by Jerry
“Okay.” Suddenly he was tired. And the colonel would handle it. Good old Hank. The vision of a roaring, swirling mass of flame, the crackling apocalyptic thunder that he had conjured up in his mind was fading. It was still there, but faint now.
He waved a drowsy good night and stumbled outdoors.
The colonel walked after him, watched his progress toward his quarters. When the pilot was out of earshot, the colonel spoke to a soldier near the doorway, “Sergeant! Take a man and go to the captain’s quarters. See him into bed and watch him all night.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Keep your eye on his pistol. He’s been under the hell of a strain.”
“Yes, colonel. Nothing will happen, sir.”
[Record for file . . . record for file. Xeglon, commanding Patrolship S2J3, to Sector Commander Zxyl, Galactic Guard, Sector K.
[Patrol Commander Pgot informed me that you requested this early, informal report on Mission S2K-C5-3 and I prepared it at once.
The technical reports in detail prepared by the various teams involved in the operation will be in your hands shortly.
[Planet C5-3 was located by Patrol S2J about the 32nd time-period out of headquarters. Our nine ships went into an orbit at slow speed and confirmation of Central Council’s report was found immediately. There were definite traces of fission products impregnating areas or the upper atmosphere. Commander Pgot designated this ship to complete the mission while he returned to station with the remainder of his patrol.
[Need for the quarantine having been established by our preliminary observations, our twofold problem was (1) its nature and duration and (2) communication of the necessary warning to the planet’s inhabitants. The first was, of course, a matter of comprehensive but simple tests carried out by the technicians. The second was far more difficult, owing to tile fact that the creatures employ a method of communication not heretofore found. Their range approaches zero and there is utmost no directional factor. They do haves means of distance-communication by mechanically generated impulses or waves but, though these were not difficult to intercept, we failed entirely at interpreting them. Our earliest attempts at communication resulted in jamming and even destroying the nerve paths of the specimens we selected. Naturally, we attempted to choose the most highly organized and stable individuals, but, working over the necessary distance, selection was not easy. Obviously a landing was out of the question. We should have had to destroy thousands of them in order to seize one and might even have suffered some losses ourselves. You know the problem of regeneration with no greater facilities than our patrolship carry.
[Computing, on the Pheng scale, such observations as our psycho-team was able to make, we were led to expect an intelligence factor between four and five plus. Emotional stability, however, ran completely off the scale at the minus end. In spite of the high intelligence level, their almost complete lack of social organization is thus explained.
[Through the really brilliant work of the team, we finally managed to locate an area where the stability factor ran to as much as plus eight over the norm we had established. Intelligence was not at the highest, but was also above the norm. To make it even simpler, the creatures were here engaged in testing operations with their aircraft, one-man ships that we observed making greater and greater speeds, climbing to higher and higher altitudes. Briefly, the time came when one of them reached a sufficient speed at a high enough altitude that we could use the scoop on him without much danger of injury.
[It was now that our psycho-men really distinguished themselves. With their previous observations added to estimations of brain convolutions and mass, they set up a mechanical hypnotor that established contact on the very first try. Only two serious blocks were encountered. One was a systemic syndrome resulting in increase of body temperature, increased speed and power of movement, and an almost complete Stoppage of the intellectual processes. This seems to be an automatic reaction and is probably a survival factor in such a poorly organized society. It was easily overcome. The other block encountered was a complete mental rejection of the situation. Our team worked patiently at this for some time and were despairing of getting through when to our surprise, the creature broke it down himself.
[To judge from this one sample, they have an instinctive and involuntary censor that closes the mind to whatever is outside previous experience. Fortunately for them, this censor appears to be in constant conflict with such logic as they employ and is frequently defeated. Otherwise, of course, even such technological and sociological development as they enjoy would have been impossible.
[Having made contact, we fixed the creature’s mind, implanting the necessary warning as to the nature of the quarantine, the reasons for it, the conditions under which it may be lifted. His grasp of the entire concept at last complete, we released him, close to the pick-up point, and traced him to the surface.
