But at the center of that massive sphere there now hung poised a…a something. Or was it a nothing? Mathematically, it was a sphere, or rather a negasphere, about the size of a baseball; but the eye, while it could see something, could not perceive it analytically. Nor could the mind envision it in three dimensions, for it was not essentially three–dimensional in nature. Light sank into the thing, whatever it was, and vanished. The peering eye could see nothing whatever of shape or of texture; the mind behind the eye reeled away before infinite vistas of nothingness.
Kinnison hurled his extra–sensory perception into it and jerked back, almost stunned. It was neither darkness nor blackness, he decided, after he recovered enough poise to think coherently. It was worse than that—worse than anything imaginable—an infinitely vast and yet non–existent realm of the total absence of everything whatever…ABSOLUTE NEGATION!
"That's it, I guess," the Lensman said then. "Might as well stop feeding it now."
"We would have to stop soon, in any case," Wise replied, "for our available waste material is becoming scarce. It will take the substance of a fairly large planet to produce that which you require. You have, perhaps, a planet in mind which is to be used for the purpose?"
"Better than that I have in mind the material of just such a planet, but already broken up into sizes convenient for handling."
"Oh, the asteroid belt!" Thorndyke exclaimed. "Fine! Kill two birds with one stone, huh? Build this thing and at the same time clear out the menaces to inert interplanetary navigation? But how about the miners?"
"All covered. The ones actually in development will be let alone. They're not menaces, anyway, as they all have broadcasters. The tramp miners we send—at Patrol expense and grubstake—to some other system to do their mining. But there's one more point before we flit. Are you sure you can shift to the second stage without an accident?"
"Positive. Build another one around it, mount new Bergs, exciters, and screens on it, and let this one, machines and all, go in to feed the kitty— whatever it is."
"QX. Let's go, fellows!"
Two huge Tellurian freighters were at hand; and, holding the small framework between them in a net of tractors and pressors, they set off blithely toward Sol. They took a couple of hours for the journey—there was no hurry, and in the handling of this particular freight caution was decidedly of the essence.
Arrived at destination, the crews tackled with zest and zeal this new game. Tractors lashed out, seizing chunks of iron…
"Pick out the little ones, men," cautioned Kinnison. "Nothing over about ten feet in section–dimension will go into this frame. Better wait for the second frame before you try to handle the big ones."
"We can cut 'em up," Thorndyke suggested. "What've we got these shear– planes for?"
"QX if you like. Just so you keep the kitty fed."
"We'll feed her!" and the game went on.
Chunks of debris—some rock, but mostly solid meteoric nickel– iron—shot toward the vessels and the ravening sphere, becoming inertialess as they entered a wide–flung zone. Pressors seized them avidly, pushing them through the interstices of the framework, holding them against the voracious screen. As they touched the screen they disappeared; no matter how fast they were driven the screen ate them away, silently and unspectacularly, as fast as they could be thrown against it. A weird spectacle indeed, to see a jagged fragment of solid iron, having a mass of thousands of tons, drive against that screen and disappear! For it vanished, utterly, along a geometrically perfect spherical surface. From the opposite side the eye could see the mirror sheen of the metal at the surface of disintegration; it was as though the material were being shoved out of our familiar three–dimensional space into another universe—which, as a matter of cold fact, may have been the case.
For not even the men who were doing the work made any pretense of understanding what was happening to that iron. Indeed, the only entities who did have any comprehension of the phenomenon—the forty–odd geniuses whose mathematical wizardry had made it possible—thought of it and discussed it, not in the limited, three–dimensional symbols of everyday existence, but only in the language of high mathematics; a language in which few indeed are able really and readily to think.
And while the crews became more and more expert at the new technique, so that metal came in faster and faster—huge, hot–sliced bars of iron ten feet square and a quarter of a mile long were being driven into that enigmatic sphere of extinction—an outer framework a hundred and fifty miles in diameter was being built Nor, contrary to what might be supposed, was a prohibitive amount of metal or of labor necessary to fabricate that mammoth structure. Instead of six there were six cubed—two hundred sixteen—working stations, complete with generators and super–Bergenholms and screen generators, each mounted upon a massive platform; but, instead of being connected and supported by stupendous beams and trusses of metal, those platforms were Linked by infinitely stronger bonds of pure force. It took a lot of ships to do the job, but the technicians of the Patrol had at call enough floating machine shops and to spare.
When the sphere of negation grew to be about a foot in apparent diameter it had been found necessary to surround it with a screen opaque to all visible light, for to look into it long or steadily then meant insanity. Now the opaque screen was sixteen feet in diameter, nearing dangerously the sustaining framework, and the outer frame was ready. It was time to change.
The Lensman held his breath, but the Medonians and the Tellurian technicians did not turn a hair as they mounted their new stations and tested their apparatus.
"Ready,"
"Ready,"
"Ready." Station after station reported; then, as Thorndyke threw in the master switch, the primary sphere—invisible now, through distance, to the eye, but plain upon the visiplates—disappeared; a mere morsel to those new gigantic forces.
"Swing into it, boys!" Thorndyke yelled into his transmitter. "We don't have to feed her with a teaspoon any more. Let her have it!"
And "let her have it" they did. No more cutting up of the larger meteorites; asteroids ten, fifteen, twenty miles in diameter, along with hosts of smaller stuff, were literally hurled through the black screen into the even lusher blackness of that which was inside it, without complaint from the quietly humming motors.
"Satisfied, Kim?" Thorndyke asked.
"Uh–huh!" the Lensman assented, vigorously. "Nice!…Slick, in fact," he commended. "I'll buzz off now, I guess."
"Might as well—everything's on the green. Clear ether, spacehound!"
"Same to you, big fella. I'll be seeing you, or sending you a thought. There's Tellus, right over there. Funny, isn't it, doing a flit to a place you can actually see before you start?"
The trip to Earth was scarcely a hop, even in a supply–boat. To Prime Base the Gray Lensman went, where he found that his new non–ferrous speedster was done; and during the next few days he tested it out thoroughly. It did not register at all, neither upon the regular, long–range ultra–instruments nor upon the short–range emergency electros. Nor could it be seen in space, even in a telescope at point–blank range. True, it occulted an occasional star; but since even the direct rays of a search–light failed to reveal its shape to the keenest eye—the Lensmen–chemists who had worked out that ninety nine point nine nine percent absolute black coating had done a wonderful job—the chance of discovery through that occurrence was very slight.
"QX, Kim?" the Port Admiral asked. He was accompanying the Gray Lensman on a last tour of inspection.
"Fine, chief. Couldn't be better—thanks a lot."
"Sure you're non–ferrous yourself?"
"Absolutely. Not even an iron nail in my shoes."