by Jerry
“According to the theory of relativity,” he went on, “time is a function of the velocity of light. Time, that is to say, is a relative quantity depending on the position of the observer—whether at rest or in motion. In motion, the time interval slows as speed is increased. As the speed of light is approached, time slows so greatly that it becomes negligible.
“But it is all relative. To the observer in motion, it is not apparent that time is passing at a faster rate than that to which he is accustomed. The instruments which measure time move at the usual rate. The bodily processes continue as normal. But—for each tiny interval measured off by the instruments, for each beat of the heart, of the observer in motion, hundreds of years pass with respect to the observer at rest.
“That is what happened to you, my friends. During the half hour while you traveled at a speed near that of light, many thousands of years passed here, upon the slower moving world.”
I sat as though frozen, stunned into immobility. How could Alward and I possibly have overlooked that fact? It seemed too fantastic for belief—but we had. I can only explain it this way.
The theory of relativity was old when Alward and I built the Starling. It had been buried amid a welter of others on the nature of time and space which had arisen through the years. And the work on the Starling had been so complicated and exhausting that we had been able to think of nothing beyond the immediate principles involved. Or perhaps the full truth is simply that Alward and I had gazed so long upon the bright light of our dream that we had been blinded to everything else. It was not the first time that important, fundamental truths had been overlooked in the too zealous pursuit of a goal.
But exactly how the omission had taken place was not important. What mattered most to me, once I knew what had happened, was whether or not it was possible for Burden and me to return to the period from which we had come.
“Time!” I muttered, turning abruptly to Julon. “Time! Julon, the ancients were very wise. Didn’t they ever discover how to travel in time?” The thought was exhilirating in the hopes it offered. I would be able to see Suzanne again. And after Alward had found a way to correct the flaw in the principle of the Starling, Burdeen and I could return to help Julon and his people.
But Julon shook his head. “I have never found any record-spools which discussed travel in time. I doubt that the ancients ever discovered it at all. Time is merely an extension of space, a relative quantity arising from motion in space. It is not, like space, a tangible or available medium for travel.”
Everything went out of me. I felt empty and cold, unutterably desolate.
It was checkmate. Julon could not help us, nor could we help him, we were stranded here.
CHAPTER V
A Vital Discovery
NOTHING more was said for a long while. I stared blindly at the grass, thinking in despair of what Julon had said. Abruptly I grew conscious of what seemed at the moment a glaring inconsistency. I turned sharply to Julon. He looked at me with an evident glow of hope in his eyes.
According to what you say,” I told him, “travel in time is impossible. Yet Burdeen and I reached this era by a method which is essentially time travel. We underwent a passage forward in time.”
Julon shook his head with slow emphasis. “You confuse the meaning of the term. You are thinking of time as a cause rather than as an effect. The method by which you reached this era was not a true passage through time, but the result of the effect upon your time rate of speed approaching that of light.”
“But,” I persisted, “the fact still remains that Burdeen and I accomplished what in a sense may be called traveling in time.”
Julon smiled slightly and shrugged. “In a sense, yes.”
“Then if there is a passage forward in time, there ought to be a passage backward. It should operate both ways like everything else.”
“The assumption is logical, but it does not hold good under the conditions which you call time travel. You moved forward in time, because your motion at close to light speed slowed your time rate with respect to that of observers on the world you left. Thus thousands of years passed for them, while only a half hour passed for you. Now, keeping in mind this condition, suppose we reverse the process to effect what you hope would be a passage backward in time. You would have to attain a motion approaching absolute rest, as you had in the beginning attained a motion approaching absolute speed—the speed of light. Thus a half hour would pass here . . . while thousands of years passed for you. Under the conditions postulated, there can be no other result, no other course.”
“It’s hopeless,” Burdeen said. “You might as well forget the whole thing, Gilroy.”
I shook my head. “It seems hopeless—but only under the conditions given.” I turned back to Julon. “Suppose we base our assumptions upon a different set of conditions—conditions under which a passage backward in time would be as logical as had been the passage forward under the conditions we’ve discussed?”
“What would be the nature of these now conditions?” Julon asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I only know that they would necessarily lie outside this space-time continuum. We might reason as follows: Terming our space-time continuum normal space, then acceleration in normal space approaching that of light leads to negative acceleration in time. That is, the time rate of the observer in motion with respect to that of an observer at rest, at the departure point, is slowed.
“Now we might assume the existence of a different space-time continuum, which we shall call negative space, where effects are exactly opposite to those in this space. Then acceleration in negative space would still lead to negative acceleration in time—but it would be negative time. Thus if we were to follow as closely as possible the circumstances of the first flight, traveling for half an hour at close to light speed, the flight in negative space would take us back in time almost exactly the same amount which we had undergone in the passage forward.”
“A clever idea,” Julon said. “Unfortunately, it is impossible to accomplish in fact. We know of no way to reach these outer spaces of which you speak.”
