Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  The Yodverl was headed for the region in which the Centaur lay, not far from the bright, flaming Southern Cross. The Scorpion, with its great red star, lay not far distant. Hydra, the snake, was outlined along its whole length by stars, the Scales shining above Scorpio, and Ara, the Altar upon which Centaur is sacrificing Lupus, the beast, stretches below him. Adequately it is expressed in the words of the poet:

  His right hand, he ever seems to stretch

  Before Altar’s circle. The hand grasps

  Another creature, very firmly clutched,

  The wild Beast . . . so the men of old it named.

  Above the Centaur flies the Crow, picking at the tail of Hydra, while not far to the right of Centaur moves Argo through the heavenly sea.

  On, on they went, exclaiming at each new wonder that swam into their vision. Far away they saw the faint glimmer of the great Andromeda nebula just above Cassiopeia’s chair, the nebula that some astronomers believe to be another galaxy of stars identical to the one of which Sol is a part. Moura, who had with the Venetian’s mighty telescopes studied the formation, stated that it had appeared, as such, but even the Venerian instruments had not been strong enough to give it in detail.

  Orion was filling a vast area of their sky, and without the aid of the telescope they could see his great nebula that lay in the stars of his sword, a great glowing splendor of incandescent gases. Stars they saw in the making, young stars, middle-aged stars and the old ones whose light was already waning.

  On, on they drove in the blackness, illuminated only by the starlight coming to them through millions, billions and trillions of miles. Gradually Sol grew smaller and smaller until when they lay within a year of the end of their journey he looked like a star of the fourth magnitude.

  The years it took to make the journey were not so long as might be imagined. At the beginning of the second year Ezra-weit was born, and so Elsie’s days were filled to overflowing. Nancy proved her usefulness in those days, and she adored the baby with the silver underlying his fair skin, with his hair and his eyes that were replicas of his father’s. Perhaps sometimes Elsie regretted that her baby was to grow up in the cramped quarters of their traveling home, that he did not have the warm sunlight to bathe his fat little limbs, that he had no grass to play on, that his first sight of grass, of trees, of water, earth and heaven was to be on a strange world, and that she had no familiar sights to point out to his small inquiring mind.

  But for all he lacked, Ezra was to grow into a strong, healthy baby, under the rays of the radio-active glass, the whole universe his world. His schoolroom was most often the pilot-room of the ship where he had only to lift his eyes to see the wonder of the worlds about and to absorb something of their greatness into his soul. With her Elsie had brought many books of Earth, and from them she taught him all she knew of her own world, as she taught him from the Abruian books of the world she had herself never visited. She was speaking Abruian almost entirely now, and the boy received his education in that tongue, though she taught him to read English as well.

  Moura spent a great deal of his time with his son, and so his mind developed in great strides in every direction. He, like children the universe over, was always asking questions, and all four adults, Ubca and Urto included, found themselves hard pressed to answer him. He was practically seven years old when they came to Kal, and his wonder at what he saw was unbounded, like that of a blind man who has heard descriptions of objects around him all his life and who finds his sight given him at last, to learn in turn that all his impressions had been wanting when he perceived the originals. But by that time the child was more thoroughly informed than the average child of either Earth or Abrui, and already showed signs that he was to grow into an equal of his father. He had learned at a tender age to understand the minds of those about him, to read their thoughts and to project his own. Every evening for his benefit Moura gave him lessons in mental projection, showing him pictures of Earth, Abrui and the other worlds of their own star-system, but it would be years before he could imitate his father to that degree. Some people on Abrui never accomplish the art.

  Nancy adored the child and was always at his beck and call, and came the nearest of any of them to spoiling him. Urto had painstakingly taught her the Abruian language, so that in time she forgot English entirely, and even her own outlandish dialect was lost to her. It was with intense grief that Ezra was to see her die within a few hours’ journey of Earth, for she had been a second mother to him.

  SO had the years slipped smoothly along well-oiled grooves on the Yodverl. The lives of Elsie and Moura were closely knit so that they became almost as one, thinking as each other, enjoying the same interests, and adoring their child. In giving birth to Ezra, Elsie had all but died, hovering for many hours between life and death. Moura never entirely recovered from the shock of it. Even in working over some difficult problem in his laboratory, he would think of her, sometimes stopping his work to come to where she was, to touch her hand, or to smile upon her, and more often she was at his side whenever it was possible, seated in his line of vision, so that he could look up from his tasks and their eyes could meet in a long, sweet gaze.

  Moura’s time never hung on his hands, for during those years of the voyage he was never still, and he invented many little appliances that were to aid men later in crossing space, or again were to be of use in the home, in the field, in the mill and the mine. For instance, he invented an Abruian clock that automatically took its own observations of sidereal time, so that man would be spared the need of taking down those intricate complications, but would always find the correct time in his own home in whatever part of the planet it might be! He discovered a new ray in radium that had the power to lift heretofore immovable weights, nullifying them so that they could be moved about as easily as one moves a feather through the air on the tip of the finger. Using Elsie’s typewriter for a model, he built a machine that could work with the highest forms of mathematics, so with magical simplicity the hardest problems of algebra and calculus were arrived at with no more than the pushing of half a dozen keys.