[In the meantime, tests had determined that Catalyst X in a concentration of .003 negatively charged, would accomplish our task, remaining active for approximately one hundred m the planet’s orbit-periods. This, being longer than the inhabitants’ life cycle, should allow time for re-education and retraining of new general ions-provided they heed our warning. Intermittent observation patrols and a renewal of the quarantine if need is determined are, of course, recommended.
[We proceeded now to sow the catalyst in the predetermined depth and, mission accomplished, to depart for our station. Two time-periods out from the planet, we switched to space drive. Message ends. XEGLON.]
When the colonel turned back into the room, the major had resumed his seat. He was holding up the shining hypodermic needle, moving it to catch the glimmering reflections.
The colonel barked, “Put that thing away!”
“Certainly, colonel. Sorry.”
“No, Donaldson. I’m sorry. I beg your pardon.”
Not at all, sir. It’s damned tough, I know. He’s one of the best.”
The colonel sat, wearily. “He’s the best, Donaldson. That combination of guts, loyalty and lightning reflexes comes about one in ten million. Oh, well. I’ve plenty of good men, as far as that goes. It’s the kid himself I——How does it look to you?”
“I can’t tell yet. It may be a week six months—six years. It may be gone by tomorrow morning. I’ll need a whole lot of time with him before I can say.”
The colonel banged his fist on the desk. If this thing holds up his promotion, I’ll go to Washington personally! He’s been due for major for six months now. He needs it too. His wife’s having another baby, you know.”
The psychiatrist nodded. “How many’s that make?”
“It’s his third.”
“These boys run to large families for some reason. I’ve wondered about that. It’s living on the ragged edge of danger does it I suppose. Ha!” His little snort of laughter made the colonel look up in surprise. “Sorry, colonel. It just occurred to me-if the captain’s little fantasy were true and the word got around-brother! Would the population curve begin to shoot up! Or would it?” He was suddenly thoughtful.
The colonel said, “Well, Donaldson, we’d better get some sleep too.”
The major stood up. “Right, colonel. It’s going to be tough, telling his wife. Well, maybe it won’t be necessary. He’s a good strong boy, best nerves I’ve seen. I’d say things will be all right.
He wandered toward the doorway.
He was reluctant to go and he wondered why. It was cozy in the little office. Outside it was dark and the desert cold was creeping down over the field. Suddenly the major wished it were daylight. He didn’t want to see the stars.
He shrugged and said good night.
Good night, Major Donaldson.”
He turned, his hand on the open door. “Oh, colonel. There is one thing. It’s outside my field, but I’m curious. How did he keep that plane in the air for ten hours—with only ten minutes’ fuel?”
The two men stared at each other and, through the open door, the freezing de
sert cold began to seep into the little room. THE END
1950
THE UNIVERSE RANGER
Stanton A. Coblentz
MY friend John Willis Spruce was the most imperturable man I had ever met. Nothing seemed to ruffle him: when he lost all his money in a stock crash, he merely shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and said, “Well, what of it?” And when his wife left him, his only son went bad, and his daughter ran away with a good-for-nothing actor, he still looked as tranquil as if the whole world were the proverbial bed of roses. Even the convulsions of the nations were as nothing to him; he is the only person I know of who did not seem perturbed at Pearl Harbor, nor agitated at the atomic bomb nor at the failure of the United Nations. “Seen against the perspective of the universe,” he flung at me laughingly, while screwing up the preternaturally large owlish eyes that stared beneath the great dome of his wrinkled forehead, “these things are less than pinpricks on an elephant’s skin.”