A SUDDEN thought occured to me.
It seemed merely a random notion, in no way linked to the subject at hand. But it persisted, and after a moment, in a flash of realization, I saw how it might be the exact thing I needed.
I grasped Julon’s arm. “We know of no way to reach those other spaces—but the ancients did! Look, Julon, by your own words, the ancients possessed interstellar travel. It could not have taken place through this space, since the time effect in combination with the enormous distances between the stars, would have taken them in time to a point where the Universe no longer existed. And they could not have traveled at a safe minimum below the speed of light, because a voyage under that condition would have taken many lifetimes. They could only have accomplished it by passing through some other space-time, where the time effect did not obtain, or where interstellar distance were contracted.”
“Yes,” Julon said, a dawning eagerness in his eyes. “Yes!”
“We’ve got to search,” I said, shaking his arm in my vehemence. “Somewhere there is a record-spool which explains about these other space-times. We’ve got to find it. You and your people have overlooked it before, blinded by your desire for space machines, never realizing that the secret was in your possession all the while.”
“There is a chance that you may be right,” Julon said. “We may have overlooked this knowledge. But if it exists at all, we shall find it.” There was grim determination in his tone. He rose purposefully from the bench, and with renewed hopes Burdeen and I followed.
A special meeting was held in the council building that afternoon. Every Ardian had been called upon to attend.
Julon lost no time in explaining the purpose of the meeting. Speaking slowly, as though to impress upon the gathering the importance of his words, he recounted the discussion which he had held with Burdeen and me that morning, and the decision to whic
h it had led. Finally, he detailed the nature of the search which had to be undertaken, emphasizing the fact that no clue however slight was to be ignored.
The meeting ended on a note of high enthusiasm. The Ardians seemed delighted with the opportunity which had arisen, slim as were its chances for success.
As the chamber cleared of its excited throng, Julon turned to Burden and me. He said, “We will now return to the house. With the project under way, I wish to investigate my own record-spool collection. I cannot recall any dealing with the subject of space-time, but it is possible that I have overlooked or forgotten them.”
It proved to be no easy task, for Julon’s library was quite extensive. The record-spools were but little larger than spools of thread, and it was amazing how many of them could be contained in a relatively small space. Like books once had been, they were titled according to the nature of their subject matter, but an examination of the titles alone was not enough, since what we sought might have been touched upon briefly, or contained in a paragraph or so of digressive material. We were thus compelled to run most of the record-spools through spectacle-like reading devices.
Several days passed in this manner. To avoid eye-strain, we took frequent periods of rest. And we read with painstaking slowness through the collection so as to miss nothing. But we found not even so much as a mere mention of the information we sought. Only the knowledge that some seeker among the other Ardians might turn up something kept me from sinking completely into despair.
THE others reported one by one to Julon. For the most part, they had been no more successful than ourselves. Some thought they had discovered the desired facts, but these turned out upon examination to have no relation to what we wanted. A few turned in with more worthwhile results, but the information in the record-spools they brought, contained in a few sentences or so, was too brief or tenuous to be valuable. It was fully convinced that the quest was doomed to failure, when one of the Ardians brought in a record-spool which changed everything.
At first I could not see how it could possibly be important. The spool was a travelogue of a sort, relating the wonders of the various ancient cities. In the few passages that had any value, the author told of a wonderful machine contained within the Science Building in the city of Shago. His name for the machine was “The Omni-mech”, which in our tongue means almost nearly “allwise machine.” It seems that a group of ancient scientists, realizing that the increasing dependence of the people upon the servant-mech would lead eventually to a dark age when these finally stopped, constructed a machine-brain which would embody all human knowledge. The Omni-mech was thus a psuedo-living encyclopedia. Its purpose was to inform and guide, from the simple questions and problems which a savage would have, to the more intricate and detailed difficulties of a people as highly advanced as the Ardians. The idea was that the machine had a sort of involuntarily ability to raise back to the civilized level a people who had fallen into barbarism. Whether or not it had succeeded in this purpose was not revealed.
The full significance of the machine burst upon me in a flash. The ancient scientists who constructed it had obviously known the method of access to space-time continua other than this one, and since the machine embodied all the knowledge of that time, it was evident that this information would be contained along with everything else! Exultation roared through me like a great wind. The secret we sought had not been irretrievably lost after all. Return to the Earth I knew—to Suzanne—was something no longer relegated entirely to the realm of the impossible.
Nor was the importance of the machine, interpreted in his own way, lost upon Julon. His face lighted in incredulous joy. “Space machines!” he whispered. “At last the secret is within reach!”
I gripped Julon’s shoulder eagerly. “We must go to Shago,” I said. “We must find the Omni-mech.”
He nodded slowly, sobering. “We will go—but there will be grave danger to us.”
“Danger? What do you mean?” I demanded.
