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Very shortly, the Satorians were again at the mercy of Nansal. They could not fight the faster, more powerful ships of the Nansalians, and again they went down in defeat. And again they sued for peace. This time, Nansal knew better; they went right on developing their fleet while the diplomats of Sator argued.
Although the Satorians had developed the horribly virulent strain of virus, they had not found a cure; the diplomats knew they were going to die. Having managed to stop the disease before it swept the planet, the Nansalians decided to pull a trick of their own.
It was finally agreed that the necessary plans and blueprints were to be given to the Nansalians, who could start production at once. The biggest problem was in the supply of lux and relux, which, because of their vast energy-content, required the atomic converters of the Ancient Mariner to make them. The Earthmen agreed to supply the power and the necessary materials to begin operations.
On three trips, one of the men that went back as navigator was a Nansalian. It was six years before they returned to Nansal, but when they finally did, they had learned two things. In the first place, the 'disease' which had killed Nansalians who had come in contact with Satorians on Nansal was nothing but a poison which acted on contact with the skin.
The Nansalians built factories there and laughed while the armies of Sator raged impotently at the magnetic barrier. They tried sending missiles through, but the induction heating in every metal part of the bombs either caused them to explode instantly or to drop harmlessly and burn. In the meantime, the men of Nansal were building their fleet.
It would be impossible for the Nansalians to lower their magnetic screen, even for a second, so Arcot simply aimed the ship toward it and turned on the power. "Hold on!" he called as they struck it. The ship reeled and sank suddenly planetward, then it bounced up and outward. They were through the wall. The rooms were suddenly oppressively hot, and the molecular cooler was struggling to lower it.
It took nearly thirty years of hard work and harder fighting for the Nansalians to convince the people of Sator that Nansal and the philosophy of Norus had not only not been wiped out, but was capable of wiping out the Satorians. With their screened and protected fleet, the followers of Norus smashed the Satorian cities, and drove their enemy back to Sator.
The Nansalians who had gone to Sator had simply been murdered. There was no disease; it had simply been a Satorian plot to keep Nansalians from going to Sator. The second thing they had learned was the secret of the Satorian magnetic space drive.
All Nansalians who went to Sator died of a mysterious disease. A method was found whereby a man's body could be sterilized, bacteriologically speaking, so he could not spread the disease, and this was used on all Satorians entering Nansal. But you can't sterilize a whole planet. Nansalians could not go to Sator. But these three men had a different idea.
They could lift the iron-boned Nansalians high into the air, then drop them hundreds of feet to their death. The buildings, with their steel and iron frames, went down, crushing hundreds of others. They practically depopulated the whole planet. But the warnings of the three spies had been in time. They had enlarged some of the great natural caverns and dug others out of solid rock.
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