There was a mystery about John Willis Spruce. Although he passed his working days visibly enough as Associate Professor of Physics at the Harley Institute of Technology, nobody seemed to know what happened to him on weekends or during the long summer vacations. He simply vanished from sight, and did not turn up again until the moment when he was wanted in the laboratory or lecture hall. Even I, a fellow professor to whom he was as friendly as to any human being, had no idea where he went. Several times, when I chaffed him on his disappearances and suggested that he spent the intervals with some fair charmer, he stared at me with that wondering look which one will give to a display of supreme imbecility, raked his bald head with a calloused, stumpy hand, and remarked with a faint amusement, “Some day, Clifton, you will see—you will see.” It did not, of course, then occur to me to connect his periodic disappearances with his almost unhuman calm and aloofness.
I did not even see any relationship between the two on the day when he came to me, somewhat thoughtfully stroked the ragged moustache which overlooked his thin lips, and declared, “Clifton, my heart hasn’t been behaving any too well of late, so I’d better let you in on a secret—just in case. Naturally, I know that it doesn’t matter one whit from the cosmic point of view, but I have a treasure that I would not like to see die with me—the most extraordinary treasure, I think, ever given to mankind. Not wishing to face the silly crowds of curiosity seekers, I haven’t yet said a word about it to any soul. But the cream of thirty years of research has gone into it. It has only recently been perfected.”
“What has been perfected?” I demanded, wondering if my friend’s head were not slightly touched.
“Come with me, and you’ll see something you’ll not soon forget.”
He then got into mv car—he had never troubled to procure one of his own—and directed me to drive him to a distant part of the city. We stopped before a huge dilapidated barn of a house in the outskirts; and taking out a key, he plunged toward a basement door with the closest approach to eagerness I had ever observed on his usually immobile countenance. “Here’s where I’ve been enjoying my weekends and vacations for many years,” he informed me.
“The devil you have!” I muttered, as he shot ahead of me down a dark passageway, then around a turn so dim that I stumbled and lost my footing.
Recovering myself with a curse, I heard the snapping of a switch: then blinked, and stared about me in startled bewilderment. Suddenly I seemed transported to some fantastic fairyland. For an instant I was aware only of a blaze of light, which hung itself at my eyes with a thousand sword-thrusts; then, as I began to adapt myself to the intense illumination, I stared into a wilderness of mirrors, prisms and lenses: concave mirrors and convex, mirrors spear-shaped and scimitar-curved, and pinnate like the leaves of certain ferns; prisms of all odd shapes and sizes, arranged so as to break the reflections from the mirrors; and lenses fitted to tubes with eyepieces and tubes without eyepieces, all of them connected with an intricacy of wires. Above me a battery of fluorescent lights accounted for the brilliance that assailed my eyes.
“What under thunder!” was all I could exclaim, in my wonder and amazement.
“Don’t be surprised, Clifton,” came Spruce’s voice, smoothing, mellow and unexciting. “You see here my universe ranger. The fruit of years of secret study.”
“Universe ranger? What in blazes is a universe ranger?”
“If you will seat yourself over there, Clifton, I will try to explain.”
For the first time, I saw a small chair placed before the eyepiece of a little tube like a field telescope, except that it was directed toward some of the mirrors rather than at open space.
Dutifully I took the indicated seat, while my friend rambled on, “First I will introduce you to the infra-phase of the investigations.”
“Infra-phase?”
“Yes, there are both an infra and a super-phase. Now if you will keep your gaze fastened on that eyepiece, we will begin.”
I tried my best to follow directions, but it was hard to concentrate as the snapping of switches, the pressing of buttons and the turning of knobs and dials occupied Spruce’s attention for several minutes.
At first, as I stared through the tube, I saw nothing at all. Then there came a flashing of lights; then some blurred hastily moving figures; then some minute whirling orbs, which rapidly grew in size. “Now you’re getting down into the infra-small,” I heard the voice of Spruce droning on above the continuous whirring and buzzing of motors. “Now you’re delving into the heart of matter. Behold the molecules!”
My impression was of a field crossed by a multitude of cannon balls, speeding in all directions through a tremendous space with incredible rapidity.
But in a second these had vanished. “Getting smaller, smaller, smaller,” Spruce announced. “Down, down to the depths of the atom. Down, down, down to the infraworld within the atom.”