  In finding materials enough to use for his work he more than once had to resort to melting up chairs, tables and cutlery, until the time came when there was nothing left on the ship that could be spared to the laboratory. So it was that the want for more materials led the man to make another great discovery, perhaps we should say his greatest. He began to experiment with the low grade of ether that fills all the crevices of Space!

  Science recognizes the fact that once everything was in a gaseous state, and out of that, actuated by a force, be it spiritual or accident, the whirls and eddies that were to become nebulas, stars and worlds came into being, and since there is no other explanation forthcoming, we are perforce given to admit that it all originated from the “nothingness” that is Space, tenuous though it seems to us who are of the denser stuff of terrestrial being.

  More than once Moura’s delicately sensitive instruments had hinted to him of the truth that the ether of Space was not altogether “dead”; that slight as they were impulses had come to him that had nothing to do with the great stars or their systems, that in truth Space itself was vibrant with a being. And now, with his senses trained to this vitality of Space’s being, he sought it out more intentionally, purposely. The air-lock of the ship henceforth became his laboratory, and there, for hours on end, he experimented with this new force he had felt out there. He had many failures before he succeeded, but at last, with the instrument that like a dredge gathers up the matters suspended in water, he found the means of gathering the electrons suspended in the ether of the Void.

  Month after month he toiled, and slowly his efforts were rewarded as he separated front the rarity of space the elusive scraps of elements that swam between the great stars. A fisherman would have said it was a poor haul, but to Moura it was the peak of his attainment. But the work had only begun, and several years were consumed before he found the means of transforming these essences sa
lvaged from Space into denser, material things. Being an indefatigable person, Moura did not know what it meant to give up his self-imposed task, even though it meant that he had to study more thoroughly the composition of all matter, to succeed first in breaking down matter to its essential components before he could hope to build up new. Yet, in the end, he surmounted every obstacle and came out with the first piece of low-grade metal he had evolved!

  Even Ubca who had worked with him did not know how it was done, but his eyes shone and he was as elated over Sa Dak’s victory as much as if it were his own.

  From then on it was simpler, and now the Yodverl was a ship of bounty again. Moura, like a child with a box of magic, brought object after object out of the nothingness, supplementing everything he had robbed it of previously. And now, with the secret learned, he did not stop at producing inorganic substances but worked until he was able to bring living fruit from the air-lock, fruit that was as tasty and efficient in its food-value as that which grew on Abrui and on Earth! Had he discovered the secret of Life itself?

  Near the end of their voyage when the food supply was running low, when they had been forced to turn to the chemical food the Venerians had given them, this discovery was to become a godsend. For more than six months they were to live wholly on Moura’s synthetic foods. Luckily, the fodder for the mitu held out, so that they were to have their precious milk up to the last minute, but alone that would have been poor ration.

  It was from one of his synthetic plants that Moura discovered the means of producing the anaesthesia that was to become a boon to both Earth and Abrui, for it was the means to suspend all animation in the body so completely that in a major operation all the organs lay as dead, and even the heart could be operated upon without fear of killing the patient. Nor would the blood flow as long as the patient was under its effect, even though the vessel lay vertical. . . . When the patient revived again there was no pain to be felt, and since the salves and medicines of Abrui cause wounds to heal almost immediately, the patient would quickly recover from his illness.

  These were a few of the discoveries that Moura-weit made on the way to Kal of Alpha Centauri, and which he bequeathed to all of his world with the hope that all mankind might be benefited by them.

  CHAPTER VI

  Kal

  ONE can easily picture with what mingled emotions the little expedition realized that very soon their long journey was to be over, with Alpha Centauri looming largely before their eyes, standing out alone in all that immensity now as once their own familiar Sol did. For years they had been watching its approach, saw its companion stars of the constellation receding into the distance, so that the constellation of the Centaur was distorted and shapeless; saw the star divide itself in two and become not one star but two!

  Now were the great heavens changed to them, for slowly though it had happened, the Void was different, many stars indistinguishable even as Sol was almost indistinguishable, while others were closer, greater, more wondrous. There was Sirius now 21,000,000,000,000 miles nearer to them than before, glorious beyond description, its clear, white light like a lantern set in the sky to light their way.

  But it was Alpha Centauri that held all their attention. Alpha Centauri is classed by astronomers in the second type of stars, similar to Sol or of the G-Type, according to astronomical ranking, and because it is a binary it was a doubly wonderful object. The first star of the pair was a brilliant yellow, its smaller fellow somewhat darker, almost somber, of brownish caste. These two stars revolve around their common center of gravity once in eighty years As it happened, the space-travelers were not to be fortunate in seeing an eclipse as one hid the other from sight, for, instead, they found them to be at the extreme opposite ends of their orbit at this time, and so presented to their eyes the phenomenon of two stars.

