The Invincible

THE DEFEAT

Rohan’s report sounded irrational, as true stories often do. Why hadn’t the cloud attacked him or Jarg? Why hadn’t it touched Terner until he got out of the amphibian vehicle? Why had Jarg first tried to escape, only to return later? The last question was fairly easy to answer. He probably decided to turn back the moment he stopped panicking and realized he was more than thirty miles away from the spaceship, which obviously couldn’t be reached on foot with his limited supply of oxygen.

The other questions, however, remained puzzles whose solution might mean life or death for them. But the need for action left no time for reflections and hypotheses.

It was past midnight when Horpach learned of the catastrophe that had befallen Rohan’s group. Half an hour later the astrogator was ready for takeoff. It is a thankless task to fly a spacecruiser to a spot only one hundred and twenty miles away. The ship must proceed at a relatively slow speed and at a right angle to the planet’s surface, standing vertically above its exhaust flames, and consuming a vast amount of fuel. Since the craft’s power drive had not been geared to this, they had to switch on the electro-automation. Nevertheless, the steel colossus floated softly through the night, as if carried by gently rolling waves. To any observer standing on Regis III, this would have presented a most unusual sight: the ship’s dim outline, hardly visible against the glow of the flames emanating from its rear jets, traveling through the night sky like a dark silhouette poised on a column of fire.

It was no small task to steer a proper course. They had to climb beyond the stratosphere, then descend again, all the while with stern pointing downwards, perpendicular to the ground.

All this maneuvering demanded the astrogator’s undivided attention, especially since their destination, the crater, lay hidden underneath a thin veil of clouds. Shortly before dawn, the Invincible set down in the crater, just over a mile away from Regnar’s former station. Supercopters and machines were quickly unloaded, huts erected within the protected area of the force field surrounding the spacecruiser. By noon, all survivors of Rohan’s group had been brought back safely by a specially equipped rescue team. None of the men was injured, except for a total loss of all mental functions. Two additional rooms had to be prepared as a sick bay, since every bed was occupied in the Invincible’s regular infirmary. Only now did the scientists try to probe the mystery that had spared Rohan’s life, and which — had it not been for the tragic incident with the Weyr mortar held by an insane man — would have saved Jarg as well.

It was a mystery. The clothing and equipment of the two men had been identical to that of the afflicted group. The fact that the three of them, Terner included, had been together in the small vehicle was probably of no significance either.

At the same time, Horpach had the unpleasant job of deciding how to proceed from here. One thing was clear: he could return to home base and present facts that would justify his terminating this mission, as well as facts that would clear up the tragic fate of the Condor. The questions that so intrigued the scientists — the metal pseudo-insects, their symbiosis with the metallic plants that grew on the rocks, and finally the questions regarding the “mind” of the cloud (they didn’t even know whether there was only one or several of these clouds, and whether all the small clouds formed a single closed system) — all that would not have induced the astrogator to remain one hour longer on Regis III if four men of Regnar’s group, Regnar himself among them, had not still been missing.

The trail of the lost men had led Rohan’s group into the ravine. The defenseless men would undoubtedly perish there, even if the inorganic occupants of Regis III left them alone. Thus the whole area would have to be searched, as the victims were bereft of any ability to act rationally, and were entirely dependent on the help of the Invincible.

They were comparatively certain only of the extent of the area where the search would have to be carried out, since the men could not have gotten more than twenty to thirty miles from the crater in their aimless wandering through the grottoes and gullies. Not much oxygen would be left in their packs, but the physicians reassured them that breathing the planet’s atmosphere would not constitute any serious danger. Considering the mental state of the men, it would, of course, not matter too much if the methane content in their blood resulted in a stuporous state.

The area they would cover in their search for the lost men was not too extensive, but extremely difficult to explore. It would take weeks, even under the best circumstances, to comb all the nooks and crannies, grottoes and caves. Beneath the layer of winding ravines and valleys existed another system of subterranean corridors and caverns, hollowed from the rock by underground rivers. The two upper and lower labyrinths were connected only at certain spots. The lost men might easily have wandered into one of these hiding places, and probably had separated from each other by now. Their total amnesia made them more helpless than small children — who would at least have stayed together. And worst of all, this terrain was the nesting place of the black cloud. Not much use could be made here of the Invincible’s gigantic technical facilities and scientific equipment. The most effective protection, the force field, could not be applied at all in the subterranean vaults of this planet. Horpach faced a most difficult choice: leaving the planet at once — which would have amounted to a death sentence for the lost men — or taking up the risky search. Their chances for success here were limited to the next few days, perhaps a week at most. Horpach realized that after that time there would be no hope of finding the men alive.

Early the next morning, Rohan called the scientists to a meeting, explained the situation and told them he was counting on their help. Rohan had brought back a handful of the “metal insects” in his pocket. Nearly twenty- four hours had been spent examining the little “flies.” Horpach wanted to know whether it would be possible to render them harmless. And the question arose again: why had Rohan and Jarg been spared by the attacking cloud?

The captives had a place of honor during these discussions: a closed glass container on the conference table. Only twenty specimens were left; the others had been destroyed during the scientific experiments. The strictly symmetrical tripartite structures resembled the letter Y. Three wings were anchored in a central thickening, each wing tapering to a point at its extremity. They looked coal black under direct illumination; but reflected light made them glisten bluish and olive green, not unlike the abdomens of certrain terrestrial insects which are composed of tiny surfaces like the multifaceted rose-cut of a diamond. Their interior structure was always the same when examined under a microscope. These miniscule elements, one-hundredth the size of a small grain of sand, formed a kind of autonomous nervous system with a number of independent fibers.

The smaller section, forming the arms of the letter Y, constituted a steering system controlling the “insect’s” locomotion. The micro-crystalline structure of the arms provided a type of universal accumulator and at the same time an energy transformer. Depending on the manner in which the micro-crystals were compressed, they either produced an electrical or magnetic field, or else produced changeable force fields that could raise the midsection’s temperature to a relatively high degree, thus causing the stored heat to flow in an outward direction. The resultant thrust of the air enabled the “insects” to ascend. The individual mini-crystals seemed to flutter rather than fly, and were incapable of steering an exact course — at least during the experiments conducted by the scientists in the laboratory. However, if they joined each other by chain-linking their wing tips, the ensuing aggregates possessed improved aerodynamic properties which increased proportionately with the number of links.

Each crystal combined with three other crystals. In addition, its arm could link up with another crystal’s middle section. This permitted a multilayered structure of ever-larger systems. The individual crystals did not even need to touch directly. It sufficed for the wingtips to come into close proximity to bring about a magnetic field which kept the entire system in balance. When a given quantity of “insects” clumped together, the aggregate then displayed definite, observable behavior patterns. If the aggregate was subjected to external stimuli, it could change its direction, form, shape and the frequency of its internal impulses. Following such a change, the field would reverse its polarity, and as a result, the crystals no longer attracted but repelled each other and then broke down into their individual components.

Besides this steering system, each black crystal contained another communicative system, or rather the fragment of what seemed to be a larger entity. This superordinate entity, which probably incorporated an enormous number of separate elements, was the real driving power regulating the actions of the cloud. At this point scientists were stumped. They knew nothing about the growth potential or the “mind” of these guiding systems. Kronotos