A moment later, I saw a fiercely bright orb reminding me of a sun. It looked about the size of our own sun in the noon skies; and a multitude of little particles were whirling around it with a speed that I could hardly follow. Then in the remote distance I made out other such suns, and other particles wheeling around them. “Smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller!” I still heard Spruce’s voice; and that whole planetary universe was shrinking, until the suns made no. more than little starlike points against a background, and formed themselves into constellations, unfamiliar constellations, which illuminated night skies that no human gaze had ever fallen upon before.
“Within the atom,” I heard Spruce droning, “the miniature solar system. Multitudes of these systems band themselves into constellations and star groups.”
Even as he spoke, the universe seen through the eyepiece continued to shrink. The constellations receded, and gave way to a faint filmy haze, reminding me of the Milky Way; and nebulous masses collected here and there, hazy and far-away as remote spirals seen through a telescope. “Island universes!” Spruce explained . . . “Each in itself composed of millions of solar systems! Each solar system comprised of a family of worlds! Many of those worlds inhabited by peoples that live through a slow process of growth and decay, of wars and revolutions, of striving and aspiring, and of bewlderment and grief before the descent of the eventual night.”
“But you mean to say this is all in the heart of an atom?” I cried, withdrawing momentarily from the eyepiece. “How can this be, how can this possibly be in so minute a space?”
“In the sight of the Absolute, there is no great and no small,” stated Spruce. “All is relative, time and space and even consciousness, in a way never conceived in the theories of Einstein. But look, Clifton! You are missing much!”
I returned to the eye-piece, and was astonished to see that the galaxies had vanished. Only a vague mist of light indicated that they had ever been. And all else was blackness.
“You have missed ages of time,” Spruce informed me. “On the scale of the infra-small, what was only a moment to you was a period equivalent to billions of our years. But look again,
and see the processes of cosmic regeneration!”
Then before my eyes new nebulae arose, and out of the new nebulae multitudes of solar systems, each with its retinue of planets, moons and comets; and fresh constellations and star clusters and galaxies were formed, until once more the processes of decay and dissolution had swept them all from view. But the whole evolution seemed to occupy no more than the time it takes to tell about it.
“I dare say,” continued Spruce, “that if we could look within the infra-atoms composing those systems, we would find infra-universes, forming and fading in the duration of a lightning flash, each with their races of living beings that thrive and vanish. For we have seen that the small is in all things the replica of the great. Do you want further proof?”
A little stunned, I nodded in the affirmative.
“Then let us turn to the super-phase of the investigation. I have here the equivalent of a telescope of inconceivably vaster range than any known before, since it operates by magnifying the cosmic rays and other invisible radiations until they tell their whole history—reveal all things with which they have been in contact. Shall we begin?”
“Why not?”
He turned a switch, causing a dazzle of colored lights to flash before my eyes; while I remained seated in my former place. “Now observe!” he directed.
Again I saw the sunlike orbs, with small shining particles circling about them so rapidly that my eyes could hardly follow their movements. “I have accelerated the time scheme,” confessed Spruce, “so as to condense millions of years into a second.”
As before, I had the sense of a shrinking universe; the sun dwindled rapidly, until it was no more than of a myriad, which made mere starlike points against a black background, and formed themselves into constellations—not the same as I had just seen, but very like them, and no more familiar. “Larger, larger, larger!” came the drone of Spruce’s voice. And the constellations receded, and formed themselves into a faint filmy haze like that of the Milky Way; and nebulous masses collected here and there, hazy and far-away as remote spirals seen through a telescope. These I knew, without Spruce’s explanation, to be island universes, each composed of multitudes of solar systems, many of them doubtless containing inhabited worlds, where unimaginable peoples lived and bled and died. This time, I realized, I was looking at the heart of cosmic space, and not within the atom, looking out across the vastnesss of thousands or hundreds of thousands of light-years, wherein one might travel at a speed that would encircle the earth in little more than an eighth of a second, and yet would scarcely approach one’s destination in the course of milleniums.