The Secret of the Ninth Planet | Page 9

had come in. They took him to the medical office at the base and there he was given a complete check. At the electronics lab, electrodes were attached to him and careful readings were made of the natural electrical resistance of his body, and of his apparent physical charge. After an hour of tests, Burl was brought back to the main council room.
As he entered, he sensed he had interrupted something important. His father looked at him, and Burl detected in his face a certain curious mingling of pride and parental concern. What, the young man wondered, were they up to?
When he was seated, the company grew silent. The general pursed his lips, looked directly at Burl, and said, "I think the time has come to acquaint you with the problem our world is facing. We may ask you to make a very personal decision, and we think you ought to know what may hang on it."
He stopped. Every face at the table was grim. Mark Denning, too, was sober, though Burl detected that he also did not quite know what was to come.
"It is apparent that some race of beings, some species from outer space, unknown to us, has begun a process of tapping the power and light of the Sun for transmission elsewhere. The station on Earth, which you shut down, was an important one. But... it was not the only one. There are others, operating in this solar system." He nodded to Merckmann.
The old astronomer took the cue. "The observatories of the Earth, aided by the lunar observers, have definitely determined that there is still a certain amount of light being shifted from the faces of other planets and diverted. We have detected by telescopic and telethermic measurements that there are areas of Sun-disturbances on the surfaces of the planets Mercury and Mars. We suspect the existence of one on Venus. We believe that this may prove to be true on other planets as well, but we have no doubt of the first two.
"Measurements of the amount of Sun power being piped away, and of the effect of the magnetic disturbances used to create and maintain these stations, have shown that they will have a definite effect on the structure of the Sun itself. We have not yet completed all our calculations, but preliminary studies indicate that if this type of solar interference is not stopped, it may cause our Sun to nova in somewhere between two and three years time."
He stopped, but the thirty-year-old prodigy, Russell Clyde, took up the story. "By nova, we mean that the Sun will literally explode. It will flame up, burst to many times its present size. Such an explosion will burn Earth to cinders, render all the planets inside the orbit of Jupiter uninhabitable, scorch their atmospheres, dissolve their waters into steam, and make them lifeless flaming deserts. We have seen other stars turn nova. We have measured their explosions. We know just about what age and stability inside a sun is necessary to cause this. And we fear that the danger of our own Sun doing so is great if the Sun-tapping is not stopped."
Everyone at the table was silent. Burl was stunned. Finally he caught his breath. "But how can we stop it? We can't get to all the planets in time. Our rockets are not ready and rocketships would be too slow. Why it would take two years for rocketships to reach Mars, if the expedition were ready now... and I understand that it will be another ten years before Operation Mars is even attempted."
General Shrove nodded. "That is correct. Our rocket engineering is not yet advanced enough to allow us to take such emergency action. We are still only just over the doorstep of interplanetary flight and our enemies, whoever they may be, are obviously far advanced. But, as you will see, we are not entirely without hope. Colonel Lockhart, will you tell them about Project A-G?"
All eyes turned to Lockhart, who was a short, stocky man in civilian clothes. Burl realized that this man had been a colonel at one time, but remembered now that he had taken a post with one of the largest aviation companies after leaving the service. Lockhart turned cold gray eyes directly to Burl.
"We have in my company's experimental grounds one virtually untested vessel which may be able to make a flight to Mars, or any other planet, in the time allowed. This is the craft we refer to as A-G 17, the seventeenth such experiment, and the first to succeed. It is powered by an entirely new method of flight, the force of anti-gravity."
Burl hung breathlessly on his next words. "You probably know that work on the scientific negation of gravity has been going on since the early 1950's.