except Norman Brandon has supposed them the ultimate
units of creation, so that it would be useless to try to go any further...."
"Why, we were taught that they are the ultimate units!" she protested.
"I know you were--but we really don't know anything, except what we
have learned empirically, even about our driving forces. What is called
the fourth-order particle is absolutely unknown, since nobody has been
able to detect it, to say nothing of determining its velocity or other
properties. It has been assumed to have the velocity of light only
because that hypothesis does not conflict with observational data. I'm
going to give you the generally accepted idea, since we have nothing
definite to offer in its place, but I warn you that that idea is very
probably wrong. There's a lot of deep stuff down there hasn't been dug

up yet. In fact, Brandon thinks that the product of conversion isn't what
we think it is, at all--that the actual fundamental unit and the primary
mechanism of the transformation lie somewhere below the fourth order,
and possibly even below the level of the ether--but we haven't been
able to find a point of attack yet that will let us get in anywhere.
However, I'm getting 'way ahead of our subject. To get back to it,
energy can be converted into something that acts like matter through
Roeser's Rays, and that is the empirical fact underlying the drive of our
space-ships, as well as that of almost all other vehicles on all three
planets. Power is generated by the great waterfalls of Tellus and
Venus--water's mighty scarce on Mars, of course, so most of our plants
there use fuel--and is transmitted on light beams, by means of powerful
fields of force to the receptors, wherever they may be. The individual
transmitting fields and receptors are really simply matched-frequency
units, each matching the electrical characteristics of some particular
and unique beam of force. This beam is composed of Roeser's Rays, in
their energy aspect. It took a long time to work out this tight-beam
transmission of power, but it was fairly simple after they got it."
He took out a voluminous notebook, at the sight of which Nadia
smiled.
"A computer might forget to dress, but you'd never catch one without a
full magazine pencil and a lot of blank paper," he grinned in reply and
went on, writing as he talked.
"For any given frequency, f, and phase angle, theta, you integrate,
between limits zero and pi divided by two, sine theta d...."
"Hold it--I'm sinking!" Nadia exclaimed. "I don't integrate at all unless
it is absolutely necessary. As long as you stick to general science, I'm
right on your heels, but please lay off of integrations and all that--most
especially stay away from those terrible electrical integrations. I always
did think that they were the most poisonous kind known. I want only a
general idea--that's all that I can understand, anyway."
"Sure, I forgot--guess I was getting in deeper than is necessary,
especially since this whole thing of beam transmission is pretty crude

yet and is bound to change a lot before long. There is so much loss that
when we get more than a few hundred million kilometers away from a
power-plant we lose reception entirely. But to get going again, the
receptors receive the beam and from them the power is sent to the
accumulators, where it is stored. These accumulators are an outgrowth
of the storage battery. The theory of the accumulator is...."
"Lay off the theory, please!" the listener interrupted. "I understand
perfectly without it. Energy is stored in the accumulators--you put