  They were still a year away from Alpha Centauri when Moura and Ubca commenced the study of the planets of that system. Moura had seen three of the planets from Venus, and knew Kal, the one he sought, to be the second from the sun itself, assuming, of course, that the Venerian telescopes would be unable to pick out any planets closer to the sun. Now, the two found that the twin stars had a family of not less than eleven planets reaching billions of miles out into space. From their vantage point they could see the illumination of four, but as the others were in their apogee at the time they could not make them out clearly. Thus they discovered that Kal was in truth the second planet in line and lay approximately 77,670,000 miles from the orbit of the two stars. But they had no way of determining its orbit, to know how close or distant the planet might approach or recede from its suns in its course around them.

  Alpha Centauri’s most distant planet was found to lie as far as 8,300,873,000 miles away from the stars!

  As they approached nearer they could see that that planet was presenting its first phase to them, a thin faint crescent of light as the suns shone upon it obliquely. Moura had no wish to call on that cold, bleak world, but steered as close to it as possible, slowing the ship down to a snail’s pace as they entered the confines of the system. All was darkness about them except for the glow of the two great stars in that sea of darkness, and they knew not how many dark bodies revolved in the space between them. Twice the instruments showed the presence of dark unseen bodies that they had to avoid, bodies that because of rough black sides and the lack of an albedo[1] did not shine in the blackness. A comet, on its way to the twin stars, passed uncomfortably near, and as they watched it in awe they almost came to grief, as they forgot to study their instruments and almost ran into a black, unlighted world that had swept into their path. It was discovered in time, and avoided, but the incident left the little party somewhat shaken and fearful. Meteorites fell about them occasionally, but were repelled by the deflectors. So one by one the planets superior to Kal were passed, and each of the travelers gathered in the pilot-room sent up his individual prayer of thanks to that which had brought them safely to Alpha Centauri.

  The light of the two stars was becoming blinding there in the pilot-room, so dark glasses were brought forth again to protect the eyes from the intense rays. But the warmth of the stars was welcome, since even the great radium heat generators had not been able to ward off entirely all of the cold of the Void they had come through, and perforce they had been wearing felt and fur garments during the day and night of the last two years of the trip.

  These were now discarded.

  THE child Ezra now spent most of his time in the pilot-room, exclaiming over the new wonders, asking questions in an endless flow. They were all impatient to reach their destination, tired at last of their small moving world, whose every little nook and cranny was so monotonously familiar. Had there not been the deep-laid foundations of love and fellowship between them they would long since have been completely bored with each other, possibly hating those with whom they were forced to live in the cramped quarters, but even that close comradeship could not keep them from enjoying the prospect of land, of space in which to stretch bodies, of air, fresh and sweet and wind-driven, and even to have the chance of getting out of earshot of each other!

  What were they to find on the planet that they had crossed the Void to reach? Would its atmosphere be congenial to them? Would it receive them? Or would they, who had come trillions of miles, be forced to return homeward without touching foot to its soil?

  With Ubca’s aid, Moura was measuring the size of the globe to which they were bound, and to their chagrin they found it to be almost four times larger than either Earth ox Abrui. Were they to find themselves upon a world impossible for them to move about on? Moura said nothing, but his eyes were bright as though he were already figuring a way to overcome that handicap. They continued with their observations The albedo of the planet was seen to extend far out from its surface, so that the two came to the conclusion that its atmospheric blanket was several hundreds of miles in depth, but would it be congenial to them? Could they breathe its air?

  At last they were hovering ab
ove the world, and with the unaided eye could make out its great land masses against the sheen of its oceans, as though it were in bold relief. They noted that the planet had no moon, but its nights would not be dark, not as long as the twin stars of Alpha Centauri stayed their distance, for to the left of the planet shone the great yellow ball of fire that was Alpha Alpha, and far to the right the second body, Alpha Beta, glowed with less fire, but enough to give a soft saffron light to the opposite side of the world. Thus, because of this unique arrangement (unique to the Solarites), only a very small portion of the globe showed darkness, a narrow strip that ran from pole to pole, where the light from the component parts of the star did not shine, only there was no complete darkness, since there the atmosphere refracted the light until only a twilight filled that section.

  The Yodverl did not descend immediately but stood off from the world for thirty hours, and in that time the duration of the planet’s period of rotation was determined, a period that was twenty-three minutes less than twenty hours, while the twilight lingered in the night portion no longer than three hours and forty minutes. True, the side of the globe lighted by the lesser sun was not so bright as that lighted by the brighter one. but after they were established on the surface the people of the Yodverl were to become accustomed to these transitory changes and gauge their days accordingly.

  Moura would have preferred to make the descent to the planet under the cover of the night, as was his wont, so as not to startle its inhabitants, but he sought, instead, the land where the twilight covered it and trusted that their coming would not be noted overmuch. Closer and closer they drew, following the line of shadowy darkness as slowly the world rotated on its axis. With Moura at the controls, Ubca hurried to the air-lock, there to test the flow of air that came through the pet-cock he opened for that purpose. Elsie stayed close to Moura, with their child at her side, watching the new world draw near.