“Shago is inhabited by a tribe of savage degenerates,” Julon said. “This much was learned by the few explorers who have been there—and who were fortunate enough to return alive. The degenerates worship the machines in Shago, considering the entire city holy ground. They are very ruthless toward intruders. If we are discovered, it is likely that we shall never live to return with anything we learn.”
CHAPTER VI
Disaster in Shago
ON A gray and dreary morning, we flew eastward in the Starling toward the ancient city of Shago. Space within the vessel, limited to begin with, was cramped, due to the fact that Julon and Elvar accompanied us. The discomfort was no great problem, however, since the speediness of the ship would bring us quickly to our destination.
Two days had passed following our decision to visit the city in quest of the Omni-mech and the precious information it contained. We had spent the time poring over old maps—maps of the country and of the city—and gathering together the equipment we would need. We had heavy clothing to wear in the bitter cold, a supply of food to tide us over should our search take longer than anticipated, flying belts, and long cylinders like over-sized ancient flashlights which released atomic force. These latter were ingenious devices. By manipulating a tiny switch on the handle, the force could be controlled in intensity, so that the device served at once as a lighting and heating unit, a weapon, or as a cutting tool which pierced the hardest metals as easily as wax.
Because of his age, there had been some reluctance on the part of Burdeen and myself to include Julon. When our excitement had vanished sufficiently to enable us to view the expedition in a more practical light, we had realized that a young man would be of more value. But Julon had insisted firmly on going with us, pointing out that someone would be needed to guard the ship while we were gone, and that an old man would serve as well as a young one. To prove his point, he had given us a demonstration of his dexterity in handling the atomic cylinders, adjusted to weapon intensity, which had quickly convinced us that he would be fully the asset that he claimed. We had not been able to take along any further persons, since four in addition to the equipment was the Starling’s full capacity.
It was with chaotic emotions that I watched, in the view-plate, the country flash by below us. Elation surged through me at the thought that Suzanne might soon no longer be just a memory, just an abstraction, but real and near. Then I thought of Shago and the wonderful machine in the Science Building called the Omni-mech, and fear grew heavy and cold inside me. Suppose the machine had deteriorated through the years—suppose the degenerate inhabitants of the city had damaged it?
With an effort, I forced myself, into some measure of calm. Worrying solved nothing, I realized. Time only would show the destruction or fulfillment of our hopes.
I glanced at Burdeen, sitting next to me, fingers resting with a sort of detached attention upon the controls. His brows were drawn in a faintly puzzled frown, as though thinking of something he didn’t fully understand. It was easy enough to guess what was on his mind, for his expression was one he frequently wore when gazing at Varis. She seemed to bewilder him, awakening emotions within him that conflicted with his natural impulses. When with her, he was strangely quiet and kind, not at all like the dashing, possessive Burdeen I remembered.
The reasons for his behavior seemed understandable. He loved Varis, as one could not help but love her, but he must have realized it could lead to nothing in the end. Like myself, his thoughts and desires were all for returning to the Earth of the time we knew as home. He wished to do nothing which, when the time for departure came—if it ever did—would cause the girl regrets. And it puzzled him.
Nor were Burdeen and I the only reflective ones. Julon and Elvar were watching the view-plate, but from the fixed blankness of their eyes, I knew they didn’t really see it. They were looking into vast distances beyond, thinking, surely, of the stars and of the new home they hoped to find there.
THE warp generators hummed softly in the bemused s
ilence that filled the control room. The ship was some twenty-thousand feet high, traveling at a speed close to six-hundred miles an hour. We could, of course, have gone more rapidly, but this would have made difficult the finding of the landmarks which were to guide us to the city. It must be remembered that the land had changed. Most of the old rivers and lakes were gone. Some followed new courses, while others had become frozen in the intense cold of the north and covered over with snow.
We had been following the coast eastward along the Gulf of Mexico. Finally we reached one of our landmarks, the mouth of a great river running at right angles to our course. The river was not the Mississippi. It lay some three-hundred miles east of where the Mississippi had been. The city was located in an almost straight line from the mouth of the river, and would now be easy to find.
Burdeen swung the ship north. We dropped closer to the ground, our speed slackening. The vast forests below us, spreading away on either side of the river, began to thin. Snow began to cover the ground more and more thickly. Immense glaciers gleamed dully in the wan light of the sun.
At last we reached Shago, looking from above like a huge gray-blue stain against the white fabric of the snow. It was not the city Burdeen and I had seen upon our return. It was many times larger and taller, if possible, than that first city had been. Full awareness of its stupendous size came to us dazedly as we descended. The eye could not grasp all of it at once. There was just a general impression of gigantic metal towers, shining in soft pastel hues, and a network of inter-connecting aerial spans that dropped down level after level toward the ground.
The vastness and complexity of the city beat at us like a tangible force. Then, as we floated down toward the towers, we grew conscious of something else. It was the quietness of the city, the utter lack of motion. The stillness seemed to hold a subtle air of menace, as though inimical presences lurked in hiding among the shadows.